It's All David Ford's Fault

It's all David Ford's fault.

I have many self-imposed rules for this humble site. My two most restrictive guidelines are that I must physically own the music I feature and anything in Amazon's top 20,000 music sellers is disqualified. This may seem limiting, but even if I wasn't spending an inordinate amount of money on acquiring new music, I could keep There Stands the Glass supplied with stunning material for years.

I'll shatter my comfortable sensibilities for David Ford, who I saw open for Gomez on Monday night in Kansas City. I don't own Ford's new release, I Sincerely Apologize For All the Trouble I've Caused. And I couldn't feature it even if I did, as it's hovering around #1,500 at Amazon.

In many ways, Ford's performance bested Gomez's. Although they didn't exactly disappoint, Gomez was no better or worse than I expected. Ford, however, was a pleasant surprise. The former Easyworld frontman is an engaging, old-fashioned singer-songwriter equipped with a bag of modern tricks. A confident man, Ford suggested that he was out to prove himself to his "Show Me" state audience shortly before I took this picture.

So here goes my first unthinkable violation. I yanked this live song from Ford's MySpace account. He comes on like a sweeter-voiced Billy Bragg.

Time is up for the MP3.

And horror- oh, how it pains me to write these next words- here's a video! Ford introduced this protest song Monday by telling an amusing anecdote about a confrontation with a panhandler outside the nightclub. The video documents the way Ford builds songs, methodically looping patterns on each instrument until the song sounds like Phil Spector's prison cell. What could be a cheap gimmick is extraordinarily effective in Ford's hands.




Oh, I feel so dirty. David, I won't accept your apology just yet. Try sending flowers.