Review: 101 Crustaceans- Train Bolt Roller

A publicity sheet for a forthcoming album included this text:

How to reconcile John Lennon and Cecil Taylor.  Or Heinrich von Kleist and Captain Beefheart.  Or Donovan and Warne Marsh.  CCR and Ligeti.

I obviously had to check it out.  Having spent some time with Train Bolt Roller, the forthcoming album by 101 Crustaceans, I'll add a couple more combinations to the PR firm's list:

David Bowie's Aladdin Sane and James Blood Ulmer's Part Time.  Marc Ribot and Raymond Scott.

The New York-based collective creates a self-consciously arty blend of jazz, rock and noise.  Willfully obscure, 101 Crustaceans is an acquired taste.

While I love the poetic lyrics, I simply can't tolerate the petulant vocals.  Had the singing duties somehow been assigned to any number of powerful and soulful vocalists ranging from, say, Bettye LaVette to Corey Taylor, Train Bolt Roller might be one of my favorite albums of 2012.  Instead, I'll continue to get my new art-noise fix from the slightly more conventional tandem of Neneh Cherry & the Thing.


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I reviewed performances by Slash, Foxy Shazam and the Follow last night. 

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Frankie Valli's concert at the Muriel Kauffman Theatre was most peculiar.  Here's my review.

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Here's Radkey's first video.  Call it a hunch, but I have a feeling the young men in the Kansas City band have heard of the Misfits.

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Ramona the cat, the namesake of Hospital Ships' "Oh, Ramona", has died.

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Steve Wilson, friend of There Stands the Glass, is a rocker.

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Lisa Hannigan and Joe Henry participated in a new session of the 78 Project.

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The EPK for the Preservation Jazz Hall Band's St. Peter & 57th St (A 50th Anniversary Celebration) is excellent.

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Faithful There Stands the Glass reader BGO is advocating for Canadian hip hop collective The Caravan.  I like it.  BGO may also appreciate F. Stokes.  The rapper has been booked at the American Jazz Museum's Rhythm & Ribs festival on October 13.

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Kansas City Click: My official picks are published here.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)

Review: The Natural State at the Plaza Art Fair

I was mesmerized the first time I heard "Indian Giver," the first track on the Natural State's Live Demos offering at Bandcamp.  The authentic joy captured on the hazy recording possesses a striking level of sincerity.  Who were these people, I wondered, and could they possibly conjure a similar sort of elusive earnestness on stage? 

I'm delighted to report that the Natural State met my expectations when I saw the band perform on the Ink Stage at the Plaza Art Fair yesterday.  The Natural State is more or less just as I'd imagined- three young women and a guy on cello.  And my goodness- they were absolutely adorable!  Playing with the guileless enthusiasm of children, the quartet's disheveled set was unprofessional in the best sense of the word.  I never stopped smiling.

Don't get me wrong- I still find today's wimp- twee folk-rock movement led by Bon Iver and Mumford & Sons distasteful, but on Sunday, at least, the Natural State transcended the genre.  Not even a Mumford cover broke the band's sweet spell.  Darn right, I'm smitten.


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I reviewed T.J. Martley's new album at Plastic Sax.

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Midwestern Audio Vol. 1, a new compilation of 41 area acts, is available as a free download.  Artists responsible for my favorite tracks include Cowboy Indian Bear, Diverse, the Conquerors and the Empty Spaces.

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Kendrick Lamar's current hit "Swimming Pools" sounds like a Strange Music release. 

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The unrelated video doesn't do anything for me, but Aesop Rock's "ZZZ Top" is a smart analysis of popular music's role in teen rebellion across generations and cultures.

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Kansas City Click: Mark Lowrey performs Monday at the Blue Room.

Franke Valli visits the Muriel Kauffman Theatre on Tuesday.

Mono plays the Riot Room on Wednesday.

Will Nick Lowe play my favorite pub rock song Thursday at Knuckleheads?

(Original image of the Natural State by There Stands the Glass.)

Review: Dena DeRose- Travelin' Light

I have a villainous reputation among jazz vocalists in Kansas City.  My criticism in print and at my jazz blog has dismayed far more artists than it's pleased.  I don't hesitate to call out tuneless dilettantes, boorish behavior or dated cliches.  I don't subject jazz vocalists to a higher standard.  Unfortunately, very few rise to the level of the top instrumentalists.  If memory serves, only performances by Marilyn Maye and Dee Dee Bridgewater have received my highest praise. 

Word of my supposed bias apparently hasn't reached St. Louis.  The St. Louis-based MaxJazz record label sent me a copy of Dena DeRose's new album.  I'd only heard of DeRose from mentions at Dean Minderman's St. Louis Jazz Notes.  Travelin' Light is my introduction to the artist. 

Performing solo in front of a "hand-picked" audience in Antwerp, the album is an astoundingly authoritative statement.  DeRose's piano work is very nice and her demure voice conveys worlds of emotion.  DeRose references Shirley Horn in the liner notes (housed in the usual premium MaxJazz packaging), and the legend's spare yet emotional approach seems to serve as DeRose's model.  "'S Wonderful," "East of the Sun" and "I'm Old Fashioned" aside, the repertoire is fresh.  Genuine grown-folks music, the back-to-back selections "Portrait In Black and White" and "Why Did I Choose You?" floored me. 

As with the aforementioned Maye, DeRose is more of a cabaret act than a jazz artist.  But categories are meaningless when music is this good  Travelin' Light is highly recommended to anyone who appreciates Bobby Short, Patricia Barber or the The Tony Bennett / Bill Evans Album.

I guess the staff at MaxJazz knew what it was doing after all. 


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Delfeayo Marsalis, Sean Jones, Bobby Watson, Richard Johnson, Jeremy Boettcher and Winard Harper thrilled me last night at the Blue Room.  Here's my review.

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I reviewed Bryan Adams' concert Wednesday at the Uptown Theater.

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The main stage lineup Friday at Columbia's Roots n Blues n BBQ- Joe Lovano's Us 5, Rodriguez and Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives- is a There Stands the Glass dream show. 

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Phil Spector's 1965 appearance on the Merv Griffith show is unreal.  (Via JazzWax.)

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I like everything about the Empty Spaces' "Holidays Are Nice and Warm".

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A KU student wrote a compelling essay about hip hop that explores issues of race, class and technology.

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I just learned of Elina Duni.  What is this? The Albanian's new album Matanë Malit will be released by ECM in October.

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Kansas City Click: My official picks are published here.  I also hope to spend at least a couple hours at the Ink Stage at the Plaza Art Fair this weekend.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)

Review: Kreator, Accept and Swallow the Sun at the Beaumont Club

A few of my associates- including the people responsible for at least two of the blogs linked in the column to the right- traveled from Kansas City to Columbia for a Wilco concert yesterday.  Fools!  One of the best rock shows of the year transpired in their own backyard last night.

My misguided friends might suggest that the triple bill consisting of two German metal bands past their commercial prime and a relatively obscure Finnish doom band is either ripe for mocking or best ignored.  They're wrong.  Kreator, Accept and Swallow the Sun haven't garnered an iota of the critical accolades that Wilco has received.  So what?  Respectability, after all, isn't very rock and roll.

My regret about missing the local openers evaporated during Swallow the Sun's first song.  The Finnish sextet frustrated would-be moshers with slow jams like "Cathedral Walls".  The band put a spell on me.

Accept is associated with one gloriously dumb anthem ("God bless ya!… hey!").  Fans know that there's a lot more where that came from.  I realize this is heresy, but I prefer Accept's poor man's version of Judas Priest to the real thing.  Accept was truly great.

Kreator was no less vital.  The first thirty minutes of the thrash band's set were every bit as good as recent area performances by Slayer and Anthrax.  Kreator's power didn't surprise me.  New material like "Phantom Antichrist" indicates the band is in top form.

The Beaumont Club can be an uncomfortable place during crowded shows.  Yet when just a few hundred people are in the room it strikes an ideal balance between spaciousness and intimacy.  All 350 metalheads at the Beaumont Club on Sunday- including at least a dozen women!- were totally into it.  And the sound was superb.  Come to think of it, last night's concert made me so giddy that I still feel just like this.  (Hey, I love Wilco too.)


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Bob Dylan's Tempest is the funniest  album I've heard in ages.  Most of the time I laugh with Bob.  Sometimes I laugh at him.  Tempest is ridiculous.  And I love it.

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Bizarre Tribe: A Quest to The Pharcyde, the latest extended mashup by Gummy Soul, is available as a free download.  RIYL: A Tribe Called Quest and the Pharcyde, obviously.

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I just learned of the retro act William Pilgrim and the All Grows Up.  RIYL: JD McPherson, Bonnie Raitt.

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I'd been looking forward to catching Ram Herrera, Jay Perez and David Lee Garza at Union Station last weekend.  Yet Expo America's unwillingness or inability to post set times prevented me from attending the festival.

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Kansas City Click: Godemis returns to the RecordBar on Monday.

Ron Pope plays the Czar Bar on Tuesday.

Swans perform at the Beaumont Club on Wednesday. 

(Original image of Kreator by There Stands the Glass.)

Review: Jóhann Jóhannsson- Copenhagen Dreams

As Radiohead's least passionate fan, I just can't muster much enthusiasm for the forthcoming release by Atoms for Peace.  Even so, I've been subjected to "Default" several times in the past week.  It's good, I suppose, but I prefer the entrancing soundtrack to Copenhagen Dreams. 

Jóhann Jóhannsson's recently released set of compositions is less hurried, but it employs many of the same principles.  The jittery "The Jewish Cemetery on Mollegade", for instance, might easily be embraced by any self-respecting advocate of Atoms for Peace.

Jóhannsson is an Icelandic post-classical composer who is known among rockists through his releases on the 4AD label.  I find Copenhagen Dreams too engaging to serve as background music for reading, but it makes for excellent company on my late-night strolls.  Rather than musing "Here, They Used To Make Ships", however, I think, "here, they used to subjugate Native Americans."


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I reviewed a concert by Jason Mraz and Christina Perri.

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Here's new live footage of Reverend John Wilkins.  The filmmakers' Kickstarter campaign solicits funding for a documentary about their ongoing effort to record "modern musicians on a 1930s Presto direct-to-disc 78rpm field recorder."

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Plastic Sax reader Gary alerted me to the new documentary A.K.A. Doc Pomus.  The trailer brings tears to my eyes.  It plays at the Kansas International Film Festival on October 11.

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Have you heard Miley Cyrus' reading of "Lilac Wine"?  RIYL: Amy Winehouse, Shelby Lynne, Matraca Berg.  (Tip via S.S.)

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"F*ck Your Stuff" is the second video from P.O.S.' forthcoming album.  "Scuffin' up your Nikes/Spittin' on your whip!"

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I've long relished the raunchy blues of ZZ Top's pre-MTV albums.  That sound is back on the fine new Rick Rubin-produced La Futura.  

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Tim Finn implies that my freelance colleagues and I are less than "half a person" in an interview on KCUR's KC Currents.  (He's right.)

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I extol the neglected early work of Doug Carn at Plastic Sax.

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Kansas City Click: My official picks are published here.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)

Review: Lionel Loueke- Heritage

As a nascent jazz fan in the pre-internet era, I purchased Wayne Shorter's 1974 album Native Dancer a few years after its release.  I'd hoped for experimental noise. Boy, was I ever disappointed!  An angry teenager, I wasn't receptive to the subtlety and beauty forged by Shorter and Milton Nascimento.  My tastes have since expanded.  I now embrace Native Dancer.  I also know enough about fusions of world musics to pronounce Lionel Loueke's new album Heritage as this decade's equivalent of the classic Native Dancer.    At once meditative and startling, Heritage is an essential album.  An EPK includes commentary from co-producer Robert Glasper.


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My notes on the 2012 edition of the Prairie Village Jazz Festival are posted at Plastic Sax.

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Dorothy McGuire of the McGuire Sisters has died.

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A couple of my musical worlds collided when Enter Shikari covered "Call Me Maybe."  (Alas, it's not very good.)

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Why, of course I watched MTV's VMA Awards!  Frank Ocean and Green Day gave the only two worthwhile performances.  A soggy rendition of Alicia Keys' atrocious new single was a bitter disappointment.

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There Stands the Glass reader P.F. shared the interesting backstory of "Nancy (With the Laughing Face)" with me over the weekend.

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Kansas City Click: Bassist Ben Leifer of Diverse hosts Monday's jam session at the Blue Room.

Negative Approach is at the RecordBar on Tuesday.

The Riot Room plays host to Heartless Bastards on Wednesday.

Slim Cessna's Auto Club stops at Davey's on Thursday.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)

Joe South, 1940-2012

To understand Joe South's music is to understand my childhood.  I was raised on a steady diet of Jerry Reed, Charlie Rich, Ray Price, Kris Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings.  I vividly recall my dad singing along to Lynn Anderson's "Rose Garden" and Billy Joe Royal's "Down In the Boondocks."  Only later did I learn that South wrote both songs.  Upon acquiring the excellent anthology pictured above a few years ago, I discovered that most everything aficionados say they like about Elvis Presley's Memphis Sessions is even more true of South's best recordings.  A few of South's songs- including "All My Hard Times" (check out Joe Simon's version)- are amalgamations of all my favorite influences. South died Wednesday.


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I reviewed Pat Metheny's stunning concert Thursday at the Folly Theater.

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Kelly Clarkson's performance in Independence on Wednesday floored me.  Here's my review.

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Dedication 4, Lil Wayne's new mix tape, is atrocious.

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Tech N9ne's new song is titled "Earregular".

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I learned about the death of Larry Boehner of Lincoln's Zoo Bar from BGO.  Here's a documentary about the famous Midwestern venue.

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Tim Heidecker recorded an amusing spoof/tribute of Bob Dylan's new Titanic song.

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The video for the Fresh & Only's "Presence of Mind" is revoltingly hilarious.

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I listened to the new Cat Power album for the first time today.  After cursing the new "modern" approach for the first fifteen minutes, I came around.  It's lovely.

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Kansas City Click: My official picks are published here.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)

Sober, Sulky and Soaking at the 2012 KC Irish Fest

I almost pitched a fit Saturday at the Kansas City Irish Fest.  I had rearranged my weekend in order to catch McPeake's 1 p.m. set.  Only after arriving did I discover that the Isaac-related storm soaking the region had delayed the Belfast band's appearance.  The act's road manager told me he wasn't certain when they'd play. 

A reasonable man would have consoled himself with a few beers and a shot or two of Jameson.  Unlike the majority of fun-loving festival-goers, I refused to slake my thirst. 

I pouted in the rain as the solid Nebraska-based duo Ellis Island played.  A pleasing outing by the durable Kansas City institution Eddie Delahunt improved my mood. 

McPeake put me back in the dumps.  The band with an illustrious past finally began playing shortly before 3 p.m.  The new generation of McPeakes is very talented.  Its pleading for Facebook likes (a pet peeve) and a boast about a recent collaboration with someone associated with Michael Bublé turned me off.  The band seems to have Hollywood- or at least Michael Flatley- in its sights.  I wish it luck, but that's just not my thing. 

My disappointment in McPeake and my misguided teetotalism affected my response to Goitse.  I fell in love with the young traditionalists at the festival's small Park Stage last year.  Goitse's performance on the significantly larger Miller Lite Stage just didn't connect with me.  The band seemed much more calculated than I remembered.  I executed an Irish goodbye when the sun revealed itself as the versatile Canadian band Scythian entertained its lubricated fans.

The takeaway?  Leaving whiskey in the jar was a mistake. And Eddie Delahunt wins again.


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I reviewed Hearts of Darkness' Shelf Life at Plastic Sax.

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Hal David has died.  "I Say a Little Prayer" is my favorite Bacharach and David song. No, wait- it's "This Guy's in Love with You."  Or maybe it's "Wives and Lovers."

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"Face To the Sky" is the second promotional video for John Cale's forthcoming Shifty Adventures In Nookie Wood album.

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A recent Euclid Records blog post almost causes me to miss my stint in music retail.  Almost.

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The excellent New Albion label has called it a day.

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My doppelgänger does a nice version of "Suspicious Minds"

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I'm the subject of light-hearted smack talk around the 24:00-minute mark of the latest edition of the The Mailbox podcast.

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Kansas City Click: Horace Washington hosts Monday's jam at the Blue Room. 

Everette DeVan performs every Tuesday at the Phoenix. 

Dirty Bourbon River Show plays Wednesday at Trouser Mouse.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)