Concert Review: Durand Jones & the Indications at recordBar

I like alcohol, but I wasn’t drinking.  I like dancing, but there wasn’t room to move.  I like parties, but I felt as if I was crashing a sloppy frat kegger.  And while I possess unconditional love for old-school R&B, I could hardly hear Durand Jones & the Indications over the din of drunken conversations.  Saturday’s sold-out show at RecordBar was an enormous letdown.  Opening band Ginger Root never stood a chance.  A friend tweeted that “I’m not sure I’ll see a better live show in 2019.”  Well, the performance by the soul revivalist band wasn’t even the best concert I attended in the past week.  I rave about a quartet led by Matt Otto at Plastic Sax.  Last night’s appearance by the Norwegian brass band tenThing was also superior.  I posted amusing footage at Instagram.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)

Album Review: Willie Clayton- Excellence

Several of my friends and associates are raving about Durand Jones & the Indications’ American Love Call.  While the group’s spot-on evocation of a lost 1972 album by the Dramatics is a neat trick, I don’t understand the point of the nostalgic exercise.  After all, Whatcha See is Whatcha Get and Dramatically Yours are just a few clicks away.

Unlike Durand and his admirers, Willie Clayton isn’t desperate to return the past. As he suggests on the aptly titled new album Excellence, Clayton’s Southern soul contains “a little old-school with a little new.”  The approach has made him a star on what’s left of the chitlin’ circuit.

The varied Excellence recalls Al Green’s classic work for Hi Records, the commercial peak of the Isley Brothers and the contemporary R&B of a certain pariah.  The music video for the so-wrong-it’s-right “Where You Get That Body” is something else.


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I write weekly concert previews for The Kansas City Star.

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I reviewed a performance by Ryan Keberle & Catharsis at Plastic Sax.

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Drummer Hal Blaine has died.

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Keith Flint of the Prodigy has died.

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The South African icon Dorothy Masuka has died.

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Sara Romweber of Let’s Active has died.  It’s hard to believe at this late date, but there was a moment in my life when “Every Word Means No” was important to me.

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Four acts from Kansas City- the Get Up Kids, Hembree, Kadesh Flow and Shy Boys- have official showcases at SXSW this week.  I wish them well.

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I’m not terribly interested in the gender dynamics explored on Angel-Ho’s Death Becomes Her.  It’s the startling sonic blend of the noise of Death Grips, the futurism of Grimes and the New Orleans bounce of Big Freedia that fascinates me.  Do I like it?  I’m still not sure.  Here’s “Pose”.  (Tip via Big Steve.)

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When I saw Caleb Burhans’ Past Lives described as  “emo-classical,” I cued it up with the intention of hate-listening.  The opening track is titled “A Moment for Jason Molina,” for Pete’s sake!  In spite of my pernicious intent, I quickly became entranced by the album’s sentimental beauty.  RIYL: Jóhann Jóhannsson, melancholy, John Fahey.

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Forward-thinking improvised music doesn’t get much more fun than Glitter Wolf, the latest album by Allison Miller’s Boom Tic Boom.  Equal parts klezmer, chamber jazz and pop, the drummer-led project features violinist Jenny Scheinman, cornetist Kirk Knuffke, clarinetist Ben Goldberg, pianist Myra Melford and bassist Todd Sickafoose.  RIYL: Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra, joy, Charles Mingus.

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Good news, old-timers: most of Meat Puppets’ Dusty Notes is entirely acceptable.  RIYL: Son Volt’s Trace, fried psychedelia, the Dead’s Wake of the Flood.

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I’ve heard Havilah Bruders sing plenty of times, but she’s never sounded better than she did at my church on Sunday morning as she redeemed U2 in a restrained rendition of “Love Rescue Me.”

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)

Recycled Sounds

Nostalgia is for suckers.  Predilections for the past can be emotionally crippling.  The disorder applies to musical preferences.  I’m inclined to distance myself from people who suggest that the music of today is inferior to the sounds of the past.  Against my nature, I’ve spent recent days begrudgingly appreciating three albums that induce repressed memories.

I cringed when an acquaintance proclaimed the Breeders’ All Nerve as his favorite album of 2018.  The disconcerting confession compelled me to give it a chance.  It’s not bad.  “Wait in the Car” is among the songs that help make All Nerve sound like the eighth-best alternative rock album of 1993.

Progger appeals to my worst musical impulses.  I allowed myself to pine for the mid-’70s days when the big brothers of my pals turned me on to since-forsaken jazz fusion bands like Brand X, Curved Air and Lifetime while listening to “Housewives” on the Austin band’s new album Dystopia.

I documented my single favorite sound in this space last month, so it’s not a surprise that I was eager to sample the expanded edition of the soul revivalists Durand Jones & the Indications’ self-titled album.  The ten live tracks demonstrate that Jones and his band simulate the atmosphere of a 1965 frat party featuring the likes of Joe Tex or Eddie Floyd.

Now excuse me while I go back to obsessing over my presumptive album of the year.


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I reviewed Pink’s concert at the Sprint Center for The Kansas City Star.

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I reviewed Everyday, Forever, the latest album by the Project H, at Plastic Sax.

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I write weekly concert previews for The Kansas City Star.

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Matt Dike, a co-founder of Delicious Vinyl, has died.

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Bill Frisell’s solo album Music Is includes pastoral elegies and big city meltdowns.  Even though I haven’t heard all of the guitarist’s three dozen albums, I'm comfortable with the assertion that Music Is is among his ten most essential recordings. Here’s “Rambler”.

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The title of the Gumba Fire: Bubblegum Soul & Synth Boogie in 1980s South Africa compilation is perfect.  Hearing the sounds of groups like Shalamar, the Gap Band and the Whispers filtered through a South African sensibility is worlds of fun.  (Tip via Big Steve.)

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)