Hair of the Dog

I’ve anticipated hearing something like Obongjayar’s Which Way Is Forward? for most of my adult life.  The Nigerian’s seamless blend of hip-hop, indie-rock, gospel, electronica and Afrobeat is the effulgent fulfillment of the most optimistic version of my fevered reveries.  Here’s the essential “10K”. 


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Tears filled my eyes when Waylon Jenning’s “Just to Satisfy You” popped up on Miranda Lambert’s pre-show playlist at the Sprint Center last night.  Her walk-on music was Aerosmith’s “Back In the Saddle,” another song from my childhood I hadn’t heard in years.  I reviewed Lambert’s concert for The Kansas City Star.

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I can’t say I saw this coming.  The pop-country superstar Sam Hunt recasts Webb Pierce’s “There Stands the Glass” on his new single “Hard To Forget”.

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I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.  Encountering the salvaged music video for Mark Anthony & Lyte Speed’s “I’m Just a Boogie Roller” turned my day around.

(Original image of an Arab-Israeli dog by There Stands the Glass.)

November Recap

Top Five Performances
1. Logan Richardson’s Blues People- Capsule
My review.
2. Wilco- Midland theater
My review.
3. Lana Del Rey- Uptown Theater
My review.
4. Bobby Watson & Horizon- White Recital Hall
My review.
5. Doubledrag- Riot Room
My review.

Top Five Albums
1. Miranda Lambert- Wildcard
My review.
2. Matt Villinger- All Day
My review.
3. Brother Ali- Secrets & Escapes
My review.
4. Terri Lyne Carrington- Waiting Game
Dreams and Desperate Measures, the 42-minute suite that concludes the contentious album, is perfect.
5. Cecilia Bartoli- Farinelli
Baroque bops.

Top Five Songs
1. José James with Ledisi and Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah- “I Need Your Love”
The collaboration of my dreams.
2. Earl Sweatshirt- “East”
West of the moon.
3. Norah Jones featuring Tarriona Tank Ball- “Playing Along”
I knew she had it in her.
4. Atmosphere- “Bde Maka Ska”
Slug takes the plunge.
5. Michael Kiwanuka- “Living in Denial”
Haunting throwback soul.

I conducted the same exercise in October, September, August, July, June, May, April, March, February and January.

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

Music City Moan

Did you record your solo banjo album in a bathroom?  I want to hear it.  Your new Chicago footwork track was made entirely on your phone?  Send it over. 

Decades of listening to do-it-yourself punk bands and murky bootlegs surreptitiously recorded by jazz fanatics conditioned me to low fidelity.  I didn’t flinch at the ostensibly revolutionary sonic mayhem created by the latest wave of devil-may-care Soundcloud rappers.  Unintentional distortion, background hiss and the clatter of silverware can’t phase me.  That’s why I’m occasionally stunned by gilt-edged studio trickery. 

The sound of Miranda Lambert’s new album Wildcard floors me.  In addition to being a rollicking cosmic country album, the exquisite fidelity of Wildcard makes it moonlight as a psychedelic adventure.  Each component of the mix bounces around the sound field like a frenetic bouncing ball.  Jay Joyce, the Nashville producer closely linked to Eric Church’s success, is responsible for the album’s sonic thrills. 

I’d love Wildcard even if the production didn’t tickle my eardrums and reshuffle my synapses.  That it sounds like a shimmering version of Exile on Main Street makes it that much sweeter.


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

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I write weekly concert previews for The Kansas City Star.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)

October Recap

Top Five Performances
1. Nadia Larcher and Ensemble Ibérica- MTH Theater
My review.
2. Max Richter, Grace Davidson and the American Contemporary Music Ensemble- Austin City Limits Live at The Moody Theater (Austin)
My review.
3. Rodney Crowell- 04 Center (Austin)
Ain’t living long like that.
4. Tatsuya Nakatani- The Ship
My review.
5. Orville Peck- RecordBar
Who was that masked man?

Top Five Albums
1. Kris Davis- Diatom Ribbons
Unit structures.
2. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds- Ghosteen
My review.
3. Robert Glasper- Fuck Yo Feelings
My review.
4. Danny Brown- Uknowhatimsayin?
Don't know nothing but I do know this.
5. Jaimie Branch- Fly or Die II: Bird Dogs of Paradise
Jazz musicians with punk attitudes are inestimable.

Top Five Songs
1. Summer Walker and PartyNextDoor- “Just Might”
Self-awareness can be excruciating.
2. City Girls- “JT First Day Out”
Sprung.
3. Miranda Lambert- “Tequila Does”
Shots.
4. Bill Frisell- “Everywhere”
Sweet dreams are made of this.
5. Kanye West featuring Clipse and Kenny G- “Use This Gospel”
Kenny G takes a solo on Jesus Is King's best track.

I conducted the same exercise in September, August, July, June, May, April, March, February and January.

(Original image of Tatsuya Nakatani by There Stands the Glass.)

Album Review: Urgent Jumping: East African Musiki Wa Dansi Classics 1972-1982

Political and social mayhem and personal medical ailments won’t get me down.  Urgent Jumping: East African Musiki Wa Dansi Classics 1972-1982 is responsible for keeping me on an even keel.

Big Steve, a regular There Stands the Glass reader, recently tipped his friends off to the new compilation of restorative East African jams.  Afro 70’s ”Hasara Ya Moto is among the selections with restorative qualities.

There are undoubtedly ominous subtexts throughout the two-and-a-half-hour set, but I’m blissfully unaware of the conflicts that may have inspired the music.  In fact, I’m annoyed when a man speaks in English during Hafusa Abasi & Slim Ali and the Kikulacho Yahoos Band’s otherwise wondrously ethereal ”Sina Raha”.


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I reviewed Karrin Allyson’s concert at the Folly Theater.  I also discussed the performance on KCUR.

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I wrote an extended preview of Young Thug’s show at the Midland for The Kansas City Star and Ink magazine..

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I write weekly music previews for The Kansas City Star and Ink magazine.

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I took note of A La Mode’s new album at Plastic Sax.

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I reviewed a magic show for The Kansas City Star last week.

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I saw Mose Allison perform only once.  I was one of a few dozen fans who attended his show at The Tuba on Southwest Boulevard in the early 1990s.  The wonderful wit died last week.

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The heroic Sharon Jones died last week.

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Billy Miller of Norton Records has died.

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I’m not nearly as enthralled as most of my hip-hop-loving peers by A Tribe Called Quest’s We got it from Here... Thank You 4 Your service album.  The ideas it signifies are often more interesting than the actual content.  “Kids”- a cranky get-off-my-lawn tirade- is my favorite track. 

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I’m obsessed with the work of Jóhann Jóhannsson.  His score for the new alien invasion flick  Arrival is out of this world.

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Sharon Jones’ mourners might take heart in Special Night, the solid new album by Lee Fields and the Expressions.  Here’s a live rendition of the title track.

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Miranda Lambert’s The Weight of These Wings is the album I’ve long wanted her to make.  ”Keeper of the Flame” is the project’s slickest song.

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The sickeningly cloying Jazz Loves Disney makes me want to break something.

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Daniil Trifinov shreds on Transcendental, two frenzied hours of Franz Liszt.

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Lamb of God’s The Duke benefit EP is RIYL: live souvenirs, Pantera, veteran metal bands that are better than Metallica.

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David Bazan is at his pitiful best on Dark Sacred Night  "Wish My Kids Were Here” is an instant classic in the delectable sub-genre of sad-sack Christmas songs.

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I’m the guy who acts “more stupidly.”  I have more than $200 tied up in tickets to a canceled Kanye West show.

(Original images by There Stands the Glass.)

Concert Review: The Mavericks at Knuckleheads

I anticipated that I'd be a part of a coterie of a few hundred nostalgic fans of The Mavericks as I drove to Knuckleheads last Thursday.

After all, the concert was competing against two free high-profile country shows.  Charlie Daniels was playing the kickoff concert of the Flatlands Music Festival.  Outlaw Jim and the Whiskey Benders were on the KC Live! stage at the Power & Light District.  Who'd be willing pay an exorbitant amount of money ($40 in advance and $45 day of show) to see a band that peaked almost twenty years ago when free entertainment was on tap?

It turns out that Kansas City is home to over 1,000 moneyed alternative country fans who probably wouldn't be caught dead at a Charlie Daniels show and wouldn't feel comfortable patronizing the Power & Light District.

And man, these people loved the Mavericks.   Trampoline may be one of my favorite albums of all time, but I couldn't begin to join the majority of the audience in singing along to most every song Thursday.  This rough fan footage captures the atmosphere.

I'd attended a couple of front man Raul Malo's solo performances in recent years, but I hadn't seen the Mavericks since a 1990s gig at Guitars & Cadillacs.   The recently reunited band was supplemented by a horn section, an accordionist and two or three additional multi-instrumentalists.  The large band played over two hours.

Yeah, I got my money's worth.  Here's Tim Finn's proper review.


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Miranda Lambert won me over at the Flatlands Country Music Festival.  Here's my review.

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Ray Dolby has died.

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Patrick Neas interviewed Joyce DiDonato in advance of her performance in "The Capulets and the Montagues" at the Lyric Opera.

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Here are videos for Tech N9ne's "Dwamn" and Krizz Kaliko's "Night Time".

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Jim James participated in Lawrence High School's Classroom Sessions program.

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Roscoe Mitchell's Not Yet is RIYL: Anthony Davis, John Cage, Anthony Braxton.

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Essential Tremors,  the new album by J Roddy Walston & the Business, is RIYL: Jack White, Jerry Lee Lewis, Led Zeppelin.

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I dig British hip-hop.  The Menagerie's "Are You Serious?" is RIYL: The Streets, Dizzee Rascal, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis.

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A recent 70-minute performance by the Dave King Trio is streaming at YouTube.

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Roy Smeck shreds.  (Via There Stands the Glass reader Phil.)

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This week's new releases of special interest to There Stands the Glass include Avicii, Bill Callahan, Carcass, Todd Clouser, Elvis Costello & the Roots, Crystal Stilts, Kenny Garrett, Garland Jeffreys (!), Smokin' Joe Kubek & Bnois King, Mark Lanegan, the Del McCoury Band, MGMT, MMG, Nightmares On Wax, Gregory Porter, Sidi Touré, Why?, Windhand and the 1975.

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Kansas City Click: My official picks are published here.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)

Review: Soweto Kinch- The Legend of Mike Smith

Every so often an album is released that seems to have been made exactly to my idiosyncratic specifications.  Ornette Coleman's harmolodics?  Check.  Intellectually ambitious hip hop?  Check.  Sprawling narrative?  Check. 

I'm compelled to believe that Soweto Kinch crafted his new The Legend of Mike Smith with me in mind.  Can there really be anyone else in the universe who loves The Streets' A Grand Don't Come for Free, Kendrick Lamar's Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City, Ornette Coleman's In All Languages, Steve Coleman's Sine Die and the first Run the Road grime compilation?

The Legend of Mike Smith is the story of a day in the life of an aspiring rapper in which the seven deadly sins lay a series of traps.  Kinch employs instrumental jazz and uncommonly eloquent hip hop to track Smith's saga over the course of 140 minutes.  While kept separate, the album explicates the natural symbiosis between the two forms.  Even so, I wonder if the absence of a single representative track will cause the album to get overlooked.  It's my understanding that the recording is a spinoff of a theatrical production.  And it's possible that those elements- despite my immediate enthusiasm- will ultimately prevent the project from standing up to repeated listening.

For now, at least, I'm over the moon for The Legend of Mike Smith.  The album inspires me to make grandiose comparisons.  It's the British answer to Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City!  It's the Sandinista! of the new millennium!  Or how about this- it's There Stands the Glass' 2013 album of the year.


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Magic Slim has died.  He was one of my favorite touring artists during the last great blues boom.  Howard Reich wrote a fine obituary.

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Kevin Ayers, best known for his work with Soft Machine, has died.

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"Roses" is a track from Red Line Chemistry's forthcoming album.

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The ACBs have a gory video for "Television."

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After shoveling snow for ninety minutes on Thursday, I unthawed to Nicola Benedetti's Silver Violin.  Nodding out to the often syrupy album with the violinist's visage dancing through my head was exceedingly pleasant.  I may make crossover classical albums my new thing.

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I'm digging these new reissues: Leon Thomas' The Creator 1969-1973: The Best Of The Flying Dutchman Masters and Pied Piper Presents - A New Concept In Detroit Soul.

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Inspectah Deck's Czarface gets my seal of approval.

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Chicago Red, the new release by Brad Goode, contains much of the same rhythmic funk and guitar skronk of Christian Scott's exemplary 2012 album Christian aTunde Adjuah.  So good.

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Euphoric Defilement!

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Kevin Eubank's new album The Messenger is a nice surprise.  RIYL: Weather Report, Charlie Byrd, Dave Holland.

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The zeitgeist: Miranda Lambert's "Time To Get a Gun".  ("I could afford one if I did just a little less drinkin'.")

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Kansas City Click: My official picks are published here.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)