Album Review: The Mavericks- Brand New Day

Regrets, I’ve had a few thousand.  Like Frank Sinatra, I did it my way.  It hasn’t always been easy.  I was reminded of one missed opportunity while listening to the Mavericks’ new release Brand New Day.

An unsolicited CD by the then-unknown Miami based band crossed crossed my desk when I was the sales manager of a beleaguered music distribution company in 1990.  Even though I loved the music, I had to pass.  As a one-off, unproven project in the pre-internet era, I knew that timely payment to the band for shipped units would be impossible.

Having recognized the music’s potential, however, I should have offered to assist the Mavericks in a different capacity.  I would have loved to have been a part of selling and promoting What a Crying Shame, Music for All Occasions and Trampoline, three of my favorite albums of the 1990s.

The band was marketed as a country act at its commercial peak, but Brand New Day continues the band’s drift into an alternate universe in which Roy Orbison, Johnny Otis, Pérez Prado and Phil Spector are in the same band. It’s gloriously preposterous.  Here’s the title track.


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I reviewed the sixth of Garth Brooks’ seven sold-out concerts at the Sprint Center.

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I reviewed a concert by Soundgarden and the Dillinger Escape Plan on Sunday.

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I honored Ensemble Ibérica with the KCUR’s Band of the Week designation.

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I didn’t attempt to hide my inner fanboy in my extended concert preview of Chance the Rapper’s return to Kansas City.

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

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I extol Bobby Watson’s Made in America at Plastic Sax.

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Bruce Hampton has died.  I first heard the jam band pioneer perform at a festival in a field outside of Lawrence, Kansas, in the early 1990s.

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Patti LaBelle performs a Broadway-style version of jazz on her florid new album Bel Hommage.  It’s hammy, cheesy and entirely delicious- and I love it.  LaBelle pitched the project on QVC.

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The combination of Avishai Cohen, Manfred Eicher and Nasheet Waits lights up several of my pleasure centers.

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Smino’s invigorating Blkswn is recommended if you like Chance the Rapper, St. Louis, Frank Ocean.  Here’s ”Anita”.

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Trombone Shorty courts the mainstream on Parking Lot Symphony. RIYL: Allen Toussaint, artists with staying power, Fred Wesley.

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Sarah Shook & the Disarmers’ Sidelong doesn’t quite do it for me.  Even so, I hope to catch the group in 2017. RIYL: Grisly Hand, boozin’, Bottle Rockets. Here’s ”Dwight Yoakam”.

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Don Bryant’s Don’t Give Up On Love is an unexpected treat.  RIYL: Otis Clay, soul survivors, Syl Johnson.  Here’s ”How Do I Get There?”.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)

Album Review: Ghostface Killah and Badbadnotgood- Sour Soul

2014 was a miserable year for hip-hop.  Very little in the genre thrilled me.  Yet the first few weeks of 2015 represent an embarrassment of hip-hop riches. 

Along with an alarming portion of the rest of the world, I’m listening to Kendrick Lamar’s new album at the moment.  (Jazz and funk!)

Not taking the chart-topping release by my sworn enemy into consideration, Cannibal Ox and Doomtree have already released albums that are better than any hip-hop titles that came out last year.

While it’s not in the same class as Kendrick’s To Pimp a Butterfly, Sour Soul, the new collaboration between Ghostface Killah and Badbadnotgood, is very good. 

Ghost, of course, is the most notable voice of the Wu-Tang Clan. I once thought of the Canadian band Badbadnotgood as a “fake jazz” collective, but the group has since come a long way in a short time.

With each play of Sour Soul, Ghost’s rhymes become increasingly funny.  The album makes me happy.  Here’s a video for ”Ray Gun”.


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I reviewed the Chieftains’ short and cheesy concert at Helzberg Hall. 

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I contributed a feature about Drakkar Sauna to KCUR.

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I indulge in a so-called guilty pleasure at Plastic Sax.

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Danielle Nicole Schnebelen’s new EP is impressive.  I prefer it to the output of her former band Trampled Under Foot.  RIYL: Etta James, blue-eyed soul, Wilson Pickett.

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Daevid Allen of Gong has died.  When I went through my prog-rock phase, Allen was still one of the leading lights of the form.

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New MC Lyte?  I guess I’m in.

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I put off listening to Butch Walker’s new album for weeks.  Having lost my most of my taste for sensitive rock, I figured it wouldn’t be my thing.  I was wrong.  Afraid of Ghosts is RIYL: Lindsey Buckingham, songs about death, Matthew Ryan.

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There’s nothing unique about Tim Warfield’s Spherical, but the Monk tribute is excellent nonetheless.  RIYL: Charlie Rouse, all things Monk, Coleman Hawkins.

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Big Steve’s endorsement of the project compelled me to audition the Mavericks' fine new Mono.  The flat sound field can be remedied by playing the album through a portable speaker.

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No one asked me, but I believe that the verdict in the Gaye-Thicke/Pharrell Williams is a travesty.

(Original image 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.)