I'm KC

My latest audio feature for KCUR aired this morning.  I enjoyed my hangs with Walter Edwin, aka The Popper.  The segment lives online here.


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

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I also reviewed Jimmy Buffett’s concert at the Sprint Center for The Kansas City Star.  Opening act Caroline Jones was a revelation.  Her overproduced new album is almost unlistenable, but her solo renditions of songs like “Old Blue” charmed me on Saturday.

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I reviewed Harold O’Neal’s Piano Cinema at Plastic Sax.

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I write weekly music previews for The Kansas City Star.

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I previewed Greta Van Fleet’s appearance at the Middle of the Map festival.

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Reggie Lucas has died. (Via BGO.)

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I woke up three hours earlier than usual today because I was so eager to hear Pusha T’s Daytona.  Kanye West’s production is stupendous.

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Old-boy networks can be good things.  Don Was, the current top dog at Blue Note Records, signed his old Was (Not Was) bandmate Dave McMurray.  Music Is Life is an old-school instrumental party album.  RIYL: Maceo Parker, Detroit, Lou Donaldson.

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The Brad Mehldau Trio is a victim of its own success.  If Seymour Reads the Constitution doesn’t sound revolutionary, it’s only because so many imitators have made the trio’s attack seem commonplace.  It’s not.

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What sorcery is this? Elina Duni’s magical Partir is unlike anything I’ve encountered.  RIYL: June Tabor, Albania, Márta Sebestyén.

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I don't hear what everyone else claims to hear in Kacey Musgraves’ Golden Hour.  Post-Christine McVie pop doesn’t appeal to me.  Musgraves’ new songs remind me of the formulaic music I hear during my periodic digs through the closeout racks at Macy’s.

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I hadn’t encountered the striking music video for “Ndogal,” a track from Cheikh Lô’s 1995 album Ne La Thiass, until World Circuit uploaded it this week.

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Iceage’s Beyondless is a mess- and I like it.  Strings, horns and other unlikely embellishments complement the slurred vocals of Elias Bender Rønnenfelt on the Danish band’s strung-out fourth album.  RIYL: The Saints, hitting rock bottom, Nick Cave.

(Original image of The Popper by There Stands the Glass.)