Album Review: Radkey- Spotify Sessions

My friends look at me as if I'm a heretic every time I mention Radkey's striking resemblance to the Misfits and Glenn Danzig.  I guess I didn't get the memo that pointing out the obvious characteristic of the St. Joseph trio is forbidden.  I happen to adore Danzig, so my taboo commentary isn't an indictment.  My primary concern about the young band's prospects are related to the quality of their songs.  The raw power of Radkey's live performances, however, is incontestable.  That's why the new Spotify Sessions is my favorite Radkey recording.


---
I would have enjoyed last week's concert by François Rabbath even more if the woman next to me hadn't been chomping on gum.  Here's my review.

---
I reviewed a concert by Sarah McLachlan at Starlight Theatre.

---
I review Everette DeVan's new album at Plastic Sax.

---
D/Will's 13-minute mixtape Ready. Aim. Beautiful is nice.

---
The blasphemers behind the Studio Rio project have extracted the original vocals from iconic songs and recast them in Brazilian settings.  Listen to them mess with Billie Holiday's "You've Changed".  Welcome to the future.

---
Drums are dumb.  That's my takeaway from Scott Feiner's A View From Below.  A Brazilian hand drum replaces a drum kit on the fascinating release.  The trio's keyboardist provides the low end while the fusion-happy guitarist is given plenty of room to meander.

---
Lizzo's new album LizzoBangers is delightful.  RIYL: Lazerbeak, honesty, Missy Elliott.

---
I can't believe that I'm infatuated with a Judas Priest album in 2014. Redeemer of Souls is surprisingly solid.

---
As a concept album, CunninLynguists' Strange Journey, Volume Three is terrible.  As pure entertainment, it's very good.  RIYL: Grieves, rhyming dictionaries, Aesop Rock.

---
Mournful Congregation's Concrescence Of The Sophia is RIYL: funerals, Tombs, 20-minute death metal jams.

---
Kendrick Lamar parodied ignorant rappers on "Backseat Freestyle."  Most of These Days, the new album by his label mate Ab-Soul, sounds like the moronic music Lamar mocked.  Largely because it could have been great, the project infuriates me.  Here's Lamar's contribution to the mess.  RIYL: Kendrick Lamar, darkness, Jay Rock.

---
Ginger Baker's Why? is RIYL: Charlie Watts' jazz, Charles Mingus, Jack Bruce's jazz.

---
A lot of the cool kids are touting Forgetting the Present, the latest release by the Mogwai-affiliated Remember Remember.  My verdict?  It's a propulsive new age album.  RIYL: Shadowfax, the healing properties of crystals, Nightnoise.

---
Bill Frisell goes surfing.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)

What Rabbath Wrought

I've long viewed my enthusiasm for European improvised music with suspicion.  François Rabbath's astounding performance at Park College earlier this week helped me realize that my love of projects like Dan Nicholls' new album Ruins is more than a pretentious affectation.

Through both his innate brilliance and his willingness to disregard established conventions, the Syrian-born and Paris-based Rabbath creates music without boundaries.  (Here's my review.)

Why then, I asked a colleague last night, don't more area musicians follow his lead by ignoring the formal mandates of the classical, folk and jazz worlds?  My friend brought me back to earth by suggesting that most professional musicians in Kansas City are forced to make their livings by playing music that conforms to established forms.  He's right.  I suppose that playing "Someone To Watch Over Me" in a cocktail lounge night after night might extinguish the creative spark.

In addition to being free from the American cultural mandate to swing, many experimental European musicians are also immersed in international folk and classical traditions.  And that's how a restless music obsessive ends up listening to At Home, the new album by Polish trumpeter Maciej Fortuna, as he folds laundry in Kansas.


---
I reviewed Friday's concert by Matchbox Twenty, the Goo Goo Dolls and Kate Earl.

---
I reviewed Dave Alvin's debut at Knuckleheads.

---
Toshi Seeger has died.

---
KCPT chats with Kerwin Young.

---
Here's footage of Radkey performing at the Bottleneck this week.  ("Maybe the Misfits...")

---
An Olathe man was shot and killed by an off-duty police officer outside a Chief Keef concert in Oklahoma City.

---
I hadn't clued in to Lake Street Dive until a dude at last month's Los Lobos concert raved about the band. 

---
Confession time- I actually bought Ellen Foley's Spirit of St. Louis album in 1981.  Here's the video for the cringeworthy lead track.

---
A person I don't know intended the following Facebook comment as a compliment to both bands: "Jethro Tull was the Radiohead of the '70s."  I concur (for entirely different reasons).

---
Kansas City Click: My official picks are published here.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)