Concert Review: The Breeders at the Rave

My mother asked if I was having an affair after I told her I was in Milwaukee when she called me on Wednesday.  C’mon mom!  Infidelity hadn’t crossed my mind, although I’ll confess that I swooned over Kim and Kelley Deal at a concert by The Breeders a few hours later.

I hadn’t seen the accomplished indie-rockers in so long that I’d forgotten how effortlessly the sisters’ radiant smiles and warm voices can beguile large audiences.  About 1,000 people purchased $30 and $40 tickets to grin and sing along with the reunited classic lineup of the band at The Rave.

The Breeders’ 95-minute outing resembled the feel-good resolution of a reality television program.  Two of rock’s most agreeable eccentrics, the Deal sisters engaged in testy repartee that seemed like good-natured familial banter rather than the symptom of a more serious conflict.

I’m still not sold on the quartet’s new album All Nerve, but renditions of fresh selections including “Walking with a Killer,” “Get in the Car” and “MetaGoth” were every bit as powerful as versions of older tracks like “Cannonball” and the Pixies jam “Gigantic.”  Even so, I couldn’t shake the sense that even first-rate rock in 2018 is akin to Dixieland in 1958- it can still be vibrant and meaningful, but it’s a marginal form on the wane.

Irresistibly cheap airfare rather than the concert or a tryst (really, Ma?) lured me to Wisconsin, but the Breeders provided a nostalgic highlight of my chaste getaway.


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I write weekly concert previews for The Kansas City Star.

(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.)