Buked and Scorned at Open Spaces

Partly because an obscenely large portion of my 2019 budget is dedicated to musical tourism, I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about the fallout from the Kansas City Jazz & Heritage Festival (2017) and the Open Spaces festival (2018).  Both city-sponsored, artistically-thrilling endeavors were financial debacles.  An otherwise fascinating new article in The Pitch buries the lede.  Emily Park reports that “only 4,000 tickets were collected” for the three concerts at Starlight Theatre promoted by Open Spaces as The Weekend.  Just 4,000 of the cumulative 24,000 tickets that were available for concerts at Starlight Theatre headlined by the Roots, Janelle Monaé and Vijay Iyer were sold.  Even if all three concerts were condensed into a single show, paying customers would have filled only half of the 8,000-capacity Starlight Theatre.  Sometimes I hate being right.  As I predicted at the time (including on a segment of KCUR’s Up To Date program dedicated to the topic), the attendance figures for the most recent area concerts by the Roots (1,200), Monaé (2,000) and Iyer (200) indicated that trouble was brewing.  I was roundly ‘buked and scorned for forecasting the easily calculable outcome.  In an ongoing effort to fill the artistic void in Kansas City caused by the disaster, I’m currently planning my third music-oriented trip of 2019.


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I write weekly concert previews for The Kansas City Star.

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I reviewed an appearance by Ryan Keberle & Catharsis at the National World War I Museum and Memorial at Plastic Sax.

(Original image of a woefully attended Open Spaces performances by There Stands the Glass.)

Going Grippy Grappa

Jay-Z kept me out of a San Diego jail this week.

My otherwise perfect vacation rental is periodically sullied by a moronic gaggle of hard-partying teens across the alley.  They break out the beer bongs at 11 a.m.  (Fine by me.)  They start doing shots at 7 p.m.  (Whatever.)  The ear-piercing screaming resumes at 11 p.m.  (That's my bedtime after a sun-soaked day.)  The kids rally for a final bout of debauchery around 3 a.m.  (Not cool.) 

Their excellent taste in music is the only reason those kids are still alive.  Although they look and act as if they'd listen to Wiz Khalifa or Mac Miller, the oblivious knuckleheads bump nothing but Magna Carta... Holy Grail.  I'm more inclined to ask them to stop shouting over Jay-Z than to impale them with beach umbrellas.

Once or twice, when I know they're in recovery mode, I've hit 'em with Grippy Grappa, the excellently-titled new album by the Cypriot band Monsieur Doumani.  Imagine Gogol Bordello and the ghost of Herbie Mann on an ouzo bender.  Check out "The System" and "Young Upwardly-Mobile Professional".  I've never been to Greece, let alone Cypress, but Grippy Grappa allows me to better relate to the people of the financially distressed region.

Here's a proper review of Grippy Grappy in Sing Out! magazine.


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Faye Hunter of Let's Active has died.

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The remix of "Bender" features Tech N9ne, Mac Lethal, Irv Da Phenom, JL, Joey Cool, Dutch Newman and Godemis.  

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Radkey is the subject of a solid feature from Noisey.

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Jordan Geiger of Hospital Ships shares a few of his favorite recordings.

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"Sauce Remix" by One is RIYL: Landmark Entertainment, The Popper, James Christos.  (Via Tony's Kansas City.)

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"Sophisticated Ignorance" is the latest offering from Steddy P and DJ Mahf.  RIYL: Cypress Hill, Kottonmouth Kings, Afroman.

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Corky Carrel wrote a beautiful review of Guy Clark's new album.  (Tip via BGO.)

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Care to know what's not cool or played-out in hip-hop?  Here's a "Banned Artists/Track List for a room at turntable.fm.  I like over a third of the banned items on the elitists' list.

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The collaboration between Elvis Costello and the Roots sounds exactly like you'd think it would sound.

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George Duke's Dream Weaver has sublime moments mixed among the cheese.  (And I kind of like the cheese.)  RIYL: George Duke, Al Kooper, George Clinton.

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The music video for Kanye West's "Black Skinhead" flies over my head.

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Willie Sugarcapps is a new semi-supergroup of Americana artists including Will Kimbrough and Grayson Capps.  "Gypsy Train" is pretty.  RIYL: Mary Gauthier, Lucinda Williams, John Hiatt.

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Jim Pepper Fest will include a "reunion of the Free Spirits," the "world's first jazz-rock fusion band (1965-1967)" featuring Larry Coryell and Rakalam Bob Moses.

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Swimm's excellent Feel EP is available as a free download at Bandcamp.  RIYL: U2, INXS, T. Rex.

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As soon as I summon enough courage, I'll listen to Van Dyke Park's new album Songs Cycled.

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Kansas City Click: My official picks are published here.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)