Friday at Coda: Dolls On Fire, Hillary Watts Riot, The Electric Lungs

Friday night at Coda featured three local bands: Dolls On Fire, Hillary Watts Riot, The Electric Lungs.  Man did it feel like New Orleans on summer night in there! This is a problem that can be remedied because the beer on tap is really ice cold.  So good.

The gods seemed to hate bass players on Friday after the first two groups suffered from bass related issues.  Still good performances and we had a great time snapping photos again.

Click to see more Dolls On Fire

Click to see more Hillary Watts Riot

Click to see more of the Electric Lungs

Hope to see you out at at show!

David Hasselhoff On Acid video shoot Saturday at Coda Bar & Grill

Saturday night David Hasselhoff On Acid was performing/recording a music video for their track titled "Breakfast" in support of their upcoming album "Eudaimonia".  The two local fusion groups, the Jorge Arana Trio and Janet The Planet opened.  All three bands were instrumental. All three delivered different intensities of face-melting depending on your genre preference.  One audience member in particular was dealt such an intense face-melting he was unable to gather the "strength" to leave the bar. Laypersons would just assume he was drunk as shit, but you know, that's why they are laypersons. All joking aside, it was a great show.

Click to see more Jorge Arana Trio

Janet the Planet's two sax sound over incredibly funky grooves made for a great middle set between Jorge Arana Trio and DHOA.

Click to see more of Janet The Planet

 Because David Hasselhoff On Acid was shooting a video, they played the song "Breakfast" three times alternating takes of the video with other tracks.  On Sunday night, David Hasselhoff On Acid opened for the kings of math metal, Dillinger Escape Plan at the Granada in Lawrence.

Click to see more of David Hasselhoff On Acid

Not A Planet's Album Release at Czar last Friday

Last Friday night local much buzzed about band, Not A Planet released their album "The Few, The Proud, The Strange" on Friday night at Czar.  Openers for the show included Kansas City bands, Appropriate Grammar, Month Of May.  Omaha's Noah's Ark Was A Spaceship played last before Not A Planet took the stage.  Unfortunately, we didn't make it down in time to catch Appropriate Grammar who opened.

Click to see more of Month Of May

Noah's Ark Was A Spaceship put on a great 45 minute set featuring tunes from their release "You Need You".  This three-piece group had incredible energy and heavy riff based tunes reminiscent of many 90's alternative\grunge acts.  They really breathed new life into a genre that is often considered cliche or played out at this point. We dug it.  Go check them out.

Click to see more of Noah's Ark Was A Spaceship

Not A Planet capped off the night with tunes from the album "The Few, The Proud, The Strange" including "Black Dress" and "Bang Goes The Gun".  Lots of revelry and whiskey drinking kept the mood festive while Not A Planet sent us home feeling like we got our money's worth for a Friday night.

Click to see more of Not A Planet

Good show.

A special performance of Beck's "Song Reader" with Project H and special guests

Friday night at Record Bar was a very special event.  How special you might ask?  Well the attendees got to hear many Beck tunes for the first time.  Not first time live, first time.  These songs have never been recorded by Beck, only released as sheet music.  Featuring locals Project H, Mark Lowery, Shay Estes, and Jeff Harshberger, the group put on full set of tunes from Beck's unrecorded album. 

The tunes leaned at some times country-western, other times 20's swingin' jazz.  Leading the vocal parts were Shay Estes and Jeff Harshberger. Project H and Mark Lowery provided the instrumental portion of the show. 

Here's the show:



Click to see more Project H



Click to see more of the performance of Beck's Song Reader


Song Reader Set List:

1. Don't Act Like Your Heart Isn't Hard
2. I'm down
3. Saint Dude
4. Do We, We Do
5. Eyes That Say I Love You
6. Now That Your Dollars Have Sprouted Wings
7. Please Leave The Light On When You Go
8. Rough On Rats
9. Old Shanghai
10. Sorry
11. Why Did You Make Me Car
12. Heavens Ladder
13. America Here's My Boy
14. Just Noise
15. We All Wear Cloaks
16. Mutilation rag
17. The Wolf Is On The Hill
18. Title Of This Song
19. Last Polka
20. Last Night You Were A Dream

First Listen: Country Singles

So we're going to try and do a little local music review every now and again to keep the content fresh and somewhat varied.  We can imagine you'd like to see something besides images so here goes:

The Grisly Hand - "Country Singles"

The recently released effort from the local roots/folk/americana/blues/swing/country act the Grisly Hand.  Their sophomore release features tunes heavy on love, broken hearts and tears with a twang reminiscent of 70s country music.

First thing that stands out is Lauren Krum's voice. The timbre and delivery is spot on.  Very clear melodies that make the vocals stand apart for easy listening.  This is great for the sing-along fans.

Next, the guitars are just right.  With the addition last year of Mike Stover (Mr. Marco's V7, People's Liberation Big Band) on the slide guitar it helps to ratchet up the country twang while injecting some additional layers to the guitar sound.  Between the acoustic guitar, mandolin and electric guitar there's enough textual contrast throughout the record you aren't bored with the instrumentation after three tunes. It doesn't leave the job of carrying the songs to just the vocals/lyrics.

The drums are enough to keep it lively and provide a nice rhythm to compliment the guitar and vocals, never overpowering. Sure, as a drummer I'd like more drums, but that just wouldn't be appropriate. At least, according to most guitarists.  Now we're getting side-tracked...anyways...

Country Singles has a great sound that makes it accessible for a wide-range of fans while still maintaining a certain grittiness that makes it unique, very organic.  The engineer needs some props for this album because it's very well mixed.  Never did I find myself thinking, "Gee if only the guitars were quieter," or "The vocals are too bright."    It's a well written and recorded album that while decidedly country, isn't some polished Nashville nonsense.  Given Kansas City's proximity to a large country music fan base, this record has the potential to appeal to wide swath of people.

Good stuff.  See you at a show!

You can listen to the new album here.

Saturday at Riot Room with Drew Black & Dirty Electric, The Latenight Callers, The Caves

On Saturday night, we made our destination the Riot Room for the Drew Black & Dirty Electric CD release show.  The openers for the show were locals Knife Crime, followed by last minute additions the Latenight Callers. Then Drew Black & Dirty Electric, the Caves closed things out for the evening.

We'll get some opinions on new/recent local releases here later this week. Unfortunately, the blog doesn't enable us to quit our day jobs and do this full-time so bear with us while we get around to it. Don't worry, we're working hard...

Check it out below:

Click to see more of the Latenight Callers

Click to see more Drew Black & Dirty Electric

Click to see more of the Caves

Check back later this week for more music news\images\events!

Friday at Coda with the Travel Guide, Me Like Bees

This week, we made it up to Coda.  For whatever reason, we haven't been up there recently but with Me Like Bees, The Travel Guide show scheduled, it looked like the perfect opportunity to head out.

Typically, we mostly cover KC bands but this week we've got a couple of great out-of-towners we thought you should keep on your radar for future shows.

The Travel Guide is a guitar driven, indie-rock band from Wichita, KS. They've played several shows up here in the last year or so, so they aren't unfamiliar with the KC scene, however, we had not had a chance to check them out.

Click to see more of the Travel Guide

Me Like Bees hails from Joplin, MO and has been making the rounds in KC more often recently including last month at CZAR opening for Not A Planet.  They've also hit up Lawrence recently too.  This four-piece group incorporates some extra percussion into their guitar heavy sound creating some different textual contrasts including the occasional xylophone part.

Click to see more Me Like Bees

Check back for more tomorrow!

4/20 at the Riot Room with Found A Job, Three Sons Green

Saturday night after a fabulous dinner at Julian, we headed over to Riot Room for some good tunes.  Found A Job, which is Molly Picture Club's Talking Heads tribute group opened up the night with a set of Talking Heads hits.  Three Sons Green followed up with a set of heavily jam-based tunes including a cover of Phish's "Birds Of A Feather".  Check it out below:

Click to see more Found A Job

Click to see more Three Sons Green

Check back for more music news!

Last friday at the Riot Room: St. Dallas & The Sinners, Megajoos, Cherokee Rock Rifle EP Release show

Last Friday was a hard-rockin' kind of night.  Heading down the Riot Room, we caught the St. Dallas & The Sinners, Megajoos, Cherokee Rock Rifle show.

The show opened with St Dallas & The Sinners, a local outfit steeped heavily in rockabilly, but never scared of going full punk even with a doghouse bass.  St Dallas put on a lively opening set.  The tunes were hard-charging, sometimes bluesy, sometimes punk, but overall great for drinkin' and rockin' on a Friday night..  Check them out for a good high-energy set of entertaining hard partying tunes.

Click to see more of St Dallas & The Sinners

Nashville-based duo Megajoos filled the middle set.  The duo consists of bass guitar and drums.  Don't start making any Black Keys comparisons. The fact their are two members are about where the similarities end.  Subject matter on songs varies but includes hilariously an acid trip at 2 AM.  Listening to their latest release "Mega Deuce" there's sounds of Motorhead with the distorted bass and pounding drums. Shades of Black Sabbath or King Crimson are heard on some of the slower heavy tracks.  It's a good exercise in what can be accomplished with low-end and driving drums.  This is definitely a band to check out.

Click to see more Megajoos

Cherokee Rock Rifle was performing in support of their newly released EP titled, "Ta-li" which is the Cherokee word for "two".  The EP features songs that have become mostly staples at CRR shows over the last year, but finally have been burned to disc.  It's good stuff.  You need to buy a copy and make the neighbor's mad when played at an appropriate volume.

Click to see the rest of Cherokee Rock Rifle

Check back tomorrow for Saturday's show at the Riot Room.

Spring For A Pit Benefit, last Saturday at the Record Bar

Last Saturday we went to the Spring For A Pit Benefit put on by M.OS.H Pit KC to help area pitbulls.  The event featured several local bands including: The Grand Marquis, The Filthy 13, Gentlemen Savage, The Pedaljets, and Dolls On Fire.  Check out the images below:

Click to see more of the Grand Marquis

Click to see more of the Filthy 13

Click to see more Gentlemen Savage

Click to see more of the Pedaljets

Click to see more Dolls On Fire