JPEGMAFIA, the cult artist responsible for the possible album of the year, performed at the Granada in Lawrence, Kansas, on Wednesday, March 29. I opted for a different rap show. Two rap shows, actually.

I paid $15 for admittance to the serendipitously titled Farewell to Rap tour at Farewell. The cover charge for a bill of noise-rappers a few steps away at Howdy was $10. My quick impressions of all eight acts in the order of their appearances:

Young Mvchetes- Good ideas. Iffy execution.
Laaee Uzumak- Mainstream Kaycee rap.
Defo- Even before he told me he was from Minneapolis, I detected Doomtree vibes from the rapper.
Student 1- Ingratiating Minnesotan.
Tricky Youth- Industrial shock rapper replete with an incense incantation and a literal blood ritual.
Tabby- Slick pop.
Midwestern- The only act I’d previously seen and a factor in my decision not to go to Lawrence, the duo’s manic performance floored me.
Ghais Guevara- The leftist Philly rapper merits consideration from Top Dawg Entertainment.

Four rap enthusiasts drove 50 miles from JPEGMAFIA’s concert to catch the final 20 minutes of Ghai Guevara’s gig. Their dedication inspired me. Yet no matter how good Peggy was, I’m confident I made the right choice.

William Brownlee

March 29, 2023

Opera Review: The Metropolitan Opera’s “The Hours”

William Brownlee

March 29, 2023

Original image by There Stands the Glass.

I correctly assumed the Metropolitan Opera’s world premiere production of "The Hours" would eventually make its way to PBS. What I didn’t anticipate is how difficult the opera would be to watch. The unflinching depiction of hopeless despair is unbearably grim. I repeatedly paused the three-hour broadcast lest I fall into a sympathetic depression. The three stars- Joyce DiDonato, Renée Fleming and Kelli O’Hara- portray the suicidal gloom devised by Kevin Puts and librettist Greg Pierce, based on a novel by Michael Cunningham and inspired by the work and life of Virginia Woolf, with upsetting fidelity. Everything about “The Hours” is outstanding- and that’s why it’s almost unendurable.

William Brownlee

March 26, 2023

Laura Schuler Quartet- Sueños Paralelos

William Brownlee

March 26, 2023

Almost everything about Sueños Paralelos sounds wrong. Drummer Lionel Friedli could be auditioning for a rock band. Hans-Peter Pfammatter’s synthesizer belongs in an avant-prog ensemble. The storied saxophonist Tony Malaby and Swiss violinist Laura Schuler get tangled up like competitive kite fighters. The quartet’s rude, unpolished anti-jazz is a combative rebuttal to the codified, calcified realm of mainstream improvised music.

William Brownlee

March 22, 2023

Album Review: Nick Schnebelen- What Key Is Trouble In?

William Brownlee

March 22, 2023

I’m going to meet up with a few buddies tomorrow. Our conversation will inevitably turn to Kansas City’s music scene. Few of my pals share my affinity for improvised music, so my advocacy of new albums by the likes of Mike Dillon and Torches Mauve won’t be appreciated.

A couple guys will also dismiss my admiration of Nick Schnebelen’s latest release. Succeeding in its humble mission to provide an hour of good-time blues-rock, What Key Is Trouble In? is a bracing shot of undiluted Kansas City spirit.

A tribute to the venerable blooze purveyors Ten Years After sets the hard-driving tone. The rest of the original down-and-dirty compositions performed by the guitarist’s trio are bolstered by Schnebelen’s searing solos. Keyboards, organ and saxophone supplement a few tracks.

My friends will likely point out What Key Is Trouble In? is simply more of the same straightforward, no-frills boogie Schnebelen has been creating as a solo artist and with Trampled Under Foot for more than 20 years. They’ll be right- and that’s precisely what makes the album emblematic of our town.

William Brownlee

March 16, 2023

Concert Review: CRAG Quartet at the Bunker Center for the Arts

William Brownlee

March 16, 2023

I didn’t include The Bunker Center for the Arts in the feature I recently wrote for KCUR about music venues in Kansas City. Yet there was nowhere I would rather have been on Tuesday, March 14.

A stellar array of new music improvisers performed at the art gallery. The three-part concert opened with a riveting set by saxophonist Benjamin Baker, guitarist Seth Andrew Davis, bassist Krista Kopper and drummer Evan Verploegh.

Davis and Verploegh are the reigning Plastic Sax People of the Year. Almost every time I hear the core members of the Extemporaneous Music and Arts Society of Kansas City- and that’s been about a dozen times in the past 12 months- I think it’s their best outing to date. The simmering improvisation on Tuesday was no exception.

Guitarist Joshua Gerowitz and multi-instrumentalist Vinny Golia played next. The serpentine extemporizations of the Los Angeles based artists were striking, partly because Golia possesses a swagger that makes him the free jazz version of Ronnie James Dio.

The touring band CRAG Quartet headlined. Golia, violinist/composer Christian Asplund (violinist/composer), Steve Ricks (trombone/electronics) and Ron Coulter (percussion) made a stupendous racket that sometimes resembled an emergency siren. And as with many of the most imaginative new music improvisers, their playing possessed a delightful undercurrent of humor.

William Brownlee

March 12, 2023

Festival Review: Electronic Music Midwest

William Brownlee

March 12, 2023

Free admission. Set changes of two minutes or less. Superlative surround sound. Attentive audiences. Comfortable seating. There was a lot to like about the Electronic Music Midwest’s festival at Kansas City Kansas Community College on March 10 and 11.

I treated the event as a low-key approximation of the post-genre Big Ears Festival as I attended the first, fifth and eighth of the festival’s eight concerts. The absence of star power and brief sets were the only liabilities.

I was previously familiar with only a couple of the performers. And there wasn’t much time to get to know them. Most outings were between five and 15 minutes.

My understanding is that all of the festival’s participants are affiliated with academic institutions. Consequently, the industrial rock was congenial, the beats were civil, the screaming was artful and the sound collages were crisp.

The genteel decorum meant that everything presented was quite good, but few offerings felt revolutionary. The deployment of motion-activated gametrack controllers by Xinglan Deng and Sunhuimei Xia in separate demonstrations were wondrous exceptions.

I also admired Heather Pryse’s fusion of flute, voice and electronics. Nathan Krueger’s rendering of Ed Martin’s hilarious aria “The Future” was similarly striking. Alas, the festival will be held in the Chicago area next year. It’s tempting.

William Brownlee

March 7, 2023

Album Review: Morgan Wallen- One Thing at a Time

William Brownlee

March 7, 2023

Car trips and country music are synonymous to me. Country has been an integral component of almost every extended drive I’ve taken. My old man, a genuine king of the road, would blast Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard and George Jones songs on the radio when I was a toddler.

A looped stream of Morgan Wallen’s new 36-track album One Thing at a Time provided the soundtrack for my drive from Kentucky to Kansas this week. At nearly two hours, it’s ideal for the long haul.

The metropolitan sprawl of St. Louis excepted, the majority of my drive passed through the idyllic back-country Wallen croons about. A significant portion of his new batch of songs address substance abuse and loss, subjects necessitating unrestrained singalongs.

Even the songs referencing Waylon Jennings, The Marshall Tucker Band, Gary Stewart and Keith Whitley possess the slick sheen of radio rock acts like Shinedown. The bright production cuts through the loud hum of the road. I’m almost looking forward to the grueling drive to Denver this summer.

William Brownlee

March 5, 2023

Fuel

William Brownlee

March 5, 2023

Hunter S. Thompson is alleged to have said that “music has always been a matter of energy to me, a question of fuel.” My current base of operations in Louisville, Kentucky, is 15 blocks from Thompson’s childhood home. The sabbatical hasn’t been infused with an excess of “fuel.” I’ve taken in only six performances in the last ten days. But before any more of the month slips away, I should link to the 10 Kansas City concerts you don't want to miss this March feature I created for KCUR. Cheers from Derby City.