Take Em As They Come: Stole My Heart, John Velghe and the Prodigal Sons Build a Bigger Home.

“I’ve had the chance to say a lot of cool things into the microphone over the past couple of weeks but nothing as cool as what I’m about to say,” John Velghe stated, smiling and looking at the back of the house mid-set Saturday night.  Just returned from the South by Southwest (SXSW) Austin music conference, where he played with his old friend Alejandro Escovedo in a show with guests like Lenny Kaye and Garland Jeffreys and a surprise appearance by Peter Buck and Mike Mills, Velghe knew how much weight he was putting on whatever came next.

Abigail Henderson joins John Velghe and the Prodigal Sons for their version of "I Wanna Be Your Dog"

“I’d like Abigail Henderson and Chris Meck to come up,” he said, and the crowd at the Record Bar broke into applause, hoots and hollers. Henderson and Meck are the first couple of the largest community of interconnected musicians I’ve ever seen in Kansas City. Their organization, the Midwest Music Foundation, also just hosted its third annual MidCoast Takeover–this year featuring 32 of Kansas City’s finest performing for two straight days at Austin’s Shangri-La. The buzz from those shows has reverberated on many levels (32 band stories for starters), and they received a sizeable mention (and picture) in USA Today.

But this moment was about the stand-out performance on John Velghe’s debut solo EP released last year, his duet with Henderson on a cover of Iggy Pop’s “I Wanna Be Your Dog.”  Everyone on earth plays that song for the broiling assault it wants to be, but Henderson and Velghe hold back.  Saturday night, as on the record, they luxuriated in the sensuous simmer of the thing, Meck providing an equally controlled guitar part, shimmering stardust, hinting at a crown nebula.

Eventually, Velghe’s guitarist Mike Alexander [I hope a relation] began to push the song toward a rock crescendo, and everyone–Henderson and Velghe included–performed the final refrains with building bravado. Almost as soon as the song began to sound like the Stooges (or Jett or Escovedo), it came to an end.  This was the Henderson/Velghe version, and nothing outshines that thing they can do. [I hear Escovedo did Henderson's part at SXSW, and I'm sure it was great, but it wasn't that.]

The pop impulse is an effort to open the door to those who are shut out.  Some punks may not remember why we were drawn to that music in the first place, but Paul Weller, Paul Westerberg and [Bruce Springsteen] do. The rock and roll circus canvas was held open for them by the likes of Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Smokey Robinson and John Lennon–the biggest tent artists imaginable.

Velghe descends from that line, particularly the way John Lennon could take all the enormity and raw power of the rock and roll that came before him and deliver it in a lullaby. Both that scope of vision and that intimacy, after all, are the elements that most obviously connect Lennon to Velghe’s mentor Alejandro Escovedo

To say Saturday night’s show was, first and foremost, heralding the first CD by John Velghe and the Prodigal Sons (Don’t Let Me Stay) is also to say the show was about mixing things up.  After all, the Prodigal Sons (“and daughters” as Velghe pointed out, since two different women performed with the band live, and three play on the album) features guitars from the punk band Hipshot Killers propelled by the drums that give (first) name to Mike Dillon’s self-described “jazz, funk, rock, crunk” Go-Go Jungle, Mr. GoGo Ray.  The Sons’ three horns come from funky hip hop big-band Hearts of Darkness, reggae’s New Riddim and the night’s opener, Diverse, a jazz band born out of Bobby Watson’s UMKC program and intent on reinvigorating the sound of Kansas City. Lawrence-raised singer-songwriter, Kirsten Paludan joined Velghe on the mic numerous times, as she does on the album, and cello and violin players came from, respectively, the UMKC conservatory and Missouri Western. This intersection between traditional and avant garde jazz, funk, punk, reggae, and classical all merge seamlessly in Velghe’s music.

In some ways, that story’s in the artists he covers.  That night, Velghe and family covered the Jam at that band’s greatest pop moment, The Gift, with the song ”Town Called Malice”; and they covered the Replacements at that band’s greatest pop moment, Pleased to Meet Me, with the song that serves as the apex of that moment, “I Can’t Hardly Wait,” and they covered Bruce Springsteen with a song that could also be given the same distinction, “Hungry Heart.”  Velghe introduced that song, dedicating it to the Ramones (for whom Springsteen wrote it), underscoring the pop impulse at the heart of most rock revolutions. The pop impulse is an effort to open the door to those who are shut out.  Some punks may not remember why we were drawn to that music in the first place, but Paul Weller, Paul Westerberg and that guy from Jersey do. The rock and roll circus canvas was held open for them by the likes of Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Smokey Robinson and John Lennon–the biggest tent artists imaginable.

Velghe descends from that line, particularly the way John Lennon could take all the enormity and raw power of the rock and roll that came before him and deliver it in a lullaby. Both that scope of vision and that intimacy, after all, are the elements that most obviously connect Lennon to Velghe’s mentor Alejandro Escovedo in part by way of Ian Hunter and Mott the Hoople (so, then, yes, David Bowie, too).  Those same elements tie Lennon to Alex Chilton and both of them to the Clash and Velghe’s early and apparent inspiration, Paul Westerberg and the Replacements.

You can hear all those folks in Velghe’s CD (which I had to, I mean needed to) buy at the show.  But you can’t really isolate them.  Suffice it to say, “I Can’t Hardly Wait”–with all of its punching horn urgency and almost crippling vulnerability–would fit beautifully on this record.  For me, though, the song that sums up where this line can go is maybe the record’s quietest moment, “Iron Skin.” That one is a lullaby, a dark and seemingly ancient lullaby, all the more beautiful for the way it fingers despair.

From beginning to end, Don’t Let Me Stay, is a warm and brilliant record.  It starts off diffidently flirting with the risk of relationships, having lived long enough to know things tend to end badly.  By mid-record, it’s finding comfort in the fact of hope on the country-flavored “Heaven’s Waitress” and the ability to dream on the exuberant rocker “Austin (You Sorta Stole My Heart).”  After the climactic paranoia of “Owe My Soul” and the wounded triumph of “Mumbling Town” (a riot act aimed at indirectness), the last three songs sing of solidarity in the face of loss. The characters in these songs have pieces gone forever, but as this closes, they’ve found ways to work with the contradictions and the pain.  Ghosts, too, are part of this community, a rock and roll town pitted against malice.

I write a lot about community, so much so that I worry about using the word for fear of being cliched.  I’m not sure I’ve ever written the names Abigail Henderson and Chris Meck without attaching that concept, which is one reason they are heroes of mine, so much so I grow self conscious in their presence.  As Velghe’s record recognizes from verse one, part of life is that we let each other down. Whatever approximates redemption lies in how we fight forward together anyway. John Velghe and the Prodigal Sons, in their live show and on record, embody that vision as only the finest groups can.

Postscript:  One of the many highlights of the show that can’t go unmentioned came as an opening act.  Hermon Mehari’s trumpet adds plaintive, searching touches to many of Velghe’s songs when he plays his role of Prodigal Son (particularly on “The Occupier,” “Assume the Ground,” and “Mumbling Town”), but his band Diverse Trio delivered an exciting opening set.  Both bassist Ben Leifer and drummer Ryan Lee maintain the urgency of each moment while making sure the band swings.  Mehari, meanwhile, manages to eloquently state beautiful melodies while playing with a sense of boundaries as daring as any free jazz.  That set closed with Kirsten Paludan and John Velghe coming out for one song before Hearts of Darkness frontman Les Izmore and drummer Brad Williams (Ryan Lee went to keyboards) managed to turn the house out with anthemic KC hip hop. Expect a Diverse blog in the not-too-distant future. I needed to buy that CD, too!

The Prodigal Sons and Daughters, once again (cause a couple only got indirect mention and everyone deserves it)–

John Velghe, singing with a guitar
Mike Alexander, lead guitar
Chris Wagner, bass
GoGo Ray, drums
Hermon Mehari, trumpet
Sam Hughes, saxophone
Mike Walker, trombone
Kirsten Paludan, vocals
James Mitchell, cello
Katie Benyo, violin (live)
Whitney Williamson, violin (on record)
Catherine Root, violin (on record)

Earlier in the evening, the Austin-based Escovedo took the stage prior to his own late-night set to join Kansas City, Mo.-area band John Velghe & The Prodigal Sons to perform a slowed, dreamy version of The Stooges’ I Wanna Be Your Dog.

An earnest songwriter and frontman, Velghe also sang a song entitled Austin (You Sorta Stole My Heart) that he says he wrote the year before out on the street on which the Continental Club resides. “Made a wish upon South Congress, pray to neon they might have us throw a penny in that pool of soul, let’s go,” the song went.

Velghe & The Prodigal Sons were just one of the more than a dozen bands and performers who took the stage during the 13 hour-plus music marathon.

http://www.continentalclub.com/Austin/Confidential/sxswAlejandro2012.html

$20 – NO ADVANCE TICKETS, NO Badge or wristband required or accepted

Must be 21+ and able to provide valid ID

Presents

Alejandro Escovedo & Friends

http://polls.pitch.com/polls/kcp/musicshowcase/vote/

There are great artists nominated in each category and my nomination would never had been possible if it weren’t for the work of the Prodigal Sons: Chris Wagner, Mike Alexander, Dan Dumit, Michael Walker, Sam Hughes and (newest Prodigal Son) Go Go Ray (on the drum kit).

Every nominee affirms that the term “local act” is about as far from a pejorative as it gets when you live in Kansas City.  I’ve been lucky enough to tour and play with a lot of local acts in other cities; KC is nurturing more talent than most other places.  I’m really excited about what this city is putting on the stage night after night.

Besides being named, the real honor was in the fact that Ray Padgett and Company truly took the time to listen and embraced the place I tried to come from in recording this version of Iggy’s song.  Iggy Pop is, for me, more than a legendary rock performer, more than  the swagger and brashness he’s known for.  You can’t write songs like Iggy did without a tremendous amount of sensitivity and honesty.

So to the folks at Cover Me, not only do I say thanks for the acknowledgement, but thank you so much for appreciating where Iggy was coming from.

What they said:

10. I Wanna Be Your Dog (The Stooges cover)
John Velghe
Download MP3
There are few phrases in the English language less romantic than “I wanna be your dog.” John Velghe and duet partner Abigail Henderson turn Iggy’s grimey assault on its head, though, discovering unlikely beauty in lines like “So messed up, I want you here / In my room, I want you here.” If Velghe sang this to you, you’d let him be any animal he wanted.

Please come to both nights if you can, one if you can’t or donate to the Midwest Music Foundation if you can’t make either.

 

In 2008, local Musician Abigail Henderson was diagnosed with stage III inflammatory breast cancer.  The music community rallied to help her holding a series of benefits called “Apocalypse Meow”.  Two years later she’s alive and still singing.

Apocalypse Meow 3 grew out of that initial benefit and the Midwest Music Foundation has taken up the cause. Apocalypse Meow 3 is the annual event held by the Midwest Music Foundation to help raise money for a Musician’s Health Care Fund for artists living and working in Kansas City and the surrounding areas.  The MMF aims to create mechanisms where the collective musical community can gain affordable access to health care.

Music is a job, not something one does instead of getting one.  Music—making it, producing it, recording it, showcasing it, selling it—is an important part of the cultural make-up of Kansas City and the surrounding areas.  It is a rare thing to be truly moved by a song, a piece of music, or a performance. On any stage in this fair town of ours, any night of the week, someone is moving someone.  Music does that.  Something new is created.  Something old is reborn.  Be it the rock show or the jazz club, the music in this town stands toe-to-toe with New York, LA, and Austin.  The people who make up its community should have the mechanisms in place to take care of themselves in order to continue to pursue their art.  

Friday night’s pre-party at the Midwestern Musical Co. features John Velghe & His Prodigal Sons andAtlantic Fadeout.  Rock posters from Hammerpress, Peregrine Honig, Eric Lindquist, Tyson Schroeder, Jud Kite & many more will be up for sale.  We will also have an original piece of artwork from Peregrine Honig up on display that will be auctioned off at Saturday night’s main event at The Riot Room.  Saturday night includes performances from McMilian/Easterday, Walkenhorst & Porter, Vi Tran Band, Adam Lee & The Dead Horse Sound Co., Mark Lowrey v. Hip Hop, Sons of Great Dane, Cherokee Rock Rifle and The Roman Numerals.  Robert Moore & DJ Rockwell will also be spinning all night long between sets.  Festivities also include a raffle with amazing prizes including an Epiphone guitar, and auction items from local businesses like Midwestern Musical Co., Peregrine Honig and more.  There will be a bake sale, because what would a rock-n-roll Saturday night be without cookies?

 

EVENT DETAILS

Apocalypse Meow 3 Pre-Party
Friday, November 5, 7 PM

Come out Friday night to Midwestern Musical Company to the Apocalypse Meow 3 Pre-Party with John Velghe & His Prodigal Sons and Atlantic Fadeout.  This annual event, sponsored by the Midwest Music Foundation, will be raising money for the Musician’s Health Care Fund.  Rock posters from Hammerpress, Peregrine Honig, Eric Lindquist, Tyson Schroeder, Jud Kite & many more will be up for sale.  We will also have an original piece of artwork from Peregrine Honig up on display that will be auctioned off at Saturday night’s main event at The Riot Room. 

Midwestern Musical Co.
1830 Locust KCMO 64108
816.931.6962
www.midwesternmusic.com
www.apocalypsemeow.net

Apocalypse Meow 3
Saturday, November 6, 6 PM

Apocalypse Meow 3 is the annual event held by the Midwest Music Foundation to help raise money for a Musician’s health care fund for artists living and working in Kansas City and the surrounding areas.  The MMF aims to create mechanisms where the collective musical community can gain affordable access to health care.  Saturday night includes performances from McMilian/Easterday, Walkenhorst & Porter, Vi Tran Band, Adam Lee & The Dead Horse Sound Co., Mark Lowrey v. Hip Hop, Sons of Great Dane, Cherokee Rock Rifle and The Roman Numerals.  Robert Moore & DJ Rockwell will also be spinning all night long between sets.  Festivities also include lots of raffles including an Epiphone guitar, and auction items from local businesses like Midwestern Musical Co., Peregrine Honig and more.  There will be a bake sale, because what would a rock-n-roll Saturday night be without cookies? 

The Riot Room
4048 Broadway, Kansas City, MO 64111
816.442.8177
www.theriotroom.com
www.apocalypsemeow.net

As a friend pointed out (and I’m paraphrasing here) there is nothing tragic about Chilton’s death.  That it’s really amazing that Chilton had a wonderful life and inspired so many people.  And that his work spoke to and for so many of us.

When I think back on my relationship with Alex Chilton’s work, a couple of things stand out.

Jim and Matt

Almost 20 years ago today I walked into a little music store in Mission Kansas called Midwestern Music Company.  I was (did I just say “was?”) a typical, horrible guitar player, looking for a distortion pedal to make me sound better.  So I was naturally intimidated and scared shitless by this whole process and the guys in there.  While the tall, long-haired dude brought me a yellow Boss distortion pedal to try, the shorter blonde guy with thick glasses just watched me.  When I shit my way through some chords he sort of laughed and walked back into the back room.  I can’t remember if I ever bought the yellow pedal (I don’t think I ever actually bought anything there) but I do know the whole experience ruined me from going back in there for a good six months.   In those six months I managed to get a copy of Big Star’s #1 Record.  I listened to it, gushed openly over every note, and learned to play every riff I could.  So when I went back in to that little music store the first thing I did was play (badly) the opening riff to “Feel.”

The blonde guy with the thick glasses leaned inside the doorway to the back room looking at my hands, took a slow drag of his cigarette, and, breathing in, said “Big Star.  Cool.”  – no laughing, this was deadly serious.  That is how I met and came to be friends with Jim Strahm and Matt Kesler.  Over the next several years we talked Chilton, Westerberg, Clem Burk, The Beat, and all these great pop musicians.   My relationship with Jim and Matt and Midwestern Music kept me playing music and writing songs to this day.  Always at the foundation of our musical relationship was Alex Chilton.   It’s safe to say if I hadn’t heard Chilton and Big Star I might never have met some of the most important people in my life.  He embodies that one thing music does for so many of us; it is a thing through which we form long-lasting relationships; through which we fall in love with the people in our world over and over again.

Jody Stephens

Several years ago, again almost to this day, Juj and I took a trip to Memphis Tennessee.  It was right around my birthday and we took the dogs.  I was dead set on visiting Ardent Studios.  So, one afternoon we went.  I walked in and told them woman, “yeah, um, I was hoping to have a look around.  I’d like to record here.”  She smiled at us a smile that said “we get this all the time,” and picked up the phone; “Hey.  There’s a gentleman here who would like to look around?  Okay.”

She hung up, “Joe will be right up and he’ll show you around.”  And in walked this tall guy who looked so familiar.  He said “hey, I’m Joe.  Wanna look around?”  I said sure, awestruck to be in Ardent Studios.  He said he had a few minutes before an important appointment and he could show me the place. First we saw the “A” control room and said “yeah, this is where REM recorded Green and the Replacements mixed whatever that album was in here.”  Next he showed me the “B” room “now in here is where Westerberg puked on the ceiling.”  and he pointed to the top of a 20-foot wall “RIGHT over there.  You can see it.”    We both stood there in silence staring at the stains on the ceiling.  Me: “How in the hell….?”  Joe: “Yeah.  I . . . I have no idea.”

We walked around a little more and talked about Studers and consols, kitchens and Jim Dickinson.  And he apologized for having the cut the tour short but he had a commitment.  When we walked out to the lobby it was empty so Joe grabbed a folder with the Ardent Logo on the front and a business card and handed them to me.  We walked outside and he looked at a woman standing in the parking lot and said “There you are.” Juj was playing in the parking lot with two huge Collies who immediately turned and ran up to Joe.  Turns out the woman was Joe’s wife.  The two had a date to take the dogs to the park and they both apologized again for having to “be so short.”

We chatted a few more minutes about things to do in Memphis.  I told him I was a huge Big Star fan and he said “oh, if you’re in to those guys there’s a place called Shangri-la records over here that has a bunch of posters and records and stuff.”  He was gracious, asked me to call him if I ever needed anything or was coming back in town and the two of them told us a few other things to do in Memphis.

Juj and I got back in the car and I looked in the folder.  The business card read “Jody Stephens – Studio Manager.”  I was stunned.  ”THAT WAS FUCKING JODY FUCKING STEPHENS!”  Jody Stephens had just given me a guided tour of Ardent Studios, and I was so star-struck by the place that I didn’t even recognize the man (I’d only seen pictures of him from almost 30 years prior).  He never once said anything about himself, Big Star or anything.  He never expected that I should recognize him even as I gushed over his band that changed my life.  This was Jody Stephens — his big important appointment was with his wife and dogs.  The kindest, most unassuming musician I’ve ever met.  The fact that he and Alex Chilton stayed friends throughout their life — when musicians with far lesser reasons for egotism and anger can’t even stand to be in a city together — says all you need to know about Chilton and Stephens as people.

I owe a lot of my life to the people I’ve met through music — I’m no different than anyone else in this regard.  I’m just really fortunate that I’ve been able to fall in love over and over again with the world and the people in it and that Alex Chilton’s music helped me hold on to that world, and those people.

Thanks, Alex, for all of them.

Years ago, my heart was set to live, oh
And I’ve been trying hard against unbelievable odds
It gets so hard in times like now to hold on
But guns they wait to be stuck by, at my side is God

And there ain’t no one goin’ to turn me ’round
Ain’t no one goin’ to turn me ’round

There’s people around who tell you that they know
And places where they send you and it’s easy to go
They’ll zip you up and dress you down and stand you in a row
But you know you don’t have to, you can just say, “No”

There ain’t no one goin’ to turn me ’round
Ain’t no one goin’ to turn me ’round

Ain’t no one goin’ to turn me ’round
Ain’t no one goin’ to turn me ’round

I’ve been built up and trusted, broke down and busted
But they’ll get theirs and we will get ours if you can

Just to hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on

Years ago, my heart was set to live, oh
And I’ve been trying hard against strong odds
It gets so hard at times like now to hold on
Well, I’ll fall if I don’t fight, and at my side is God

And there ain’t no one goin’ to turn me ’round
Ain’t no one goin’ to turn me ’round

Ain’t no one goin’ to turn me ’round
Ain’t no one goin’ to turn me ’round

Hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on

Songwriters don’t make history; they sing it. And if the song isn’t pretty — if it’s too loud, its message is mixed, its tempo is feverish, and its tone is threatening and ominous — look at the life around you. History is singing. Don’t try to stop the song. Right or wrong, the song is inevitable. It’s a photograph. And all of us are posing for it.

Arthur Hamilton

Jay Bennett in the studio

Jay’s work on the Wilco stuff was remarkable for what he brought to a band that had previously made pretty good songs, clever lyrics, but the arrangements and instrumentation wasn’t there yet.  Jay Bennett changed all that.  He made Wilco into the band I grew to love, immitate, admire, and emulate.  Summer Teeth continues to be a record I go to whenever I start a new recording project. Jeff Tweedy’s clearly a great songwriter, but what Jay brought to the band in terms of instrumentation, arrangement, is what really made Wilco the amazing band they are today.

Jay died last week while I was on a motorcycle trip and incommunicado.  I came back to town and found a message from a freind mourning the death of Jay.  We don’t know the cause of his death, and clearly Jay was much too young to leave us.  I’d been really enjoying his solo work of late and following a legal fight over the royalties to some music from his Wilco days.  Jay Bennett was a loving man, the night I met him he was so kind and I half-wonder if the idea of suing his old friend and collaborator Jeff Tweedy didn’t really crush him in ways few of us will ever understand.

In the end, Jay Bennett was one of my musical heroes.  He met his end in his studio, Pieholden Suites.  Fitting, I suppose.

We’ll miss you, Jay.

Love, John

When Mac McCaughan, one of my favorite song writers, wrote those lyrics, I don’t think he realized he was describing the plight of a film composer.

Fifteen minutes into scoring The Next American Dream and one thing is certain, one good minute really can last me the whole year.  Without getting too much into the minutia of the process, it’s amazing how far many different directions one minute of music composition can carry you.  A few well-chosen chords, and the right melody can lead you in so many different directions.

The key to the whole thing is finding that one good minute.   Finding the minute in the film, and hearing what it sounds like.  What song it’s singing.  Then, you let that one good minute lead you through the film musically.

I’m not trying to make this sound like it’s rocket science, because it’s not.  It’s not “easy” per se, it’s just that you have to listen.