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

It is at this very moment that Don’t Let Me Stay becomes more than an alt-country or Americana record, and begins to brazenly reveal flashes of the Big Star and Replacements influences that drove Velghe to begin creating music in the first place.

Come see us play with Alejandro Escovedo and Friends Saturday 3/17/12 at Maria’s Taco Xpress.

Or, come to Alejandro’s SXSW Closing Show at The Continental Club on Sunday 3/18/12.

More details on our Shows page 

02/10/12: Katy and Go-Go / John Velghe + More @ RecordBar « Riot on the Plaza.

When I wrote these songs they were in a nutshell.   On a cassette tape here, a voicemail message there, chords, words, melodies.  Demoing them amounted to a basic 4/4 beat and singing and playing into a mic.  A couple were never demo’d at all, instead committed from head to mic on the fly.  (something I swear to stop doing, do, regret, and end up sticking with thanks to the feedback of some great friends)  Each of the folks who played on these songs added something to it; like a kilner, stillman, and a blender.

I purposely went into this recording process without a finished product in my head.  A dicey proposition, but I’ve gotten to the point that I know “the thing” when I hear it.  Besides, going into a studio with full faith in the people you are playing with makes it a lot easier to stand or fall by the outcome.

So we’re here.  The tracking board has only a few empty boxes where the Xs go.  Mics have been aimed, Vox tubes blown, compressor knees flexed, mic ribbons tickled, cigarettes smoked, and spirits consumed.  15 songs in and there are some amazing parts committed to sine waves assembled from 1′s and 0′s.

We’ll complete tracking next week.  Then the songs will get rough mixed and will sit, like a good rye whiskey.

Mixing will happen in late September.  From there, it’s up to the drinkers of this little world to take it all in, put their woozy heads to bed and dream the dreams we hoped they would.

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.