via John Velghe: The TVD First Date | The TVD Storefront.

“When it comes to vinyl, any nostalgia derived from memories of nosing around my family’s record collection or conning my grandma into taking me to Bernstein-Applebee isn’t nearly as meaningful as the hours and hours I spent flipping through albums in the bins at an indie record store in Kansas City during my 20s.”

“I’ve had some great mentors in my musical life. Alejandro Escovedo taught me rock-n-roll. Charat Chandra taught me how to develop characters. But it was Anne Winter who – through vinyl – taught me (and many others) the human coalescence of music. Anne and her husband, Kurt Von Schlemmer, owned Recycled Sounds (or, as we called it, “Dirt Cheap Records”). For musicians and music fans in Kansas City during the ‘90s, Recycled Sounds was where we discovered music.”

You couldn’t walk into her shop without Anne giving you the low-down on the next band coming through KC, handing you a used record that she’d held for you, or playing you a new record that was in your wheelhouse. Anne and her crew did what chain stores never could; they got to know their customers, befriended them, respected their tastes, and fed them a steady diet of records that would become the most important possessions they owned.

Recycled Sounds closed in 2006. At the time, it was easy to chalk it up as yet another blow to the music community due to both the impersonal nature of the digital era as well as the stupidity of the corporate-music system. A few years later, Anne died. There was nothing easy about that. Her death was a huge loss for the collective music soul of not only Kansas City but for cities like Austin, Chicago, Minneapolis, and New York as well. Any road an out-of-town musician took to play a venue in KC would eventually lead to Recycled Sounds.

On the October morning when I learned Anne died, I went to my old record player – untouched in months – and found sitting on the platter the first record she recommended to me, Only Life by The Feelies. I played that record and tried to make sense of what had happened in her passing; it felt like nothing short of a death blow to our music community.

Looking back now, that period between losing the store and losing Anne looks more like a “spiral” – the spiral is the section on a record where one song ends and another one is about to begin. The spiral is the one place left on earth where you can see silence—reflecting on what you just experienced while simultaneously anticipating what’s coming next.

 When it came time this year to release my first solo record, there was only one thing I knew for sure—it had to come out on vinyl. This meant I finally had to get a turntable worthy of hearing my own first test pressing. So I bought a Thorens TD160, rehabbed it, and began to clean my records.

 I’d forgotten how many of those records were marked with Anne’s sticker: “Dirt Cheap VG.” Hundreds of records, all with a story of how they came to be mine. These albums are connected to people in the same way each song on a side is connected in one, continuous sine wave. That’s what records and record stores mean to me. They are about people. From the people who made them to the people who gave them to me, all of them motivated by nothing but a sincere love of this art form. All they asked for in return was a dirt cheap price.

Richard Powers wrote, “Surely if two people love the same thing, they must love each other a little.” I think that explains how records and record stores bring people together. The greatest bonds I have with people are made of the c(h)ords of music. And, inevitably, in every relationship, there comes a spiral – the moment of visible silence where we all simultaneously reflect on what we’ve just experienced and anticipate what’s about to come. But, when we come together to experience what we love, we bind ourselves together like songs on a side and, maybe, love each other just a little.”

The entire record is now streaming on our BandCamp page.  Check it out here: Don’t Let Me Stay | John Velghe.

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)

“It is a gem of a pop record, rich in melodies and harmonies, embroidered tastefully with strings, guitars, horns, keyboards, the occasional mandolin. It rocks hard and sways gently. It is softly lit in some places, bright and brash in others.”

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.

This started out as an attempt to kill two birds with one stone: test some expired film and — assuming the film was still good — document my guitars with that film for insurance purposes. It morphed into a documentation of the guitars and other instruments still in my possession that I’ve played on various records over the past 15 years. Some not pictured have been given as gifts, some sold, and some stolen (pour some liquor out). I’ll probably keep adding to this as I find more film that needs to be checked. (there’s a lot of it). All of these are shot on a used Canon A1 35mm camera I was given for high school graduation by my father. Generally they’re shot on 100iso film developed in Rodinal. But, as experimentation permits other films and developers will be used.