November 30, 2023 • 33 mins
Host Will Dailey takes us on a tour of live music spots in the city of Kansas City, MO Want to chat about the music in your city? Hit us up on:
- Instagram: @DoubleElvis @WillDaileyOfficial
Sound of Our Town is a production of Double Elvis and iHeartRadio
We are Executive Produced by Jake Brennan, Brady Sadler for Double Elvis.
Production assistance by Matt Beaudoin. Created, written, hosted and scored by Will Dailey.
Head writer on EP11 is Caitlin White
Music for this episode composed and performed by Will Dailey. Check out Will’s music:
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Double Elvis, Kansas City is the birthplace of Charlie Parker,
which makes it fair to say the birthplace of jazz
as we know it now, or at least the best
of what's left of jazz in twenty twenty three. The
(00:24):
River city is home to a legend, and no one
looms larger in the myth of jazz than Charlie Bird Parker.
The myth of Parker is and was emblematic of our
toxic cultural storyline that the public craves to project onto
the life of the artist. Though when it comes to Parker,
the myths are kind of true. He ushered in bebop
(00:47):
and upset Louis Armstrong and jazz's stiff old guard. You see,
there's always a previous generation of musicians not getting it,
and Bird changed music itself in the process. He was
also an archetype of the doomed artist that we needlessly
still witness to this day. Parker was sonic, exhilaration and
access to the point of tragedy. He was talent built
(01:09):
on hard work, so much hard work that the phrase
wood shedding aka practicing ten or more hours each day
was basically taken from his practicing lifestyle bird is America,
So of course he came from Kansas City.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
I listened to you time and time again, and you
tell me just what's right? Can you tell me a
thousand things a day? Then sleep somewhere else at night.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
I'm going back to Kansas City, and I love.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
You, dear, But just how long can I keep singing
the same old song?
Speaker 1 (01:47):
I'm going back to Kansas City. Bob Doyling unreleased basement
tape Lyrics Kansas City. People love to think of the
Midwest as landlocked, but the first thing you should know
about Kansas City is that it supports city a major
(02:10):
hub the confluence of the Missouri and Kansas rivers, and
that's a huge part of why it was such an
integral part of early American industry and trade. The way
Paris is split by the Sin, Kansas City is split
by the Missouri River, and that's not the only thing
that two cities have in common either. Omaha based radio
personality Edward Morrow, a star journalist of the era, summed
(02:32):
up the American attitude towards Kansas City and its jazz
scene in the nineteen thirties with the following commentary, if
you want to see some sin, forget Paris and go
to Kansas City. I think he meant it as a dig,
but retrospectively, what a compliment. And back then Casey was
known as the Paris of the Plains, exempt from prohibition
(02:54):
rules due to the influence of political boss Tommy Pendergast,
who allowed alcohol to be sold in assumed there surrounded
by dry counties, and already a central hub for folks
traveling across the country and domestic shipping. The allure of
America's own Paris was partially based on its underbelly nightlife,
and isn't that always where all throughout history the greatest
(03:16):
musicians have found their people. Musicians came to the city
to play these clubs where patrons stuck around longer because
they could drink. And since there was a growing demand
for patrons and a plethora of musicians, more and more
jazz clubs opened a musical boom and bus cycle in
the Midwest that had a positive effect. Fronts from the
Green Lady Lounge to the Midland Theater, Knucklehead Saloon and
(03:39):
Grinder's k C. Plenty of these iconic stages are still
going strong. Rivers aren't the only thing that split the city. Either.
The state line is another dichotomy forming force, and some
people think that straddling a state line is bad for
a city, But all it really does, in the case
of KC, is proved how much more powerful the spirit
(04:00):
of a city is than the stratified confines we try
to project onto it. Missouri, Kansas these both fall away
and melt into the heart that is the roiling, melting
pot of case. And just for the record, because I
know they we're going to want to hear this, Kansas City,
Missouri technically came first. States, cities, countries. These are man
(04:24):
made designations anyway, except sometimes places like Kansas City become
their own kind of universe. And in case, no matter
which side of the state lines you're on, the center
of that universe is jazz. And it's given us that
and so much more, including Count Basie Orchestra, Big Joe Turner,
(04:49):
Curtis Most, Chuck Norris, Lamar Wright, Junior, Kevin Old, Lottie Beeman,
Paul Webster, Ron Ford, The Carpets, Sincere Tech nine, Bob Brookmine,
Tom Shapiro, The Rainmakers, Frog, Larry Davis, Robert Russell Bennett,
Kansas City Symphony, Frank but Harlan n Black Star Kids,
Redline Chemistry, Lester Young, Get Up Here, Republic, Tigers, Blood,
(05:11):
Pat mcfeine, Janelle Monet, Charlie Parker, and Burton Bacarak. Honestly,
that list of musicians could have been twice as long,
especially when it comes to big band, swing, bebop and jazz.
But we need to stop dashing out the sheer number
of talented artists in the area to talk a little
(05:33):
bit more about why so as covered, Jazz kicks up
in the nineteen twenties and becomes very popular in Kansas
City in the nineteen thirties due to the aforementioned free
flowing booze. Pendergast's ties to the mob let him play
a role in the bootlegging and gambling scene that went
along with the late night jazz clubs. But, and this
(05:54):
is important, not everyone was in for the alcohol and
the gambling. Mostly people just want to let off some steam.
They wanted something to do. Jazz was the cure for
the Depression era America in a time before not just
the Internet but TV and regular phones, when it was
still relatively expensive to even have a radio in your home,
(06:15):
and the programming on there was limited to mostly talk
shows think podcasts, so Yes, booze and partying, sure, but
also socializing, putting on clothes to go out, also distraction
from the gripping poverty that was sweeping the nation. The
cure to all that was Kansas City, where something was
always happening, which simply wasn't the case for a whole
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lot of small towns and communities throughout the rest of
the area. At the peak of the jazz era, musicians
would travel over one thousand miles between gigs, with Kansas
City is one of the northernmost destinations because aside from
the audience's eager for the chance to numb out from
their backbreaking jobs and utter poverty, musicians had very few
places they could work either, places where what they were
(07:01):
doing was even understood. Mecca's were more important when we
didn't have all this hyper connection. Even if the Internet
is part of what broke jazz down, it failed to
do so in Kansas City. Two decades after the advent
of napster. In the age of Spotify and Instagram, after
the takeover of hip, the commodification of pop and all
(07:22):
the TikTok record deals, the cost of gas and travel
and venues taking a cut of artists merch sales. In
spite of all that, the dream of jazz is alive
in Kansas City. All those closed jazz clubs throughout the country,
it seems emptied their patrons here like everyone who used
to pack inside those clubs, the lost patrons of a
(07:44):
lost art ended up in the belly of America. Those
are the things you see here that you might not
recognize elsewhere. Musicians making a living playing jazz. It's standing
room only at night in some of these clubs. It's
the rest of the world that are suckers. The legacy
and future of jazz are being heard here, from the
(08:05):
traditional to the mystic, athletic to cathartic, the mind bending
to a straight groove. And once you make it here
to the promised Land, here's where you need to go
for the best of it. The Sound of Our Town
is a podcast about the music that shaped the city
(08:26):
you are touching down in. It is also about finding, hearing,
and experiencing its best music in sonic spots. This is
our eleventh episode in season two, and we are visiting
a very special American city. I am your host, Will
Daily I am an independent artist. I travel around. I
love playing these towns, and I particularly love playing Kansas City, Missouri.
(08:56):
What if you first stop in the city was a
venue that pays homage to the past. Tucked inside the
American Jazz Museum, a fascimile of a former working club,
the Blue Room awaits. As the museum tagline declares, this
is where jazz lives, and the Blue Room is a
permanent exhibit and a working club that offers free music
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to the public three days a week, with small cover
charges of like ten or fifteen dollars on other nights.
All the money goes straight to the museum or the
musicians playing, So if you do attend to set with
a ticket price, rest easy that your money is basically
a donation to preserving the history of this music city.
The Blue Room is an important pillar of the Black
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history of Kansas City, a community which is essential to
the dna of jazz here, if not completely responsible for
the creation of the genre. Jazz is one of the
indigenous American art forms, and the primary creative force behind
the sound of jazz is Black musicians. Located in the
historic eighteenth and Vine Jazz District, which was historically a
(09:58):
segregated district of the what's now is the museum is
the former site of the Street Hotel, a guesthouse that
was included in the Negro Mortorist Green Book. It was
designated as a safe place for black travelers in the
nineteen thirties who were still subjugated to not just segregation
in the era of Jim Crow laws, but violence and
(10:18):
murder when they traveled. The courage it took to just
play jazz is imbued in its dynamism. Claims to fame
for this district. Jackie Robinson stayed at the Street Hotel
when he was in town, and Charlie Parker, one of
the all time greats, hung out in and around eighteenth
and Vine neighborhood during the thirties and forties two. The
(10:40):
State Street Hotel's nightclub was called the Blue Room, so
the museum's current club is an homage to that. Both
an exhibit and a venue, the lounge currently hosts over
twenty live shows a month, so whether it's a daytime
activity after staying up laid at a show, or a
pregame for a night filled with live music. Checking out
the exhibits about the people who are in strumental in
(11:00):
creating Kansas City Jazz is a must see while you
are in town. The Folly Theater needs little introduction aside
from the one they've given themselves. Come see Wonder within
our walls. The website proudly proclaims, knowing what kind of
(11:22):
significance this space contains. Initially built as a vaudeville theater,
the architect behind this venue was Kansas City native Louis C. Curtis,
who designed the neoplatian facade of Carthage limestone in red
pressed brick with huge arch windows, getting the place of
stately air. Like a lot of cities we've touched on
throughout the past two seasons, the Folly is special because
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of the time when it was built, literally in the
year nineteen hundred, which is hard to comprehend. This venue
has seen the turn of the century, not just once
but twice, both World Wars, the Great Depression, the Civil
Rights movement of the nineteen sixties, Vietnam War, the War
on Drugs, the birth of the Internet, nine to eleven
more wars than the list goes on. It is seen
(12:07):
a lot, and it is officially the oldest theater in
the city. Its claim to fame at the time of
opening was the use of exposed light bulbs, which was
brand new technology at the time. Listed on the National
Registry of Historic Places as the Grand Lady of Twelfth Street.
Like so many other historic buildings, it was almost lost
forever after a few decades of misuse and disrepair, left
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on the cusp of being destroyed along with a lot
of historic buildings in central Kansas City. Luckily, concerned citizens
stepped in and lobbied for the theater to be rescued,
and a million dollar grant allowed it to be purchased.
Since nineteen seventy four, when it was saved from being
turned into a parking lot, a crew of supporters secured
additional funding to renovate and restore the building, which is
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now considered one of the best jazz venues in the world.
Some have compared the acoustics inside the theater to Carnegie
Hall in the tiered seating rich interior in historic context
definitely puts it in the upper echelon of existing American theaters,
though not a dive bar or a club like plenty
of the other places where musicians come to support each
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other throughout this city. There's something special about the community
that shows up to gigs at a faithfully restored venue
like this. It shows a sense of appreciation and respect
for the craft and for the stages that try to
bring a sense of pomp and elegance to the proceedings.
Not a lot of cities have the infrastructure to support
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something like the Mutual Musicians Foundation, but as we've already established,
Kansas City is in most cities, it's a musician's town
and furthermore, a place where both visitors and the community
really put the needs of the artists first. As the
name might have tipped you off, the Mutual Musicians Foundation
is one such place. Don't expect this to be a
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bright and shiny venue open early on weekends and serving
food and beverages all night long. It's much more laid
back and formless. The best replication of sitting in and
on jam night with some friends you're ever gonna get
without personally knowing one of the players and getting an
invite to a practice space or a private show designed
to help musicians learn, grow and improve their craft while
(14:13):
also letting audiences in on the process. The Foundation is
located in the historic eighteenth and Vine district and has
been working to build community between younger musicians who are
just starting out in older seasoned veterans for the one
hundred and five years that it's been active. Some might
praise the older musicians for mentoring new young talent, but
the ethos here is that the young people have a
(14:34):
lot to share with the older generations too, and that
there's a mutual benefit between the two sharing their work together.
This kind of ethos is missing from a lot of
the weird generational standoffs happening in the rest of the
music industry right now. Scratch that in the rest of
the country, and it is something, frankly, that we could
all learn and gain from. Everything here is donation based,
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and the sets start very late, usually after one I am,
and can run all the way until five am. But
there's probably not a more authentic jazz jam in the
entire city. Another element that makes this jam special it's
free attendance for all the musicians, so any troubadours who
are traveling through the city have a place to come
soak up some history and some tunes, no matter how
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broke your last brewing tour schedule left you. The Mutual
Musicians Foundation has had such an impact on the community
that in twenty twenty two, the local PVS chapter featured
their work in an hour long documentary called Art Moves Us.
There's another documentary wreck later on to give a broader
sense of the history of KC scene in one of
its most prominent stars, but this one, Art Moves Us
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is a great look at the current local work as well.
There's a couple of different places you can go over
that loud ears, ringing, knee knocking, and face melting feeling
in KC. If you head into the Brick, a quintessential
dive bar, you're going to find a mix of both
old timers and young timers, which might be surprising, but
(16:03):
this mix of generations actually begins to make sense once
you parse through it. There are the older fans, the
one who are really wearing black Flag T shirts because
they really saw black Flag, and the younger ones who
only get to hang around to hear the tail wearing
a slightly crisp or cleaner version of the same shirt.
Maybe fandom skips a generation because the age gap between
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these two factions can be wide, but their dedication to
the T shirts tell it all, Especially for the older crew,
gruff men whose effort into looking this way tells a
larger story. Spend some time at the Brick, Yes, and
definitely try out their meat loaf sandwich to get a
taste of the local delicacy. It showed up on Guy
Fieri's beloved Diners, Dive, Ins and Dives. But that isn't
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the only place to get your face melted here. During
my last visit, I got my face melted personally on
the stage of the Uptown Theater, another historic building that
dates back to nineteen twenty eight and was built in
the Italian Renaissance style as what they call an atmospheric theater.
Somewhere between that extravagant opening and the present day, the
theater fell into severe disrepair, a story we've heard many times,
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until it was added to the National Register of Historic
Places in nineteen seventy nine and underwent a fifteen million
dollar renovation. These days, the stage is packed with face
melters and acts like Elvis Costello, Bands of Horses, and
BlackBerry Smoke. But the real place to get your fix
for loud, grandios, epic, hard and fast music in this
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town is record bar. Record bar is the kind of
venue that draws the loyalty of all ages the obsessives
who frequent its rooms. Originally opened in a strip mall
in two thousand and five, the venue has relocated since
then and remains a staple for over fifteen years. Pretty
Much every indie touring band worth their assault, including yours truly,
has played here over the last almost two decades has
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been opened, from Destroyer to Low to Pedro, the Lion,
and so many others. Local emerging bands site Record Bar
as an essential stage to play when it comes to
getting their sea legs and learning the ropes as performers,
and plenty of veterans also name checked the spot for
the way it helped foster a continued sense of community
in the area. Continuing to serve as the authentic and
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intimate underplay for bigger acts in the area, the Record
Bar is the perfect place to get your face melted.
So it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise
that it is this stage that plays host to Kansas
City's annual The Band That Fell to Earth David Bowie
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Tribute weekend. So what's Kansas City's connection to the Thin
White Duke. Well, this was a festival born on what
was supposed to have been a one off tribute show
to celebrate Bowie's birthday, which is on January eighth, which
is also the album release date of his last album, Blackstar.
No one knew it at the time, but Bowie has
been working on the album while secretly very ill, and
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he only lived two days out after the release of
the record on his sixty ninth birthday. It's almost as
though he was waiting to give the world one final
piece of music, and after he saw that through, he
was finally able to rest. So the event was already
scheduled to celebrate Bowie's album release, but ended up as
a celebration of his life in a space to mourn
for his fans in the Ksey area, of which there
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are many. At the first event at the Uptown Theater,
a crowd of almost nine hundred people showed up to
the tribute show and it's basically been going strong ever since.
These days is now hosted at Record Bar and the
tribute is spread across two nights, but the band has
continued to bring back the show every January for so
many years that twenty twenty four will mark the eighth
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iteration of the event. As part of the show, the
organizers commissioned local makers and partner with small businesses, as
well as sell tickets to the event and end up
raising thousands of dollars for a different nonprofit organization each year.
The Band That Fell to Earth is made up of
thirteen band members total, but they also corporate a whole
slew of guest vocalists each night, usually keeping it in
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the family and sticking to locals from the Casey music scene.
Band members include members of local acts such as Frog Pond,
Katie Gillion in the Drive, Reason to Risk, High Lux
and more. Even if your plan wasn't originally to visit
Kansas City in January, if you're a Bowie head, hearing
about this vest might just have you rethinking that time frame.
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If you can't make it for the event, or if
Bowie just isn't your thing, don't worry. The Vatican is
just a block away. The Green Lady and Black Dolphin
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are tied together as sister venues, interchangeable one to the other,
and no matter what happens in other spots, the duo
is the winner. In this town. It's these It has
its own gravitational pull, reaching out to every corner of America.
If you go to Kansas City and leave without visiting
the Green Lady, not only have you not seen what
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the city is, you haven't seen what America can be.
The Green Lady Lounge and it's two floors and two stages,
is best during the early evening or late late that night,
once your eyes adjust, even if you are coming in
from the dark. The red velvet walls and vintage oil
paintings set the scene, but the music hits you first,
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right when you walk in, staggering in your blindness. The
story of the outside world becomes just that, and you
are in sync with the Green Lady. The only music
performed here is original compositions of Kansas City jazz. They
don't take requests, they don't play the hits. They don't
cater to the whims of TikTok trends or pop's latest whim.
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This is old school regional jazz. And that's what makes
it absolutely unmissible, bestowing everyone in the room a night
that lungs just to them simply by being there. These
are songs you probably can't hear anywhere else in the world.
It's an ephemeral, changeable, unbreakable bit of Kansas City history,
and it's happening all around for the patrons here every
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single night. On my first visit to the Green Lady Lounge,
I was struck by the unassuming entrance, knowing what a
hollowed hall it is. I walked in at seven pm
after blocks of bar hopping. The sinking sun was beating
down on me in my weavy legs a five dollars cover.
Had it been dark out already, my vision might have
stood a chance. But as I pushed forth on the thick,
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chubby cushion of a red leather door and into the dark,
it was as though I was reborn into that lush darkness.
My eyes adjusted, and I don't know if they've ever returned.
The respectable chatter of the crowd at seven pm on
a Friday was exhilarating. The place was full and hopping,
and the music was loud. The bartender told me seven
pm isn't even the busiest time yet, wait till one am.
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The band is flying through the red glaze, loud and proud.
You can almost feel the ghost of cigarettes past running
through your lungs. Though they are clean. The music of
the past and the future are happening at the same time.
The gold decorated frames with intricate molding and soft lamplight
completes the world building. There's so many lamps hanging from
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the ceiling. I can't help but think of all that
they have barely illuminated over the years. My eyes live
here now, so do my ears. Everything is red. I
guess the Green Lady was just a red herring. There's
no green here. It's seven PM in a world within
a city already exists. This is jazz music for I'd
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say an age group, but they're all here. They're all
here with every culture, color, gender, Girls night out, guys'
night out. There are pickups happening, and there are date
nights too. There are people who seem like they've been
sitting at the bar since it's open. All of America
is in the room, and it's best represented at the
Green Ladyenge doing what music is always supposed to do
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for us, bring us together. It's hard to call anything
a hidden gem in a city where most locals are
just as obsessed with the music scene as any traveling
truer toor. But there's still a spot in Kansas City
that continues to fly a little bit under the radar,
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and that's the Ship. It's one of the city's coolest
speakeasy's hidden behind a fairly unassuming front, with live music
almost every night in a fairly robust dancing scene too.
Head to the Ship on the right evening and it
feels like the whole world is down there. It's a
twelve piece salsa band for ten bucks and people of
every age once again, spread out and dancing. All of
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America's in the room again, and they're dancing. The floor
clears out after each number as the crowd resets or
fills their drinks, or shows their preference for some tunes
over others, or tips the band, or just listens because
they're so good. But the dancing never really stops with
the Ship. And it isn't just salsa. It's honky TNK, blues, country,
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every form of heartland music known to mankind, and a
little you probably haven't heard anywhere else too. Don't try
this spot on a Sunday or Monday. Those are the
nights off, but any other day of the week, this
place is open from eleven am on for food, drinks,
and music, starting up around five or six. You could
easily spend a whole day in this historic bar, which
has been around since the nineteen thirties, and like we've
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heard so many places, it's been decommissioned and deconstructed until
twenty fourteen, when the current owners found most of the
old interior of the bar in a basement and began
patiently putting the historic venue back together. Now the ship
is a testament not only to Kansas City's pass but
also its future and the people who want to preserve
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the incredible history of their city and see it for
the treasure that it is. Though the Case Jazz seemed
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produced and nurtured a number of legends, none of them
are more legendary than Charlie Bird Parker. To celebrate the
one hundred year anniversary of his birth in nineteen twenty,
PBS released a centennial documentary in twenty twenty that is
an ideal way to ease yourself into the world of
the Bird in case you've been living under a rock
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Yardbird Parker was a leading influential figure of several forms
of jazz, like bebop, characterized by super fast tempos, advanced harmonies,
and virtuoso techniques considered head and shoulders above many of
his peers. Entitled Bird Not Out of Nowhere, the film
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is a look at not only his musical career, but
also includes archival footage, interviews with his peers and friends,
and some live performances from shows in Kansas City. Parker
began playing alto saxophone as young as age eleven and
would sometimes practice up to fifteen hours a day. Well,
that is after you got a symbol thrown at him
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when he was sixteen years old for not being good enough.
At that moment, he decided to remedy that. Like many
other genius players, his life was cut short due to
a tragic accident that left him with a spine injury
and an addiction to opioids that led to health complications
that eventually took his life. But in the moments when
he was the brightest star in the music scene, all
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this darkness fades out of view. This Dog, along with
the one that highlights Kansas City's current scene, supported for
over one hundred years by the Mutual Musicians Foundation, which
started up right around the time of Charlie's tragic death,
are both must watches for music fiends who want to
get the overarching themes in local idiosyncrasies of the town.
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Kansas City is America, the core, the gut, the centerpiece,
the piano we gather around. In its heyday, Kansas City
was also the only place in America where musicians and
music obsessives could still have a drink, stay out late,
play and hear music, and basically survive. Based on its
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status as a citadel of booze during Prohibition, creativity was
at an all time high here during the nineteen twenties
and thirties, when the overall shift from big band and
swing to improvisational bebop and jazz was happening. Decades later,
Kansas City is still considered one of the major birthplaces
of the American jazz movement and remains a scion of
live music in this country. It's also a place where
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things can get a little hazy. Your mind wanders along
with the song, and next thing you know, you've been
in one of the many jazz clubs in the city
for days on end, or is it weeks. Kansas City
it's the center of everything. That doesn't mean you can't
get lost inside the music scene, or maybe more accurately,
it doesn't mean you don't want to even the experts
(29:15):
can get lost inside the feeling of this music more
than anything perfect to pristine about what's happening in it.
That virtue, also quality of Bird and his ability to
carry on whatever else might be plaguing him at the time,
is exactly what contributed to his vivid, short lived genius.
Peers like Charles Mingus have commented on this as Mingus
(29:35):
once named Bird's erratic book brilliant lover Man Recordings. It's
his favorite thing the artist ever did. Bird famously hated
the lover Man recording session because he was struggling with
drugs and the recording is riddled with errors. But to Mingus,
that texture is part of what makes both lover Man
and the work of Bird himself so singular. He said,
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I like Awe none more than and the other, but
I'd have to pick lover Man for the feeling he
had then in his ability to express that feeling. This
is likely a better piece of music criticism than most
people can muster, even when they get into the idiosyncratic
depths of what a melody song or record is supposed
to accomplish. Here's the best part. It's supposed to make
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us feel. To communicate those emotions to one another, to
preserve and protect the most unique and compelling element of
being alive on this planet. And that's what the Kansas
City scene was built on and why it remains one
of the most important epicenters of culture in America today.
(30:46):
And one more thing. It was during my last pass
through Kansas City when I was sitting at the bar
at the Green Lady, and I'm one drink in and
my mind is starting to wander. The defenses you had
up all day fall away. All that information of what's
going on in the world that you block out while
you're on the treadmill of working and staying afloat. It
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creeps in. The conflicts, the emergencies, the vapid dramas, the
industry of violence prevalent both within America and everywhere outside. Meanwhile,
band is sitting right in front of you. You could
throw your straw at them. Then they're ripping and they're
(31:32):
loud and they're swinging, and it all just kind of
sits there right in front of you. But we have
legacies of tragedy that we tell ourselves for generations, and
legacies of art that we tell ourselves for generations, and
the power of the ladder of those two paths has
(31:55):
been systematically removed from our upbringing and in a lot
of way from our national pride. And when that happens,
tragedies have their way, and this band before me is
amazing and we are all deserving of so much more.
(32:20):
You've been listening to Sound of Our Town. This is
our eleventh episode of season two. Will there be a
season three? That depends on if you share the show
and if you review it. That's pretty much how podcasting works,
so that at least that's what I'm told. Sound of
Our Town is a production of iHeartRadio and Double Elvis.
It's executively produced by Brady Sadler and Jake Brennan. Production
(32:43):
assistance by Matt Boden. Sound of Our Town has created, written, produced,
and scored by me Will Daily. This episode's head writer
is Caitlin White. If you need to find out more
about me, or hear more from me, or hear more
of my music, just look up Will Daily, but spell
it with all the vowels d A I L E. Y.
(33:05):
We have one more special episode on this season and
then we're going to get into some remixes. Keep this
little show going while we fight for season three. More cities,
more places, more venues, more music, more life. I hope
to see you at a show out there somewhere. Until then,
thank you for your ears.
Double Elvis, Kansas City is the birthplace of Charlie Parker,
which makes it fair to say the birthplace of jazz
as we know it now, or at least the best
of what's left of jazz in twenty twenty three. The
(00:24):
River city is home to a legend, and no one
looms larger in the myth of jazz than Charlie Bird Parker.
The myth of Parker is and was emblematic of our
toxic cultural storyline that the public craves to project onto
the life of the artist. Though when it comes to Parker,
the myths are kind of true. He ushered in bebop
(00:47):
and upset Louis Armstrong and jazz's stiff old guard. You see,
there's always a previous generation of musicians not getting it,
and Bird changed music itself in the process. He was
also an archetype of the doomed artist that we needlessly
still witness to this day. Parker was sonic, exhilaration and
access to the point of tragedy. He was talent built
(01:09):
on hard work, so much hard work that the phrase
wood shedding aka practicing ten or more hours each day
was basically taken from his practicing lifestyle bird is America,
So of course he came from Kansas City.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
I listened to you time and time again, and you
tell me just what's right? Can you tell me a
thousand things a day? Then sleep somewhere else at night.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
I'm going back to Kansas City, and I love.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
You, dear, But just how long can I keep singing
the same old song?
Speaker 1 (01:47):
I'm going back to Kansas City. Bob Doyling unreleased basement
tape Lyrics Kansas City. People love to think of the
Midwest as landlocked, but the first thing you should know
about Kansas City is that it supports city a major
(02:10):
hub the confluence of the Missouri and Kansas rivers, and
that's a huge part of why it was such an
integral part of early American industry and trade. The way
Paris is split by the Sin, Kansas City is split
by the Missouri River, and that's not the only thing
that two cities have in common either. Omaha based radio
personality Edward Morrow, a star journalist of the era, summed
(02:32):
up the American attitude towards Kansas City and its jazz
scene in the nineteen thirties with the following commentary, if
you want to see some sin, forget Paris and go
to Kansas City. I think he meant it as a dig,
but retrospectively, what a compliment. And back then Casey was
known as the Paris of the Plains, exempt from prohibition
(02:54):
rules due to the influence of political boss Tommy Pendergast,
who allowed alcohol to be sold in assumed there surrounded
by dry counties, and already a central hub for folks
traveling across the country and domestic shipping. The allure of
America's own Paris was partially based on its underbelly nightlife,
and isn't that always where all throughout history the greatest
(03:16):
musicians have found their people. Musicians came to the city
to play these clubs where patrons stuck around longer because
they could drink. And since there was a growing demand
for patrons and a plethora of musicians, more and more
jazz clubs opened a musical boom and bus cycle in
the Midwest that had a positive effect. Fronts from the
Green Lady Lounge to the Midland Theater, Knucklehead Saloon and
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Grinder's k C. Plenty of these iconic stages are still
going strong. Rivers aren't the only thing that split the city. Either.
The state line is another dichotomy forming force, and some
people think that straddling a state line is bad for
a city, But all it really does, in the case
of KC, is proved how much more powerful the spirit
(04:00):
of a city is than the stratified confines we try
to project onto it. Missouri, Kansas these both fall away
and melt into the heart that is the roiling, melting
pot of case. And just for the record, because I
know they we're going to want to hear this, Kansas City,
Missouri technically came first. States, cities, countries. These are man
(04:24):
made designations anyway, except sometimes places like Kansas City become
their own kind of universe. And in case, no matter
which side of the state lines you're on, the center
of that universe is jazz. And it's given us that
and so much more, including Count Basie Orchestra, Big Joe Turner,
(04:49):
Curtis Most, Chuck Norris, Lamar Wright, Junior, Kevin Old, Lottie Beeman,
Paul Webster, Ron Ford, The Carpets, Sincere Tech nine, Bob Brookmine,
Tom Shapiro, The Rainmakers, Frog, Larry Davis, Robert Russell Bennett,
Kansas City Symphony, Frank but Harlan n Black Star Kids,
Redline Chemistry, Lester Young, Get Up Here, Republic, Tigers, Blood,
(05:11):
Pat mcfeine, Janelle Monet, Charlie Parker, and Burton Bacarak. Honestly,
that list of musicians could have been twice as long,
especially when it comes to big band, swing, bebop and jazz.
But we need to stop dashing out the sheer number
of talented artists in the area to talk a little
(05:33):
bit more about why so as covered, Jazz kicks up
in the nineteen twenties and becomes very popular in Kansas
City in the nineteen thirties due to the aforementioned free
flowing booze. Pendergast's ties to the mob let him play
a role in the bootlegging and gambling scene that went
along with the late night jazz clubs. But, and this
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is important, not everyone was in for the alcohol and
the gambling. Mostly people just want to let off some steam.
They wanted something to do. Jazz was the cure for
the Depression era America in a time before not just
the Internet but TV and regular phones, when it was
still relatively expensive to even have a radio in your home,
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and the programming on there was limited to mostly talk
shows think podcasts, so Yes, booze and partying, sure, but
also socializing, putting on clothes to go out, also distraction
from the gripping poverty that was sweeping the nation. The
cure to all that was Kansas City, where something was
always happening, which simply wasn't the case for a whole
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lot of small towns and communities throughout the rest of
the area. At the peak of the jazz era, musicians
would travel over one thousand miles between gigs, with Kansas
City is one of the northernmost destinations because aside from
the audience's eager for the chance to numb out from
their backbreaking jobs and utter poverty, musicians had very few
places they could work either, places where what they were
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doing was even understood. Mecca's were more important when we
didn't have all this hyper connection. Even if the Internet
is part of what broke jazz down, it failed to
do so in Kansas City. Two decades after the advent
of napster. In the age of Spotify and Instagram, after
the takeover of hip, the commodification of pop and all
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the TikTok record deals, the cost of gas and travel
and venues taking a cut of artists merch sales. In
spite of all that, the dream of jazz is alive
in Kansas City. All those closed jazz clubs throughout the country,
it seems emptied their patrons here like everyone who used
to pack inside those clubs, the lost patrons of a
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lost art ended up in the belly of America. Those
are the things you see here that you might not
recognize elsewhere. Musicians making a living playing jazz. It's standing
room only at night in some of these clubs. It's
the rest of the world that are suckers. The legacy
and future of jazz are being heard here, from the
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traditional to the mystic, athletic to cathartic, the mind bending
to a straight groove. And once you make it here
to the promised Land, here's where you need to go
for the best of it. The Sound of Our Town
is a podcast about the music that shaped the city
(08:26):
you are touching down in. It is also about finding, hearing,
and experiencing its best music in sonic spots. This is
our eleventh episode in season two, and we are visiting
a very special American city. I am your host, Will
Daily I am an independent artist. I travel around. I
love playing these towns, and I particularly love playing Kansas City, Missouri.
(08:56):
What if you first stop in the city was a
venue that pays homage to the past. Tucked inside the
American Jazz Museum, a fascimile of a former working club,
the Blue Room awaits. As the museum tagline declares, this
is where jazz lives, and the Blue Room is a
permanent exhibit and a working club that offers free music
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to the public three days a week, with small cover
charges of like ten or fifteen dollars on other nights.
All the money goes straight to the museum or the
musicians playing, So if you do attend to set with
a ticket price, rest easy that your money is basically
a donation to preserving the history of this music city.
The Blue Room is an important pillar of the Black
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history of Kansas City, a community which is essential to
the dna of jazz here, if not completely responsible for
the creation of the genre. Jazz is one of the
indigenous American art forms, and the primary creative force behind
the sound of jazz is Black musicians. Located in the
historic eighteenth and Vine Jazz District, which was historically a
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segregated district of the what's now is the museum is
the former site of the Street Hotel, a guesthouse that
was included in the Negro Mortorist Green Book. It was
designated as a safe place for black travelers in the
nineteen thirties who were still subjugated to not just segregation
in the era of Jim Crow laws, but violence and
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murder when they traveled. The courage it took to just
play jazz is imbued in its dynamism. Claims to fame
for this district. Jackie Robinson stayed at the Street Hotel
when he was in town, and Charlie Parker, one of
the all time greats, hung out in and around eighteenth
and Vine neighborhood during the thirties and forties two. The
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State Street Hotel's nightclub was called the Blue Room, so
the museum's current club is an homage to that. Both
an exhibit and a venue, the lounge currently hosts over
twenty live shows a month, so whether it's a daytime
activity after staying up laid at a show, or a
pregame for a night filled with live music. Checking out
the exhibits about the people who are in strumental in
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creating Kansas City Jazz is a must see while you
are in town. The Folly Theater needs little introduction aside
from the one they've given themselves. Come see Wonder within
our walls. The website proudly proclaims, knowing what kind of
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significance this space contains. Initially built as a vaudeville theater,
the architect behind this venue was Kansas City native Louis C. Curtis,
who designed the neoplatian facade of Carthage limestone in red
pressed brick with huge arch windows, getting the place of
stately air. Like a lot of cities we've touched on
throughout the past two seasons, the Folly is special because
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of the time when it was built, literally in the
year nineteen hundred, which is hard to comprehend. This venue
has seen the turn of the century, not just once
but twice, both World Wars, the Great Depression, the Civil
Rights movement of the nineteen sixties, Vietnam War, the War
on Drugs, the birth of the Internet, nine to eleven
more wars than the list goes on. It is seen
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a lot, and it is officially the oldest theater in
the city. Its claim to fame at the time of
opening was the use of exposed light bulbs, which was
brand new technology at the time. Listed on the National
Registry of Historic Places as the Grand Lady of Twelfth Street.
Like so many other historic buildings, it was almost lost
forever after a few decades of misuse and disrepair, left
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on the cusp of being destroyed along with a lot
of historic buildings in central Kansas City. Luckily, concerned citizens
stepped in and lobbied for the theater to be rescued,
and a million dollar grant allowed it to be purchased.
Since nineteen seventy four, when it was saved from being
turned into a parking lot, a crew of supporters secured
additional funding to renovate and restore the building, which is
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now considered one of the best jazz venues in the world.
Some have compared the acoustics inside the theater to Carnegie
Hall in the tiered seating rich interior in historic context
definitely puts it in the upper echelon of existing American theaters,
though not a dive bar or a club like plenty
of the other places where musicians come to support each
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other throughout this city. There's something special about the community
that shows up to gigs at a faithfully restored venue
like this. It shows a sense of appreciation and respect
for the craft and for the stages that try to
bring a sense of pomp and elegance to the proceedings.
Not a lot of cities have the infrastructure to support
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something like the Mutual Musicians Foundation, but as we've already established,
Kansas City is in most cities, it's a musician's town
and furthermore, a place where both visitors and the community
really put the needs of the artists first. As the
name might have tipped you off, the Mutual Musicians Foundation
is one such place. Don't expect this to be a
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bright and shiny venue open early on weekends and serving
food and beverages all night long. It's much more laid
back and formless. The best replication of sitting in and
on jam night with some friends you're ever gonna get
without personally knowing one of the players and getting an
invite to a practice space or a private show designed
to help musicians learn, grow and improve their craft while
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also letting audiences in on the process. The Foundation is
located in the historic eighteenth and Vine district and has
been working to build community between younger musicians who are
just starting out in older seasoned veterans for the one
hundred and five years that it's been active. Some might
praise the older musicians for mentoring new young talent, but
the ethos here is that the young people have a
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lot to share with the older generations too, and that
there's a mutual benefit between the two sharing their work together.
This kind of ethos is missing from a lot of
the weird generational standoffs happening in the rest of the
music industry right now. Scratch that in the rest of
the country, and it is something, frankly, that we could
all learn and gain from. Everything here is donation based,
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and the sets start very late, usually after one I am,
and can run all the way until five am. But
there's probably not a more authentic jazz jam in the
entire city. Another element that makes this jam special it's
free attendance for all the musicians, so any troubadours who
are traveling through the city have a place to come
soak up some history and some tunes, no matter how
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broke your last brewing tour schedule left you. The Mutual
Musicians Foundation has had such an impact on the community
that in twenty twenty two, the local PVS chapter featured
their work in an hour long documentary called Art Moves Us.
There's another documentary wreck later on to give a broader
sense of the history of KC scene in one of
its most prominent stars, but this one, Art Moves Us
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is a great look at the current local work as well.
There's a couple of different places you can go over
that loud ears, ringing, knee knocking, and face melting feeling
in KC. If you head into the Brick, a quintessential
dive bar, you're going to find a mix of both
old timers and young timers, which might be surprising, but
(16:03):
this mix of generations actually begins to make sense once
you parse through it. There are the older fans, the
one who are really wearing black Flag T shirts because
they really saw black Flag, and the younger ones who
only get to hang around to hear the tail wearing
a slightly crisp or cleaner version of the same shirt.
Maybe fandom skips a generation because the age gap between
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these two factions can be wide, but their dedication to
the T shirts tell it all, Especially for the older crew,
gruff men whose effort into looking this way tells a
larger story. Spend some time at the Brick, Yes, and
definitely try out their meat loaf sandwich to get a
taste of the local delicacy. It showed up on Guy
Fieri's beloved Diners, Dive, Ins and Dives. But that isn't
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the only place to get your face melted here. During
my last visit, I got my face melted personally on
the stage of the Uptown Theater, another historic building that
dates back to nineteen twenty eight and was built in
the Italian Renaissance style as what they call an atmospheric theater.
Somewhere between that extravagant opening and the present day, the
theater fell into severe disrepair, a story we've heard many times,
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until it was added to the National Register of Historic
Places in nineteen seventy nine and underwent a fifteen million
dollar renovation. These days, the stage is packed with face
melters and acts like Elvis Costello, Bands of Horses, and
BlackBerry Smoke. But the real place to get your fix
for loud, grandios, epic, hard and fast music in this
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town is record bar. Record bar is the kind of
venue that draws the loyalty of all ages the obsessives
who frequent its rooms. Originally opened in a strip mall
in two thousand and five, the venue has relocated since
then and remains a staple for over fifteen years. Pretty
Much every indie touring band worth their assault, including yours truly,
has played here over the last almost two decades has
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been opened, from Destroyer to Low to Pedro, the Lion,
and so many others. Local emerging bands site Record Bar
as an essential stage to play when it comes to
getting their sea legs and learning the ropes as performers,
and plenty of veterans also name checked the spot for
the way it helped foster a continued sense of community
in the area. Continuing to serve as the authentic and
(18:14):
intimate underplay for bigger acts in the area, the Record
Bar is the perfect place to get your face melted.
So it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise
that it is this stage that plays host to Kansas
City's annual The Band That Fell to Earth David Bowie
(18:36):
Tribute weekend. So what's Kansas City's connection to the Thin
White Duke. Well, this was a festival born on what
was supposed to have been a one off tribute show
to celebrate Bowie's birthday, which is on January eighth, which
is also the album release date of his last album, Blackstar.
No one knew it at the time, but Bowie has
been working on the album while secretly very ill, and
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he only lived two days out after the release of
the record on his sixty ninth birthday. It's almost as
though he was waiting to give the world one final
piece of music, and after he saw that through, he
was finally able to rest. So the event was already
scheduled to celebrate Bowie's album release, but ended up as
a celebration of his life in a space to mourn
for his fans in the Ksey area, of which there
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are many. At the first event at the Uptown Theater,
a crowd of almost nine hundred people showed up to
the tribute show and it's basically been going strong ever since.
These days is now hosted at Record Bar and the
tribute is spread across two nights, but the band has
continued to bring back the show every January for so
many years that twenty twenty four will mark the eighth
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iteration of the event. As part of the show, the
organizers commissioned local makers and partner with small businesses, as
well as sell tickets to the event and end up
raising thousands of dollars for a different nonprofit organization each year.
The Band That Fell to Earth is made up of
thirteen band members total, but they also corporate a whole
slew of guest vocalists each night, usually keeping it in
(20:05):
the family and sticking to locals from the Casey music scene.
Band members include members of local acts such as Frog Pond,
Katie Gillion in the Drive, Reason to Risk, High Lux
and more. Even if your plan wasn't originally to visit
Kansas City in January, if you're a Bowie head, hearing
about this vest might just have you rethinking that time frame.
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If you can't make it for the event, or if
Bowie just isn't your thing, don't worry. The Vatican is
just a block away. The Green Lady and Black Dolphin
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are tied together as sister venues, interchangeable one to the other,
and no matter what happens in other spots, the duo
is the winner. In this town. It's these It has
its own gravitational pull, reaching out to every corner of America.
If you go to Kansas City and leave without visiting
the Green Lady, not only have you not seen what
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the city is, you haven't seen what America can be.
The Green Lady Lounge and it's two floors and two stages,
is best during the early evening or late late that night,
once your eyes adjust, even if you are coming in
from the dark. The red velvet walls and vintage oil
paintings set the scene, but the music hits you first,
(21:32):
right when you walk in, staggering in your blindness. The
story of the outside world becomes just that, and you
are in sync with the Green Lady. The only music
performed here is original compositions of Kansas City jazz. They
don't take requests, they don't play the hits. They don't
cater to the whims of TikTok trends or pop's latest whim.
(21:53):
This is old school regional jazz. And that's what makes
it absolutely unmissible, bestowing everyone in the room a night
that lungs just to them simply by being there. These
are songs you probably can't hear anywhere else in the world.
It's an ephemeral, changeable, unbreakable bit of Kansas City history,
and it's happening all around for the patrons here every
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single night. On my first visit to the Green Lady Lounge,
I was struck by the unassuming entrance, knowing what a
hollowed hall it is. I walked in at seven pm
after blocks of bar hopping. The sinking sun was beating
down on me in my weavy legs a five dollars cover.
Had it been dark out already, my vision might have
stood a chance. But as I pushed forth on the thick,
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chubby cushion of a red leather door and into the dark,
it was as though I was reborn into that lush darkness.
My eyes adjusted, and I don't know if they've ever returned.
The respectable chatter of the crowd at seven pm on
a Friday was exhilarating. The place was full and hopping,
and the music was loud. The bartender told me seven
pm isn't even the busiest time yet, wait till one am.
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The band is flying through the red glaze, loud and proud.
You can almost feel the ghost of cigarettes past running
through your lungs. Though they are clean. The music of
the past and the future are happening at the same time.
The gold decorated frames with intricate molding and soft lamplight
completes the world building. There's so many lamps hanging from
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the ceiling. I can't help but think of all that
they have barely illuminated over the years. My eyes live
here now, so do my ears. Everything is red. I
guess the Green Lady was just a red herring. There's
no green here. It's seven PM in a world within
a city already exists. This is jazz music for I'd
(23:41):
say an age group, but they're all here. They're all
here with every culture, color, gender, Girls night out, guys'
night out. There are pickups happening, and there are date
nights too. There are people who seem like they've been
sitting at the bar since it's open. All of America
is in the room, and it's best represented at the
Green Ladyenge doing what music is always supposed to do
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for us, bring us together. It's hard to call anything
a hidden gem in a city where most locals are
just as obsessed with the music scene as any traveling
truer toor. But there's still a spot in Kansas City
that continues to fly a little bit under the radar,
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and that's the Ship. It's one of the city's coolest
speakeasy's hidden behind a fairly unassuming front, with live music
almost every night in a fairly robust dancing scene too.
Head to the Ship on the right evening and it
feels like the whole world is down there. It's a
twelve piece salsa band for ten bucks and people of
every age once again, spread out and dancing. All of
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America's in the room again, and they're dancing. The floor
clears out after each number as the crowd resets or
fills their drinks, or shows their preference for some tunes
over others, or tips the band, or just listens because
they're so good. But the dancing never really stops with
the Ship. And it isn't just salsa. It's honky TNK, blues, country,
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every form of heartland music known to mankind, and a
little you probably haven't heard anywhere else too. Don't try
this spot on a Sunday or Monday. Those are the
nights off, but any other day of the week, this
place is open from eleven am on for food, drinks,
and music, starting up around five or six. You could
easily spend a whole day in this historic bar, which
has been around since the nineteen thirties, and like we've
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heard so many places, it's been decommissioned and deconstructed until
twenty fourteen, when the current owners found most of the
old interior of the bar in a basement and began
patiently putting the historic venue back together. Now the ship
is a testament not only to Kansas City's pass but
also its future and the people who want to preserve
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the incredible history of their city and see it for
the treasure that it is. Though the Case Jazz seemed
(26:15):
produced and nurtured a number of legends, none of them
are more legendary than Charlie Bird Parker. To celebrate the
one hundred year anniversary of his birth in nineteen twenty,
PBS released a centennial documentary in twenty twenty that is
an ideal way to ease yourself into the world of
the Bird in case you've been living under a rock
(26:37):
Yardbird Parker was a leading influential figure of several forms
of jazz, like bebop, characterized by super fast tempos, advanced harmonies,
and virtuoso techniques considered head and shoulders above many of
his peers. Entitled Bird Not Out of Nowhere, the film
(26:58):
is a look at not only his musical career, but
also includes archival footage, interviews with his peers and friends,
and some live performances from shows in Kansas City. Parker
began playing alto saxophone as young as age eleven and
would sometimes practice up to fifteen hours a day. Well,
that is after you got a symbol thrown at him
(27:19):
when he was sixteen years old for not being good enough.
At that moment, he decided to remedy that. Like many
other genius players, his life was cut short due to
a tragic accident that left him with a spine injury
and an addiction to opioids that led to health complications
that eventually took his life. But in the moments when
he was the brightest star in the music scene, all
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this darkness fades out of view. This Dog, along with
the one that highlights Kansas City's current scene, supported for
over one hundred years by the Mutual Musicians Foundation, which
started up right around the time of Charlie's tragic death,
are both must watches for music fiends who want to
get the overarching themes in local idiosyncrasies of the town.
(28:11):
Kansas City is America, the core, the gut, the centerpiece,
the piano we gather around. In its heyday, Kansas City
was also the only place in America where musicians and
music obsessives could still have a drink, stay out late,
play and hear music, and basically survive. Based on its
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status as a citadel of booze during Prohibition, creativity was
at an all time high here during the nineteen twenties
and thirties, when the overall shift from big band and
swing to improvisational bebop and jazz was happening. Decades later,
Kansas City is still considered one of the major birthplaces
of the American jazz movement and remains a scion of
live music in this country. It's also a place where
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things can get a little hazy. Your mind wanders along
with the song, and next thing you know, you've been
in one of the many jazz clubs in the city
for days on end, or is it weeks. Kansas City
it's the center of everything. That doesn't mean you can't
get lost inside the music scene, or maybe more accurately,
it doesn't mean you don't want to even the experts
(29:15):
can get lost inside the feeling of this music more
than anything perfect to pristine about what's happening in it.
That virtue, also quality of Bird and his ability to
carry on whatever else might be plaguing him at the time,
is exactly what contributed to his vivid, short lived genius.
Peers like Charles Mingus have commented on this as Mingus
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once named Bird's erratic book brilliant lover Man Recordings. It's
his favorite thing the artist ever did. Bird famously hated
the lover Man recording session because he was struggling with
drugs and the recording is riddled with errors. But to Mingus,
that texture is part of what makes both lover Man
and the work of Bird himself so singular. He said,
(29:58):
I like Awe none more than and the other, but
I'd have to pick lover Man for the feeling he
had then in his ability to express that feeling. This
is likely a better piece of music criticism than most
people can muster, even when they get into the idiosyncratic
depths of what a melody song or record is supposed
to accomplish. Here's the best part. It's supposed to make
(30:21):
us feel. To communicate those emotions to one another, to
preserve and protect the most unique and compelling element of
being alive on this planet. And that's what the Kansas
City scene was built on and why it remains one
of the most important epicenters of culture in America today.
(30:46):
And one more thing. It was during my last pass
through Kansas City when I was sitting at the bar
at the Green Lady, and I'm one drink in and
my mind is starting to wander. The defenses you had
up all day fall away. All that information of what's
going on in the world that you block out while
you're on the treadmill of working and staying afloat. It
(31:09):
creeps in. The conflicts, the emergencies, the vapid dramas, the
industry of violence prevalent both within America and everywhere outside. Meanwhile,
band is sitting right in front of you. You could
throw your straw at them. Then they're ripping and they're
(31:32):
loud and they're swinging, and it all just kind of
sits there right in front of you. But we have
legacies of tragedy that we tell ourselves for generations, and
legacies of art that we tell ourselves for generations, and
the power of the ladder of those two paths has
(31:55):
been systematically removed from our upbringing and in a lot
of way from our national pride. And when that happens,
tragedies have their way, and this band before me is
amazing and we are all deserving of so much more.
(32:20):
You've been listening to Sound of Our Town. This is
our eleventh episode of season two. Will there be a
season three? That depends on if you share the show
and if you review it. That's pretty much how podcasting works,
so that at least that's what I'm told. Sound of
Our Town is a production of iHeartRadio and Double Elvis.
It's executively produced by Brady Sadler and Jake Brennan. Production
(32:43):
assistance by Matt Boden. Sound of Our Town has created, written, produced,
and scored by me Will Daily. This episode's head writer
is Caitlin White. If you need to find out more
about me, or hear more from me, or hear more
of my music, just look up Will Daily, but spell
it with all the vowels d A I L E. Y.
(33:05):
We have one more special episode on this season and
then we're going to get into some remixes. Keep this
little show going while we fight for season three. More cities,
more places, more venues, more music, more life. I hope
to see you at a show out there somewhere. Until then,
thank you for your ears.
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