Wednesday MidDay Medley
Produced and Hosted by Mark Manning
90.1 FM KKFI – Kansas City Community Radio
TEN to NOON Wednesdays – Streaming at KKFI.org
Wednesday, June 7, 2023
WMM plays The MidCoast Sound + IVORY BLUE + Mike McCoy + A Lou Jane Temple Tribute
- “Main Title Instrumental – It’s Showtime Folks”
from: Orig. Motion Picture Soundtrack All That Jazz / Casablanca / December 20, 1979
[WMM’s Adopted Theme Song]
- Calvin Arsenia – “Tip Toe”
from: Cantaloupe / Center Cut Records / September 15, 2018
[Born in Orlando, Florida, Calvin’s creative journey really began when he moved to the KC suburb of Olathe, teaching himself the guitar, and eventually the harp. He learned his signature instrument at the age of 20 after he couldn’t find a harpist as determined as him to meld folk, rock, classical, rap and R&B into the irresistible fusion which has become his calling card in KC and beyond. His passion for stretching the boundaries of musical expression saw him transform a trip to Edinburgh, Scotland’s Fringe Festival early in his career into a life-changing music mission, with an Edinburgh church offering him a role as musical liaison between the church and the city that would change his life. Two years and 300 shows later, Calvin returned to KC reborn as a humanistic songwriter / performer whose impassioned and conceptual stage shows (regularly sold-out in Kansas City, currently catching fire on the West Coast with a diverse following across Europe), are collaborative, costumed-culture-bridging spectacles which In KC Magazine has hailed as ‘equal parts opera, symphony, musical theatre, rock show, all built around its creator: a charismatic 6-foot-6-inch harpist with a natural stage command and knack for gilding gold and painting lilies.’ Calvin released his EP, Moments, in 2014, and his EP Prose in 2015, and his Folk Alliance exclusive EP Catastrophe in 2016. On February 14, 2017 Calvin released his critically acclaimed full length debut, Catastrophe. Calvin Arsenia premiered these songs in a live show at recordBar in November 2016 in a stage show that involved a company of 50 people, dancers, stilt walkers, special lighting, back up singers, guest artists. Calvin’s 2018 national debut, Cantaloupe, September 15, 2018 on Center Cut Records, has been acclaimed for melding diverse textures into an alluring signature sound for the adventurous artist. On June 28, 2019 Calvin released Honeydew, an EP including a remix of three songs from Cantaloupe. On Dec. 13, 2019 Calvin released his full length Christmas album “all is calm.” Since 2014 we have been celebrating the music of Calvin Arsenia. He has played Folk Alliance International, Kansas City Fringe Fest, The Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, The Kauffman Center For The Performing Arts, The Middle of the Map Fest., The Folly Theatre. Calvin is a graduate of Artist INC. ][Charlotte Street Foundation announced that the recipients of the 2022 Generative Performing Artist Awards are The Black Creatures and Calvin Arsenia Scott.]
[Calvin Arsenia plays Crossroads Hotel rooftop concert series at The Percheron on June 7, at 8:00 PM)
- Heidi Lynne Gluck – “All I See Is Magic”
from: “All I See Is Magic” – Single / Lotuspool Records / May 25, 2023
[Cowritten with Kenny Childers. From her upcoming full length album, MIGRATE OR DIE, to be released July 7, 2023. Heidi Lynne Gluck released the singles: “I’m Not Free” on June 2, 2023 and “Skyscraper” on June 7, 2023. Lawrence, Kansas based Heidi Lynne Gluck is a songwriter, singer and multi-instrumentalist originally from the middle of Canada. After transplanting herself from the plains of Manitoba to the midwestern United States, Heidi quickly became an in-demand player, performing on stage and in the studio both as a solo artist and with renowned musicians including Juliana Hatfield & Some Girls, Margot & The Nuclear So and Sos, Lily & Madeleine, The Pieces, The Only Children, and others. Heidi Lynne Gluck joined us live on WMM on June 8, and August 24, 2016. Heidi Lynne Gluck released her critically acclaimed album, PONY SHOW through Lawrence based Lotuspool Records on August 26, 2016. This was the follow-up to her critically acclaimed release THE ONLY GIRL IN THE ROOM, released April 28, 2015. Heidi Lynne Gluck released the 8th edition of the Too Much Rock, limited edition, 7” vinyl Single Series on August 3, 2018, featuring her original song, “Party Line.” and the B-side, “Good Guys and Bad Guys” a new version of Camper Van Beethoven song. Heidi Lynne Gluck also plays with the band the Roseline and was a featured vocalist on “Beauty in the Distance” with Asterales. Heidi recently released two new singles with Tom Brosseau, “Sunflower” on Dec. 15, 2022, and “Under African Skies” on Feb. 17, 2023.]
[Heidi Lynne Gluck will join us on WMM on July 12, 2023 to share details about her new album MIGRATE OR DIE.]
10:06 – Intro / Pledge Break #1
Today WMM MM Celebrates The MidCoast Sound with music from Teri Quinn, Shy Boys, Ebony Tusks, The Creepy Jingles, IVORY BLUE, Psychic Heat, Flutienastiness, The ACBs, and Mike McCoy’s Trompe L’oeil. We’ll also play from Nirvana, Annie Ross, and Frenchie Davis. We started the show with Calvin Arsenia, and Heidi Lynne Gluck.
We are featuring music from musical artists playing all over Kansas City this week, including: High Dive Records 10th Anniversary Shows at recordBar June 9 & 10; KC PrideFest & Parade at Theis Park, June 9, 10, & 11; Crossroads Hotel rooftop concert series at The Percheron on June 7; An Ode to Defiance at The Black Box in West Bottoms on June 9; Arts In The Park, North Kansas City, June 9, 10 & 11; Josh Ybarra Celebration of Life at miniBar, June 11; and Nighthawk the bar below Hotel Kansas City.
Plus, in a few minutes we will present a very special Tribute to Lou Jane Temple who we lost last Monday, May 29.
At 11:00 we’ll talk with musician Mike McCoy who will share details about the Josh Ybarra Celebration of Life, at miniBar, 3810 Broadway Boulevard, KCMO, on Sunday, June 11, at 8:00 PM featuring musical performances from Cher UK, The Utilitarians and more. Info at http://www.minibarkc.com
At 11:25 we’ll talk with IVORY BLUE about their brand new single, “Control” that was released May 26, 2023. IVORY BLUE plays ARTS IN THE PARK on the Main Stage, at 1002 Clark Ferguson Drive, North Kansas City on Saturday, June 10 at 1:00 PM.
We take break to encourage YOU to support 90.1 FM KKFI. To help us is our friend…
Betse Ellis. Originally from Fayetteville, Arkansas, Betse received her Bachelors of Arts in Music and a Bachelors of Arts in English, from the University of Missouri – Kansas City. She has been playing the Violin for over 40 years, with over 20 years playing fiddle and also working as a teacher of music. Betse was a founding member of the acclaimed internationally known band, The Wilders. Betse has released two solo records, and records and performs with her husband, multi-instrumentalist Clarke Wyatt, as Betse & Clarke. In 2020 they released their latest 8-song release, WINTER. In 2022 Betse joined the long-running country band The Starhaven Rounders, and recently joined a new string band, Little Miss Dynamite.
Betse Ellis, Thanks for being with us on Wednesday MidDay Medley
Marion Merritt is our most frequent contributor to WMM, She grew up in Los Angeles, and St. Louis. She went to college in Columbia, Missouri. She studied art and musical engineering, and is a avid lover of classic films and punk rock music. She saw Talking Heads on their first U.S. tour when they played One Block West in 1978. For nearly 19 years she has been sharing her musical discoveries and information from her musically-encyclopedic brain on Wednesday MidDay Medley. With her partner Ann Stewart, Marion is the proprietor of Records With Merritt, a minority owned business at 1614 Westport Rd. in Kansas City, that features new vinyl releases, in-store performances,, and was once the location for a wedding. More information at: http://www.recordwithmerritt.com
Marion Merritt, Thanks for being with us on Wednesday MidDay Medley
10:14 – A Tribute to Lou Jane Temple by Mark Manning
Last Monday, May 29, 2023, at 6:30 PM we lost Lou Jane Temple, she was 79.
I first met Lou Jane Temple in 1987 at The Unicorn Theatre while working on “Kiss of The Spider Woman”. Lou Jane designed food props that the actors ate on stage, inside a jail cell, where the play took place.
Lou Jane asked me to come aboard her catering team. All of my experiences with Lou Jane were a brilliant adventure. I learned what was in the kitchen cabinets of Lennie Berkowitz, Sharon Hoffman, and KC Art Folk, who called upon Lou Jane, to make their parties special.
Lou Jane continually said to me, “Mark, you are gonna work in my restaurant when we open!” It was like being recruited for one of the most exciting jobs I ever had.
Cafe Lulu opened on my birthday, June 5, 1989. It was a Tuesday. People waited an hour for their food, but customers kept ordering champagne for the entire room.
Cafe Lulu closed on Lou Jane’s birthday, Monday, November 18, 1991. In 29 months, everything in my life changed. Through Lou Jane, I found my voice, I became an activist, I became a performance artist.
At Cafe Lulu I was a server, Wednesday thru Saturdays. On Sundays I helped Louie prepare food for the “Soul Food Sunday” cutting up chickens, boiling potatoes, snapping green beans, making molasses apple sauce.
Working with Lou on Sundays, where she and Pat Newman, and I would peel potatoes and listen to Rosemary Clooney music, crying. All three of us were having boyfriend problems.
After the first year at Cafe Lulu, Lou Jane, and Ron Megee and I created a Monday night show called “The Spoken Word.” Lou Jane envisioned a night where writers could share a chapter of a book they were writing, and while writers were big part of the show, eventually the Performance Artists took over.
I thought I was the only nerdy Queer in KC interested in performing about Queer and Trans issues, but through “The Spoken Word” I found my chosen family of other creatives, interested in Queer themes, Women’s Equality, Free Speech, and Disco. We were producing new works, things the professional companies wouldn’t ever do. We brought our ideas to the stage each week, to try them out in front of an audience, developing parts, that would eventually become plays. This is how Big Bang Buffet was born.
“The Spoken Word” was wild, packed, loud. High school kids from Johnson County sat drinking dark coffee and smoking cigarettes in a room full of artists, writers, and unsuspecting Monday diners. Lou Jane was our “Art Mother” feeding us all, giving us a job, reminding us to love each other.
At Cafe Lulu I created a performance character named Marlo “Low” Jones, the illegitimate “love chlld” of David Bowie and Lou Jane Temple. Louie had been a “Rock & Roll Caterer” for Chris Fritz Productions. It was easy to bend the timelines and imagine her making back stage food for Bowie on his first trip to the States in 1971. Like baby Lou Jane, after my character was born, they were put up for adoption, except Marlo was raised by Christian Fundamentalists, who Marlo escaped from, to then have a failed sex-change operation, leaving Marlo somewhere in the middle of male & female. (We did this long before John Cameron Mitchell ever created Hedwig & The Angry Inch.)
Cafe Lulu’s daytime bartender, Jimmy McCalister had an electric guitar he purchased from Carlos Alomar (one of Bowie’s longtime guitarists) and Jimmy along with Bryan Hicks on bass, became the band for Marlo “Low” Jones who sang “Breaking Glass” “Putting Out Fire” and “Let’s Dance.”
After Cafe LuLu closed, Lou Jane started writing mystery novels with food plots and recipes. The characters were based on real people from Cafe Lulu. Her first novel was titled “Murder on 39th Street,” but was renamed “Death By Rubarb.”
We kept the shows going, and from 1990 to 1995 we produced 80 different productions, full scale musicals, Free Speech extravaganzas. Ron Megee’s first musical “Nasty Sally Searsucker” was produced in Lou Jane’s loft space, in Columbus Park, where we built a stage, and seating for 77 people, for a Disco Opera that ran for 3-weeks, before being shut down by the Fire Marshall.
Lou Jane was the same age as my own mother, so it was easy for me to respect her incredible journey. Married as an early teen, giving birth to three amazing children. Taking correspondence classes through the television to get her degree. Moving to KC to go to the Art Institute. Reinventing herself over and over again, rising from the ashes like a phoenix. Just like Bowie.
Lou Jane taught me that you can tell aloty about what is going on in the world, by who is doing the dishes in the kitchen. At Cafe Lulu we had a Nicaraguan Freedom Fighter trained by the C.I.A
Lou Jane taught me that all the amateurs go out on Saturday Night.
Lou Jane taught me that Art is Everywhere.
Lou Jane taught me that women can seem superhuman, can be many things all at once, and that they don’t have to wait for someone’s permission to live their life freely, openly, doing what they love.
I will miss Lou Jane so much, but she is inside of me. She is in my heart. She is my Art Mother.
There will never be another Lou Jane Temple, ever ever again!!
10:19
- Nirvana – “All Apologies”
from: In Utero / Geffen Records / September 21, 1993
[ written by vocalist and guitarist, Kurt Cobain. It appears as the 12th track on the band’s third and final studio album, In Utero The song closes the American version of the album. On December 6, 1993, “All Apologies” was released as the second single from In Utero, as a double A-side with the song, “Rape Me”. It was Nirvana’s final single before Cobain’s suicide in April 1994. “All Apologies” became the third Nirvana song to top the Modern Rock chart, and reached number 32 on the UK Singles Chart. It was nominated for two Grammy Awards in 1995, and won a BMI award for most played song on American college radio during the eligible period from 1994 to 1995. It was also included on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s list of “The Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll”. // “All Apologies” was written by Cobain in 1990. In a 2005 interview with Wes Orshoski of Harp, Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl recalled that the song was “something that Kurt wrote on [a] 4-track in our apartment in Olympia. I remember hearing it and thinking, ‘God, this guy has such a beautiful sense of melody, I can’t believe he’s screaming all the time.'” According to Cobain’s manager Danny Goldberg in his 2008 memoir Bumping into Geniuses, Cobain “played the Beatles song ‘Norwegian Wood’ over and over, hour after hour” while writing the song. // “All Apologies” was first recorded in the studio by Craig Montgomery at Music Source Studios in Seattle, Washington on January 1, 1991. This version, described by music journalist Gillian G. Gaar as “having a more upbeat pop-folk sound” than later versions, featured bassist Krist Novoselic accompanying Cobain on guitar, playing seventh chords behind the guitar riff, and Grohl’s drumming accented by a tambourine. The song was first performed live at the Wolverhampton Civic Hall in Wolverhampton, West Midlands, England on November 6, 1991. // Scott Litt was hired to remix “All Apologies,” along with “Heart-Shaped Box” and later “Pennyroyal Tea,” due to concerns by the band that the vocals and bass were not loud enough in the original mixes by Steve Albini. // The second and final studio version of “All Apologies” was recorded by Steve Albini at Pachyderm Studios in Cannon Falls, Minnesota in February 1993, during the recording sessions for In Utero. The song, at that point tentatively titled “La La La,” was recorded on February 14, the second day of the sessions. // The recording features cello by Kera Schaley, a friend of Albini’s who at the time played in the Chicago band, Doubt. Schaley had initially been asked by Albini to compose a cello part for the song “Dumb,” and after hearing what she had written, Cobain asked her to “play around with ‘All Apologies.'” As she recalled in a 2010 interview with Swan Fungus, “Most of the cello on that was me just messing around and then Kurt had me learn one specific line that he wanted everyone to be playing the same thing on. I sort of thought they were going to scrap the cello on that one, but it stayed in.” // Albini was pleased with the recording, saying that he remembered “really liking the sound of that song as a contrast to the more aggressive ones” and that “it sounded really good in that it sounded lighter, but it didn’t sound conventional. It was sort of a crude light sound that suited the band.” In a 1993 Rolling Stone interview, Cobain told David Fricke that songs such as “All Apologies” and “Dumb” represented “the lighter, more dynamic” sound that he wished had been more prominent on previous Nirvana albums. // The band eventually elected to remix “All Apologies,” along with the album’s lead single “Heart-Shaped Box,” due to concerns that the vocals and bass were not loud enough in Albini’s original mixes. In a 1993 Guitar World interview, Cobain explained to English journalist Jon Savage: “[The quieter songs on In Utero] came out really good, and Steve Albini’s recording technique really served those songs well; you can really hear the ambience in those songs. It was perfect for them. But for “All Apologies” and “Heart-Shaped Box” we needed more. My main complaint was that the vocals weren’t loud enough. In every Albini mix I’ve ever heard, the vocals are always too quiet. That’s just the way he likes things, and he’s a real difficult person to persuade otherwise. I mean, he was trying to mix each tune within an hour, which is just not how the songs work. It was fine for a few songs, but not all of them. You should be able to do a few different mixes and pick the best.” // The two songs were remixed by Scott Litt, chosen due to his work with American rock band R.E.M., in May 1993 at Bad Animals in Seattle, Washington. A third song, “Pennyroyal Tea,” was remixed by Litt in November 1993, in preparation for its release as a single. Novoselic defended the band’s decision to remix “All Apologies” and “Heart-Shaped Box” by calling them “gateways” to the more abrasive sound of the rest of the album, and that once listeners played the record they would discover “this aggressive wild sound, a true alternative record”. // According to Goldberg in his 2019 Cobain biography Serving the Servant, Cobain was “euphoric” after hearing Litt’s mix of “All Apologies,” the first of the two songs initially remixed. // On November 18, 1993, Nirvana performed an acoustic version of “All Apologies” during their MTV Unplugged performance at Sony Music Studios in New York City. This version of the song featured Pat Smear on second guitar and Lori Goldston on cello. // “All Apologies” was performed for the final time live at Nirvana’s last concert, at Terminal Einz in Munich, Germany on March 1, 1994. // Cobain dedicated “All Apologies” to his wife, Courtney Love, and their daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, during the band’s appearance at the Reading Festival in Reading, England on August 30, 1992. “I like to think the song is for them,” he told Michael Azerrad in the 1993 biography, Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana, “but the words don’t really fit in relation to us…the feeling does, but not the lyrics.” Cobain summarized the song’s mood as “peaceful, happy, comfort – just happy happiness.
- Annie Ross – “Twisted”
from: King Pleasure Sings / Annie Ross Sings / Prestige / 1958
[Annabelle McCauley Allan Short was born July 25 1930 in Surrey, England, She passed away on July 21, 2020 in NYC. She was known professionally as Annie Ross, was a British-American singer and actress, best known as a member of the jazz vocal trio Lambert, Hendricks & Ross. Ross was born, the daughter of Scottish vaudevillians John “Jack” Short and Mary Dalziel Short (née Allan). Her brother was Scottish entertainer and theatre producer and director Jimmy Logan. She first appeared on stage at age three.At the age of four, she travelled to New York by ship with her family; she later recalled that they “got the cheapest ticket, which was right in the bowels of the ship”. // Shortly after arriving in the city, she won a token contract with MGM through a children’s radio contest run by Paul Whiteman. She subsequently moved with her aunt, Scottish-American singer and actress Ella Logan, to Los Angeles, and her mother, father and brother returned to Scotland. She did not see her parents again until fourteen years later. At the age of seven, she sang “The Bonnie Banks o’ Loch Lomond” in Our Gang Follies of 1938, and played Judy Garland’s character’s sister in Presenting Lily Mars (1943). // At the age of 14, she wrote the song “Let’s Fly”, which won a songwriting contest and was recorded by Johnny Mercer and The Pied Pipers. // At the end of 10th grade, she left school, changed her name to Annie Ross, and went to Europe, where she established her singing career.[5] She changed her surname to Ross during the plane trip to Prestwick; in a 2011 interview, she said: “My aunt was very fanciful and she said I had an Irish grandmother called Ross, so that’s where that surname came from”. // In 1952, Ross met Prestige Records owner Bob Weinstock, who asked her to write lyrics to a jazz solo in a similar way to King Pleasure, a practice that would later be known as vocalese. The next day, she presented him with “Twisted”, a treatment of saxophonist Wardell Gray’s 1949 composition of the same name, a classic example of the genre. The song, first released in 1952 (later collected on the album King Pleasure Sings/Annie Ross Sings), was an underground hit, and resulted in her winning Down Beat magazine’s New Star award. // In February 1956, the British music magazine NME reported that Ross’s version of the song “I Want You to Be My Baby” was banned by the BBC due to the lyric “Come upstairs and have some loving”. / She recorded seven albums with Lambert, Hendricks & Ross between 1957 and 1962. Their first, Sing a Song of Basie (1957), was to have been performed by a group of singers hired by Jon Hendricks and Dave Lambert with Ross brought in only as vocal consultant. It was decided that the trio should attempt to record the material and overdub all the additional vocals themselves, but the first two tracks were recorded and deemed unsatisfactory so they ditched the dubbing idea. The resulting album was a success, and the trio became an international hit. Over the next five years, Lambert, Hendricks & Ross toured all over the world and recorded such albums as The Hottest New Group in Jazz (1959), Sing Ellington (1960), High Flying (1962), and The Real Ambassadors (1962), written by Dave Brubeck and featuring Louis Armstrong and Carmen McRae. // Ross left the group in 1962. In 1964 she opened a nightclub in London. Annie’s Room hosted Joe Williams, Nina Simone, Stuff Smith, Blossom Dearie, Anita O’Day, Jon Hendricks, and Erroll Garner. // Her adulthood film roles included Liza in Straight On till Morning (1972), Claire in Alfie Darling (1976), Diana Sharman in Funny Money (1983), Vera Webster in Superman III (1983), Mrs. Hazeltine in Throw Momma from the Train (1987), Rose Brooks in Witchery (1988), Loretta Cresswood in Pump Up the Volume (1990), Tess Trainer in Robert Altman’s Short Cuts (1993), and Lydia in Blue Sky (1994). She also appeared as Granny Ruth in the horror films Basket Case 2 (1990) and Basket Case 3: The Progeny (1991). She also had a bit part in Robert Altman’s The Player in 1992. Ross also starred in Scottish Television’s comedy-drama Charles Endell Esquire (1979). // She provided the speaking voice for Britt Ekland in The Wicker Man (1973), and Ingrid Thulin’s singing voice in Salon Kitty (1976). On stage, she appeared in Cranks (1955; London and New York City), The Threepenny Opera (1972), The Seven Deadly Sins (1973) at the Royal Opera House, Kennedy’s Children (1975) at Arts Theatre, London, Side by Side by Sondheim, and in the Joe Papp production of The Pirates of Penzance (1982). // In 1949, Ross had a brief affair with drummer Kenny Clarke. This affair produced a son, Kenny Clarke Jr. (born 1950), who was raised by Clarke’s brother and his wife. During her time with Lambert, Hendricks & Ross, she became addicted to heroin and in the late 1950s had an affair with the comedian Lenny Bruce, who was also having drug problems. By 1960, Carol Sloane was substituting for her on tour. After a performance by the trio in London in May 1962, she remained in London to confront her drug addiction. // In 1963, she married actor Sean Lynch; they divorced in 1975, and he died in a car crash soon afterwards. By that time, she had also lost her home and declared bankruptcy. // She became a United States citizen in 2001. // Ross died in New York City on 21 July 2020 from emphysema and heart disease, four days before her 90th birthday. // Ross received the ASCAP Jazz Wall of Fame award (2009),[2] the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters’ Award (2010),[4] and the MAC Award for Lifetime Achievement (2011). // In July 2006 a one-woman play entitled TWISTED: The Annie Ross Story by Brian McGeachan premiered at The Space Theatre in London, starring Verity Quade. It focused on her stormy relationship with her aunt, Broadway legend Ella Logan, her brief affair with the comedian Lenny Bruce and her addiction to heroin. The play transferred to the Brockley Jack Theatre in London that same year, with Ross being played by Betsy Pennington. // A documentary about Ross’s life, entitled No One But Me, premiered at the Glasgow Film Festival in 2012.]
10:26 – Pledge Break #2
Our WMM Spring Fund Drive Team: Marion Merritt and Betse Ellis
Today on WMM we are celebrating the MidCoast Sound with 11 of our Favorite Musical Artists from the MidCoastal Region of KC, Lawrence, and all. 90.1 FM KKFI’s non-profit organization and governing body is the MidCoast Radio Project. MidCoastal is where we are, on the coasts of the Missouri and Kansas Rivers with a music community that spans the Kansas City Metro region and west to Lawrence and Topeka and south to Olathe and east to Columbia and North to St Joseph. Not necessarily the reach of our 100,000 watt signal but definitely the reach of our community.
WMM and KKFI are committed to featuring artists under-represented in other media, and that includes the music community that lives within Kansas City and Lawrence and the area radiance of our 100 watt signal. The story of Kansas City’s Arts and Music Community is our primary objective on WMM, where for over 19 years we have shined a light on this music and the artist who create it and that story also include the music labels who help get this music out into the community and beyond Kansas City. That story also includes the recording studios where this music is engineered and mastered.
Wednesday MidDay Medley 90.1 FM was the first radio show and first radio station to ever play many amazing musical artists. WMM was the first to play the recordings of: Calvin Arsenia, and Madisen Ward and the Mama Bear, and Krystle Warren, and The Black Creatures and KD Kuro, The Shy Boys, Ivory Blue, The Salvation Choir. We were the first to interview these artists live on the radio and bring their music to a wider audience.
WMM Plays New & MidCoastal Releases. Timothy Finn Kansas City area music writer named WMM “The Best Place to Hear Local Music on the Radio.” and the Best Place to hear area musicians talk about their music.
10:34 – Underwriting
10:35 – Bands from High Dive Record’s 10th Anniversary Shows at recordBar June 9 & 10
It all started back in 2013 with the release of ACBs “Little Leaves” and 48 releases later, High Dive continues. To celebrate this crazy milestone High Dive Records are throwing a 2 night party at Recordbar on June 9 and 10. Stacking the bills with 5 great bands each night including a couple of reunion sets by some of your favorite High Dive Recording Artists.
Friday, June 9: Shy Boys / Arc Flash / Koney (ACBs) / Greg Wheeler & The Poly Mall Cops / The Creepy Jingles
Saturday, June 10: Fourth of July / Psychic Heat / Ebony Tusks / HXXS / Thimastr
Doors at 6:30 & Music at 7:00. 18+ event, at recordBar, 1520 Grand BLVD, KCMO
- The ACBs – “Feel Winter”
from: Little Leaves / High Dive Records / March 5, 2013
[The ACB’s third album and their first on High Dive Records and High Dive Records first ever release. Konnor Ervin on lead vocals, & guitar; Bryan McGuire on bass, Andrew Connor on guitar; Kyle Rausch on drums. Their songs have been featured on MTV’s The Inbetweeners, and Daytrotter. The title “Little Leaves” is a nod to frontman Konnor Ervin’s landscaping day job. The lead single, “Ocean” was released as a free download in late 2012, prompting Popmatters to declare the ACBs as one of its “Best Hopes to Break Out in 2013.”]
[Koney (ACBs) plays High Dive Records 10th Anniversary Shows at recordBar June 9 with Shy Boys, Arc Flash, Greg Wheeler & The Poly Mall Cops, and The Creepy Jingles]
- Shy Boys – “Keeps Me On My Toes”
from: Shy Boys / High Dive Records. / January 17, 2014
By now the Shy Boys line-up consists of brothers Collin Rausch & Kyle Rausch, Konnor Ervin, Kyle Little and Ross Brown. But for their debut album Shy Boys the band consisted of Kyle Rausch, Collin Rausch and Konnor Ervin. Kyleand Konnor were band mates in The ACBs. Collin had been playing for years in the KC area including The Abracadabras, and The I’ms with Kyle. The three shared a love for 1960s era pop rock and soon started writing their own music. . The album received positive reviews and the single “Bully Fight” (originally released by The I’ms) was featured on Spin.com. In June 2014, the band recorded and released two more singles and one of them, “Life Is Peachy,” was featured on Stereogum. On April 4th, 2018, it was announced the band signed to Polyvinyl Record Co.]
[Shy Boys play High Dive Records 10th Anniversary Shows at recordBar June 9 with Koney (ACBs), Arc Flash, Greg Wheeler & The Poly Mall Cops, and The Creepy Jingles]
Shy Boys / The ACBs / Ghosty / The I’ms / Fullbloods / Koney – Discography
The ACB’s / The ACB’s / July 10, 2007
[Debut from KC based 4-piece with Konnor Ervin on lead vocals, Bryan McGuire on bass, Matt Saladino on guitar, Corey Egan on drums & vocals. Written by, and arranged by Konnor Ervin. Produced by Tim Suttle. Recorded & mixed at Underdog Studio in Desoto, KS. Mastered at Euphonic Masters in Memphis, TN.]
The Abracadabras – Be Still, Be Cool / The Abracadabras / January 1, 2008
[5-piece KC band formed in the spring of 2007, with Jocelyn Olivia (John) Nixon on keyboards & vocals, Travis Mckenzie on lead guitar, Bobby (Wayne Hutcherson) Topaz on guitar & vocals, Collin Rausch on bass & vocals, and Kyle Rausch on drums & vocals.]
The ACBs – Stona Rosa / The ACBs / January 1, 2011
[After half of the band left to move to LA, Konnor Ervin and Bryan McGuire got help from: Andrew Connor of Ghosty, and Beau Bruns of Cowboy Indian Bear. All songs written by, and arranged, lead vocals & guitar by Konnor Ervin. Mike Nolte on bass, Bryan McGuire on bass & vocals, Andrew Connor on guitar & vocals, Beau Brus on drums. Kyle Rausch on vocals. Produced by Mike Nolte. Mastered by Roger Seibel Recorded at More Famouser Studios. Mixed at More Famouser Studios. Mastered at SAE Mastering.]
The I’ms – Second MIXES / Independent / 2011
[Collin Rausch and Kyle Rausch. Kyle Rausch also plays with The ACB’s. In 2011 on WMM we started playing songs from The I’ms, a duo made of up Collin and Kyle, who posted 6 of their self recorded songs on their facebook page. We included this informal release in our Top Ten of The 111 Best Recordings of 2011. 3 of the songs from The I’ms ended up being rerecorded for Shy Boys.]
Ghosty – GHOSTY / More Famouser Records – High Dive Records / April 17, 2012
[3rd full length release from Lawrence and KC area band. Ghosty is Andrew Connor, Mike Nolte an Bill Belzer who recorded their new album themselves over the last couple of years with help from David Wetzel, Josh Adams, Jake Blanton, Konnor Ervin, Ryan Connor, Kirsten Paludan, and Dan Talmadge. The new release was pressed on vinyl and available on LP and digital download. More info at ghostysounds.com.]
The ACBs – Little Leaves / High Dive Records / March 5, 2013.
[Konnor Ervin on lead vocals, & guitar; Bryan McGuire on bass, Andrew Connor on guitar; Kyle Rausch on drums. Their songs have been featured on MTV’s The Inbetweeners, and Daytrotter. The title “Little Leaves” is a nod to Konnor Ervin’s landscaping day job. The lead single, “Ocean” was released as a free download in late 2012, prompting Popmatters to declare the ACBs as one of its “Best Hopes to Break Out in 2013.”]
Shy Boys – Shy Boys / High Dive Records / January 17, 2014
[Debut release. Brothers Collin Rausch, Kyle Rausch, and friend and roommate Konnor Ervin, are members of this KC based trio. Collin and Kyle’s father was a High School band director and music teacher. Konnor Ervin is the lead singer and songwriter of The ACBs, where Kyle also plays drums. The 10 song release had two singles premiered by Stereogum. “Keeps Me On My Toes” was a song Collin wrote in 15 minutes while his girlfriend was in the shower. The album was recorded at West End Studio, over two-weekends.]
Shy Boys – “Life is Peachy” – Single Release / High Dive Records / July 15, 2014
[Stereogum has premiered the band’s new song, “Life Is Peachy”, the A-side to their new 45 rpm, 7″ single coming from High Dive Records. Brothers Collin Rausch, Kyle Rausch, and roommate Konnor Ervin, are members of the Kansas City based band, Shy Boys. ]
Fullbloods – Mild West / High Dive Records / February 26, 2016
[Second full length release from Fullbloods: Ross Brown; Jared Tomasino; David Seume; and Bill Pollock. Recorded at Westend Studios in Kansas City, Kansas by Mike Nolte. Mixed by Fullbloods. Mastered by Mike Nolte at Eureka Mastering. (Starfucker, Of Montreal).]
Shy Boys – Bell House / Polyvinyl Record Co. / August 3, 2018
[Shy Boys line-up consists of brothers Collin Rausch and Kyle Rausch, Konnor Ervin, Kyle Little and Ross Brown. The group formed shortly after the trio became roommates in 2012. Kyle Rausch and Konnor Ervin were already band mates in the indie-pop band The ACBs and Collin had been playing for years in the Kansas City area in various bands. The three shared a love for 1960s era pop rock and soon started writing their own music. In 2014 they released the self-titled Shy Boys on High Dive Records. The album received generally positive reviews and the single “Bully Fight” was featured on Spin.com
Shy Boys – Dim The Light / Brick By Brick – Singles / Polyvinyl Record Co. / Feb. 15, 2019
[Single release follow up to band’s 2nd album and Polyvinyl debut, Bell House. Shy Boys line-up consists of brothers Collin Rausch and Kyle Rausch, Konnor Ervin, Kyle Little and Ross Brown. Kyle Rausch and Konnor Ervin were already band mates in the indie-pop band The ACBs and Collin had been playing for years in the Kansas City area in various bands. The three shared a love for 1960s era pop rock and soon started writing their own music. In 2014 they released the self-titled Shy Boys on High Dive Records. The album received generally positive reviews and the single “Bully Fight” was featured on Spin.com. In June 2014 the band recorded and released two more singles and one of them, “Life Is Peachy,” was featured on Stereogum. On April 4th, 2018, it was announced that the band had signed to Polyvinyl Record Co.]
Fullbloods – Soft and Virtual Touch / High Dive Records / April 3, 2020
[3rd full-length album from, KC based Fullbloods. All songs written, performed, recorded, mixed by Ross Brown (℗© 2019 Bargain Hunt Music / ASCAP) in Kansas City, MO. Mastered by Mike Nolte at Eureka Mastering. Artwork by Nika Winn. Kyle Rausch played drums on 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 9, sang on 9. Bill Pollock Played drums on 3 and 5. David Seume played bass on 5. Jerad Tomasino played synth on 9 and 10, sang on 9. Jenni Kornfeld played cello on 4. Leslie Butsch played sax on 10. More info at: http://www.fullbloods.com.]
Shy Boys – Talk Loud / Polyvinyl Record Co. / September 25, 2020
[3rd album from the KC band Shy Boys. New music follow up to the Dim The Light / Brick By Brick, singles released February 15, 2019. Shy Boys released their 2nd album and Polyvinyl debut, Bell House on August 3, 2018. Shy Boys line-up consists of brothers Collin Rausch and Kyle Rausch, Konnor Ervin, Kyle Little and Ross Brown. Kyle Rausch and Konnor Ervin were already band mates in the indie-pop band The ACBs and Collin had been playing for years in the Kansas City area in various bands including The Abracadabras, and The I’ms with brother Kyle. The three shared a love for 1960s era pop rock and soon started writing their own music. In 2014 they released the self-titled Shy Boys on High Dive Records.]
Koney – Koney / High Dive Records / October 9, 2020
[from Lucas Wetzel’s Pitch Feature: “To bring the songs to life, Konnor enlisted brothers Collin and Kyle Rausch, his roommates in their ramshackle West Plaza house/practice space and his bandmates in chamber pop group Shy Boys. Ross Brown (of Fullbloods) played synthesizer and helped run sound, and multi-instrumentalist Kyle Little contributed on guitar. Fritz Hutchison and Andrew Connor also contributed on several tracks. Recording engineer Mike Nolte flew in from Portland to run the controls at Westend Recordings, and the group set up camp in the studio over a long snowy weekend in 2015.”
- The Creepy Jingles – “Working Class Clown”
from: TAKE ME AY MY WORDPLAY / High Dive Records / March 25, 2022
[From band’s 11-track, full-length debut, TAKE ME AT MY WORD PLAY. The Creepy Jingles are a Kansas City based, 4-piece rock and roll band that both honors and defies convention. Led by singer / song-writer Jocelyn Olivia Nixon, a transgender wordsmith who charms with razor wit and dazzles with her lyrical acrobatics. Nick Robertson on drums, Travis McKenzie on guitar, and Andrew Woody on bass guitar bring first class musicianship and creativity, helping Nixon paint the perfect picture of colors and sounds that don’t stay in the lines. Their new album, “Take Me at My Wordplay” is an eclectic blend of catchy Brit-Pop melodies that dance around the landscape of surf, NY garage rock, psychedelia and folk music. Paired up with lyrics centering on themes of identity, strained relationships, social media madness, meme magic, pandemic paranoia, paid off political pundits, backyard bullies and barking up the wrong tree. Everything and the kitchen sink or swim. No stoner left unturned. The Creepy Jingles released their Debut EP on High Dive Records on May 3, 2019. The release was in the top ten of WMM’s 119 Best Recordings of 2019. ] The Creepy Jingles released their Debut EP on High Dive Records on May 3, 2019.]
[The Creepy Jingles play High Dive Records 10th Anniversary Shows at recordBar June 9 with Koney (ACBs), Arc Flash, Greg Wheeler & The Poly Mall Cops, and Shy Boys]
- Psychic Heat – “How Many Licks”
from: Sunshower / High Dive Records / May 27, 2016
[Psychic Heat was created by Evan Herd & Tanner Spreer. After releasing their EP Lighter and Brighter in 2015 they quickly turned their attention to their first full length Sunshower being released through High Dive Records. Sunshower is Engineered by Ron Miller (Kid Congo and the Pink Monkey Birds) & mixed/mastered by Kliph Scurlock (previously of the Flaming Lips). Psychic Heat is: Steve/Evan Herd on guitar & vocals, Tanner Spreer on guitar & vocals, James Thomblison on bass, and Mark Rockwell on drums.]
[Psychic Heat play High Dive Records 10th Anniversary Shows at recordBar June 10 with Fourth of July, Ebony Tusks, HXXS, and Thimastr.]
- Ebony Tusks – “HDF”
from: “HDF” – Single / High Dive Records / February 7, 2020
[This single came out nine months before Ebony Tusks released their full-length album, Heal Thyself on November 6, 2020 on High Dive Records. “HDF” is not included on the 12-track album. As with the single and on the album, all songs written and performed by Ebony Tusks unless otherwise noted. // All Songs engineered and mixed by George Henry Valyer IV at Rundown Studios in Topeka, Kansas and MalaMUTE Studios in East Lawrence, Kansas. Assistance provided by Nico Williams and Claire Kuner. // Conny Franko’s vocals on “You Runner” engineered by Keith Rodger and Rick Carson at Make Believe Studios in Omaha, Nebraska. // IK’s vocals on “Gang Signs” engineered by Derek Montgomery. // Stik Figa’s vocals on “Hell Above Or Here Below” engineered by Sean Patrick at Twelves Studios in Forth Worth, Texas. // Cello on “Heir Apparent” written and performed by Brail Watson. Rhodes and Moog on “Heir Apparent” written and performed by Daniel Bowersox. // All Songs mastered by Mike Nolte at Eureka Mastering in Portland, Oregon. // Album cover art by Justin Bergin. Album cover photography by Rachel Lock. Album layout by Martinez Hillard. // Album insert photography by Ailecia Ruscin and LeRoy Pristach. // Ebony Tusks is Daniel Smith on DJ & Production, Geese Giesecke on vocals & Production, and Marty Hillard on vocals & Production. Martinez Hillard told Vivid Seats: “ I began EBONY TUSKS in 2009 after a difficult period that summer. I was living in the student ghetto near the University of Kansas in Lawrence. It was an eerily calm Friday night and I didn’t have any plans after work so I crashed. I woke up shortly after 9:00 pm because my door was being kicked in. I was beaten and robbed at gunpoint. Thankfully, two of my neighbors were close friends and called the police immediately. I had nightmares for years afterward that included many symbols I’ve come to associate with various religious practices. I also began writing raps for the first time in over a decade. I was working with a couple producers and we had our first show at a house venue called Pizza Power in October 2010. Both Daniel and Geese came into the fold within a couple years of that show.” Daniel Smith lives in Lawrence, Kansas. He was born in Berkeley California. He moved to Lawrence when he was a child. Hs father is a Professor at The University of Kansas. Daniel works the United Way of Douglass County. He helps to provide after school job-training programs for under-served youth. Nathan “Geese” Giesecke grew up in Olathe but now lives and works in Kansas City, MO. He was friends with Calvin Arsenia in High School. Geese works as a producer as GEESACE. He makes beats and you can find his music at http://soundcloud.com/geesace Nathan is also a lighting designer who jumped on stage to do back up vocals for Marty and ended up being in the band. Martinez Hillard is the main vocalist and lyricist for EBONY TUSKS. He raps under the moniker Bodye, (pronounced “body”). He also produces beats. Martinez lives in the Old Town neighborhood in downtown Topeka with wife and 5 year old daughter. Martinez was part of the super group Cowboy Indian Bear. Martinez was recently elected to serve as a board member for Friends of the Library for Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library. As Marty told Johnson County Library, in a piece published April 27, 2018: “ It was a project I started with other producers back in 2010. I asked Daniel to DJ for me sometime in 2011-2012 and Geese joined not too far behind him. Daniel and I had become fast friends when I lived in Lawrence and he was the nicest, most easygoing DJ of the handful I knew. He made our shows a lot less stressful. Geese was and is a lighting technician for a number of our friends’ projects and that was how I made acquaintance with him, seeing him work for a band and asking if he’d do lights for an EBONY TUSKS concert. He eventually asked if he could be hypeman for us and he brought an new intensity.” EBONY TUSKS have been a band for over 11 years making hip hop in the Lawrence scene that includes Approach, Stik Figa, Heartfelt Anarchy, and Archetype are just a small fraction. With that said, the three of us are always having conversations about how other genres influence us personally. Post-rock, post-hardcore, industrial, indie rock, and electronic all factor in. Our tastes evolve naturally and we follow accordingly. Since the three members of EBONY TUSKS live in three separate cities: Kansas City, Lawrence and Topeka early on, they created a Dropbox folder to share demos with one another. And as they told Vivid Seat: “It also gave us a bit of language to use in building sounds independent of one another.” More info at: http://www.highdiverecords.com Members of Ebony Tusks joined us LIVE on WMM on February 19, and October 7, 2020.]
[Ebony Tusks play play High Dive Records 10th Anniversary Shows at recordBar June 10 with Fourth of July, Psychic Heat, HXXS, and Thimastr.]
10:47 – Pledge Break #3
Our WMM Spring Fund Drive Team: Marion Merritt, and Betse Ellis
Our most played artists in 2022 were The Black Creatures. Wednesday MidDay Medley was the first radio show to play their music. They have been frequent guests on our show. The Black Creatures released their debut single “Mouth 2 Mouth” June 5, 2016. The Black Creatures released their self-produced, debut album, See No Evil, on December 6, 2017. The Black Creatures released their single Elements on February 14, 2018. Our playlists show that we first played The Black Creatures on March 14, 2018. Since that date we have championed this band. We first saw them live at InterUrban ArtHouse on July 10, 2019 as part of a Celebration of Queer Identity where Mark was also a performer. Their breakthrough album, WILD ECHOES, was self released by the band on September 30, 2019. WILD ECHOES was #2 on WMM’s 119 Best Recordings of 2019. WILD ECHOES was re-released and re-mastered by Center Cut Records in 2020 and named Album Of The Year from The Pitch Magazine for 2020. // Charlotte Street Foundation announced that the recipients of the 2022 Generative Performing Artist Awards are The Black Creatures and Calvin Arsenia Scott. // The Black Creatures released their new album By Thy Hand on Center Cut Records on August 12, 2022. // Jade and Xavier just completed performances in the world premiere of Christian A. Walker’s “What Came With Spring” for the Owen/Cox Dance Group October 7 thru 9 at City Stage Theatre, Union Station, 30 W Pershing Rd, KCMO. // Mark’s brief review: “Being named “Album of The Year” from The Pitch Kansas City was the recognition this young band deserved, because there is really no other band in Kansas City creating incredibly beautiful and painful protest songs in multi genre styles of beats, vocal styles, textures. The immediate personal and poetic lyrics of Jade Green and tribal, dance floor and soulful beats and melodies of Xavier bring the listener into a multicultural, mixed, gender fluid, soul celebration of life and an honest indictment of the racist, homophobic, and sexist world they are navigating through to survive. Listen carefully to these young music makers, they are wise beyond their years. They sound beautiful and speak the truth to power. They are beautiful. They are The Black Creatures.”
KKFI’s Mission Statement: KKFI is the Kansas City area’s independent, noncommercial community radio station. We seek to stimulate, educate and entertain our audience, to reflect the diversity of the local and world community, and to provide a channel for individuals and groups, issues and music that have been overlooked, suppressed or under-represented by other media.
KKFI’s Philosophy Statement: KKFI is committed to diversity in programming and discourse and seeks to create a climate of mutual respect and collaboration among volunteers and staff.
10:54
- Mike McCoy’s Trompe-l’œil – “Agop”
from: Ogallala Pression EP / Mike McCoy’s Trompe-l’œil / September 20, 2020
[With their 2nd release, Austin supergoup Mike McCoy’s Trompe-loeil provide lush political waterscapes via masterful production from the late Howie Beno, designed to reflect, expose and warn listeners in re the maddening times at hand. This is an album about desperation, climate change and abject skullduggery.// Produced by Howie Beno and Mike McCoy // Guitars: John Lyle Wells, Jacob Shulze, Mike Stover, David Garrett, Mike McCoy; Bass: Hunter Darby; Drums: Rich Malley, Travis Garaffa, Rey Washam; Pedal Steel: Mike Stover; Mandolin: Steve Menendez, Mike Stover; Keyboards: Brandt Gassman; Organ and Piano: Christine Smith; Violin: Jenny Smith; Cello: Hilary Thomas-Oliver;
Harmonica: Walter Daniels;Backing Vocals: Julie Lowery, Jenny Smith, Andrew Duplantis; Vocals, Acoustic guitar, Panko shaker and melodies: Mike McCoy // Recorded at: Farmadelica Studios, Bokeelia, FL, Howard “Merlin” Wulkan Engineering // Ruffian Recorders, Brooklyn, NY, Brandt Gassman Eng. // Orb Recording Studios, Austin, TX, Matt Novesky Eng. // Mastered by Jim Wilson, Longmont, CO // All songs © and ℗ by Michael George McCoy @ASCAP and Suchawussy@ASCAP // Kansas native and Austin resident Mike McCoy is a man for all seasons. A gifted singer, composer, songwriter, social commentator and conceptual artist from the heartland, McCoy has been making music for more than 30 years, incorporating a whiplash array of styles and genres from country-roots to punk to performance art and power pop. All overlap in McCoy’s world. Mike founded the KC power-pop band Cher UK (Cargo/FistPuppet) & (Red Decibel/Columbia Records) in the mid 1990s and has fronted other quirky conceptual bands such as the Black Rabbits of Lawrence, Kansas, and two Austin critics’ darlings, the American People and the Service Industry. Mike is also a prolific solo artist . A religion studies and art-history graduate of TCU, fund-raising researcher at Yale, a carpenter/designer in Austin, an online “word contortionist” and a former museum administrator in KC, McCoy’s truest calling is the crafting of songs. He’s a hayseed intellectual-philosopher whose compositions strike the right balance of plaintive and high-brow, sardonic and humble. McCoy brings a singular, poet’s sensibility to the music equation. He writes about a wonderful waitress in a rundown town who has the power to make or break your stay (“if you treat her well, you might get what you want…”), about an immigrant woman whose dreams of America lead her to a lonesome life as a domestic (“feather duster I believe her, no one sees the way I see her…”), about American apathy and how winter is a submarine (“winter is a submarine — I lay inside and I no longer dream…”). In most of McCoy’s songs, there is something deeply wistful, despite the freighted narratives and their dizzying wordplay. He’s a serious guy and he writes about serious stuff. Yet in the lyrics and in the spaces between words and melody, you can almost hear that lone whistle blow in the dark of a heartlands night; you hear a style of writing that combines political commentary and snarky populism with an inextinguishable belief that somehow, with the right blend of gumption and fortitude, we humans might just pull off something good. He’s equal parts punk-rock-Americana — a strange brew of Bob Dylan, Iggy Pop, John Mellencamp, Ramones and Burl Ives. But no matter in what incarnation you encounter Mike McCoy, you’ll find he’s driven by the same basic themes: ideas and ideals of humanity, principles and hopes, outrage and indignation, absurdism and dadaism, puns and poetry and parody, with a large dose of red-white-and-blue wishful thinking.]
11:00 – Station ID
11:00 – Interview with Mike McCoy
Mike McCoy grew up in Hutchinson, Kansas. After graduating High school he moved to Kansas City. After his gap year ended he left KC to attend Texas Christian University. After college Mike returned to KC to work at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Mike has been making music for more than 30 years, playing country-roots to punk to performance art and power pop. Mike founded the KC band Cher UK in the mid 1990s and fronted the Black Rabbits of Lawrence, Kansas, and the Austin, bands: American People and The Service Industry. Mike is the founder of The North vs. South Music Festival. In 2019 Mike McCoy’s Trompe-l’œil released “Eyein’ Lies” one of WMM’s 119 Best Recordings of 2019. Mike McCoy, lives in Austin Texas where he builds all kinds of cool things with his construction company.
Mike McCoy is here to share details about the Josh Ybarra Celebration of Life, at miniBar, 3810 Broadway Boulevard, KCMO, on Sunday, June 11, at 8:00 PM featuring musical performances from Cher UK, The Utilitarians and Drop a Grand. Info at http://www.minibarkc.com
Mike McCoy Thanks for being with us on WMM.
Mike was on the show last on October 5, 2022 to talk abut a The Cher U.K. reunion Heather Grehan, and Lisa McKenzie a lineup that hadn’t played together since 1996. An early Red Decibel (Minneapolis record label) press kit described Cher U.K. The Cher U.K. reunion has special significance, as this group lineup hasn’t played together since 1996. An early Red Decibel (Minneapolis record label) press kit described Cher U.K.
Cher U.K. was signed to Red Decibel in 1993 after Brent Ashley, head of promotions at Red Decibel saw them in KC. Their first album, She’s a Weird Little Snack, was released on Oct. 12, 1993, followed by Go-Go Fish, released in Nov. 1994. While the albums featured such classics as “College Song,” “Go-Go,” and “Kibbles’n’ Bitz,” it’s the live shows that always attracted the most attention.
The Josh Ybarra Celebration of Life, is at miniBar, 3810 Broadway Boulevard, KCMO, on Sunday, June 11, at 8:00 PM featuring musical performances from Cher UK, The Utilitarians and Drop a Grand. Josh Ybarra was the “life-partner” of Mark Reynolds who was the original bass player for Cher UK and played in several reunions.
Kansas native and Austin resident Mike McCoy is a man for all seasons. A gifted singer, composer, songwriter, social commentator and conceptual artist from the heartland, McCoy has been making music for more than 30 years, incorporating a whiplash array of styles and genres from country-roots to punk to performance art and power pop. All overlap in McCoy’s world. Mike founded the KC power-pop band Cher UK (Cargo/FistPuppet) & (Red Decibel/Columbia Records) in the mid 1990s and has fronted other quirky conceptual bands such as the Black Rabbits of Lawrence, Kansas, and two Austin critics’ darlings, the American People and the Service Industry.
Mike is also a prolific solo artist . A religion studies and art-history graduate of TCU, fund-raising researcher at Yale, a carpenter/designer in Austin, an online “word contortionist” and a former museum administrator in KC, McCoy’s truest calling is the crafting of songs. He’s a hayseed intellectual-philosopher whose compositions strike the right balance of plaintive and high-brow, sardonic and humble. McCoy brings a singular, poet’s sensibility to the music equation. He writes about a wonderful waitress in a rundown town who has the power to make or break your stay (“if you treat her well, you might get what you want…”), about an immigrant woman whose dreams of America lead her to a lonesome life as a domestic (“feather duster I believe her, no one sees the way I see her…”), about American apathy and how winter is a submarine (“winter is a submarine — I lay inside and I no longer dream…”).
In most of McCoy’s songs, there is something deeply wistful, despite the freighted narratives and their dizzying wordplay. He’s a serious guy and he writes about serious stuff. Yet in the lyrics and in the spaces between words and melody, you can almost hear that lone whistle blow in the dark of a heartlands night; you hear a style of writing that combines political commentary and snarky populism with an inextinguishable belief that somehow, with the right blend of gumption and fortitude, we humans might just pull off something good. He’s equal parts punk-rock-Americana — a strange brew of Bob Dylan, Iggy Pop, John Mellencamp, Ramones and Burl Ives. But no matter in what incarnation you encounter Mike McCoy, you’ll find he’s driven by the same basic themes: ideas and ideals of humanity, principles and hopes, outrage and indignation, absurdism and dadaism, puns and poetry and parody, with a large dose of red-white-and-blue wishful thinking.
Mike has worked as a fund-raising researcher at Yale, and a carpenter and designer in Austin.
In 2004 Mike founded the North vs. South Music Festival, a bi-annual, bi-polar music festival designed to showcase independent rock along the I-35 corridor.
On October 17, 2012 Mike McCoy appeared on WMM to promote the Cher UK EP release of Boy Named Sue, released October 20, 2012 with the single. “Little Blue Soldier.” with Mike McCoy on Guitar & Vox, Mark Reynolds on Bass, and Bernie Dugan on Drums.
Mike McCoy Thanks for being with us on WMM.
Mike McCoy plays the Josh Ybarra Celebration of Life, partner go longtime friend, and bandmate, Mark Reynold, at miniBar, 3810 Broadway Boulevard, KCMO, on Sunday, June 11, at 8:00 PM featuring musical performances from Cher UK, Drop a Grand, and The Utilitarians. Information at http://www.minibarkc.com
11:11
- Teri Quinn – “Running Away”
from: “Running Away” – Single / Teri Quinn / June 2, 2023
[Joining Teri on the track are: John O’keefe on bass, Ryan Smith on Drums, Landon Hambright on guitar. Produced and Engineered by Joel Nanos at Element Recording & Mastering Studios. Teri Quinn is a multi-instrumentalist whose primary songwriting instrument is the banjo. She uses the banjo as a way to create soundscapes drawing you in to her tales of wandering and self-discovery. In 2016, Quinn released her first EP ‘Moons and Meltdowns’ setting the gritty tone for her indie folk sensibilities. She was nominated for Best Musician for the 2018 Pitch Awards. // This single follows Teris earlier single release “Sweet Savannah” rom February 26, 2020 Produced and engineered by Chase Horseman at Element Recording Studios. Mastered by Joel Nanos at Element Recording Studios. For this recording: Landon Hambright on guitar, Matt Richey on drums, Joel Stratton on Wurlitzer, Molly Mclaughlin on alto flute, Chase Horseman on synth bass, and Teri Quinn on banjo and vocals. // Teri Quinn is a KC based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, originally from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Teri moved to Kansas City in 2009 to study clarinet performance and Music Composition at the UMKC’s Conservatory of Music where she graduated in 2013. Teri released her debut EP, Moons and Meltdowns in 2017. Along with being a touring solo artists Teri has also played with Claire and the Crowded Stage, Abandoned Bells, True Lions, and Monta.]
[Teri Quinn plays ODE TO DEFIANCE at The Black Box, 1060 Union Avenue, KCMO WEST BOTTOMS on Friday, June 9, at 8:00 PM featuring Olive Ursula, Babydoll, AP the Poe t, She Speaks in Tongues, Taylor Rivera, and Teri Quinn with ritual, music poetry, performance, and video. A sacrilegious exploration of daily acts of defiance that break us out of boxes and binaries that hinder us from true liberation. The audience is encouraged to dress in goth attire and participate in juicy rituals.]
1:15 – Pledge Break #4
This is WMM’s Spring Fund Drive Show with Marion Merritt & Betse Ellis.
KKFI is an Independent, non-commercial radio station!
Along with our National Public Affairs shows like Democracy Now and Alternative Radio we offer more locally produced public affairs programs than anywhere else on the dial.
We offer programs specifically produced for the LGBTQIA Community, Women’s Issues, Native American News and Culture, Middle Eastern Music and Information, Latino Programming, African American Public Affairs and Community News, Labor and Worker’s Unions, our prison population and justice system, environmental programming, Visual and Literary Arts, and Performing Arts.
90.1 offers 80 different radio programs that are locally, produced, hosted, engineered and written by over 100 different people, who create content, and personally handcraft each show, each week. There are 64 local music shows and 21 locally produced News, Public Affairs, Arts & Talk shows.
You will not find this kind of representative diversity anywhere else on your radio dial. Or from any singular source on your computer. It is very special. It needs to be nourished and kept alive in a world of corporate, nationally owned, commercial or religious broadcasting.
Not only do we bring the most diverse and unfiltered news and information, but our musical playlists are deep, and comprehensive. In one week you can hear over 2000 different songs played, in Blues, Jazz, Folk, Hip Hop, Reggae, Classical, World, Americana, Southern Soul, Fusion, Soul, Rock, New Wave, Electronic, Native, Local, Old Timey, Rockabilly, Women’s, Children’s, Gospel, and Experimental.
With all of this, you hear the voices from the hundreds of KKFI volunteers, and thousands of guests from the community, who share their stories, broadcast live from our non-commercial, midtown studios, at 39th & Main, in the center of our metro, across two states, a collective of communities, and thousands of listeners. What is this worth to you?
11:22 – Underwriting
- Ivory Blue – “Control”
from: “Control” – Single / IVORY BLUE / May 26, 2023
[Follow up to the single “All Outta Love” from February 24, 2023. IVORY BLUE released their full length debut album COMPOUND LOVE on February 25, 2022. COMPOUND LOVE was in the Top Ten of WMM’s 120 Best recordings of 2022. For COMPOUND LOVE, IVORY BLUE served as songwriter, producer, vocalist and played all instruments with the exception of: Lester Estelle on drums, Klaartje Van Lue on piano, Craig Kew on bass, Lennon Bone on drums, and Marco Pascolini on pedal steel guitar. Nick Poortman served in mixing, with Kurt Festge who also served in mixing & Mastering. IVORY BLUE’s debut EP, Ready Get Set was released in June 2015. While the EP helped spread the word and give IVORY BLUE attention from regional radio and TV stations, a big break would come in 2017. In 2017 Ivory was among 1800 artists/bands that competed in neXt2Rock. Ivory won local & regional challenges and advanced to nationals in Los Angeles to win the top prize. // IVORY BLUE has played Crossroads Music Festival, The Middle of the Map Festival, The Westport Roots Festival, the KCPT Screening of “Real Boy” at The Kansas City Public Library, and Kauffman Stadium. // Ivory Blue was born in 1986 in Peoria Illinois, as Devin James Miclettet. Ivory’s birth mother put them up for adoption at the age of four. Ivory speaks about how it was difficult to find trust in people offering their home to someone denied it for so long, Ivory lived with eight different families, before running away at 15. // Ivory has talked with us about how in their life they have turned to music to express pain. Ivory spent most of their childhood looking for a family. In 2010 Klaartje Van Lue saw Ivory performing in a YouTube video and contacted them, flying Ivory to Kansas City, and adopting Ivory into the Van Lue family. During the past 10 years Ivory came out as “Non-Binary Transgender”. // As a multi-instrumentalist, Ivory began refining their performance style, using digital looping pedals to stack harmonies and guitar parts live on stage, giving their solo shows the feel of a full band. In 2011, Ivory settled in Kansas City, MO and quickly began attracting an intense regional following for their strong vocals and incisive, deeply personal lyrics. // By 2013, IVORY BLUE was playing regularly in and around Kansas City and the first EP ‘Ready Get Set’ was released. in 2015. IVORY BLUE released the video of “Family Table” directed by Mikal Shapiro, on August 21, 2021 and the audio track was released on September 7, 2021. IVORY BLUE released the single “Good Changes” on Oct 26, 2021. Ivory Blue released the singles: “Heavy,” “Bad Weather,” “It Must Have Been Me,” “Compound Love,” and “The Start” on December 14, 2021. IVORY BLUE released their debut album COMPOUND LOVE on February 25, 2022. IVORY BLUE released the single “Red Light” on July 29, 2022. IVORY BLUE released the single “Starlit Love Child” on October 28, 2022. IVORY BLUE released the single “All Outta Love” on February 24, 2023. More info at: https://linktr.ee/ivorybluemusic%5D
[IVORY BLUE plays ARTS IN THE PARK on the Main Stage, at 1002 Clark Ferguson Drive, North Kansas City on Saturday, June 10 at 1:00 PM.]
11:26 – Interview with Ivory Blue
IVORY BLUE joins us to share details about their brand new single, “Control” that was released May 26, 2023. This new single follows, “All Outta Love” from February 24, 2023. IVORY BLUE released their full length debut album COMPOUND LOVE on February 25, 2022. COMPOUND LOVE was in the Top Ten of WMM’s 120 Best Recordings of 2022. IVORY BLUE plays ARTS IN THE PARK on the Main Stage, at 1002 Clark Ferguson Drive, North Kansas City on Saturday, June 10 at 1:00 PM. More info at: linktr.ee/ivorybluemusic
Last time IVORY BLUE was with us on WMM was just before IVORY played ULAH Live Session, Thurs, March 16, 2023 at 7:30 PM at ULAH, 4707 Rainbow Blvd, Westwood, KS.
IVORY BLUE lived a nomadic existence until settling in Kansas City MO and becoming part of the local musical community. After winning a nationwide talent contest in 2017 Ivory Blue started having success with some national and international radio play which continues today.
Ivory Blue was born in 1986 in Peoria Illinois, as Devin James Miclettet. Ivory’s birth mother put them up for adoption at the age of four. Ivory speaks about how it was difficult to find trust in people offering their home to someone denied it for so long, Ivory lived with eight different families. before running away at 15.
Ivory has talked with us about how in their life they have turned to music to express pain. Ivory spent most of their childhood looking for a family. In 2010 Klaartje Van Lue saw Ivory performing in a YouTube video and contacted them, flying them Ivory KC, and adopting Ivory into the Van Lue family. During the past 10 years Ivory came out as “Non-Binary Transgender.
As a multi-instrumentalist, Ivory began refining their performance style, using digital looping pedals to stack harmonies and guitar parts live on stage, giving their solo shows the feel of a full band. In 2011, Ivory settled in Kansas City, MO and quickly began attracting an intense regional following for their strong vocals and incisive, deeply personal lyrics.
By 2013, IVORY BLUE was playing regularly in and around Kansas City and the first EP ‘Ready Get Set’ was released. in 2015. While the EP helped spread the word and got much attention from regional radio and TV stations, a big break would come in 2017.
Ivory entered NeXt2Rock, a nationwide talent search with over 1800 artists/bands who applied to find fresh and promising rock artists.
The top 5 national bands battled it off for the win in Los Angeles CA at the legendary Viper Room, with judges Scott Borchetta (BMLG), John Varvatos (fashion designer), Steve Jones (Sex Pistols Guitarist and Host of “Jonesy’s Jukebox”), Desmond Child (Musician, producer), Chris Lord-Alge (producer), Ivory Blue won over the judges and became the grand prize winner! Ivory
Ivory won the contest and a one-year record deal with BMLG who re-released the song Ready Get Set from the 2015 EP. Ivory’s 2018 re-release of ‘Ready Get Set’ undauntedly received National and International airplay within weeks.
NeXt2Rock Judges Comments about Ivory Blue:
“You got star quality and a lot of potential” by Steve Jones (Sex Pistols Guitarist and Host of “Jonesy’s Jukebox” on KLOS (95.5) Los Angeles, CA, USA)
“Giving us the diamond in the rough we can only dream of, the foundation that’s built underneath it, that’s what music is made from. by Chris Lord-Alge (Engineer/Mixer).
“I love everything about you, you sing what you live, you’re fantastic” by Desmond Child (Musician \ Songwriter and Producer).
“We’ve been waiting for the WOW, and you are the WOW”, “You’re a true artist” by John Varvatos (Fashion Designer and Record Label Head)
“You exude artistry from the minute you step on that stage” by Scott Borchetta – Big Machine Label Group president and CEO.
“There’s something special about you”, “You’re a true artist” by Gavin Rossdale (British musician, singer, lead singer and rhythm guitarist of the rock band BUSH).
Ivory Blue has played Crossroads Music festival, The Middle of the Map Festival, The Westport Roots Festival, Kansas City Public Library, and Kauffman Stadium.
IVORY BLUE started writing music at a very young age, creating their unique alt-rock sound, using a tape recorder to superimpose sounds that added to a song production. After starting performances in coffee shops and small venues, they began refining their performance style, using digital looping pedals to stack harmonies and guitar parts live on stage, giving their solo shows the feel of a full band. In 2011, IVORY BLUE settled in Kansas City, MO and quickly began attracting a following for their strong vocals and deeply personal lyrics. On July 29th, 2022, and after studying the craft of recording and self- producing, this amazing singer-songwriter with a passionate love for everyone struggling through life, released their first full length album, COMPOUND LOVE. This was followed by their single, “Red Light” and “Starlit Love Child.”
Ivory Blue thanks for being with us on WMM.
[IVORY BLUE plays ARTS IN THE PARK on the Main Stage, at 1002 Clark Ferguson Drive, North Kansas City on Saturday, June 10 at 1:00 PM.]
More info at: http://www.ivorybluemusic.com
11:37
- Ivory Blue – “Starlit Love Child”
from: “Starlit Live Child’ – Single / Sound Ballistics Music & Publishing / October 28, 2022
[Ivory Blue was born in 1986 in Peoria Illinois, as Devin James Miclettet. Ivory’s birth mother put them up for adoption at the age of four. Ivory speaks about how it was difficult to find trust in people offering their home to someone denied it for so long, Ivory lived with eight different families. before running away at 15. // Ivory has talked with us about how in their life they have turned to music to express pain. Ivory spent most of their childhood looking for a family. In 2010 Klaartje Van Lue saw Ivory performing in a YouTube video and contacted them, flying them Ivory KC, and adopting Ivory into the Van Lue family. During the past 10 years Ivory came out as “Non-Binary Transgender. // As a multi-instrumentalist, Ivory began refining their performance style, using digital looping pedals to stack harmonies and guitar parts live on stage, giving their solo shows the feel of a full band. In 2011, Ivory settled in Kansas City, MO and quickly began attracting an intense regional following for their strong vocals and incisive, deeply personal lyrics.. // Ivory released the singles: “Elite Dreamland,” on Feb. 17, 2021, “Half a Life” on Sept. 20, 2021. Ivory Blue released the video of “Family Table” directed by Mikal Shapiro, on August 21, 2021 and the audio track was released on September 7, 2021. Ivory Blue released the single “Good Changes” on Oct 26, 2021. Ivory Blue released the singles: “Heavy,” “Bad Weather,” “It Must Have Been Me,” “Compound Love,” and “The Start” on December 14, 2021. Ivory Blue joined us on WMM on November 10, September 15, and July 28, in 2021. More info at: https://linktr.ee/ivorybluemusic%5D
[IVORY BLUE plays ARTS IN THE PARK on the Main Stage, at 1002 Clark Ferguson Drive, North Kansas City on Saturday, June 10 at 1:00 PM.]
11:40 – Pledge Break #5
This is WMM’s Spring Fund Drive Show with Marion Merritt & Betse Ellis.
90.1 FM KKFI Kansas City Community Radio offers loads and loads of information about what is going on in the community. Not only does this show interview 150 guest each year, not only do we play nearly 900 different songs with more than half of those being locally produced, but we also shine a light on area not-for-profit theatre companies, art museums & galleries, area festivals, service organizations, area record labels and record stores, the area music scene, arts scene, theatre scene, literary arts scene, political action scene.
In just this past year, we’ve featured segments shining a light on:, The Kauffman Center for The Performing Arts, UMKC Conservatory of Music, Owen Cox Dance Group, KC Bass Workshop, The Record Machine, Mills Record Company, Records With Merritt, High Dive Records, Center Cut Records, Manor Records, Lost Cowgirl Records, KC Irish Fest, The Crossroads Music Fest, MixMaster Music Conference, Too Much Rock, Midwest Music Foundation, Apocalypse Meow, filmmaker Morgan Cooper, Charlotte Street Foundation, Inter Urban Arthouse, Lemonade Park, Weights and Measure Sound Lab, Innovation Festival, Bio Kansas, Les Bons Bons Electriques, Outer Reaches Fest, The Greater Philipino Association of Kamsas City, Queer Narratives Fest, No Devide KC, Boulevardia, Gay Pride, Folk Alliance International, The Band That Fell To Earth.
11:47
- Flutienastiness – “AlterEgo”
from: This Is Me / Flutienastiness Entertainment / October 28, 2020
[Flutienastiness is the music and educational project of Amber Underwood who works as a band director in KC Public Schools and is a private flute instructor at REW Band & Instruments. Her style falls on the R&B, Pop, and Soul side of jazz, Amber Underwood is a vivid performer. Amber studied Education at Pittsburgh State University from 2010 to 2012. Amber lives in Shawnee, KS. The album was produced, mixed, & mastered by Desmond “D. Professor” Mason for Out D. Park Productions. All flutes by Amber Underwood. All tracks were composed collaboratively between Amber & Desmond. Amber writes: “This is album is a touch of all my feelings, life journeys and a inside look into Amber ‘Flutienastiness’ Underwood as a person beyond the stage. This album is for all the female artists & musicians who have been criticized or not excepted when it comes to their work, art or music and felt like they didn’t belong. ‘This Is Me’ is my testimony that all things are possible and not be scared to create your OWN lane.” More info at:www.flutienastiness.com.]
[Amber Flutienastiness plays Nighthawk, the bar below Hotel Kansas City at 13th & Baltimore, Friday, June 16, 2023.]
11:50 – Pledge Break #6
This is WMM’s Spring Fund Drive Show with Marion Merritt, & Betse Ellis.
THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!! Between our On-Air donors this morning on Wednesday MidDay Medley, and our Facebook Fundraiser, we had 49 individuals that donated a total of $3162.00 in support of KKFI 90.1 FM! Thank you to Betse Ellis and Marion Merritt for Co-Hosting the show today!!! Thank you to all of the phone room volunteers and Darryl Oliver and J Kelly Dougherty at KKFI for all of your work!
11:54 – KC PrideFest & Parade on June 9, 10, and 11
- Frenchie Davis – “Love’s Got A Hold On Me”
from: “Love’s Got A Hold On Me” – Single / Frenchie Davis Music Group / September 4, 2013
[Franchell “Frenchie” Davis was born May 7, 1979, and is an American Broadway performer and a soul, dance/electronica, and pop singer. She first came to public attention in 2003 as a contestant on the singing competition show American Idol. Davis began performing in Rent on Broadway soon afterward, and was a member of the cast for four years. In 2011 Davis reached the top 8 on the first season of singing competition The Voice. Davis was born in Washington, DC and raised in Los Angeles, CA. She graduated from Howard University in 2014 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts.]
[Frenchie Davis plays KC PrideFest & Parade on June 9, 10, and 11. Headliners are Cazwell, Frenchie Davis, Brandon Stansell, and Muni Long, at Theis Park, 47th & Oak Street, KCMO, the massive park is just South of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, across the street from their lawn with the shuttlecocks. There’s also a big parade on Saturday, June 10 that begins in Westport, travels through the Plaza and ends at Oak and West 47th Ttreet at Thies Park.]
- Noel Coward – “The Party’s Over Now”
from: Noel Coward in New York / drg / 2003 [orig. 1957]
Next week on WMM on June 14, Marion Merritt will be back with Nico Gray as our special Guest Co-Hosts, Also next week Chris Haghirian joins us for the entire show to share music and information about The Boulevardia Festival happening Friday, June 16 and Saturday, June 17 at Crown Center.
Our Script/Playlist is a “cut and paste” of information.
Sources for notes: artist’s websites, bios, wikipedia.org
Wednesday MidDay Medley in on the web:
http://www.kkfi.org,
http://www.WednesdayMidDayMedley.org,
http://www.facebook.com/WednesdayMidDayMedleyon90.1FM
On your local radio dial 90.1 FM or
STREAMING LIVE at: kkfi.org
Show #997
Wednesday MidDay Medley 