SHINER w/ Houston & DJ Thunderkutz

1221 Union Avenue,Kansas City MO 64101

03 December, 2022

Description

Doors 8:00pm ~ 21+ only ~ $17adv ~ $20dos Doors Open: 8:00pm ~ Houston: 9:00pm ~ Shiner: 10:30pm Shiner (KCMO) with Houston (Minneapolis) and DJ Thundercutz ~~~~~ SHINER Shiner formed in 1992 and soon found themselves signed to DeSoto Records, (owned by Jawbox’s Kim Coletta and Bill Barbot). The band began a creative high and a busy touring schedule that endured for years, with their final album in 2001 The Egg a critical success. Pitchfork said, “Shiner's six-string bloodletting beats the crap out of anything you'll hear on commercial FM these days" and All Music noted, "The songs themselves bask in an epic splendor, replete with the kind of arrangements that reward repeat listenings" Along the way countless tours of the US, Europe and Japan, and 4 full-length albums gave them a fiercely loyal set of diehards. Comparisons with their contemporaries of HUM, Jawbox, Failure, and Swervedriver were unavoidable, but Shiner carved a path of their own with a dedication to song-craft and musicianship wrapped in darkly sugared hooks. Shiner broke up in 2002 but 10-years later re-released The Egg on vinyl and played sold-out shows in New York, LA, KC and Chicago. Those were some of their biggest shows ever and many in the audience were new to the Shiner fanclub. In 2018 the 4 of them - drummer Jason Gerken, bass player Paul Malinowski and guitarists Allen Epley and Josh Newton decided they were not quite finished, there was another life for Shiner they could not ignore. After a few recording sessions that took place over a year and a half, the band have emerged with 8 solid songs that make up Schadenfreude. The LP was self-produced, engineered, and mixed at Malinowski’ own Massive Sound studio in Shawnee, KS. “We've always been extremely hands-on, even when working with someone else technically ‘producing,’” says Newton, “with The Egg we ended up remixing and adding things to almost half the record on our own. At this stage in our existence, we know what we should sound like.” Despite the hiatus, Shiner have not missed a beat Gerken is still a drummer's drummer and his heavy right foot is tied to Malinowski's distorted-symphony bass. Epley and Newton hew left and right in the mix and worked in lockstep counterpoint throughout the proceedings and leave room for the vocals to enter the mix without overtaking, and instead working as a whole within the strings and skins. The songs on Schadenfreude are not so much an answer to The Egg as some properly timed follow up might, but instead stand on their own. It’s the sound of a 4 piece band with each player finding his place in a book as though he just left the room an hour earlier and picked up on the next paragraph upon return. Epley says, “a lot of themes on the album are pretty dark but always with a silver lining around the edges. The title itself is a commentary on the most common human trait of enjoying your rivals' demise. Or your apparent enemies.” HOUSTON Houston guitarist/vocalist Jeff Halland likes to talk in analogies, especially ones based around cars. "If everyone's buying Pathfinders and Dakotas right now, I'd like to think we're an old El Camino with one tail light out. And no muffler. And we're not even going anywhere. We're just sitting in our front yard, shirtless, drinking Pabst, working on our El Camino." Even their name is an analogy, but to what, I'm not sure. The Minneapolis-based trio, which has been around since '99, has no noticeable ties to the Lone Star State. And the vibe Houston generates with its rawkish sound generally conjures darkness and black leather rather than cowboys and Texas twang. But maybe there's a metaphor in the fact that the title of their soon-to-be-released second CD, Head Like a Road Map, is reminiscent of Nine Inch Nails' "Head Like a Hole." Houston and NIN frontman Trent Reznor share a number of sonic similarities. No, Houston isn't synth-based industrial noisescapes. But their guitar-driven dark melodies and trippy/heavy rock has shadows of post-Downward Spiral NIN. From the brooding opener "Waves," through the 11-minute reprise that caps off the CD, Halland's voice is more than a little reminiscent of Mr. Reznor's, surrounded by almost arty instrumentation. Regardless, the band has been compared to Shudder to Think, Failure, Radiohead and Jawbox. But Houston is darker than that, and much more fraught with danger than any rusty El Camino I've encountered. Lazy-i: July 25, 2001 Published in the Omaha Weekly July 18, 2001. Copyright © 2001 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.