Back to Rockville: Kansas City Academy to bare its Hearts and soul

The Barclay Martin Ensemble: Mark Lowrey, Giuliano Mingucci, Barclay Martin and Rick WIlloughby.

Maybe you’ve driven by the building at Main Street and 79th Terrace and wondered what it was. Or maybe you’ve never seen or noticed it or even heard of it. Or maybe you know a student enrolled in its curriculum and you’re familiar with what’s going on inside.

The building at 7933 Main St. is the Kansas City Academy, and on Saturday everyone will have a chance to get a glimpse of its mission. The Kansas City Academy Grassroots Festival will be an open house for its surrounding community and for anyone who wants to swing by between 4 and 8 p.m. and have a look and a listen and a bite to eat.

“It’s a chance for the KCA to introduce itself as a member of this community and to show people what we’re doing,” said Barclay Martin, leader of the Barclay Martin Ensemble and a KCA faculty member.

“Some of the students’ artwork will be exhibited and several of the bands will perform. It will be a showcase of the academy’s learning style, which is highly experiential. We want to give people a great music experience and an introduction to the school and its soul.”

The faculty is a who’s who of local musicians. Its director of admissions is Miles Bonny, DJ/composer/jazz musician. Martin teaches songwriting in the school’s music department, which is led by Brandon Draper, drummer percussionist in several music projects, including the Quixotic Fusion band, Organic Proof and Alaturka. One of its part-time faculty members is Sean Branagan, percussionist with the Hearts of Darkness.

Saturday’s music lineup will include performances by the school’s World Percussion Ensemble and its school band. It will also include performances by its faculty members’ projects, including the Hearts of Darkness.

“They are essentially the headliner,” Martin said, “which is awesome. We’re calling this a grassroots festival, and it’s aptly named. Miles has some gear, Brandon has some gear, I have some gear and we’re using it all to put the P.A. together, piecemeal.”

Food also will be available. Martin said a food truck or two will be present and Bistro Kids, the farm-to-school lunch program that serves the academy, also will be on hand, serving its organic/homegrown/healthy fare. A suggested $5 donation will be taken at the door. All proceeds will go to the school.

Saturday: The Kansas City Academy presents its Grassroots Festival from 4 to 8 p.m. Saturday on its campus at 7933 Main St. A $5 donation at the gate is recommended.

From left, Ike Sheldon, Nate Hefron, Phil Wade and Betse Ellis of the Wilders

A SHOWCAE SHOW

For fans of a certain kind of music, Friday’s local show at Davey’s Uptown Ramblers Club, 3402 Main St., could be one of the year’s best.

Headliners are the Wilders, who, in June released “The Wilders,” their 10th album and the best album of their long and illustrious careers. (The band has been together for 15 years, 12 of those as the current lineup.)

“The Wilders” fortifies the band’s shift from strictly an old-time country act to a country/roots band of four separate but equal singers, songwriters and musicians showing off their voices and skills. And after 15 years, their live shows show off how honed and dynamic they are as live performers.

Also on the bill: Grisly Hand, an insurgent country band that has rightfully earned a reputation as one of the more entertaining live acts in the local scene. The opener is Howard Iceberg, the roots/folk/pop songwriter emeritus of our local scene, who will perform as a duo with his longtime guitarist in the Titanics, Gary Paredes, “likely with selected Widers and Grisky Hand-ers,” according to Iceberg.

This summer, at a local tribute to Iceberg at Crosstown Station, Lauren Krum, vocalist with the Grisly Hand, and Ike Sheldon, singer and instrumentalist with the Wilders, delivered a spine-tingling cover of Iceberg’s “Calling Robert Burns.” If they reprise that performance, this show is guaranteed to be even more memorable.

Show time is 9 p.m. Tickets are $8 in advance, $10 at the door.

ART, ROCK & ART-ROCK

Lots of local musicians are multitaskers. It’s not unusual for one to be part of two or three bands at the same time. Tyson Schroeder takes it to an extreme.

He is a drummer in two bands (Medicine Theory and Knife Crime) and a visual artist. He is also a part-time set designer/handyman, a stage actor, a screenwriter and the author/illustrator of a children’s book.

Friday night, he will unveil his art work at the Brick, 1737 McGee St., as part of the First Friday celebration. Twelve new paintings will be exhibited in the restaurant/club. He will also release two book projects: “Holden the Elephant,” his children’s book; and “Filled with Blue Ruin,” an anthology of his artwork.

Schroeder is a self-taught painter whose style resembles the work of some of his biggest influences: Ralph Steadman, Francis Bacon, Gustave Klimpt and Kent Williams. His painting style and his music in the Medicine Theory, which he founded with Jeff Irvine back in 2008, are extensions of each other, he said.

“The music has become an audio version of my paintings,” he said. “The music is very loud, post-rock or whatever. We steal heavily from bands like Big Black, Shellac and Barkmarket, though we’re not nearly that good. Nothing is too literal. We let people hear it and make their own interpretations.

“It’s very physical, like an attack. There’s a lot of improv, even within the songs we’ve played for a few years. That’s how I paint, too. I let the painting tell me what it’s supposed to be.”

The music from his other band, Knife Crime, is from the other end of the spectrum, he said. “Knife Crime is a rock band, too, but more from the pop side,” he said. “I actually have to work more at it. I’m not used to thinking in that form: verse/chorus/verse and at a tempo that encourages people to dance. It’s a lot of work and a ton of fun.”

Schroeder’s exhibit at the Brick comprises paintings created over the past year, most of them at his studio in the Living Room, the theater space at 1818 McGee St., where he has done some set-design work.

It’s also where, in May 2010, he presented “The Oil Boiler,” a play he co-wrote with Christian Hankel of Alacartoona. Schroeder also played a lead role in the play. He says he has some more theater projects in the works and both bands are working on new material. And he’s still painting (oil, watercolor, digital) and printmaking.

“I love being really busy,” he said. Friday night you can see the fruits of some of his busy-ness and take some home with you, if so inclined.

| Timothy FInn, The Star