Molly McGuire and the Bleary Roar of Kansas City Hardcore

I'm going to take a break for a moment from all of the R&B and old Soul I've been writing about and focus on the white man's music for a sec. I've been wanting to do a post for a while about Kansas City hardcore, a scene and a brand of sound that was way ahead of its time and that was a huge influence on me at one point. But trying to get all musical-historian on this topic is probably out of my reach, and besides I can't find half of the CDs I would need to do it proper. However since, upon my request, a friend recently mailed me a copy of Molly McGuire's last album Lime, on Epic Records, I can use posting a few of those tracks as a chance to reminisce a little.

I was a student from 94-98 in Springfield, MO, which was a few hours drive from either St. Louis or Kansas City. Since Springfield had no fewer than four universities it was actually a decent market for touring national acts, and we were spoiled musically, considering the size of the city. We also became part of the circuit for regional bands, who could pop in and do a weekend set every month or so and then get back home. When I showed up in '94, the Kansas City hardcore sound had already solidified: gutwrenching epic, a mix of melody and scream, the most dissonant guitar intervals possible, and, in general, just a darker, sadder, and angrier take on post-punk than anything grunge had offered. Fragile Porcelain Mice and Dirtnap were local favorites, since they seemed to hit Springfield the most. But Shiner, Season to Risk and Molly McGuire all had a bigger profile nationally and, of these, Molly McGuire actually signed to a major label (You probably won't be surprised to find out that they never made another record and broke up after their first major label release, Lime).

Listening back to Lime, I'm shocked at how a few of these tracks still hold up to today's sounds and styles. They were so ahead of their time. The Kansas City sound was essentially what would become emo and then post-emo, and even part of the sound of bands like Failure and Queens of the Stoneage. Besides Sunny Day Real Estate's Diary, there were few groups in the mid '90s making anything like it. Fugazi and the Jesus Lizard had the angry math and post-rock thing going, but the difference was in scope. The KC sound was a symphonic smear, and the arrangements and drumming were built to lay back and open up, almost like English shoegazer groups, but harder and more angular. The Kansas City bands also usually had more of an ear for melody and their dissonant roar often masked more traditional songs than their D.C. counterparts. But what really set them apart, to my ears, was the kind of melodies they wrote: their hooks were atonal (i.e. not in the key). If you were to analyze the melodies in the two Lime tracks I've posted below, you'd see that, harmonically, they are pushing and rubbing against the key pretty hard, and yet, they stick. That's the genius of it, and a rare one at that. Today, the only music I'm hearing that comes close to replicating the use of atonal hooks is some of the forward-thinking pop and hip hop like M.I.A., Missy Elliott, and Santigold.

Listening now, these tracks I'm posting might seem safe or even out of style. But that's mostly because their sound was absorbed and then replicated to death. I remember hearing the Deftones White Pony in 2000 and thinking, this is no different than the Kansas City hardcore I was geeking out on six years ago. Weird that it's on the radio now.

Molly McGuire - "Love Two By Four"

Molly McGuire - "Humansville"