I saw Kansas once. What a waste of a state. And the band is even worse.
That said, the one time I saw Steve Walsh, Kerry Livgren & Company live I had a wonderful time, although that could be attributed to the fact that I smoked PCP by mistake. Brought a whole new meaning to “Dust in the Wind.”
And to be fair–I went to see them way back when because I liked them. “Carry on Wayward Son” was fine by me, and I was a total sucker for their sound, which basically involved Robbie Steinhardt’s violin chasing Steve Walsh’s organ around the stage while Kerry Livgren was doing whatever it was he did on synthesizers and Rich Williams was trying his hardest to be a complete nonentity on guitar. And those lyrics, man. Deep!
Kansas is a young person’s band in the same way that Thomas Wolff is a young person’s novelist; they sounded pretty great to this dumb teen, but if you’re still cranking them up at 40, well, I have to wonder about you.
For one there’s the question of the lyrics; Walsh and Livgren are collectively even more lunkheaded than Rush’s Neil Peart, although to be fair to the boys it must be said that at least they’re not trying to ram Ayn Rand down your throat. I direct your attention to “Portrait (He Knew)” off the band’s 1977 masterpiece Point of Know Return. The “He” in question is Albert Einstein, and Livgren does some very insightful thinking about the great man along the lines of, “Never said much to speak of/He was off on another plain/The words that he said were a mystery/Nobody’s sure he was sane.” It’s a PhD thesis in rhyme, it is.
And here’s Livgren in the Renaissance Rock “meditation” on the human condition that is “Hopelessly Human”: “It’s a strange situation, there’s no cause for alarm/All these hot licks and rhetoric, surely do you no harm.” Well that is yet to be determined; I’m awaiting the FDA’s final word on the subject. But there’s no denying that “Hopelessly Human” is the grandest musical statement on Mankind this side of Styx, and it has the chimes to prove it.
Not for nothing did Robert Christgau of The Village Voice write, “Q: How do you tell American art-rockers from their European forebears? A: They sound dumber, they don’t play as fast, and their fatalism lacks conviction.”
Which brings us to the fastness question. Sometimes Kansas plays fast and sometimes they don’t, and while fleet doesn’t always win the prize–the immortal (and musically anomalous) “Dust in the Wind” is the best song on Point of Know Return–the boys usually sound better when they’re kicking up a storm. It helps to distract from the lyrics on such songs as “Sparks of the Tempest,” which brings to mind a prog-rock Foreigner. Which ought to be horrifying, but inexplicably isn’t.
Robbie Steinhardt’s fiddle playing differentiates Kansas from your average prog-rock band, and sets such songs as the pretty good title track and follow-up “Paradox”–which is a speedy little thing indeed–apart from the art-rock pack. Both are more than listenable if you enjoy flashy displays of technical virtuosity for their own sake, and on the latter guitarist Williams proves himself to be every bit the show-off as Walsh and Steinhardt.
Thankfully short instrumental “The Spider” is flash as well, what with both Walsh and Livgren doing their best imitations of Keith Emerson, but do you really want to hear a couple of guys doing Keith Emerson impersonations? I don’t. On “Portrait (He Knew)” the boys sound more like an American Uriah Heep, only on this one they play it slow in order to let you digest Livgren’s probing psychological analysis of everybody’s favorite wild-haired German-born theoretical physicist. Have you ever seen that photo of Albert sticking his tongue out? I suspect he was responding to this song.
“Closet Chronicles” should have stayed there; why out yourself as dumb? Listen to the words–which are delivered in a tone of cosmic consequence–and you come to realize that it’s the King who’s in the closet, and the closet has a window, and the window is on the 42nd floor, and if you’re smart you’ll stop listening to the words lest they drive you mad. And as on “Portrait (He Knew)” the boys don’t have enough sense to raise enough of a ruckus–although there is a snazzy instrumental breakdown in the middle–to distract you from the muddleheaded lyrics.
“Lightning’s Hand” is a guitar rave-up and callous display of musical prowess that provides some laughs as well; “I command! The lightning’s hand!” never fails to crack me up. “Dust in the Wind” is, well, “Dust in the Wind,” and one of the greatest songs ever. Those fatalistic vocals! That gently plucked guitar! Those dusty, windy strings! I’m going to die! You’re going to die! Loved ones! Spread my ashes while this one plays!
“Nobody’s Home” opens on a note of sheer portentousness, turns into the worst ballad this side of Toto, and goes straight to the heart with such intergalactic, sobbing-in-my-space-beer lyrics as, “Across the galaxy to spread the word/And no one heard/I came for nothing, I’m alone/And nobody’s home.” Why, I haven’t been so sad since Neil Diamond kvetched about how nobody would listen to him, not even his chair.
I like to make fun of Kansas just as I like to make fun of Styx, but they bring back fond memories of my youth and I would be lying if I said I didn’t have a soft spot in my aging ticker for both of them. Sure Kansas were dumb, and sure they never met a song they didn’t overplay. But they were more fun than Emerson, Lake & Palmer and that’s a fact. And if you simply refuse to take them as seriously as they take themselves and settle down to listen to some mindless pyrotechnics, they can be every bit the gas as Foghat.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
C-
