Six guys from nowhere, given the chance, become something gigantic

January 16, 2024 7:20 AM

The old way the music industry used to work was: a band would be discovered and signed to a contract. Over the course of two, three, four albums the band would be given the chance to develop and grow and see if they connect with an audience. This system worked complete gangbusters for music promoter Don Kirshner and a supergroup of local musicians, witness -- Kansas: Miracles Out of Nowhere [1h16m]. It's both a fascinating look at the industry from a band's perspective, and also a reminder about how brilliant this American prog band really was.
posted by hippybear (18 comments total)

I am an unabashed Kansas lover - thank you hippybear. Me and the missus are watching music documentaries these days - we've recently done Rush, Fanny, King Crimson and a few others - we'll be watching this tonight!
posted by whatevernot at 7:56 AM on January 16 [5 favorites]

watched this a while back. Good doc. Damned good band. Never even heard of them until Carry on Wayward Son suddenly broke. I would've been seventeen. Perfect age for it. And I promptly bought the album at which point I was all over them for a while, there being a strong back catalogue to feed my hungry ears. A uniquely American progressive rock. They genuinely didn't sound like anybody else.

Unfortunately, they never toured to my far northwestern corner of the continent, which gets all the more annoying when you realize just how strong they were live.
posted by philip-random at 8:23 AM on January 16 [2 favorites]

This is the second of two big bands I actually heard live (the other is Tesla), and it was way, way past their time in the sun of popular radio, in a dusty horse arena in Port Salerno, Florida. They still jammed, though. Their stuff was really good; I had quite a few albums and was "over them" before the concert, but wasn't too cool not to go when the opportunity presented itself..

Probably my favourite album was Power.

And right now the chorus of "Point of Know Return" is in my head.
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:36 AM on January 16

I guess I'm giving away some serious security info by stating that Kansas was the first concert I ever attended. 1977 at the Philly Spectrum. I was 14 and my parents drove me to Philly from Harrisburg, no small distance, and dropped me off, probably never imagining that the guy next to me would offer me a toke from his joint (I demured).
To 14 y.o. me, Kansas were the US's version of Yes, with glorious keyboard arpeggios and a guitarist to rival Steve Howe.
Alas I've been a lifelong fan of Yes, whereas Kansas never survived my conversion to punk fandom, and then to Deadheadness, and then on to being an old funk/jazz chiller.
I can still listen fondly to Point of No Return and Leftoverture, but I don't seek them out. I will, however, definitely give this a watch. Don Kirshner is also blast from the past whom i haven't considered in quite a while.
posted by OHenryPacey at 9:14 AM on January 16 [5 favorites]

whereas Kansas never survived my conversion to punk fandom, and then to

this is similar to my trajectory, though I didn't go punk so much as everything/anything -- the turning point being 1980. Albums like Peter Gabriel (3), Talking Heads Remain in Light, Clash Sandinista.

But on seeing this doc, I did go back and dig into the older Kansas, everything up to (and including) Monolith, and found it surprisingly fresh, better than I expected. Those first three albums (the ones prior to their breakthrough Leftoverture), while a little uneven, all have seriously high highs. Pretty much exactly what you'd expect, I guess, if you took all the mad influences and extravagances of British Prog Rock and dumped them into the vast and flat expanses of dead middle America.
posted by philip-random at 9:43 AM on January 16 [3 favorites]

At least Kansas isn't suffering from being memory holed like contemporary bands like REO Speedwagon and Supertramp. [I know they aren't really the same kind of music, but certainly contemporary in time.] You still hear Kansas on the radio pretty regularly. I guess they still tour with a couple of original members.
posted by hippybear at 10:17 AM on January 16

This 2002 concert is pretty damn good: Kansas - Live in Atlanta 2002
posted by edward_5000 at 12:22 PM on January 16

About 70% of the video thumbnail for "Carry on Wayward Son" is one gentleman's hair and beard and I reach for the word "hirsute."
posted by kirkaracha at 7:44 PM on January 16

Carry on my wayward son
There'll be hair when you are done.
Lay your hairy head to rest.
Don't you shave no more.

Wow, that's weak. They were blue-collar guys playing brain music. And the guy in that thumbnail isn't even the lead singer!
posted by hippybear at 7:58 PM on January 16

I can't say I know much about Kansas other than a couple of their hits, but that video was fantastic and it makes me want to check out more of their music.
posted by Ickster at 10:20 PM on January 16

I came of age with Kansas and couldn't escape them in my college dorm after Leftoverture hit - saw them later a couple times on festival lineups but never dug into their "story". So am I the only one who kept waiting for the inevitable reminiscence of drugs and groupies and debauchery and finally left kinda drop-jawed as it concluded that I'd just seen my first (and only?) 60's/70s/80s rock documentary that would completely fail to mention anything about their encounters of that whole scene even as they traveled and played with bands of all kinds who you know were neck deep in fairly constant carnal and chemical indulgence?

Also, just kind of weird for a doc to conclude at their absolute peak and ignore that they went on for decades in declining sales and relevance playing the endless summer classic circuit with Styx and Foreigner and Boston, etc.
posted by thecincinnatikid at 9:42 AM on January 17

the fact that it concludes at their peak is a plus for me. Who needs a prolonged final act where the artist becomes bland or pathetic or mediocre or foolishly addicted or all of the above? Kansas worked bloody hard to achieve their later 70s glory ... and then sorta fell apart for unspectacular reasons (the main one being that main writer Kerry Livgren found Christ, and that caused divisions). Nobody died or went to jail or whatever -- their music just got less interesting.
posted by philip-random at 2:33 PM on January 17

How "Carry On" Became Supernatural's Unofficial Theme (& Why It Works)

Kansas was slightly before my time but via classic rock radio I knew the hits. My friend, who is just under a generation younger, is only familiar with the song via Supernatural.

Similarly, if you say REO Speedwagon, some may go "The guy from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure?" And if you tried to name the band who plays the song from the Jojo's "To be continued.." meme you will inadvertently trip into an Abbot and Costello routine.

"Do you know the band you plays this song?"
"Yes."
posted by LostInUbe at 2:39 PM on January 17 [1 favorite]

Who needs a prolonged final act where the artist becomes bland or pathetic or mediocre or foolishly addicted or all of the above?

Yeah, you're right, I guess that's prolly Behind The Music territory - 'cause, like, why would a "documentarian" be inclined to lean into some kind of more contextually honest purview of their subject's relevance and impact?
posted by thecincinnatikid at 4:13 PM on January 17

Ah thank you hippybear! I started listening to Kansas in my early teen years; I, a weird probably neurodivergent girl in the rural midwest, heard Song for America on the only album oriented radio station in the area and it lit my brain on fire. I bought their entire catalogue (at the time eight, up to Audiovisions) on cassette tapes and spent many hours listening on my crappy tape player.

Unfortunately I discovered them just as they were falling apart; Steve Walsh (keyboards and main vocals) wanted to be an angry-young-man rocker and Kerry Livgren (keyboards and guitar) wanted to blend his Christian faith into his music. After Audiovisions Walsh left, then Robbie Steinhardt (violinist and second vocal) left the next year; the two albums after Walsh's departure were thinly veiled contemporary Christian and, um, not great. A bit later, Livgren and Dave Hope (bassist, also a Christian convert) quit and Walsh rejoined, and Kansas kept going.

My musical tastes moved along, as teenage tastes do, and I became a fan of Thomas Dolby, then Peter Gabriel, then Tom Waits and TMBG and and and etc. Still go back to the old Kansas albums (I have the CDs now!) every now and then, still good stuff. They also did one more release in 2000 with the then current Kansas lineup plus Livgren, Hope and Steinhardt called Somewhere to Elsewhere; Livgren wrote all the songs, felt like they sounded a lot like Kansas, called his old pals up and said hey, let's record these. Not every song is golden but some of them sound a LOT like old-school Kansas - check out Distant Vision and the beginning of Icarus II.

Anyway, I'm watching this tomorrow evening - thanks again!
posted by sencha at 4:24 PM on January 17 [1 favorite]

Livgren went off and formed a CCM band called A.D. for a while. I was listening to a lot of CCM at the time, and remember buying the first A.D. album [Discogs] but not finding it very interesting.
posted by hippybear at 4:48 PM on January 17 [1 favorite]

And one more link - this is a video of an entire concert from the Audiovisions tour (my first rock concert!); I didn't see them in Houston but I remember the at-the-time state-of-the-art laser show. The video quality is not great but the audio is okay.

And on preview - hippybear, I had the same impression of AD (because of course I had to buy their first album) - I ended up giving it to an evangelical friend.
posted by sencha at 4:51 PM on January 17

Thanks for posting this! Just watched it. So much fun!
posted by inexorably_forward at 3:07 AM on January 20