Review by Josh Chasin
I've been a Kasim fan since my second Todd show-- Utopia in Central Park, summer 1978. The first time I saw Todd was at one of the Back to the Bars Bottom Line dates, with the Moogy/Seigler/Hello People line-up; so this was my first live exposure to Kaz. I remember sitting there as they opened with "Trapped" and "Back On the Street," just blown away. Todd and Kaz trading vocal lines on"Trapped"-- it was two years before I could get my head around a Utopia show with a different opening number. And the booming resonance of Kasim's powerful but relatively high, reverb-sweetened voice, and that thundering insistent bassline, in "Back On the Street"-- Sure, Todd was the man, but I always liked "the other guy" too.

I remember seeing Utopia on New Year's Eve, 12/31/80, at the Tower Theater on the Deface tour, and honestly feeling like Todd and Kasim's voices went together in a way that no one had touched since John and Paul. Indeed, on some of the Utopia songs they sang in unison-- like "There Goes My Inspiration" or "Infrared and Ultraviolet"-- it is damn near impossible to tell where one voice ends and the other begins. Those moments were always spine-chilling, and it was great hearing that Utopia harmony sound re-created on the Power TR-io tour in 2000. And Kasim remains one of the most tuneful, melodic bass players in rock.

I first saw a solo Kasim show on Halloween 1979, when he opened for Utopia at the Capital Theater in Passaic, New Jersey. I remember he opened his set with a great song called "Let It Flow" (a song I've heard in my head many times since, but which I could not confirm the actual existence of until last Saturday night, when I asked Kasim about it, confirming my memory was not playing tricks on me.) From '79-'83 I must have seen Kasim 6, 7 times-- Bottom Line, Savoy, Trax (Dorren-- remember Trax?). I remember hearing him sing "Rock'n'Roll Ricochet", a cover of "Cathy's Clown", Utopia songs like "The Up", and of course most of his first solo album, which I still like (in a perfect world, "This Must Be Love" would have bumped "Our Lips Are Sealed" from the top of the charts as an early '80's radio/video hit.)

Later on, I saw an extremely memorable Hall and Oates show on their unplugged tour, with Kasim on bass and vocals, his voice augmenting and enriching their already deep vocal textures.

So fast forward to, well, now.

First, the album Quid Pro Quo. A few weeks back I might have echoed the sentiments of some that it got weaker toward the end. But then I got into my wife's car yesterday when she picked me up from work, and the strains of "Don't Hold Me Back" (a song I've dug since the Adventures in Utopia tour) were coming from the car speakers. After seeing the Bitter End show Saturday, my wife has commandeered the cd for her car. Anyway, starting at that track and going through to the end, and after having heard most of the songs live, I now see the album as pretty consistently strong all the way through. There are four songs that I adore-- the exquisite "Before She Was Gone"; my old favorite "Don't Hold Me Back"; the Finn cover "Where is My Soul"; and now, "The One Sure Thing."

I do think that the album does not show off Kasim's talent to full effect. Perhaps because I was exposed to some of these songs as solo acoustic numbers, the intimacy-- the breathing room-- isn't there (except on the perfect "Before She Was Gone.") And because the album is largely a one-man show, the dynamics a band might bring to the party are absent as well. In a sense the album lies in between these two extremes-- singer/songwriter, band. But that is not really a knock; I gather these songs were largely written on guitar, and perfected for one guitar/one voice (or one piano/one voice.) So two of the things Kaz does best-- bass playing and backing vocals-- aren't as present here as they might be. On the other hand, the driving acoustic guitar that powers some of these songs is soft and warm and winning.