Prior to the multimillion-dollar renovations to KU’s Memorial Stadium that derailed the Kansas Relays in 1998 and ’99, track and field fans would have to go all the way back to the final years of World War II to find the last time the region’s finest track and field athletes didn’t make a spring stop in Lawrence. But enthusiasts couldn’t…
Psychobabble”Come see the first truly 21st century play in America,” exclaims a flyer for Snapped, which is being performed at the Westport CoffeeHouse Theatre. What this means isn’t exactly clear. Its subject matter isn’t any more “21st century” than the 1945 movie The Lost Weekend, in which a bugged-out drunk saw bats in the wallpaper. Remove the millennial signifier and…
Eye to Eye says it like it is. Larry Buechel’s exhibit has filled Grand Arts with eyes of various colors and sizes — from the monolithic digital painting, “Eye Contact,” to the multiplied blue eye of “Kaleidoscope”; even the parking lot has an eye on either side of its entry, establishing the exhibit’s point before visitors even walk through…
Only six weeks after an intense performance series during which the Emerson String Quartet performed all 15 Shostakovich string quartets over five concerts, its show in Lawrence could be perceived as a group slumming. As though coming down off a Russian high, the quartet kept Shostakovich’s Tenth Quartet, in A-flat major, as the centerpiece, but rose to it with…
I might be giving away my age here, but after about 20 minutes in the smoky, pulsating Granada Monday night I felt as if my palm would start blinking at any minute, signaling that I’d be forced to join the other old folk and rise into the light à la Logan’s Run. LTJ Bukem and his Progression Sessions crew were…
“That was crazy, man,” said one first-time viewer of the Ani experience as he headed down one of the Uptown Theater’s grand staircases. “It was, like, a mix of scat jazz, street poetry, the Dave Matthews Band, and Stevie Wonder.” And although any curious onlookers walking down Broadway and wondering what kind of performer would draw such a rabid…
If the crowd that gathered at The Granada Friday night offered any indication, the main demographic for independent hip-hop (a genuine art form that functions below the radar of the mainstream, falling into the cracks of underground/college radio) is upper-middle-class white college boys. Even if this audience failed to contribute much flavor or soul, the three diverse groups on…
Due to egos beyond the control of the management of the Replay Lounge, the prima-donna duo known as National Skyline drove off into the gorgeous sunset Sunday night, refusing to honor its commitment to perform. The Replay crew reported that the band felt the PA system was inadequate for a group of its stature, so the two guitarists had…
In a note that accompanied his CD, John Welsh wrote, “I love playing the guitar in a traditional fashion; however, lately I’m investigating the endless possibilities of creating sound with found objects.” On this far-from-traditional release, Welsh produces one bizarre noise after another. However, because guitar is the only instrument listed, it remains a mystery how he concocted the nails-on-blackboard…
As frontman for the hard-edge roots-rockers Scroatbelly and the hot-rod bluegrass phenomenon Split Lip Rayfield, Kirk Rundstrom has long teetered on the line between rock and country music. On Wicked Savior, Rundstrom gives listeners a potent taste of his country side while occasionally basting his songs with the spicy glaze of his rock influences. Rundstrom is backed on the record…
Tales of wild times at the annual Omega Fest used to greet KU freshmen with their arrival on campus, providing yet another reason to look past fall and winter to those glorious days in late spring. “I stayed up for three days on …” the stories always began before the author would indicate what kind of hallucinogens were ingested…
I hate tough guys. But at least, as Norman Mailer once said, tough guys don’t dance, a refusal that keeps them out of the way of those of us interested in music. Or so you would think. But Nick Tosches, who has the countenance, attitude, and nicotine-wired prose of a crime-beat lifer, has written primarily of musicians and the pop-culture…
Sean “Puffy” Combs is no dummy. His company’s big splash into the male R&B soloist arena is headed by former Bad Boy background singer Carl Thomas. To ensure success, Puffy and his herd of producers use samples of songs originally performed by Stevie Wonder, Al Green, Isaac Hayes, Sting, and The Notorious B.I.G. The excerpts of these classic tunes sound…
As in most forms of music, once the heyday of being the “next big thing” has passed, the innovators of that sound begin to secure their moment to shine through. Case in point: Smith & Mighty. Over a decade before the Bristol, England, sound was popularized by the more familiar names of Tricky and Massive Attack, this trio was fusing…
Created by the mad French scientist Etienne Charry, 36 Erreurs is an understated title for a record that’s nothing like its name implies. Thanks to the accompanying press release, we monolingual Americans can discover that the title translates into “36 errors” and, apparently, the 36 songs are about such odd topics as hot-point branding and men in the moon. The…
It’s rare when a soundtrack actually matches the intensity of the film it represents. The soundtrack to Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai is that uncommon gem. Snippets of Forest Whitaker reciting samurai ideology from director Jim Jarmusch’s hit-man masterpiece reinforces the record’s potency. RZA, who also composed the picture’s score, has always taken a cinematic approach to his…
Print ads have touted Neil Young’s succinct new album as “his most personal in years,” a statement unlikely to sit well with the restless godfather of grunge. Every Young disc, even the clunkers that junked his ’80s stint at Geffen, is personal. Some, like Silver and Gold, also happen to sound personal. Young’s band here — drummer Jim Keltner, piano/organ…
It’s said that the only creature on Earth equipped to survive a nuclear meltdown is the cockroach. Despite the doomsayers, there wasn’t a meltdown, or any other catastrophe, when the year 2000 rolled around, but even in the absence of crisis, Papa Roach has found a way to thrive. This hip-hop/punk/funk California-based quartet starts its album (and, traditionally, its live…
Anglo folk music comes in a variety of sizes. It can be uncomplicated and petite, like any number of local coffeehouse performers, or it can be grandiose and elaborate, like The Corrs. Residing somewhere in between these extremes is Great Big Sea. Forged in the Newfoundland capital of St. John’s, the band has culled its musical manner from its geographical…
“Old school” is a term that gets tossed around when describing everyone from football tough-guy Ronnie Lott to law-talkin’ nice guy Andy Griffith, so it’s understandable that certain members of the nation’s hip-hop community get a little perturbed when tagged with the title. To some, it implies imitation or, even worse, weakness. But don’t tell that to the Jurassic 5….
Those who tuned in to the USA Network on Monday, April 24, to catch Lawrence natives Trucker on the channel’s music showcase, Farmclub, might have found it hard to ignore a performance by another band — one that featured fire-blowing, sporadic nudity, and snippets of TLC, Rammstein, and Korn songs spliced into an original tune built around a lurid reference…
Making movies is a lot harder than it looks, especially for independent filmmakers. Assuming the film actually gets finished, one last hurdle remains: distribution. Hundreds of independent features never see a theatrical or video release because no one will market and distribute them. Writer-director Adrian Fulle knows that side of the business all too well. His first feature, Three…
Looping, arching, jumping, and swirling in a ballet of aquatic communication, the graceful dolphin, the world’s second smartest animal (?), is the focus of the latest IMAX offering at the Kansas City Zoo. Producer/director Greg MacGillivray (Everest) captures some breathtaking shots, both aerial and underwater, of our seagoing cousins off the coasts of the Bahamas and Patagonia. The 40-minute film…
Irish writer-director Damien O’Donnell turns in an impressively unvarnished debut, adapting Ayub Khan-Din’s play about a working class Pakistani family in 1970s Manchester, England. Om Puri and Linda Bassett, as pater and mater, respectively, of a brood of six sons and one daughter, give honest performances that turn to shame most American actors’ portrayals of blue-collardom. Like fellow Brit Janet…
