The press kit for sterling soul band The Bellrays says listening to the group is like “getting kicked in the balls by James Brown.” Ow! That doesn’t feel good. One critic described the band as “Tina Turner fronting The Ramones,” which is not so much like a scrotum dispatch as it is a solid ear-boxing. Either way, the Riverside, California,…
Now in its fifth year, Red, White, and Boom packs considerably more firepower than its previous offerings. Third Eye Blind has experienced a sophomore slump saleswise with its latest effort, Blue, but the semicharmed group still ranks among alt-rock’s biggest draws. Impressively, one act on the bill has had even bigger hits: Bon Jovi, which will unveil tracks from its…
Ever since New Times set up shop here, lots of people have written us to complain that PitchWeekly has become smutty. That’s my fault. I get paid to masturbate. That’s what music writing is. I admit it. I started out making tapes for people in junior high, trying to inflict my taste on others even as I struggled to find…
Killswitch, another capable entrant into the rap/metal sweepstakes, features several former members of Canvas, one of the groups that blazed the trail for such hybrids locally. In this band’s case, the point of comparison becomes apparent on the album’s fourth track, which features Slipknot-style spelling on its title, “Season of the Sic,” as well as a lyrical nod (Where we’re…
With its downtuned riffs and vocals rapped in a tone that’s eerily reminiscent of Fred Durst’s, Vertigo will inevitably, if somewhat unfairly, be the subject of countless comparisons to Limp Bizkit. However, this Independence-based six-piece offers more musical depth than the “Nookie” patrol, as it deftly moves from bruising stuttered riffs to low-key bass backdrops without the transitions’ seeming awkward…
The Safe Ride Home was fun while it lasted, but sadly the journey has come to an end — Frogpond decided to call it quits and park the van permanently. “It’s not like it was a member deal. It was just a bunch of stuff over the years and over the times,” explains Heidi Phillips, who fronted the band all…
If ever there was a perfect argument for not judging a band by its appearance, it’s the Fishsticks, four average-looking thirty-something guys who thrash their way through thirty-something-second songs like mohawked Reagan-era teens. Lyrics range from standard (“Down With Skool”) to bizarre (“Birdkiller,” “Hat Day”) and are delivered in haiku-like style (I love burritos/Bean and cheese/Guacamole and sour cream). The…
On a rather memorable Simpsons episode, Homer attempts to watch a football game, but all he manages to do is catch a halftime performance of the touring teen group called “Hooray for Everything.” From the first listen to Bad Religion’s new Todd Rundgren-produced album, The New America, it sounds as if frontman Greg Graffin was once a member of this…
When Terry Ellis, Dawn Robinson, Cindy Herron, and Maxine Jones wailed the opening of their first song, “Hold On,” a cappella, many heads went into an immediate tailspin. It was a brand-new sassy and exotic sound that signaled the revival of Supremes-style girl groups. Four sexy women with luscious pipes and killer wardrobes — who could resist? A decade, four…
E.V. phone home. It’s nothing as it seems, the little that he needs, it’s home, Eddie Vedder sings on “Nothing as it Seems” (it’s a Jeff Ament song). Vedder sounds bruised and distant here and throughout Binaural, the new Pearl Jam disc with a celestial theme in its artwork. He’s an alien falling to Earth, landing on a bed of…
In the absence of Lollapalooza and Lilith, the fallback strategy in a beleaguered concert market is to lash together several bands but not call it a festival. One way to do this involves the seemingly random collision of name-brand acts with bands that are good for you. (Think back a few summers to R.E.M.’s taking Sonic Youth on tour, a…
Look what the cat dragged back in. Even if you abandoned Poison a decade ago at the first sight of Seattle grunge or hated the anything-to-get-signed Los Angeles group from day one, there is something eerily refreshing about a loud, obnoxious arena act that revels in its sexuality rather than downplays it. Considering the alarming rate of boy band/schoolgirl divas…
In the new Jim Carrey farce, Me, Myself & Irene,the rubber-faced comedian plays a meek Rhode Island state trooper named Charlie, whose aggressions are so pent-up that they finally have to break out in the form of a second personality called “Hank.” Where Charlie silently endures potty-mouthed curses from little girls skipping rope, Hank swipes ice cream cones from…
It’s the year 3028, and man … is an endangered species! (Haven’t we heard that somewhere before, like last month?) But this time around, the threat is a little more intimidating than those effeminate, Xenu-worshipping Conehead psychologists in platform boots. The villains in Fox’s new animated spectacular, Titan A.E., are the Drej (pronounced “dredge,” as in “dredge up all the…
About nine years ago, in a humble Redondo Beach nightclub, urbane British folk singer Billy Bragg reappraised 20th-century politics — as is often his socialist wont — by means of an intriguing correlation. Might it be, he postulated, that contemporaries Leon Trotsky and Harland Sanders were not merely striking doppelgängers but, in fact, the same person? Consider, he continued,…
Making tracks The recent article PitchWeekly ran on the BMX tracks in Kansas City has had quite an impact (“BMX-ing the Metro,” May 18-24). On Monday, June 5, I attended a Louisburg City Council meeting and learned that the proposed BMX track in Louisburg is getting more serious study due to the many facts presented in Kerri Fivecoat-Campbell’s well-researched article….
There’s nothing like a good serial killer to spice up the local news. Not since the days of Robert A. Berdella has there been a multiple-killings suspect the caliber of John E. Robinson Sr., and the media chase on this case is no less fevered. As soon as the first two bodies were found in sealed 55-gallon drums in a…
Local activists find out there ain’t no power like the power of the police On Saturday afternoon, May 13, Kansas City, Missouri, police officers descended on Volker Park on special assignment. Officers in at least three unmarked police cars staked out the park. An unmarked van followed two subjects, videotaping. A police helicopter circled overhead. A major from Special Operations…
June 10, 2000 — Welcome to the rave new world. No, not Brave New World — that’s the title of the most recent album by classic-rock dinosaur Styx, whose members pounded out their air-guitar-friendly hits to the delight of a middle-age crowd at Sandstone earlier in the evening. Just a few blocks away, outside the Agricultural Hall of Fame, a…
There exists deep within any man who once read comic books and collected them—protected them, actually, with plastic sleeves and cardboard backs and boxes that fought off the yellowing of time—the mythical being known as The Fanboy. A long time ago, The Fanboy pored over every issue of World’s Finest and Brave and the Bold, argued with friends about who…
The good news about Union Café, the six-month-old restaurant located in the middle of Union Station’s Grand Hall, is that it’s getting a new chef this week. The bad news about Union Café is that the new chef, Chris Wofford, has his work cut out for him. Frankly, the current menu at the restaurant needs a dramatic overhaul. After three…
15 Thursday Right now, Topeka is in the middle of nine days of a gay ol’ time as the Topeka PRIDE 2000 festival, which began on June 10, is still going strong. Events so far have included an outrageous play about homophobia at an all-male weekend retreat; a PRIDE prom, parade, and rally; book signings by prominent gay writers; gay…
Abandoned parking lots, mounds of dirt, empty concrete canals, and giant concrete sewer pipes. Skaters and bikers have long used these fixtures on the urban landscape as makeshift obstacle courses, but these days such outlets are slowly being replaced by extravagant pieces of warped wood joined together by a meticulous seamstress to create what looks like a sector of heaven…
Deanstock ’98 started as an alternative graduation party for Brian Dean Davis “president-slash-executive producer of Deanstock Productions” and his high school buddies. Attendees of Blue Valley North in Leawood, Davis and his friends wanted to eliminate some of the stereotypes that come from growing up in one of the most affluent quarters of the Kansas City area and to bring…
