Love makes a strange bedfellow, and so do deadlines. It’s love that is writing this column, because the man (Mike Walker, my husband) who usually does this (along with Cody Howard, who was too busy at his other job to fill in) is flat on his back with a 101-degree temperature. So this woman will regale you with her knowledge…
In jazz parlance, a side man is the guy in a band positioned just outside the glare of the spotlight. Side men are talented but not famous, remarkable but anonymous — and a dying breed. In Warren Leight’s Tony Award-winning Best Play of the 1998-’99 season, Side Man, now given a marvelous production at the Unicorn Theatre, four of the…
As an arts writer, my dirty secret has always been photography. No matter how much I learn and expose myself to it, I find myself grappling with the medium at every photography show. Despite my reading of theory and history, talking to photographers, and even learning some of the mechanics of the camera and darkroom, each show comes down to…
Abandon faith all ye who enter. Forget the proposed Oz amusement park; if you want theme entertainment, take a walk through purgatory with REO Speedwagon and Styx. Saturday night, Sandstone became a refugee camp for mullet-wearers and folks whose only exposure to opera has been KCFX’s rotten television commercial. However, what they shelled out to see offered considerably less locomotion…
As an “indie rocker” (not my choice of defining myself, but probably the easiest pigeonhole category), I lead a fairly sheltered life when it comes to shows. So a metal show comes up — and who gets to review it? The kid who has heard little metal from the post-1990 camp. Regardless of my preferences, I am a bit fascinated…
Tuesday night was a study in contrasts at the Replay Lounge, beginning with an opening set by the supposed headlining band, New York City’s Chaotic Past. This trio plays a style of rock that doesn’t get a lot of airtime at the Replay: the kind played by extremely talented musicians who forgo the too-drunk-for-you antics and punk rock ‘tude. This…
It has been found that moving is nothing but a chore. It has also been found that the less stuff a move involves, the better for the sanity of the poor soul who is moving. Keeping this in mind, when it came time to pack up and head out to a new apartment, it also came time to purge as…
As its title — and such lyrics as If you eat at Chubby’s late at night, I’ll bet you live in midtown — suggests, David Hakan’s latest work also pays homage to Kansas City’s vibrant midsection. Unlike Priolo, Hakan condenses his tribute to the area into one song, the solo acoustic title track, which goes on to describe the Westport…
On an album dedicated to “Kansas City’s eclectic 39th Street area,” Rocco Priolo, who grew up in the vicinity, paints instrumental portraits of such localized events as “Breakfast at Nichol’s” and “Gillham Park Sunrise.” Mixing warm synthesized backdrops with live instrumentation and an occasional sampled voice, Priolo sets the mood for such scenes, and, because his experience in the neighborhood…
It was almost this time last year that rumors began swirling about Lawrence’s favorite alterna-rock station jumping ship for the more serene (though so far less profitable) waters of Top 40 radio. But throughout KLZR 105.9’s identity crisis there was, in KJHK 90.7, at least one station that, for better or worse, was a bastion of nonconformity. Better when you…
For its gala opening, The Monaco (510 E. 31st) recruited living legend Oscar D’Leon, who has more than 60 albums to his credit. A tough act to follow, but the club has proved up to the task by booking Jerry Rivera, the only Latin artist in the tropical/salsa genre to achieve sales in excess of 5 million records worldwide and…
Given the current climate in hip-hop, which is characterized by fervent support of independent-minded MCs, it’s safe to say Del the Funky Homosapien was ahead of his time. As a 17-year-old in 1991, Del dropped My Brother George Was Here, a playful venture that floored listeners who were expecting the type of militant hardcore that his cousin, Ice Cube, delivered…
Blues guitarist and vocalist Chris Thomas King was born into the music business. He toured extensively with his father, Tabby Thomas, when he was a teenager and developed a strong foundation in the roots of the blues. After a couple of albums experimenting with a rap/blues hybrid, King has settled his style firmly in the acoustic blues tradition, a musical…
Stereolab is finally making a return to the cocktail disco of 1996’s Emperor Tomato Ketchup after the mixed results of a two-album visit to the land of cold and sterile loungy electronica. As such, it’s also the first new Stereolab disc in some time to really groove. Vibraphones kick things off, and though they were previously used to mind-numbing effect…
A great single can be a curse in disguise, because it has the ability to make an above-average album suffer by comparison. Such is the case with Tam!’s debut disc, Hello My Friends Do You Read Me?, which peaks early with “Aliens,” an effectively eerie tune with an explosive chorus, then settles into a comfortable rhythm with a Soul Coughing-style…
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when Fishbone lost its way. Between 1985 and 1991, this group of Los Angeles street urchins put out some of the most accomplished music of the pregrunge era, mixing ska, rap, funk, reggae, punk, and soul into a boisterous jumble that was as entertaining as it was ambitious. Maybe the loss of youth (the members…
Compared with the Beatlesque pastoral of last year’s Apple Venus Volume 1, XTC’s new disc is more like a Paul McCartney solo album. From the crunchy opener, “Playground,” to “The Wheel and the Maypole” (the most satisfying songs here), Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding have fashioned a straightforward, thumping rock disc that de-emphasizes braininess. The album even has its own…
So many songs about hearts done wrong/About love’s lost bitterness/Jilted Joes wrote your sing-alongs/Well I dare you to hum to this. Spat ferociously over swift rhythms and scorching guitar licks, these opening lines from the first song on New Bomb Turks’ latest record, Nightmare Scenario, concisely describe the band’s “doing-it-our-way” attitude. This stubborn independence allowed the Turks to create a…
That familiar high-hat rhythm enters, sounding like a groovy lawn sprinkler, followed by wah-wah guitar and sustained piano notes. The mood invoked is at once sexy, nostalgic, cheesy, cool, and kitsch. The tune is Isaac Hayes’ “Theme From Shaft,” and it adds a clever touch to director John Singleton’s remake of the soulful 1971 classic. By kicking his film…
Going, GoneBlink — or, more likely, doze — and you will miss it, this tiny, beautiful oasis in the middle of an otherwise barren wasteland. For a moment — a precious, frustrating moment to be treasured in a movie that flaunts its disposability — Cage reminds us how good an actor he can be when he attempts to transcend…
The Boog synthesizer You have invoked the name of the all-powerful BOOG (“The REAL Deal,” June 8-14)! Do your corporate owners have any idea what you’ve done? The waters are turned to blood and the locusts are massing for the swarm! I had the honor of attending KU Student Senate meetings that were chaired by president Dennis “Boog” Highberger. I…
As my kid gets older, he’s starting to hear the words “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to” more often. Such a statement gives off a sweet vibration of relief every grade-schooler likes to feel when it comes to possibly getting out of doing something he’s sure his parents want him to do. When I’ve said those…
Clay Chastain wants to put light rail and a Penn Valley Park proposal before voters in November Kansas City’s original iconoclast of conventional thinking, Clay Chastain, says he “went into seclusion” after his last ballot initiative for light rail was defeated at the polls last November. Demoralized, he said he wasn’t going to put himself on the line anymore….
A rare medical condition has a young couple scrambling to give their toddler a normal life Seven-year-old Ryen Hill has a normal sibling relationship with her brother, 20-month-old Brenden. As she throws a ball, he chases it down and brings it back to her. Flopping himself into her lap, he wrestles with her for a few minutes until his curious…
