Success is relative in Hollywood, like a third cousin twice-removed who doesn’t recognize you at family reunions, and doesn’t care to. Fame is so fleeting it has a month-by-month lease. Six years ago, Christopher McQuarrie was as famous as any screenwriter on the backlot known as Los Angeles. He had gone to the Academy Awards stag and come home…
A little dinner music: It’s one thing to eat dinner watching a nearly nude girl swing around a brass rail (see Gala review above) and quite another to be serenaded by singing — and fully clothed — waiters, which is still in vogue at Romano’s Macaroni Grill (9292 Metcalf Avenue). It’s not unusual to be dipping a wedge of warm…
The dinner-theater concept is well-known in Kansas City. It’s where patrons eat a buffet dinner and then, after the plates have been cleared away, the curtain rises and the people watch a play. At Gala, the six-month-old nightclub located just a hop, skip, and a jump off I-70 in Raytown, a different kind of theater goes with dinner. Or is…
31 Thursday Denver’s Westword picked Blister66 as this year’s best “Hardrock/Punk” band. And our sister paper must be serious because it gave the Blister boys the same title last year. With their heavy music (on the verge of thrash) and raplike vocals, the band members try to be as industrial as Nine Inch Nails and as white-boy rappish as…
In hell, every theater will present Michael Flatley (Lord of the Dance) in his new production, Feet of Flames. That’s what Janice Perry concludes in Holy Sh*t! Stories of Heaven and Hell, which she’s telling this Friday and Saturday at the University of Kansas’ Labor Day Festival in Lawrence. Perry describes Holy Sh*t! as a text-based, satirical, physical comedy that…
Unless people are easily frightened by teenage cleavage, it’s safe to say that the entertainment industry’s recent attempts at scaring audiences have offered little rise on the scare scale. Some say people don’t seem to get frightened by movies these days because the special effects that are intended to thrill all have been done and seen before. But wait…
After a year of research, fundraising, and hand-wringing, the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival staff resigns itself to this fact: Everything boils down to 23 performances. It’s almost unfair. The 2000 season, which ended last month, might be remembered for several things. But missing on the list will be the feeling that it was all fireworks and pats on…
In what passes for old-school in a genre dominated by youth, the Suicide Machines and Less Than Jake impressed local scenesters by making reference to the lamentably defunct mid-’90s Kansas City club The Daily Grind, at which they’d both played. Less Than Jake even unveiled a song about the venue, “Kansas Rock City,” which will be included on its…
“We only have one album, and it’s not very long, but here you are,” said enigmatic thinking-man’s metal icon Maynard James Keenan to the adoring faithful that gathered to see his new group, A Perfect Circle, perform the artsy compositions from its debut effort, Mer de Noms. With those words, the quintet launched into a cover to supplement its…
Musically, Kiss was off Friday night. Gene Simmons couldn’t hit his notes with Ace Frehley’s fireball-shooting guitar, Peter Criss was lethargic behind his kit, and songs such as “Heaven’s on Fire” were scarcely recognizable. None of this seemed to matter to the latest incarnation of the Kiss army, who came for the spectacle and didn’t go away disappointed. As…
Late last year, John Vanderslice revealed a threatening fax he had allegedly received from Microsoft in reference to an advance copy of his riskily titled tune “Bill Gates Must Die.” This was later revealed to be a clever publicity stunt, but Mass Suicide Occult Figurines, the disc that spawned the track in question, offers enough smart pop hooks to remain…
Although some bands (Fear Factory, Radiohead) still construct intricate concept albums, hardly any inject theatrical drama into the mix the way The Who did with Tommy, Pink Floyd did with The Wall, and Styx, for better or worse, did with Kilroy Was Here. Using Queen-style over-the-top arrangements and happily-ever-after storylines, producer/ composer Paul O’Neill and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra crafted such…
For those rap fans from the flyover states, which have drawn increasing attention since Eminem broke and Common finally blew up, there is a new platter to peruse. Regional rappers, such as Nelly, are coming out in droves, bringing tracks that have been setting local clubs ablaze for months to a curious public. Nelly serves as a perfect example of…
Decisions. Life is full of them, and some are harder to make than others. Paper or plastic? Bush or Gore? Molly Hatchet or Night Ranger? Those attending the Kansas City Spirit Festival 2000 will face no easy task deciding between the latter two come Friday night; each fondly remembered act will rock upon one of the identical twin stages…
“Matt (Mozier, guitarist) hurt his back today, so he might have to play sitting down,” reported Arthur Dodge before another weeknight gig with his band the Horsefeathers at Louise’s Downtown. “We took that as a sign to give it up, though, like we’re too old for this shit.” If Dodge is starting to show his age, he’s coping with…
People searching for a Subaru or a Suzuki over the past few years might have noticed the words “Spinning Grin” in the automotive classifieds and wondered if this was yet another wacky Kia-style upstart car company. Actually, this unusual advertisement was one of many attempts by the band Spinning Grin to obtain a singer. Left without a voice after its…
In some circles, The Anniversary is already regarded as a Big Rock Band. It spent the better part of this year on the road, giving up its multiple-hyphen new-wave-informed emo-pop to the kids and merrily hawking its debut disc, Designing a Nervous Breakdown, all along the way. Now The Anniversary is fulfilling the next step toward full-fledged star status…
The Get Up Kids are huge. That’s “huge” as in the overseas-festival-playing, magazine-readers’-poll-topping, tour-bus-riding, MTV-show-hosting big time. Its members are widely recognized as the poster boys for emo, a punk/indie hybrid genre that the band doesn’t claim for itself (it prefers simply “rock band”), although it has given up on struggling against the label. The Get Up Kids have even…
Honestly now, have you, of late, found yourself enthralled by pleasing stimuli? Please, no nauseating responses, such as “Aromatherapy shifts my reality” or “After I get Rolfed, my heart is more open to love.” Instead, think of the good, serendipitous stuff, the random intoxicants that bombard your subcutaneous organs. For example, has a wayward ladybug ever skittered across your…
‘Be cool, get chicks.’ Although that’s paraphrased and boiled down, it’s nonetheless the essential creed of Dex (Donal Logue), the corpulent connoisseur of carnality who lumbers through this debut feature from Jenniphr Goodman as if he’s Paul Bunyan and every woman in sight is a tree. Overweight and underemployed, Dex is a man with a mission … in bed….
Cop an Attitude I disagree with some of Bruce Rodgers’ views about how nice and respectful the black community is in Westport (“Saturday Night Special,” August 17). I will not go down there anymore, due to the pickpockets, fights, and general arrogance of the black males who do nothing but stand in the middle of the street calling out obscene…
Stroke it: Roeland Park native and Olympic gold medalist Catherine Fox failed to qualify for the Olympics, but Kansas City still has hope for swimming glory. This summer, in fact, a team of local swimmers returned triumphant from an international meet with a first-place trophy — having beaten, among others, squads from Paris, Toronto, and Chicago. Where’s the parade? The…
For all the uproar over 96.5 FM’s format change a couple of weeks ago, one might have thought the switch to a modern rock format killed the classical music stalwart that previously occupied the space. But whether Entercom, KXTR’s owner, “killed” the station by moving it to 1250 AM is a matter of opinion. The decision has the city’s classical…
Fifi Wiedeman left the Kansas City, Missouri, School Board much the same person as she was the day she was elected in April 1998 — a passionate, consummate parent who wanted to make sure children, including her three kids, got what they were supposed to from the school district: an education. She may not have fully delivered on that mission,…
