Despite what the mainstream rappers want you to believe, there is an alternative to the bling-bling/jiggy lifestyle thrust into our faces on a daily basis. There will always be bands such as Dilated Peoples, made up of DJs and lyricists who care more about advancing the hip-hop art form with philosophical beat science than they do about cashing in on…
The cyclical nature of pop culture is a damn scary thing. Just a year ago, it seemed that nothing could be more crass and dumb than Kid Rock’s Devil Without a Cause. But Pimpadelic, the latest entry in the rap-and-roll contest, seems intent on challenging that notion. At least the Kid had a sense of humor and a few infectious…
“I’m Johnny Cash,” drawls the Man in Black as he dives headfirst into “Big River” at the start of At San Quentin. It’s February 24, 1969: The British Invasion is about to birth heavy metal; the Beatles are nearly through; Richard Nixon has just been sworn in; in five months, Neil Armstrong will walk on the moon; and the Vietnam…
Certain rock shows stand out from others, whether it’s because a band member made a teary farewell or because the gig was played for a good cause. Displaying uncharacteristic efficiency, local pop-punk group Annie on My Mind will combine both of these defining characteristics at its El Torreon show on Saturday night. Not only will this be the band’s…
Earth Crisis. It’s not exactly the type of name that conjures up warm, fuzzy thoughts, nor is it the name a party band would choose before rocking those keg bashes back at the frat house. It’s the type of imposing moniker a group would choose if its members had something heavy on their minds. It’s a name that says 2000…
Pantera drummer Vinnie Paul isn’t looking for accolades from anybody for anything he or his band has done over the past decade. In fact, lead singer Phil Anselmo says as much when he sings, Reliving old reviews is a useless tool of confusion, on a track from the group’s latest effort, Reinventing the Steel. When Pantera started, fame and critical…
Quick: Who was the most unbelievable movie character to appear onscreen in recent memory? Jar Jar Binks? Mini-Me? South Park’s Saddam Hussein? All may be supplanted by Joline (Heather Graham), the main character in Committed. See, Joline is a young, hip New York club owner who … actually does what she says she’s going to do! She keeps all…
The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg hits a home run. Too often, baseball players are reduced to statistics — hollow numbers that resonate with the fetishist who drifts off to sleep counting home runs and career batting averages. Baseball demands such precision: It’s a team sport, yes, but ultimately it’s man against man, record against record, history against…
Nothing explains the existence of The Replacements, which is to the football-film genre what Major League was to the baseball movie: sports rendered as sitcom (or Police Academy sequel). The Replacements, which takes as its cue the 1987 National Football League players’ strike, is stocked with every cliché and stereotype imaginable — and a few that are almost unthinkable…
The Cat in the Trap There are two types of cat-haters: those who are allergic to fine hair/particles (quite acceptable) and control freaks. I’d be willing to bet the animal control officer in Allie Johnson’s “The Cat’s in the Bag” (July 27) is a control freak and thus, a cat-hater. Or he’s so incompetent he can’t properly handle a caged…
When New Theatre Restaurant starts advertising its upcoming production of Song of Singapore starring Loretta Swit, don’t expect any ads to pop up on KSHB Channel 41. The theater, one of the few arts venues that actually does local television advertising, has pulled its ads from the station until Channel 41 or its parent company, Scripps Howard, agrees not to…
Porn Free: Late Night Theatre impresarios Ron Megee and Missy Koonce conducted a no-holds-barred tour last week of the troupe’s new digs: the Old Chelsea Theater, a River Market porn emporium that petered out earlier this summer. The creative duo behind Shoctopussy and The Valley of the Dolls has all but signed a deal with a Columbia-based development corporation to…
Biafra rallies the people who got into trouble at the People’s Rally. It was difficult not to crack a smile on July 29, when former Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra called the arrest of Mike McCormack and Sarah Viets a “Dukes of Hazzard attempt of people who smell a coming insurrection.” The yahoo connotation certainly fit the Kansas City…
Linda Callon walks from house to house in Kansas City’s West Side neighborhood, attaching Community Action Network Center newsletters to fences, front doors, and mailboxes. She works for the West Side community policing organization and sees the neighborhood as a dynamic, growing community with a great deal of promise. But she’s disappointed by what looks like an empty promise city…
Construction crews chip away at the south steps to the Liberty Memorial with sledges and chisels, breaking the quiet atmosphere of the tree-lined mall. The sound of a jackhammer pounds the humid summer air. Cranes as tall as the tower swing huge limestone blocks from one place to another. If the construction continues, the south side of the memorial will…
I am Vlad the Impaler, Joe Eszterhas’ penis. You know Joe, right? Bigfoot-looking son of a bitch, like Jerry Garcia after he swallowed Brian Wilson on an Acapulco Gold high? The guy who wrote Basic Instinct and Showgirls and Flashdance and a whole lotta crap for which he was paid inexplicable millions? My pal’s the most famous screenwriter in America,…
Can we talk Tuscan? Although Tuscany Manor (see review above) takes its name from the romantic region often called “the medieval heart” of Italy, the ethnic cuisine on the menu isn’t very different from the dishes served at any local Italian (or “Eye-talian,” here in the Midwest) restaurant. There’s nothing wrong with Eye-talian restaurants, best represented by brightly lit little…
Several Italian expressions might come in handy at Tuscany Manor, the new Italian-inspired restaurant in Lee’s Summit. You might ask the server (who won’t be Italian, nor will he or she understand a word of it): “La cena era squisita. Cosa c’e per dessert?” or “Dinner was delicious. What’s for dessert?” And after a swift tour through the renovated 133-year-old…
3 Thursday Some artists, such as N.W.A., Missy “Call Me Bitch” Elliot, and Hole, seize derogatory terms and redefine them on their own terms in an empowering fashion. The Queers are not such a band, a fact snotty-voiced singer Joe Queer indelicately made by clarifying We might be The Queers/But we ain’t no fags on the 1994 release Grow Up….
Deborah Richardson gets strange phone calls on a daily basis. It’s no surprise; the owner of Deborah’s, “the Midwest’s largest fetish store,” provides latex and leather for a world that makes a lot of folks uneasy. But it’s not her customers who are making the strange phone calls. “Mostly people don’t understand what it’s about,” Richardson says. “They think it’s…
Never underestimate the power of burping fridgeware: Somewhere in the world, a Tupperware party starts every two seconds. The popular pastel plasticware has come a long way since an inventor named Earl Tupper turned his attention from making plastic gas-mask parts to consumer products after World War II. His quest was to solve a postwar dilemma of national scope: how…
It’s a muggy Tuesday morning in River Falls, Wisconsin, where cheese, taxidermy, and the Chiefs (for a few weeks a year) rule the land. Thunderstorms dominate the early morning hours, but fortunately — or unfortunately, depending on your point of view — the downpour subsides in time for practice. The predawn rain pellets are replaced by choice colorful verbal pellets,…
With live theater owners bemoaning the dwindling numbers of baby boomers in attendance, primary evidence of the cause of the shrinkage can be found in the painfully dated Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah at American Heartland Theatre. Though the talented cast works overtime to breathe life into this alternately plodding and cutesy critter, the bird just won’t fly. The triumvirate that…
The Music Man at The New Theatre can’t be inspected too closely. On the one hand, it salutes small-town America circa 1912 and believes that music and love can straighten out an entire village’s kinks. Hold it up to the light and it becomes a subtle but sinister examination of how one man exploits a community’s naiveté. Though this production…
