Few Kansas City bands bear their old-school rock pedigree like Shiner. At a time when most of the bands who signed with major labels and helped define that grinding Kansas City sound have either fallen apart and regrouped, in altered form, under another name (Molly McGuire, formerly on Epic) or are still attempting to put the pieces back together (Season…
For about six minutes of The Menace, Elastica remains faithful to the formula perfected on its platinum self-titled 1995 debut, matching singer Justine Frischmann’s snarling delivery with a gentler female voice and choppy riffs. True, the other voice no longer belongs to since-departed guitarist Donna Matthews, and rudimentary electronic beats now simmer below the edgy power pop, but the style…
Any moviemaker who ventures into the sewers of New York City corruption will find Sidney Lumet’s wet footprints. In such classics as The Pawnbroker, Serpico, and Q&A, this streetwise film master has explored, among other things, individual morality in the face of big-city vice, and individual transcendence of ethnic conflict. Other moviemakers, before and since, have tried this territory,…
Jane Ralph grew up in Wisconsin, where (as in Iowa and Minnesota) Lutherans kind of run the show. The less conservative sect, the Evangelical Lutheran Christians of America (ELCA), had no qualms about welcoming her into the flock as an ordained minister, and minister she did to a small congregation in Independence, Missouri. When she came out as a…
19 Thursday In commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the Kansas City Sculpture Park, one of the area’s most engaging and rewarding hangout spots, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art hosts lecturer Rosamond Bernier, who will share her memories of the late sculptor Henry Moore as well as reflect on his work. The Sculpture Park boasts the largest collection of monumental…
It’s hard to tell whether Dennis Oppenheim meant his sculptures at Grand Arts, which are on display for only a few more days, to be despairing or hilarious. The two pieces — “Malaria Hotel Lounge” and “Marriage Tree” — seem goofy as hell at first glance, like something a sophomoric stoner would create if he had the cash. But…
It has often been written of Chris Guest—or, if you prefer, Fifth Baron Christopher Haden-Guest, son of diplomat Peter Haden-Guest, who could once vote in Parliament—that he has the demeanor of cold stone and the temperament of the dead. He possesses, one often hears, an impenetrable façade, that of the serious man who comes to life only when pretending to…
In the 1998 documentary The Fear of God: The Making of The Exorcist, made for the BBC and available on The Exorcist 25th-anniversary DVD, director William Friedkin spends a great deal of time explaining why he excised certain scenes from his film, scenes author and screenwriter William Peter Blatty had begged him to keep in the movie when it…
John Neal’s feet began to swell as he walked south on Interstate 35. He ignored the 18-wheelers roaring past, but his stomach tightened whenever a car slowed. If the glowing brake lights signaled that the driver might pull over, John hid in the tall weeds beside the road. His wife’s words played over and over in his mind. “You’ll be…
Bill Nichols has canoed the Missouri River from St. Joseph to Rocheport, and plans to canoe the rest of the river to St. Louis at the end of October. His love of the river is apparent, but he talks about it like he’s seen paradise threatened. Barge traffic monopolizes the whole river from just north of Sioux City, Iowa, to…
KKFI 90.1 is going through a transformation, but the changes aren’t yet audible. Instead, they’re visible, at least in the community radio station’s Westport offices. New signs — crisp, laser-printed sheets of paper — are posted everywhere, informing visitors of where they are to go or alerting volunteers to upcoming meetings and events. Parts of the station are now off…
Moo-ving up in the world: Paris’ historic Left Bank has nothing on Kansas City if the Web site NextMonet.com is any gauge. The site has been auctioning the work of Kansas City artist Michael Sinclair, whose most recent exhibition was at the H&R Block Artspace earlier this year. Sinclair’s colorful photographs of such public gathering places as Worlds of Fun…
Watch Those Moves Don’t bring me down: Why move the clubs downtown (Bruce Rodgers’ “Move the Clubs,” September 21)? Westport has a reputation for the hippest clubs in Kansas City and great meals. I believe that moving these clubs downtown will cause a major drop in profits for the nightclubs, as well as for the restaurants in Westport. No one…
Richard Gere, as Dallas gynecologist Sullivan Travis, has never been more likable onscreen, perhaps because he’s never been more human, more vulnerable, more there. After so many years of so many duds, after so many years of playing ladies’ man to little girls (the recent Autumn in New York would fall into both categories), in Robert Altman’s Dr. T and…
Slash a steer’s throat or snip the beak off a bird, and most people don’t give anything remotely resembling a damn. But take, for instance, an adorable dog. Imagine laying that poor pooch’s head on the block, then dropping the ax, thereafter gutting its carcass, draining its blood for sausage, tossing its paws in the glue vat, and tanning its…
When Kelly Hogan was working for Bloodshot, Chicago’s indie label specializing in what it calls “insurgent country,” her promotional writing and e-mails were so entertaining — she once referred to high notes she was asked to contribute to a friend’s album as “Rodenberries: those nut-busting human Star Trek theme notes” and signed herself “Your mule” — that the rock critics…
A cold breeze blows through an open window, and a football game silently unfolds on the television screen. The old man sitting on the couch regards the game with mild interest, though not long ago, football was his passion, a way of pocketing a little scratch during those long stretches when Hollywood lost his number. Over the course of…
No jacket required: For years, only two kinds of Italian restaurants existed in Kansas City: unpretentious places that served spaghetti and meatballs, fried shrimp, and garlic-broiled steaks, or fancy places — such as the old Jasper’s Restaurant on 75th Street, which was as swanky as you could get. Since Jasper Jr. and Leonard Mirabile moved Jasper’s to south Kansas City…
“There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about,” Oscar Wilde wrote more than a century ago, “and that is not being talked about.” That’s good news for the subject of many recent restaurant conversations: Trattoria Luigi, the newest, glossiest, and most expensive Italian restaurant in the Plaza neighborhood. Since August, when the 28-year-old Luigi…
12 Thursday Just what are sweet dreams made of? The Missouri Satsang Society, an affiliate of Eckankar (we’ll get to that) is holding a free three-week book discussion on The Art of Spiritual Dreaming by Harold Klemp, Eckankar’s spiritual leader. Eckankar describes itself as “the religion of the light and sound of God,” but discussion facilitators will share simple…
“The Pig Farm” number opened the second act of Carrie — the Musical, an adaptation of Stephen King’s book and Brian DePalma’s film. It was a ballet set to the sound of pigs being drained of blood, which later would be poured on the title heroine during her brief reign as prom queen. By the end of the evening,…
As an artist, Larry Kirkwood is pained to admit it, but his art has become secondary. It is simply a means to an end. Kirkwood creates plaster casts of average people’s bodies to make the point that “the human form as subject matter has been so twisted by its commercial use that many people no longer can view it…
When critics say a movie has been written “by committee,” it is not a compliment. The implication is that too many cooks spoil the broth — there’s no single voice or vision, so a directionless journey unfolds. But in the case of The Coterie Theatre’s season premiere, Gatherings in Graveyards, which “was developed in a workshop collaboration with the…
Named for a mangled song title (band drummer John McEntire misheard the Gastr del Sol song “The C in Cake”), The Sea and Cake lives up to its billing: Its easy-to-listen-to but hard-to-describe sound is soothing as the sound of waves, but it plays licks so tasty they should be frosted. Its latest album, Oui, seems spare at first, but…
