Timbo Gutschenritter from National Fire Theory just had his first brush with the wrong side of the law: the side that subjects hard-working rockers to the wasted day of not getting selected for jury duty. National Fire Theory sounds official enough to get its members locked down on any jury, but Gutschenritter says he didn’t meet the attorney’s stringent requirements…
It’s once again time to make a dent in the precariously leaning tower of CDs that local singer/songwriters, rock bands, rap crews, and electronica experimentalists have mailed to our office. As the size of the stack correlates with the strength of the scene, it’s a pleasant problem with which to be presented. Debbie Shoaf Breakthrough After 18 years as the…
The members of De La Soul were once the poster children for creative hijinks, heroes for rap listeners disenfranchised by the genre’s new-look, shoot-’em-up-bang-bang focus that took hold in the late ’80s. Going on the record as preferring being complicated to being hard, the trio was not afraid to sing about potholes in the lawn, roller-skating on Saturday, and hangin’…
In a play to keep its show vital into the new century, the Grand Ole Opry has recently begun booking promising but as-yet-unknown acts such as Mandy Barnett, Mike Ireland, and the Derailers alongside its roster of country legends, and the program is now even Webcast at wsmonline.com. However, these two discs are dedicated to the venerable live radio program’s…
Considering the enormous popularity of Limp Bizkit and the enormous pretense of an album named Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water, here’s hoping this record spawns a video that ends with frontman Fred Durst jumping off his yacht and seemingly drowning, his red hat bobbing in the ocean until the storyline continues in the next epic video. In…
A few Labor Days ago — the day before his first day of eighth grade, in fact — The Casket Lottery’s Nathan Ellis had one of those cathartic moments during which, in an instant, he knew exactly what he wanted to be when he grew up. No, Ellis wasn’t inspired by firefighters collecting money for Jerry’s Kids, and he hadn’t…
It’s hard enough for a hungry young power trio to hit the road, splitting meager paychecks three ways while struggling to pay for equipment. But when a band has to split that same tiny pie into seven pieces night after night, eventually all of its members are starving. This could have ended the saga of Norman, Oklahoma’s Starlight Mints, a…
If the Source Hip-Hop Awards had a category for the wackiest CD of the year, Ugly Duckling would walk away the winner. However, the trio from Long Beach, California, probably wouldn’t attend the awards ceremony to pick up its trophy. “The Source used to be a really important magazine to me,” says rapper Andycat, the band’s unofficial spokesman. “But they…
The third foldout panel of the new hip-hop sci-fi extravaganza Deltron 3030 reads, “Damon Albarn appears courtesy of Parlophone/EMI Records Ltd.” And sure enough, the curling British accent of Blur’s lead singer slurs out of the speakers first thing. “We were always coming back,” Albarn drones like someone just revived from a coma. Is this the right disc? Then the…
November may mean Thanksgiving to most of you, but in the film biz it means a rush of “serious” films trying to gouge an impression into the short memories of Oscar voters. This shouldn’t be a bad thing, but since the relationship between “Oscar” and “actual interesting filmmaking” is nearly random (if not downright inverse), it often is. Men…
The setting of Stephen Daldry’s uplifting comedy Billy Elliot, which is about a working-class boy who wants to be a ballet dancer, is a beleaguered coal-mining town in the north of England, circa 1984. A coat of grime covers the squat brick row-houses, drying laundry flaps sadly in the breeze, and the locals all have the fierce but downtrodden…
Starbucking the Trend Don’t cry for me, Argentine: First of all, I want to thank the Pitch for helping to dispel the Wyandotte County myth and letting people know that there are wonderful, safe, quiet neighborhoods in Kansas City, Kansas (“Best of Kansas City,” October 19). Now hush up about it! Those of us who live in Argentine kind of…
An original reproduction: On Sunday The Kansas City Star ran a full-page ad promoting a “great holiday gift idea.” The latest installment in the paper’s burgeoning book-publishing venture is Kansas City Then & Now, a coffee-table decoration that juxtaposes historical black-and-white photos with new color prints taken at the same location, from the same angle, to show how the city’s…
Councilman Jim Rowland is running for something. He won’t say it’s for mayor. He won’t even say he’s running for re-election to his Fourth District council seat when that vote comes around in a couple of years. But he’s out there politicking, and if he’s setting the stage for the 2002 mayoral race, Rowland could send Mayor Kay Barnes…
One evening in early June, a group of folks gathered at a filling station on U.S. Highway 59, a two-lane road that runs between Lawrence and Ottawa, Kansas. They piled into a car and drove a mile or so east to a patch of open prairie that might one day become home to a new, wider Highway 59. Once there,…
Last winter, a wedding invitation from Bhutan arrived in the mailbox at Sally Uhlmann’s pink 1928 villa in Mission Hills. A close friend of Uhlmann’s, the son of the Sherpa Tenzing Norgay (the first man to conquer Mount Everest, in 1953), was marrying a member of the Bhutan royal family. At the last minute, Uhlmann opted out of the spring-break…
Continental divide: In America, “continental” cuisine has traditionally meant French. And fancy and expensive. But over the years, the snooty French restaurant has fallen out of favor — it’s all but vanished in Kansas City. Our last incarnation of the elegant — and seriously French — restaurant, La Mediterranee, closed last year, ending an era for high-gloss European-style restaurants. Once…
As much as I hate to admit that I’m ever wrong, I’ll gladly eat humble pie when it’s the alternative to eating something less appetizing. After all, as Confucius said: “Admit that you do not know what you do not know, for that is knowledge.” And for years — 16 to be exact — I avoided Andre’s Confiserie Suisse…
2 Thursday People who weren’t able to fulfill their horror needs over this past weekend — and people who need a cutting-edge classical music fix — should finally be satiated by tonight’s screening of Dracula at the Lied Center in Lawrence. Composer Philip Glass has given the 1931 classic, starring Bela Lugosi, a new score; it’s performed behind the sometimes-see-through…
Struggling artists get a lot of mail — bill collectors, mostly, who don’t have a lot of empathy for creative souls and their even more creative bookkeeping. When this year’s Charlotte Street Fund winners received notice that their work was being recognized with a group exhibition and a check for $4,500, reactions were joyous. “I was sitting in a friend’s…
In addition to the real political drama that culminates with Tuesday’s cliffhanger episode, there’s the staged one that, after nearly a quarter-century, still entrances audiences. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s and Tim Rice’s Evita came on the heels of its creators’ rock opera, Jesus Christ Superstar. Like its predecessor, Evita had a charismatic, troubled protagonist at its core. The former fed…
What makes Yasmina Reza’s play Art so beloved is its shrewd appeal to everyone who’s ever had a friend. On the surface, the play is thought to be about the contemporary art world in all its dubious glory — an arena where a bisected calf hangs in a cube of formaldehyde and brings its artist, Damien Hirst, a genius…
The headlining attraction at The Bottleneck on Sunday night will be The International Noise Conspiracy (pictured), a dapper Swedish band featuring former Refused frontman Dennis Lyxzen that does its damnedest to meet Phil Ochs’ definition of an ideal band — “the perfect symbiosis of Elvis and Che Guevera.” Staunchly political yet unafraid to have fun, the Conspiracy puts on sweat-soaked…
A line of clubgoers stretched for a block outside Brownies on New York’s Avenue A; people waited patiently as the city’s usual frantic sidewalk traffic raced past on either side. Within earshot were T-shirt peddlers, who hoped those awaiting entrance might be interested in passing the time by purchasing a Subway Series souvenir. Inside, Kansas City’s Rex Hobart, the middle…
