While its name might conjure up images of toenail-painting and pillow-pummeling, the Detroit quartet Slumber Party sounds as if it would be the first band to doze off at an all-night girl-group get-together. Aliccia Berg’s wispy voice wafts over ghostly, distant guitars, her melodies bringing to mind a tranquilized version of ’60s girl groups or, at times, Nico’s stint as…
At a time when it seems as if scores of musicians who live and work in Nashville are attempting to distance themselves from traditional country, Allison Moorer embraces it while embellishing on its foundation, dabbling in roots rock and folk. The title track to her latest album, The Hardest Part, pairs twangy blues with fiery mandolin and fiddle solos, but…
On her debut, Who Is Jill Scott?, the titular Philly native pens love-themed sonnets that could get her hired as a writer for Hallmark’s Mahogany line. However, as the title of her album suggests, it’s difficult to pigeonhole Scott, who also spews lines such as I been a lady up till now/Don’t know how much more I can take/Queens shouldn’t…
This two-disc, 25-track collection ostensibly celebrates Farm Aid’s 15th anniversary. However, considering that this annual concert for the family-owned farm seems to play in smaller and smaller venues each year, it’s also clear that the set is its own sort of fundraiser. As a satiric headline in The Onion recently proclaimed: “‘Farm Aid’ Aid Concert to Benefit Struggling ‘Farm Aid’…
John Coltrane’s music calls out to the heart and the mind with roughly equal volume, but his records, especially the ones that jazz guides decorate with five stars, can be downright intimidating. These two reissues, the most recent in Rhino’s repackaging of Atlantic’s jazz catalog from the late ’50s/early ’60s, are a safer place to begin a Coltrane relationship. The…
Plenty of rockers, while they employ a band, enjoy sole billing — artists such as Bruce Springsteen and Melissa Etheridge. Likewise, there are plenty of rockabilly groups that use that “Bill Haley and the Comets” construction and blues acts that acknowledge the presence of the other musicians while still naming only the star (The Rockin’ Johnny Band). Straightforward rock acts…
Elliott Smith, late of Portland, Oregon’s Heatmiser and auteur behind five respected solo albums, is best known as the white-suit-clad Oscar nominee for Good Will Hunting’s “Miss Misery.” Aside from the obvious — that the song is typical of Smith’s knack for melody and better than the other nominated songs that year but not his best song — there are…
I Stand Alone, a punishing, brutally misanthropic new film by the young French filmmaker Gaspar Noe, comes at you like a pile-driver. Conceived as a sequel to the adventures of the character from Noe’s 1991 short, Carne, the movie focuses on a man known only as the Butcher. Played with fearsome intensity by Philippe Nahon, the Butcher has all the…
Gopher. Explosives. Gopher … explosives. Gopher! Explosives! There. Now you know exactly what was running through this critic’s mind during The Legend of Bagger Vance, the impeccably aimed new tranquilizer dart from Hollywood’s Mr. Honeydrip, Robert Redford. Of course, it’s really not fair to compare this meditative drama to that other profound golf movie, so the subtle references to…
The opening credits of Charlie’s Angels hint at a movie that never appears in the film’s expurgated 94 minutes; the tease is too soon rendered a disappointment. A Mission: Impossible-style prelude suggests a live-action cartoon as directed by Robert Altman; a camera stalks the aisles of a jumbo jet, capturing snippets of scenery, from the bitchy, fey flight attendants…
Best in Show The road less traveled: The Franklin-Douglas Counties Coalition of Concerned Citizens is very honored to have been named Best Grassroots Organization in your Best of Kansas City issue (October 19). We’re thrilled to be recognized for our work and our uniquely diverse coalition of farmers, environmentalists, native peoples, and preservationists. However, the paragraph and accompanying cartoon don’t…
Team players: Doug Laitner, a parent of two Lincoln Prep band members, was reportedly infuriated because his sons had to play at the Volker Park rally for Al Gore last Wednesday. The band’s performance was “nothing more than a political endorsement” orchestrated by the Kansas City, Missouri, School District, Laitner says. We hope he was at least partially appeased the…
Conventional wisdom has it that Johnson Countians don’t embrace change easily, the exceptions being a new mall or bigger home. So it’s a little surprising that on November 7, voters there will decide on three ballot questions designed to restructure their county government. The biggie is Question 1, a Home Rule Charter proposal that would change the offices of county…
Cliff Wicks, the mechanic at the Wyandotte County parking garage on State Avenue, doesn’t ask about the eight new cars that rolled into the lot four months ago. All he knows is that they haven’t moved since. Although the Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas, purchased the eight Ford Crown Victorias specifically for the Sheriff’s Department of Wyandotte County…
High gas prices in Missouri periodically have pricked interest in Jefferson City. Gas-station dealer attrition in Kansas City — where, perhaps not coincidentally, prices are often highest — also has drawn attention from legislators. Although efforts to pass dealer-protection laws have been floated for almost two decades, only one weak law has cleared the hurdles. The biggest push came in…
Getting into the gas business used to be a simple proposition. A prospective dealer would hook up with a brand, go to training school, buy out another dealer, or maybe even be given a vacant station by the company, and start pumping. Most were lessee dealers, who rented stations from their gas supplier but operated them independently and kept the…
In the mid-1970s, Skelly was the brand of choice for Kansas City motorists. The company had a Midwest identity and a solid network of lessee dealers, which translated into the No. 1 market share. In 1977 Skelly was swallowed by Getty, which had a very different philosophy — by 1985, when Texaco bought out Getty, most of the dealers were…
Let’s get this out of the way right now, because so many of you will find this hard to believe: Yes, Mad magazine still exists. It is still being published 48 years after it was created by Harvey Kurtzman and William Gaines, neither of whom lived long enough to see their child reach its 400th issue, which will arrive…
