In 1968, esteemed experimentalist and all-around wacky guy Frank Zappa sarcastically noted that an awful lot of bands live together in “Who Needs the Peace Corps?” a track from his classic hippie-bashing album, We’re Only in It for the Money. Communal overtones aside, the basic idea of rocker cohabitation, a more rare occurrence in the modern day, isn’t a particularly…
Dave Johnson looked out into the crowd and saw what most male rock musicians dream of seeing — a table full of women smiling at him, tapping their feet and nodding their heads. But as his band, Everybody’s X, finished its tune, he looked expectantly to the table, and to the audience as a whole. Nothing. With every song, it…
Columbia, Missouri’s Blue Eyed Dog plays an angst-free brand of grunge. It maintains the musical staples of the genre — the fuzzy distorted riffs, the midsong guitar solos wafting over a steady bass line and a rumbling drum beat — but singer/guitarist Byron Neighbors communicates his lyrics without a hint of dread. When he sings You will never love me…
On his solo debut, Ghetto Hymns, soul singer Dave Hollister delivered a dramatic, film-style take on a love story gone to hell. Hollister’s mistress vandalized his Benz; an ex-lover confronted his wife about their affair, causing her to leave home with the kids in tow; and his baby’s mama threatened violence if she didn’t receive bigger child support payments —…
The two most provocative moments on this collection spotlight Ramblin’ Jack Elliott’s interactions with his famous associates. The first is a 1953 studio session with mentor Woody Guthrie and harmonica player Sonny Terry. Guthrie and Elliott trade dark verses about a larger-than-life hobo character, Railroad Bill, in the last violent moments of his life. It’s a tough song, and Guthrie’s…
Erykah Badu has never suffered from low self-esteem. She burst on the scene in 1997 with her critically acclaimed debut, Baduizm, then released one of the best live soul albums ever, virtually proclaiming herself as one of the hottest writers and vocalists of our times. Ain’t a damn thing changed, as she proves with these lines from “Cleva,” a track…
Orgy looks and sounds like the house band from a party hosted by ’70s-era David Bowie, at which flashy suits, metallic makeup and ass-kicking androgyny are the norm. Unfortunately, the band is plagued by a variation on the same problem that vexes the big-budget sci-fi flicks from which it apparently pilfers wardrobe ideas. Behind the aesthetically pleasing backdrop and impressive…
Like an ant carting one hundred times its weight up a hill, The Coterie Theatre’s production of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations creeps along with an unwieldy load on its back. With more than fifty scenes, a dozen locales and eight actors playing no fewer than eighteen characters, the fact that the story contains any arc at all is something of…
When people arrive at H&R Block Artspace to see Pierogi Flatfiles, they’ll be asked to put on white gloves. That’s because they’ll be touching the art. The show started at Pierogi 2000, an exhibition space in Brooklyn, New York. Compiled by gallery director Joe Amrhein, who had amassed portfolios of works on paper by more than 650 artists, the…
Just as American theater styles have morphed and mutated over the years (imagine a 75-year timeline from vaudeville to performance art), so has Japanese theater. But the Japanese make Americans appear positively fickle: The last time they touched the performance style known as Noh Theatre was about 600 years ago. Noh Theatre is a specialty of Andrew Tsubaki, who taught…
18 Thursday Kojo Griffin’s paintings look like fun: round, cartoonish animal characters painted on backgrounds of soft, earthy hues. Viewers are likely to think back to the Snuggle fabric softener bear with the cute giggle when they get their first glimpse of Griffin’s exhibit at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, 4420 Warwick. But closer examination of these cuddly creatures…
It’s really quite a shame that the notion of compromise gets such a bad rap in our hungry times, especially when the term itself is inherently benign and productive. According to the nearest dictionary (American Heritage, Second College Edition), the word stems from two Latin roots, com (“together”) and promittere (“to promise”), which defines it less as a loss…
There’s definitely something weird going on in the British pop scene. Years after tasteful Yanks allowed classic works such as Saturday Night Fever and Grease to dissolve into our vast iconic array, villainous limey programmers were still hyping them over there. Thus, the dual plagues of disco and ’50s rock were never halted, and, far worse, it seems that a…
Went to Coney Island on a Mission From God … Be Back by Five is hardly a title that rolls off the tongue. But a larger barrier in the film, filmmaker Richard Schenkman’s and actor/coproducer Jon Cryer’s follow-up to The Pompatus of Love, is how its self-consciousness is at odds with its gray-to-black humor and somber purposefulness. The film…
“My part of the deal was that I wanted to start something here (in Tampa Bay) and finish it here, but it looks like I’ll have to go somewhere else, not happily, but it’s part of the business…. I’m very frustrated and disappointed. My wife doesn’t like it, my kids don’t like it and I don’t like it.” — Roberto…
The shoebox sat inside the top right drawer of the large black dresser with the busted leg that had long been banished to Mom’s basement. Inside was my life. Every baseball card was sorted into the twenty teams that made up the National and American leagues in 1966. Rubber bands bound teammates together, preventing them from mingling with other teams….
Click Your Heels The yellow trick road: While we’ve all been enjoying the holidays, the Oz Entertainment Company crowd has been working relentlessly to get the Johnson County commissioners to reconsider their rejection of the proposal (Kansas City Strip, December 14). Let’s be clear: 1. The “new” management is simply a person whom we know very little about who replaces…
No ju$tice, no peace: When Florida election buster Jesse Jackson came to town last week, it was no surprise that he complained about George W. Bush’s nominating John Ashcroft for attorney general. But during Jackson’s appearance at the $25-per-head “Economic Ju$tice” luncheon at the downtown Marriott, Jackson got a taste of his own medicine from a handful of protesters who…
For 17 years, Dorothy Swanson has waged the loneliest battle: keeping good shows on television, a medium that exists as if only to taunt her. You can hear in her voice the toll such a struggle has taken on her. Her voice breaks and softens when she speaks about the demise of the organization she founded to save shows…
A year ago this week, 26 of the people who run this town took a day trip to Denver. The Chamber of Commerce wanted to see how savvy voters had used special taxes to fuel an arts and entertainment renaissance, raise new sports stadiums and resuscitate the Queen City of the Plains’ once-desolate downtown. Kansas City’s brightest minds (such bold…
Michael Richwine looked in the mirror one day last month, and his face seemed fifteen years too old. His skin was sallow, and his crinkled blue eyes had lost their spark. His whole body seemed to droop. The pressures of owning Wizard of Wood and falling behind on $10,000 in custom woodworking contracts had sunk him into depression. Christmas was…
The sign on the door is bright pink with black, bold letters: UNFIT FOR HUMAN HABITATION. Jan Simpson sags when she sees it. She moved in just three months ago. Back then, this house just east of I-635 in Kansas City, Kansas, seemed to provide sanctuary she desperately needed. She’d been fleeing her abusive ex, living in a seedy motel…
A mosaic, by most definitions, is something big created out of something small. In the literal sense, it’s a surface decoration created by inlaying small pieces of tile or glass to create a picture or a pattern. A good restaurant is also the sum of its smaller parts: the food, the service, the ambience, the prices, the joie de…
Upscale restaurants selling “take-home” (as opposed to the more plebian “carry-out”) versions of their dishes in a European-market setting is in vogue — and the fashion is finally hitting Kansas City. The space adjoining the Mosaic Bistro, Wine Bar and Mediterranean Market (see review, page 41) in Prairie Village looks like a stage set for an Italian opera, complete with…
