Late in 1999, Lawrence’s Filthy Jim was playing the Replay Lounge, allegedly opening for Royal Trux. Problem was, the night’s big draw had yet to show up more than an hour after it was scheduled to play. “Where the hell is Royal Trux?” asked drummer Murphy Apollo, noting that his band was starting to run out of material. If that…
Has mainstream rock and roll gotten so clichéd that the only entertainment value it provides comes from guessing what artist or song is being reinterpreted? Train’s Drops Of Jupiter seems to be a who’s who in current and classic rock rip-offs, as the band picks up such esteemed passengers as The Beatles and Counting Crows only to strip them of…
I dream I am dancing through words. The floor is scrawled with them, floating like smoke, and a naval officer in dress whites waltzes me through each one. The last word, the largest and most elegant, is “abstraction,” written in a lovely black cursive. I know that if the officer and I dance through “abstraction” just right, we can enter…
In the entrance to a dusty space called Theatre Lab: 18, an actress stands frozen like a mannequin. She’s dressed a little like Barbara Eden’s mischievous Jeannie, and to take a seat in one of the folding chairs inside, you almost have to walk through her. Given, though, the dense story and eccentric presentation of The Evaporated Milk Society’s Sabbatai:…
This Saturday, a Japanese DJ known as Fantastic Plastic Machine spins tracks from his recent album, Beautiful, at The Granada theater in Lawrence. A few years ago, it would have been ludicrous to think that this area would be a tour stop for a DJ who combines bossa nova, French easy listening, Japanese pop and vintage R&B. But lounge…
When does a shish kabob mean something bigger than chunks of grilled pork on a skewer? When it’s part of the forty-year tradition of St. Dionysios Greek Orthodox Church’s Greek Festival, the success of which owes something to divine inspiration, festival organizers say. In 1961, the congregation — then located in the Armourdale neighborhood of Kansas City, Kansas — was…
7 Thursday Once a private art collector gets ahold of something, whether the public will ever have the chance to see it again becomes quite iffy. After all, what can a collector do with the space above the sofa if that painting is carried off to a gallery for a show? And what will tie the living room together if…
It was a Cajun-loving reader who encouraged me, through an e-mail, to check out Danny’s Big Easy, noting that he considered it his favorite Cajun/Creole restaurant in the city, followed by Hot Tamale Brown’s, Kiki’s Bon Ton Maison and Big Daddy’s Cajun Kitchen and Blues House, in descending order. I’m a bigger fan of Big Daddy’s (112 E. Missouri Avenue)…
Things are so easy at Danny’s Big Easy, the Cajun restaurant at 16th and Main, that when owner Danny Gosserand decides to close the place on a Tuesday night to clean the carpets, he simply locks the door. And when there isn’t time to whip up some of his signature house salad dressing, none gets made. In fact, the…
Rockfest 2001 speaks directly to anyone who cheered when Pantera’s Phil Anselmo announced, apropos of nothing, “I hate rap music” at last year’s OZZfest. Noticeably bereft of the hip-hop-influenced bands that speckle the OZZfest roster, Rockfest addresses the main concerns of its core audience (KQRC 98.9 listeners) — heavy riffs and charismatic vocals. Headliners Staind (pictured) entertaind area fans in…
Rick Reilly recently wrote a Sports Illustrated column in which he described an ideal basketball player by his characteristics — tough, talented, selfless — and then revealed that the individual in question was Allen Iverson. Reilly noted how many people overlooked all these qualities to comment on Iverson’s cornrowed, tattooed appearance. Similarly, one could paint an appealing portrait of a…
As Jaheim’s hit single “Could It Be” blasts at 50/50, Kansas City’s newest hot spot where young urban professionals hang, a pair of twenty-something women discusses the singer’s sex appeal. One coos, “Girl, Jaheim is so fine. Damn, I’m feelin’ him.” “I know,” replies her tablemate. “He’s comin’ straight with the real with his sexy ass.” “I love real-lookin’ brothers…
Picture the pantheon of musicians and artists holding open the gates of hell for their followers: It’s a scene kind of like that old Red Cross commercial that showed Carly Simon and Paul Shaffer bandaging children and sandbagging against a burst dam, only with fire. There’s Axl Rose, handling the immigration and sexual discrimination desk. Ice-T greeting crooked cops…
When he was in his thirties, Ivan Reitman made comedies like a young man. His early movies, among them Stripes and Meatballs and Ghostbusters, were messy, cocky, charming, daffy and restless; they did anything for a laugh, even if that meant dousing John Candy in mud or Bill Murray in a ghost’s green slime. Those films sprinted toward their…
“That was plain wrong the way people booed and jeered and turned ugly Tuesday on Johnny Damon. He doesn’t deserve that. He doesn’t deserve all this city’s anger, all this city’s abuse. He doesn’t deserve drunken jerks in left field yelling stuff about his mother. He doesn’t deserve to have sweaty guys throwing fake dollar bills at him. He doesn’t…
St. Louis has everything we want, even some things that are rightly ours: It’s known as the Gateway to the West when we all know that Kansas City is the true Gateway to the West, or at least the Gateway to Wyandotte County. St. Louis has a new downtown indoor arena, a new downtown football stadium and plans for a…
Out of Bounds Johnny on the spot: In his May 24 letter about Greg Hall’s article concerning Johnny Damon’s return to Kansas City (“Damon-Possessed,” May 17), Brian Holmes spews many misguided opinions concerning WHB 810’s Kevin Kietzman. He accused Kietzman of “leaving his previous job for greener pastures,” concluding that Kietzman was no better than Johnny Damon. But Kietzman was…
And we do mean strip: People in Kansas City’s arts community were horrified to pick up the Sunday paper and read that the city’s department of regulated industries had closed down a performance at the Westport Coffee House on Friday, June 1. The play was David Ollington’s Resistance, about a man undergoing POW resistance training. “He’s stripped down mentally, emotionally…
At this moment, Baz Luhrmann, control freak and self-proclaimed ringleader of conspirators “who conspire to something greater than ourselves,” is not in control at all. The cameraman trailing behind him, like a faithful puppy awaiting treats, does not work for the director; rather, he is in the employ of the British Broadcasting Corporation, and he has been following Luhrmann…
A couple of weeks ago, a secret society of corporate executives known as the Civic Council announced its scheme to fix up downtown. With vibrant maps and flattering pictures of historic buildings, dramatically lit outdoor sculptures and European-looking fountains, the plan lays out a vision for tomorrow. “Downtown Kansas City in the future will be the center for performing arts…
Early Saturday evening, May 19, an assassin pumped more than a dozen bullets into Lamont Sherman’s Cadillac and left him bleeding behind the steering wheel. The car rolled to a stop, and Sherman died a few hours later at an area hospital. But the cold-blooded execution of the 25-year-old man would go virtually unnoticed by local media. As night fell…
As Saundra McFadden stood in the parsonage living room, she averted her eyes from her pastor’s skimpy attire. The Reverend Ron Williams seemed at ease, though, with only a bathrobe draped across his solid frame. After a few minutes of small talk, Williams — Saundra’s boss, counselor and minister — smoothly invited Saundra and her husband, Rickey, to join him…
