Mark Scanlon teaches physical education at Raytown High School and coaches the varsity basketball team during the winter. During the summer he’s a driver’s ed instructor. So how did he and his wife, Jane, end up tooling around Rodeo Drive in a chauffeur-driven Jaguar and holing up in a $2,500-a-night suite at W Los Angeles last month? Two words:…
Kansas City is still a jazz town, or at least it wants to be. The most obvious manifestation of this desire is the 18th and Vine jazz district, where the city spent millions of dollars to rejuvenate its storied urban heritage, but it also creeps into almost every hotel brochure and piece of literature from the Visitors and Conventions Bureau….
A multistage all-day behemoth renowned for exposing unknown talent, the Vans Warped Tour, which comes to Sandstone on Tuesday, July 10, includes many little-known acts in its lineup. In true punk kill-rock-stars fashion, the groups take the stage in rotating order, meaning that in past years arena-fillers such as No Doubt and Green Day have played hours before obscure bands…
More than any other annual festival, the Vans Warped Tour is becoming a place to see tomorrow’s big acts play a relatively small stage before graduating to arenas. Blink-182, Eminem, Kid Rock, Deftones, Sugar Ray and Limp Bizkit all have toiled in front of handfuls of angsty teens during early-afternoon sets on makeshift second and third stages. However, a good…
At first glance, the list of bands performing at 96.5 The Buzz’s Big Pig Shindig seems like some sort of cruel joke inspired by the same radio promoters and programmers who have brought every forgettable act from Tom Cochrane to BB Mak to your ears over the past ten years. After all, who in their right mind would assemble a…
Alien Ant Farm is now signed to Papa Roach’s New Noise label, and, yes, it’s odd that a band that’s been established for less than a year gets its own vanity imprint. But the title is a tip of the hat to underappreciated ass-whuppers Refused, so it’s okay. Plus, Alien Ant Farm has several qualities sorely lacking in Papa Roach…
The Cult has always veered between the satisfying and excruciating impulses — goth-tinged genius and flaccid cock rock, respectively. The quartet’s first disc in seven years combines the best of both worlds, fueling its choruses with undiluted bombast but tempering these indulgences with subtle come-down melodies. For cynical listeners who grew up embracing Nirvana’s brand of antistardom, it might be…
Tucked inside the male bower bird’s genetic code are instructions for building an earthbound architecture whose only function is to attract females. The bird decorates his idiosyncratic bower with shiny and brightly colored objects or paints it with pigments; at least two bower bird species even use leaves or twigs as paintbrushes. Some males plant surrounding moss gardens or pave…
If you grow up constantly pretending, you become an eccentric. Or so says Lavinia Herbert (Tonia Barksdale), the antagonist in the Coterie Theatre’s A Little Princess. The strident teen is upset that Sara Crewe (Kimberly Horner), the newest boarder at a girls’ school run by the psychologically clenched Miss Minchin (Peggy Friesen), has finer tastes and a broader imagination….
It’s not unusual for an art gallery to host an opening-night reception for its artists. But a “closing night” party has its traditions in the theater. Gallery owner Jan Weiner, however, has decided that Larry McAnany’s exhibition Post Modern Landscapes deserves a finale, since the show’s opening night was a soggy bust. “Larry’s opening was Friday, June 1, the night…
Folk singer Utah Phillips, invited to address a young writers’ conference, reports looking out over the multitude of kids’ faces and saying, “You are about to be told one more time that you are America’s most valuable natural resource.” He then asked, “Have you seen what they do to valuable natural resources? Have you seen a strip mine? Have you…
5 Thursday Today marks the full moon, so it’s okay to be a geek and talk about space. Oasis in Space, showing at Union Station’s City Dome, incorporates data from recent space explorations to take viewers on a 3-D journey through the solar system and offers a new perspective on a matter — literally — of life and death:…
For most Americans under the age of thirty, it doesn’t seem possible that there was ever a world (let alone a Kansas City suburb) without a Taco Bell, a Taco Via or a neighborhood Mexican joint serving vinyl baskets of corn chips and little plastic saucers of ersatz “taco sauce.” I’m over thirty and can barely remember a time…
Joe Escalante, head of Kung Fu Records, remembers the first time he spotted the Kansas City/Lawrence-based quartet mi6’s demo lying on his wife’s desk. It made an instant impression, albeit not one the band might prefer. “I said, ‘That looks kinda funny — I bet it sucks. We should throw it away right now,’” Escalante recalls. “My wife came into…
Ken Mok, an executive producer of the ABC television series Making the Band — which foisted low-testosterone singers O-Town on an entirely deserving audience — told Time magazine in April that “kids today are ten times more sophisticated about the business than they were even five years ago.” If only they were as discerning in their tastes. But then, Mok…
Sexy Beast, the debut feature from British director Jonathan Glazer, is a riveting, scary and often funny foray into a traditional American genre: the gangster film. Like the western, the gangster film has always been predominantly American turf, but — unlike with the western — every decade or so the Brits come up with an entry that either knocks…
“I’ve just been overwhelmed with the response from people. I have a stack of e-mails that are just humbling, man. The overriding theme of is that you’re one of them, a friend in their living room and one of the family. The effect you have on people’s lives is humbling. I was so overwhelmed by the e-mails that I brought…
Four years ago, Jack Harry stood in the midst of a media cattle call in Birmingham, Alabama, during the NCAA’s postseason basketball tournament. As he surveyed his peers, he noticed that there was a disturbing difference between him and them. “Everybody we saw was either a cute blonde or brunette or some young studly looking guy with a good build…
The Monarchy Back in the black: Regarding Greg Hall’s “White Tide” (June 21): While I agree that the Royals should work harder to make Negro League Baseball and the Monarchs part of the experience at the K, avoiding the stadium is not the answer. If more people would go to the games, the Royals could afford to showcase and celebrate…
Originally, this was to be a story about how Stan Lee, the industry icon who ran Marvel Comics for decades and co-created Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four, wound up remaking archrival DC Comics’ most venerable heroes in his own image. The 12-part miniseries, Just Imagine Stan Lee Creating, was set to debut July 5 with a book starring a black…
Totally cowed: For a front-page story in July 1’s Metro section, reporter Jeffrey Spivak walked out into The Star’s courtyard. There he spent twenty minutes eavesdropping on tourists fawning over CowParade statues. His investigation also took him seven blocks south to Crown Center and all the way to the Plaza. His conclusion? People love the cows. Also that day, Star…
It’s summer vacation for Marsha Campbell and Tim Van Zandt. The state legislators are happy to be away from the frontier murals and general idiocy at the Missouri capitol. But even as the heat settles in here at home, they can’t escape the winter’s bizarre frost. In January, the two floated a bill to speed up a state takeover of…
When the July sun scorches the sidewalk, Rosedale kids have few places where they can cool off. It’s a problem all across Wyandotte County, where public pools are in short supply. For the past three years, church leaders have asked officials to open pools in public high schools during summer. They were victorious again this year, winning evening access at…
It’s such a nice head, a raccoon head, meticulously sculpted from Styrofoam, beaming a permanent cartoon smile. Its owner is a mulleted man from Fayetteville, Arkansas, who goes by the name March Hare. He took twelve hours to make it, working in four-hour shifts. It’ll be upholstered in faux fur to match a full-length suit complete with fidgety claws and…
