It’s an all-American story. Two hard-working guys have a couple of after-shift drinks at a bar, scribbling out their dreams on a paper napkin. Eleven years ago, Doug Watkins was managing a restaurant in Atlanta and Kevin Timmons was managing a steakhouse down the road. “Kevin’s place closed before mine did, so he’d come up and have a drink at…
As a baby boomer, I’ve always had a fond spot for American Bandstand. The TV teenage dance party was already a five-year-old Philadelphia institution in 1957 when ABC picked up both the show and its 26-year-old host, a toothy DJ named Dick Clark. The show — which was broadcast from Philadelphia until 1964 — became a weekday-afternoon hit, its…
30 Thursday For people who are interested in looking at things from different angles, ARTiculation: Two Views at KU Medical Center’s Smith Building Corridor, Rainbow and Olathe Boulevard in Kansas City, Kansas, offers a perspective rarely seen in galleries. One artist, still a teenager, has what is considered mild autism, meaning that most people won’t notice his symptoms; he…
Jill Erickson, who opened Cup and Saucer on Delaware Street in 1997, wants to do something “besides just selling coffee.” So in addition to holding open-mic nights and booking musical acts — pushing tables aside to make room for rockers like Big Iron and country bands such as Rex Hobart and the Misery Boys — she’s brought in artists…
Collectors tend to be wildly passionate about the things they collect. Richard Clark is different. The soft-spoken computer programmer from Lenexa barely evinces a flicker of interest when pointing out his gumball-machine trinkets and little bars of hotel soap, which are on display at Crown Center. Clark’s horde of gumball treasures (dating back to World War II) and hotel soaps…
Judd Apatow tries not to think of what became of Sam and Lindsay Weir, Neal Schweiber, Bill Haverchuck, Daniel Desario, Nick Andopolis and the other freaks and geeks Apatow knew back at McKinley High School. Those kids were his family, the children born when Apatow and writer Paul Feig created a beloved television show, about the torturous teen-age wasteland…
“Coach Pinkel has come in and changed a lot of things. I can say that he’s changed my attitude. They expect a lot out of their quarterbacks. I’ve got to have the confidence in myself or the offense isn’t going to work. So I just have to go out there and push myself, be confident, be poised. That’s what he…
When Aaron Kreifels found the dying Matthew Shepard, his eyes deceived him. When he came upon the scene of the crime, it appeared that a scarecrow had been removed from a field and, a little worse for wear, left propped up against a fence. Only when Kreifels looked more closely did he realize it wasn’t a dummy. “When I…
Columbia, Missouri, is a great college town where bright, eager football coaches go to get fired. The last Mizzou football coach to leave Columbia leading a parade instead of being chased by one was the legendary Dan Devine in 1970. How long ago was that? No one had ever heard of M*A*S*H reruns in 1970 because the movie was just…
Just as cartoon bands often make better music than their real-life counterparts (see the Archies, Josie and the Pussycats, MC Skat Cat — well, not so much MC Skat Cat), British groups (see Radiohead and Blur) often craft better songs than their overseas neighbors. Add to the latter list Gorillaz, a collective that’s living — or animated, at least —…
Shea Seger’s The May Street Project is an unusually adult summation of this Quitman, Texas, native’s adolescent heartaches. It’s also hard proof that Total Request Live-ready pop music needn’t sacrifice emotional intimacy to move the crowd. Granted, Seger (just 23 and now living in London) isn’t an especially distinctive songwriter yet, and her breathy, languid delivery feels a trifle rehearsed…
Comfort Eagle looks absurdly like Cake’s previous albums: kitschy clip art on the front, a list of random phrases doubling as song titles on the back. And its crackerjack single, “Short Skirt/Long Jacket,” still entertains from Cake’s home turf, that well-travelled territory between The Cars’ angular, tongue-in-cheek minimalism and Talking Heads’ feline instrumental precision. Singer and primary songwriter John McCrea,…
Josie and the Pussycats flopped at the box office because it was too smart for its own good. Its cleverest bits (product-placement-related sight gags; Eugene Levy playing himself in a hilarious cameo) flew over the heads of the preteens to whom it was marketed, and the movie’s ad campaign, which played up the fluffier side of the plot while ignoring…
Roger Clyne’s best-known composition might be the theme song to King of the Hill, which he performed while fronting The Refreshments. That country-rock romp captures the essence of Mike Judge’s dead-on depiction of suburban Texas life, and though the tune is an instrumental, the low-key lyrical wit Clyne demonstrates in other songs is comparable to the show’s desert-dry humor. His…
It’s been about six months since Gunfighter used The Hurricane as a final local firing range for its new melody-heavy, post-grunge creations. The group then moved to California, and judging by its latest release, High Noon, the San Diego sun hasn’t mellowed this longtime Kansas City institution. (The 35-second parody “Dog With Bone,” however, suggests coastal clubs might be placing…
Although perhaps best known for its strident political messages and confrontational attitude, Black 47 isn’t the type of insufferable dead-serious band that you can’t invite to a party. Its most passionate free-the-Irish messages appear on an album with the goofy title Green Suede Shoes, and tracks such as “I Got Laid on James Joyce’s Grave” provide comic relief on its…
Huey Lewis once claimed in a song that the heart of rock and roll is still beating in Kansas City, a declaration Tech N9ne references — with thumping stethoscope-in-stereo sound effects — in his slammin’ single “It’s Alive.” When even cutting-edge lyricists start spreading The News, maybe it really is hip to be square. That might be the SpiritFest’s only…
The crack staff at Vagrant Records claims to have first come in contact with Reggie and the Full Effect, or rather the lost tapes of Reggie’s work, in early 1999. Myth has it that the tapes were salvaged from a fire that swept through Memphis more than a decade earlier, consuming the “legendary” White Chocolate Studio and most of…
Maybe it’s not my place to say, but when it comes to kids, under ten years old is out,” says Mudvayne drummer Matt McDonough by cell phone from the band’s tour bus. The metal group’s major-label debut, L.D. 50, sports the familiar parental-advisory label, but McDonough, known to fans as “sPaG” (each of Mudvayne’s four members has a similarly idiotic…
What is it that people get out of Shakespeare’s plays? That’s as relevant a question as it ever was, given the number of updates and reimaginings of his work that show up on an almost weekly basis, not to mention the faithful restagings. Is it the stories? The flowery dialogue? The author’s ability to capture a time and place…
Mental Hell Hipp shot: Thank you, Pitch. Every time I have a difficult day or experience, where my personal performance or achievement has taken a hit, I read the Pitch and realize how, even at their worst, my abilities and talents are far from the bottom of the pile. Regarding Deb Hipp’s “Psych Out” (August 23): I had no idea…
The other Chandra: Democrat Gary Condit’s fifteen minutes of blame have worn on and on, prompting more than a few Internet conspiracy mongers to wonder why Lori Klausutis’ sudden death in a Republican lawmaker’s office has gotten so little ink. Former Jackson County coroner Mike Berkland’s shaky work record in Missouri plays a starring role in the chat fest. Klausutis…
Marjorie Wholey and Steve Polson were Lawrence’s first “burning souls.” They were disgusted with their west Lawrence neighborhood, which resembled Johnson County’s most antiseptic subdivisions more than the city’s quaint, energetic downtown. Living in their townhome, with its attached garage and layout designed for privacy, the couple had met few neighbors and called none of them friends. Though she was…
Under a bridge in a desolate area not far from downtown, where the décor is warehouses and parking lots with giant square trucks, a blanket of paint covers the concrete walls that form the overpass. Hidden well below street level and sandwiched between a warehouse and a carved-out hill, the area forms a man-made gorge with a river of train…
