Eight decades after local grocer William D. Oldham built his namesake five-story hotel (which was never as glamorous as its snazzier contemporaries, the Savoy or the Coates House) at Fifth and Walnut, the solid brick building is now all offices except for the first floor, which has been transformed into a stylish restaurant (see review). In the venue’s hotel days,…
The irony about Oldham, the sleek restaurant carved out of the eighty-year-old Oldham Hotel’s first floor, is that anything old has been ripped out, cast off, discarded. Now, the space — which had been unoccupied for decades — is a two-level dining room, done up in a cool palette of slate, blue and dove, that is as stark and…
16 Thursday Tommy Ruskin, whose drumming skills will fill in competing saxophone riffs with cohesive rhythmic patterns tonight during the Battle of the Saxes, says he wishes organizers wouldn’t call it a battle. “I just never cared for the word ‘battle’ in music,” he says. The musicians who share the stage at the Grand Emporium, 3832 Main, at 8 tonight…
When John Moriarty finally started his first book in 1997, it made sense that he’d want to write about his longest-lasting, most passionate love affair. The twist is that this wildly destructive relationship was with the bottle, “the lover I always really wanted,” he says, “and always escaped responsibility to be with.” Liquid Lover: A Memoir is just arriving…
When Dan Griffiths of Kapoot Clown Theatre tells reporters that his Chicago-based clown duo draws from clowning traditions worldwide — European, Hopi and Zuni among others — there may be reason to react with skepticism. A few years back, Griffiths was part of a clowning group known as Giehanswurt. The group’s members feigned German accents when calling newspapers, claiming…
Carlynn Sievers of Peculiar, Missouri, is a family physician. Adam Sievers is a chemical engineer. Bob Pritchett works at a Home Depot in the metro area. Steven Jones is in law school. Stasha Case works 9-to-5 with a financial planning firm. What makes these disparate folks a similar breed is their love of funny business — improvisational comedy. Though…
With his candy-coated formula of good looks and silly lyrics, Nelly put the Midwest on the hip-hop map while introducing rap to an entire new generation of suburbanites. Nelly’s singsong style proved to be more attractive to pop enthusiasts than to hip-hop heads, but he hasn’t forgotten his roots. Originally a member of the St. Lunatics, Nelly rolled with his…
In a hilarious moment that failed to make any of MTV’s twentieth birthday clip shows, Beavis and Butthead pondered the moniker of the English group James. “His parents said he couldn’t use their name because he sucks,” Butthead theorized. With his moody mix of mumbles and wails, Rufus Wainright recalls James’ singer Tim Booth, but he was apparently deemed worthy…
Filled with delicate orchestral backdrops, sensitive lyrics and brilliantly crafted hooks, Margo Guryan’s Take a Picture seems at first to be another welcome addition to the growing vaults of backward-thinking twee masterpieces. However, as fervent record collectors would be happy to explain at length (after having shelled out $200 or more on eBay for the album), Guryan’s lone record isn’t…
Oh, the red flags raised against Pete Yorn’s debut disc: The pretentiously bundled, lowercase title. The Walt Whitman quote in the liner notes. Yorn’s physical resemblance to the male lead in that Melissa Joan Hart movie with the Britney Spears song. His vocal resemblance at first blush to Eddie Vedder. The shitty album cover. The artsy, yet chick-filled Sam Bayer…
Even if Jason Falkner had never made the standout solo albums Presents Author Unknown and Can You Still Feel?, he’d already have earned a place in pop music heaven after playing with The Three O’ Clock, The Grays and Jellyfish, the latter of which he was wise enough to flee before it veered too far into camp excess. Falkner still…
After eight years of raucous sing-alongs, jumping-box-related mayhem and orchestrated chaos of all sorts, the Lawrence/Kansas City institution known as the Short Bus Kids will soon be no more. Drummer Bill Kill and bassist Tyler (or “Hife”) are moving far away from the banks of the group’s beloved Wakarusa, and the band has decided to retire its name. (This news…
This week’s top selling CD is Now That’s What I Call Music! 7, a lazy collection of annoying singles from the likes of Aerosmith, Britney Spears and Jennifer Lopez. Anyone could make this record at home by simply falling asleep with the radio tuned to a “hits” station and the record button pressed on the tape recorder. The fact that…
Last fall, Sister Mary Rotten Crotch scored the opening slot for Le Tigre’s show at The Bottleneck, an assignment that seemingly reflected riot grrrls’ call for sisterhood across all boundaries. Sister Mary plays fire-spitting streetpunk, whereas Le Tigre wants fans to dance to its revolution. Head Tigre Kathleen Hanna scrawled “slut” across her midriff during her stint in the punk…
There’s an old joke about what returns when you play a country song backward: your spouse, your job, your dog. Maybe that’s also what you get if you play Jonatha Brooke’s 1997 album 10 Cent Wings that way; in the months surrounding its recording and release, the singer buried her father and her dog, divorced her husband and received pink…
The three members of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, the Los Angeles-by-way-of-San Francisco mope rockers named for the gang in Marlon Brando’s 1954 biker melodrama The Wild One, don’t like much of anything — including being called Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. “None of us are strict Brando fans,” says Robert Turner, bass player and singer for the group. The nascent BRMC…
There is one joke in Rat Race, a.k.a. Cannonball Run IV, so stunning — because it’s the one joke in the film that actually works — that it bears repeating here, if only to spare you the misery of actually witnessing this crime against humanity. Jon Lovitz, playing a character who might as well be named Jon Lovitz, is speeding…
On the lips of many moviegoers, the name Joel Schumacher is tantamount to blasphemy. Visions of a blue-skinned Arnold Schwarzenegger and a head-bobbing George Clooney in rubber nipples instantly come to mind, inducing shudders of revulsion and reiterating an oft-held view that Mr. Schumacher epitomizes the worst American directing can offer. Many folks, however, haven’t actually seen Tigerland, Schumacher’s bid…
“I already have it in the bank, and I’m taking deposits on it.” — Allen Bohl, Kansas’ new athletic director, on how confident he is about KU’s first opponent. GH: Want to bet Roy Williams has a talk with Doc Al about what NOT to say about upcoming basketball opponents? “I feel sorry for KU and Mizzou this year. I…
Terry Allen, the University of Kansas’ fifth-year football coach, lost twenty pounds this summer thanks to the Atkins Diet. That’s where you can eat all the meat you want and still lose weight. Allen could have achieved the same results by taping KU’s 2001 football schedule to his fridge. The Jayhawks will have all the meat they can handle staring…
Strip Tease Bonfire of the vanities: I noticed no byline on the Kansas City Strip column regarding the Kansas City Fire Department (August 2). Smart move, considering how ignorant it sounded. The KCFD hired many new firefighters after the Hyatt Regency disaster caught the city off-guard. Those who haven’t DIED on the job will soon be collecting a pension, so…
Now that Bob Dole has licked E.D. (is it any coincidence that his dysfunction bears the same initials as Elizabeth Dole?), the former Kansas senator is on a new crusade — one that should endear him to Britney Spears, a former Mouseketeer whose Pepsi commercials apparently give Dole the same lift he gets from Viagra. Dole helped write the Animal…
Lee Gerhard sits in his office on the University of Kansas campus during a scalding summer afternoon and dismisses a global-warming summit in Europe. “Our world is a belief system,” Gerhard says, “and it’s always easier to sell people on a disaster.” One month earlier, Gerhard and fellow Kansas Geological Survey scientist William Harrison released a book that challenges the…
In mid-June, Farrell “Mack” McMahon of Garden City, Missouri, woke up, smoked the first of many cigarettes and came to a decision. Then he went into town and had his hair cut for the first time in ten years. Long white locks fell to the floor, along with the remains of his billy goat beard and pointed white mustache.There,” Next,…
