Kevin Ross, a Wyandotte High School graduate, is the most famous basketball player ever to suit up for Creighton University. President Reagan once warmly greeted him at the White House. He traveled the country as a celebrity, speaking at schools and in front of youth groups. His fame, though, has nothing to do with his on-court skills. Ross’ twenty-year class…
The clichés of vintage Hollywood musicals set on Broadway are so pervasive that a spoof of them looks like the real thing. Take the one about the plucky kid right off the bus from Smalltown, U.S.A., whose first audition leads to stardom. When the role was played by anyone with name recognition, such as Ginger Rogers or Judy Garland,…
It’s been said that good artists create, but great ones steal. If that adage is true, then Vanilla Ice might be the greatest artist ever to walk to face of the earth. 1990’s To the Extreme aped Hammer’s sample-heavy hip-hop lite, 1994’s Mind Blowin’ swiped Cypress Hill’s stoner shenanigans and 1998’s Hard to Swallow pilfered Korn’s nü-metal schtick lock, stock…
There’s a bit of folk musician in any punk, even if the only folklore that’s of interest sprung out of mid-’70s bohemia. There’s also a sense of art as political agitation, even if the politics are nothing more than a series of contradictory rebellious impulses. In both senses, Mexico City’s Los De Abajo fits the profile of an exceptionally well-rounded,…
Can we declare a moratorium on stars’ flipping off the camera? As a gesture of rebellion, the photo-shoot middle finger is sooo twentieth century; at this point, an artist would be served as well by donning a raccoon coat and strumming a ukulele. When even MTV’s Carson Daly, perhaps the least threatening celebrity younger than Ed McMahon, assumes the position…
Building on the success of last year’s Pitch Music Showcase, which attracted 4,000 club-hoppers while introducing the 5-club, 25-band format, this year’s Showcase went on to solidify the identities of the participating venues. The Hurricane again became the evening’s nerve center. Last year, the Casket Lottery and Season to Risk shook its foundation; this time, a pair of DJs created…
Inside a small shed at Kansas City Power & Light’s Merriam, Kansas, electrical substation, John Felix’s body flopped in spasms of pain as a 1,200-pound metal box the size of a refrigerator pinned his head to the floor. “My right eye was against the floor,” recalls Felix. “I could see a puddle of blood flowing onto the floor in front…
Within Kansas City’s water services department, the pipeline office has a roughneck reputation: Cussing, shoving and loud, off-color jokes are part of the daily grind. The office sits on 18th Street beside two garages where about 130 equipment operators and laborers — most of them men — punch clocks at 7 each morning before jumping into city trucks and heading…
Proposition: Bands can achieve standout results, both on record and on stage, using only a singer, a guitar and drums. Representing the affirmative position (enthusiastically so) is the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, a group of three New York-based musicians who entice maximum volume out of rustic blues riffs, stuttering percussive outbursts and catnip-crazed yowls. Like the White Stripes, fellow proponents of…
Just a day after last week’s Pitch hit the streets, its cover sporting an amped-up Channel 5 anchor Dave Helling, the station sent out word that Helling was being moved from the 10 p.m. weeknight anchor slot and relegated to male newsreader for the 4:30 and 5 p.m. gigs. The station had been touting the fact that its anchors also…
KC at the bat: Regarding Greg Hall’s “Royal Blues” (April 4): Until a hard salary cap comes down with serious revenue sharing, the Royals will never be competitive again. The Royals would have to be omniscient in their draft picks, trades, player development and managing to win or even get to a World Series. While not impossible, one would be…
Wending through the summaries of this year’s forthcoming blockbusters — dudes fight evil; chicks keep yanking up their trendy hip-huggers while fighting evil — it’s immediately refreshing to note a movie about furry freaks and saucy geeks whose primary goal is just to, you know, do it. In Human Nature, written by Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich) and directed…
The last thing most first-time movie directors would — or should — attempt is to crawl inside the fertile, chaotic mind of an impoverished, drunken Southern writer, then throw the whole interior mess up there on the screen — the poor bastard’s twisted poetic fantasies and occasional bolts of insight, his grieving for a lost wife and a sick child,…
Sooner or later, artists arrive at a crossroads in their careers, a point at which they can either take a risk in hopes of realizing their dreams or stay put, deciding that they’re content with the status quo. Princess Superstar is at such a point right now, faced with the age-old musical quandary of signing with suddenly interested majors…
The days of lone DJs spinning wax in front of small but reverent audiences might be numbered. After all, what once appeared as a revolutionary underground force now competes for Mortal Kombat time in college dorm rooms the world over, and kids who once begged their parents for Christmastime six-strings are unwrapping twin turntable decks instead. And though it seems…
In the next few months, Mayor Kay Barnes’ handpicked group of business executives and politicians will try to figure out the exact definition of downtown Kansas City so they can begin fixing it up. They may actually include the Country Club Plaza in their definition. (After all, Barnes likes to compare Kansas City to Paris; that city’s core, she…
Neither Dr. J. nor Dr. Rosenpenis is mentioned in Gregory Mcdonald’s 1974 classic, Fletch, the award-winning first novel in one of popular fiction’s most satisfying series. Though the 1985 Chevy Chase movie borrows most of Mcdonald’s ingenious plot and some of his sharp dialogue, the basketball dream sequence and slapstick undercover hospital visit — as well as Chase’s smugness…
Tai chi could save the world if we would just let it. At least that’s what Bill Douglas thinks. “Hundreds of millions of people around the planet suffer needlessly,” he says. “You turn on the TV, and what do you see? Take a drug for this; take a drug for that.” Tai chi originated in twelfth-century China. It takes…
“They’re going to play baseball this year, and then beyond this year, all bets are off. They don’t know how to get a deal done.” — John Rooney, former Missouri play-by-play broadcaster and current voice of the Chicago White Sox, WHB 810 “I know it might happen. But I’m not afraid of it. My hope is that it doesn’t happen.”…
The buzz about the Kansas City Royals this spring wouldn’t awaken a gnat. It’s barely a “psssss” — the sound you might hear from a nearly flaccid Wal-Mart balloon as it deflates. Expectations are low. “That’s a good thing,” says Joe Randa, the Royals’ returning third baseman. “We didn’t handle the high expectations people had for us last year very…
Reaching back into its goody bag, Late Night Theatre stages A Tribute to the Stepford Wives, and you partly want to whine, “But Santa Claus, you gave me that a couple years ago!” The troupe is in transition (and its new West Bottoms site might be more temporary than the company thought), so reviving a familiar show might have…
Crisscrossing the globe with the savvy of Christiane Amanpour and the wit of Dame Edna, the cast of Quality Hill Playhouse’s Around the World gives the show’s itinerary a shot of pizzazz. Ringmaster J. Kent Barnhart usually seasons his cabarets with humor, but this one is exceptionally funny. It’s as if he made the song list while he was…
Labels such as “African-American sculptor” or “Hispanic potter” or “woman critic” imply that white male art is the norm. Historically this is true, but not because art by white males is superior. In the art world, as in Western society, power roles traditionally have gone to white men; that’s who ended up setting the standards and conferring the rewards….
Sad but true: The most passionate response to any music at America’s Pub on March 27, the first night of Club Wars, came between sets, when a Metallica tune boomed through the speakers. After a few more selections from KQRC 98.9, which was broadcasting outside, the din died down and event promoter Jim Kilroy presented the evening’s second act….
