By the time August Wilson completes his decade-by-decade play cycle about the African-American experience throughout the twentieth century, he will surely be beatified as the most prolific if not the greatest black playwright in America. He has yet to tackle the period between 1900 and 1910 or the decade that ended in 2000, but Kansas City audiences can see…
If you’re looking for a CD that could be enjoyed by your aging grandmother and your six-year-old niece, Spider-Man is just the ticket. As with the movie, the Spidey soundtrack strives to appeal to the widest possible demographic, resulting in a laughable assortment of odds, sods and nods to the latest in “hot” trends. Placing buzzworthy bands (the Strokes and…
There’s something important to know about Cajun culture — men who grew up with Cajun music truly know how to dance. That’s worth reiterating. They aren’t simply willing to graciously swish their partner around on special occasions, for just this one song; they aren’t just game for some pathetic flailing when full of some soul-altering substance. It’s always seemed apparent…
“This is not a film about Vietnam — this is Vietnam,” Francis Ford Coppola famously boasted upon returning from the South Pacific after the harrowing shoot for Apocalypse Now. The Cajun-metal supergroup Down can relate, having experienced firsthand the same drug-addled pandemonium that blurred the line between fantasy and reality in Coppola’s haunting war drama. Down’s sophomore effort, Down II:…
In the past, the Get Up Kids’ best defense against the emo tag was its live show. Onstage, the band keeps naysayers at a safe distance — its guitar riffs blast with an intensity that has never translated to disc. Even if an ear-plugged bully came close enough to smack a “Kick me, I’m emo” sign on their backs, no…
From its metal-filled club wars to its annual worship of saggy idols at the hard-rock revival tent called Sandstone to its Scorpions sing-alongs at Camarohead before Chiefs games, Kansas City loves its riffs and roars. Sure, pixie poppers Frogpond attracted respectable crowds, as do the Get Up Kids now, but both faced an uphill climb for hometown acceptance, even as…
Pittsburgh once birthed a man who made his fortune repainting Campbell’s soup cans, so it makes sense that the first arena-sized replicant rock tour would be created there. The event in question is called Fake Fest, a naked admission of what it is — a lineup of tribute bands dedicated, like Dolly the sheep’s scientist creators, to making as…
Sure, the National Agricultural Hall of Fame is great, but the historic setting is only one part of what makes the Santa Fe Trails Bluegrass Festival in Bonner Springs so overwhelming. And though it’s often outstanding, the music is just another element of the Wyandotte County sensory spectacular (who woulda thunk it?) known collectively as “Kansas City’s Americana Weekend.” Weather…
It’s appropriate that Universal would open About a Boy against the latest installment in the Lucas juggernaut. Certainly it’s daring, which is the last thing one ever expected to say about a film starring Hugh Grant. Consider: Attack of the Clones is an enormous movie that’s as disposable as a broken action figure and about as valuable; Boy is a…
Three years have passed since The Phantom Menace thrilled some and infuriated others, yet the schism in the Church of Lucas remains. Die-hard supporters still refuse to admit that Episode I has some truly awful acting and dialogue; detractors won’t acknowledge that, despite its faults, the film is still compulsively watchable. A movie doesn’t make in excess of $300…
A pretty picture: My compliments on C.J. Janovy’s informative article and a great lead (“Art of the Deal,” May 9). There’s a good T-shirt slogan in that first paragraph somewhere, hee hee hee. Her point is well made, however. I hope Mayor Barnes and members of the redevelopment group read her article and take it to heart. Downtown redevelopment will…
A couple of weeks ago, bleary-eyed Sunday morning newspaper readers stumbled into their nearest convenience stores to find that, mysteriously, The Kansas City Star suddenly cost only $1.25 instead of a buck-fifty. The discount rate is obviously an attempt to increase the paper’s circulation, but at the Total store across Grand Street from Star headquarters, the paper still isn’t exactly…
Summer in Westport is almost here, and two city-sponsored committees are contemplating a stricter curfew and weeknight diversions for the thousands of teen-agers who descend upon Westport Friday and Saturday nights. City and community leaders have been pondering Westport’s inconvenient popularity for years. Yet few workable, detailed remedies appear to be in the offing this year to address the purportedly…
The teen-age girl in the casket didn’t look herself. The mortician had crafted a new nose and a new mouth, but her true features had been unique: an upturned nose with a slight crease in its center, Cupid’s-bow lips and a heart-shaped face. In life, she had looked sweet but contrary. In death, she looked like a doll. As two…
The shift from casual bar food to more adventurous eating at the Cork & Grille Restaurant (see review) isn’t the only culinary change in downtown Lee’s Summit. On the east side of Main Street, restaurateur Dan Danaldson has turned his Main Street Bistro into a more casual dining room, serving Southern-style roadhouse fare and playing recorded blues music. Danaldson converted…
ike most Sicilians, my grandmother was excessively superstitious. She had dozens of rules that could never be broken. Never put a new pair of shoes on the kitchen table, never pick red flowers, never touch a coin facing heads down, never insult anyone wearing pearls lest it bring bad luck to the family. My father thought all of her…
Film students Elena Carr and Maggie Carey set out to reinvent a genre. Their goal was to make a female-friendly porn film. According to Carr and Carey and several of the women they interviewed for Ladyporn, a documentary about making their porn movie followed by the movie itself, one thing that had to go was “the money shot.” “It’s how…
Los Angeles-based artist Kori Newkirk likes to keep his hair shaved close to his head, and he’s not a fan of hair-care products. That’s why his choice of artistic material — Afro picks, pony beads, synthetic extensions and hair pomade — seems a little strange. The idea to use pony beads came to him in 1997, when he saw Serena…
“I’m a big fan of the people on 810. If they were to be proud of Stealing First, it would make my day. I would love to have Guido go on Jason Whitlock’s show and be interviewed. He would give him a worthy sparring partner.” — Ron Simonian, creator of Stealing First, when asked if it bothers him that 810,…
We’ve got a new professional baseball team called the Kansas City Peasants. Their Kansas City, Kansas, owner has ties to the mob. Their manager was fired during spring training, their ace pitcher came out of the closet over the PA during a game on ESPN, their best player was banished to Wichita for demanding more money, and the owner’s therapist…
Proof is about math, as you might have heard, but that’s only in the details. More accurately, it’s about love and hate. It’s about family rifts and family responsibilities, a feeble parent and feuding sisters and an irrevocable legacy. It’s about many other things as well, all of them written so beautifully by David Auburn you want to preserve…
A crowd’s applause swells, then fades. The performer lays out a steady synthesizer-washed beat that gives way to a new groove, which interacts with the old one before a very different pattern enters the mix. This strange sound, shimmery and metallic, repeats its droplets of tone until it becomes clear that it is actually a voice, barely above a whisper,…
For years, the Band That Saved the World has been known for providing an extra-fun evening of entertainment, guaranteed. With rump-shaking rhythms, Shaft-era chicken-scratch guitar, horny horns that flitter and buzz like bees and frontman Shannon Savoie’s ringmaster theatrics, the Lawrence-based octet definitely knows how to deliver the live goods. Like TBTSTW concerts, the group’s latest studio effort, Changes, is…
You little punks think you own this town, E spits scornfully just minutes into “Dog Faced Boy,” the murky, sludge-wallowing opening track of the Eels’ latest disc. The bemused annoyance that colored 2000’s Daisies of the Galaxy seems to have festered into full-blown anger, with cohorts John Parish and Koool G Murder enhancing E’s sour flavor. At the same time,…
