Restaurants come and go so quickly that it’s refreshing to find places, such as the sixteen-year-old Kabob House (see review), that have staying power even in a faltering economy. Alas, one restaurant that has fallen off its high horse is the “fancy” Loula’s Bistro and Wine Bar (625 Northwest Murray Road) in the Summit Inn & Suites hotel. The restaurant…
During the 1960s, the area south of 85th and Wornall felt as if it were out in the country. Elsie Lavish, who has lived in the same South Kansas City house for 45 years, remembers the neighborhood when it was scattered with “ponds and vacant lots” instead of houses, strip shopping centers and highway exits. A nearby restaurant was…
Only three months ago, Brodie Rush — frontman for the for-now-defunct classic-rock band Be Non and later the sole member of a raunchy one-man band called Blow-Chi — had never tried karaoke. Maybe that’s why the karaoke night he hosts at the Brick on alternating Mondays feels nothing like karaoke nights at other bars. One Monday, a woman dressed in…
Even if your living room had a baby grand piano and a dozen performers showed up every month, it still wouldn’t be The Living Room, Richard Held’s monthly cabaret series at the Center for Spiritual Living on West 39th Street. On the last Friday of each month, Held and a few musicians perform songs by writers ranging from Cole Porter…
“I don’t think I should have to answer questions about the race of the women I date. It’s 2002, and people can do what they want. There’s an incorrect perception about me and black women, and I’m uncomfortable with it. The perception that all I date is white women is untrue. I have gone out on dates with nearly every…
Rockhurst High School, the Jesuit preparatory school located on the Missouri side of 93rd and State Line, is selling five-game football season tickets this year for $125. It is the first time a Kansas City high school has sold reserved season tickets for football. You can see a full home season of college ball for less. The University of Kansas…
Critics and theater owners aren’t supposed to be bosom buddies. But the fractious nature of my relationship with the New Theatre’s artistic director, Dennis Hennessy, and president, Richard Carrothers, may have reached some kind of nadir. Angered over what they believed were my incompetent reviews of New Theatre shows, Hennessy and Carrothers pulled my press passes in the spring of…
Blessed with an instantly recognizable voice that transcends its pleasant timbre with an insinuating dark irony, former Crowded House landlord Neil Finn is an equally inspired writer of impressionistic lyrics, specializing in love, insanity and death. There’s plenty of each on One All, the stateside version of Finn’s 2000 Aussie release One Nil, which seamlessly replaces two just-fair cuts with…
Snobs love to romanticize yesterday’s lowbrow. There are, for example, haughty connoisseurs of things like punk rock and comic books. Likewise, some Yiddishists (enthusiasts of the Eastern European Jewish cultural legacy) dismiss anything but the “golden age” form of Klezmer, the bustling, clarinet-driven party music mastered in the first half of the past century. A Yiddishist might view modern Klezmer…
It’s a relief to know that, despite his gaunt, artfully haggard appearance on the sleeve of his first album in nine years, David Baerwald hasn’t gone hungry. His new label, Lost Highway — home to Lucinda Williams and Ryan Adams — points out in its promotional materials for Here Comes the New Folk Underground that Baerwald has written for or…
Before there was Slipknot, there was Stone Sour, an Iowa metal outfit that included future ‘Knot vocalist Corey Taylor and guitarist James Root (numbers eight and four, respectively, for those who keep track of these things). Presumably searching for less-gimmicky downtime distractions, Taylor and Root reformed the group in 2000, removed the masks and began exploring their soft-and-cuddly sides. The…
There is an old rock axiom that warns against becoming bandmates with your significant other, but it’s hard to argue with the results of riding love’s emotional roller-coaster through work every day — especially if you happen to favor inventive, drug-flavored garage rock. From Sonic Youth to Royal Trux to Pussy Galore to the White Stripes, college rock has always…
To many Kansas Citians, summer just wouldn’t be the same without a sold-out appearance by the Dave Matthews Band. The faithfully touring quintet serves up a reliable show that mixes genuine songwriting with just enough crunchy granola flavor to indulge the hackey-sack set. Perhaps because of its college-town origins, the DMB also attracts a heavy frat-boy and sorority-sister crowd, but…
With the possible exception of Will Smith, no musical act gets jiggy with it better than Flogging Molly, an L.A. septet that mixes beer-battered Irish fare with hot-stepping punk. Having just wrapped up a lengthy stint on the Warped Tour, the Cali shamrockers are returning to KC to headline the annual Brookside Irish Fest. The two-day affair features the cream…
When MCA signed Richard Buckner in the ’90s, few fans expected the marriage between the dour country-tinged singer-songwriter and his major label to last. The whiz kids in MCA marketing, given ample opportunity to create a Ryan Adams-style sensation, instead cast Buckner in the folk mold, which did little to further his appeal with the record-buying public. But Buckner endured,…
When Milemarker started tempering its abrasive, politically informed punk with keyboards, electronic twiddles and female vocals, it lost a few fans. Among them were esoterica enthusiasts who equated accessibility with weakness, and choreography connoisseurs who, when confronted with a real dance beat, resented being unable to bust hardcore moves such as the swinging-gorilla-arm and the lawnmower-yank. Those who stuck…
“Who’s up next?” yelled a balding man, his amiable grin causing his sun-scalded skin to crack. He rubbed grubby hands against his American flag T-shirt, leaving traces of concession-stand ketchup and second-hand dust from distant mosh action. Standing alone in his row, he addressed no one in particular. The only people within earshot were much younger metal fans. “System,…
Twenty-three years ago, Bob Marley played Hoch Auditorium at the University of Kansas. Local fans knew and loved Marley’s music, but their regular exposure to roots-reggae came from the opening act, Pat’s Blue Riddim Band, and that group’s frequent visits to KC’s Parody Hall and Lawrence’s Off the Wall Hall. Kansas City’s PBR, as it was, and frequently still is,…
James Merritt, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, told Bush he had been chosen by God to lead the nation in the fight to protect America and the world against terrorism. ‘I believe you are God’s man for this hour,’ Merritt said. ‘God’s hand is on you.’ The president nodded.” — The Weekly Standard You never ask questions/When God’s…
With its staccato editing and pulp visions of a very non-Buffy Sarah Michelle Gellar getting down and dirty, James Toback’s Harvard Man should have made more of an impact upon its limited release. But it’s too edgy for the Buffy fanbase and too drug-laden for the theater chains, who’d rather show heads being cleaved in half than acid trips. When…
Director Neil LaBute (Your Friends and Neighbors, Nurse Betty) seems the unlikeliest candidate to direct the film version of British author A.S. Byatt’s Booker Prize-winning bestseller Possession. (Okay, that’s an exaggeration: There’s always Michael Bay.) LaBute’s earlier films were resolutely tied to American culture, and Byatt’s book couldn’t be more British if it drank tea at four and flew the…
It’s all a slur: I have to take exception to the letter from Amy Heithoff-Dominguez (August 15) in response to Allie Johnson’s “All Wet” cover story (August 8). I am an American of Latin (Mexican) descent and a regular Pitch reader. I can assure you, it never occurred to me that any sort of racial slur was intended or implied…
The faces may change, but KCPT Channel 19 President Bill Reed promises that Ruckus will return to Kansas City public television within the next year. “If it’s the last thing I do, we’re going to bring Ruckus back,” Reed says. Reed canceled the talk show amid a budget crisis that puts KCPT at a $1 million deficit. Now he’s peeved…
Jason Cuiksa and his boss worked overtime on a dark Kansas prairie on a moonless April night in 1999, scrambling to repair a cherry picker for the Hallmark Hall of Fame production Sarah, Plain & Tall: Winter’s End. Across the road, actors and crew were shooting made-for-TV scenes at an old Kansas farmhouse. Cuiksa and Kelly Brown figured out that…
