Orange Goblin dedicates its latest disc to notorious Hell’s Angel Sonny Barger, an appropriate muse for Coup de Grace’s petroleum cocktail of biker-from-hell anthems. Too bad the U.K. quintet couldn’t get Barger to guest star; he might’ve livened up the proceedings. Lyrically, OG adheres to the gloom-metal holy trinity of drinking, drugging and women, but it also shows an affinity…
August 3 is a big day for Chely Wright. That evening she’s singing at the Douglas County Fair (a good place for those looking to travel back in time a few decades) for her first hometown concert in five years. Perhaps more important, she’ll be in Wellsville, Kansas (nine miles from Lawrence), for the renaming of Wellsville’s Main Street as…
Jean-Luc Ponty’s ageless elfin face makes it seem impossible that he’s been performing since 1964. Very early fans might remember the “next Stephane Grapelli” buzz from his first album; mere early fans probably soaked up his work with Frank Zappa in the late ’60s, when he had the spotlight for Zappa compositions such as “Music for Electric Violin and Low…
Rush is one of those bands for which there is no middle ground, provoking either fervent admiration or blazing hostility. That might have something to do with bassist and keyboardist Geddy Lee’s nasally vocals, which have always sounded like a helium-lunged Leprechaun. Love ’em or loathe ’em, however, Rush commands a certain degree of respect. For more than three decades,…
Topping many a critic’s list last year was the Shins’ Oh, Inverted World, which captivated indie kids too young to remember Suede and too jaded to buy into Strokesmania. Led by former Flake frontman James Mercer, the Albuquerque, New Mexico, quartet brings a lo-fi sensibility to its new slang, burying somber melodies beneath Milky-Way grooves. The group’s lush instrumentation —…
A Kansas City native, Vinx always seems to make room for a local date, though that probably comes with misgivings. According to his bio, he was severely burned when his family’s house in the KC suburbs was burned down by racists. But that didn’t keep him down for long. Inducted into the Kansas State Athletic Hall of Fame in 1996,…
Fans familiar with the latter half of the phrase “Box Tops, featuring Alex Chilton” might feel a little shafted that the first part doesn’t read “Big Star” instead. That legendary group, virtually ignored in the early ’70s, when it released three near-perfect power-pop albums, was ultimately deemed a monster influence and remains Chilton’s most impressive legacy. Despite Big Star’s…
“Check out the sounds of a Missouri summer,” reminds the hard-sell voice that pops up during each Royals radio broadcast on KMBZ 980. Blues riffs shuffle in the background as the narrator recites the musical genres native to the Show Me State, foreshadowing the final zinger: “You’ll be singing the blues if you don’t!” The ad directs listeners to visitmo.com,…
The Westport Beach Club feels like no place else in Kansas City each Saturday night this summer. That special feeling has something to do with the fine Latin music provided by Son Venezuela and Yoruba Son on alternating weeks. But as salsa grows more popular locally, that alone isn’t what makes the place unique. When Yoruba Son launches into…
Negro Sco has earned a reputation for upper-level mic skills and highbrow lyrics, but there’s one title the Kansas City-based MC can’t stand. “Rappers are wack,” he explains. “Call me a poet or an MC. When you think rapper, you think MTV and all these fools wearing these diamonds. Those are rappers, and there’s a lot of negativity goes with…
Subject: Sade. Style: Silk-voiced chanteuse. Target audience: sophisticated lovers, amorous cinematic couples. Genre: uniquely timeless jazzy pop. Subject: Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips. Style: High-pitched yelp shaken by quivering quirks. Target audience: adventurous recreational substance abusers, rock critics. Genre: uniquely futuristic baroque pop. She’s peanut-butter smooth, and he don’t use jelly, so until recently, Sade and Coyne have never…
Calling your film Never Again is like handing an ax to a critic and meekly placing your head on the chopping block. Will some of my colleagues write “never see Never Again” or “not even once, let alone Again” or “another Eric Schaeffer film? Never Again!”? You betcha. The latter is pretty much how I felt after reviewing Schaeffer’s last…
This time around, writer-director M. Night Shyamalan puts the surprise at the beginning of his film, and it’s a subtle, shimmering clue — one easily missed. Such are the temptations offered by the maker of The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and the tantalizing new Signs: We want to believe that what we’re seeing isn’t quite what’s happening. Just as crop…
Pride and prejudice: Regarding C.J. Janovy’s “Gay Games” (July 25): As a member of the KC Pride Democratic Club, my first response was positive as I read the unidentified quote leading off the article: “I had hoped that we had progressed beyond just ‘I need to be elected because Tim’s gay and I’m gay.’” That is pure Terry Norman. He…
Activist Clinton Adams Jr., was heard singing Eminem’s latest hit, “Without Me,” in the halls of Kansas City School District offices recently. For the past month, Adams — who has been repeatedly rebuked for interfering with district operations — has been back to his old ways, haunting the halls of 1211 McGee, bumbling in and out of offices and sticking…
Jeanette Robinson is fed up with her neighbor. The yard on the other side of her back fence is choked with eye-high weeds, and branches broken off during last winter’s ice storm dangle dangerously from its trees. “It’s just a mess,” Robinson says. “Those hanging limbs make it so black and dark you don’t know if it’s night or day.”…
On a Saturday morning, Marion Culp stands beside the guard desk at the maximum-security prison in El Dorado, Kansas. The 77-year-old grandmother knows the dress code. No see-through blouses. No slit skirts. No spaghetti straps. Marion smooths her “church dress,” a calf-length skirt and simple blouse. She drops a neatly folded tissue — it might contain hidden drugs — in…
