Spoon always sounds as if something is getting ready to push it over the edge, but it never quite gets there. Instead it just creeps closer. And closer. And closer. Records don’t come much more tension-filled than Kill the Moonlight, on which the measured agitation of Britt Daniel’s delivery contrasts with mannered songs, giving the impression that the trio is…
There aren’t that many vocalists who can reach out and grab listeners the way the Holmes Brothers can — individually and in combination. Fans of everything from Sacred Steel to the most rugged, tattered blues will find a place to kneel. The brothers’ music makes the musical ground between the Blind Boys of Alabama and John Lee Hooker seem wonderfully…
Fans will recognize Bill McKemy as the Malachy Papers’ former bassist, but the tunes emanating from his latest effort, Duende, might strike even followers of that band as Dispatches from Café Unexpected. McKemy explores an acoustic but equally adventurous realm of jazz, sounding like a member of a coffee-house ensemble that couldn’t care less about how gently a patron’s coffee…
Jazz and barbecue remain on the short list of Kansas City’s virtues, and an upcoming event at the UMKC Performing Arts Center offers an abundance of both. First, the food: a dinner from Gates with a side order of Boulevard beer. Then, the main attraction: Bobby Watson, the smooth yet anything-but-snoozy saxophonist who heads the university’s jazz studies program. Watson…
In 1990, Girls Against Boys sprang from the Washington, D.C., indie scene that spawned Fugazi, Shudder to Think and other like-minded acts. But unlike many of its peers, GVSB had few reservations about moving out of the minors to a major label — a decision the quartet surely regrets, having spent the past four years enduring entanglements galore with Geffen….
Call it another case of Aesop’s “City Mouse and the Country Mouse.” The last time bluegrass came down from the mountain, in the mid-’60s, it was likely mystified by the warm counterculture embrace it received. Those who scurried back to the mountain missed the chance to witness the successful marriage of this acoustic art form with jazz, rock and pop,…
The charitable concerts that followed 9/11 contributed some indelible images, such as flags billowing behind the bands and tearful audience members gazing appreciatively at newly humanized superstars. But this year, Robico Lopez, who once told the Pitch that his group Deathray Angels’ stage show features “Plenty of blood, blood everywhere,” presents a tribute concert that will either warm people’s hearts…
Until now, the demise of Kansas City’s annual Blues and Jazz Festival ranked among the area’s saddest stories of the year. Citing a lack of funds and sparse support from sponsors, the event’s organizers pulled the plug in early spring, and efforts to revive the fest have been woefully insufficient. But unlike most downbeat local sagas, this one might end…
If it’s not irony enough that Cadillac uses a thirty-year-old Led Zeppelin song to peddle a mesmerizingly ugly new car, consider this: That commercial’s ubiquity means you’re a lot more likely to hear Robert Plant’s voice while flipping channels than while tuning a radio dial. Not that Zeppelin doesn’t echo constantly through the arid canyons of classic-rock radio. Not that…
Gloria Bessenbacher has lived in Kansas City for 27 years but hails from Mexico City. She watched international films growing up, but after marrying an American and moving to Kansas City, part of the “culture shock” was the dearth of films from her country. Witnessing the recent success of the Mexican films Amores Perros and Y Tu Mama Tambien has…
Like Clint Eastwood, Robert De Niro is one of those guys who can make just about any material enjoyable. Also like Eastwood, he will sometimes make you wish he’d pick roles that are a little more challenging. His recent record of relatively disposable films speaks for itself: Tough-yet-sensitive cop (Showtime), tough-yet-sensitive jewel thief (The Score), tough-yet-sensitive cop (15 Minutes),…
Snow job: How lucky Greg Hall is to be above addiction (“Hooks, Lies and Sinkers,” August 22). Unfortunately, he’s also above compassion and dignity. Educate yourself, Greg, about cocaine addiction. It could have been you. Darrell didn’t choose cocaine above his family. It chose him. He was a good man and a good neighbor. I only hope when your time…
Aryan hottie Ann Coulter, whose political column is syndicated by Kansas City’s own Universal press syndicate, bites the media hand that feeds her in this summer’s best-selling Slander. The dominatrix of cable-news shoutfests asserts that the media are controlled by liberals. We read the index. And page 139. That’s where local boy Steve Kraske gets accused of being just one…
Kansas City Star staffers now toil under a new master — the “master narrative.” Awhile back, the paper’s editor, Mark Zieman, asked his staff to tell him what “themes and issues” were important to Kansas Citians. He hoped such Stargazing might help make the paper “resonate more with readers.” In a July 22 “Z-mail” to his workers, Zieman reported on…
In June, a federal judge awarded a legless Kansas City man $15 million because cigarettes caused his illnesses. Now two Kansas lawyers are complaining that their clients can’t lose their legs cheaply enough. Prairie Village attorneys Rex Sharp and Isaac Diel have journeyed to the southwest quarter of the state to file a petition in Seward County District Court that…
When Mike Dowdall needed a truck in April 1999, he went to Shawnee Mission Ford. The glitzy Kansas dealership on Shawnee Mission Parkway in Johnson County seemed a reputable place to buy a sturdy pickup to haul plumbing, heating and air-conditioning equipment for his company, Dowdall Engineering. “I was looking for a good, high-quality used truck that I could use…
