At P.F. Chang’s China Bistro (see review), three kinds of hot tea come in shiny, caramel-colored pots: oolong, “Tropical Green” and ginger-peach. Each has an intoxicating perfume (particularly the fruity ginger-peach) and a lovely amber color but is surprisingly flavorless. Though the tea leaves have been steeping in front of your eyes, the tea tastes similar to the brew from…
So many restaurants thrive on the 79-year-old Country Club Plaza that most people probably assume it’s always been that way. But I suspect that the 36 restaurants within the Plaza’s fourteen square blocks may be the highest number yet. Until the 1970s, the Plaza was better known as a place to shop. Flash back to when the Depression hit…
It may have been in 1985, with the movie Clue, that Hollywood let its creative license expire. Director and screenwriter Jonathan Lynn had the unenviable (perhaps impossible) task of making a board game three-dimensional. Its colorful characters, such as Mrs. Peacock, Miss Scarlett and Colonel Mustard, were played by a cast of stars no bigger than Madeline Kahn and…
“Imagine a lynching,” Jack Miles instructs. “The body of the victim swollen and distorted, his head hanging askew above a broken neck, while the bystanders smile their twisted smiles.” The horror that Miles is illustrating for his readers is Jesus on the cross. “The crucifix,” he says, “is a violently obscene icon.” Seldom is the word obscene used in discussion…
This is the story of David Cross as told only by David Cross, since no one else contacted for this story, this oral history, would comment on the subject of David Cross. That is not entirely true, as no one else was actually contacted for this story; really, who has the time to make that extra phone call or…
“If there is anybody out there who still hasn’t been won over by Trent Green after those two runs , then quite frankly they’re lacking in mental capabilities.” — Bob Gretz, KCFX 101.1 GH: Green made two game-clinching runs against the Bills, but anyone who overlooks his flaws is lacking objectivity. He doesn’t have the arm strength to throw to…
Trent Green needs to go. Nice guy, great haircut, lots of teeth in that friendly Midwestern smile of his. But he’s gotta go before he starts smelling like day-old Elvis. Same thing for Paul Byrd, the likable Royals starter who miraculously won 17 games for a team that managed to lose 100. The Royals should be singing bye-bye Byrdie all…
The day after delivering a sumptuous concert at the Folly Theater, Broadway legend Barbara Cook let down her hair and conducted a master class at Quality Hill Playhouse. Six local vocalists brought a song or two to perform for Cook, whose message was that they could be better singers if they shook the idea that they were “singers.” In…
In voodoo imagery, the crossroads is the place where the earthly and spirit worlds meet. It’s an image that appears often in Renée Stout’s collages, paintings and sculptures — which are themselves a meeting ground for political and personal ideas, for paint and three-dimensional objects, for artist and viewer. Billed as a midcareer retrospective, the Belger Center’s Readers, Advisors, and…
This month, the surviving members of the Grateful Dead revive their tie-dyed circus as the Other Ones. A month later, jam-band king Phish will reunite after a two-year hiatus for a New Year’s Eve gig in New York. Given this news, ‘heads of all ages have reason to rejoice, but bassist Phil Lesh’s second post-Dead solo effort offers little cause…
Before his untimely death at age 32, comedian Bill Hicks pissed off just about everyone in sight, particularly his audiences. Fortunately, meager attendance allowed him to avoid serious bodily injury. Every show of Hicks’ 1991 Flying Saucer tour was recorded for posterity, and Ryko has stepped up to reissue a number of them. But rather than showcasing Hicks on a…
Songs about bad men doing bad things have a long history, from Elizabethan/Appalachian murder ballads and “Stagger Lee” to gangsta rap and narcocorridos. These songs from the southern Italian region of Calabria might celebrate the Mafia, but don’t expect “Sonny’s Last Tollbooth” or “The Death of Big Pussy” sung in a Joe Pesci whine. Instead, these folk numbers, some dating…
The part that’s supposed to be fascinating about David Gray is that he made 1999’s surprise international hit White Ladder at home with the conviction that if it didn’t work this time, he’d hang up his guitar. The part that’s really interesting, though, is that White Ladder signaled Gray’s continued upward trajectory; the guy defied convention by making an album…
There’s a moment on Jay Bennett and Edward Burch’s The Palace at 4 a.m. (Part 1), just before one of the best songs, when Bennett says, “I try not to talk before songs, but it never works.” At least he’s aware of it. To be fair, the arch tone of the duo’s last show here could have been the…
A single visit to Nashville is all it takes to realize the town’s music machine runs on a thick mixture of blood, sweat and tears. It’s a place where a waiter or waitress is more likely to leave an audition tape on the table than the bill. Formed in the late ’90s, the country-rock outfit Pinmonkey has managed to put…
After making a name for himself on the psychobilly scene with the Reverend Horton Heat, Burden Brothers drummer Taz Bentley scored locally on Tenderloin’s major-label release Bullseye. The Brothers’ singer, former Toadies frontman Todd Lewis, had more success (a platinum record) with a song more people heard (“Possum Kingdom”) and thus experienced deeper fallout. Now these two down-on-their-luck rockers have…
Black Elvis, Dr. Octagon, Mr. Gerbik, the Spankmaster. No matter what character Kool Keith is portraying, his bugged-out sense of humor always shines through. Beginning as a member of the Ultramagnetic MCs, Keith has become one of hip-hop’s true chameleons, with his groundbreaking mic skills and schizophrenic imagination serving as his platform. Keith has reinvented himself with each new…
There must be some kind of mind-meld when Scott Gobber and Mark Stevenson, vocalists for the Kemps, wrap their voices around traditional old-time tunes. Gobber’s tenor yowls and crackles at just the right moments, and Stevenson’s baritone, forceful and subtle, actually makes “Long Black Veil” sound new. There’s no one in town capable of transforming two voices into one…
Doc Watson has quietly gone from being the granddaddy of several acoustic revivals to being the revered great-grandfather at the head of the table for the latest old-time banquet. There’s no more revered figure in acoustic music, especially for the innumerable men and women around the world who aspire to finger-pick fiddle tunes half as quickly as this North Carolina…
In today’s hazard-riddled world, we are constantly reminded to beware terrorism-supporting drugs, artery-clogging cholesterol and countless other dangers. However, we don’t hear enough about zombies, those evil, brain-hungry freaks who, though slow-moving and dim-witted, are also maniacal and relentless. Plus, bites from such creatures turn the gnawed-upon into zombies themselves. Few future victims know what a downer death by zombie…
Few events can rival the somber dignity and jubilant elation of a New Orleans jazz funeral. As a relic from a time when the Crescent City’s black social clubs were often the sole source of support for family funeral expenses, these public processions were one part wake and one part celebration, depending on whether the club’s brass band was heading…
At first glance, it didn’t look too good for The Kansas City Star. While daily newspapers across the country scrambled to provide front-page coverage of Run D.M.C. disc jockey Jam Master Jay’s murder on October 30, the Star stuffed the story into its national digest, where it shared sparse column inches with headlines such as “Candy Thief” and “Skydiving…
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to produce good music, but it doesn’t hurt to have one on hand when your rack-mounted EQ goes on the fritz. “I’m a geek,” says Neighborhood Studios co-owner Jerry Johnson, who helped NASA create hardware (including a Coke machine) for shuttle missions before applying his skills to rock circuitry. “How many studios do you…
When a band is in the studio on the label’s bill, the following moves could easily lead to disaster: delaying release dates, scrapping songs and/or changing sounds. Occasionally, record labels actually don’t understand their artists’ visions, but for every Wilco with a Yankee Foxtrot Hotel there’s a Rick James with a Cold Blooded waiting in the lobby. The members of…
