Uptown restaurants like B.B.’s Lawnside Barbecue (see review) may be weathering this crappy economy, but things are a little more bluesy downtown. The three-month-old City Tavern (101 West 22nd Street) has already revamped both its lunch and dinner menus (offering customers much more bang for their buck) and replaced high-profile executive chef Dennis Kaniger with Tim Doolittle, the restaurant’s brashly…
Back in the 1940s, in a song called “Let Me Off Uptown,” jazz vocalist Anita O’Day sang about juke joints and hep joints at the wrong end of town. Kansas City’s southern border at the time was 85th Street, and the roadhouses on the other side of city limits were considered “out in the county.” With no city laws…
If clowns are merely kid stuff, why do grown-ups get such a kick out of watching them? The John Brown Theatre, a troupe of New York-based clowns with Kansas City roots (two went to high school here; the other two attended the University of Kansas in Lawrence), exemplify how an ancient theatrical art form is donning hip new clothes…
Chuck Haddix has had the holiday blues for more than sixteen years, a fact he’ll readily admit to anyone. Forget about any sort of treatment or medication; Haddix is quite happy with his condition. As the host of KCUR 89.3’s weekly Fish Fry, UMKC audio archivist Haddix (known on the air as Chuck Haddock) has been bringing blues, soul, R&B,…
“The Chiefs next year, in all likelihood, will be the team to beat in the AFC.”— Kevin Kietzman, WHB 810 GH: Anyone else tired of hearing about next year when it comes to the Chiefs? In all likelihood, the Chiefs will miss the playoffs for the sixth season in a row next year unless their 32nd-ranked defense receives a new…
Jarrett Leiker stands erect at midfield, poised to perform in the Park Hill High School drum line as part of the halftime entertainment for the Oak Park football game. The 5-foot-11-inch, 165-pound sophomore blends in anonymously with the rest of his classmates. In his black-and-red band uniform, he looks nothing like a three-time karate world titleholder. Last month, though, Jarrett…
While Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol decks the Missouri Repertory Theatre with boughs of holly, Theatre for Young America is premiering an alternative Dickens with The Cricket on the Hearth, adapted by Gene Mackey and directed by Sidonie Garrett. Though less familiar, Cricket’s seasonal message about looking anew at one’s blessings gives it a rightful place on a December…
Warren Straub and Dennis Zeigler aren’t the kind of nice boys Jewish mothers compel their daughters to find. On the surface, they might be considered catches — they’re from well-to-do families and live in Manhattan. But their assets are veiled in a fog of pot smoke. As played by Chris Wright and Christian Middleton in Kenneth Lonergan’s This Is…
Consumer confidence is lagging. One-third of all holiday shoppers expect to spend less money this December than they did last. And it’s not just the major retailers who are being affected by the belt-tightening. If beautiful young people wearing striped sweaters and prancing across the television screen to cheery holiday music can’t entice folks to whip out their credit cards…
Though people tire of hearing the same standards every year, listeners also want their holiday albums to be full of songs that at least sound Christmassy. For the most part, Maybe This Christmas, Nettwerk’s stab at a very merry indie-rock holiday compilation, walks that fine line with bells on. Phantom Planet’s “Winter Wonderland” is everything a modernized holiday oldie should…
The Ghost of Christmas Past loves to remind music critics of holiday horrors such as Christmas in the Stars: The Star Wars Christmas Album and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Christmas Time Again. However, holiday collections occasionally offer some enjoyable twists on the season’s standard fare. With Comfort & Joy, the a cappella ensemble Rockapella shakes the dust from a handful of classics…
The roots of many of today’s most recognizable traditional carols run deep into the heart of the sacred polyphony and secular folk music of the Renaissance. So it’s little wonder that the Narada sampler The Best of Celtic Christmas feels so warmly familiar. From the gentle holiday reel of the Boys of the Lough’s “The Mummer’s Jig/Christmas Eve” to the…
Remember Clark Griswold’s yuppie neighbors Todd and Margo in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, the uptight antithesis of Clark’s über-holiday spirit? Smooth jazz pianist Jim Wilson’s My First Christmas With You is an album just for them. With images of John Tesh and charcoal turtlenecks dancing in his head, Wilson dresses traditional carols and newer standards in a glossy sheen of…
A noted record producer and songwriter, Steve Tyrell found himself in impressive company following the release of his second album, Standard Time, last year, joining Harry Connick Jr. and Tony Bennett as one of the three top-selling male jazz vocalists in 2001. Now he swings into the holiday season with his first Christmas offering, This Time of the Year. Tyrell’s…
Hands down, Graciasland hosts the rockingest Christmas celebrations. El Vez even mixes Gary Glitter’s “Rock and Roll” into his take on “Little Drummer Boy.” He doesn’t leave anybody out of the party, either, including a version of “The Dreidel Song” that’ll make all the non-Jewish kids jealous of the years of sacred tradition they’ve missed. In honor of his own…
The way Barry Manilow sheepishly peers out from the cover of A Christmas Gift of Love, it appears as if it just occurred to him that including Joni Mitchell’s bummer “River” on his second holiday record wasn’t the best of ideas. No worries, Barry, because for the most part, this is one swinging set of season’s greetings. Manilow decks the…
Do you know someone who deserves a musical lump of coal? If so, there could be no better symbol of your disenchantment than a Bob Rivers CD. Rivers (a longtime “morning zoo” radio hack) carved a niche for himself as the king of the Christmas parody song by issuing a string of noxious holiday albums throughout the ’90s. This season…
Let It Be Christmas finds country music’s biggest star crooning atop arrangements that recall the sweet and swinging big-band styles of the ’40s. That’s not as unexpected a move as it might seem, even for a singer whose identity is so deeply rooted in twang as Jackson’s. After all, even in homes where Buck and Garth are played all year,…
In 1994, the Vandals released one of history’s most amusing concert albums. Playing for a hostile, heckling crowd that had come to see headliners the Offspring, the group baited homophobes, played “find the candy in my pants,” butchered Elvis Presley, Ricky Nelson and Grease soundtrack tunes and delivered an extensive warning about the dangers of driving while masturbating. Sweating to…
Buffalo Springfield had Neil Young, Mötley Crüe had Vince Neil and the Pet Shop Boys has Neil Tennant, but there’s only one Neil Diamond. In the ’60s, the Tin Pan Alley songslinger amassed one of pop’s finest catalogs, penning classics such as “Cherry Cherry,” “Sweet Caroline” and “Solitary Man.” Diamond promised to stay “Forever in Blue Jeans,” but his heartlight…
As slogans go, the Uprights’ motto (“Fuck emo, let’s dance!”) is something to believe in. Though the eight-piece ska unit has been together less than a year, it’s already built a small following with high-energy shows that don’t stop till the last bead of sweat hits the floor. Part of that vim might have to do with a lineup that’s…
Disturbed’s second album is a giant leap for the band and a hopeful sign for metal. On Believe, it travels far beyond the electronic-tinged rhythm-and-riffs territory of its debut, The Sickness. David Draiman has developed into an actual singer, and the musicianship here is five or six steps past Disturbed’s earlier work — a real achievement considering the haste with…
One part jazz bassist and one part avant-garde experimentalist, area musician Bill McKemy has been busily forging his own path in 2002. With an ear for straight-ahead jazz, dub reggae and a wide array of Latin-American styles, McKemy synthesizes his influences into a unique sound. His solo debut, Duende, qualifies as one of the strongest creative statements to emerge from…
As he set out to scale Mt. Everest, Edmund Hillary had no idea what the future might hold. Certain death? Instant fame? Nissan commercials? The possibilities were endless — not unlike the array of sonic options Everest presents at its concerts. The trio, born in late-’90s Wichita and bred in postmillennial Lawrence, goes into fits of postpunk rock between stops…
