Kissing Chaos (the popular underground comic book) follows a group of teen runaways through a turbulent saga of love, sex and death. Kissing Chaos (the burgeoning indie band) is an Austin, Texas, threesome whose tumultuous rock is causing a stir of its own. Formed last summer from the remnants of Pop Unknown, the trio paints with the usual screamo-core colors…
With a name that means “wanderer” or “explorer” in Egyptian, it’s only fitting that veteran bassist Oteil Burbridge has earned the title of journeyman extraordinaire. Discovered by Colonel Bruce Hampton at the age of 21 and recruited to anchor his Aquarium Rescue Unit, Burbridge went on to succeed Allen Woody in 1997 as the full time bassist for the Allman…
Reviewers seldom gush over discs that remind them of lousy artists from the past — hence the dearth of notices praising Shakira for introducing a new generation to the genius that is Charo. But the opposite proves true when it comes to CDs that recall the long-ago platters of critical faves. A recent Rolling Stone cover story compared the Vines…
It was a grueling ten-year odyssey for the Athens, Georgia-based Vigilantes of Love. After ten albums and too many hours packed into a tiny tour van, Vigilantes frontman Bill Mallonee amicably parted ways with bandmates Jake Bradley and Kevin Heuer in early 2002 to embark on a solo career. Not one to waste a moment, Mallonee released two full albums…
Tech N9ne’s December 28 performance at the Uptown was everything a hip-hop show — especially a local one — should be. The first act, Vertigo, warmed the audience with tremulous dance beats and easy-to-chant anthemic choruses. Next came the quick-firing Yung Gunz, who lived up to the potential promised by their high-caliber cameo on Tech’s “Gunz Will Bust.” Then,…
Why now? It’s a question seldom posed to retiring bands, unless it’s directly followed by “why not ten years ago?” Understandably, artists are usually reluctant to call it quits until they’ve played every card — adding new members, changing musical direction, fleecing fans with fake farewell tours. But occasionally, a band in its creative and popular prime will simply walk…
Steve Strickland knows what he’s saying. He means it, too. In the opening lines of “Too Weird for Words,” one of 33 tracks on his recently released double-disc career retrospective Reverse Chronology, the singer and songwriter speaks with unabashed forthrightness. After a disclaimer (I know this might be a bad idea/To state exactly what’s on my mind), Strickland immediately…
Yakuza is sailing down a New York highway, headed for a gig where its members hope they will encounter an audience more sympathetic than the ones they found on last year’s Warped Tour. As their cell phone fades in and out, the band members — drummer James Staffel, vocalist and saxophonist Bruce Lamont, bassist Eric Clark and new guitarist Andrei…
Those seeking a polar opposite to Michael Caine’s kind but firm patriarch Dr. Wilbur Larch in The Cider House Rules will find it in Jim Broadbent’s horrid, one-eyed headmaster, Wackford Squeers, in the new adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby. The same audiences who appreciated Cider House will enjoy writer-director Douglas McGrath’s reverently Dickensian Nicholas. It’s got all the flavor — quest…
In the cold light of day, the sum of Chuck Barris’ contributions to American culture are the 1962 Top 40 ditty “Palisades Park” and his discovery, a few years later, that many people are willing to make complete fools of themselves in front of a TV camera. Barris’ legacy includes such pre-Springer, pre-Survivor humiliation-fests as The Newlywed Game, The…
Presumed innocent: Regarding Jack Cashill’s letter in the January 9 issue: It sounded rational until his “pro-life” nonsense! First of all, when did God repeal “original sin”? In the Christian and Jewish faiths, no one is born “innocent.” Second, pro-life is more correctly pro-famine, pestilence and poverty! After birth, the innocents have no value to the anti-abortion bigots! P.S.: I…
Joe Galetti, an at-large candidate for Kansas City’s 1st City Council District, has an idea for finding the ideal person to fill the shoes soon to be emptied by outgoing City Manager Bob Collins. “I’d go to the fastest-growing city in the world, find their city manager and steal him away,” he said last week at a candidate forum sponsored…
Kay Barnes’ administration is driving some people crazy, and it’s agonizing to watch. Here’s a tiny yet classic example of how arrogance fuels paranoia. And how that paranoia can spur a handful of regular joes to whip up so much mistrust of City Hall that it paralyzes the whole freaking town. It starts on December 9, in a downtown boardroom….
Dozens of transients sometimes line up along city streets between 3 and 5 a.m., hoping to get work through one of downtown’s day-labor agencies. At that hour of the morning, they’ll occasionally fight, vandalize nearby property or urinate in public. In the afternoon, drug dealers descend upon just-paid workers. At the same time, developers in the Crossroads neighborhood just south…
Sylvia Rodriguez hates Alta Vista High School. She doesn’t like the principal. Or the teachers. Or most of her fellow students. She especially hates the former office building that houses the school, with its cracked shingle siding and bent iron grates across windows, its narrow halls, mismatched secondhand desks and craggy concrete floors. “I want to go to a bigger…
Because the Plaza and Westport are the top tourist spots in town, the bars there are usually bustling. We’re huge fans of this phenomenon; it makes Kansas City feel like a real city. The downside, however, is when a popular bar in a touristy spot has too much bustle, turning it into an aggro bar. Upon walking into an aggro…
Shiny food — and ideas — must be in for 2003. The Lacquered Mongolian Pork at Metropolis City Grill (see review) isn’t the only glittering entrée on local menus. In two weeks, Marc Valiani, the new chef at Grand Street Café (4740 Grand), will add a Honey Lacquered Duck, among other things, to the twelve-year-old restaurant’s menu. The new menu…
Americans love comeback stories. Celebrities seem to garner more luster when they rebound from shocking scandal, disastrous marriages, rehab or obscurity. Think Cher. Or John Travolta, Rob Lowe, Pam Grier and — who would have thunk it — Gong Show creator and self-proclaimed “paid assassin” Chuck Barris. Kansas City hasn’t had nearly enough celebrity comebacks — though comedy-club impresario…
Karen Hernandez has been drawn to people of color since she befriended the lone black girl in her elementary school in the 1950s. During the ’60s, she was enthralled by Martin Luther King Jr. — his passion, his charisma, his voice. When King was killed in Memphis in 1968, Hernandez — then a high-school senior — was devastated. “She carried…
“My heart’s just pounding,” says Lonnie Powell, a 62-year-old painter at the helm of the Light in the Other Room, a collective of African-American visual artists. Powell is standing outside the American Jazz Museum on 18th and Vine, not far from where he ran around as a kid. He’s excited because his group is having its first show. Since 1997,…
On Friday, January 10, some Kansas City Star subscribers undoubtedly searched the slick circulars stuck between sections of their newspapers, looking for good deals on DVD players, bedroom sets or twelve-packs of Pepsi. Some unsuspecting readers in midtown, Brookside and Mission Hills also found bargains on sterling silver sporks (only $79.99!), custom-carved crayons and scratch-off haikus (coins sold separately). The…
“Carl Peterson either lied to us or is incredibly mistaken or uninformed when he told us that Chiefs season tickets are among the cheapest in the league. That is totally false.” — Kevin Kietzman, after the Chiefs raised season-ticket prices yet again following their 8-8 season, WHB 810 “Right now, I’m on schedule to play. I really feel positive about…
Spencer Laurie, the 6-foot-1-inch senior point guard for Springfield’s Kickapoo High School and one of the University of Missouri’s more famous basketball recruits, has an identity problem. People think he’s a spoiled rich kid whose best talent isn’t his jump shot but his place on the family tree. Spencer’s aunt and uncle are Nancy and Bill Laurie — Nancy being…
Take any ten gay men and you will find ten distinct sensibilities. This tends to rattle the rest of the world. Although it would be easy for gay-unfriendly individuals to dismiss the whole population as silly queens with a penchant for cashmere and Barbra Streisand, some gay guys are just as often annoyed by Streisand and more comfortable in flannel….
