Over the years, I’ve taken a lot of big gambles: on career choices, romances, moves to different cities, on used cars, second-hand Armani suits and fair-weather friends. Some paid off, and some were such disasters that I’m still feeling the repercussions. But when it comes to the local casinos, my luck has always been lousy. Still, I’ve had plenty…
When actor and stand-up comic Jason Stuart ran into his old pal Rosie O’Donnell recently, it was like a meeting between the old gay guard and the new. He thanked her for coming out last year. “It makes me feel not so alone,” he told her. Stuart, who headlines four shows at Stanford & Sons Comedy Club in Westport…
Now that the twirling mice from The Nutcracker are in storage for another year, young audiences might be ready for the tough rats that endanger the hero and heroine of Edward Barnes’ kid-friendly opera Mystery on the Docks. The latest in a string of collaborations between the Lyric Opera of Kansas City’s Lyrikids program and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art…
As far as he can remember, he always wanted to be an actor. To him, being an actor was better than being president of the United States. Even before he first wandered into the high school auditorium for an after-school audition, he wanted to be one of them. It was there he belonged. To him it meant being a somebody…
“To those who want to say our fanbase has gotten soft, we actually had more attendance in Arrowhead this year than we did in 2001. I’m very proud of the fact that once again we will be second-highest-attended NFL team in the AFC and fourth in the NFL.” — Carl Peterson, during his season-ending press conference GH: NFL general managers…
Three days before Christmas, the Chiefs celebrated Arrowhead Stadium’s one hundredth consecutive sellout. On the last game of this agonizing season, die-hard fans packed the place to watch the home team battle San Diego — another team that would finish out of the playoffs. These fans have only themselves to thank for the Chiefs’ demise. The team just completed its…
Rachel Frank spent the second weekend of December preparing to fly home to Kentucky, having just completed her next-to-last semester at the Kansas City Art Institute. But while Frank was packing, one of her sculptures was on display 500 miles away, in Chicago. The Stray Show, held December 12-15 in a 37,000-square-foot warehouse in Chicago’s Goose Island industrial corridor, showcased…
Who knew belly dancing music had become so modern-sounding? Well, Sting, Brad Pitt, U2, Eddie Murphy, Hugh Hefner and other celebs whose names usually pop up on marquees and in boldface print, according to this disc’s liner notes. Why are the aforementioned stars enamored of this updating of an old, traditional art form? For one, these sixteen tracks swing with…
A few years ago, the Wu-Tang Clan’s members were everywhere, peddling Wu Wear, moonlighting with Mariah and Limp Bizkit, storming the stage at awards shows and dominating record-store shelves. Alas, there were only so many ways to make minimal variations on minimalist beats while working on tight deadlines, so the Clan devalued its brand name with half-baked solo efforts and…
Like many bands that rose to prominence in the ’80s, INXS could turn out a killer single, but it struggled to stretch that quality over an entire album. INXS has one masterpiece to its credit, 1987’s Kick, and a couple of others that seemed better at the time (1985’s Listen Like Thieves and 1990’s X). For casual listeners, then, a…
When a band’s record company decides to issue a “from the vaults” collection, it’s generally the fans who suffer the most. Packed with subpar throwaways, poorly chosen covers and B-sides that earned their nonalbum status, these releases tend to do little other than fatten corporate wallets and give bands a few extra months of downtime. Leave it to System of…
Guitars, Cadillacs and hillbilly music and lonely, lonely streets that I call home. As iconography goes, that list — from the chorus of Dwight Yoakam’s second charting single, all the way back in 1986 — is as handed-down a collection of country signifiers as you could imagine. Throughout his career, Yoakam has remained enthralled by the imagery of country music,…
Those who have ventured anywhere near MTV lately must’ve noticed that Carson Daly and the gang have embraced all that the nose ring represents. And now that Good Charlotte and New Found Glory have usurped last year’s graying pop heartthrobs, the timing couldn’t be better for A Simple Plan; the group’s three-minute odes to the trials of teendom couldn’t…
There’s something very blue (Wrangler blue) about Porter Hall Tennessee, a five-piece band that’s actually from the real town of Murfreesboro. Molly Conley and Gary Roadarmel’s sad, gentle twangs — her beautiful notes a deeper alto, his rural syllables clipped, brittle and morose — make closing time not a drunken, heavy moment but something fragile and slippery as hell. Often…
Any band that’s so devoted to touring it braves the road in a disaster-baiting Honda Accord demands a certain degree of respect. Love Is Red crisscrosses the country with little more than four bald tires and enough pocket change to get to the next gig. That reckless approach to restless rock has resulted in some great music. Love Is…
A family tree of Lawrence indie-rock players’ projects would be a gnarled, tangled mass, and several branches of this mutated musical map would trace back to Lash Canino. The group’s origins date to the short-lived outfit Hollic, which included singer/guitarist Wade Kelly and drummer Jason Khomsi. That band played its first show in 1996 at KU’s Hashinger Hall, the trunk…
The humble tortoise wins races, lends its name to custard-shop delicacies and lives as long, if not longer, than most humans, so it’s not without reason that the Brannock Device declares that The Turtle Has Got It Made. But though its latest album title suggests shell envy, the trio need not lament its lot. As one of the deans…
There’s nothing like a Missouri winter to get folks fantasizing about warmer times, so the Kansas City Symphony has picked the right time to present A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It has also chosen the perfect guest — Austria-born Carlos Kalmar — to conduct Felix Mendelssohn’s elegant work. Written when Mendelssohn was only seventeen, Dream’s overture remains one of music’s most…
A controversial contemporary blues figure, Corey Stevens infuriates purists, who claim that his compositions, though technically tight, lack soul. For once, the traditionalists might be right — Stevens seems like a genetic clone of Stevie Ray Vaughan, reproducing his E-flat-tuned notes and spiffy solos without emotion. Yet this Midwest native, who grew up an hour east of St. Louis…
The best thing about local rock is that it’s local. Its practitioners’ proximity to one another means that no collaboration, unannounced gig or reunion is too far-fetched. Even better, when such events take place, they’re never as disillusioning as time-killing major-label side projects or bloated back-for-more-cash arena runs. And a musician settling in the area offers many more possibilities than,…
In casual conversation, it’s difficult to nail just what made a concert great, especially if you’re trying to trigger pangs of regret in a friend who foolishly passed up an opportunity to attend. To make it even harder, let’s say you’re a huge fan of the group, but your pal is only vaguely aware of its existence. This makes a…
By any measure, Avril Lavigne had a great 2002. She sold millions of copies of Let Go, a clearly Canadian collection of mildly peeved kiss-offs that goes down like Alanis’ little pills without the jagged edges. Her slightly warped tours with a spiky-haired sk8er boi band drew capacity crowds largely composed of punky teen-age girls, like a Lilith Fair sponsored…
Cops die daily, and they die bad,” barks manic police Lieutenant Henry Oak (Ray Liotta) to undercover narcotics officer Nick Tellis (Jason Patric), revealing both his hardened attitude and a little confusion when it comes to adverbs. Welcome to Narc, a passable exercise in the gritty, post-Training Day dirty-cop thriller form. The warmed-over gangsta essence of Narc is that fuckers…
Spike Lee’s film of David Benioff’s 2001 novel The 25th Hour, which the author has adapted, hews closely to the original tale: Montgomery Brogan, a working-class white boy who dreamed of being a New York City firefighter until he fell into a soft pile of easy money made peddling heroin, has a single day of freedom left before he…
