“I want to see hip-hop on Austin City Limits,” declares Tommylift, the organizer behind a series of producer-based jam sessions. “I want people to respect it and listen to the beats.” Within moments, he proves his reference to the rootsy PBS showcase isn’t arbitrary. He unpacks one of the rhythm beds on his computer to reveal a Johnny Cash arpeggio…
When you ask Chris Robinson, one of the last bastions of genuine classic rock, about a tour memory from Kansas City, you expect something raucous, some thrilling episode of after-hours debauchery normally unavailable to those of us who just live here. This is the man who led the Black Crowes, after all — the band Jimmy Page handpicked to back…
Uh … yo. The word on the street is that the ‘Drzej is back at the helm. “Who?” you ask. Why, cinematographer-turned-director Andrzej Bartkowiak, of course. He’s the … er … dawg who, under the auspices of producer Joel Silver (The Matrix) created the hip-hop, bang-bang chop-socky flicks Romeo Must Die and Exit Wounds. Now he returns with his…
Missed Q: It’s nice to see the spirit of hostility continue in the arts. I refer to the two letters “critiquing” the Burly-Q show in the February 13 issue. Such glib personal attacks lack usefulness, except as an expression of the writers’ anger. Concrete information, such as “the stage was too low” is of immediate value. And it suggests an…
Denver. There’s a town with its act together. As if shimmering mountains and sunny winter days weren’t enough, the Mile High City boasts a dazzling performing-arts center, a gorgeous library, an art museum and convention center with massive expansions under way, three handsome sports facilities, two futuristic choo-choos to whisk suburbanites to and from work, miles of bike paths, lofts…
So my therapist walks into her office and closes the door. “I have a question,” she says, settling into her chair, giving me a little time to brace myself. “Is it just that nobody wants to be mayor?” OK. My therapist is a smart lady, a Ph.D. married to a Ph.D. with a couple of kids in private schools. I…
It’s February 17, and Claude Page needs more skaters. By 6 p.m., the conference room at a downtown architectural firm is crowded, but not with the people Page wants to see. Here are two architects, three Parks Department employees, one City Council assistant, two city planners, one representative from the Port Authority, a staff member from a midtown nonprofit agency…
It’s a summer night. After an evening out at Danny’s Bar and Grill in Lenexa, Tech N9ne and a few of his pals pile into a black van emblazoned with Tech’s screaming, red-haired image. As the hip-hop star turns onto College Boulevard, a rider on a red Honda sport bike follows. The rider pulls up alongside the van and…
Why is it socially acceptable — even practically encouraged — for people to go out drinking at all times of the day in Kansas City? Why are we such lushes? The only theory we have is that there is nothing else to do. Kansas City isn’t an outdoorsy mecca like Colorado, where people are actually motivated to get up early…
Although the ambience of Le Fou Frog (see review) often makes the place feel like the setting of a French romantic comedy, things have taken a distinctly uncomical turn at Café des Amis in Parkville. Talented young chef Antonio Brocato said a hasty adieu to owner Didier Combe and the restaurant, quitting on February 4. The restaurant’s sous chef, Ashley…
If only life could be like a French romantic comedy. Wouldn’t it be delicious to wake up one morning, rub your eyes and peer out your bedroom window at — voilí! — the Eiffel Tower? And to see, standing at your bedroom door, a towel-clad movie star (perhaps Audrey Tautou or Gregoire Colin) holding a steaming cup of espresso?…
Erik Larson was researching nineteenth-century murders when he came across the story of H.H. Holmes, a serial killer who operated just blocks from the 1892 World’s Fair in Chicago. But he dismissed the story. “I wasn’t interested in doing a slasher book,” he explains. “I wanted something more mannered, with more weight.” So instead he investigated another murder, which…
Thursday, February 20, 2003 In honor of the current exhibit of Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs Capture the Moment, the Beach Museum in Manhattan, Kansas, begins its three-session screening of the PBS series American Photography: A Century of Images at 11:15 a.m. Faux Pas No. One: We’re recommending a PBS series. But whatever assumptions people might have about PBS being dull and…
One good reason to attend Ladies Sing the Blues is to see Angela Hagenbach not sing the blues. When the Jazz Ambassadors called on Hagenbach — who headlines Hot Latin Jazz — to sing at their fund-raiser, she was a bit confused. “I told them, ‘I’m not really a blues singer,’” says Hagenbach, whose 1997 solo release, Feel the…
Tony Grisoni can always tell when his old friend Terry Gilliam, the visionary who sees too far for his own good, is in pain: He laughs. The worse the pain, the harder the laughter. If that is the case, then the Terry Gilliam seen throughout Lost in La Mancha, Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe’s painfully hysterical documentary about the…
“Sometime in the next two to six weeks, the regime of Al Bohl as the athletic director is expected to end.” — Bob Fescoe, who broke this story and said his source was a KU booster, KMBZ 980 GH:Fescoe said he was “100 percent” certain Bohl would soon be fired. Read on. “I spoke with Al Bohl this afternoon….” —…
Rockhurst High School senior Kevin Sears was so moved by the recruiting letters he’d received from Mark Mangino, the head football coach at the University of Kansas, that he tacked them to a bulletin board on his bedroom wall. In large, bold letters, the words RESPECT, CLASS and CHARACTER jump off of the impressive letterhead. The words refer to quotes…
Get Rich or Die Tryin’, the first full-length from rapper 50 Cent, isn’t so much a debut as an entry wound. Having been shot nine times, 50 Cent is plenty familiar with the latter. But despite all the spent rounds, death, and suffering that serve as this album’s very marrow, Get Rich is less about broken hope than broken teeth….
As he did for Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic and Solaris, Cliff Martinez has crafted a subtly haunting and unconventional (by Hollywood standards) soundtrack for Narc. Starring Ray Liotta, Jason Patric and Busta Rhymes (notably absent from the disc), Narc is a gritty police-corruption thriller set in bleakest wintertime Detroit. The film starkly contrasts the two main characters’ descents into brutality and…
With his black leather jacket, ink-jet mop top and disenfranchised brood, New York singer-songwriter Jesse Malin still looks like a reject from the Strokes’ casting call. Musically, however, the former D Generation frontman has abandoned his former outfit’s frenetic glam-slamming in favor of Wilco-flavored Americana. Ryan Adams, the genre’s official poster child, lends a hand on guitar and vocals and…
With health care next to useless, layoffs potentially around anyone’s corner and bridges literally falling apart in the middle of rush hour, it’s nice to hear somebody — anybody — talking about the harsh reality of our surroundings. In its own way, Sleepless is as political as Steve Earle’s Jerusalem or Bruce Springsteen’s The Rising, but the former J. Geils…
I read The Catcher in the Rye about seven times before I realized that it depicted Holden Caulfield’s spiral into depression. Initially, I thought he was just a sarcastic son of a bitch with a love for alcohol. When my tenth-grade English teacher pointed out that Holden was telling the story from a mental hospital, I read the book again….
Remember Sunset Black? No? According to the band’s bio, the quartet formed in 1998, when its members were high school students in the Kansas City area. Its local gigs didn’t earn the following that the original Puddle of Mudd once commanded, but otherwise the bands’ stories are strikingly similar. Both outfits attracted the ears of artists infamous for rap-rock…
Tom Waits sings his praises, and Nikon seeks his music for commercials, but Bob Log III, one suspects, remains unfazed by such brushes with fame and fortune. A one-man blues explosion (that’s why he dons a motorcycle helmet onstage, see?), Bob makes Jon Spencer and his boys sound as slick and mercenary as Third Eye Blind. On his third…
