The Hearers’ chunks of country dominate a disorienting atmosphere, like a chamber ensemble in one of the late Johnny Paycheck’s nightmares. The Hearers set up an acoustic throb, then drop in found sounds, synthesized mayhem and lyrics from the improbably simple (I just want to kill the other guy) to the impossibly surreal (The train along your backside will…
Big Sandy and the Fly Rite Boys meet their audience more than halfway. For instance, faced stage-right with slurred shout-outs for the deliriously obscene “Back Door Dan,” a crowd favorite, and, stage left, a table of children in the house with their parents, Sandy (born Robert Williams) is the kind of guy who’ll wink, happily promise the dirty version…
If there were a Grammy for best song title, Adam Goren would win every year. Goren, a one-man band who plays professionally as Atom and His Package, has already bestowed upon the world such classics as “If You Own the Washington Redskins, You’re a Cock” and “Sting Cannot Possibly Be the Same Guy Who Was in the Police.” His…
OK, it’s official: Tim Rutili has earned a spot in urban-hillbilly heaven. Over five years, Rutili and his band, Califone, have outdone themselves, crafting a hallucinatory, moonshiney sort of folk music that pilfers from Americana’s attic without ever feeling like a period piece. What sets singer/guitarist Rutili — and his other ex-Red Red Meat pal, percussionist Ben Massarella — apart…
Kelly Osbourne’s gig at the Granada on March 14 certainly owed its sold-out status to her reality sitcom notoriety more than to her pedestrian Shut Up. Yet the concert contrasted with The Osbournes at every turn. It was distant and rote where the show is uncomfortably intimate and spontaneous, it was polite instead of profane, and it drew its…
If you’ve listened to KRBZ “The Buzz” 96.5 between 7 p.m. and midnight lately, you’ve heard some pretty shocking stuff. For example, Johnny Cash’s “Hurt” might lead into tracks from makeup-caked metalheads AFI, oft-referenced yet seldom-spun scene pioneers such as the Replacements and Mother Love Bone, local popsters Anything but Joey and veloci-rappers Jurassic Five. And you might have caught…
The Gourds have always been known for creative covers. The Austin rock-folk-bluegrass-country band, which revels in the description “music for the unwashed and well read,” was the first and will always be among the most successful twang-based acts to cover a rap tune, as anyone (which by now includes just about everyone) who has ever heard its 1998 cover of…
The trip began that Tuesday morning in midtown Manhattan, where Tori Amos stayed in a hotel before beginning her Strange Little Girls tour in Florida a few weeks later. Traveling the country, she kept a musical journal that turned into her current and seventh album Scarlet’s Walk, considered by some to be Amos’ most accessible work since Under the…
Over the past five years, the Kansas City Jewish Film Festival has taken audiences into battles, bedrooms and beyond. For every intense drama about the Middle East, there’s been a balance of humor and stories about gorgeous Israeli men and women and their hormones. This year’s festival offers a similar mix of comedies, documentaries and compelling shorts, such as “The…
Lawrence Kasdan directs and cowrites (with William Goldman) Dreamcatcher, the latest addition to the Stephen King-adaptation genre, currently at 74 (including film and TV) and counting. Taking the Internet Movie Database as a source, King is handily ahead of Michael Crichton (23) and Bram Stoker (38), closing in on Agatha Christie (77), still a lifetime away from Charles Dickens…
Glazer Light Show Stan by me: Regarding C.J. Janovy’s “The Stan Show” (March 6): I have a business in downtown KCMO but live in KCK. I would love to vote for Stan Glazer (or just against Kay Barnes). Like our mayor in KCK, Carol Marinovich, Barnes plays the government game too well — they spend the money and don’t take…
Stanford Glazer’s campaign manager, Daryl Penner, looks like a nice and decent guy. His family owns American Formal Wear at 13th and Main, which has been outfitting brides and grooms for half a century. Six years ago, Penner made history as one of those downtown plebs the city wanted to squash in order to clear the way for that great…
In 1991, Mike Rundle held out on the handout. That was when Davol Inc. announced plans to expand its plant in Lawrence, where approximately 120 workers spent their days slapping together medical devices used to treat hernias and assist in “wound management.” Davol promised the Lawrence City Commission that it would put an additional 120 people to work at…
By now, it’s no secret that the current race for mayor has been the most incredible in Kansas City history. But well-placed sources tell the Pitch that Mayor Kay Barnes, who has been missing in action, had no idea what lay in store for her last week when she called members of the press to the corner of 14th and…
We’re obviously in favor of holidays that revolve solely around drinking. Which is why we love St. Patrick’s Day. We also like how it brings droves of amateur drinkers to midtown. Their drunken antics make the annoyance of an overcrowded area worthwhile. Such was the case last year, when we watched some girl-on-girl action on the deck of Buzzard Beach,…
Near New York City’s Union Square, there used to be a famous restaurant and bar called Max’s Kansas City. In the wild and crazy pre-Reagan years between 1965 and 1981, the hangout attracted Andy Warhol, Edie Sedgwick, Lou Reed and scores of other celebrity hipsters. But will local artists, musicians and hipster wanna-bes make the scene at Kansas City’s new…
I nearly fell off my chair the other night at Kelso’s Northtown. I was sitting at a table on the smoky bar side of the restaurant, looking at the menu and explaining various entrées to my dinner companion, Victor, a visiting journalist from Lugansk, Ukraine. Victor, sipping a Grey Goose martini and puffing on a Danish cigarette, was admiring a…
On Grammy night, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band founding member John McEuen stood next to 79-year-old banjo great Earl Scruggs after both had lost statues to another bluegrass act, the Dixie Chicks. McEuen remembers that Scruggs turned to him and joked, “John, it looks like we’re a couple of big losers.” Three barely hatched string-pickers had beaten the white-haired legends at…
Thursday, March 13, 2003 Sports are taken so seriously these days. But not rugby — at least, not as it’s played by the Kansas City Blues rugby team, which holds open practices for anyone who wants to join. “Experience is not necessary,” reads the Web site. “Hard work and the ability to have fun while doing it are.” Some players…
The Reverend Don Davidson doesn’t go for the concept “stingy in life, stingy in love.” In fact, he hoards love-life tips for his Communiversity class 101 Fun & Clever Ways to Get Noticed by the Opposite Sex. Although he has plenty of anecdotes and observations about getting strangers to sit up and take notice (such as how cookie mogul Debbie…
“Priest Holmes is Alex Rodriguez. He may be the most productive player in his sport — but if your team doesn’t win, you don’t get the respect due you. There has been no player more valuable to his team in 2002 than Holmes has been to the Chiefs. But because the Chiefs aren’t Super Bowl-bound, his value is diminished.” —…
The 2003 Kansas City Chiefs need to find some religion, because they’re about to lose their Priest. One Arrowhead Drive has been buzzing this off-season, with Trent Green signing a $50 million restructured contract and the Chiefs courting defensive free agents like Shawn Barber, Dexter McCleon and Hugh Douglas. Meanwhile, Priest Holmes, the one player who determines whether his team’s…
This past weekend, an orchestra musicians’ strike in New York City shut down every Broadway musical except Cabaret, killing business at surrounding restaurants and bars and devastating thousands of theatergoers who, months earlier, had booked tickets to Lion King or Hairspray. Those with foresight might have salved their woes by jetting to Kansas City for the Broadway-caliber production of Smokey…
On March 1, the Iraqi government began destroying stockpiles of banned missiles. Across the border, the U.S. military sat poised with its own weapons of mass destruction, waiting for a go-ahead from President Bush. The threat of war now commands the attention of people around the world. Sculptor Will Valk, however, has been thinking about the topic for many years….
