Shameful Admission No. 4: Even though we’ve lived here for most of our lives, we’re still hazy about the difference between Kansas City North and North Kansas City. Hey, we grew up in south KC and went to schools near the Plaza; we crossed the river only to go to the airport. But we’re trying to branch out geographically. Recently,…
es, yes, I also heard those rumors about the once-great Fedora Café & Bar (210 West 47th Street) being transformed into a sports bar. The answer? “Not true,” says Craig Preisner, Fedora’s general manager. A more relevant question might be whether the Country Club Plaza needs another sports bar when that niche already is dominated by the bustling Granfalloon Bar…
Irony is everywhere at Captain Ribman’s Meat Market, and not just because the combination sports bar and barbecue joint is named after a comic-strip hero and several patrons resemble cartoon characters. (At one meal, I was surrounded by dead ringers for Little Lotta, Jughead, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and Porky Pig.) The recent transformation of the limestone building —…
SUN 8/3 The last time Harry Connick Jr. played a Kansas City venue as small as the Gem Theater (1615 East 18th Street), where he’ll perform with his band this Sunday, he was an up-and-comer gigging at the Grand Emporium, a pretty boy with a New Orleans drawl and Sinatralike pipes. Several platinum and gold albums and a couple…
FRI 8/1 Bike messengers, who work in a constant race against time, have taken their way of life and stripped it down to the Alleycat Races, events in which hordes of riders stream through cityscapes and heavy traffic. The Alleycat Races have been around for sixteen years, traveling to several continents in that time. Now they’ve finally made it to…
DAILY You aren’t supposed to dive while dodging laser beams at Laser Storm Family Center (138 South Clairbourne in Olathe). It’s against the rules. We dived anyway, and we have nothing but skinned knees to show for it. We were playing Laser Storm to celebrate a friend’s 28th birthday. Our opponents were there because that’s where their parents dropped them…
SUN 8/3 Why dodgeball? you ask. The Kansas City Dodgeball Association has an answer: “This is a good way to have fun outdoors, meet new people, and then hit them in the face with a big red ball.” Members of the KCDBA get their game on at 1 p.m. every Sunday in Valentine Park, on the tennis courts located just…
ONGOING Your mom tells you to smile, then counts to three while you stand in front of the Arc de Triomphe, posing like every other tourist jackass. Or you’ve gotten dolled up and your boyfriend wants a picture capturing you in all your glory, so he’s staring at you from behind the lens; as you try to look sweet-yet-predatory,…
Sound engineer Chad Meise is usually a quiet fellow. Minds his own business. Certainly isn’t the type to snap his fingers at you while he’s talking. But Sweet Lips — the persona Meise takes on when performing with his boogaloo-style funk band Chickenhoof — is all about the snapping when he wants to pick up the tempo. If the crowd’s…
Thursday, July 31, 2003 We know what you’re thinking. Live jazz bands at restaurants are distracting. You have to shout just to have a conversation because the acoustics in restaurants aren’t meant to accommodate clanking silverware along with the sound of a tenor sax. Fine, think these negative thoughts if you want to. But it’s your loss, because the weekly…
Sometimes an art film is actually about … art. Take, for instance, the trio of cinema classics now playing at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, part of an ambitious effort to make an exhibit of nineteenth-century French paintings come to life. Titled Romance and Reality, the series views French artistic movements through the lens of big-screen period pieces. The…
David Wolstencroft moved from London to Los Angeles in November, and not only so he could rise each morning for a game of tennis—though there is that, and that might have been good enough. He made the trip, which is thus far temporary but may well prove permanent, for the same reason offered by the other 83.3 percent who…
In Jacqee Gafford’s new play Nothing Comes to Sleepers, a balmy April evening is winding down at the Hot Comb Beauty Salon on Kansas City’s east side. The flamboyant Kiki (Lorenzo Hughes) is answering the phones, one of several tasks he feels is beneath him. The shop’s two chairs are occupied by sassy, ever-hungry Gloria (Donette Coleman-Reese) and sensible…
C-Fouric Acid bills himself as “rap’s No. 1 antagonist,” but that description downplays the Kansas City-based lyricist’s greatest strengths: a laid-back conversational flow, sci-fi creativity (a kindly doctor gets transformed into a ghastly frame), sharp pop-culture criticism (he’s tortured by being forced to watch Dawson’s Creek) and chant-along choruses that don’t feel contrived. Instead of fabricating beefs with rivals or…
Los Angeles multi-instrumentalist Brad Laner has had one of the strangest music careers in recent history. At age fourteen, he started his own band, Debt of Nature. He then moved on to avant-pop weirdness with Steaming Coils, drummed for psychedelic tribal troupe Savage Republic, flaunted guitar heroics in Medicine and crafted arty pop in Amnesia. And since 1994, he’s coaxed…
The Murder City Devils weren’t out to save rock and roll or revolutionize the music industry, which is good, because in its five tumultuous years of existence the group never came close to achieving either goal. However, it did add a much-needed dose of sloppy, amphetamine-fueled adrenaline to the late-’90s alt-rock scene. A punk band with a metal heart, the…
Rock music for the graying set has hit a grisly stretch. VH-1 has moved on. The first punk generation is still touring, but to smaller and smaller crowds and often as the oldest people in the house. Meanwhile, those god-awful PBS “rock” reunion shows seem bent on proving that, by age 45, middle-class Americans can’t shake their asses or even…
They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but Yo Gotti’s latest release features the Memphis-based rapper surrounded by snazzy cars, diamond-encrusted hubcaps and a flurry of $100 bills — not exactly indicators that songs about the current political climate or uplifting one’s spiritual self will be found inside. And — surprise! — they’re not. There are, however,…
In 2000, Germany’s Helloween signed with indie-metal behemoth Nuclear Blast and attempted a full-blown comeback with a solemn effort titled The Dark Ride. Three years later, the group returns with an oddly titled album that showcases Helloween’s sunnier side. On a positive note, this shiny, happy strategy includes the recruitment of Motorhead drummer Mikkey Dee, whose pummeling pushes every tempo…
In the 1991 movie that chronicled the rise and fall of the Commitments, the greatest Irish soul band that never was, band manager Jimmy Rabbitte carefully explained the score to his assembled group of aspiring protégés. “The Irish are the blacks of Europe. Dubliners are the blacks of Ireland. North Dubliners are the blacks of Dublin.” In that context,…
For a relatively unknown band, Year of the Rabbit is having quite a, well, year. The Los Angeles quartet’s self-titled debut has been met with the kind of critical salivations that most left-coast acts would kill for. Most of the attention is directed toward Rabbit leader and ex-Failure frontman Ken Andrews, whose recent behind-the-scenes work for Jimmy Eat World, Tenacious…
Porter Wagoner went into the Country Music Hall of Fame this past fall, and it was about time: From his more than eighty charting singles to his groundbreaking TV show (where he introduced Dolly Parton to the world) to his recent tenure as the primary public face of the Grand Ole Opry, no country singer has been a star…
Even without flashy costumes or an exotic setting, glam rock can still sparkle. On its latest disc, White Elephant, Doris Henson raids the velvet gold mine. The drums sound like smacks in the face, as if the swaggering suitor delivering the drawn-out vocals got a bit too fresh. The guitars linger on single notes, as if they’re just soaking up…
Gigging in the Kansas City area more often than most local musicians, Seattle’s Mike Dillon not only displays his talents in an area venue almost monthly but also does so with a variety of acts. Malachy Papers, Hairy Apes BMX and Les Claypool’s Frog Brigade are just a few of the groups to recruit the accomplished percussionist. The latest…
