Ten to twenty minutes. That’s all the time the majority of the acts slated to appear at Red, White and Boom get, and for the most part, that’s just the right amount. It should give Hammer enough time to dance through “U Can’t Touch This” and maybe a couple more guilty pleasures (“Addams Groove,” not so much). It allows…
Although SpiritFest improved its national headliners a bit this year, it didn’t give short shrift to the locals. Top homegrown attractions include the rap ensemble Vertigo (pictured), whose debut disc overflows with club-footed beats and crowd-friendly chants; pop heartthrobs Anything But Joey; electro-metal architects Concrete Core; and the funk-focused Pomeroy, which just added former Karma/Simplexity keyboardist Tyson Leslie to its…
Kansas City’s annual SpiritFest has an extended history of bringing top-flight entertainment for a bargain price. James Brown, Bob Dylan, Moby and Weezer have all appeared at some point, underscoring the please-everyone appeal of this quintessential hometown celebration. Now in its twentieth year, the event offers a multifarious smattering of entertainment from myriad musical genres. After all, not many concerts…
The White Stripes’ gig at the Pyro Room in July 2001 — which was canceled when the venue abruptly switched formats — ranks among Kansas City’s great lost shows. Had it gone down, the concert would have stood with Nirvana at the Outhouse and Beck at the Rhumba Box as momentous performances that hundreds witnessed and hundreds more falsely claimed…
Last September, the four members of Spoon took the stage at the Bowery Ballroom, an acoustically splendid venue near the famous tenement district in New York City. Accompanying them to their positions was the phantom opening of the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter,” which played over the PA system, eliciting a double take from at least one learned hipster in the…
Even legends get stuck in traffic. Just ask Jane’s Addiction stickman Stephen Perkins, who is currently snailing his way across a crowded Los Angeles freeway, trying to get to band practice on time. Rehearsals are going well, according to Perkins, who’s excited to be prepping for the revitalized Lollapalooza, back after a six-year hiatus. Moreover, Perkins is thrilled to…
Sunday, June 22 It’s going to be one of the weirdest weeks in local radio history, one that presents a cautionary tale about what happens when an independent-minded commercial station fails to make its corporate numbers. A few days ago, Entercom, the parent corporation of KRBZ 96.5 the Buzz, made a few personnel moves. It hired Jason Whitlock, who…
DreamWorks’ Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas pulls into port just a week before Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, the theme-park-ride-inspired, Jerry Bruckheimer-produced spectacle cowritten by the men responsible for last year’s Disney-made animated flop Treasure Planet. One expects to see DreamWorks boss Jeffrey Katzenberg, ex of Disney, sporting an eye patch and…
ABC has penciled into its 2004 schedule a series based on the 2001 film Legally Blonde, for which a pilot has been shot starring someone named Jennifer Hall in the Reese Witherspoon role of Elle Woods, the pretty-dumb-in-pink sorority girl turned whip-smart attorney. But wasn’t the initial film a pilot, as thin, predictable and cloying as anything else airing at…
Much like hilarious Islamic comedy or sublime Affleck picture, the phrase terrific second sequel isn’t bandied about much. Name one. Took you a minute, didn’t it? Don’t be ashamed — there are probably support groups for fans of Smokey and the Bandit III. Generally, creative juices are drained by Parte Trois, which makes Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines…
He takes a shot: I feel that the story on Congresswoman Karen McCarthy (Kendrick Blackwood’s “Party Crasher,” June 19) was a horrible piece of journalism, possibly a breach of journalistic ethics. To admit that your life is powerless over alcohol is not easy. Most of us have had to hit bottom before we admit we are alcoholics. Congresswoman McCarthy did…
We can just hear Phill Kline gagging. Just a week after the conservative Christian Kansas attorney general ruled that clinics in his state would have to report fifteen-year-old abortion seekers to the cops, Kline had no choice but to say gay sex was OK in the land of ahhhs. “The decision announced by the Supreme Court of the United States…
It was just a stupid concert review. As a reporter for The Kansas City Star, Glenn E. Rice mostly covered the Jackson County Legislature; his byline rarely, if ever, showed up on the paper’s entertainment pages. Here at the Pitch, we’re still trying to figure out why he ended up reviewing jazz singer Dianne Reeves’ performance at the Gem Theater…
Jimmie Brockman was working as a warehouse supervisor in Kansas City, Kansas, when his fifteen-year-old son called to say he’d found a car he wanted to buy. The teenager said he had seen an ad in the Thrifty Nickel for Neil’s Finance Plaza that promised “Just $59 down and you drive away.” But the Brockmans’ car purchase in February 2000…
Jimmie Oyler’s white tent is stocked with Little Dynamite firecrackers, Road Rage artillery shells, rolls of 16,000 Black Cats, Star Spangled Cannons and other celebratory explosives, all lining a 40-foot table. There,” Along 83rd Street just west of the Lenexa city limits, where the lush sod and lawn ornaments of suburban farmettes border cornfields with stock tanks, a half-dozen…
