Evanesce is a verb that means to dissipate like vapor. Evanescence is a four-piece alt-goth unit that shows real staying power. Originally mislabeled a Christian act, the band is converting massive flocks of followers. Led by frontbabe Amy Lee, the Little Rock, Arkansas, outfit’s sophomore full-length, Fallen, was recently certified double platinum — no mean feat in an era when…
On wax, Reggie and the Full Effect offers a sonic interpretation of attention deficit disorder: The band switches musical gears at whim and works a number of disparate genres — synth-caked Eurocheese, sandblasted Viking metalcore and straight-laced power pop — occasionally within the same tune. Onstage, these musical inside jokes assume new life, buoyed by the unyielding cult-de-personality of frontman…
Robert Bradley’s Blackwater Surprise is a group that could find success only on the jam-band circuit, where the thought of a blind, fiftysomething frontman paired with a trio of youthful alterna-dudes isn’t enough to turn off potential fans. Like many a great soul singer, Bradley started out in church, but his musical career was launched on the streets of Detroit,…
With the possible exception of Fishbone, no group (outside the jam division) possesses a more gaping live-show-to-recorded-output quality divide than Reverend Horton Heat. The Texas trio has some classics alongside the stinkers in its discography, but nothing matches its onstage psychobilly freak-outs. With his sleazy huckster banter and solos so sharp the strings seem like razor wire, the band’s titular…
In 1967, Scott McKenzie sang, If you are going to San Francisco/Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair. If you’re a band coming from there, it doesn’t hurt, either. San Fran was the perfect launching pad for the Bay-based sextet Ten Mile Tide, a group that grounds its sound in ’60s acoustic folkiness while aspiring to the more…
In the liner notes to Descension’s Dunwich EP, the metal sextet explains that “much of what you hear is ‘first take’ material to capture the true ‘live’ feeling.” The disc succeeds on these terms — the drums sound as immediate as a knock on the front door, and the guitars are as raw and bloody as an extra-rare steak —…
In some ways, being a Radiohead fan is like being a Phishhead. You’ll travel great distances to watch your favorite band. (Numerous Kansas Citians, including members of groups such as Life and Times and the People, made the four-hour trek to catch Radiohead’s August 24 concert at St. Louis’ UMB Bank Pavilion.) You’ll dance spastically at the show, playing air…
Joe Pernice is the sweetest-sounding sad-sack sorta fella you’ll ever meet. Sample lyric: I know a heavy load that drags me down, but who doesn’t? Yes, he’s 35, clumsy and shy, but on the Pernice Brothers’ latest, Yours Mine & Ours, his every over-the-top phrase magically turns into a gorgeous pop hook, snagging the largemouth bass of utter despair. Try…
Andrew W.K. loves you. If you think he’s a stupid joke, a clown with gorilla dance moves, and you go to his shows just to mock him, he’s glad he can make you smile. If you’re a keg-guzzling frat brother who lives by the lyrics to “Party Hard,” he’s thrilled to be your soundtrack. At first, almost all of Andrew…
Harvey Pekar, star of a long-running comic-book series he writes and others illustrate, is reminded early in American Splendor that he’s no superhero. It’s Halloween, and the eleven-year-old Harvey (played by a bent-over, sneering Daniel Tay) stands on a stoop seeking tricks and treats from a woman who can’t figure out who the costumeless nebbish is behind Superman, Batman, Robin…
Courting trouble: Some notes to Mr. Rudolph Pieters, who wrote in about the degeneration of Kansas City’s basketball courts, and his slightly insulting letter about the new skatepark (August 14): First off, if the basketball court on which you play is so bad, find another one. There are only hundreds of them in the metro. Skaters don’t have that option….
Everybody’s talking about a newspaper story that didn’t run in the newspaper. On August 15, the Associated Press offered its member papers a 1,400-word investigation into Congresswoman Karen McCarthy’s dismal performance on Capitol Hill. But editors at The Kansas City Star — where AP stories provide a daily source of nutrition for starving readers — chose not to print the…
On the hottest day of the summer, dozens of Hyde Park residents converged in Gillham Park, their blood already boiling. Two weeks earlier, the Pitch had reported that a task force of area skaters, civic activists and City Hall employees had selected Gillham Park as the best site for an urban skatepark (“Slab Happy,” August 7). After eight months of…
In hindsight, the chain-mail tank top probably wasn’t such a good idea. At the time, though, it seemed wholly appropriate to Rob Fuller. His buddy had just won tickets to the hair-metal event of the summer of 2001 — Quiet Riot, Warrant and Poison at Sandstone Amphitheater — and Fuller, a bodybuilder from Lee’s Summit, had just the torso to…
Black Jesus wraps a bony arm around another kid’s neck in a reverse headlock. Black Jesus lifts him off the concrete once, twice, three times. All around them, two dozen Somali boys are waging their own battles, their arms flailing as they punch each other. One darts among them, taking pictures with his cell phone and laughing. His unwilling subjects…
We’ve recently decided that more people should have house parties. We had this epiphany a couple of Saturdays ago, when we were hanging out at our friend’s house in Prairie Village after the Goodswill Games (“Breakers 10-4,” August 14). We heard the unmistakable sounds of a party going on across the street so, in a drunken state, we decided to…
Actress Missy Koonce had such a wickedly good time playing Russian spy Natasha Fatale in the 1995 Coterie Theatre production of Rocky & Bullwinkle that she’s paying homage to the character by naming her new cabaret lounge Bar Natasha. The venue is scheduled to open by the end of the year. Koonce and co-owner J.D. Mann are installing it in…
If you look up from the Place du Trocadero in Paris, you get a magnificent view of the Eiffel Tower. Closer to home, you can step out of the front door of the new Café Trocadero on 31st Street, turn due west and gaze upon the KCTV Channel 5 tower. Not exactly the same romantic vision, but if Kansas…
THU 8/21 Don’t get us wrong. We liked the New Pornographers from the beginning. Mass Romantic was a good album. We didn’t talk shit. But now that the New Pornographers have come out with Electric Version, we’re totally on board. Electric Version has frighteningly addictive properties. The song “The New Face of Zero and One” shows what happens when you…
SAT 8/23 Mark Weinberg dealt with very few costs while filming Mower, Blower, and Whacker. By getting friends and family members to fill all the roles, he kept to a low budget — setting some funding aside for snacks on location. Compared with the thousands of dollars other filmmakers require just to get a movie shot, prepackaged breakfast food…
SAT 8/23 Putting on a Yoda mask is fun, that’s true. But the latex jobs you pick up at the neighborhood drugstore have got nothing on the creations in Spirit of the Mask, opening at the Johnson County Museum of History (6305 Lackman Road) this Saturday. Included in Carla Hanson’s vast collection is a full body mask made of bark,…
DAILY The drive to Stonehaus Farms Winery (24607 N.E. Colbern Road) right outside of Lee’s Summit is not difficult. After taking 71 South to 470 East and exiting on Colbern Road, you’ll take a hilly country road to the farms by following the signs. And though fruit-picking season at Stonehaus is over, fruit-enjoying season is not. Visitors can pick up…
FRI 8/22 It’s hard to say what’s weirder: That someone at Mattel gave a green light to production of the Harley-Davidson Barbie, or that Harley-Davidson was cool with having old arch-foot looking like she’s ready to ride a hog. Harley-Davidson Barbie’s accessories include a Barbie helmet, a Harley backpack, silver hoop earrings and a Harley belt buckle. The zipper on…
It was after sunset when Eric Schuster mounted his single-speed mountain bike and clipped a headlamp to his helmet. Standing in front of a neon-lit bar window, his friends followed suit, some strapping halogen lights to their handlebars, others clicking on narrow-beamed flashlights. As they pedaled away from the blinking strip-mall signs and toward a nearby bike trail, none of…
