On his latest effort, U.S.S.R.: The Art of Listening, Russian-born, wax-spinning bohemian DJ Vadim deftly matches ambient soul soundscapes with urgent sermonizing from a collective of underground MCs, including a sublime performance from Atmosphere frontman Slug on a tune called “Edie Brikell.” In a live setting, Vadim, who’s toured with everyone from the Roots to Kraftwerk, is known to mix…
As the shoegaze revival kicks into high gear, I feel somewhat vindicated. In the early ’90s, I spilled gallons of hyperbolic ink on sensitive guitar-effects-pedal fetishists (My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Ride, Chapterhouse, et al.) who were reanimating rock’s airspace with massive waves of tremolo, distortion and delay. Shoegaze bloomed for a minute, then faded out, but its reverberations infected enough…
“Did you love it?” Somewhere between the band’s final note and its first piece of equipment removed from the stage, a friend or relative of the musicians inevitably poses that question. “OK, so you hated it?” is the petulant follow-up to anything but a “Yes, yes, oh God, yes!” response to the initial inquiry. For observers who have already invested…
For the seventy or so bands that participated in the spring installment of Jim Kilroy’s biannual behemoth battle of the bands, war was hell. Bloated beyond recognition, Club Wars III called for gigs almost every other evening over the course of two months. Given that many musicians in the hard-rock scene support their peers by attending every available show,…
At the Bunker on hard-rock nights, air-guitar heroes, sporting let-the-dream-die involuntary mullets that are thin near the hairline but curly fried around the edges, line up near the stage to practice their phantom riffs. On September 13, these masters of the invisible instrumental arts thrashed along with the opening act, Day Shift Strippers, and the headlining outfit, Everybody’s X. However,…
Visualize Tokyo. Now add Bill Murray, doing his “lovable shmoe” shtick. Toss in American Rhapsody’s up-and-comer Scarlett Johansson, doing her standard “like, duh” face. Dip them both in emotional torpor, add local color, stir. Et voila: Lost in Translation. Sofia Coppola, the youngish director and heiress to American cinema, did things her way a few years ago with her ambitious,…
The dumbed-down movie version of Frances Mayes’ best-selling travel memoir Under the Tuscan Sun is a virtual case study of Hollywood’s irrepressible urge to lower the bar in the hopes of upping the take. Mayes’ 1996 book is a carefully observed meditation on buying a decrepit Italian villa with her husband, fellow writer Ed Mayes, fixing the old place…
Cop to it: Regarding Kendrick Blackwood’s “Where Is the Love?” (September 18): Thank you for writing about the vice operation conducted by the Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department. Please feel free to write as many articles as you want about what a worthless endeavor it was. Each story reinforces to those that read your publication that the police are very…
Recently, while driving down Ward Parkway on the Plaza, trying not to hit one of those pink-pumpkin horse-drawn carriages while avoiding the clusterfuck caused by valet parking (what, are you too Manolo-ed out to park a block away and walk?), we noticed a sign that made our noses wrinkle as if we had gotten a whiff of Flush Creek after…
One June evening, the fire alarm in midtown’s old Bellerive building started screeching. Michelle Fowler opened her apartment door and saw an unfamiliar man who looked at her and screamed that the building was on fire. Fowler and a neighbor headed down the hall, slogging through 2 inches of water, before they realized there was no smoke. But they went…
Wake-up time at the Midwest Hotel is announced not by a buzzing alarm clock — rooms at the hotel, long considered one of the biggest dumps in downtown Kansas City, do not have alarm clocks — but by the sounds of the two-woman cleaning crew, whose shouting voices bounce off the concrete walls every morning between 8 and 9. A…
When it comes to variations on classic products, the results can be dubious. Take ESPN, which rocks. But ESPN the Magazine? Well, not so much. (Give us Gary Smith’s articles in Sports Illustrated any day.) So, when we noticed that the Gates Barbecue at Main and Linwood had converted its outdoor patio into a bar area, we were curious. After…
There was a period this summer when no one knew what the hell was going on at the Promiseland Café (7630 Wornall Road), the Middle Eastern restaurant owned by Jerusalem-born Nazeeh Hajeeh. Was it open or closed? Had he changed the name back to Ali Baba Café for the second time? Why was the phone number disconnected? “What happened,” Hajeeh…
If a place is good enough for Ben and J. Lo, damn it, it’s good enough for me. When I told friends I wanted to write about Red Lobster, they guffawed. “You’re not serious? It’s not a real restaurant — it’s a chain!” They weren’t remotely impressed that an August New York Post story reported that pop icons Ben…
MON 9/22 Since officially joining the Cher Living Proof Farewell Tour last January, thirty-year-old stand-up comedian Tommy Drake has been able to overcome a couple of his darkest fears: confronting a crowd of 12,000 rowdy Cher fans there to see her, not him; and keeping his cool when a concert venue’s sound system occasionally garbles his best jokes. But…
9/18-10/6 The curse of growing old is watching everything you grew up with grow old and ironic, then finally turn into kitsch. So walking by the window of Dolphin (1901 Baltimore) and seeing sock monkeys in cheerleader outfits and bondage wear, you could be forgiven for thinking it’s just another case of rehashed Americana. Gallery dealer Ron Warren has made…
9/19-9/20 The name Riverside evokes images of lazy Sunday afternoons in 1903, when people stopped to say hello and everything moved a bit slower. Rather than discouraging that olden-days feel, Riverside makes nostalgia a proud part of its annual Riverfest (located in E.H. Young Riverside Park just south of Argosy Casino), set to take place Friday and Saturday. Kids can…
TUE 9/23 Tobey Maguire was supposed to save horse racing. Theoretically, Seabiscuit was to have returned the sport to the middle class. Instead, the summer blockbuster underscored two undisputed points: People were stylish in the 1930s, and Laura Hildebrand wrote one hell of a book. What was missing? The horse. Thoroughbreds — great ones — have something better than personality;…
TUE 9/23 For couples who have exhausted wine tastings, coed bowling and evenings of, say, conversation, the Kansas City Art Institute’s Tuesday evening classes tackling contemporary art sound like a juicy independent film: educational without being stuffy, entertaining sans embarrassment. The classes, taught by KCAI lecturer Nina Mehta-Young, are held on four consecutive Tuesday nights beginning September 23 and promise…
Holly Roberson — an organic farmer who runs Columbia, Missouri’s Ragtag Cinemacafé with two friends — could have stayed in San Francisco. With interests like hers, frankly, it would have made sense. But that would have really sucked for Columbia. When Roberson and her partner set up their farm 20 miles east of downtown, there was only a multiplex. What…
Thursday, September 18 Members of Rockhurst’s Classical and Modern Languages Department welcome interested parties to join them as they dissect the bizarre French film The City of Lost Children as soon as the lights come back on. This dark fairy tale from the makers of Amelie and Delicatessen is well worth the time — and the $3 admission —…
When Phil Shafer, otherwise known as Sike Style, started Listen Up Thursdays, he wanted to create an event at which customers could dig through crates of used records at Recycled Sounds while he and DJ Dula unveiled recent hip-hop releases from national artists and hosted local talent live in the store. Shafer, a DJ in the Human Cropcircles when…
For all of Mark Twain’s “Missouriness,” folks on this side of the state never seem to work up much enthusiasm about him. Maybe it’s because Hannibal is close to St. Louis and Twain belongs to those in the east, much like the Pony Express belongs to the western half of the state. Folk heroes in these parts tend to wear…
Best known as the bassist for the Blues Notions, Kansas City’s Cardy Quintero looks like a Jerry Garcia clone on the cover of his solo debut Dance, You Mud Turtles. Adding to the artwork’s cuddly Earth Day appeal are inset photos of the titular turtles two-stepping, produced through the magic of photo illustration. The album contains a suitably ’60s mix…
