THU 3/4 It’s no longer surprising when someone speaks up about what images of waiflike women on billboards and magazine covers do for the typical woman’s self-esteem. That’s thanks in large part to Jean Kilbourne’s 1979 video documentary Killing Us Softly. Because the situation hasn’t changed in spirit so much as in technology (digital modifications mean that the perfect woman…
In and around Barbara McCreery’s Volker neighborhood home, there is a use, or at least a place, for everything. Items that previously made their homes in dumpsters or abandoned lots find new life decorating the expansive yard overlooking downtown. Headless statues stand guard along a path made of salvaged manhole covers. Old bodybuilding weights and upturned glass bottles create…
Thursday, March 4, 2004 The conscientious folks at Amnesty International of William Jewell College present an art show called The Sacrificed Patriot today in the Curry Library (500 College Hill in Liberty). The Amnesty group asked that artists contribute pieces “relating to the theme of state-sponsored human-rights infractions.” By “state-sponsored,” they meant “governments willingly allowing human-rights abuses to continue…
In that age-old bar debate over which athletes are the toughest, rugby players somehow never come up. So, in order to strengthen your drunken ramblings, check out the Kansas City Rugby Football Club, which is about to start its spring season. Sure, rugby is sort of like football without the pads. (Can we mention that their uniforms are more aesthetically…
If we’ve learned anything from Bravo’s Inside the Actor’s Studio, it’s that every Streep and Depp has had to sell a turkey or two. Bad actors can ruin good material — for example, say, a quarter of what I’ve seen in my theater-going life — but a good actor can make the slightest bonbon rich and filling. Such is…
There used to be a nice place north of Topeka called the Ira Price Restaurant. Its billboard lured folks off Highway 75 by proudly announcing, “I don’t want a million dollars, just a million friends.” John Prine must share both ambitions; his current tally of buddies is just shy of 731,000, and his Oh Boy record label keeps his personal…
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs were an indispensable part of New York City’s art-house punk scene well before the release of their 2001 self-titled EP, but 2003 was the year that the rest of the world got on board. The trio’s teeth-gnashing full-length debut, Fever to Tell, was a wonderfully fucked-up pastiche of Pennzoil pop and junk-store punk that scored favorably…
Three ain’t always a magic number. Ask anyone who’s been in a so-called power trio. With only a triad of players, three-piece bands usually need some extra tricks to conjure a full sound. Over the years, that’s meant over-the-top guitar pyrotechnics (Hendrix), prog-rock bombast (Genesis) or walls of distortion (Green Day). But for this bluesy band of brothers from New…
Keb’ Mo’ is the man who’ll be almost single-handedly responsible when satellite radio kicks off the “New Smooth Blues” format. He also must possess a pair of brass balls. After all, he kicks off his latest album, Keep It Simple, with a song called “France,” a highbrow-raiser about someone struggling with his baby’s need to visit Paree. Mo’ even risks…
Somebody, please kick Jack Ingram’s ass. Not because he deserves it; the Texas native seems like a pretty nice guy. And not because his music sucks. It doesn’t. His twangy, roadhouse rhythms and plaintive ballads touch on all the good stuff: getting ruined on drink, driving a pickup truck, having your woman leave you. It’s just that he looks too…
Swedish firecrackers the Sounds may wield synths as deftly as any new wavers, but their punkish metal stems from a very different place. Just chat with three members of the band — guitarist Felix Rodriguez, bassist Johan Bengtsson and keyboardist Jesper Anderberg — as they nurse hangovers and chat by speakerphone about what they listened to growing up. “Europe!” a…
“Are you ready to rock?” Ultimate Fakebook fans know already that “It’s not a question, baby,” but a command. And damn it all if there’s only one chance left to receive the rhetorical rock communion offered in “Brokyn Needle,” from 2000’s This Will Be Laughing Week. The band is pulling into the garage for good after eight years, three full-length…
If you see D.C. Bellamy (known for popularizing Memphis Slim’s “If You See Kay”) before March 8, keep him away from this paper. Spill his coffee, perform a distracting interpretive dance, dive onto the newsprint as if it were a live grenade and you were a selfless hero — anything to keep Bellamy from learning that on his 55th…
Henry Rollins has some things he’d like to say. Some of them are funny. Some of them are incendiary. Some of them sound like personal problems. All of them are literate and well-voiced. And the man can jaw on and on. Rollins spoken-word-tour virgins, take note: Peppy motivational speaker he’s not. Also note the tour title, “Shock and Awe, My…
The Prairie Dogg talks to Art Garfunkel and finds the dirt on Venice, flying beer cans and what Tom Wolfe wears to Jann Wenner’s parties. PD: How are you feeling this morning? AG: I’m feeling wonderful. I love my job. I love the joy of singing. I did a show in Denver last night with the orchestra, and it was…
It was Flaming Lips Day in the quiet kingdom of Kansas City. So declared a royal proclamation from our humblest of humble civil servants, Mayor Kay Barnes. Declarations would be made, a key to the city bestowed upon Lips singer Wayne Coyne. And the peasants would rejoice. At least until the boiling oil came cascading down the ramparts. It was…
It would be easy to forgive Okkervil River singer and songwriter Will Scheff for being less than enthusiastic about a return to the area. When his group played the Grand Emporium two years ago, his achingly beautiful, breakup-based take on the blues standard “Kansas City” failed to spark civic pride in the sparse crowd. And when he played a solo…
The Clay Mathematics Institute in Boston has a standing $1 million offer for anyone who can solve the Poincaré conjecture, a geometrical problem that has baffled the world’s brightest minds for a century. A similar reward should be offered to anyone who can figure out Sage Francis. So you think he’s simply an introspective “emo rapper” (as an article…
Evidently, the French-Canadian writer-director Denys Arcand has a tremendous capacity for dividing the art-movie crowd. Arcand’s fans see him as a vibrant wit with a supple mind, capable of juggling many ideas at once and spicing his quirky analyses of contemporary society with playful asides and clear-eyed satire. Detractors see him as a pretentious baby boomer lost in some pseudo-intellectual…
Maybe the most amazing thing about the big-screen version of Starsky & Hutch is how much smaller it feels than its predecessor, the William Blinn-created, Aaron Spelling-produced cop series that ran on ABC from 1975 to 1979. Everything about this cineplex variation feels rinky-dink, like some extended variety-show skit that became a network pilot and then accidentally morphed into…
Marry maids: The only thing scarier than C.J. Janovy’s reflexive damnation of everything Republican in her February 12 piece, “Altar Ego,” is the fact that I’m a Republican who almost agrees with her. I say almost because, in the end, the constitutional amendment we should be working toward is one that defines marriage as a union of two individuals. How…
The last place the Strip figured to find a controversy this past week was at the Smithsonian Institution exhibit Corridos Sin Fronteras, which opened recently at Union Station. But after this slab of prime paid the exorbitant $9 admission fee and began strolling from one dull, politically correct display to the next, its footsteps echoing in the otherwise empty…
One sunny Sunday last October, Chris Benge stared at his right hand as it dripped blood down the underside of his skateboard and onto Liberty Memorial’s limestone stairs. Moments earlier, he’d announced, “I’m going to jump this son of a bitch!” and ollied off one of the steep ramps on the north side of the memorial’s observation deck. All seemed…
When media reports suggested that Richie Restivo, a 19-year-old Rockhurst High School grad and leader of local ska band the Uprights, had been killed in Rockhurst’s parking lot February 6 in a rumble with another music group, I had my doubts. In my previous position as Pitch music editor, I covered countless Club Wars bouts, local rap feuds and even…
