Henry Rollins first saw pianist Ahmad Jamal at a jazz club in Los Angeles with Flea. When Jamal started to burn, Flea yelled, “FUCK, YEEEAHHH!!!” at the top of his lungs, causing the band to stop cold as Rollins offered meek apologies on Flea’s behalf. “If you ever get a chance to see Ahmad Jamal, run — do not walk…
As the younger, not-so-angry and arguably better-looking member of the Earle family, Nashville darling Stacey Earle has come a long way in establishing her career apart from that of her cynical brother, Steve. Stacey Earle’s original pilgrimage to Nashville was more of a mercy mission — for her family and for her brother’s struggles with substance abuse and divorce —…
In the most impressive double-duty bill since the Flaming Lips both opened for and backed Beck, singer-songwriters Will Sheff and Jonathan Meiburg pool their talents as both headlining act Okkervil River and early-evening attraction Shearwater. Both groups explore complex emotions with vivid language and cutting insight, but whereas Okkervil River opts for a forlorn rustic feel and rousing choruses, Shearwater…
Jade Tree just keeps growing. From the record label’s humble beginning to its now enviable roster (the Promise Ring, Onelinedrawing, Denali, Jets to Brazil, Pedro the Lion, Statistics), the constant has always been hard work, a sharp edge and a willingness to take chances on young bands such as From Ashes Rise (pictured) and Strike Anywhere. The tour, a joint…
Women don’t love Harry Connick Jr just because he’s a dreamboat. We’re not that shallow. We love Harry Connick Jr. for being a sophisticated man’s man; we’re sure as hell not going to bump into him buying pork rinds and toilet paper at Wal-Mart. And the man is a dreamboat. But those silky smooth pipes of his ain’t half-bad, either….
In the 1980s, my mother fell hard for shadow boxes, those varnished, mounted display cases into which dozens of miniatures could be stuffed: a teensy broom, for example, and an apple Darrell Porter jersey as small as my thumb. What all this meant to her I never understood — just as I don’t expect everybody to light up for Of…
Supergroups rarely add up to the sum of their parts. Take the Traveling Wilburys: Dylan, Harrison, Orbison, Petty and the chump from ELO mustered only some wimpy strum-alongs. The Flatlanders — Texas stars Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock — are saddled with similar expectations. Back in 1972, the then-unknown trio made one masterful album before parting ways….
Don’t let the 10-gallon hat fool you. D:Fuse may be from Texas and he may look like a cowboy, but he’s really an astronaut soaring through the cosmos on a wave of hypnotic house and trance music. Under the wing of the mighty Paul Oakenfold, D:Fuse has earned acclaim for albums such as 2002’s People, which climbed into the Top…
Like the David Lynch film from which it takes its name, Apartment 26 defies easy categorization. Although the group has toured alongside headbangers such as Rollins Band and System of a Down, Apartment 26 could hardly be described as a workaday metal outfit. Sure, the hard-rock riffs are abundant, and pretty boy vocalist Biff Butler is the offspring of Black…
PD: Should I call you Dick, Mr. Valentine or Dicky V? DV: Just don’t call me late for dinner. Is it good to be back on the road? Well, we’ve been in the van for 10 minutes, and I’ve noticed that nobody is talking to each other anymore. What’s the best place to stop for food? Cracker Barrel. I’m a…
Who the fuck is Anton Fig? Hell if I knew. Which is why I had made the pilgrimage to Explorer’s Percussion on Wornall Road on a Wednesday night. It was holy ground for one night only, for that was where I knew I would find Anton Fig. I expected to see about five people there. Me, Anton Fig, two store…
I don’t quite get Deerhoof. But that’s OK. I don’t think I’m supposed to. I’m not even sure Deerhoof’s members get Deerhoof. But that’s OK. I don’t think they’re supposed to, either. Call them strange. Call them weird. Call them bugfuck insane. It doesn’t matter. Music is a universal normal pill. And a musician who is crazier than a shithouse…
What’s my name, baby? Damn. You don’t remember my name? My name is Prince. Prince? Ain’t that a bitch? I ain’t like those other guys you hang around. I don’t hang with the hat pack. I’m not your friend. I may not be your kind of man. Some people tell me I got great legs. And in the distance,…
Bust a rhyme: I couldn’t be happier to know that a few cents (at most) out of my federal taxes are helping to bring Amiri Baraka to Kansas City. Tony Ortega’s April 22 Kansas City Strip, “Poetry Slam,” reminded me of nothing so much as Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly’s crusade against Baraka, which helped take away his poet laureate status…
Sam Brownback is embarrassing us again. The uptight Republican senator from Kansas does that periodically. Sometimes it’s in small ways, such as when he’s nagging everyone about cloning, an issue deeply troubling to his Kansas constituents. He humiliates us most often, though, in his jihads against pop-music lyrics, video games and movies, routinely making national news in stories that turn…
For several months now, the sirloin of local media, the KC Strip, has promoted its meaty goodness to Kansas Citians, giving metro citizens the juicy truth and a real alternative to the gristle and fatty tissue offered up by other media outlets in this substance-starved town. So imagine the relief this chuck steak felt when it learned that it isn’t…
Chaos reigned at El Torreon one night last December. So many amps and guitar cases were stacked near the stage that the venue resembled a music store liquidating its inventory. Between songs, Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” played over the house speakers, and some spectators sang along by instinct while others prepared their pipes for impending Ozzy impersonations. Eager axmen, their…
When Michael McElhiney first walked into Leavenworth federal penitentiary’s B block in November 1994, his new cellmates may not have known that he’d been convicted of dealing meth and of conspiracy to commit murder and had been moved from a tougher, more restricted prison in Marion, Illinois. But they knew what the tall, mustached convict represented. He carried with him…
Yeah, it’s true: We like gimmicks. But if loving novelty items is wrong, we don’t want to be right. When we heard that Vivace, the nearly month-old eatery in the River Market, features a bar that has an ice top in its midsection, of course our curiosity was piqued. We had to see what it was all about. The mini-ice…
For a while, Carmen Pace, who owns Crabs on Broadway (3601 Broadway), was thinking about moving her seafood restaurant out of its once-vibrant midtown neighborhood. But she has decided to sign a new lease on the space and will host a “Celebration Party” on Thursday, April 29, with a “munchie bar” and discounts on cocktails and dinner entrées. Just north…
I had heard from a friend that the Elephant Bar, a jungle-themed restaurant-and-bar chain based in California, was a hot and steamy place for singles. “I went to one outside of Los Angeles, and it was an obnoxious, party kind of place,” Tony said. “A lot of under-30-year-olds making a scene.” I was eager to see if the same sort…
4/27-5/9 Back in 2001, Mel Brooks’ The Producers snagged a dozen of the little gilded trophies known as Tony Awards. It was a cinch, then, that the tour would be a bonanza. The show comes to the Music Hall (301 West 13th Street) starting Tuesday. Not appearing in Kansas City, however, are the show’s indelible leading men, Nathan Lane…
MON 4/26 Sometimes, performance art seems inaccessible. Taking this into consideration, Dwight Frizzell is hesitant when he labels Scientific Americans as a “performance art ensemble.” Frizzell, a musician and instructor at the Kansas City Art Institute, understands the stigma. But he seems confident that the upcoming performance should be accessible and maybe even a pleasurable experience. The troupe consists of…
4/24-4/25 The misconception is held by a small minority, but it deserves a little clearing up nonetheless: The allure of paintball doesn’t lie solely in getting splashed with colored paint. If anyone thinks that a paintball’s welt-inducing sting is tempered by the pleasing thought That sploosh on my knee is a fine shade of orange, well, sorry. It’s just…
