You know you’re in for a kick-ass evening when the first question that’s asked of you after entering a bar is “Do you have any pot?” On a recent Saturday night, we had gone to Stables Bar & Grill at 9th Street and Walnut for the after-party of the 18th Street fashion show when we were asked that question by…
A person can find out a lot about the state of the world just by sitting at a restaurant counter. Early one morning — about 3 a.m. — I was eating a grilled patty melt at the Town Topic diner at 2021 Broadway when a willowy young man with spiky hair and pink eye shadow sat on the stool next…
Kansas City doesn’t have the greatest history when it comes to second owners taking over popular restaurants. Though the union between restaurant and operator starts out with the best intentions, it can be like a second marriage that goes weirdly awry. The most famous example, even after a quarter-century, is Stan Glazer’s ill-fated and ultra-expensive renovation of that legendary…
6/24-6/27 Out of equal parts inspiration and frustration, James Moore has created South of Heaven Productions, a new theater company that hits the ground running with David Ives’ comedy All in the Timing. After watching opportunities for paid acting gigs evaporate, Moore says, “I decided to pay myself.” For the debut production, he’s chosen a playwright known for his…
WED 6/30 One minute is a lifetime with the right camera, the right ideas and the right editing system. Even if you lack all three, Wednesday’s One Minute Meltdown is at least the perfect excuse to show strangers the cute things your kitty does. Starting at 8:30 p.m. at the Westport Coffee House (4010 Pennsylvania), the Meltdown is a stampede…
SAT 6/26 Earlier this month, the KC Krunch became the Midwest Division Champions of the National Women’s Football Association. They did so with a vulgar display of power, beating the Denton Stampede 56-0. Now, following a well-earned bye, the Krunch are preparing for their first-ever playoff game. Last year, in its inaugural season, the Krunch missed a trip to the…
6/25-6/27 Ray Ruggeri was already a movie fanatic when he saw Chinatown (with Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway) in 1974 and asked the theater owner if he could buy the poster. Fifteen bucks later, Ruggeri owned his first bit of movie memorabilia, and a thirty-year hobby was born. That’s a hobby and a business — Ruggeri (who is also…
Bill Kassebaum, his mother says, “is not your typical political candidate.” The mother is former Kansas Senator Nancy Landon Kassebaum, and she makes the observation in a new documentary about her son. In the next scene, Bill Kassebaum is heard sweet-talking one of his cows. The filmmaker is Bill’s older brother, Richard Kassebaum, and this isn’t the first time he’s…
Thursday, June 24 If you haven’t been to the River Market in a while, you should know that you’ll probably soon be ostracized by your friends for seriously lacking the necessary in-the-know quotient. Because those who are in the know know that the River Market isn’t the boring, hey-great-it’s-a-farmer’s-market place it used to be. And we are in the…
When summer arrives, so does the plight of the boat owner, who finds that distant associates and so-called friends alike have morphed into shameless mongrels seeking a drunken weekend at the lake. Before you call your cubicle neighbor’s best friend’s sister-in-law to schedule one particular weekend this summer (“We were just wondering if maybe you’ll have the boat out…
Curious George Now that actor Ry Kincaid has finished playing screen icon James Dean at the Westport Coffee House in Little Bastard, he’s making a monkey of himself during the day for Theatre for Young America. Playing the title role in Curious George , Kincaid reprises the simian role and mannerisms he created for TYA’s hit Curious George last…
For 12 years, under open skies that turn from blue to black, the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival has given Kansas City one of its finest summer refreshments. But even though most of its productions have been more than respectable, it hasn’t always been all’s well. Presenting the Bard for modern audiences can be tricky. I remember a past…
The African Art Experience It isn’t often that Kansas City audiences have a chance to see a collection of non-Western art as diverse as the one on display at the Belger Arts Center. The majority of the pieces in The African Art Experience are three-dimensional objects made of wood, clay, metal or natural materials such as woven and dyed textiles….
Like any good artist, Polly Apfelbaum makes complex work. But it is also dazzlingly beautiful, which in the past has caused some snooty art-world folks to dismiss it as mere décor. “People don’t want you to deal with beauty,” Apfelbaum says. “I was interested in the decorative arts. I was interested in the everyday. Screw you. If it is…
Mush Records peddles hip-hop. Sort of. What actually comes out when a Mush mouth takes the stage is more spoken-word performance art than typical chest-thumping, ice-rocking I-say-HIP-you-say-HOP. MCs delivering mind-bending rhymes team up with DJs serving brain-splitting beats and force listeners to bob and shake their heads. It’s precisely what you’re looking for if you adore Sage Francis or Mac…
Pavement has always been known for its aloofness, so it’s no surprise that the detachment continues in Perfect Sound Forever. For marginal fans, the book brings Pavement’s early days to life with interviews reminiscing about things such as the band’s first rudimentary studio sessions. (“We figured we’d use the static as the third instrument,” Stephen Malkmus says. “The third band…
Angela Ardis deserves credit for making a sincere attempt at conveying a softer side of rapper Tupac Shakur, but apparently the heat of her excitement over interacting with Shakur prevented her from looking as deeply as she could (or should) have. Thugs Heart chronicles the correspondence between Ardis and Shakur during his 1995 incarceration on sexual assault charges. Ardis was…
It’s hardly fightin’ words to proclaim Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks the heavyweight champ of heartbreak records. Despite its spare arrangements, its shopworn imagery of storms and fences and its nine galumphing minutes of “Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts,” it gives us Dylan at both his most aching and, miraculously, his most accessible. It’s sad-sack music beyond the…
Looking to avoid the Independence Day crush and get out of town a week early? Try the Country Stampede. Fans of twangy music and the outdoor life will want to make the trek to Manhattan this weekend to partake in the four-day hoedown. From the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s patented progressive bluegrass to pop-country hottie Terri Clark, the Stampede aims…
A traveling S&M show? Not quite … but almost as cool. Provided, of course, that modern-day industrial is your bag. Leading the charge is Chicago underground dweller Sister Machine Gun (pictured), a band that can bring the noise and mix it up. SMG has covered its bases from electro-funk to ambient noise to abrasive, rock-based industrial. The band is especially…
The goal of today’s dance-rock movement (Hot Hot Heat, Hint Hint, the Rapture, etc.) is laughably unattainable. But reaching out to the humorless, funkless scenester population in an attempt to dash those ironic smirks, uncross those skinny arms and, ultimately, replace self-conscious posturing with primal stoo-pidity (stupidity being an altogther different thing) is a noble, if misguided, enterprise. Bicoastal seven-piece…
If it didn’t have the potential to piss people off, the term literate country might work well for Mary Chapin Carpenter. After all, her music falls well outside the confines of country convention. Carpenter has always walked the line between folk and honky-tonk and has managed to blaze a brave artistic trail while still triumphing commercially. Carpenter’s background — raised…
Yes, Hello Superworld shamelessly ripped off the whole you-can’t-have-too-many-people-in-the-band shtick from the Polyphonic Spree — though the band never really claimed it hadn’t. Hello Superworld’s name is even taken from a lyric in “Geeareohdoubleyou” by Tripping Daisy, the ’90s group that spawned the Spree. But Hello Superworld does draw the line at that whole hippie thing. Its members wear…
When seeking to create an eerie, ethereal album — one that sounds like a string of sirens’ serenades to spooky spirits — it helps to record in a remote Icelandic lighthouse. Múm learned this lesson on 2002’s Finally We Are No One, and the band returned by helicopter to the unorthodox studio space to record its recent release, Summer Make…
