A year ago, writer and actor Ry Kincaid told me over coffee that he had a play about James Dean rolling around in his head. Because the road to hell is paved with good, sometimes artistic intentions, I was surprised to hear a couple of months ago that the play was almost finished. Indeed, Little Bastard, written by and starring…
The Missouri Repertory Theatre’s production of Living Out is touted in its press kit as the theater’s “first-ever production conveying the Latino experience in the U.S.” Great — in this increasingly Latino Midwestern city, we finally get a play about our newest segment of the population, and it’s gotta be about maids. But that slight transgression is far less…
Parking does not a downtown make. If all you want is a place to park, you should consider staying home, where — theoretically — your car is already parked quite conveniently. That said, I’m not above admiring a really class-act parking lot. Just a few weeks ago, artist James Woodfill and I went parking-lot hopping together in the Crossroads…
Originally titled I Need More Money and Power and Less Shit From You People, the latest album from hip-hop instrumentalist, mixer and producer Ramble Jon Krohn (aka RJD2) is a smorgasbord of everything from Latin soul to Italian disco. And it’s worthy of allowing the Def Jukie to escape DJ Shadow’s … uh … shadow. Since We Last Spoke comes…
For every faux, self-avowed “rock and roller” out there playing in the major leagues (Avril, I’m talking to you, missy), there are at least a dozen bands that represent the real deal, sleeping in vans and loading their own equipment to play whatever rundown dive that can buck up enough chump change to attract a good act. But every…
We don’t know exactly what kinds of visions are getting a nod in hardcore metal band Eighteen Visions’ moniker. But we sure as hell hope that at least one is a vision of love. Or tunnel vision. Or 20-20 vision. Or — and this is if we’re really lucky — one that involves a psychic named Sweet Mama Love, a…
Kansas City has no better site for cock rock than Liberty Memorial, easily the city’s most phallic architectural shaft. With 15 headbanging bands sharing two stages, there’s no confusing Rockfest with the hacky-sackers over at Wakarusa the same weekend. Now that Creed has broken up, one has to wonder what fate will befall the other baritone clones out there,…
On her records, Shannon Wright plays almost every instrument herself, giving the already unsettling compositions a claustrophobic feel. Live, Wright’s profoundly disquieting material seems even more intensely personal, even as her backing band shares the burden. Wright’s 2004 release, Over the Sun, is a total eclipse, an emotionally exhausting descent into darkness on which raucous riffs crest and crash with…
The Great Fire of 1666 Nostradamus predicted London’s Great Fire of 1666, an event that destroyed nearly 80 percent of the city. I’m no Nostradamus, but it’s a fairly safe bet to predict that witnessing Kansas City’s the Great Fire of 1666 can be just as combustible. Rising from the ashes of Shiner and sharing members with Overstep and…
Too many bands fall into the trap of regurgitating boring Black Sabbath riffs. Sabbath — and descendents such as Corrosion of Conformity — did something with sludge. And it was called innovation. For what it’s worth, Alabama Thunderpussy sincerely tries to avoid clichés even as it works unabashedly within them, hardly an easy balance to strike. The band members may…
With way more post-punk garage-rock bands already on the menu than a hipster could hope to digest, you’ll have to clear room for the Ponys as they step up with ditties so ridiculously catchy that you’ll beg for Chumbawumba to clear your mind. Ah … now that’s better. This Windy City quartet doesn’t shy away from P. Diddying old acts…
PD: What’s the worst part about being Josey Scott? JS: I can’t say that there is a worst part. My mother always said, “Watch what you ask for, ’cause you might get it.” I’ve wanted all my life to be this guy, to be a “rock star.” But when I signed to a label, my mom said, “Sweety, there are…
Four days. Three stages. More than seventy bands. And enough patchouli oil to fuel a 757 made from bales of hemp and “Phish Phorever” T-shirts. It can be a funky, overwhelming filly, this Wakarusa Music and Camping Festival, but one your Birkenstocks can easily navigate with the proper guidance. Which is why we wrote these seven must-see shows on the…
Brett Mosiman is remarkably composed for a raving lunatic. And he has to be crazy. Only someone certifiable would attempt to erect a four-day music festival with 75 bands playing for as many as 30,000 fans. And build it all within six months. In a serene state park. In Kansas. Mosiman isn’t panicked. He isn’t wild-eyed. He isn’t perched on…
You might think that with the technological advances in moviemaking since 1956, this new version of Around the World in 80 Days would at least look better than its predecessor did. You could not be faulted for believing you’d be wowed by the Rube Goldberg gadgets of inventor Phileas Fogg. And surely a studio as desperate for a hit as…
Getting stranded at snowbound O’Hare for the night is one thing. You call home, maybe knock down a couple of martinis, then grab a blanket. A century ago, being quarantined at Ellis Island for eight months because you were, say, a part-time anarchist from Campobasso with a big mustache and a little case of scarlet fever, was a far…
Grand exit: Regarding C.J. Janovy’s “Requiem for a Room” (June 3): I tended bar for 29 years on Main Street and Broadway. I tried for 30, but my body said no. I was lucky enough to work at Milton’s and the Grand Emporium. To work at two world-famous bars didn’t seem like much at the time because it seemed so…
After rallying a crowd at the downtown airport on June 2, John Kerry stopped the next day at the Truman Library. It was a warm, sunny Thursday in Independence, and Jean Carnahan met him with a hug on the museum steps. They shared a Kodak moment for the traveling press, pointing out over the grassy knoll facing Highway 24 and…
Back in October 2003, Overland Park dentist Steven Thomas was probably smiling. His peers from across the country had just voted him the next president of their national organization, the American College of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons. (His term would begin in June 2005.) Thomas’ résumé is impressive: In 1998, he was the first oral surgeon to be appointed president…
Brian Anderson is pitching under a shining sun and an accusing scoreboard. It’s the afternoon of May 27 at Kauffman Stadium, and the Royals are trying to win three in a row for just the second time this season. Anderson has allowed the Detroit Tigers to push across two runs in the first inning, but he doesn’t panic. It’s…
Kansas City needs more outdoor festivals. Sure, we get art fairs galore, but we’re thinking less artsy and more fartsy, with blocks of food booths, live music and, of course, a plethora o’ alcohol. Which is why we were pretty excited when we heard about the Best of the Midwest Brewers Festival in Parkville, a hub of quaintosity north of…
There was already a “closed” sign hanging on the door to Remington’s, the badly aging steakhouse inside the equally drab Adam’s Mark Hotel (9103 East 39th Street) on May 28, the day before The Kansas City Star reported that the 30-year-old hotel had been sold to a St. Louis investment group. Its lowbrow coffee shop, The Pantry, remains open. Remington’s…
One of my elderly uncles once confessed to me that when he was a young soldier, right before he was shipped off to Europe during World War II, he and a couple of other privates wound up in downtown Kansas City on a short leave. “It was a wild place in the 1940s,” he whispered. “I had my eyes opened…
6/10-6/12 The fascinating life and grisly death of screen icon James Dean is rich material for writers and actors alike. Most recently, James Franco’s uncanny performance as Dean in a 2001 TNT biopic brought him a Golden Globe and an upgrade of his status as just another pretty-boy actor. This week, a home-brewed version of the Dean story premieres at…
