Expect to leave a Chimaira show completely bruised. The Cleveland metal monsters’ second Roadrunner disc, The Impossibility of Reason, is filled with mind-melting sledgehammer riffs and ear-pummeling vocals that sound like Lucifer clawing his way up from the depths of hell. “The biggest disappointment with Pass Out of Existence was that we felt we were really rushed and thrown into…
The Meat Purveyors are neither a porn production company nor an oiled-up WWE tag team (well, maybe a little bit oiled), even if their latest, Pain by Numbers, does kick off with the roiling “TMP Smackdown.” The Purveyors, in short form, are a 156-mph drug intervention. Riotous and unpredictable, the group is one of the few bands in America willing…
Remember that scene in Invasion of the Body Snatchers where the guy falls asleep in bed with his dog and they get their heads switched while being body-snatched? Bands such as Between the Buried and Me are kinda like that. It used to be that metal and hardcore were strange bedfellows, but these days the two styles regularly switch heads…
PD: Congratulations on your new baby. JD: Thanks. We’re very excited. She’s a cutie pie. That’s your fifth child, correct? It’s my fifth and the first with my wife. Are you working on a baseball team? Well, I already have a basketball team, so we’ll see. Did you sleep well the past 9 months so you can make it through…
I need something to get the blood moving. Something to get me pumped. Hey, Mr. DJ. Play my favorite song. You are the dancing queen/Young and sweet/Only 17 … Hold up. Not that favorite song. I need to hear something that will make me type like my crotch is on fire. Something that’ll inspire me to make this column my…
It’s no wonder that tribute bands are king. We live in an age when Wonder Bread American Idol contestants rule TV ratings and pop charts with overblown cover schmaltz. Seeing regular Joes and Josephines do the classics makes rock stardom seem attainable, as if singing DeBarge tunes in high school choir could somehow turn into dollar signs and Sunset Strip…
Clearly a lot of time and effort go into selecting the music for Democratic and Republican campaign events. The two camps must have teams of people sitting around long boardroom tables, eating Chinese food and wearing out boomboxes till the wee hours, because nothing is left to chance with these things. But if that’s true, then how the hell did…
You know how fear is scary? Well, director E. Elias Merhige is into that, especially in his new serial-killer thriller, Suspect Zero. Absent, however, is the darkly comic malevolence the director cultivated in his successful and disquieting Shadow of the Vampire a few years ago, bulldozed out of the way by stock chills and a passé David Fincher fetish. Merhige…
Don’t confuse Hero with 1992’s dusty Dustin Hoffman vehicle or with the epic Bollywood musical espionage extravaganza Hero: Love Story of a Spy (though that’s worth a mind-altering look if you can find it). America and India aren’t directly involved here, but huge imperial issues nonetheless loom large, and it’s up to martial-arts superstar Jet Li, playing a ranger named…
Madam, I’m Adam: I’m writing to comment on the letter from Marsha Hamilton in the August 5 issue of the Pitch. She rhetorically asks, “Where did all the people come from? It sure didn’t happen between two men or two women.” True. But if you examine her question and approach a bit, you’ll ask some questions of your own. Like,…
Cool or Embarrassing? Local Olympians Courtney McCool and Terin Humphrey had us glued to the television last week. But instead of showing off the fresh face of Midwestern clean living, two-time silver medalist Terin’s El Marko eye shadow, noodlelike mascara lashes and glitter OD reminded us more of Independence’s notoriety as the one-time meth capital of the world. That…
All food courts are sad, but this one’s the saddest of all. It’s not sad just because only two little restaurants remain in business, Ko Ko Dim Sum and Original Pizza, where salty Chinese food and cheese-loaded carb slabs rest buffet-style behind glass, next door to darkened stalls for what used to be Taqueria Casa Paloma and Mr. Goodcents….
The Strip quivered like a refrigerated ribeye, laughing out loud as it read Nathan Dinsdale’s cover story (page 17) about his musical journey west to rural Kansas. Dinsdale smacks around Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline for his dumbass decision to keep certain records from making their way into the state public library system. But one particularly interesting nugget in Dinsdale’s…
Addie Dietrich loved going to her Waldo-area Curves gym. She joined in August 2002 and had grown attached to its personable staff and efficient circuit-training regimen. But 2 months ago, a phone call from a friend made her wonder whether she had been working out or selling out. Curves encourages women to feel comfortable with their bodies. Its brochures picture…
Lou Reed is riding shotgun. His voice emanates from the console. His words hover in the passenger seat, peering curiously, cautiously out the window at the grain silos, cornfields, and billboards for antique malls and adult bookstores, which blur together as I accelerate away from the tollbooth scrum and into the yawning expanse of the prairie. Holly came from Miami,…
In our ongoing quest to track down the oddities of KC nightlife, we headed up north on a recent Friday night to check out Gator’s Eight. Now, if someone had told us we would make the trek for freakin’ karaoke, we would have said he was full of it. However, we had heard from various sources that Gator’s was the…
Even a restaurant critic has things he prefers not to eat in public — including his own words. Last week I got an e-mail from a reader, Karen, who noted that I had cringed at paying for a $55 lunch at the new Circe (“Cheap and Unwashed,” August 12). “Dang, Charles,” she wrote. “If your two entrées at Circe ……
Now that Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Peter Lawford and Sammy Davis Jr. are dead, the lingering image of these ring-a-ding, hard-drinking, chain-smoking Rat Packers has become a kind of metaphor for everything that was dangerously cool in Hollywood in the 1950s and ’60s. Actress Shirley MacLaine, the unofficial female member of the group, says that in reality, they didn’t…
8/17-8/22 Ann Reinking hasn’t been able to leave the musical Chicago alone, though she admits she really hasn’t tried. She performed in the original 1970s Broadway version, starred as sassy murderess Roxie Hart in the ’96 revival, and now, as choreographer, is responsible for making sure its tours are as fresh and sexy as possible. It’s a delicious assignment. “Not…
SUN 8/22 Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 exposed some of the dark truths behind the Bush administration, but compared with Sunday’s Reel Democracy film festival at Screenland (1656 Washington), Moore’s movie only scratches the surface. Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism (screening at 12:30 and 7 p.m.) looks at corporate-controlled media outlet Fox News. Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election (2 and…
8/20-8/22 Collecting baseball cards isn’t just an American rite of passage — it’s how boys learn business. Ah, the satisfaction of trading a tattered Dunlop of some crappy Expos catcher for a smooth, Topps rookie of Kevin Seitzer. The second-grader who agreed to the deal at recess never knew what hit him. Nowadays, the athletes don’t miss a trick,…
8/20-8/22 OK, so America is a melting pot of thousands of cultures, everyone crammed together and living happily from the shining seas all the way to the purple mountains. Still, Colombian dance troupes and Lithuanian potato pudding are rare sights in KC. Luckily, we know where to look. To battle the scourge of vanilla, we always go to the Ethnic…
Despite what Amendment 2 “yes” voters might have hoped, gay culture is far from extinct in the fair state of Missouri. Next week marks the first IndyOutties Film Festival, which brings 3 days of movies to Kansas City from all over the nation. The films include a vast array of comedies and dramas, shorts and features — all of…
Thursday, August 19 Chakra (1308 West 11th Street) debuted its new Thursday-night event, Shock!, two weeks ago, and by all accounts it’s a pretty good time. Reportedly spotlighting some of the best “electronic dance and future retro” (is that like, um, contemporary?), it employs resident and guest DJs. Tracks from artists such as Curve, Daft Punk, the Rapture, Fischerspooner and…
