Despite sounding like gangly hipsters who crawled out of the Lower East Side, the New Yorkers in Radio 4 physically resemble Wall Street stockbrokers blowing off steam after work. But that didn’t keep the band from conjuring some prime Gang of Four angles on its 2000 debut, The New Song and Dance. Nor did it keep Radio 4 from making…
Siberia has always been a hotbed for great rock and roll. Actually, scratch that — Siberia has never been known for anything except being colder than a well digger’s ass. But one band has managed to unearth itself from this frozen tundra and catch a few rays: the Red Elvises. Formed in Los Angeles by two political refugees named Igor…
Rock Against Bush is a somewhat misleading moniker for an album and tour that brim with insurgent punk outfits. But at a time when it’s never been more important to vote, every little bit helps. Fortunately, those in charge of this anti-Dubya outing didn’t forget that when bands such as Strike Anywhere, Midtown and Senses Fail unite for a worthy…
Time does incredible things to musicians. The life cycle of a long-lasting career (read: one that lasts longer than 10 years) includes the initial angry period, the “coming into my own” period, the experimental period and the growing-older-and-mellowing-out period. Inevitably, somewhere in there, musicians become self-obsessed and begin to suck. But not Mike Watt, who reminds us that sucktitude is…
Skeptics might ridicule attempts to marry jam and electronic sensibilities, but that’s exactly what this instrumental Atlanta-by-way-of-San Francisco quintet does with almost impossible grace. On record, Sound Tribe Sector 9 can entrance with the best of ’em with soothing repetition and delicate passages that counterbalance driving grooves to make a blissful middle ground. Onstage, the results are more fiery and…
Music snobs can attack cover bands for their lack of creativity, but they can’t dismiss their instrumental virtuosity. Rudimentary riffers don’t cover the Ramones per se; they simply rip off the chord progressions and christen themselves something like the Donnas or the Queers. If a tribute band chooses a complicated model such as Electric Light Orchestra, hecklers can’t bring it…
Bands on indie labels don’t compare themselves to U2 and Coldplay. For one thing, it’s not cool. There’s no esoteric appeal in citing platinum acts. It’s like an independent filmmaker claiming Titanic as an influence. Also, in most cases it would be an obscenely optimistic gesture. U2 and Coldplay craft cyborg compositions that operate with robotic precision but bleed real…
Certain musicians change their sound to capitalize on trends and curry mainstream favor. How else to explain Ethel Merman’s 1979 disco album, which featured the senior citizen hustle-fying standards such as “There’s No Business Like Show Business”? Or what about the Psychedelic Furs’ post-“Pretty in Pink” foray into pseudo tough-guy feathered hair and slick synth pop on 1987’s Midnight to…
The best thing about A Dirty Shame, a giddy sex farce from John Waters, is its credit roll. What’s not to love about a list of characters that includes Sylvia Stickles, Marge the Neuter, Fat Fuck Frank, Cow Patty and Tire Lick Boy? The soundtrack, too, bears comic fruit, with songs such as “Tony’s Got Hot Nuts,” “Eager Beaver Baby,”…
Ash is feeling a little bit under the weather, so I’ll be taking charge.” So says Shaun (Simon Pegg) to his valiant crew of appliance salespeople, but if you don’t get the real meaning, you’re probably not part of the target audience for Shaun of the Dead. Ash, for the benefit of readers who are woefully uncool, is the…
Room with a pew: I was disappointed with the tone of Tony Ortega’s recent article ” Assembly Required ” (Kansas City Strip, September 9). The theme seems to be one of intense, phobic Christian-bashing. The author assumes that readers share his hatred for anything that might smack of “religion” without really examining the actions and issues involved. To be asked…
Threads Off the rack and on the town. Johnny Dare’s, 10:40 p.m. Thursday Exhaust fumes waft through open windows. Speakers blast Ozzy Osbourne. Eleven steel-and-chrome cruisers are parked in front of the biker bar. Inside, the place is a shrine to manhood, and patrons are decked in their best Mad Max gear: sleeveless shirts, leather jackets, denim anything. Riders…
In the interest of protecting America, the Strip recently tracked down a serious threat to this country’s security. This flag-waving flank steak has been inspired ever since the squeaker victory of Republican Kris Kobach over his primary opponent, Adam Taff, by a mere 207 votes in Kansas’ 3rd Congressional District last month. The clean-cut Kobach, who calls himself a…
The president of the Sunflower Republican Women’s Club finished leading the Pledge of Allegiance, and Kris Kobach stood up and introduced himself as a candidate for Kansas’ 3rd Congressional District. It was September 11, 2003, and Kobach’s campaign was just 2 months old as he addressed the mostly gray-haired crowd of more than 200 people at the Rev. Jerry Johnston’s…
We had to get out of the office. It was just that simple. So, like all good Kansas Citians, the first thing we did was get in our cars. But we couldn’t just drive aimlessly. We wanted to learn something about our city. In an effort to challenge our own assumptions, we drove to a street that we thought we…
Charlie and the Stringrays
On the Tuesday morning after Labor Day, we were easing ourselves back into work mode by e-mailing back and forth with a friend about the antics of the weekend. Jen.chen@pitch.com: “Now that I think about it, I believe I asked a guy in a cow suit at the Peanut party if he wanted to make out. Of course, I was…
I’m trying to remember the last time I ate in a restaurant that didn’t have any menus. Maybe never. It’s very strange to sit down at a table and just hope that whatever comes out of the kitchen will be something you like. But that’s how things work at one of my favorite new places, Galvin’s Dinnerhouse (6802 South 22nd…
If Mimi Perkins doesn’t start getting some customers to come in to her new restaurant, My Dream Café, she may have a nightmare on her hands. My first meal there had a Twilight Zone quality. My two friends and I were the only customers in the baby-blue dining room, and we kept watching through the window as a steady stream…
ONGOING One of the biggest hits of last year’s Broadway season was the revival of the Lorraine Hansberry classic, A Raisin in the Sun. Sean Combs’ performance notwithstanding, the show performed as well or better with African-American audiences as any Broadway show in years. The local theater troupe InPlay, the closest thing KC has to a consistent African-American theater company,…
ONGOING In an appropriate if not entirely original move, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art celebrates its tenth anniversary with “The First Ten Years: Conversations With the Collection,” a show of art from the museum’s permanent collection of more than 800 pieces. Promotional materials promise that the exhibit “underscores the for- mal, thematic, or conceptual connections that works have with…
TUE 9/21 After competing in the Olympics, where do world-class athletes go? While some sign advertising deals and others run off to join the TV wrestling circuit, there are those who are happy just to share their prowess with spectators who couldn’t afford a few weeks in Greece. The Rock and Roll Gymnastics Tour, which comes to Kemper Arena (1800…
FRI 9/17 Sloppy Slobbering Monster, a multimedia exhibition downtown at the Bank (northwest corner of 11th Street and Baltimore), opens Friday from 5 to 10 p.m., displaying work by more than thirty local and national artists. Most hail from mid-sized, or “second,” cities and demonstrate a common aesthetic that bridges same-sized bergs. The thread running through Sloppy Slobbering Monster reflects…
