It’s a sad indicator of how we process art that even the most multifaceted artists are usually remembered for just one narrow aspect of what they’ve done. But you can’t really blame people when it comes to novelty acts. Early in his career, Clarence Reid, the R&B producer and songwriter who found considerable success in the ’60s and ’70s with…
It was the summer of 1995 when Jerry Garcia succumbed to the demons of excess and the Grateful Dead officially died. At the time, nearly every major musical media outlet — in an effort to gain credibility within a scene that was already established as independent from the music-industry machine — clamored to anoint the neo-hippie heir apparent. The short…
We probably won’t be so lucky, but if emo were to finally die this year, Waking Ashland would be its ideal swan song. The San Diego band’s debut full-length, Composure, is an ironically titled play list of earnest, dramatic cries for help and bleeding-heart Dear Jane letters — the kind of tightly structured, highly melodic rock that could make any…
Perennially maligned by younger punks for not knowing when to snip off their spikes, Birmingham, England’s GBH has the kind of authority that heavy bands of any generation should envy. Although the band has been accused for years of sounding generic, it bears the rare distinction of having been innovative in the first place. It was among the first…
On the Deftones’ debut disc, the group swirled a spoonful of melody into a bubbling cauldron of nu-metal rage. The group revised this ratio until its albums became more like the eerie-calm eye of the storm than the churning hurricane. Now Team Sleep’s recent self-titled release sees Deftones singer Chino Moreno giving himself over to absolute leisure. This side project’s…
When we first heard their big hit, the highly polished “Hillbillies (Love It in the Hay),” we figured these guys for manufactured, Big & Rich-bandwagon funtry (as in “funky country” — we may or may not have coined that term). Turns out Hot Apple Pie is full of accomplished musicians who are forming their own sound after leaving Little Texas,…
There’s something about a band that’s named after a John Deere tractor and plays fiddle songs peppered with yodels and hoo-eys that’s inherently more Nebraskan than any of the fashionable hipsters from Omaha’s Saddle Creek Records who’ve brought national attention to the state’s music scene in recent years. Yet home is one of the places the farmer-ish boys of Forty…
All hail Janis Joplin and bow down to Madonna and the Slits. For we have a pretender in our ranks, and we must call her out. Lindsay Lohan, you are under critical fatwa! Make no mistake: We do not take umbrage with your decision to flit about like a drug-addled strumpet. That is your right as a star. For this…
For the Esoteric, whose Lawrence residence and studio burned to its foundation in late February, the nomadic lifestyle of the touring act has become an indefinite necessity. The band returns on Monday for an El Torreon show, its first in the area after several months of solid touring, but it’s a bittersweet homecoming. “It’s really weird now, because without a…
Perhaps because the Midwest is known for extremes of behavior, it seems easiest to feel one of two ways in Kansas City — fed up or f’ed up. For example: If you’re a political activist canvassing the area in support of gay marriage, you’re probably fed up most of the time. But if you’re the meth addict in the northern…
Indie heavyweight Steve Albini was once asked by an interviewer in Belgium to complete an acrostic alphabet of rock and roll. His list included Dick Dale for D and heroin for H. When he came to the letter K, Albini declared, “K is for Kansas City, home of one great rock band, the Sin City Disciples.” That someone as revered…
If Vince Vaughn puts any effort into what he’s doing, it doesn’t show, which is perhaps one of the benefits of always appearing to be hung over. The man probably has to check the bags under his eyes at the airport, and he’s about as in shape as a toddler’s fistful of Play-Doh. Onscreen, he looks like any other buddy…
Roald Dahl’s inner child was evidently a contrary lad — precocious, dark-minded, contemptuous of adult supervision and fueled by a sense of justice that often proceeded via cruel whim. By all accounts, young readers fear his books almost as much as they love them. At the same time, many grown-ups are baffled. Who does this guy think he is,…
Burn rubber: I also quit going to physicians at the College Park Family Care Center (Backwash, June 30). I find it personally offensive to be preached to in the privacy of my own doctor’s office. I am there to have my physical needs taken care of. I have a church to take care of my moral needs. The doctors in…
Hey, kids, Jimmy the Fetus here, your guide to moral values in the Midwest, helping everybody see that what we learned in Sunday school really matters. Dear Jimmy: So you think it’s cute to poke fun at the moral dilemmas of God-fearing, Bible-toting Christians? Aren’t you concerned about your eternal soul? And I don’t mean to sound judgmental, but rotting…
Amanda and Jeff Schaefer, the Strip decided, were probably the best human beings on the planet. This tenderloin had put the Schaefers in an awful bind. The charming couple operates a bed and breakfast in the tiny town of Rhineland, Missouri, just a few miles west of famous wine-centric Hermann. Their B&B, The Doll House, was just steps from the…
The first weekend in July was a hot one at the Kansas Speedway, where 80,000 fans stood for Danica Patrick as she circled the track averaging nearly 180 miles an hour (though Tony Kanaan went on to win). But top employees with the Kansas City Board of Public Utilities, the company that provides water and electricity to Wyandotte County customers…
Around here, the fields unravel in typical prairie patchwork, marked by cattle and barbed-wire fencing. But this is no flat-state mirage. Atop his wakeboard, Earl Ball skims the water at an exhilarating 18 miles an hour. Obstacles shoot up from the water around him — ramps and rails and colored buoys. Wearing a pair of saggy board shorts, a helmet…
We’re pleased to announce that we’ve discovered our new superhero power: bar radar. We were on a secret mission up north on a recent Friday night, searching for the new Granfalloon, when we got lost on Barry Road. Then again, our only directions from a friend were: “It’s by a Wal-Mart. It’s not in Zona Rosa but near it.” (You’d…
The nice thing about inexpensive restaurants like Noodles & Company (see review) is that their prices are low enough that even tightwad customers feel like they can eat out more than a couple of times a week. The downside is that the food at these fast-casual joints isn’t very adventurous — although Noodles & Company has a more exotic menu…
I’ve seen more than my share of restaurant trends come and go over the years. When crêperies were sizzling in the 1970s, I was hustling crêpes. When disco was the rage, I slithered through a combination nightclub-bistro as a waiter with a blow-dried coif and an unbuttoned satin shirt. That idiotic restaurant lasted ten months, but I still have the…
7/8-7/17 An informal survey of women we know assures us that nobody should say underpants. A couple of them don’t care for the word panties, either (pant is just so heavy-breathing), and one iconoclast actually insists on bloomers. Underwear schism notwithstanding, we all share one cardinal belief: Steve Martin needs to start being funny again, goddamn it. That Martin adapted…
7/8-7/9 Sesame Street watchers may not know it, but they’re probably big admirers of Frank Oz’s work. As the puppeteer and voice behind beloved characters Bert, Grover and Cookie Monster, Oz has a fanbase that’s not just children. Muppets enthusiasts have Oz to thank for Fozzie and Animal (he also co-wrote, directed or produced several of the Muppets’ movies), and…
SAT 7/9 In cable wakeboarding, riders strap their feet onto a board, grab ahold of handles attached to cables that crisscross above them, and get yanked across the surface of a lake, shifting themselves onto ramps that jut out of the water and executing tricks such as the 911, the hootchie glide or the krypt. At 10 a.m. Saturday, the…
