After quitting the recording industry to care for her ailing husband during the ’90s and then releasing a string of flops upon her return, Loretta Lynn did the unthinkable. Much as Johnny Cash tapped Rick Rubin to produce American Recordings, Lynn asked a Nashville outsider to help resuscitate her flagging career. She didn’t have to look very far, either: a…
Rock is dead, they say. Long live rock, says Dropsonic. Long live the low-slung guitar, the blues solo, the power trio, the butt-shaking bass, the sing-along chorus and the snarling rock jeremiad. And, above all, fuck pop. This ain’t no disco — this is life during wartime, folks, and this band from Atlanta is equipped to arm the masses. Dropsonic…
National Public Radio is more than just a nonprofit organization hell-bent on sedating its listeners with monotonous news reports. There’s music, too, and we’re not talking about the soul-crushing free-form jazz that fills the gaps between the Dow Jones report and the updates on international affairs. Available as a free MP3 for a limited time, Bloc Party’s contribution to the…
In a classroom, bored teenagers tap pencils on their desks. Then a note is passed: “The Click Five on the roof now!” The class storms up the stairwell, a helicopter lands and five young gents in mod suits and haircuts step out with their instruments. It sounds innocent enough, but a diabolical brainwashing plot lies in the details. The logo…
Koufax, which spent most of the past year living and recording in Lawrence, recruited one of the city’s sharpest rhythm sections for its current tour. However, the bassist and drummer in question are not former Get Up Kids Rob and Ryan Pope, who played on Koufax’s just-released Hard Times Are in Fashion. Instead, Nate Harold and John Momberg of Kelpie…
“It’s always better late,” Michael Henry used to say. Growing up, Michael Henry was the father of a friend, the irreverent guru to all us young rock dreamers. He remains an amazing guitarist who owns a recording studio, which we used to sneak into for secret jam sessions, and he plays around our hometown in a jazzy trio called Slow…
Let’s just get this out of the way right now — the Redwalls are derivative, and what’s more, the bands the group borrows from are not hip and obscure. Hell, neither are the songs. So don’t expect to look like an authority when you play spot-the-influence with the tunes on De Nova, the band’s major-label debut. To wit, you…
Pity the daily newspaper critic who must review The Aristocrats without using such phrases as “a longshoreman’s arm up a little girl’s ass,” “then my wife goes down on my son while the dog’s licking his balls,” “my grandmother’s covered in my come,” and “is it shit before piss, or sucking before fucking?” On second thought, perhaps it’s just as…
“I always cannot understand why girls don’t want to be with me for a long time,” says Timothy Treadwell, subject of the documentary Grizzly Man. “I have really a nice personality — I’m fun, I’m very, very good in the … umm, well, you’re not supposed to say that when you’re a guy, but I know I am, they know…
Terry Gilliam’s previous film featured the former Monty Python troupe member as an eccentric, demanding director prone to destroying his ambitious projects before a single frame of footage could be shot. “If it’s easy,” he says in the movie, “I don’t do it.” Alas, this was not a work of fanciful fiction made by the beloved (and, by studio…
Just plain spokes: This week’s KC Strip (“Spinning the Span,” August 18) was particularly good, with the good news about the bicycle bridge. I, too, live in KCK and occasionally bike. My two favorite vistas: coming across 18th Street between I-35 and I-70 at night, where first you drive through a cut in the hills and see the layers of…
Hip-hop MC Priceless Diamonds describes herself as a “boss bitch” who grew up boosting clothes and turning the occasional trick. She’s no angel, but she’s got advice. So listen up, y’all. The escalating tension in Gaza is getting me down. Do you sympathize with the Israeli settlers who were forced to vacate? Kicking those Israelis out wasn’t fair, but life…
The Strip has met The Kansas City Star’s “readers’ representative,” Derek Donovan, and we think he’s a swell guy. But we find ourselves cringing whenever we read the ombudsman’s overly defensive explanations of why the Star does what it does. Still, nothing prepared us for last week’s hyperactive screed, in which Donovan demanded that the New York Daily News take…
Kayle Age: 30 Time dancing: 12 years, off and on Children: four Pet: iguana Last school attended: Vatterott College Favorite song: “Tear Away,” Drowning Pool Favorite TV show: So You Think You Can Dance Why I dance: “This is just fun, and there are a lot of people who depend on it.” Last good deed: “The Salvation Army was…
Unless the courts intercede, the state of Missouri will make it illegal to show appreciation for topless dancers in time-honored fashion: with a tuck of a dollar bill into a G-string. New state regulations, scheduled to go into effect August 28, will force other drastic changes in the way strip clubs operate. Full nudity? Gone. Lap dances? PG versions…
Don’t Fear the Rooster For the fourth year in a row, the E.M.U. Theatre crew brings a festival of original ten-minute plays to sleepy summertime Lawrence. As usual with E.M.U., the show is for grown-ups, penned by folks from the neighborhood. The bill includes Leo Nightingale’s “Faust: A Sex Comedy” as well as “Blown Away” and “Too Far,” a pair…
Beware All Stylebiters At first we were skeptical of the premise of this show: Thirty artists submit unfinished work to co-curators Jeremy McConnell and Beth Sarver, who then redistribute the already begun artwork so that each participant finishes someone else’s piece. But it turned out great. It’s energizing to see recognizable work by people such as McConnell, Lori Raye Erickson,…
When it comes to haircuts, I’m low-maintenance. Most of the time, I pull loose strands of hair off my face and shove bobby pins into a mussed, swept-back pile — because I am convinced that if you keep sticking pins in your hair, it will eventually look good. In some ways, I am a hairstylist’s nightmare. But in others, I…
The Pitch has written about lawyer Herb Kohn’s suspected patronage and his role in the attempted condemnation of Gigi’s Wigs. But this paper has never written about Kohn’s travel photography, which happens to be quite stunning, because … well, he’s never shown it before. The Kansas City Art Institute Crossroads Gallery downtown, where Kohn’s photographs are now on display, was…
A while back, I wound up going out to lunch, even though I had packed a sandwich that day and was — as I explained to my friend — “brown-bagging it.” This set her off. She’d long made a game of pouncing upon words and phrases that sound filthy but aren’t, and here I’d handed her a doozy. She shut…
SAT 8/20 The Finer Things Spectacular, which takes place at 6 p.m. Saturday at the Rockhill Club Mansion (4520 Kenwood), is supposed to bring together people who share an affinity for, you know, the finer things in life. And though we might think the party’s required guest credentials are a little elitist, Ken Lumpkins disagrees. “This event is for the…
FRI 8/19 We thought we’d be burned out on Grinders (417 East 18th Street, 816-472-5454) by now, but we love sitting outside at night with grass underfoot instead of concrete. Watch the Pornhuskers, Missouri Bultaco Association and Black Diamond Heavies perform in the Sculpture Garden at sunset Friday. — Annie Fischer What’s the Kitsch? Sample the Mairs at Goppert Theatre….
8/19-8/21 Just when we thought our hankering to participate in some Scottish Highland games was never going to be sated, along comes the 26th Annual Ethnic Enrichment Festival. The three-day heritage fest, which starts at 6 p.m. Friday at Swope Park (Meyer Boulevard and Swope Parkway), features Kansas Citians from more than 50 countries. Each day brings a schedule…
TUE 8/23 We’re too cheap to funnel even a smidgen of our paychecks into the available 401(k), but we remember from Finance 101 that making investments as early as possible is advisable. (The closest we come is fun with online mortgage calculators; they don’t require real money, so it’s sorta like shopping with credit cards.) Those who want to create…
