To say this is to out oneself as a giant dork, but what the hell: There is nothing better, in all the world, than a clever table of contents. Maybe Vietnamese iced coffee. Maybe a good pair of socks, fresh out of the dryer. But otherwise? The fine-tuned table of contents takes the cake. When talking by phone with…
The Pitch Music Awards (PMAs) are finished at last. Nearly 4,000 ballots were counted, and all the nominees who were available on Friday night were treated by the newspaper to a buffet and fruity-flavored, primary-colored vodka drinks that had a leveling effect on everyone. Musician, critic, salesperson and fan came together as brother and sister — that is, until the…
Flee the Seen shouldn’t be this successful. By all music-business logic, a Christian-influenced, female-fronted screamcore band that was a virtual unknown a year and a half ago should not be able to conquer the entire local scene — and make a pretty decent stab at wooing national acts looking to fill opening slots, too. No way. Not a chance….
Sex on the breach: In Tony Ortega’s “Great White Feather” (Kansas City Strip, August 4), it is clear the author has an interest in protecting sex offenders. The author personally attacks Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline and ignores the fact that there are numerous predatory males who think nothing of manipulating young girls to use for sex. We need to…
Hip-hop MC Priceless Diamonds describes herself as a “boss bitch” who grew up boosting clothes and turning the occasional trick. She swears that she’s leading a straighter life now, though, and this week she has answers for our car questions. So listen up, y’all. Why are spinners cool? Can you still be a pimp if your ride doesn’t have dope…
This week’s cover story about anti-evolution Kansas Board of Education member Connie Morris, by new guy Justin Kendall , reminded this meat patty that the Sunflower State is determined to bring back the good old days. You know — the 19th century. Now, before you go accusing the Strip of Kansas-bashing, we want to point out that it’s not always…
By this summer, Connie Morris had made a name for herself on this side of Kansas. A member of the Kansas State Board of Education, the conservative Republican from St. Francis — a town with 1,497 residents in the far northwestern corner of the state, just 20 miles east of the Colorado line — had publicly written off the…
Karaoke drew us to Missie B’s, but its cheap drinks kept us going back (to the bar, that is). We’re huge fans of the weekday drinkfest, so when we heard that Missie B’s usually has something interesting going on every day (except Sundays) — beer busts, drag shows, a leather store — we headed over on a recent Thursday night…
I’m always up for some new culinary adventure — provided it won’t poison or blind me or make my skin break out. But I think I might draw the line at one of the featured dishes on the menu at this year’s Ethnic Enrichment Festival, August 19-21 at Swope Park. This brand-new twist on the Scottish delicacy haggis — a…
There’s no art to grilling a good hamburger or steak, and it really doesn’t require mastery in the kitchen to bake a cake or roast a chicken or whip up egg whites for a lemon meringue pie. However, a handful of local chefs deserve to be called artists for their skill, imagination, courage and discipline. Most of them are quite…
SUN 8/14 Dan Askew, Adrian Frost and Nick Owen share an entrepreneurial spirit that has made their store, Escapist Skateboarding (234 Northeast Barry Road, 816-436-2504), a staple in the Northland since it opened in 2000. (The Overland Park outpost opened at 11648 West 135th Street in 2004.) Their loyal customers know that the guys running the show at both spaces…
THU 8/11 We recently caught Hilary Duff on MTV’s TRL — lay off, we were on vacation — and although the blond-haired, blue-eyed teenybopper finally owned up in June to her romance with Good Charlotte’s faux-punk Benji, she didn’t offer details. Duff, who performs at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Kemper Arena (1800 Genessee, 816-931-3330), says she’s just a private person….
SUN 8/14 Singing “Rubber Ducky, you’re the one” is one of Ernie’s favorite pastimes. And it’s also what bystanders may find themselves humming at this year’s Citigroup Duck Derby. The deal: Adopt a duck online at www.synergyser vices.org, then cheer on your ducky as it bobs down Brush Creek. Funds raised go to Synergy Services’ crisis hot lines, residential services…
SAT 8/13 Nestled near the corner of Eighth Street and Minnesota Avenue, between Brotherhood Bank and a community theater, a 3,000-square-foot mural illustrates an entire culture’s past and present in radiant colors. Designed and installed by ten local high school students, with direction from artists Joe Faus and Alisha Gambino, the piece recognizes the several-thousand-strong Hmong presence in Kansas City,…
If anyone understands unpredictable hookups … well, we do. But when we caught wind of an event that threw Review magazine in bed with Bazooka’s, we were a bit shocked. And very curious to know how it happened. “The story’s kind of, uh, involved,” says Jori Sackin, the mastermind-by-default behind Summerbrawl, a wrestling extravaganza in the Zone Sculpture Park behind…
Thursday, August 11 Tonight we’re off to Lawrence in search of intellectual stimulation. First stop: the Spencer Museum of Art (1301 Mississippi, 785-864-4710) to see director David Cronenberg’s Spider, the second installment in the Spencer’s contemporary film series aimed at exploring the human mind. The film is based on a novel by Patrick McGrath, whose father was the medical superintendent…
Rob Walch always liked hearing himself on the radio. When he first moved to Kansas City in 1988, he jammed the phone lines of morning zoo crews as a caller and dreamed of someday being on the other end of the microphone. But with a wife and a career that moved him to Connecticut and Pennsylvania, Walch set aside notions…
From My Hometown is a good-hearted but lunkheaded show that seeks to pass off Crown Center as the Apollo Theatre. Young soul singers Philly, Memphis and Detroit — each from his namesake city and singing in its style — loiter in Harlem, round-robining through whatever oldies the producers can afford the rights to use. The three leads dazzle, especially Leonard…
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,…
Back in my grad-school days, a friend complained about the gutting one of her short stories had suffered at the hands of a man we’ll call August Professor Whose Books Are All Out of Print. She’d attempted something wild with the piece, assigning a fetus the role of narrator, and the results had been dismal. When August Professor laid…
It’s a calm Friday night in the serene Crossroads. A couple sits outside smoking on a stoop while, inside Rats — a new art shop on 17th Street and Holmes — four guys are drinking cold beer. They offer polite greetings and suggest that their visitor feel free to pick up items on the shelves to get a better look….
Taking London’s acid-jazz scene and giving it a little Golden State flavor, Greyboy’s 1993 debut, Freestylin’, displayed a perfect equilibrium between produced beats and free-form instrumentation. More than a decade later, this San Diego DJ still smudges the line between hip-hop and jazz while throwing in everything but the kitchen sink. 2001’s Mastered the Art, well, mastered the art of…
A decade ago, wacky ska preceded bling-bling rap as a crassly decadent musical movement. With choreographed horn sections inflating their ranks like air-filled cheeks, groups in this subgenre traveled in tour caravans. The most successful of these acts, the Clueless-canonized Mighty Mighty Bosstones, even carried a designated dancer on its roster, paralleling the equally superfluous hip-hop hype man. But…
Ben Folds is one of pop music’s sharpest wits (in print and on disc), but that wouldn’t mean much if the songs weren’t there. (Folds’ touring partner Rufus Wainwright is equally articulate; for evidence of his smarts, see the interview.) This year’s uneven but often stirring Songs for Silverman all but abandons Folds’ familiar glibness in favor of muted introspection,…
