Anticon Records has built its underground following on artsy and experimental hip-hop, which generally translates into very few diamonds and a lot of rough. Since the label’s inception, Berkeley art-school dropout Yoni Wolf has added his own indie-rock spin to projects such as Greenthink and Clouddead. With a penchant for live instruments and pop hooks, his present four-piece, simply called…
In addition to his beats, DJ Young Einstein is known for his 8-pound Dookie Gold Rope, which, according to legend, is an $80,000 chunk of metal (but we wouldn’t plot to ambush Ugly Duckling based on that rumor). Einstein claims that the gold chain has been worn by some of hip-hop’s biggest innovators, including Jam Master Jay and Afrika Bambaataa….
Six years ago, Shooter Jennings, son of outlaw-country legend Waylon Jennings, ditched Nashville for Los Angeles and rock-and-roll dreams with his band, Stargunn. It wasn’t long before the past caught up with him. Did your father’s death in 2002 have an impact on your musical redirection from rock to country? Yeah, it definitely did. But I was getting older, too,…
Some grand faiths have their own adversaries (like, say, Pharaohs and Pharisees) to scourge the faithful. But for those of us who hold music on high, there is but one many-faced demon — named not Legion, but Record Company. As digital music leads us to the promised land, we must declare a fatwa eternal on those who are but leeches…
Lucky Brewgrille isn’t the first name that comes to mind when hip-hop is mentioned, but then again, neither is Ugly Duckling. At first glance, Ugly Duckling looks like a PG version of the Beastie Boys. MCs Andy Cooper and Dizzy Dustin pass the mike as though engaged in a game of hot potato while DJ Young Einstein, who sports a…
Edwin Morales and Stevie Cruz are an odd couple. They’re definitely not the sort of pair you’d expect behind the decks at Neon, Lawrence’s biggest weekly dance party, a Thursday-night ’80s and ’90s mashup that started almost four years ago at the late La Tasca and now routinely fills The Granada. Morales, who spins as DJ Konsept, is tall and…
Failed romantics and lusty drinkers of Kansas City, meet the National. It’s a guaranteed new favorite band for anyone who identifies with the phrase Dear, you better get a drink in you before you start to bore us. That line’s from “Slipping Husband,” the second track on the National’s second album, Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers. It starts as a…
The Weather Man, starring Nicolas Cage as a disappointment of a son and a failure of a father, was screened for critics in the spring, before its April release was pushed to October, ostensibly to allow for the off chance that Cage or Michael Caine (as Cage’s father) might be nominated for Academy Awards. But those who saw the movie…
This fall, the roll call of gigantic ghosts inhabiting cinematic biography continues unabated, with Joaquin Phoenix as a shrunken Johnny Cash in Walk the Line, David Strathairn as an inscrutable Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck, and Philip Seymour Hoffman as the ambitiously manipulative Truman Capote in, what else, Capote. The Cash biopic, sadly, possesses all…
Over the hurdles: I’m the assistant boys’ and girls’ cross-country coach and head girls’ track coach at Truman High School. This letter is in response to Tony Ortega’s “Track Scars” (September 1), which stated: “Since firing, cross country and track at Truman have suffered a steep decline.” In defense of our athletes, who went through the loss of their coaches…
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, but we figure she’s still learned lots of good life lessons. So listen up, y’all. Have the black men you know become even more macho in order to refute accusations of…
In our continuing effort to provide depth and nuance to matters of great civic importance, we’ll now summarize the debate about whether the people of Kansas City should even think about whether to build a downtown baseball stadium: Omigod! Shut up! Shut up, or you’ll wreck EVERYTHING! In case you didn’t recognize it, that’s the hysterical wailing of the city’s…
The Strip was at a dinner party a few weeks back when it heard a mighty juicy story that sounded perfect for Halloween tellin’. One of the guest’s brothers had worked at Crown Center years ago and used to come home talking about how the Hyatt Regency Hotel was haunted. Now, even a sirloin as skeptical as this one was…
It’s a Wednesday night at 11, and the Del Rio is popping. A young man, loosened up from earlier drinking at the nearby Oasis, grabs a woman, and they go reeling over the dance floor. He holds the back of her long sweater away from her body like a cape for an invisible bull. Other couples join them, their dances…
We’ve all been kicked in the junk by Marvel superheroes before. Watching Elektra was like two hours of nut-pummeling by a relentless, sac-hating donkey. But superhero films — even bad ones — gross bazillions of dollars. So it’s no surprise that Marvel is cashing in with a slew of licensed videogames. Some are walloping-good fun — X-Men Legends and Incredible…
ABBA: The Movie (Universal) AC/DC: And Then There Was Rock (Chrome Dreams) Alias: The Complete Fourth Season (Buena Vista) Audioslave: Live in Cuba (Sony) The Beat That My Heart Skipped (Wellspring) Bewitched (Columbia/Tristar) The Day of the Triffids (Pro-Active) Dominion: A Prequel to the Exorcist (Warner) Face (Image) Herbie: Fully Loaded (Buena Vista) House of Wax (1953 & 2005) (Warner)…
Titanic: Special Collector’s Edition (Paramount Home Video) Loved and loathed in equal measure, Titanic nonetheless is among the few modern-day movies deserving of lavish treatment; this boxed set, three discs with three hours of new stuff, feels almost as big a production as the feature itself. Writer-director James Cameron, never one to let well enough alone, includes some 45…
In KC, we’re all about the dive bars. You know what we mean. We blanch at the thought of paying a cover charge, and we deem any drink over $6 to be expensive. Call us cheap or call us hickish, but the dive bar rules here. So, in this spirit of diveophilia, we decided to spend an evening at…
Even in the best of circumstances, opening a new restaurant is a time-consuming, nerve-racking process. There are permits to obtain, liquor licenses to seek (a notoriously slow-moving process), zoning codes to meet, equipment to install and, in most urban locations, a required number of parking spaces to acquire or lease. Ken Baker, the chef-owner of Pachamama’s (see review), had planned…
For the past eight years, Lawrence’s Pachamama’s has been located in a spacious, lodge-style building — visually dramatic, but not exactly cozy or intimate — hidden behind a big Hy-Vee on one side and the Alvamar Golf Course on the other. It’s just far enough from the lively business district centered on Lawrence’s Massachusetts Street to make lunch business impossible….
FRI 10/21 The Kansas City Flatfile exhibit at the H&R Block Artspace (16 East 43rd Street, 816-561-5563) speaks to our inner dawdler. Too often when we’re looking at art in big galleries, a security guard’s vacant stare or a tour group’s chattering onslaught makes us nervous and we move on, just as we were beginning to make sense of the…
SUN 10/23 Elliott Smith’s suicide two years ago was a poignant loss to the music community, but it wasn’t entirely unexpected. Over five albums, Smith had made a habit of inviting listeners into the darkest parts of his soul, often revealing a lost and tormented young man. Like Morrissey before him, Smith possessed the secret map that leads to the…
FRI 10/21 A year after ending its 86-year stretch without a world championship, the Boston Red Sox made an unceremonious exit from the 2005 playoffs. But the team can take solace in many individual accomplishments, such as David Ortiz’s major-league-leading 148 RBIs and hirsute former Royal Johnny Damon’s team-high .316 batting average. Numbers such as these form the basis for…
SAT 10/22 The Heartland Men’s Chorus calls this year’s Dinner of Note benefit “The Roaring ’20s,” and not just because its members love The Great Gatsby. The chorus fetes its 20th season at 7 p.m. Saturday at Starlight Theatre (4600 Starlight Road). Tickets are $125. Call 816-931-3338 or see www.hmckc.org. — Rebecca Braverman Rees’ Pieces This sculptor does the monster…
