There’s something in The Wizard of Oz for everyone — and something to scare the crap out of everyone. As a kid, I was plagued by nightmares of tornadoes that spoke and struck vindictively. When Jim Ginavan, director of the Oz Museum in Wamego, Kansas, finds out it was the tornado that scared me, he incorrectly assumes that I grew…
nterrupted by last week’s Best Of Kansas City issue, we’re playing catch-up this week, turning late to a pair of shows that might contribute to next year’s bests. Closing first is George Bernard Shaw’s Man and Superman, a light Nietzschean comedy that finds the Kansas City Repertory Theatre at its best: lavish sets, professional acting and a classic piece of…
Columbia, Missouri, can do just fine without us, thank you. The town’s music scene is apparently strong enough to merit its own nickname — even Lawrence doesn’t have that. And over the past 15 years or so, Comomusic has produced dozens of great bands that no one’s ever heard of. The town has 117 active artists, according to Comomusic.com, which…
Artists like Mark Eitzel have recorded albums like Candy Ass before killing themselves. Returning to the electronic textures of 2001’s The Invisible Man, Candy Ass has neither that album’s fitful stabs at optimism nor its breezy hooks. Instead, Eitzel muses bleakly about heartsickness, decrepitude, rodents and the potential of Hall and Oates records to induce ennui. The mesmerizing “My Pet…
In 2002, Broken Social Scene didn’t have much to prove. Most members of the Toronto collective were already playing in other Canadian indie bands (Stars, Metric, Do Make Say Think), and because they were a ragtag group of relative musical unknowns, their second album was likely to be as forgotten as their first. But You Forgot It In People wasn’t,…
Between working with Miles Davis and Art Blakey in jazz and Steely Dan and Joni Mitchell in pop, saxophonist Wayne Shorter has covered a lot of ground over the course of his career. And there’s good reason why so many have come calling on him over the years — whereas others are content to recycle what’s expected, Shorter remains one…
Even though his band’s pun-loving moniker conjures ’90s funk-rap-metal or something equally godawful, don’t be fooled. Milwaukee’s Decibully is a beautiful collision of Americana and Britpop. With banjos plunking alongside reverb-drenched guitar and marching snares leading alt-rock choirs, Decibully’s new album, Sing Out, America! (Polyvinyl), sounds as if Spirtualized kidnapped Kansas City folksters the Afterparty and forced them into…
The Slow Signal Fade: Here’s a band that should’ve gotten some of the drooling praise that was slathered upon the similarly guitar-drenched music of Longwave. Then again, hype like that is never good for any artist, so let’s keep our fingers crossed that this Los Angeles four-piece can get the credit it deserves without being sucked through the blades of…
If the rock gods had been just, Stellastarr would have sold a shit-ton of records with 2004’s self-titled debut. Rife with accessible, hook-laden tracks such as “My Coco” and “Jenny,” the album at least put the group on the path toward critical acclaim. For a brief period of time, less gifted acts, including the Killers, opened for Stellastarr. For some…
DeVotchKa hails from Boulder, Colorado, but its exotic songs defy geographical pinpointing. Using a vast instrumental arsenal that includes tuba, theremin, accordion and vibraphone, DeVotchKa performs original songs that sound as if they’ve migrated through word-of-mouth transmission over hundreds of years, accumulating regional influences as they traveled. Nick Urata narrates this epic nomadic journey, and his vintage microphones capture every…
Tim McTague, guitarist for UnderOath, place your right hand on the Bible and swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth … CH: How do you feel about being labeled a Christian metalcore band? TM: I think that’s exactly what we’re here for, honestly. It’s why the band exists, and I know that’s why I…
Here lies the Wall of Crap. Patented on the esoteric 2004 album The Captain Is Dead, Let the Drum Corps Dance, Minus Story’s self-labeled recording technique saw the Lawrence group smudging its own chamber-pop masterpieces like self-sabotaging versions of Phil Spector. In the Wall of Crap, drum taps landed out of time, vocals strayed past their range and every element…
All hail X, the band that has somehow remained unembarrassing as it ages, a most difficult task for punk rockers. Just look to its contemporaries the Germs to witness how sad punk rock has become. Despite the 1980 death of singer Darby Crash, the remaining members of the band want their glory back and are reuniting, using pretty-boy actor Shane…
One of the great heroes of honky-tonk, Billy Joe Shaver has been crafting raw and lean country music for the whole of his rough-and-tumble, tragedy-packed life. Born in rural Texas in 1939, Shaver hitched a ride to an unlikely musical career when he was almost 30 and ended up having the likes of Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and…
Mine was a Church of Christ family, and in that particular denomination of evangelical Christianity, instruments are forbidden in worship. Many C of C people love music regardless, and it’s doubtful that a cacophonous pipe organ behind the pulpit would have caused anyone to stray into rock and roll. Still, when it came to secular music, I was more likely…
He’s the same guy, really. He’s about a decade older than he was when all of this started, but the man picking at the carryout pad Thai his wife has brought for him, is the same old Jim Suptic clad in layers of standard-issue flannel and faded denim. “I don’t know if I like this,” he says, twisting and lifting…
Her name is Domino Harvey, and she is a bounty hunter. If you’ve seen even one TV spot or theatrical trailer for Domino, you’ve had that message ground into your brain like an annoying jingle. What you may not know is that Domino Harvey was a real person, daughter of actor Laurence Harvey (of Manchurian Candidate fame), and a model…
It happened almost with the first step off the airplane at the Toronto airport last month. Someone, a friend or merely a concerned stranger, would stop to warn you about Elizabethtown, the Cameron Crowe film that screened early in the Toronto International Film Festival and was greeted by critics with scornful laughter and derisive cheers. “Horrible,” said one colleague,…
Jimmy eat world: What happened to “Jimmy the Fetus”? That little bundle of wit was the best thing in this paper. Michael Rost Lawrence Editor’s note: As we reported back on August 11, Jimmy the Fetus was last seen river rafting with Sen. Sam Brownback, saying he’d be back after a Bible-study refresher. We haven’t heard from the little guy…
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. My sister is 15, and I’m afraid she’s going to get pressured into sex too early….
Like many, many meat lovers all around the country, the Strip drips with anticipation each year as the American Royal Barbecue approaches. But this partyin’ porterhouse turned green around the edges when it heard that, on the very first night — all ever-lovin’ hell broke loose at one of the tents, requiring the most unsavory deployment of a paddy wagon….
It’s two days before the start of the NFL’s regular season, and Chiefs fans have gathered to help kick it off. The 12th Annual Red Friday Football Luncheon takes place inside the Pavilion, a domed banquet hall next to Arrowhead Stadium. After filling their plates from the buffet line, more than 400 red-wearing attendees take their seats. At one table,…
Alicia Keys: Unplugged (J) Audioslave: Live in Cuba (Sony Music) The Best of the Chris Rock Show: Volumes 1 and 2 (Warner Bros.) Bomb the System (UMVD) The Bridge of San Luis Rey (Warner Bros.) The Dresden Dolls: Paradise (Fontana) 11:14 (Warner Bros.) The Ellen DeGeneres Collection: The Beginning/Here & Now (Warner Bros.) Fat Albert’s Christmas Special (Ventura) The Fresh…
Arrested Development: Season Two (Fox Home Entertainment) The best show on TV — which you’d know if you actually watched the thing — also serves as one of the best reasons for the existence of DVD. No show rewards multiple viewings the way Arrested Development does. The second season, about the dysfunctional Bluth clan, led by an on-the-lam father…
