On a random Tuesday night, we stopped in at Cactus Café to drink its recently returned fishbowl (mmm … 64 ounces of fruity alcoholic goodness). However, we encountered an awesome surprise amid this bar’s usual meat-markety atmosphere: special guest Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite. Sweet! Tagging along were Research Assistants Erica, Cece and Bernie. Our night had started with some…
There’s already a Stroud’s Restaurant & Bar (see review) in the Northland, so we can probably rule out the bustling Zona Rosa shopping mecca as a potential site for a new Stroud’s for owner Mike Donegan. But Zona Rosa has lured another celebrity restaurateur to its little faux “village” of shops, bars and eating joints: Richard Ng, the workaholic owner…
I’ll admit it — I’ve been in a funky chicken funk ever since Mike Donegan, the owner of Stroud’s Restaurant & Bar, decided to let Kansas City have its way and peck up the property at 85th Street and Troost in order to replace the aging Troost Avenue Bridge and widen the street. Donegan accepted the city’s financial settlement and…
Nothing but Networking TUE 11/29 After recent visits by big-name curators Hamza Walker of Chicago’s Renaissance Society and Glenn Lowry of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, now comes the Hammer Museum’s James Elaine. The mastermind behind the University of California, Los Angeles’ Hammer Projects — a veritable launching pad for under-recognized artists such as James Gobel, Jim Isermann, Karen…
11/25-12/30 To honor 10 years of squeezing man feet into sparkly pumps, Ron Megee’s Late Night Theatre (1531 Grand, 816-235-6222) celebrates its past. This is either charming (think teenage moppets paging through old yearbooks) or unsettling (like Norma Desmond mainlining past glories in Sunset Boulevard). Either way, we can promise this: The boys will be dolled to the nines…
11/24-11/26 Were you angry when the red and green M&Ms appeared — one day after Halloween? How about the Christmas music that you’ve been tuning out since November 2? Get over it. It’s an annual ritual in Kansas City: Fill up on food all day Thursday, then fight your fellow man for parking spaces on your way to the Plaza…
THU 11/24 Over the last couple of months, we’ve heard a lot of whispering about how much the Record Bar, KC’s newest music venue, would affect the Crossroads’ dens of hipness (specifically, the Brick). We’re not drawing conclusions just yet, but the Fat Sal Señor Ozgood Soundsystem — a nightlife staple at Jilly’s on Broadway for, like, ever —…
Randy Cohen writes “The Ethicist” column in The New York Times Magazine, weighing in with his opinions on how to solve readers’ moral quandaries. He’s also an award-winning television writer (for The Rosie O’Donnell Show and Late Night With David Letterman). He spoke to the Pitch from his home in New York City. How does one get on this career…
Thursday, November 24 Considering all your war involvement, do you think it’s possible you have anger-management issues? To what extent is Tom Pendergast involved in your administration? And what was your deal with Jews, anyway? On “The Buck Stops Here” — a special installment of Mike Murphy’s Mid-Morning Medley radio program at 11 a.m. today on KKFI 90.1 — acclaimed…
Bill Rainey sees a correlation between music and clothing, and he wants to strengthen it in his midtown boutique, B Blaze. “Hip-hop, skate, emo — a lot of movements in the music industry have a certain fashion that goes along with them,” he says. “So I just try to keep up on that.” Before he opened his clothing store…
Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story A class-A crowd pleaser guaran-damn-teed to make you hiccup the Holly songbook all the way home from Hallmark Land. The script is silly, but the show’s achievement is the way it evokes that thrill of creation. Sure, “Peggy Sue” couldn’t have come together as quickly as it does here, but there’s joy in watching it…
Charlotte Street Foundation The Charlotte Street Foundation awards show isn’t your average group show, lumping together somewhat disparate artists with a theme or linking their work by period or subject. Instead, the CSF artists whose work hangs together at Johnson County Community College’s Gallery of Art share something else: recognition and the funding that comes with it. This year’s award…
ill Foote-Hutton’s Carnivale Pilgrimage conjures unsettling aspects of the circus while showing off her skills as a ceramist. Anyone who attended the opening night for Foote-Hutton’s mixed-media installations knew to expect a good time when balloons attached to a hand rail led into the Green Door gallery. Foote-Hutton’s mother was dressed as a harlequin, and she strolled around playing with…
Every year, it starts earlier. We’re just staring down Thanksgiving, and already, everywhere I go, I hear those musty, grating chestnuts: conservative complaints about some liberal conspiracy to ban Christmas. Nevermind that no liberal would ever come out against a day off work. And never mind that liberal conspiracies, as a rule, fail to get past the should-we-hold-a-garage-sale-or-a-bake-sale? meeting….
Even misfits need a place to fit in. If I had to explain punk rock in one sentence, that would be it. In the punk-rock scene, you can rightfully demand acceptance when you don’t wear deodorant or shave your armpits, when you’d rather sleep on sagging thrift-store couches than work for the man, when you dye your hair unnatural colors….
It’s been a big year for local hip-hop, but Lawrence MC and producer Johnny Quest falls short with his latest re-lease. This is for all of my people that need justice/Bangin’ beats with a little bit of substance/Put some life in your stereo box, go on and bump this/If you feel the revolution is near, raise up and pump fists…
Never was a record so aptly titled as Rogue Wave’s debut, Out of the Shadow. Initially released in 2003 by a Bay Area micro-indie, the LP easily could have become one of those legendary lost gems. Instead, Sub Pop swooped in to the rescue, re-releasing the disc in 2004 and sending the band on tour with such like-minded labelmates as…
This here scribe is in love, boy. Since Miami rap diva Trina’s summer appearance on the remixes of Webbie’s successful single “Bad Bi**h” and Ebony Eyez’s “In Ya’ Face,” Slip and Slide’s first lady has been in high demand. Now, back for her third album, the Queen of Miami has released another jewel, Glamorest Life, a diamond-enhanced, seductive, classy effort….
I embrace the conflict of interest in writing about the Earlies. Singer and guitarist Brandon Carr and samples-and-keys whiz John Mark Lapham are friends of mine from college who have always made sweet music together, and now they’re getting their due — earning it, that is — which includes frothingly positive reviews in the big Brit mags: Mojo, Uncut, Q,…
There is an oddly disturbing group lurking in KC that has more in common with Lightning Bolt and Melt Banana than most of the hipster noise bands roaming the country. Buried under a deluge of tricky jazz lies the intricate chaos of Malachy Papers. The band’s sound owes as much to Theolonius Monk as it does to Merzbow, bridging…
For soulful, heavy-metal alienation, not much can trump early Black Sabbath, including fledgling Columbus, Ohio, duo Early Man. Guitarist, singer and songwriter Mike Conte has clearly spent more than a little time worshipping at the altar of Sabbath, among other headbanging heathens. On Early Man’s Matt Sweeney-produced debut, Closing In, Conte perfectly emulates Ozzy Osbourne’s theatrical, comic-book-steroid-case-in-turmoil howl as black-leather…
A hardcore group with a heart, Most Precious Blood co-headlined last year’s Compassion Over Fashion tour, which promoted PETA and other animal-rights organizations. The New York quintet also instituted its own Take Your Pets to Work Day, letting dogs commandeer lead vocals on several bonus tracks. Singer Rob Fusco delivers thoughtful lyrics in a moderate, enunciated shout, the kind of…
Minnesota winters are brutal, which might account for the growing number of “angster rap” outfits coming out of the Twin Cities, but St. Paul’s Heiruspecs chisels its own identity out of this frozen tundra. Fronted by MCs Felix and Maud’Dib (who possesses the vocal dexterity of Michael Winslow from Police Academy), this five-piece combines the sample-free, live instrumentation of the…
Outfits cursed with the dreaded title “bar band” typically live out their careers on a frat-party-fueled trip to nowhere. Manhattan, Kansas’ Pomeroy, however, may be one of the few exceptions to that rule. Granted, any self-respecting music snob would rather take cheese graters to his ears than listen to the band’s bounding bongo beats, pseudo-rap vocals and Maroon 5-esque jams….
