With a Blade TV show in the works from Spike TV and powder-faced My Chemical Romance fans carrying the goth torch at Hot Topic, this would seem the perfect time to resurrect the Castlevania franchise. Castlevania debuted 20 years ago on the Nintendo Entertainment System and was an instant classic, worthy of shelf space next to such contemporaries as…
Nowhere Man (Image Entertainment) There’s good reason why you’ve never heard of this UPN show from the mid-’90s, which lasted 25 episodes before getting shuttled off to, well, nowhere. It’s a convoluted mind-fuck that owes its existence as much to The Prisoner as The Fugitive, and if you missed one episode, nothing else made much sense. Thomas Veil (Bruce…
Absurd Person Singular Kansas City’s singular Mark Robbins directs and acts in this dark yuletide farce, in which three British couples of varying stations celebrate three consecutive Chirstmases. At each party, our perspective is limited to the kitchen, meaning we get more kvetching than celebrating. Despite big, door-slamming laughs, what concerns playwright Alan Ayckbourn is how the classes chafe as…
Beautiful Fractals Barista and visual artist Leto Blackman apparently isn’t shy about self-promotion. As the general manager of the coffee shop that exhibits his work, Blackman has taken advantage of the position’s perks. One of them is the response he hears from behind the counter as customers — primarily coffee drinkers, not necessarily art enthusiasts — react to his…
It’s not hard to predict how Ang Lee’s controversial Brokeback Mountain will play in John Wayne country. This romantic tragedy about a pair of lean, windburned cowpokes who secretly live to poke each other flies in the face of everything that most people in Wyoming or Utah or Colorado (or western Kansas) think about the West — and about…
I hate New Year’s Eve. It’s a holiday with too many unfulfilled expectations — “Are we having fun yet?” — and too many excuses for getting way too drunk, too stoned or eating too much. My loathing of New Year’s Eve dates back to the start of my career as a waiter. Yes, it’s a lucrative night, but it’s also…
Going to a new restaurant is always a learning experience, even when the stuff I learn is completely bizarre. Take, for example, the new Trofi Restaurant in the Overland Park Doubletree Hotel. On my first visit to this newly renovated dining room — it replaced the aging Rotisserie Restaurant in the 24-year-old hotel property — I asked our waitress…
Eating black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day brings good luck. But dancing to the Black-Eyed Peas’ “My Humps” on New Year’s Eve is kids’ stuff. Here’s a quick rundown of some of the weekend’s best grown-up dance parties. First, it’s house heaven at Kabal: Friday, Deep Fix brings renowned Detroit DJ Chuck Daniels to drop the needle with KC favorite…
Say what you will about the anachronistic concept of the beauty pageant. After going to the Ms. K.E.G. competition last week at Johnny’s Tavern in Shawnee, we had our own epiphany: Theoretically, it is a good place to meet guys. Uh, that is, assuming you’re into guys who are into ogling women in bikinis. The Kansas City Entertainment Group…
When they’re not getting down in the usual Delta blues-skronk style of New Orleans, the Iguanas mesh together their own synthesis of musical ideas, cultivated from a rich blend of blues, country, Latin, funk and rock. Banished from home by Hurricane Katrina, the band has found a new residence in Austin, Texas — and, of course, on America’s highways, touring…
After years of reconstructing their lineup, label and sound, the Architects have built a solid reputation as the KC rock scene’s ultimate showmen. Steeped heavily in punk, mod and Motown, their technically flawless live shows are a rousing assault of whiskey-soaked raw power. Lead singer Brandon Phillips makes like a preacher, sermonizing the evils of bad cops and wicked women…
Enigma isn’t exactly the smartest card in the deck for a fledgling band to play. Radiohead might make it look easy, but even that band didn’t mess with the weird stuff until its third album. In the real world of ground-level recording, wrapping a riddle inside a mystery inside a song is like throwing your demo straight into the A&R…
Little surprises really do make life better. Like finding an old friend on Myspace (and not seeing That Jerk in any of her pictures) or getting an extra bean burrito in your Taco Bell sack. Or when a local band completely overwhelms you with how great it is. Admittedly, Kelpie’s name sounds a bit prepubescent, but once you get past…
Aeolian’s guitarists Bill Heinen and Mike Faltas originally bonded (after meeting in a KU literature class) over their mutual love of the Pixies, but the band they co-founded doesn’t always resemble the grunge-punk godfathers. Heinen’s clear, confident vocals recall classic-rock acts such as Boston, whose singers always aimed for an arena’s cheap seats. Aeolian further fleshes out its power-pop melodies…
Stock and Bond: “Liberal Christians” demonstrating outside of Kit Bond’s office are wasting their time (Kansas City Strip, December 22). Bond doesn’t care. If it doesn’t pertain to his perennial re-election campaign, it is beneath his notice, as is evidenced by the smarmy form letters you receive if you take the trouble to write to his office about important issues…
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 Star says south Overland Park is Kansas City’s best suburb. What suburb would you pick? I’d choose Mission Hills. I want that huge Helzberg Diamonds estate. It’s old,…
Oh, dear readers, the meat patty would love to use this occasion to make sizzling predictions about all of the happenings that will make news in 2006. But the fact is, this rump roast still can’t get over all of the ridiculous headlines in its hometown over the last year. It’s hard to decide whether Missouri or Kansas had…
It’s been a year of cobbling together old genres rather than molding new ones, and there’s a definite trend toward composing music better suited to close listening than to lifestyle. Isolée: Wearemonster (Playhouse) What is this we in the title of Rajko Müller’s sophomore full-length under the name Isolée? Does Müller roll in the royal plural? Whatever the reason, we’re…
The global-fusion trend developing over the past decade reaped a bountiful harvest of outernational sounds that threatened to overshadow domestic releases in terms of musical innovation, if not pop-cultural magnitude. Colossus: West Oaktown (Om) Acid jazz made an official comeback in 2005, perhaps best symbolized by this double CD. The result of importing an English jazz-funkhead like Charlie Tate…
In 2005, pop music was rock music. Kelly Clarkson’s tarted-up “Since U Been Gone,” Ashlee Simpson’s Courtney Love-after-a-bender vocals, Hilary Duff’s collaborations with her Good Charlotte boy toy Joel Madden — even the biggest Top 40 starlets liked their guitars cranked up to a sassy 11. Death Cab for Cutie: Plans (Atlantic) The jangly, sepia-toned R.E.M. mash note “Soul Meets…
In 2005, Nashville hunks-in-arms such as Toby Keith tuned down their jingoist jingles, the Muzik Mafia treaded water and most of alt-country’s best contenders simply looked back. But as these 10 albums from country’s mainstream and underground demonstrate, these quiet scenes were still full of ferment beneath the surface. Only the top two finishers count as tours de force, and…
I’d like to direct a couple of questions at those in the business of making, releasing and promoting music, and I ask them with fists raised, eyes bulging and steam shooting out of my ears: What the fuck is this? What the fuck is wrong with you people? “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” By articulating what was on…
If hip-hop had a theme song in 2005, it wasn’t “Gold Digger” or “Lose Control” or “Candy Shop” or any tune that contained Mike Jones’ phone number. Instead, it was that old standard by the original rapper himself, Lou Reed: “I’m Waiting for the Man.” The man in this case was Jay-Z. All claims (including his own) to the contrary,…
My undying love for Dudes with Guitars Who Think Way Too Much About Girls is a critical liability now that rockism has become grounds for public execution. I can only hope that my final hours (before I am decapitated by Missy Elliott) are as graceful, poignant and unabashedly melodramatic as the odes to insecure dudeliness discussed and praised below. Spoon:…
