If there’s a lesson to be learned from Kansas City’s Stuck on Broadway, it’s that you can take the punk out of the suburbs, but you can’t take the suburbs out of the punk. Since re-joining forces less than a year ago, the Lenexa-born trio of Drew Scofield (lead vocals, bass), Steve Nick (guitar, vocals) and Jeff Polaschek (drums) —…
Back when the rock-and-roll lifestyle encouraged a destructive ribaldry that was neither cheeky nor ironic, Led Zeppelin reigned supreme. Golden-haired Robert Plant shimmied his shirtless, taut body into a sexual frenzy, shrieking I wanna give you my love! to the rabid crowd. Backstage, that’s just what he and his bandmates did. Though ’80s groups such as Motley Crue aped Zeppelin’s…
Vampires, lesbians and rock have long been intermingled, from David Bowie’s starring turn in the Sapphic oddity The Hunger to erstwhile Spacehog groupie Alyssa Milano’s softcore bloodsucker-fest Embrace of the Vampire. The all-male band Vampire Lezbos lacks for hot girl-on-girl action, but it manages to generate controversy asexually through its provocative political stances. From the unpleasant and indisputable (seal clubbing)…
For more than 20 years, They Might Be Giants has used an answering machine tied to a Brooklyn phone number to release its odds and ends. The number is still active at 718-387-6962, but its slogan has become “Always busy, often broken.” Technology has come a long way since Dial-A-Song’s humble beginnings, but the original spirit hasn’t been lost. See…
The hot reissue in 2005 wasn’t the catalog but the act. Comebacks are out. Repackaged credibility — an artist reaching back to the sound of his or her prime, coached by an admiring junior — is the new remastering. Impossibly precious singer Vashti Bunyan — whose one previous album (1970’s Just Another Diamond Day) went from curio to cause thanks…
Local country music legend Rex Hobart is back in town following an extended stay in wintry Buffalo, New York, and not-so-wintry Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Pitch shoots the bull with him to get to the bottom of his latest creation, the Honky-Tonk Standards Chuck Wagon Dinner Show. So, you’ve come back to KC after a three-year hiatus. Why…
I bought my first issue of Guitar World magazine in 1994. It had a picture of a young Pete Townshend on the cover, striking his birdman pose in a glorious, custom-made Union Jack jacket. At his waist was a Gibson ES-335, which was no doubt crescendoing into feedback heaven. I knew from then on that the mods — with their…
When asked about favorite Christmas, Hanukkah or Kwanzaa memories, most people remember the good times. You know, the stuff they write songs about to get you in the holiday spirit — deck the halls, fa la la la, and all that jazz. But when the Pitch asked these famous musicians the same question, instead of poignant and mirthful seasonal remembrances,…
“Agony and beauty for us live side by side,” laments Mameha (Michelle Yeoh), the most successful geisha in Gion. You’ll know how she feels. Memoirs of a Geisha, as directed by Chicago’s Rob Marshall, is beautiful to look at, but when it comes to the dialogue and storytelling, agony just might be the appropriate word. At least when this story…
Those who sit around wondering whether Munich is the work of an anti-Israel or just self-hating Jew — which is to say, Steven Spielberg, who has been branded both by Israeli officials and newspaper columnists in recent weeks — give the movie and its maker far too much credit. The story of how Israel’s government retaliated for the murder…
Double fault: In response to the person who wrote in and addressed the Haitian man, Alain, and bemoaned prejudice, bigotry and racism in this country by whites against blacks (Letters, December 15): Your statements seem to imply that this sort of behavior is one-sided, that black people couldn’t possibly have any prejudices, exhibit bigoted behaviors or hold racist beliefs about…
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. This week, she offers the second installment of the Priceless Gift Guide, because even boss bitches love the holidays. For your favorite bouncer: A good pair of Timberlands from Harold Pener at the…
Last Wednesday night, the Strip came upon a sad little congregation of characters. Huddled on a desolate downtown sidewalk, they clung to candles that a freezing wind relentlessly blew out. They wrapped scarves around their faces, homeless-style. Their gloved hands gripped prepared statements that they took turns reading. Where was Tiny freakin’ Tim? As it turned out, these weren’t…
On November 22, a small group of protesters stood outside the Hyatt Regency Crown Center as the city’s business and political elite arrived for the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce’s annual dinner. The driver of a Lincoln Town Car slowed and read the signs, which took aim at a guest of the event, Missouri Sen. Jim Talent. Read…
Ten minutes to go until showtime. Vince Flumiani is on his hands and knees in a foul stairwell behind the swank nightclub Blonde. Every second counts. He lays a pair of jungle camouflage pants on top of paper bags covering the greasy floor. They’re Da-Nang, a brand that costs about 200 bucks. You probably haven’t heard of the label yet….
The Amazing Race: The Seventh Season (Paramount) Battlestar Galactica: Season 2.0 (Universal) The Biggest Loser: The Workout (Lions Gate) Bob the Butler (First Independent) Cry_Wolf (MCA) ER: The Complete Fourth Season (Warner Bros.) The Exorcism of Emily Rose (Sony) Frankie & Johnny Are Married (MCA) The Great Raid (Miramax) Ice Men (Wolfe) Johnny Cash: Live From Austin, TX (New West)…
The myth of the Wild West has mutated over the past half-century. Once we thrilled to the wholesome exploits of the Lone Ranger; now we wallow in the mesmerizing depravity of HBO’s Deadwood. Film geeks can argue about when it started to change, but by 1992’s Unforgiven, pop culture was only big enough for one version of the Old West:…
Serenity (Universal) Joss Whedon’s film version of his TV series Firefly came and went like a lightning bug in October; the predicted phenom stuck around the multiplex just long enough to lose millions. But like Firefly, which sold enough boxed sets to warrant a movie, Serenity’s bound to do well on DVD, with its 15 minutes of deleted scenes,…
Bad News Bears (2005) (Paramount) The Beautiful Country (Sony) Death Race 2000: Special Edition (Buena Vista) F.I.S.T. (Columbia/Tristar) Gallipoli: Special Edition (Paramount) Gilmore Girls: The Complete Fifth Season (Warner Bros.) The Island (Universal) Kiss: Rock the Nation Live! (Image) The Last Day (Strand) Marvin Gaye: Behind the Legend (Red Dist.) Miami Vice: Season Two (MCA) Pretty Persuasion (Columbia/Tristar) The Producers:…
No wonder Iraq is a mess. If the battlefield in America’s Army: Rise of a Soldier is an accurate picture of what it’s like in the Middle East, we should cut and run ASAP. The United States Army’s officially licensed shooter puts you smack in the middle of the action in an Iraq-like country bearing all the familiar landmarks: desert…
Sin City: Recut, Extended, Unrated (Buena Vista) Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller’s near frame-for-frame adaptation of Miller’s bone-crunching comics finally gets a rewarding DVD treatment, following a shamefully sparse edition earlier this year. The theatrical cut boasts two commentary tracks (with Quentin Tarantino and Bruce Willis, among others), but there are also featurettes on the props, costumes, cars and makeup,…
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…
Generations: Ceramic Sculpture and Photography The Graffiti Room hides at the intersection of 39th Street and Broadway, sharing a block with a Supercuts and a video-game repair shop. The gallery’s name is literal, spray-painted onto aged, rusted metal. Inside is a senior-thesis exhibition by the Kansas City Art Institute’s Teri Frame, who obviously delights in using her familial lineage for…
Some people are too cool for school. And then some people own the school. Nikol Lohr has four schools in Kansas. They’re located squarely, she says, “at the intersection of No and Where.” Abandoned as a result of school consolidation in rural Kansas, the buildings went up for sale to the general public, and Lohr pounced at the opportunity to…
