Ben Gibbard just woke up, and he’s in no mood to talk to anyone, let alone a reporter, let alone a reporter asking about a certain TV show-slash-pop-culture icon with which his band, Death Cab for Cutie, has become hopelessly tied. The last thing someone talking to Gibbard should do is mention Death Cab in the context of Fox teen…
Center of gravitas: Regarding Justin Kendall’s “He Don’t Need No Education” (December 1): I never get tired of reading about that amazing collection of imbeciles on the other side of the state line. There is just something fascinating about a group of people who don’t seem to mind a bit that the entire world points at them and laughs. Unfortunately,…
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 first installment of the Priceless Gift Guide, because even boss bitches love the holidays. For the extra girl, the fourth or fifth or sixth wheel in a group…
As soon as it became obvious that 2005 was going to be an especially bloody year in Kansas City’s urban core, the Strip recalls that tag-team activists Ron Hunt and Alonzo Washington started showing up at press conferences and neighborhood meetings, hoping to help stop the violence. The thugs haven’t listened, though. As of the Pitch’s press time, 121 people…
Historically, the Santaland at Antioch Center has drawn crowds worthy of St. Nick. Gary Dull remembers days when a veteran mall Santa like himself would attract a line of children and parents that stretched clear to the food court. On opening night this year, Dull donned the red suit in the office of the Northland mall and steeled himself for…
Last October we told you about Drinking Liberally, a national organization whose local chapter meets Sundays at the Hurricane with the promise of a social gathering, not a political meeting. Since then, however, another DL meeting has cropped up — a midweek version every Wednesday at Harling’s Upstairs. Well, every Wednesday except today, that is. Today the members scored an…
For some time, Danny O’Neill has been Kansas City’s own “Mister Coffee,” thanks to his charismatic personality and the great success of his coffee roasting and sales empire called The Roasterie. Now he has opened a free-standing coffeehouse, the Roasterie Café (6223 Brookside Boulevard), and his cup really runneth over. He has earned rave reviews for the coffee drinks, the…
On the same weekend when fights broke out over the Xbox 360 release, it seemed appropriate to head over to Dave & Buster’s, the newly opened video-game emporium near the Kansas Speedway. Various friends had described it as a “casino with video games” or “Showbiz Pizza with hard liquor.” Unfortunately, animatronic bears didn’t figure into the adult-arcade conversion. Flashing back…
There’s an old Gaelic proverb, Cha d’dhùin doras nach d’fhosgail doras, which roughly translates as “No door ever closed, but another one opened.” It’s a nice way of explaining how the beloved midtown saloon and restaurant the Romanelli Grill quietly ended its 70-year run in July and opened its doors in October as an Irish pub called The Gaf Pub…
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…
Hanging in the Hallar Gallery are three indelible depictions of a hefty, mustachioed and bespectacled cowboy named Nathan. He’s a good ol’ boy who cherishes his right to carry guns and drink, and in Lou Marak’s paintings, he preens in self-satisfaction. Nathan is as repulsive as he is unforgettable. Elsewhere in the gallery are Marak’s nudes, which seem ripped from…
The first fart joke, I’d hazard, probably came about 30 seconds after the first meal. After that, its descendents have been wind in the sails — or perhaps gas in the tank — of our literature, funking up Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dante “Trumpets of Their Asses” Alighieri. Mark Twain imagines Walter Raleigh essaying “a godless and rockshivering blast” at the…
Phocas.net Four-Year Anniversary Party It’s hard to believe that Todd Comer’s Phocas.net is only four years old. It seems like Comer has been documenting the dance-music scene for years, giving constant boosts to KC’s best DJs, bringing in world-class acts and providing the region’s electronic-music fans with the Midwest’s best events calendar, plus scoops on beat mechanics nationwide. And don’t…
If Sigur Rós gives us the sounds of glaciers grinding together, what KC’s Actors & Actresses — whose moody post-rock is in some ways similar but more direct emotionally and less majestic overall — offer up is more intimate, somewhere between icebergs and ice cubes, the aural equivalent of something hard and frozen bobbing in water warmer than itself. It’s…
The Darkness (Atlantic) Anyone confused by 2003’s worldwide Darkness phenomenon — i.e., How does a band this goofy compete with U2 on the charts? — will remain so. The Darkness has nothing up its spandex sleeve but exuberant hard rock and satire. Nevertheless, One Way Ticket to Hell … and Back does differ from the debut, Permission to Land. For…
One of the most original bands ever to gain a bankable following is beginning to sound a little too comfortable in its own self-invented genre. Not that any other band has duplicated the formula: metalcore mosh with auctioneer-gone-mad vocals, incantatory harmonies and exotic-stringed acoustic breaks. And few other bands with such Zappaesque contempt for pop culture have landed on MTV….
Jazzanova has made its mark for long remixes — at times, exceedingly long — for nearly a decade. The six-member, German-based collective (or, as the group’s label name suggests, Kollektiv) is geared more toward interpretation than creation, and this compilation gathers four years of its favorite works, each one an extended play on house, Brazilian and (obviously) jazz cuts. When…
Despite living in a region known for stylistically inept emo-pop bands, the Girl Is a Ghost (pictured) writes charming pop-rock songs without any contrived, wussy-born-of-cornfields lyrics. The band, which has been together for about three years, owes its sound to artists such as the Pixies and Elvis Costello and also to Buddy Holly and just about any catchy group from…
To everyone who’s been sleeping on the local rock scene like pothead seniors: The makeup music SAT is Saturday night at the Hurricane. But even the A students should be excited about this tremendous local bill. Three of the city’s hands-down-best bands — Doris Henson, the Golden Republic and Roman Numerals — are not only playing the same show but…
Dale Watson Help me, Merle, I’m breakin’ out in a Nashville rash/I’m too country now for country, just like Johnny Cash, Dale Watson sang in 1995’s “Nashville Rash,” probably with Garth Brooks in mind. A decade later, with his disdain for flash and his deep, old-fangled croon, he’s not only the anti-Big and Rich but also the alternative to the…
Kansas native Melora Creager is a woman lost in time. Even her New York City band’s Web site seems confused, listing its origin as 1891 beside photos of the trio dressed like Victorian-era dominatrixes. Originally dubbed the Traveling Ladies’ Cello Society and founded as a means for Creager to experiment with her beloved cello — she knows how to bow,…
It’s no shock that the All-American Rejects’ Tyson Ritter (vocals, bass) and Nick Wheeler (guitar) first teamed up musically in their early high school years — the Rejects’ inoffensive pop-punk is perfect for the tween who can’t handle the brutal assault of a Blink 182 album. But if pandering to the mall-rat masses is your business model, you might as…
Setting the prairie afire Friday are the Meat Purveyors, those punkgrass pioneers from Austin, Texas, who — like those cousins of yours whose reckless drinking almost makes the holidays bearable — broke up real good and then got back together, only to grow into something tougher still. They respect the conventions of genre the way rivers respect state lines. Powered…
