Hailing from the Motor City, Deadstring Brothers create a whiskey-soaked, rollicking sound that lands far from past Detroit expatriates such as the MC5 and the Stooges. It’s closer to Southern rockers Drive-By Truckers and My Morning Jacket — in fact, the five roots-rocking Brothers have toured with the latter groups (and with Cat Power), so they’re no strangers to the…
Legal woes notwithstanding, R. Kelly is all about the kids. Witness his groundbreaking hip-hopera Trapped in the Closet, which sneakily educates as it indisputably entertains, teaching key lessons to today’s youth: Don’t feel pressured to have sex. Get to know each other. Ask if this is really your wife’s best friend, cleverly disguised by a wig. Lessons like: Eat…
Remember Godzilla? Not the original Japanese classic but the hyper-publicized, disastrously over-budget 1998 American version? If so (and who could ever really shake the memory of that god-awful Puff Daddy-Jimmy Page collaboration the film spawned), you understand the risks of a hype machine in overdrive. It’s the same force that made Karen O ubiquitous and Ryan Adams irrelevant — and…
Five days before Flee the Seen’s Tuesday release party at El Torreon for its debut full-length, Doubt Becomes the New Addiction, Comeback Kid, a group with a similar career trajectory, plays the same stage. Hailing from hometowns that aren’t known as hip destinations (Winnipeg, Manitoba, is Canada’s Kansas City), both bands merge potent dual-guitar riffs with a positive, subtly Christian…
One of the most distinctive guitarists ever to play thrash, Prong founder Tommy Victor should by all rights go down in history alongside the likes of Scott Ian, Piggy and Tom Warrior for the numerous innovations he has contributed to the form. Maybe someday he will, but in the meantime, he faces the rather daunting challenge of having to resurrect…
Back in Michigan, before he was famous, Kid Rock’s reputation as a whoring drunk wasn’t any better than it is today — except now he’s banging porn stars instead of trailer trash. He was just some white rapper from the sticks who had a feud with the Insane Clown Posse that made fans take East Coast/West Coastlike stands. Every once…
The Reverend Glasseye is a musical travel agent. His songs are made for the wandering soul. Grinding organs and trumpet crescendos set the scene of a David Lynch carnival. A languid bongo provides the tempo for a caravan rattling down the devil’s own secret trails in outback Appalachia. Weaving together rich textures of brass blasts and lonesome banjo strumming with…
Hip-hop lost one of its most innovative artists last month. To pay homage, the rootslive.com has posted a tribute to the late James Yancey, better known as J Dilla. In addition to its extensive archive of free downloadable shows from the Roots and ?uestlove, the site offers MP3s of exclusive live material from Yancey, including his performance with Madlib, Peanut…
For years, the Wu-Tang Clan has epitomized hip-hop’s gritty underground, pushing the art form to another level with a street mentality and a plan to build an empire. As solo artists, its members have produced mixed results (lest we forget Method Man’s acting career), but consistency has been a strong suit for Ghostface Killah, and 2006 promises to be his…
Joseph Pope III, bass player for Born in the Flood, one of Denver’s hottest bands, is struggling with his group’s recent success. In fact, lead singer and guitarist Nathaniel Rateliff, guitarist Matt Fox and drummer Mike Hall also face an identity crisis as the outfit ascends from runner-up to cause célèbre in Denver’s thriving rock scene. “We’re no longer the…
Robert Moore knows more about music than I do. For three years now, he’s been providing Kansas Citians with two hours of free-form musical bliss from 2 to 4 p.m. every Saturday on KCUR 89.3. I figured I’d just step aside and let him introduce all the bands playing his two-night Sonic Spectrum Third Anniversary showcase this Friday and Saturday…
Mac Lethal and Joe Good are two of Kansas City’s best-known rappers. Apart from that fact, you wouldn’t have heard their names in the same sentence — until now. Last year, Mac (real name David McCleary Sheldon) signed to the prominent indie label Rhymesayers Entertainment, on which he’ll release a solo album this spring. An area favorite, the Raytown-born, Overland…
Raw deal: Regarding Eric Barton’s “Cattle Call” (March 2): Good article. I like that it is purely informational, and to be honest, that is what makes it so gruesome. I know when I talk to people about the ways that factory farm animals are murdered, they often don’t believe me that heads are chopped off and stun guns are used…
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. What do you think got into jailbreak mama Toby Young? They like the 2006 Bonnie and Clyde. I think he really put something down on her for her to…
Far From Porn Shauna Thomas may have a problem that the FOX 4 Problem Solvers can’t handle. Thomas, a freelance TV reporter and Kansas City native, returned to the metro to serve during February sweeps with FOX affiliate WDAF Channel 4. The Channel 4 gig was supposed to last just a month, but Thomas, who spent two years with…
This baseball-lovin’ burger was as cranky as everyone else when it found out that Buck O’Neil didn’t make it into the Baseball Hall of Fame last week. The Strip followed some of the post-snub analysis, most of which consisted of a national outcry over the injustice of it all. But because the 12 members of the special committee, which had…
Union Station’s getting better. Regular readers of this column know I’ve been hard on the place. Two years ago, fed up with the clueless high-society clique who’d appointed themselves to oversee a financial disaster, I politely requested that the station’s board of directors step the hell aside. I suggested replacements for them, creative Kansas Citians who would actually have done…
Standing on the lawn of the Kansas State Capitol, David Owen makes an odd declaration: He loves Phill Kline. His adoration for the state attorney general is tempered, though. “He really puts the fear of God into me,” Owen says. That’s because Owen is a registered sex offender. But he’s a devotee despite Kline’s crusade to hunt down sex offenders,…
Space constraints in this week’s issue prevented the Wayward Son from going into much detail about all that Robert Moore is doing for KC music, so here’s my chance to say what didn’t make the old-school newsprint edition. Though he regularly does live in-studio sessions with area bands on his radio show, Sonic Spectrum, Moore’s week-to-week playlists contain only a…
Annie Duke’s Conquering Online Poker (Big Vision) The Avengers: The Complete Emma Peel Megaset (A&E) Battle’s Poison Cloud (Cinema Libre) Bleak House (BBC Warner) Camara Oscura (Warner Bros.) Charmed: The Complete Fourth Season (Paramount) Death Tunnel (Sony) The Hobart Shakespeareans (Docurama) The Ice Harvest (MCA) The Lords of Discipline (Paramount) Love Me Tender: 50th Anniversary Special Edition (Fox) Network: Two-Disc…
Last fall, Microsoft hyped its pricey Xbox 360 by promising to reinvent gaming as we know it. The blockbuster “next generation” titles were supposed to harness the machine’s awesome power to deliver high-definition graphics and impossibly realistic action. But a funny thing happened on the way to the future. The $60 launch titles were mostly retreads, slapdash sequels and…
Walk the Line (Fox) No matter what a junkie does with his spare time — say, redefine country music, or forge one of history’s most enduring personas — movies about junkies are a drag to watch. So it’s too bad this Johnny Cash biopic is a by-the-numbers fall-and-redemption tale. A terrific film could’ve been made simply about Cash’s early tour…
Hank Williams: Lost Highway If the man who never got out of this world alive could get himself gussied up for all those Opry performances, who are we to begrudge the tony KC Rep its crack at the most torturously strung-out genius in all of country music? With the Rep’s deep pockets and grand production designs, it’ll certainly look good….
Before and After Kevin McGraw refers to himself as a “junkyard guy.” Based on this show, the description is accurate. The title refers to the objects — metal traffic signs, skateboard pieces, tire treads, mudflaps — that McGraw frequently finds along the sides of roads. He incorporates these materials into photographs of assemblages he’s already made. There’s a bit of…
