Roughly translated, In Bocca Al Lupo, the title of Murder by Death’s third release, means in the mouth of the wolf. Legend says the phrase is uttered in Italian classrooms before an exam, to which schoolchildren respond, “Kill the wolf.” So what does an international colloquialism that’s used to invoke luck have to do with a dreary Indiana quintet’s new…
The Kennedy Luck Club Poor Topeka. The butt of constant jokes, Kansas’ capital city frequently loses musicians to its slightly hipper neighbors to the east. But soon, the emigration may slow down — that is, if promising Topeka band the Kennedy Luck Club is any indication. The Club is in contractual discussions with producer Mark Berry, who has worked with…
MC Frontalot MC Frontalot bills himself as “the world’s 579th greatest rapper,” but he compensates for this unassuming ranking by earning numerous distinctions, such as “first lyricist to reference a specific G.I. Joe episode” and “MC most likely to be mistaken for Moby.” Reaching out to his target demographic, Frontalot composed a theme song for the gaming- and comics-focused Web…
Last week, the Cartoon Network’s Adultswim.com posted “Korn Dogs,” the first of nine new tracks from Dangerdoom. The free, online-only EP follows up DJ Danger Mouse and MF Doom’s 2005 hip-hop collaboration, The Mouse and the Mask. Along with the duo’s cartoonlike beats and slapstick lyrics, the exclusive release features producer extraordinaire Madlib and the usual hilarity from the Aqua…
When he was 30, Mark E. Smith, iconoclastic frontman for the Fall, wrote “Living Too Late,” an odd reflection on mortality in which he sang of crow’s feet ingrained on his face. Now almost 50, one of rock’s most original and recognizable voices sees no reason to reflect or dwell on melancholy. “I haven’t thought about mellowing out,” Smith says…
Not since writer William Allen White put Emporia, Kansas, on the map in the early 1900s with his Pulitzer Prize-winning columns has anything made noise — or even kicked up a little dust — in that eastern Kansas town, located at the desolate cross section of U.S. Highway 50 and the state turnpike. Not until the Dewayn Brothers, that is….
What went down last Thursday, May 18, at the Brick was a wedding ceremony straight out of Kafka. The minister wore the yarmulke and prayer shawl of a rabbi, and his face was hidden by a noseless leather bondage mask with crooked, bloodshot eyeballs fastened to it. A mass of black chains hung around his neck, and he held a…
Citizen caned: We are supposed to be a nation of laws, and yet some would pick and choose which laws are to be obeyed — as it is with President Bush it is also with Maria Chappelle-Nadal (Backwash, May 18). She apparently believes that illegals should be immune from our immigration laws. She would like to see them get total…
Damn, That’s Some Good Geitol Recently, Kansas state senators approved a bill that prohibits anybody under age 15 from getting married. This all started because some damned 22-year-old from Falls City, Nebraska, got a 14-year-old girl pregnant. (They started dating when she was 13 and he was 21. So you know, it’s not creepy or nothin’… .) Anycrap, like white…
Nineteen-year-old Ricky House could safely call himself the sexiest vegetarian in his hometown of Salina, Kansas. And he had a pretty good shot at being the sexiest vegetarian in his college town of Lawrence. Now, thanks to a contest sponsored by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, House knows he is the Sexiest Vegetarian Alive. House was among…
Metro bus passengers who feel that they’re being watched are probably correct. Many riders have been watched and videotaped — and it has nothing to do with being the hottest person on bus No. 51. The Kansas City Area Transportation Authority has been installing video cameras on some buses since 2002. But last summer, the ATA rolled out the largest…
Bienvenidos to the world’s foremost authority on America’s favorite beaners! The Mexican can answer any and every question on his race, from why Mexicans stick the Virgin of Guadalupe everywhere to our obsession with dwarves and transvestites. (In the course of his answers, the Mexican will use certain terms and phrases for better-rounded answers; for definitions, see his glossary at…
Summer’s here, and that means the Strip is shopping for sneakers to keep its hooves from sizzlin’ on the sidewalk. That’s how your beefy narrator recently came upon a strange sight at the Art Official skate shop at 95th Street and Metcalf in Overland Park: more than a dozen guys throwing a party — for their shoes. Some had wrapped…
At first, Roger Holden’s amazing invention looked like — and at one time probably was — an upright video-game console, the kind that used to house Galaga or Ms. Pac-Man at mall arcades. When Holden turned on the power, a ghostly sphere appeared in the air over its tilted, waist-high screen. The sphere hovered above the screen, fully dimensional…
The Architects do some cookin’, cinema-style. From 6 pm to midnight tonight at the Beaumont, some Lawrence dudes are filming a concert scene for a movie they’re doing featuring the Architects. Admission is free, and it’s open to all ages. Your presence is required. The film is called, or going to be called, Air, and they’re shooting it on 35mm…
Last Saturday night spelled the final show of the Litigators as we know them. Bassist Tilden Snow and guitarist Brendan Moreland are quitting to focus on other projects and/or refine the art of being Misery Boys in Rex Hobart’s backup band. When I got to the Brick around 11, opener act Aubrey had already played, and It’s Over was rocking…
FRIDAY Last of the V8s and Valient Thorr at the Brick If this blog hasn’t given you enough reasons to finally go see the recharged V8s (who, by the way, use REAL BLOOD, DAMMIT!), then you must be dead. Tonight, the KC madmen entertain extraterrestrial visitors Valient Thorr, who have come from Venus, pissing liquid ammonia and breathing molten lead,…
All You’ve Got (MTV) American Soldiers (Velocity) The Big Valley: Season One (Fox) Con Air: Unrated Extended Edition (Buena Vista) Crimson Tide: Unrated Extended Edition (Buena Vista) Doogal (Weinstein) Duma (Warner Bros.) Funny Games (Kino) Garçon Stupide (Picture This) Hill Street Blues: Season Two (Fox) My Mother’s Smile (New Yorker) New Police Story (Lions Gate) The Ringer (Fox) Scott of…
Mom always says that videogames rot your brain. Hell, some say that Grand Theft Auto trains kids to kill. So Nintendo’s claim that its new portable offering, Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day!, actually makes players smarter has been received with a mix of curiosity, cynicism, and outright guffaws. What’s next — ice-cream sundaes fortified with…
Winter Passing (Fox) Try this, should you be inclined to rent this downer from writer-director Adam Rapp: Skip from chapter to chapter and see whether they all don’t begin with exactly the same image, accompanied by exactly the same sound. There is always someone (usually Zooey Deschanel as a would-be actress or Ed Harris as her decrepit writer pop)…
The Birds This crossdressed pantsing of Hitchcock’s classic gives us Late Night at its best … and worst. When the troupe members shake together Hollywood satire, chintzy drag glamour and bitchy wit in a cocktail of a half-dozen set pieces, the show’s a heady gas. Too often, however, this Birds substitutes showy pop references for actual jokes and relies heavily…
Empty Thoughts, Lame Excuses, and Decorative Lies Ryan Humphrey’s first solo museum exhibition consists of four pieces: “Vantasy,” the driver’s side of a tricked-out, 1971 C-10 Chevrolet van; “Honky Spaceship,” a battery-powered installation panel that pumps out the beats of Public Enemy and Run DMC; “Rear Window,” the tail section of a Ferrari mounted on plywood; and “Velocity of Transparent…
Robert Cottingham’s lithographs are for anyone who’s ever gotten lost in the glow of a neon sign. The best signs aren’t just aesthetically pleasing; they tell us something about the era in which they were created. Kansas City has its share of glorified signage (not counting Taco Bell, Burger King and KFC): the iconic Western Auto sign downtown, the Englewood…
Things ain’t what they used to be. This gripe, so deeply rooted in our national character, is the coal in the kettle of American lit, firing everything from the Edenic fantasies of the Puritans to all those steamboats-got-no-soul rants in Life on the Mississippi. Some supposed memory of a purer past, the country before we spoiled it, glows beneath…
