The Court and Spark was originally lumped in with the alt-country movement due in large part to this San Francisco band’s choice of instrumentation. Pedal-steel and acoustic guitars played prominent roles on the combo’s 1999 debut, Ventura Whites, with banjos, dobros and mandolins making cameo appearances. Several albums and years later, most of these colors remain in the band’s paint…
This weekend marks the beginning of Taste of Chicago (Grant Park, Jackson Blvd. and Columbus Drive), the largest food and music festival in the U.S. The 10-day event is free to the public, but if deep-dish isn’t your forte, the Windy City’s live music offerings are sure to satisfy your hunger for nostalgia. Friday night, the Go-Go’s take the stage…
After 10 years as the only Kansan on the roster of the Jayhawks, drummer Tim O’Reagan, in the grand tradition of rock drummers, is ready for his solo debut. These particular Jayhawks are — that is, were — the alt-country band that, with Uncle Tupelo, practically created a genre. In 2004, the ’Hawks finally called it quits. “I had always…
As if the reunification of Giants Chair weren’t enough to inspire maudlin bouts of nostalgia and self-pity from so many years of going to shows in Kansas City, it seems I also have to contend with the return of a friend who made something of his life. What a prick. Yes, my high school friend Hank Shteamer is returning,…
El Torreon was kind of a dump. Inside, it looked like the sort of concrete shelter that you’d picture kids in East Berlin boot-stomping to hardcore industrial music during the Cold War. It was dirty. Unless the bar was open, there was nowhere to sit. The bathrooms were from the Third World. It just wasn’t the most comfortable place to…
After nearly a decade, it was time for the dreads to go. Shocking all his friends, Sean Hunt cut his signature dreadlocks. He was going for an early-career-Kobe Bryant Afro but nervously aborted that look by twisting his hair into tiny curls all over his head. At first, his dog bit him, his mother ambushed him with a frying pan…
Strung along: I am disappointed that C.J. Janovy never asked my point of view about comments that Dan Tarwater was allowed to make about me without a rebuttal (Janovy, June 15). This is not fair reporting. However, I understand Janovy had to write something for Stan Henry, and the subject matter of myself would contribute well to her article. I…
Terror Alert A few Kansas City-area bloggers have posted about the unsettling revelation that one of their co-workers is the primary suspect in a recent murder. It reminded me of my brush with evil. In the late ’90s, I worked for a large entertainment distribution company based in the Sacramento area. The information technology guy assigned to my home office…
First there was the post on Argument Machine, the local music message board. Then came the MySpace bulletin. Kansas Citian and Pitch freelancer Megan Metzger had made the pages of Glamour magazine, in the July cover feature “The Top 40 Summer Dos and Don’ts,” an image-heavy instruction manual on fashions to adopt (“do make sure clothes … are fitted!”) and…
On the same day that the Pitch released its June 8 issue with an article on the effort to legalize marijuana entitled “High Above the Law,” one of the minor players in the piece got called into the human resources department of her employer. She says the HR woman broke the news: “It’s been brought to our attention that you’re…
Dear Gabachos: 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. Awright, cabrones: laugh and comprende! Dear Mexican: Why do Mexicans swim with their clothes on? I mean, denim? Vicente Fox’s…
It’s a smoky, beer-soaked night at Davey’s, sometime around 1994. Onstage are the Starkweathers, a Kansas City band named after a Nebraska serial killer. They pound out real country — electric, twangy and raw — unlike the hat acts from Nashville. Somewhere during the set they pass around one of those antique-looking gray- and-brown ceramic whiskey jugs, and everyone…
It bein’ almost Independence Day, this pontificating porterhouse was feeling patriotic. After all, it had spent the last couple of decades celebrating the Fourth of July just like any red-blooded American: sizzling away on a grill. But with things going all to hell over in Iraq, the top sirloin of local media figured it was time to go bust a…
Two weeks ago, the Pitch reported on the legal troubles faced by Kansas Rep. Patricia Kilpatrick. Specifically, several of her landlords had filed lawsuits seeking back rent, various businesses had sued seeking damages for unpaid bills, and Kilpatrick had passed bad checks and been arrested for shoplifting (“Deficit Spending,” June 15). News of the Overland Park Republican’s problems traveled fast….
I was piddling around the house (read: cooking up meth in the bathtub) Saturday night, when a colleague texted me to inform me that it was “the last night of the Hurricane as we know it” . So, once my batch of crank was done, I headed down around 11:30 and entered the club, packed inside and on the deck…
You should know Ida No. Last night at the Pistol was the sexiest show of the summer so far. All it took was one listen to one song and a look at a photo or two of the lead singer (hot-cha!) and I knew I had to see Glass Candy play the Pistol Social Club last night. (Thank you, Myspace.)…
The Kansas City Free Health Clinic (3515 Broadway) has offered free HIV testing on Monday nights for a while now. Tonight, the walk-in clinic known as The CITY expands to include STD testing as well. Only 12 people can be tested each night, so get there early. “But don’t give up if you can’t come in the first 15…
Adventures of Superman: The Complete First Four Seasons (Warner Bros.) The Art of Erotic Dancing (BFS) Austin City Limits 2005 Music Festival (Image) Charlie Chan: Volume One (Fox) The Cult of the Suicide Bomber (The Disinformation Company) Eight Below (Disney) Equinox: The Criterion Collection (Criterion) A Fine Madness (Warner Bros.) A Flea Market Documentary (PBS) The Hills Have Eyes (Fox)…
Not long ago, videogames were about collecting coins and rescuing the princess. Now you’re more likely to gun her down in a drive-by. Or eat her alive. Welcome to Jaws Unleashed Tags: Atlantic Ocean, Dick Cheney, reviews, sierra club
Night Watch (Fox Searchlight) Every once in a while, Hollywood needs somebody else to steal a genre and totally reimagine it; it keeps old ideas young, like celluloid Botox. Well, Hollywood’s gonna need one big needle to absorb Night Watch, an insane, insanely cool Russian action/horror/sci-fi brew that’s like nothing you’ve seen. Set in modern-day Moscow (which looks strangely…
Collect All Four How about if we collect two instead? Julie Farstad uses stark imagery to convey a nightmarish reality, placing painted toy baby dolls in compromising positions; the slightly grotesque, shiny baby fat in her paintings is indelible. In “Bad Bad Girls,” one doll lifts the dress of the other for a spanking against an austere, glowing-red background. In…
Adolfo Martinez’s comic-book-style works recount the Mexican folklore stories told to him by his mother and grandfather. In “Leyende #1,” his grandfather is in the Mexican mountains and hears the cries of a child. He follows the sound and finds what he believes to be an abandoned baby. When he picks it up, he’s shocked to see that it’s actually…
Like a great dumb puppy, Jonathon Larson’s Rent bound onto Broadway, all fidgety and overeager, impossible to dislike but tough to really love, feeling — as puppies do — just one big thing at any given moment and going after that big thing as though it were a chew toy, gnawing it until the squeak died. When that big…
About three-quarters of the way through Waist Deep, the hero — an indestructible ex-convict who calls himself O2 (2 Fast 2 Furious star Tyrese Gibson) — peers out through the swirling smoke and the bloody mayhem of an urban killing ground and experiences a revelation. “Somethin’ ain’t right,” he observes. It’s just about the truest moment we get in one…
