I just got this from the folks down in Austin. I need fellow KCians to hang out with this March, so don’t hesitate to apply. Dream big, honeychile. SXSW 2007 Music Festival Showcase Application Final Deadline Austin, Texas – October 31, 2006 – For over 20 years, South by Southwest (SXSW) Music Conference and Festival has been bringing musicians, record…
One Jason Harper not enough for you? Check this out: Despite what you’ve heard, the closest I come to being “dreamy” is when I wake up at 5 a.m. from a startling nightmare and spend the next four hours in and out of a sleep-dream state that plays out imaginary real-life scenarios, like what happens when I walk into the…
First, the news: The Argument Machine, which began as the forum off of the long-inactive local music Web zine The Zone, then grew a life of its own as, basically, a scenester message board that involved more general humor and beef than discussion of music, is NO MORE. Its working moderator, a local musician, killed it today, putting up in…
An American Haunting (Lions Gate) Astaire and Rogers: The Complete Film Collection (Warner Bros.) Freak-Out (Anchor Bay) Greg the Bunny: Best of the Film Parodies (Shout!) Justice League Unlimited: Season One (Warner Bros.) La Commune (Paris, 1871) (First Run) Looking for Kitty (Velocity/ThinkFilm) The L-Word: The Complete Third Season (Showtime) Mongolian Ping Pong (First Run) Monster House (Sony) Nacho Libre…
Viewed from an airplane high over the islands of San Esperito, the land seems to stretch out endlessly. The sun slowly rises over the ocean, bathing the clouds in ochre and throwing stark shadows on the lush jungle below. If only there were something worth doing down there. Welcome to Just Cause, the latest “Go anywhere, do anything” game…
Reservoir Dogs: 15th Anniversary (Lionsgate) Quentin Tarantino’s first film shows its age these days, mostly because we’ve seen all of its tricks done far better by now. The nonlinear storytelling, the pop-culture gabfests, the shameless cribbing from obscure films — everything that once seemed so fresh has since become Tarantino’s formula. Fortunately, it’s one hell of a formula; he…
Darkness, an Evening With Edgar Allen Poe Premiering on Friday the 13th and running through Halloween, this anthology show from Minds Eye Theatre — adapted from Poe’s work by director Kevin Eib — is literally old-school. Yes, it’s after creeping horror more than Saw III shock, but it’s also being staged at the Alcott Arts Center, which Minds Eye’s Sara…
Terri Bright: Inner Order Terri Bright says she’s a stranger in most of the places where she takes pictures. Her goal is to document the tension between the disorder of her actual surroundings and her internal desire for pictorial order. As a result, her series of photographs is about color, light, shape and symmetry — among her chromogenic prints, we…
The same people who poo-poo suburbanites for coming to Crossroads art openings are the same people who will probably be bothered by the Mackenzie Thorpe show at the Leedy-Voulkos Art Center. Thorpe is an internationally known artist, represented by the Chase Group in Chicago. This exhibit covers 10,000 square feet of gallery space, and Thorpe also has sculptures on…
The “Time Warp,” we’re told, is simple. Just a jump to the left, a step to the right, a pelvic thrust that really drives you insane. The song never explains what time we’re trying to warp, or why, but in its boogie-woogie piano figure, the way it comes on like T. Rex trying the “Monster Mash,” we can make…
The Queen is more fun than any movie about the violent death of a 36-year-old woman has a right to be. It’s also as exotic an English-language picture as the season is likely to bring. Directed by Stephen Frears from Peter Morgan’s script, The Queen is set in the peculiar bestiary that is Britain’s royal family during the traumatic week…
Augusten Burroughs’ wacky memoir of coming out as a gay teen in his adoptive guru’s carnivalesque commune has moved roughly a million copies and earned more awestruck reviews than an autobiographer could fabricate. Making a movie of Running With Scissors, Nip/Tuck creator Ryan Murphy has shaped the book into an enjoyably overwrought ode to Burroughs’ miraculous survival of parental…
The last time I saw Lorenza “Poco” Guitterrez was in 2004, when she was the chef at the little restaurant that bore her name, Poco’s Latin American Grille at 3605 Broadway. Guitterrez ran the kitchen while waitress-manager Hope Dillon operated the front of the house. That combination ended earlier this year when restaurateur Sean Cummings, who had formerly owned The…
I can’t remember where the hell I was on December 31, 2004, but chef Cole Mowry knows exactly where he was that night. It was the final night for Café Trocadero on 31st Street. After that shift, Mowry packed up his knives and walked out the door. A few weeks later, the dining room reopened with a different chef,…
For the Kansas Citians who grew up here, the term “cruising Noland Road” ranks high on the iconic catchphrase list, along with “Hi, may I help you?” and — everyone sing along now — “Call 321-2277, anytime night or day.” Sadly, as a high school Rangerette, we never actually cruised this klassic KC thoroughfare — and, apparently, the five-O has…
Halloween on Massachusetts Street may hold the rank of the craziest free-for-all party in Lawrence each year. Last Halloween was the first installment of Nightmare on Mass Street, a KRBZ 96.5 (the Buzz) and DJ C-Vaughn presentation that drew many Kansas Citians westward down Kansas Highway 10. For Nightmare II, expect 50,000 watts of sound, an assortment of fog…
For Exene Cervenka, there’s no such thing as having too many creative outlets. Known first and foremost as the frontwoman of renowned Los Angeles punk band X, Cervenka has also kept herself busy throughout the years with multiple musical outfits. By adopting three-fourths of St. Louis rockabilly band the 7 Shot Screamers to form the Original Sinners, she has found…
Aside from the fact that he has a name you don’t forget easily, you may remember Del Tha Funkee Homosapien from his origins in cousin Ice Cube’s Lench Mob, not to mention his “Bob Dobalina” hit and decidedly ungangsta approach. And then there were those high-profile collaborations with the likes of Gorillaz, Dan the Automator, and J. Mascis. Still, as…
Smashing instruments is a bit clichéd, but a performance from And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead demands it without apology. The Austin, Texas, powerhouse has progressed musically in the studio since its earlier offerings (to the chagrin of some die-hard fans), but it still knows how to wear out an audience with its chaotic live sets….
The Motor City is the beating heart of the Detroit Cobras, from the Motown hits they cover to the garage-rock filter the band runs its songs through. The Cobras’ party energy makes it difficult to believe that they’ve been active since 1994, but the band’s 12 ex-members prove that a constantly rotating membership seals in the freshness. The current lineup…
There is a disturbingly large contingent of country music fans who remain oblivious to the fact that Kris Kristofferson, that guy who played Whistler in the god-awful Blade trilogy, is actually one of the most significant songwriters in the genre’s history. That might be because he releases albums about as often as he stars in a good movie. Still, the…
Often enough, it’s really hard to understand the lyrics of rock and pop bands, and usually that’s a good thing. Placebo is a rare exception. Whether the band is rocking out, ’70s-style (2000’s Black Market Music) or inspiring you to dance like it’s 1983 (2006’s Meds, 2003’s Sleeping With Ghosts), Brian Molko’s voice always rings out clearly, intoning tales of…
Few storytellers can match wits with Tom Waits. For three decades, he has summoned up the things that go bump in the night with a voice that resembles a busted carburetor being dragged down a dirt road. Before Scarlett Johansson has her way with him (Scarlett Sings Tom Waits hits shelves in 2007 — seriously), check out a few tracks…
Ten years ago, Scott Hobart took his late father’s name, Rex, bought a couple of shiny suits and began a honky-tonk career. After a few solo shows on the little stage at Davey’s Uptown Ramblers Club, he recruited a few more freshly converted rockers (with suitable aliases), got them some outfits and went country. Rex Hobart and the Misery Boys…
