I’m not sure what this contest is all about, but our homies Super Black Market are only a few spots away from beating way better-known punk bands. So go vote them to the top — or at least up a place or two. Their song’s probably better than anyone else’s on the list. After all, how can you lose with…
The Ant Bully (Warner Bros.) Criminal Minds: The First Season (Paramount) Dane Cook: Vicious Circle (HBO) The Ellen DeGeneres Show: DVD-licious (Warner Bros.) Foo Fighters: Skin and Bones (RCA) Hot Wheels Accelerators: The Ultimate Race (Warner Bros.) Joan of Arcadia: The Second Season (Paramount) Jamie Kennedy’s Blowin’ Up (Paramount) Little House on the Prairie: Special Edition Movie Boxed Set (Imavision)…
By now, you’ve probably heard about Bully. It’s the game that was supposed to finally ruin America’s youth. Crusading lawyer Jack Thompson, the self-appointed schoolmarm of the videogame industry, called it a “Columbine simulator” and tried to block stores from selling it. Lou Dobbs — who hasn’t seen a videogame he liked since Galaga — labeled Bully an example…
Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut (Warner Bros.) At long last, Richard Donner’s much-whispered-about “original version” of Superman II sees the light of day, and it quickly joins the ranks of the reconstructed Touch of Evil, Apocalypse Now and Blade Runner — films made superior in the recutting and retelling. It’s an entirely different movie now, one shorn of the…
American Dream: In Question The second installment of the Belger’s American Dream series, the one that questions the titular phenomenon (the first, American Dream: In Design, closed in early October), requires an open mind and an adventurous spirit. National artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Jim Roche, Renee Stout, Robert Stackhouse and William T. Wiley, among many others, share space with…
A Christmas Carol Could even that hooded and horrifying Ghost of Christmas Future have guessed that Charles Dickens’ slight, sentimental Christmas ghost story would outshine even Great Expectations or David goddamn Copperfield in the public imagination 163 years after its composition? This is the Kansas City Repertory Theatre’s 26th stab at it, and the troupe has again assembled a grand…
You can’t go wrong with Ron Megee on roller skates. Last year, as Rhoda, The Bad Seedling’s homicidal moppet, Megee — done up with golden braids, rose-blush cheeks and a pinafore as ruffled as the south side of a hen — elevated a bit of roller-skating into a slapstick essay on the dangers we face when gravity joins forces…
The world would be a different place if photographer Carol V. Granger had her way. It would consist only of trees, grass, brush and bush, not a car or cubicle in sight. We’d inhabit the outdoors 24/7. Or humans might be banished entirely, leaving only the squat houses where we once lived. We might turn into leaves or to tree…
No, the Virgin Mary doesn’t get high on aerosol fumes, and Joseph doesn’t ride in on a skateboard, but in most other respects, The Nativity Story is less of a departure than one would imagine for Thirteen and Lords of Dogtown director Catherine Hardwicke. From our first glimpse of Nazareth teenagers making goo-goo eyes at one another while going…
You have the poo-pay?” I was momentarily startled when the waiter at Royal China Restaurant (7800 Shawnee Mission Parkway in Shawnee) looked me straight in the eye, his pen poised over his waiter’s pad, and asked me a second time, “You have the poo-pay?” My friend Patrick, sitting across from me, made the connection that was eluding me: “He’s asking…
There are no green-white-and-red Mexican flags inside Arturo Cabral’s El Patron restaurant — unless you want to drink one. In that case, Arturo’s mother, Stella, will bring out three glasses: a tiny snifter with a healthy snort or two of tequila, a shot of fresh-squeezed lime juice and another brimming with tomato juice. One night, Stella lined up the…
Given his familiarity with hip-hop locals, you’d never know that DJ Shad has been here just five years. If the quiet, unassuming Shad does talk to you, it’s probably about a new 12-inch yet to hit the radio. It’s only then that you pick up on his sharp Chicago accent. At the Hangout’s monthly Shake & Pop DJ night…
When a 6-foot, 5-inch woman tells us — somewhat jokingly but possibly not — “Please don’t make me look like a loose whore, or I will fucking hunt you down,” well, we’re inclined to take her advice. We got that directive at Jaywalkers Sports Bar & Grill, where we encountered not only our lovely Amazon but also the afterparty for…
Despite a devoted local following and a radio-ready sound, Penumbra couldn’t quite break out of the Club Wars circuit. After some personnel changes, the Kansas City quintet reemerged in 2004 as Red Line Chemistry, with mohawked, Maynard James Keenan-sound-alike Brett assuming vocal duties. (This is a first-names-only group, perhaps to preserve the fugitive members of the self-described “most dangerous rock…
Boyskout, a San Francisco rock act with a taste for melodramatic European Union exports and American underground twee pop, invoke touchstones as varied as Go Sailor; the Smiths; Kim Deal’s tattered, short-lived Amps project; and postpunk. The group even offers a twangy cover of Kraftwerk’s “The Model.” The detached, lasses-in-emotional-turmoil preoccupations of lead singer Leslie Satterfield befit the icy, mashed…
Subtlety is the key to Margot and the Nuclear So and Sos. By delicately stringing violin, keyboard, trumpet and percussion together alongside the standard rock line-up, the Indianapolis octet acts as the musical equivalent of an eight-layer chocolate cake. Richard Edwards’ juvenile yet earnest lyrics add a sappy sweetness (You told me you lied/You swore you were mine/I took you…
Dead Meadow’s virtues have for years earned the band the benefits of working with some of the industry’s more impressive names. Joe Lally (Fugazi) signed the psychedelic rock trio to his Tolatta Records label in 2000. Soon after, the band’s retro sound grabbed the interest of the seemingly impossible Anton Newcombe (Brian Jonestown Massacre), who recorded, produced and pressed 2002’s…
Much like Philip Seymour Hoffman before Capote or Jeremy Piven before Entourage, KC music staple Jon Yeager is the kind of guy everybody knows without knowing anything about. As the former co-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist for the now-defunct quartet the Daybirds, Yeager helped educate locals on what quasi-experimental Britpop was supposed to sound like. But on Foi (French for faith), his…
We’ll take the esteemed word of Vogue — along with reports of Karl Lagerfeld’s 60,000-CD collection — as evidence that this two-disc comp of the iconic fashion designer’s “favorite songs” isn’t the product of a focus group. But there’s something tragic about a man born in 1933 (according to birth records — he has claimed 1938) championing music that mainly…
First impressions can be tough, especially given that a person reportedly forms an opinion within the initial three seconds of meeting someone. That’s why it’s unfortunate that many potential fans of Brand New, a band that debuted in 2001 with the easily overlooked pop-punk vehicle Your Favorite Weapon, will miss what five years of maturation can do for a constantly…
A very earnest kudos goes out to Secretly Canadian Records on its 10-year anniversary. The Indiana label has given us indie gems such as Antony and the Johnsons, Songs: Ohia and I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness, and it’s never been stingy with the freebies. SecretlyCanadian.com is a virtual candy store of gratis videos and MP3s. Recently posted material…
There is a point on Boys and Girls in America that marks the line the Hold Steady has apparently crossed. It’s the chorus on the second track, a churning anthem dubbed “Chips Ahoy!” It’s a bit hard to tell just what Craig Finn is singing (singing?) because he can’t quite shout loud enough to be heard over a traffic-jam racket…
December means hibernation for most touring rock acts, even ursine juggernauts such as the Esoteric. It’s understandable that a band that’s already endured an equipment-destroying fire (February 2005) and transportation troubles that necessitated show cancellations (this past July) might want to avoid tempting fate on ice-slicked highways. However, the Esoteric, which released its third full-length album, Subverter, on October 17…
Last Thursday in Kansas City marked the 44th year for one of the greatest Thanksgiving Day traditions in the known universe. No, it wasn’t Bryan Busby’s ritual act of sneaking to Starbucks to take a dump between appearances on KMBC Channel 9’s Plaza lighting-ceremony broadcast — though a noble tradition that is, indeed. It wasn’t the Plaza lighting ceremony itself,…
