The more things change, the more they stay the same. So it goes — at least musically — with Akron, Ohio, residents Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney, aka the Black Keys. In 2002, the youthful duo released The Big Come Up, a self-produced, basement-recorded debut that featured fuzzed-out, fat-back guitar licks and drumming with much abandon. Yes, against all odds,…
Backwash, October 26 Foundation Cracks The one damn time I was in Kansas City (in 1994 to install a network), I listened to The Fish Fry on KCUR 89.3 and heard about the late-night jams at the Mutual Musicians Foundation and went down there. I have a copy of that old blues documentary, part of which was shot there, and…
Cluck You Dear Mexican: My fiancé is trying to learn Spanish so he can speak to my grandmother when we get married next month. Lately, he’s been listening to CNN en Español to get an ear for the language. A couple of days ago, he told me that, after several weeks of seeing the channel, he noticed that there…
ou learn a lot about people while operating a meat slicer. That’s one of the life lessons Overland Park native John Lehr picked up while working retail and restaurant jobs in high school. The comic actor says those lessons came in handy when he began executive-producing the new TBS show 10 Items or Less. Lehr stars in the show as…
People in Kansas City, Kansas, might want to pray for a mild winter because it appears that their electric rates are about to go up. At the same time, they might want to start asking their utility company what business is so important that it must be conducted over high-dollar lunches across the state line at the Savoy Grill in…
April Del Campo charms customers from behind the bar at Slow Ride Roadhouse, a North Lawrence biker bar run by her mother and her uncle. The Del Campo family is Mexican-American royalty in town, and with her dark, wavy hair and curvy figure, April is its reigning princess. April’s mother, Maggie Del Campo, is part-owner of Slow Ride. One customer…
We’re all being ushered home early in Pitchland so none of us will get lost in the land of the ice and snow, so here’s a few quick notes. 1. A discussion of comedians and the n-word is taking place on Hiphopkc.com. Drop by and weigh in, if you care. 2. Mac Minister, the guy who a lot of people…
It wasn’t until the tail end of Thanksgiving — Sunday night at the Record Bar, specifically — that I found something new to be thankful for. Kansas City, America, world, I introduce you to … shit, what’s her name? Oh yeah, Sal Retta. Actually, I think that’s a stage name (as opposed to a band name). Sal’s real name is…
American Slapstick (Image) Alias: The Complete Fifth Season (Buena Vista) Boston Legal: Season Two (Fox) The Cry Baby Killer (Buena Vista) Devil Times Five (Code Red) Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist: Season Two (Paramount) Fall Out Boy: Solid Gold Uncertainty (Music Video Dist.) A Fish Called Wanda: Collector’s Edition (MGM) Freedom Fries and Other Stupidity We’ll Have to Explain to Our…
Guitar Hero gave party games a much-needed kick in the ass. No one expected this rhythm game — sold with a miniature plastic guitar — to play to sellout crowds. But it became the most addictive game of the year and one of the most attractive to nongamers. The reason is simple: It’s karaoke with a whammy bar. Now,…
An Inconvenient Truth (Paramount) This isn’t exactly the kind of DVD you buy to watch again and again; the ending doesn’t get happier, and there are no twists to decipher with repeated viewings. The producers hope instead that you buy it and share it; it’s less movie, after all, than droning agitprop — effective, compelling, frightening agitprop, but droning…
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…
As anyone who’s ever spun Al Green in the bedroom knows, there’s not a thing on Earth that soul singing can’t make better. Whether you’re in love or busted up, at church or at the club, soul enriches the good and whoops ass on the bad, balms your aches and butters your bread. For quite a while now, I’ve thought…
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…
Beaten eyeglasses sit in a plastic display case, the left eye frame stretched and distorted. Siebren Versteeg’s “Lenscrafter” serves as a unifying symbol for Grand Arts’ Haunted States, informing us that the show is about observing reality with a skewed point of view. Four of the show’s five artists — six, if Chicago’s CarianaCarianne counts as two artists housed…
The first few minutes of Tenacious D in “The Pick of Destiny” are something to behold: a four-minute rock opera cranked to 11. A doughy young boy with dirty-mop locks (Nacho Libre’s Troy Gentile, once more playing lil’ Jack Black) laments his tragic plight: He’s stuck in Kickapoo with “a humble family, religious through and through” that just doesn’t get…
OK, so Jerry Bruckheimer and Tony Scott were asking for it by naming their latest megaproduction Déj”” Vu. These dudes aren’t exactly paragons of innovation, unless taking rhetorical hysteria to awesome new heights counts. As the opening credits roll, you get a good, solid smack of the Tony Scott touch. The man never met a strobe cut, filter effect…
For Your Consideration pulls off the neat trick of skewering the movie industry while remaking it in its own image. The latest ensemble comedy by Christopher Guest and company may take place in Los Angeles, but its imaginative provenance lies somewhere between the La La Lands of Entourage and Mulholland Dr. Embellished with anachronisms, affectations, improvisational asides and verbal…
Solemn, flashy and exasperating, The Fountain — adapted by Darren Aronofsky from his own graphic novel — should really be called The Shpritz. The premise is lachrymose, the sets are clammy, and the metaphysics are all wet. The screen is awash in spiraling nebulae and misty points of light, with the soundtrack supplying appropriately moist oohs and aahs. The…
I was so sick of hearing about trans fats that I deliberately went out for a big juicy cheeseburger last week and didn’t give a damn about what kind of fat was in it. A friend told me that the venerable Fric & Frac (1700 West 39th Street) was offering a $4.95 lunch special that included a choice of the…
Let’s get one thing straight, as it were, about Georgie Porgie. The singsong nursery rhyme that introduced the literary character goes like this: Georgie Porgie, puddin’ and pie/Kissed the girls and made them cry/When the boys came out to play/Georgie Porgie ran away. What I always assumed was a harmless childhood ditty is actually a history lesson loaded with…
Recently, we were trying to order a drink from the harassed bartenders at Jilly’s on Broadway when a familiar face popped up behind the bar and started pouring shots. “Is this fun as fuck, or what?” shouted our Fu Manchued pal. The mustachioed guy turned out to be Zach, of the skateboard shop Lovely and Union Press, who was…
The Brent Berry Band combines folk, reggae, bluegrass, blues and Latin music into one whirlwind, genre-defying show after another. It’s a copious buffet for the ears, and it’s made by an equally nontraditional instrumental line-up. The group features a kick drum; a mandolin; percussion; bass; and native son Berry’s pulsing, rhythmic classical guitar lines. Using these tools, the group moves…
If the members of the Mars Volta shaved their ‘fros and somehow convinced people that they were actually from the planet Earth, they’d probably sound a lot like Chicago’s Wax On Radio. Under the guidance of bombastic lead singer and guitarist Mikey Russell, the band fuses progressive rock with a liberal dose of nuanced postpunk, and its debut full-length, Exposition,…
