Few phenomena are as hugely popular and bitterly mocked as the Dance Dance Revolution series. That’s probably because humanity falls into two camps: fleet-footed whiz kids and rhythm-impaired klutzes. This reviewer falls into the latter category, despite having seen Riverdance an unhealthy number of times. For a game that’s mainly about stepping on arrows at the right time, DDR can…
Mission: Impossible III: Special Edition (Paramount) On the commentary track, director J.J. Abrams and star Tom Cruise sound like they’ve fallen in love. You might say they complete each other’s sentences, except that’s just Cruise interrupting the Alias creator, who rescued a franchise by streamlining it, lightening it, brightening it … and likely killing it off anyway. Still, what played…
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas More leave-the-kids-at-home musical fare from the Barn Players of Mission, an often surprising outfit whose shows tend to rise above the community-theater norm. This time it’s the once familiar, now nearly forgotten story of whores, politicians and everything else for which rich Texans lay out the cash. (Well, not quite: There aren’t any Saudi…
Cryptozoology: Out of Time Place Scale A cryptid is a creature like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster — that is, lost, rumored or thought to be extinct. Cryptozoology is a science — or pseudoscience, depending on whom you ask — that studies such creatures. A real-life cryptozoologist named Loren Coleman joins 17 artists from around the world in a…
Veteran painter and native Kansan Wayne Wildcat fills epic-scaled canvases with images of human history’s bloodiest moments. His social concern is nurtured by his mixed heritage — he’s half American Indian and half white — and he has said he hopes that his large oil paintings can “change history.” But he’s more than a muckraker or whistleblower, a moralizer or…
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan is funnier than its malaprop title — the audience with whom I saw the movie wasn’t laughing so much as howling — and even more difficult to parse. Eyes wide, face fixed in an avid grin, Sacha Baron Cohen’s ersatz Kazakh TV reporter, the oafish Borat Sagdiyev,…
It’s a lot more interesting to dine in a new restaurant or bar like Westport’s One80 (see review) than a place that’s been around a long time. But sometimes returning to a favorite old restaurant is like running into a former lover who hasn’t aged so well. It’s easy for me to suddenly forget that I’ve put on a few…
When I graduated from bartending school, I briefly took a job in a blue-collar dive that required me to spend more time in the “kitchen” than behind the bar. The claustrophobic space (it had once been a closet) was outfitted with a deep fryer, a grill no bigger than a place mat, a microwave oven and a deep freezer. And…
Our initial plan during a Saturday night foray to Parkville was to drink in the quaint, antique-filled part of town. Sadly, the American Legion hall was empty. And when we stepped into the Power Plant Restaurant and Brewery, we had to dodge a couple of kids. Nothing quashes a bender like the presence of children. So we continued north on…
The old Cup and Saucer Wednesday night faithful have found a new midweek perk. Electro Sleeze (more E’s equals more sleaze, evidently) is the name of the new Tuesday night outing aimed at electronic genre whores at Jilly’s on Broadway. The night is held down by DJs cQuence (who some believe could actually be better at spinning house than…
Chad Rex sings about having a “hangover head,” a phrase that, in conjunction with his weary, nasal voice, conjures images of a woebegone character warbling his lines in repose, a warm washcloth shielding his eyes from the wreck he made of his apartment — and his life — a few hours earlier. Rex’s protagonists never quite shake their morning-after malaise,…
The Decemberists (Capitol) If he hadn’t found a successful career in music, Colin Meloy would’ve made a kick-ass history teacher. Since 2002’s Castaways and Cutouts, the eccentric songwriter and lead singer for the Decemberists has told the tales of pirates, Civil War refugees and Chinese trapeze artists with flair, like a long-winded Dennis Miller ranting in song. Meloy’s yarn-weaving lyrical…
Just in case you don’t keep up with The New York Times’ metal coverage, let’s recap: Sunn O))) is a guitar duo that performs in hooded robes and specializes in doom-laden dronescapes inspired by Earth’s agonized, tonal trawl. The two operate the Southern Lord label, to which chameleonic Japanese metallers Boris are signed. Collaborations between bands often wind up as…
With its second album in four years out November 3, it’s about time that Pixel Panda brought the frenzy back. Burial Suite features the dueling vocals, manic guitar work and crazy sound effects to which the band’s audience has grown accustomed. This time, though, the outfit also incorporates the impressive speed and (perhaps) possessed drumming of newbie Dan Bottemuller (formerly…
Though they share a penchant for intense performances, the Chariot and Gwar hail from opposite ends of the spectacle spectrum. With its dizzying lighting effects, apoplectic rhythms and hyperactive signature shifts, the Chariot in concert can be as disorienting as a pitch-black haunted house with mirror mazes and four-story slides. Gwar’s current stage show, unveiled on this summer’s Sounds of…
Detroit soul singer Bettye LaVette has had a consistent, albeit under-the-radar, career since the early 1960s. But it wasn’t until last year’s I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise that LaVette’s ability to kick the shit out of a song commanded interest beyond R&B devotees. Produced by Joe Henry (who did for LaVette and Solomon Burke what Rick Rubin did…
Punctual Los Lonely Boys fans might be taken aback when they realize that the wailing Latin-Middle Eastern jamming, klezmer-tinged (or at least clarinet-driven) rap breakdowns and straight-up funk aren’t part of a taped preshow mix. Instead, what they’re hearing is Ozomatli, a multiethnic band from Los Angeles that crushes musical boundaries like cloves in a garlic press. With a killer…
After 12 years, countless delays and borderline harassment on MySpace, hip-hop’s Black Sheep is finally back. The digital-only re- lease (available at emusic.com), 8WM/Novakane, feels like a class clown’s high school reunion. Lyricists Dres and Mr. Lawng have gotten older, but they still know how to ham it up. “U Mean I Don’t?” kicks back to the duo’s breakout debut,…
In a way, the four members of Copeland are kind of like the Amish of the music world. No, they’re not performing by candlelight or touring the country via horse and buggy. But you know that whole “turn the other cheek” mantra? Oh, yeah. They’ve got that going on in spades. Maybe it’s a coping mechanism. After all, when you’re…
The last time Chicago Afrobeat Project was in the area, the band ended up at a bachelor party in downtown Lawrence, beating out rhythms on a makeshift trap set and howling at the moon with a handful of guests on a second-story deck. Surprisingly, the cops didn’t show up until 3 a.m. — when they got there, they just seemed…
This was the kind of weekend when I would’ve been lucky to end up in a tree, pantsless, with a gaggle of crackheads down below thinking I was a leprechaun (happened to my cousin) — rather than, say, in a police lineup. It all started Friday with trivia at the Brick, where my team didn’t win the pot but did…
Click these links to hear the In the Pines songs Dress on Fire and Savannah. The instrumental opener of In the Pines’ new self-titled CD plays like a worker shoveling coal into the bowels of a steamship. It’s a slow, grinding tune, and it serves as a good introduction to a band that plays like everyone in it is covered…
Two Pitch writers have been published in anthologies that recognize the best in their fields. Charles Ferruzza’s review of SORedux (“Reality Bites,” January 26) appears in Best Food Writing 2006 (Marlowe & Company). And Ben Paynter’s story about the gay rodeo circuit (“So You Wanna Be a Cowboy?” October 20, 2005) landed in Best American Sports Writing 2006 (Houghton Mifflin)….
The cover of David Martin’s “Crazy Train” is already a caricatural attack on light-rail promoter Clay Chastain. Then follows endless criticism of the “man of clay.” We lose sight of the issue: light rail for Kansas City. Link the KC Zoo (with a tremendous amount of unused parking during the week) with Kansas City International Airport (where parking is expensive…
