%{}% Abuxom lovely named Clarissa was flouncing her way into the bathroom at the Hangout on Broadway when she stopped to ask if we could take her picture. She was clad in a low-cut camisole top, which showcased the tattoos on the tops of her breasts. As we readied the camera, she pushed her ample boobs together, stuck her tongue…
We’d give Led Zeppelin a spot in our musical top 10 if it weren’t for Robert Plant’s shrieking. Brodie Rush, the Jimmy Page of local Zep apers Led Zeppelin V, gives us V reasons that we should quit hatin’ and start appreciatin’ the Biggest Band in the World. V: “Guitar and drum geeks can see how it’s played and take…
Last month at the Madrid Theatre, Regina Spektor spent a song striking a drum with one hand and playing piano with the other, maintaining complex, divergently paced rhythms and melodies while singing dramatically. In the “doing one thing with one hand and something else with the other” music category, Spektor’s performance earns top honors. However, Echo the Sky’s Caleb Blacksher,…
%{}% Gathering a bunch of blue-collar songwriters together for a show billed as “An Acoustic Christmas” can mean one of three things: (1) a bunch of grandma-pleasing anthems in the vein of “Silent Night,” (2) an uproarious evening of actual classics such as Weird Al Yankovic’s “The Night Santa Went Crazy,” or (3) no one playing any Christmas songs because…
You know that old saying about how bumblebees were never designed to fly, but nobody told the bees that? Well, that’s kind of how it is for the members of Cowboy Mouth — but instead of flying insects, they’re four radio rockers who probably should’ve called it quits in the late ’90s. But instead of taking the hint from long-gone…
Best known for incredibly catchy punk songs about murder and monsters, Misfits mastermind Glenn Danzig landed a No. 1 album on Billboard’s classical album chart with 1992’s Black Aria. More sophisticated and eclectic, the sequel’s instrumentals surpass the wonderful eerieness of anything the auteur has ever written. Inspired by the tale of Lilith — the biblical Adam’s apocryphal first wife,…
%{}% It seems as if Depeche Mode has already released numerous greatest-hits collections, but formally this is the first of its kind. Perhaps it feels that way because Depeche Mode albums play like they’re already hits sets. The Best Of spans the group’s 25-year career with 18 tracks taken from more than 10 albums, plus a bonus DVD with 23…
%{}% The lyrics of last year’s platinum Let’s Get It: Thug Motivation 101 introduced Jeezy as a ruthless villain whose work ethic, confidence and love for his ‘hood made him an affable anti-hero. But with the exception of tracks such as “Bury Me A G” and “I Luv It,” Jeezy’s second album shows little development, and so most of The…
%{}% If the Girl Is a Ghost were like most bands, the opportunity to sign to a label, record on the company’s dime and get international distribution would’ve been a dream come true. But for guitarist and singer Oscar Allen and keyboardist Susan Metenosky, success was never part of the plan. Then again, the longtime friends never really had a…
You can’t help but admire the D.I.Y. success behind Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Through self-promotion, blogger buzz and a bit of sweat equity, the Brooklyn art-rock outfit managed to sell more than 100,000 copies of its self-titled debut without ever signing a record deal (though it did have to outsource its overseas demand to Wichita Records). The band won’t…
%{}% The night began as an ordinary bullshit session. After a late night of practice, the four 20-somethings who make up the Kinetiks lounged around on the porch sipping wine, smoking cigarettes and delving into deep topics such as marriage, kids and underwear. They got drunker and more chatty, and even though bassist Nate Craft nodded off early, they declared…
On Saturday, Black Clover Records, the homegrown imprint of Kansas City rappers Joe Good and Mac Lethal, held its third party with Flying Monkey beers. The festivities, which cost $25 a ticket, were at the Flying Monkey brewery in Olathe. Mac and Joe performed. DJ Sku spun records. Everyone got to drink as much beer as they wanted until men…
%{}% Holiday songs are a love-hate proposition. At their best, such tunes provide for an evocative seasonal soundtrack. However, they’re just as likely to be nauseous, like that cheese log your aunt gave you last year The releases below run the gamut from sublime to sickening. The year’s most ambitious effort — and the best — is Sufjan Stevens’ Songs…
%{}% Dear Mexican: I was flipping through my television when I noticed the Spanish-language channel showed a man in a red suit with yellow pants, antennae on his head and a heart with the letters “CH” on his chest. It appeared to be a sitcom, and all of the characters related to the insect guy as if he were normal….
Backwash, December 7 Fox Trot Why doesn’t a story about the teaming of the Fox network and highly paid, immature idiots not surprise me? Why should we expect more when talent and brains aren’t prerequisites to holding a job for Fox? WDAF Channel 4’s Don Harmon and Mark Alford displayed machismo that “may have crossed a line”? I should say…
Categories: News Tags: Columns, Westside Community Action Network Center on Southwest Boulevard
%{}% I have been submitting my writing to The Kansas City Star for a long time now. But do you know what they do? They edit the hell out of you, those sons of bitches. Did you know you can say shitbag in the Pitch? That’s why I am now writing in the Pitch. Shitbag. You see? I said it….
Let’s face it, who could blame prosecutors for fleeing Johnson County as though Satan himself were about to take over district attorney’s office? It is, after all, political Antichrist Phill Kline who will soon take over for much-liked Paul Morrison. Word is that several prosecutors have sent out résumés, explored job opportunities at private law firms, and probably considered whether…
Something went missing in a recent Kansas City Star “watchdog report” about wood rot in modern homes. A villain. The December 13 story, headlined “Water Damage Repairs Drain Homeowners,” described how buyers of relatively new and expensive homes were surprised to find rotten timber and mold in their wall cavities. The first homeowner quoted in Paul Wenske’s story was a…
%{}% It was the Saturday before Christmas last year, and snow was falling. Inside Union Station, old men and children stood at a white picket fence surrounding a gigantic model train set, its plastic landscape all piney, snowy and Rockwellian. In one corner of the Grand Hall, a small inner-city high school choir assembled on risers with a pianist and…
%{}% Before the holiday shopping season officially ends, the Strip would like to share a sentimental tale about a young woman who won this meat patty’s heart. On the day after Thanksgiving, this trendy T-bone headed for the Plaza along with everyone else. There, amid the jammed sidewalks, the Strip happened upon a curious sight at the corner of Nichols…
Dougie Rosenbrook has already pictured the way his crucifixion will go down. He will be suspended on a 7-foot-tall wooden cross in front of his live, horrified audience, his arms and legs restrained with barbed wire. He’ll wear nothing but a jockstrap and BluBlockers —’80s-era sunglasses with amber-tinted lenses. On his head, he’ll wear a crown of barbed wire to…
After this column hit the streets, an irate (and, I assume, ironic) message was left on my voicemail by a fan, friend and/or defender of the band Baby Birds Don’t Drink, who got lightly drubbed in the article. Using technology that called for fuel made from geraniums and required 10 IT guys flown in from Pakistan, we were able to…
The following was authored exclusively for Wayward Blog by the Pitch’s new, brilliant calendar editor, Crystal K. Wiebe, a Faint fan and dog owner. The Faint tears it up live, when not scouring the hills for chocolate, evidently. Maybe its unwise to overpraise a band’s live rocking abilities if you’ve only ever seen it play its home turf. But the…
