In the past month of theatergoing, I’ve been so crammed full of Christmas that I’m weeping peace and pissing myrrh. I’m not quite starting to sympathize with King Herod’s policy of dispatching boys to their deaths, but I’m at least willing to admit that, unlike the Bush administration, the dude was upfront about the whys and wherefores. Generally speaking, I’ve…
Christopher Brown’s great painting “Elm Street” is taken from a frame of the famous Zapruder film documenting the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. (Kennedy’s motorcade was driving on Elm Street when he was shot.) On this large canvas, Brown renders with precision an image that’s been burned into our subconscious. We see six standing figures from behind, the…
Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio) slouches across a bar in Sierra Leone. It’s 1999, and the West African nation is mired in a civil war. Our hero, a world-weary soldier of fortune, has struck up a conversation with Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly), a foxy idealist reporting on the diamond trade for an American newsweekly. As an operative in a vast conspiracy…
Apocalypto has a faux Greek title and an opening quote from historian Will Durant that ruminates on the decline of imperial Rome. It may seem like an odd way to comment on the supposed end of an imaginary, unspeakably barbaric Mayan civilization, but Mel Gibson means to be universal. Not just a walk in the park with Mel and the…
When the weather turns cold, I grow seriously resistant to rolling out of my nice warm bed on a Sunday morning and hauling my copy of The New York Times to a restaurant like the Saddle Ranch Chop House (see review), no matter how generous those breakfast platters can be. But I have friends with delusions of grandeur, and on…
I chickened out at the chop house. I just couldn’t work up enough nerve to ride the mechanical bull on any of my visits to the Saddle Ranch Chop House, even when one of the waiters offered to pay the $3 fee for me. After watching a dozen patrons climb atop the headless creature and get bucked off in…
Taking the past five years into account, Phocas.net founder Todd Comer deserves to be dubbed the single most-hardworking person when it comes to keeping the electronic dance scene thriving. Right now, some could even argue that house music is more dominant in Kansas City than underground hip-hop. To celebrate the five-year anniversary of Phocas, Comer is throwing two parties. On…
OK, we admit that we were prepared to hate Tymber, the newest addition to Overland Park’s strip-mall nightlife. The place combines two bar genres that we hate: upscale sports meets dueling pianos. But we were intrigued by the potential cheesiness of a bar that dared to combine sports with a keyboard pissing match. So on a Saturday night not long…
Surprise, surprise: Yet another Top 40 act from Britain struggles to make it here in the States. That sucks, because Forward Russia busts hard dance grooves, its singer, Tom Woodhead, shreds his throat Blood Brothers-style, and guitarist Whiskas slays with intensity comparable to At the Drive-In. The group’s live show will leave you sweaty and dumbstruck. A gymnastic and flexible…
One of the flagship bands on Range Life Records, Fourth of July shares its rural-indie aesthetic with the Pavement tune that shares its label’s name. The band’s latest single, “In Debt,” opens with a line that’s pure Malkmusian deadpan (I’m in debt like my country/But she still believes in me), and that’s just an overture for three minutes of clever…
Imagine finding a warbling baby bird, fallen from a nest high in an oak tree. You go inside to get a shoebox to transport the helpless fledgling to Lakeside Nature Center, but you discover that, in your absence, the helpless chick has eviscerated your neighbor’s Rottweiler and is feasting on Fido’s entrails. The folk music made by Joanna Newsom…
They may look like just another collection of country bumpkins, but the jovial yokels who make up White Ghost Shivers aren’t your average hillbillies. This eight-member crew from Austin, Texas, combines 1920s-style swing with bluegrass and ragtime jazz into a smorgasbord of sound, buzzing with ukuleles, clarinets, kazoos and accordions. At least three members of the band sing, and their…
Barbecue means different things to different people in different places, but if you’re not a snob or a vegetarian, you can probably find something to like about just about any permutation you encounter. Likewise, the genre of alt-country. Columbia, Missouri’s the Doxies serve up the Midwestern version of this humble man’s delicacy. Without punting consistency on their third full-length, the…
The Clash may have scavenged the past for inspiration — calypso, beat poets, film idols, rockabilly, the Spanish civil war — but never for the sake of nostalgia. And whereas boxed sets sometimes embalm history, this one suggests the spirit of discovery that Joe Strummer might have felt pouring through record shops in a West Indian section of London. An…
Though he never achieved the same fame as his peers — a group that includes Augustus Pablo and Tommy McCook — the late Jackie Mittoo (1948-90) was a major player in the history of reggae, rocksteady and ska. Mittoo was an ace on the keyboards, a charter member of the seminal Skatalites, a performer on recordings helmed by luminaries Bob…
CSean Moeller’s Daytrotter.com is more than just another music blog. Its intimate recording sessions are poised to carry an esteem recalling John Peel’s BBC shows. The site’s Futureappletree Studio, located in Rock Island, Illinois, has become a popular pit stop for van-weary artists. “We treat them well, with the promise of free pizza and arcade games, so we’re able to…
When Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Barbara Kopple and her directing partner, Cecilia Peck, first approached the Dixie Chicks about making a documentary about the band, the Chicks turned them down. “We were really disappointed,” Kopple says of the initial rejection. “But then, a few days later, they made the comment, and we were like, ‘We have to do this.’” Kopple…
The Pitch recently had the infinite pleasure of chatting with Midwesterner Leslie Hall, Internet sensation and procurer of gem sweaters. Hall was playing e-mail tag with us while finishing a stint on the East Coast with her rap act, Leslie and the LYs, when her mother called to let us know that Hall would call once she returned to…
Pat Hopewell planted the seed. I interviewed the 40-ish ex-punk for this column almost a year ago to the day (December 8, 2005). We talked about the old days of Kansas City punk, and he mentioned this guy who used to play in the legendary Orange Donuts (also called the ODs) and now works at Sun Fresh in Westport. After…
In case you were wondering, Mac Lethal is not trying to be the next Axl Rose. Normally, that’s the kind of statement that shouldn’t have to be made in the first place. For one thing, the sharp-witted Overland Park MC is a walking, talking antithesis to the Guns N’ Roses lead singer’s carefully crafted egomania. But with each passing…
Dear Mexican: A recent study by the Pew Hispanic Center reveals the following: · Hispanics are four times more likely than non-Hispanics to receive welfare. · Hispanics account for three-quarters of the increase in poverty in the U.S.A. · 45 percent of Hispanic children are born out of wedlock. · Hispanic women are 2.5 times more likely than white women…
Net Prophet, November 23 Balls Out Alonzo Washington believes he is the hardest-working activist in KC? Puh-lease. Most people with any history and time in this town could name a dozen or more people with a longer and more formidable record than Mr. Washington’s. As someone who has had dealings and involvement in KC’s environmental scene, I can say that…
In case you missed it, WDAF Fox 4 weatherman Don Harman and morning news anchor Mark Alford are straiiiiight. As in, not gay. Harman and Alford tag-teamed a November 20 spot with a personal trainer who was trying to demonstrate dumbbell techniques. Instead, the segment quickly turned into a man-grunting stand-up routine. It started with Alford making a good hetero…
From his battle station at 17th Street and Grand, Kansas City Star columnist E. Thomas McClanahan has written dozens of pieces in support of the invasion of Iraq. Events, of course, have not been kind to this position. U.S. military deaths are approaching 3,000. News organizations are using the term “civil war.” In September, a leaked classified intelligence estimate said…
