It’s not often that advocates for illegal immigrants make nice with armed civilians who patrol the border for alien invaders. But last week, a pair of Hispanic men representing the People’s Alliance for Latino Advancement lent their tan complexions to the cause of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. Why would two opposing sides hook up? During a press conference in…
Five years ago, Mark Forsythe accepted an invitation to attend a Citizens Association meeting at the downtown Kansas City Marriott. New to politics, Forsythe wasn’t sure what to expect. He left the hotel struck by how it seemed as if every past, current and future member of the City Council had passed through the door, smiling. “I realized that those…
Alvin Brooks One-line bio: A two-term councilman and admired figure, Brooks goes on radio to ask for crime tips and comforts the families of murder victims, making him a parish priest of the black community. Campaign guru: Pat Gray, who managed the successful campaigns of Kay Barnes and last spring’s push for taxpayer-funded renovations of the sports complex. Rich…
Today, we at the Pitch were suddenly made aware of a local singer by the name of Von Smith. What happened was, his mother called and directed us to YouTube videos of him by telling us to search for “Vonatron.” According to mumsy, the kid’s going to be on The View on Feb. 27 and is one of MTV’s “breakout…
Hats off to Tim Finn. Dude wrote a good entry on the Grammys. Now I’m really glad I didn’t watch that shitfest. Well, Valentine’s Day is approaching, which makes me all the more grateful that Mardi Gras is just around the corner. It’s a lot easier to get that one right — just put on funky clothes and run wild…
The Supernauts. Saturday, February 10, at Davey’s Someone will probably want to slap me for saying this, but I’m pretty sure the Supernauts do Led Zeppelin better than Led Zeppelin could do Led Zeppelin. Jordan LeBrecht, the skinny, singing Supernaut, can also inspire goosebumps when he croons like John Lennon or Paul McCartney. LeBrecht did a lot of that a…
In other words, the weekend. FRIDAY We already did stories on the Golden Republic’s final show, the Nomathmatics with Shanthrax and the Gaslights would-have-been CD-release party. At the Brick tonight, the Ants play with a new band called the Tree (featuring In the Pines’ violinist Laurel Morgan), and Chris Schutz from Philadelphia’s the Tourists backs up and trades off with…
Camera Obscura and Pony Up. Tuesday, February 6, at the Record Bar. (Sorry this is a day late. This chemical-cloud-of-dark-death thingy brought about an early sign-off yesterday.) Camera Obscura: “Alright, everybody smile! Or not.” Let it go, Tracyanne, just let it go. Your songs are so pretty; don’t look so sour. Turn that frown upside down. Maybe if you did,…
Alfred Hitchcock: The Early Years of the Master of Suspense (Lions Gate) All Quiet on the Western Front (Universal) Anything but Love: Volume One (Fox) Arabian Nights (Universal) Best Picture: Academy Award Winners Collection (Paramount) Boynton Beach Club (Sony) Charmed: The Complete Seventh Season (Paramount) Cinderella III: A Twist in Time (Disney) Coastlines (IFC) Def Comedy Jam: Episodes 1 &…
Explaining the appeal of the WarioWare series is like trying to describe a fever dream: It doesn’t make sense unless experienced. Nevertheless, here goes: Mario’s bizarro-universe twin, the greedy Wario, has invented over 200 absurd micro-games in a scheme to get rich and corner the videogame market. Quantity is job 1 for Wario. Lasting all of five seconds each,…
The Giver It’s Junior’s First Utopian Nightmare down at the Coterie, where shows made for kids are often better than the adult-content theaters in staging, style and intelligence. Coterie shows are shorter, too, and more likely to make a point. This time, director Jeff Church takes on Lois Lawry’s Newberry-winning novel about a “perfect” future in which peace and politeness…
Current Works, 2006 The Society for Contemporary Photography closes with a loose examination of the difference between land and property. In Jeff Krolick’s digital prints, natural fissures separate developed land from untouched earth under miasmas of benign clouds. Each could be a glossy sympathy card with a rural postmark: “Sorry about that road coming through.” Jamie Kreher’s droll study of…
For a decade, Late Night Theatre has been home to the wildest, most gender-fucked, burlesque satires Kansas City has ever known. Last week, founder Ron Megee announced that heaping debts and skyrocketing rents have finally killed the party. Here, the stars of Late Night tell their epic tale. Ron Megee: In late 1996, we started Late Night Theatre with…
The animal exhibition is inevitable. Curators almost always organize at least one in their careers because animals can be the perfect stand-ins for broader personal, social, cultural, ethical and political agendas. Anne Pearce’s Beasts at Rockhurst University’s Greenlease Gallery is a familiar riff on the ubiquitous animal exhibition, but she has done it right and curated a tight exhibition…
I love sexy restaurants like Café des Amis (see review), but I draw the line at sex in restaurants. Most veteran waiters I know, including my friend Ned, have at least one story about watching customers do it — you know, right there in the dining room. When he was working in one of Kansas City’s hotel dining rooms (the…
The Marquis de Sade is said to have declared, “Sex is as important as eating or drinking, and we ought to allow the one appetite to be satisfied with as little restraint or false modesty as the other.” The French put sex right where it should be in the sensual spectrum, somewhere between the perfect crème brûlée and a…
In 2007, Ben Fuller and DJ Candlewax (who spin together as Tactic) aren’t fucking around. As one of the few local acts playing at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, this spring, Tactic is on a mission to put Kansas City on the DJ map. Friday at The Point, Tactic performs with Timmy Ruckus, Bucho and Mr. Nuro. Across…
Sin lured us into Mike’s Tavern on a Monday night, but tales of near-debauchery, brushes with fame and cheap draws kept us out late. We needed to get our week started right, so we headed over to 54th Street and Troost with Research Assistants Lorna, Cece and Peter for its service-industry night — aka “sin night.” Best known as a…
Kansas City’s the TV Eyes rightfully claim as influences a bunch of artists whose albums were secondary to their legendary performances: the Stooges, the MC5 and the 13th Floor Elevators, to name a few. Like neighboring ’70s-garage-rock revivalists the Rich Boys (with which the group shares members), the TV Eyes specialize in swampy classic rock, down-South blues and nasty garage…
Recent acts such as Ratatat and Dosh are much-needed reminders that danceable electronic music is no longer relegated to heart-rattling club beats, mind-numbing trance or ass-shaking hip-hop. Unlike the music of many instrumental knob twisters, beat experimenter Martin Dosh’s lush loops and careful orchestration reveal an experienced, calculating musician confident in his own sound. On 2006’s The Lost Take, Dosh’s…
Jeff Black is no genius songwriter, but his weathered voice and gospel fervor shiver with the urgency of troubadours such as Bruce Springsteen or Townes Van Zandt. As classically Americana as Black’s tunes are, though, he still has a fresh, bare-knuckled sound, tailored to carry listeners from subject to blue-collar subject. Black can shoot the blues about life as an…
The Shins’ third and newest album, Wincing the Night Away, was readily available on illegal file-sharing services early last November, more than two months before its official release. But perhaps Wincing’s No. 2 debut on the Billboard album charts — with a whopping 35,000 digital copies sold out of 118,000 overall — will finally quiet those who complain that file…
Australian producer Neil Mason made record execs tremble when he released the online-only Green Day mash-up album, American Edit. Ten days after it was posted, Warner Bros. filed a cease and desist order and … well, you’ve heard this one before. But Mason’s Team9 is back in the studio, promising a new album that should be ready to download (at…
Midtowners may remember eyeing the gangly, bespectacled blonde stocking cold cream at the Walgreens on Broadway, perhaps thinking, That girl does not belong here. Little did anyone know that 21-year-old Shandi Sullivan would end up on a popular reality show, competing with other genetically blessed chicks to become America’s. Next. Top. Model. America’s Next Top Model began as a quasi-legitimate…
