Last year, faculty from the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance and the Kansas City Art Institute collaborated for monthly experimental performances called ArtSounds. Series co-director Paul Rudy says, “It’s interesting to put conservatory people, who tend to be slightly overdisciplined, with Art Institute folks, who are unbelievably creative. Not that they’re not disciplined as well. And not that…
The Audrey Hepburn DVD Collection (Paramount) Bram Stoker’s Dracula: Collector’s Edition (Sony) Christmas Television Favorites (Warner Bros.) The Comedians of Comedy: Live at the Troubadour (Image) Criminal Minds: The Second Season (Paramount) Day Night Day Night (IFC) Entourage: Season Three, Part 2 (HBO) Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer (Fox) Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Plane…
Billiards is one of the few sports that’s as taxing on a computer screen as it is in real life. It’s played in pubs, after all, and its legendary star was named “Fats.” Unfortunately, most virtual billiard games are behind the 8-ball in terms of quality, with poor physics and convoluted controls. What’s so hard about replicating a stick…
Caligula: Imperial Edition (Penthouse) (Spoiler alert: Fisting!) One day back in the swingin’ ’70s, somebody mentioned how “absolute power corrupts absolutely,” and then Bob Guccione, Gore Vidal, Malcolm McDowell, Helen Mirren, and Peter O’Toole said, “Let’s make a big-budget movie about that, with come shots. ” And Caligula was born. Actually, Penthouse publisher Guccione added the hardcore shots to…
Bad Dates With this one-woman, one-stage comedy comes a pistol shot heralding the start of the Kansas City Repertory Theatre’s first two-stage season. The ol’ stage at UMKC remains the home of the Rep’s patented splashy takes on the canon, whereas the new Copaken indulges in the “intimate.” A friendly little show, interested in shoes and clothes and the troubles…
Orly Cogan and Elizabeth Huey Tiered white cake, sprinkle-sotted doughnuts, whipped meringue, cakes erupting with perfectly spherical maraschinos, crosshatched apple pie, cupcakes beckoning with a bright confetti of fixings. Orly Cogan makes pretty pastries from doilies, macramé, ribbons, pom-poms and yarn, all with the impeccable presentation of a perfectionist home-ec-teacher-cum-pastry-chef. This table of inedible treats is the physical centerpiece of…
Filing out of the Copaken Stage last week, listening to the condo class dish about Bad Dates, the debut show of the Kansas City Repertory Theatre’s new season, I found myself wondering: What’s wrong with “slight”? It’s how I like my precipitation, my ballerinas and my chances of death. Sometimes, it’s even how I like my shows — especially singles-on-the-town…
I’ll admit it. Because I have a weakness for narrative imagery and confessional storytelling, I’ve found past work by Kansas City painter James Brinsfield to be detached and hard to penetrate. I felt distanced from his intent. But his new body of work — all excitable color, surprising intimacy and pleasurable exuberance — feels open, vulnerable and ripe with meaningful…
To some, the story of Christopher Johnson McCandless, the 24-year-old Emory University graduate who starved to death in the Alaskan wilderness in the spring of 1992, will never be anything more than a case of a spoiled bourgeois brat with half-cocked survivalist fantasies (and possible suicidal tendencies) who ran away from home and got exactly what he deserved. To…
A wise man once said DJing is 70 percent track selection and 30 percent technical skills. After all, party-rocking merits come from what you play more than how you play it. J.A.H. and Madame E, a newly formed KC boy-girl DJ duo, hit Sike’s monthly dance night at the Record Bar on Thursday. J.A.H. played at Kabal and Skybox for…
“Wait” by the New Amsterdams from At the Foot of My Rival (Curb Appeal): The New Amsterdams are Kansas City’s best- and worst-kept secret. The band can play a benefit show in Lawrence for 25 friends and promptly high-tail it to the Coachella Festival to perform for thousands of true-blue fans. Perhaps it’s that dichotomy that’s kept the band sounding…
“Golden Dime” by Minds Under Cover from Warmth Can Wait (Innerhorse Systems): John Bersuch (of Bacon Shoe infamy) puts on his semi-serious face for Minds Under Cover, an entity that has powered through 14 years and about as many lineups. Bersuch’s mercurial muses are probably his group’s own worst enemy in a marketing sense, but his breadth of influences makes…
Many classically trained musicians dream of playing prestigious theaters before attentive audiences. Having accomplished this goal on a national scale, Kansas City singer-and-guitarist duo Nathan Granner and Beau Bledsoe celebrated by lending sophistication to the rock-club scene: They played the Brick. “A dream came true,” raved Granner, a member of the American Tenors, on his MySpace page. Granner and Bledsoe…
Duane Denison seems to have a penchant for starting underground rock supergroups. The ex-Jesus Lizard guitarist also plays in Tomahawk, which at one point or another has included members of the Melvins, Battles, Helmet and a guy named Mike Patton. This time around, Denison has teamed up with former Ministry and Revolting Cocks bassist Paul Barker. Together, the two enlisted…
“Clear Blue Flame” by Delta Moon, from Clear Blue Flame (Jumping Jack Records): When singer and guitarist Tom Gray saw Ry Cooder perform with David Lindley, he was inspired to start Delta Moon with fellow slide guitarist Mark Johnson (and an ever-changing rhythm section). The band’s swampy, rustic Southern blues drips greasy grit, and after going through two female leads…
“Breaker” by Low, from Drums and Guns (Sub Pop): When Low first appeared on the critical radar in the mid-’90s, the band made its mark as a slowcore ensemble playing nocturnal ballads in an era dominated by aggressive alt-rock. In time, though, Alan Sparhawk and company outgrew their namesake and began summoning dense, electrified songs characterized by plodding tom-tom beats…
The Smashing Pumpkins just aren’t what they used to be. The geeky space-rock charm of Gish and Siamese Dream began to die shortly after Billy Corgan shaved his head and uttered, The world is a vampire. The more recent Zeitgeist reunion drove another nail into the coffin. Relive the band’s glory days at its official Web site. The audio page…
Interpol, the biggest indie-rock band of all time of the moment, just returned from a European tour and begins an American leg, which will take it to places such as Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Covington, Kentucky. Then it’s off to Japan, Europe again, Canada, back to the United States and then back to Europe in November. It’s all an effort…
How easy is it to manipulate popular culture? Ask Klaxons member Simon Taylor-Davies. Long before the British guitarist and his cohorts, singer Jamie Reynolds and keyboardist James Righton, were musically proficient by his standards, they announced that they’d created a sonic style called “new rave.” The term quickly seized the attention of trend-conscious U.K. music mavens. “We had labels and…
“A Late Night Booty Call” by Rhythm & Pleasure: It’s a typical Monday night at the Brick. Shaggy-haired scenesters and slaves to the service industry order cheap drinks while some dude butchers a Johnny Cash tune. Karaoke host Brodie Rush plugs songs into his computer. It’s a pretty nondescript scene, until three sharp-dressed black gentlemen take the stage. Rush announces…
Gregg Gillis can’t believe all the attention that his musical alter ego is getting. “The past couple months have been particularly ridiculous,” he says. “First, you’ve got Mike Doyle talking about me in Congress. Two weeks later, I’m playing a high school prom, playing to all these 17- and 18-year-olds. The next week, I’m playing Coachella, and Paris Hilton jumps…
Dear Readers: Back on September 6, I asked half-breeds to write in with nicknames that describe their mixed Mexican heritage. Muchos responses continue to trickle in — gracias for the submissions. Following is a handy glossary that ustedes wrote, with occasional commentary from The Mexican. Enjoy! If you’re half-Mexican and: Half-African: Afrijoles Half-black: Black beans, Blaxican, Choco-Taco, Negrexican Half-Arab: Garbanzo…
Dear Mexican: After the great migration of Jews to this nation, a question was posed: “How long does it take a Jew to go from being a street sweeper to becoming a corporate attorney?” The answer given was “one generation.” Not so for Mexicans. Most Mexicans seem to recoil from education like the fictional Dracula recoils from a wooden cross….
The problem: The Humane Society in Wichita recently sold land that held a pet cemetery. The graveyard, which functioned from the mid-1960s to the late 1980s, holds about 1,500 animal corpses. With few records on who owned the long-dead pets, the Humane Society isn’t sure what to do with the remains. Who’s affected: Aging baby boomers may be getting phone…
