Music performance. Fri., Nov. 2, 2007 Tags: Night & Day
No End in Sight Charles Ferguson’s debut doc, easily the most important in a year full of notable fact-gathering films, assembles some of the key players behind the invasion and occupation of Iraq and seems to ask them but one question: “What went wrong?” In short: everything. But Ferguson’s doc is no fist-shaking stab at agitprop pop filmmaking; it’s…
American Gangster is an ambitious movie with obvious gravitas and a familiar argument: Organized crime is outsider capitalism. As archetypal as its title, Ridley Scott’s would-be epic aspires to enshrine Harlem dope king Frank Lucas in Hollywood heaven, heir to Scarface and the Godfather. Or, as suggested by the Mark Jacobson article on Lucas that inspired the movie, a real-life…
American culture has a long history of changing, chopping down and altering ethnic names because someone deems them too hard to pronounce or says they sound a shade too, you know, foreign. If you don’t believe me, ask Jennifer Aniston (real name: Jennifer Anastassakis), Bernadette Peters (Bernadette Lazzaro) or Mel Brooks (Mel Kaminsky). Don’t ask me how my own family’s…
Dear Mexican: How do I go to the Mexican grocery store and bakery to buy supplies for our Día de los Muertos party without looking like I’m doing the kitschy-goofy thing I’m doing? I walk up to the register and smile ingratiatingly, saying “Gracias” as usual — but a basketful of sugar skulls and other themed items hefted to the…
Download: Dri: “You Know I Tried” MP3 I’ve been to the beach maybe three times in my landlocked life. Each time, sand got into everything, and I got a bad sunburn. Never on any beach did a girl look at me the way Dri is looking out from the cover of her debut solo album, Smoke Rings. Clad in a…
An argument could be made that the only things differentiating many of today’s metal upstarts from one another are hometowns and band names. Glendale, Arizona’s Job for a Cowboy just escapes that generic ignominy, mainly because the electrifying riffs and fills that guitarists Ravi Bhadriraju and Bobby Thompson peel off don’t surf the same putrid ravines of black bile that singer…
“Knowledge in Hand” by the Forms, from the album The Forms (Threespheres): The Forms spent 50 consecutive days in Chicago recording their new self-titled album with Steve Albini, a feat that tested the will, sanity and pocketbook of the Brooklyn-based band. But the result is a record that expands on the melodic post-rock experiments of the Forms’ daring 2003 debut,…
Even if the age of digital downloads has left album artwork all but ignored, a meaningful theme still sprouts from the title and design of Tegan and Sara’s most recent release, The Con. The novelistic motif inspired by the album’s Moog-infused title track provides a reference for the twin sisters’ lyrical preoccupations and story-time live show. Known for conveying ever-evolving…
“Power of the Damager” by Prong, from the album Power of the Damager (13th Planet Records): It’s great to have Prong back, but it’s even better that the band isn’t back in name only, which certainly seemed the case when it was doing shows last year. Just released on Al Jourgensen’s label, the ridiculously titled new album, Power of the…
The Southern accent in Backyard Tire Fire’s music can be traced to the band’s North Carolina origins and its avowed reverence for the Allman Brothers, Neil Young and Tom Petty. The latter has a song named after him on the Bloomington, Illinois, trio’s fourth LP, Vagabonds and Hooligans, and though fame is the subject of the song, the band’s earthy…
My Aunt Josephine would be scandalized to know that I spent nearly 50 bucks at Amor Fiery Steakhouse de Brazil for what is, essentially, a fancy salad bar and a plate of meat and potatoes (see review). As a child of the Great Depression, Aunt Jo can remember when $50 was a week’s paycheck. Come to think of it, I…
Kansas City is now a little more cosmopolitan: A new Starbucks opened recently in ridiculously close proximity to an existing Starbucks. Coffees with Italian names are now being served inside H&R Block’s world headquarters in downtown Kansas City, Missouri. The new Starbucks is on the 13th Street side of the building — a short walk (two minutes, 40 seconds)…
When he isn’t hyping up the home crowd at a Cleveland Cavaliers game, Mick Boogie is at work piecing together some of hip-hop’s finest mix tapes. He recently teamed up with Kanye West and producers Terry Urban and 9th Wonder for The Graduate, a 28-track collection of freestyles, remixes and live tracks available for free at Boogie’s Web site. Along…
We’re cool with murder, in our way. The gravest of horrors in real life, it’s a given in our entertainment — that precipitating act required so that our CSI characters can start sniffing through their interchangeable adventures. In countless light mysteries, ones starring Angela Lansbury or — bizarrely — Jane Austen, it’s the one aberration that must be dealt with…
State Lines: “Hopping Mad,” October 11 Wort Removal Thanks for writing “Hopping Mad.” A well-respected member of our community brought it to my attention. It takes courage to call it what it is. I had no idea that American Legion and Elks Lodge members were treated that way by the Blue Springs Chamber of Commerce and why our local paper…
For the generation that came of drinking age and had Blayney’s, the Levee and the original Grand Emporium at its disposal, the midtown blues scene might appear to be an unquestioned local staple, like a sold-out Arrowhead Stadium. But as much as the Chiefs languished in the ’80s, losing in front of thousands of empty seats, the blues suffered locally…
Looking West could have been an eloquent disquisition on the uneven American cultural fascination with “the West” — a fascination not even everyone shares — including its history and politics, ideas of American expansionism, racism, colonialism and American Indian rights. Instead, work in the exhibition seems to have been chosen simply because it in some way visually refers to…
The Amicus Collection (Dark Sky) Angel: Complete Series Collector’s Set (Fox) Beastie Boys: The Complete Story (Video Music) Benny Hill: The Complete Megaset (A&E) A Christmas Story (Warner Bros.) CSI Miami: The Fifth Season (Paramount) The Cup (Festival Media) Day Watch (Fox) Dear Jesse (Sovereign) The Devil Came on Horseback (IFC) El Cantante (New Line) Executive Suite (Warner Bros.) License…
