Free meditation instruction every Wednesday at 6:00 p.m. No need to sign up or register, simply show up and let someone know you are there for meditation instruction. Wednesdays, 6 p.m., 2007 Tags: Night & Day
Happy Hour daily 5-7 pm at Kansas City’s own Thai favorite, featuring drink and appetizer specials. Reverse happy hour Friday and Saturday from 9pm to 12am with drink and appetizer specials. Starts: Aug. 20. Daily, 5-7 p.m., 2007 Tags: Kansas City, Night & Day
Union Station and the University of Kansas have formed a partnership to develop this unique laboratory, the largest of its kind in America. For the first time anywhere, the whole scientific process involved in prepping dinosaur specimens will be on full public display. You can see it all, from the delicate work of extracting the ancient bones encased in…
Remember when MTV had rock-geek cred? Think back to the early ’90s and that show 120 Minutes. Anytime Thurston Moore got in front of the camera and plugged some unheard-of Japanese band, come Monday morning, the kids would go out barefoot in the snow, trudging uphill to buy the band’s entire catalog. And they liked it, damn it. Take Shonen…
Scott Hobart is one of Kansas City music’s most consistently badass dudes. In the ’90s, as singer and guitarist for the post-hardcore band Giants Chair, he wrote songs that were pummeling and complex. Then, like the Nutty Professor discovering flubber, Hobart went in an insanely different direction, taking giant steps as the heavy-hearted lamenter in his country outfit, Rex Hobart…
Young band Sterilize Stereo left Kansas City in August for the progressive mecca of Portland, Oregon, where there’s working light rail and a viable circus-rock scene. The band has already played 15 shows in the Pacific Northwest and befriended some equally crackerjack old-timey acts; a December showcase is scheduled at Portland’s hip punk-cabaret joint, Dante’s. Singer and guitarist Jake Kersely…
The shimmering beauty of the combined voices of Anna Maria Friman, Linn Andrea Fuglseth and Torunn Østrem Ossum floats in an ethereal realm of crystalline precision. Their harmonies are so exquisite that it’s tempting to call them angelic. But there’s also an earthiness about Trio Mediaeval’s music that’s essentially soulful. Finding common ground between ancient and new music, the three…
“16 Addresses,” by the Gaslights, from16 Addresses (Church Mouse Music): The past 18 months have dealt the Gaslights a bum hand: an album scrapped because of band defections, a van-totaling moose, and carpal-tunnel surgery for drummer Glen Hockemeier. By the time the Kansas City band finally hit the studio in September, the only thing left to do was channel enough…
For a river town, Kansas City doesn’t much like its river. Few people here seem to know it, but, apparently, riverbanks have uses beyond oil refining, sewage treatment and blackjack. Rivers are also a source of beauty and inspiration. In Omaha, for instance, people actually walk alongside the Missouri River — for miles at a time! This revelation came a…
“Pretty Disaster,” by Dead Rock West, from Honey and Salt (Popluxe Records): Dead Rock West began in 1999 in a Southern California living room with two singers working out harmonies. Charming, you might say, but where’s the mission statement, the blog buzz, the L.A. sleaze to grease the publicity wheels? Those two singers, Cindy Wasserman and Frank Lee Drennen, don’t…
“Control, Control” by Making Movies: Since age 6, Enrique Chi has carried out his daily chores in both Spanish and English. He has made great strides with the latter. “When I moved here, I knew how to say water and knucklehead,” recalls Chi, whose family relocated to Kansas City from Panama. Eighteen years later, Chi still occasionally finds himself at…
This heart beats in another city now. New York City, actually. Gone is the comfort of Kansas City, where it takes 15 minutes to get anywhere, where you don’t need a proper coat on wintry nights because you’re outside for just a couple of minutes anyway, and where no one’s a stranger at the bars you haunt. I could do…
“I Believe,” by Pomeroy, from A New Reflection: If the bar at Re:Verse were as slick as Pomeroy’s new album, your rum and diet would slide right off and onto the floor. Fortunately, the boys in this 10-year-old band wear cheap shoes. Or at least they do in the cover shot — Converse and Adidas, mostly. Otherwise, they’re done up…
Dear Mexican: Every day, I drive by the Mexican consulate on Baltimore. For months, there used to be an old truck with “Copias” scribbled on the side. People were always lined up in front of it, and there was usually a generator humming nearby. Recently, the old truck turned into a new van, with a nicer “Copias” sign. I’m guessing…
A friend and I recently wandered into George Brett’s (210 West 47th Street) for lunch on a Saturday afternoon, and the four-year-old sports-themed restaurant was nearly empty. I hadn’t been in the joint since I first reviewed it in 2004 (“Home Plates,” January 22, 2004), and the interior didn’t quite look the same. The décor was still stylishly sleek, but…
One80 is the only venue in Westport that plays house music on Saturday nights. Tyrone Blea brings deep, soulful, jazzy house to the club each week. Though the place hardly turns jackfest 2007, the soothing electronic music provides a fine backdrop for socializing. The usual crowd here is older and more mature than at most places in Westport on the…
For a couple of years, A Christmas Carol and I had a good thing going. The show would hit town in mid-November and cram Scrooge full of God-bless-us right up through Christmas Eve. Me — I’d see other shows. I figured I’d let Dickens be Dickens. With this Kansas City Repertory Theatre “tradition,” the only true dramatic interest concerns whether…
A vegetarian friend of mine once said he could never touch beef again after seeing a sad-eyed cow gazing at him from a pen near a Midwest slaughterhouse. “I felt his spirit pleading with me,” my friend told me. “Help me, please help me.” Avoiding eye contact with cattle is just one of the tricks of the trade for…
There’s no surer sign that a franchise is in trouble than when it blasts into outer space. So you were right to be nervous when Nintendo announced its plans to follow up the subpar game Super Mario Sunshine with something called Super Mario Galaxy, which promised to launch the mustached plumber into orbit. But after months of hype, Nintendo…
Hot Rod (Paramount) Andy Samberg, best known for stuffing his dick in a box on Saturday Night Live, is Rod Kimble, a wannabe stuntman with very little “man” in him. He lives with his mom (Sissy Spacek, not kidding) and a stepdad (Ian McShane), who needs a new heart at a “conveniently priced $50,000,” which Rod wants to raise just…
Bratz (Lionsgate) Drunken Angel: The Criterion Collection (Criterion) Elvis: Blue Suede Collection (Warner Bros.) ESPNU Honor Roll: The Best of College Football Vol. 3 (ESPN) Happy Days: The Third Season (Paramount) Hot Fuzz: 3-Disc Collector’s Edition (Universal) The Land Before Time: The Wisdom of Friends (Universal) Laverne & Shirley: The Third Season (Paramount) Logan’s Run (Warner Bros.) Mork & Mindy:…
“Always the Same, Never the Same,” by Oh Blessed Thought, from Light a Lamp, Sweep the House:(Beat Oven) Taking respite from the Big Emotional Rock movement, which sees dozens of area bands emulating Coldplay and U2’s ringing-guitar climaxes, Oh Blessed Thought uses its dual guitars subtly. Nate Evans and Josh Armfield dispense their shimmering riffs in shards, the fractal bits…
Feature: “Buried Truth,” November 15 Grave Mistake Thanks to Nadia Pflaum for enlightening me on a part of our local history I was not aware of. I trust the right thing will happen and the people buried there will receive the proper burial they deserve. Dave Wernecke, Overland Park Feature: “Uneasy Riders,” November 8 Takes the Cake I could relate…
Thanks to a growing amount of blogger buzz, the Golden Animals are getting ready to release one of 2008’s most anticipated debuts. At first glance, Linda Beecroft and Tommy Eisner look like a hippie knockoff of the White Stripes, but the psychedelic blues duo is blazing its own trail with influences that include the Beatles and Brian Setzer. Unless you…
