Meryll, “In Left Field” One of life’s great pleasures is falling in love with a band that none of your friends have heard of. Austin, Texas’ Meryll is a prime candidate for such a distinction, thanks to its winning combination of chiming guitars and gift-wrapped melodies. The most immediate touchstones — Coldplay and Death Cab for Cutie — are entirely…
Joshua (Fox) George Ratliff’s movie, a sort of satirical take on Rosemary’s Baby, came and went upon its release; seems no one got the joke about how parents (Sam Rockwell and Vera Farmiga, in this case) are scared shitless of their own children — especially the titular Joshua, played by Jacob Kogan like he’s drained of blood. It was…
When I was 12, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway totally screwed me over. After visiting the famed Brickyard and eagerly paying 10 bucks to take “a lap around the track,” I was placed in a golf cart that putted around the asphalt at a not-entirely-death-defying 9 mph. This was not the pants-soiling experience I had dreamed of. But until we…
“Dumbo Wins Again” by Ghosty Make something of yourself — or hit the snooze button. That was the directive in the title of Ghosty’s first album. Released in 2005 on West Coast label Future Farmer Recordings, Grow Up or Sleep In introduced the world outside Lawrence to a band adept at both kicking back and going for it. The album…
Back in 2002, Madlib (under the guise of Yesterdays New Quintet) released a tribute to Stevie Wonder. Simply titled Stevie, the collection of jazzy instrumentals wasn’t originally meant for public consumption, and one can only assume that the same holds true for Miles Bonny’s Steveland. The EP was limited to 44 copies and is essentially Bonny singing and playing a…
All teasing aside, Dutch Newman may be the hungriest MC in Kansas City right now. Whether he’s wrecking open mics with unpitying abandon on The Show-Me Mix Show (KKFI 90.1) or giving mouth-to-mouth to the Peanut scene, it’s clear that Dutch craves lonely, neglected microphones and leaves everything on the field. His latest, The Food For Thought Mixtape, is a…
Results are the poetry of sports. Scoreboards speak perfect truths. Missouri, we learned in late November, had a better football team than Kansas. Chiefs boss Carl Peterson can’t hide from 1994, the last year one of his teams advanced in the playoffs. It’s a fact that the Royals never lost 100 games in a season until David Glass bought…
My friend Kelly, who lives in Johnson County, says most of his fellow suburban Kansans don’t drive downtown for dinner because the parking situation is too confusing. The suburbs might not have the best restaurants, you see, but parking is abundant — and free. Kelly told me this before we decided to have lunch with another friend, Richard, at the…
Editor’s note: We’ve been asked about the availability of the shirts in our Offensive Gift Guide (Burnt Ends, December 20). No joke, you can buy your own shirts and merchandise — including maternity-sized “Amato’s Bitches” shirts and Paul Morrison “Free Mustache Rides” mugs — at The Pitch’s page on cafepress. Music: “Home Schooled,” December 27 Keep Pedalling As someone who was…
Dear Mexican: I feel that the more Mexicans who come to this country, the better. I am a Mormon, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In our Book of Mormon, on page 54, it says on the left side of the page in Verse 6, “There shall none come into this land save they shall…
Our sympathies go out to the handful of you who paid big bucks to score a copy of the Cold War Kids’ ultrarare Mulberry St. EP on eBay; your investment just depreciated a bit. The So-Cal indie outfit, which hit the studio last month to begin recording its next album, is now giving away its six-song debut release. Grab it…
A pint-sized novelty who made preteen girls swoon with his 2000 debut, Beware of Dog, Bow Wow has somehow evolved into an elder statesman in the hip-pop genre. Now 20, he has split with longtime producer Jermaine Dupri, and his sixth CD, Face Off — a collaboration with B2K’s Omarion — arrived last month. The Columbus, Ohio, native, whose real…
Class is in session at the Paul Green School of Rock Music in the Northland, and music director David Rice is prepping his pupils for their upcoming performance of Pink Floyd’s The Wall. “Which one of these people was not in the band after 1970?” Rice asks. A dozen students fire back in unison with the answer to the quiz:…
Unlike most rock bands, Kansas City’s Big Sky Blue Earth doesn’t center its live show on the singer. In fact, with all the fog and laser-light action on the stage, it can be tough to figure out who is offering the occasional vocal melodies that go with the psychedelic rock. (Answer: drummer Sam Hoskins.) Who you do end up staring…
American Soil In the elegant and subtle new Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, architect Kyu Sung Woo has designed a light-filled space whose primary duty is to showcase art, not itself. Inaugurating the first-floor galleries is an exhibition in which diverse images suggest landscape in its broadest possible sense. Los Angeles artist Tomory Dodge creates monumental and unknowable landscapes that…
When an old friend from another city came to visit, my friend Jamie took him to lunch at one of his favorite restaurants — a cozy bistro on 39th Street. “I was very excited,” Jamie told me. “It should have been perfect.” It might have been, but Jamie had the misfortune of being served by a young woman whose waitressing…
This March, the Ultra Music Festival, part of Miami’s Winter Music Conference, celebrates 10 years of being one insanely huge two-day dance party. And this year, The Pitch celebrates its fourth year of being the one local newspaper that flies out one local DJ to perform at UMF. Now through Friday, January 25, The Pitch welcomes all you worthy Kansas…
The All New Super Friends Hour: Season One, Volume One (Turner) American Carny: True Tales From the Circus Sideshow (Koch Vision) Cary Grant: 4-Disc Collector’s Set (Republic) Casablanca (Warner Bros.) Death Sentence (Fox) Eagle vs. Shark (Miramax) Evil Roy Slade (TMG) Golden Door (Miramax) Happy Tree Friends: Complete Season One (BCI/Eclipse) Harvie Krumpet (Medialink) The Killing Floor (THINKfilm) The Heart…
By CRYSTAL K. WIEBE Seeing the movie Sweeney Todd before seeing the theatrical production now playing at the Music Hall is a bad idea. Especially if you’re a shallow person. True, the slew of Broadway actors who make up the traveling cast are way more talented than their Hollywood counterparts. In addition to singing and acting, every member of…
Well, St. Louis. No word on date or venue yet. Categories: Music Tags: flan in the face
It’s been a big week for our dears the Ssion. Over on Pitchfork, they’ve posted a remix of the KC art-punk-dance-pop collective’s song “Clown” by Portland electroclash band Glass Candy, whom we also love (here and here). Cody Critcheloe, left, with Glass Candy’s Ida No Additionally, New York promotion company GBH posted a remix of the same song, this one…
By JUSTIN KENDALL William R. Watkins reminds me of why clowns freak me the fuck out. In late December, Jackson County prosecutors charged Watkins with possessing child pornography and molesting and sodomizing children. Independence police, who recently released these photos, say the mullet-sporting 53-year-old dressed as The Grinch and Beetlejuice at events throughout Kansas City for the last 18 years….
The following press release just came in, and, hoo boy, you’re going to love it. We thought at first it might be from Hannah Banana’s people, but it’s actually all about this guy named Roy Sciacca (who may or may not have been in a legal battle over Beach-Boys memorabilia). From Spelling Communications: Hannah Montana Double Caught On Stage Tour…
In recent months, the buzz has been getting louder for Springfield, MO, band Ha Ha Tonka. They’ve gotten the accolades from the Spin., the PopMatters and the CMJ reports and, oh, yeah, from your mom, too. Now, the band is slated to play the Music on Main Festival at the Sundance Film Festival on January 24. So, like, if you’re…
