When it comes to trusting Spaniards, don’t make like Westley from The Princess Bride. Give Kiko de Gallo your hand, and he’ll pull you right up to the party. This transplanted native of Cadiz, Spain, has spent the past couple of years making a name for himself as one of the new local catchall DJs, mixing hip-hop, electro-rock, house, disco,…
Please don’t let Daria LeGrand read this. She is a talented young actress, one so classically cute that she’s exactly what you’d get if cuteness came from a spigot someplace. Besides, audiences are clapping for her, and she’s only 12, for God’s sake. So I feel like a jerk for writing this, but she’s just plain wrong for To Kill…
Just before Christmas, my friend Carmen called to ask if I knew of a restaurant that served authentic Guatemalan tamales. Carmen is a native of República de Guatemala and wanted to celebrate the holidays with her brother and his family in the traditional fashion, serving tamal colorado on Christmas Eve. The only restaurant where I had tasted these unusual tamales…
Thriller 25 hits stores on February 12. For obvious reasons, the world’s best-selling album won’t get its proper due, so Chicago rapper Rhymefest (with the help of producer Mark Ronson) posted Man in the Mirror free at his online store. On his MySpace blog, Rhyme writes, “I would like to meet Michael Jackson. And hopefully, all of you will make…
“Nadine” by the Fairer Sex Rhymes that you’ll never hear in a Fairer Sex song: Crazy/Baby, Hair/Everywhere … Girl/World. “That’s probably the worst one ever,” says leading lyricist Zack Hart with a chuckle. Much like Rhett Miller of Old 97’s and Tali White of the Lucksmiths — two of Hart’s favorite lyricists — the Fairer Sex bets the farm on…
While CD sales slip, vinyl is experiencing a revival, thanks in part to guys like DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist. The Hard Sell (both the album and its accompanying tour) is the third chapter in their quest to manhandle every 7-inch piece of vinyl on the planet, no matter how rare. If you’ve had any inclination to mine the local…
Tomoko Takahashi’s work embraces chaos, order and paradox. Her large-scale installations typically focus on the things that pile up around us: bikes, toys, street signs, clocks. The work can look like a trash heap to some people, but in part, it’s about the accumulation of things and what that suggests about us. For some people, a chaotic environment creates opportunities…
%{}% By CHRIS PACKHAM • A group of five Kansas City residents filed an affidavit with the City Clerk, seeking a recall of Mayor Mark Funkhouser. The petitioners were listed as Saundra Ross, Joycetta Silvers, Moniece Lovelace, Dwight Ross and JoAnn Mitchell. Now these five people have a new hobby: Collecting 16,950 signatures, equal to 20 percent of the voters…
By ERIC BARTON When Barack Obama asked the crowd yesterday in Kansas City whether there were any Cardinals fans in the audience, it first seemed like he had pulled one of those classic rock concert screw-ups by mixing up what town he was in. But with his quick recovery, it was clear that the presidential hopeful was just giving the…
By ERIC BARTON The five folks who put their names on a petition filed yesterday to recall Mayor Mark Funkhouser must’ve thought they were doing some kind of civic duty. Too bad for them, however, that they don’t do their civic duty more often. Turns out three out of five of the people on the petition aren’t registered to vote,…
By DAVID MARTIN Guys who talk about sports for a living can get into trouble when they veer into politics. On a recent installment of Between the Lines on 810 WHB, host Kevin Kietzman drew a flummoxed difference between politicians and sports figures. Kietzman talked about how strange it was that coaches acted like gentlemen next to dirt-slinging candidates…
By ERIC BARTON This petition, filed today with the City Clerk’s Office, seeks to recall Mayor Mark Funkhouser and install former Mayor Pro-Tem Alvin Brooks. The petition says Funkhouser should be recalled for five reasons, including the claim that he has cost the city millions by losing conventions, caused a “breach of public trust” by seeking to fire City…
Yacht Rock debuted in 2005 and gained enough of a local following for people to start singing “What A Fool Believes” at Brodioke and for local DJ Bill Pile to host one or two smooth-music themed nights at a local club. Anyway, we were fans from the beginning, following it right up to its tenth and supposedly final episode a…
By C.J. JANOVY Oh, Kathleen. As such a widely considered “rising star” in the Democratic Party, couldn’t you have given a more exciting response to George Bush’s State of the Union address? You had such a great dig, there at the beginning, for media hacks like me who were watching you oh-so-closely: “Right now, tonight, as political pundits discuss…
By CHRIS PACKHAM • People of a certain demographic say that the age of civility is over. Specifically, the demographic that enjoys A Prairie Home Companion, going down to the drug store for a chocolate phosphate and “liking Ike” — the elderly, is what I’m saying. Kathleen Sebelius demonstrated old-fashioned civility in last night’s Democratic response to the President’s…
By CAROLYN SZCZEPANSKI Gonzalez: Sailing toward veganism. After TV announcers boasted this season that Chiefs’ player Jared Allen had gone vegetarian, I took a trip to Arrowhead Stadium to chat with the hulking defensive end and see if his new diet was the reason for his standout season. It turned out that sportscasters’ claims that Allen had given up…
Well, one good thing is coming from this KY changeover: Little Steven’s Underground Garage is returning to Kansas City airwaves beginning February 3. In case you don’t know who Little Steven is, here’s a primer. Steven Van Zandt is a badass. Here he is, playing “London Calling” on a Joe Strummer tribute show with Dave Grohl, Elvis Costello, and Van…
Saturday night, our favorite local punk rock crossdresser’s band, Switch Hitter, opened for ska sensations the Sex Police at Davey’s Uptown. This morning, said crossdresser, Dave “Chilidog” Crawford, aka Kandi Kanabi, sent out this MySpace bulletin. Subject: Actual “compliment” paid to me at Sex Police show Me: “hey how are you doing” Drunk Acquaintance: “man it’s crazy in here. I…
The Mars Volta Friday, January 25, 2008 The Beaumont Club By ANDREW MILLER Back in November 2001, the Mars Volta rolled into El Torreon as an unknown At The Drive-In offshoot, positioned on the bill between flaky indie-pop croissants Mates of State and The Anniversary. The group’s high-volume soundcheck, all burly Zeppelin riffs and brazen slap bass, so offended my…
By ANDY VIHSTADT Geek Squad “This milkshake won’t bring anyone to the yard.” N.E.R.D. will be releasing N.3.R.D. sometime this spring. After an unfinished version of “Everyone Nose” was leaked, the group decided to post the final studio mix on its blog. The song brings the war on drugs to the club scene, calling out female cokeheads and unintentionally…
%{}% By CHRIS PACKHAM As the cliché-prone Kansas City Star editorial board might be inclined to say after a half-hour of staring at a blank Word screen, becoming distracted by the smell of Monica Watrous’ microwave popcorn, wandering off to the break room and then hastily cranking out the day’s copy right before deadline, race issues sure “loom large” these…
By JUSTIN KENDALL Leavenworth prosecutors say 23-year-old Sedale Fox murdered his pregnant 20-year-old girlfriend, Olivia Jackson, Tuesday night at the Wild Woods Mobile Home Park in Lansing. Eleven days before her death, Jackson survived a bombing at the house where she was staying in Leavenworth. Earlier this morning, I looked up Fox’s and Jackson’s MySpace pages. Fox’s page, titled “Only…
%{}% By CHRIS PACKHAM • Justin Kendall looked at the economic impact of sports teams on their respective cities. • Fake boobs — you can’t even give ’em away. Wide Open magazine tried, but only a handful of women entered the drawing. Our own Peter Rugg looks at this issue, along with the El Salvadoran labor crisis, the WTO’s new…
By CHRIS PACKHAM Dude, Friday night check out the puppets at Puppet Wars: Attack of the Felt at Fatso’s (1016 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-550-7840). It’s like a powerhouse team-up of dudes from the Felt Show and the Shitty Deal Puppet Theater, stickin’ their hands up there and totally makin’ it talk … HA HA! That’s what … uh … that’s…
