Editor’s note: This story was originally published on February 15. This is an updated version. The company that’s developing Kansas City’s new downtown entertainment district wants to keep the good times from rolling in other neighborhoods. The issue is beer. And it’s the latest example of how Cordish Co., the East Coast developer of the Power and Light District,…
“Spider and the Fly” by Myra Taylor, from My Night to Dream (2001, APO Records) It’s a wintry night at Knuckleheads Saloon in the East Bottoms, but headliner Lavay Smith, of San Francisco, is happy to be in Kansas City. Her authentic swing jazz has the packed house on its feet, moving in time and bobbing heads to the rhythm….
At last year’s Pitch Ultra Music DJ Contest, Spinstyles pretty much sealed the deal when he dropped Rockaton’s remix of Outfield’s “Use Your Love.” Spinstyles may have been the first DJ to play that record anywhere in KC, and it has since become an anthem in various area dance venues. If there’s anything that this year’s five finalists could learn…
“Perish” by Out of the Suffering Local music prophets foresee an impending Winter Armageddon, predicting the time and location of its arrival with chilling precision (4 p.m. Saturday at the Mission Theatre). If the name turns out to be a mere euphemism for a violent blizzard, the 12 metal bands gathered at the venue will scoff at the arctic conditions….
“Play everything,” demands MySpace user Mr. Screwjack, voicing the prevailing fan demand for Eyes of the Betrayer’s reunion show set list. Sadly for Mr. Screwjack and his ilk, EOTB won’t be emptying its discography. “Some jerk-off friends of ours keep saying ‘Stars Throw Spears,’ which is a song we never even played since I was in the band,” singer Dustin…
Any asshole with a laptop can make music, but it takes an especially enterprising asshole to make a light-responsive synthesizer out of a coffee can. Enter Quintron. He and his wife, Ms. Pussycat, have spent more than 10 years perfecting their Frankenstein brand of New Orleans funk, and their spooky circus of puppets, costumes, handmade instruments and hybrid Hammonds is…
“Bad Seed” by Brimstone Howl Few are the garage bands that actually sound like they rehearse in a garage. Brimstone Howl is one of them. It’s hard to imagine anything but a space heater and a temperamental tape machine powering the Lincoln, Nebraska, quintet, which treats reverb tanks like life support and in-the-red meters like lil’ smokies. Phrases such…
Chances are, you already know Michael Wolff. You might recognize him as the clueless dad on Nickelodeon’s The Naked Brothers Band (which stars his two sons, Nat and Alex) or as Arsenio Hall’s bandleader back when shoulder-pad-stuffed shiny suits were the rage. But what you should know is that Wolff is an established jazz pianist regarded for his deft touch…
Sexier than the Human Genome Project, the Alan Parsons Project soothed a wide-lapelled world with 1982’s “Eye in the Sky.” Eric Woolfson’s hushed voice and Parsons’ delicate keys evoked a proggier Seals and Crofts, but with subject matter a lot heavier than “Summer Breeze.” But those already hip to the Proj knew it was more turned on by Asimov than…
“Caney Mountain” by Ha Ha Tonka Once upon a time, four dudes from Springfield, Missouri, started a group called Amsterband and began harvesting a CCR-informed racket that riffed on deep-South gospel vocals and Alan Lomax field recordings. Realizing that their name made them sound like barefoot hippie stoners, the quartet re-emerged as Ha Ha Tonka when Bloodshot Records got onboard…
Cephalic Carnage’s world is a place where blood-curdling government conspiracies, paranormal horror and extraterrestrial schemes to forcibly interbreed with humans all come together in a deliciously paranoid puff of smoke. Few other bands have such an acute ability to scare the piss out of you and make you laugh your ass off at the same time. Frontman Lenzig Leal and…
Jeff Wood earned plenty of regional goodwill as the booming voice that powered erudite hard-rock act the Sound and the Fury, but the sleeve photo of him strumming a guitar while smiling at his infant daughter, Shelby, feels like a warning label: This album might contain bombastic, “With Arms Wide Open”-style fatherhood odes. His debut solo outing, Underneath Me, does…
Download: All of We’ve Only Just Begun by Tactic via ZShare It didn’t take long for DJ Candlewax and Ben Fuller to became peeved by the lack of trendsetting in their respective sub-circles. Candlewax is a former indie-ground hip-hop head, and Fuller is a former drum-‘n’-bass DJ. However, since joining forces as the spinning-remixing-duo Tactic, they’ve blazed a trail for…
Burnt Ends: “The Idiot Son: A Board Game,” February 7 No Fun What was made clear by your piece “The Idiot Son: A Board Game” is that you don’t know John Sebelius. I was really surprised that your paper resorted to such name-calling just because he is the governor’s son. John is actually a very bright young man and a…
Dear Mexican: Why do you suppose Mexico has such a hard time getting its act together? It has vast natural resources, good climate, natural ports, super-generous and good-looking neighbors, and plenty of laborers who seem willing to do all sorts of crappy jobs. But instead of having a thriving economy and an embarrassment of abundance like us whiteys, Mexicans have…
A friend of mine was looking over the menu for Corona Cantina #1 (see review, page 31) and didn’t see much in the way of vegetarian fare. There isn’t a vegetarian category, which is unusual these days; other than guacamole, cheese-stuffed jalapeño poppers, quesadillas Toluca (made with poblano peppers, fresh corn and cheese), or a combo plate with cheese enchiladas…
Download: “Disco Boy (remix by Kiko De Gallo)” by Shantel MP3 Download: “P Funk (remix by Kiko De Gallo)” by Jam Akerson MP3 I never thought my quest for new music would take me to a sushi bar. But it’s Valentine’s Day, and that’s where I am, best gal by my side, drinking a vodka tonic with two hunks of…
Margot at the Wedding (Paramount) Margot (Nicole Kidman, or someone who looks just like her) is a fiction writer whose tales are based, uncomfortably and unkindly, on the real-life family for whom she seems to care very little. Hence sister Pauline’s (Jennifer Jason Leigh) late discovery that Margot’s a “monster” — late to her, not to the audience, which…
Bernstein’s Broadway The world didn’t know what to make of it when the great conductor Leonard Bernstein dared to step from the rarefied realm of the classical to the hit-driven world of the Broadway musical. Now, the dances from West Side Story have entered the serious repertoire, and the poor musical — after some creative flourishing — languishes in its…
Let’s just get it out right now: “Devil May Cry” is a weak-ass name for a wicked action game. But what’s in a name? In three previous outings, the brutal, hella-challenging series has consistently delivered some of the greatest hack-and-slash thrills in the genre. Sure, the setup’s as old as sin: Our hero, Dante, is a half-man/half-demon, all-smirking-wiseass monster-hunter…
Black Water (Sony) Catacombs (Lionsgate) Chaos (Lionsgate) Cops: 20th Anniversary Edition (Fox) The Death of Adolf Hitler (Koch Vision) The Easter Bunny Is Comin’ to Town (1977) (Warner Bros.) The Final Inquiry (Fox) Gangsters: The Ultimate Film Collection (Universal) German Expressionism Collection (Kino) In the Valley of Elah (Warner Bros.) It’s the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown (Warner Bros.) Kurt Cobain:…
If Clipse and its Re-Up Gang collaborators ever get arrested, they might regret rapping about selling more powder than Maybelline. Now signed to Columbia, the outfit is prepping for its next proper album with a new installment of the We Got It 4 Cheap series. Get it for free (via Megaupload) at the Re-Up Gang Records Web site. And unless…
Abstract No. 2 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 might look like a trash heap to some people, but in part, it’s about the accumulation of things and what that suggests about us; Takahashi trades on our Western…
In 1975, restaurateur Marno McDermott and former Green Bay Packer Max McGee founded a chain of “upscale” Mexican restaurants called Chi-Chi’s. In their heyday, these loud and festive places were as brassy and fun as their contemporary rivals, T.G.I. Friday’s and Houlihan’s. The cocktail menu was elaborate, the servers were young and bouncy (and sang birthday songs), and the food…
