Gestures of love are always at risk of getting seriously messed up in translation. Take, for instance, the answering-machine message. Good for setting up supper, but on Valentine’s Day? Don’t say he didn’t know you wouldn’t be home. Considering that there’s always room for improvement in communication, check out Pamela Welch’s presentation tonight, called “What’s Your Love Language?” Just in…
Laurie Hines doesn’t have any kids in the Kansas City, Missouri, School District, but that doesn’t stop her from worrying how her tax dollars are being spent. “I can’t understand why all these problems haven’t been made right over the years,” Hines says. “It’s not that they don’t have the money to do it.”Troubled by the recent resignation of Superintendent…
Remember how those old Skid Row records always sounded like 20 Sebastian Bachs were sharing the mic? Bang Camaro ate that shit up — so much so that the Boston band hired every lion-throated singer who auditioned. But the band’s use of 20-plus lead singers to belt out old-school hair-metal numbers is more than just a great gimmick. With songs…
On its self-titled 2007 debut, Los Angeles band Health presented a bracing symphony in chromatic static, sandblasting through whatever genres it felt like desecrating whenever its members wanted. From epic rock to hardcore to dance-punk to skeletal synth-and-drums workouts, Health spun a whirling but precise sound hellbent on bleeding eardrums like perv vampires. But don’t dismiss these guys as confused…
Years from now, when all of the oil in the world dries up and we’re relying on huge, genetically engineered carrier pigeons to get us from point A to point B, a smile will crack your leathery faces when you recall driving around in the summertime, windows down, cranking some good tunes and feeling that sticky Kansas City summer breeze…
“My Carol” by Mark Olson, from The Salvation Blues (Hacktone Records) On the Jayhawks’ signature song “Blue,” the voices of Mark Olson and Gary Louris mesh as distinctly as those of Lennon and McCartney or Nicks and Buckingham. After a fallout left Louris as the Minneapolis group’s sole songwriter, Olson — the lower voice — pursued various projects with his…
Post-holiday despondency hits its zenith Saturday at the Brick when Magfuckingnificent comes together to play a whopping 30 Cure covers. Made up of six high-profile KC musicians, the band plans to indulge sentimental sensibilities for a good three hours, giving folks the benefit of Robert Smith’s wisdom to figure out what went wrong. “It’ll be an all-night experience,” promises lead…
I used to know a guy in Kansas City who had quite a reputation as a roué and a ladies’ man. I’m not naming names, but he was handsome, charismatic — and so vain and self-centered that I was stunned by his success with the opposite sex. He called me one day with a request. “I want to impress my…
Whether you’re trolling for sex with a random stranger or just looking for a quiet outdoor spot to fool around, Kansas City metro parks offer a wealth of options for the horny and the desperate. Throw in the risks of surveillance cameras, police patrols and news crews conducting undercover sting operations, and you have the “recreation” in parks and rec….
Like a lot of women, I suffer from a musician fetish. Country-rockers, power-poppers, hardcore screamers, guitarists, piano boys, drummers — I’ve fallen for all kinds. Call me a groupie — whatever. I’ve tried dating other kinds of men. But I always seem to leave the anthropology majors and fellow journalists for musicians. I wish I didn’t. Musicians, like anyone artistic…
What Made Milwaukee Famous doesn’t hail from Wisconsin, and it doesn’t include any of the cast from Laverne & Shirley. The Austin, Texas, indie rockers, who originally called themselves Beer, borrowed their name from the bibulous, depressing hit that made a fool out of Jerry Lee Lewis in 1968. WMMF’s sophomore album, What Doesn’t Kill Us, doesn’t hit stores until…
You couldn’t make up a guy like Matt Pike. The singer-guitarist of High on Fire is possibly the gnarliest dude on the planet — with a hellacious band to match. In 20 years on the road, Pike has earned a reputation as the kind of Promethean figure he sings about, a man-beast moving through a musical netherworld, unsheathing razor-taloned riffs…
“KOA” by Pendergast from Between the Bottle and the Pulpit The phrase love hangover implies one of two outcomes of an evening. Maybe something bad happened last night. You got your heart broken. You hit the bottle like George Jones falling off the wagon. The last thing you remember is riding your lawn mower to the liquor store. Or maybe…
No Reservations (Warner Bros.) From its cheap, mid-’90s-looking package to its woefully scant extras (one pre-chewed Food Network behind-the-scenes, blech) to its wide-screen/full-screen option, this feels like something dropped right into the discount bins; it probably debuts at half off this week. And this soufflé of a romantic comedy deserves better: Catherine Zeta-Jones and Aaron Eckhart, as warring chefs reheating…
When it comes to giving a game a vibe, “awesome” is an easy mark to hit. Explosions, hot chicks, macho one-liners, and salivating mutants are all awesome. And it’s just about impossible to overdo the awesome: More explosions, more hot chicks, more machismo, and more mutants are only more awesome. “Cool,” on the other hand, is a place developers go…
“Find My Girl” by Omé As hot dates go, dinner with Omé could be pretty steamy. The tall, green-eyed R&B singer will probably ask you about your astrological sign over appetizers. While you wait for your entrée, he’ll tell you that he doesn’t have a type of woman he’s interested in; he likes ’em thin, thick or with curls, as…
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…
“The Higher You Hold Your Pinky” by Bent Left from The Premeditated Insanity EP Like many of their pop-punk predecessors — think Fifteen, Green Day or even the Damned — Bent Left has some godawful artwork. But forgive the cartoon collage of alien strippers and rabid cats, and know that Bent Left is smarter than its MS Paint doodles. The…
Feature: “Shauntay Speaks,” January 24 Blasé on Shauntay Poor Shauntay Henderson. Vicious rumors were spread about her being (gasp!) a rapper and a lesbian. She’s only getting older and fatter while awaiting trial, and her chances of making a baby are slipping by. At least she still gets to set the record straight. DeAndre Parker doesn’t have such a privilege….
“To Be In Love” by It’s Over, from That Girl The suits, the pop songs about girls, the Merseybeat guitars, the quirky lyrics — it’s obvious what It’s Over’s all about. These guys wear their late-1960s bubblegum influence in their smiling faces and Rubber Soul riffs. And in an indie-rock milieu high on squelchy keyboards and ironic mustaches, a clean-cut…
Dear Mexican: After working with Mexicans for years, I have noticed that Mexican men have a double standard when it comes to homosexuality. Why is it that the “giver” is not regarded as being just as equally gay as the “receiver”? El Vaquero Dear Cowboy Gabacho: I think all heterosexual societies condemn the catcher more than the pitcher, ¿qué no?…
With feature films directed by the 2005 and 2006 Oscar winners for Best Live Action Short — Martin McDonagh (In Bruges) and Ari Sandel (Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show), respectively — in theaters now, Hollywood execs may pay closer-than-usual attention to this year’s shorts, which are compiled in The 2007 Academy Award Nominated Shorts. If they do, they’ll see…
N o celebrity hairdresser should ever be allowed near Colin Farrell’s eyebrows with a tweezer. Black, fluffy and gloriously unilateral, they still aren’t the prettiest things about In Bruges. That honor falls to the Belgian city itself, known for its scenic medieval turrets, bourgeois tedium and unfavorable comparisons with Amsterdam. Bruges may be the movie’s rather too-long-running joke, but…
Dining at a hotel restaurant such as the Peppercorn Duck Club (see review) might feel different from eating at a stand-alone restaurant. But being attached to a hotel doesn’t have much to do with a restaurant’s operations. “There’s the perception that there’s a difference, but the facilities are really the same,” says the Raphael Hotel’s Peter Hahn. Hahn has been…
