By NADIA PFLAUM Why two old men with families of their own would waste legislative time meddling with the Salva ovaries of Missouri women is puzzling. But read on. Last week, when the Missouri House was considering a bill meant to fight methamphetamine production, Missouri Rep. Ray Salva, a Democrat who lives in Sugar Creek, tacked on language restricting…
BY CAROLYN SZCZEPANSKI The Southern Poverty Law Center released its second list of anti-immigrant “nativists” today, and Kris Kobach, a UMKC law professor and chairman of the Kansas Republican Party, made the top 20. Calling the profile a “hit piece,” Kobach tells The Pitch that the SPLC report is riddled with errors. Based in Alabama, the SPLC identifies and…
Holy Fuck, with A Place to Bury Strangers and Bald Eagle Saturday, March 8 The Record Bar By ANDREW MILLER Photos by Scott Spychalski “Is this Holy Fuck yet?” a recent arrival asked fellow concertgoers midway through opening band Bald Eagle’s set. This inquiry communicated that 1) The questioner came exclusively to see the headlining act, and 2) He had…
By ANDY VIHSTADT Party Crashers If you’re bummed about having to sit this year’s SXSW out, NPR’s got you covered. At midnight on Wednesday, you can stream R.E.M.’s performance at Stubbs and on Thursday, tune into Yeasayer at 2:30 pm and Vampire Weekend at 4 p.m. Later that night, catch the Whigs, My Morning Jacket and Yo La Tengo. Get…
%{}% BY CHRIS PACKHAM The west wasn’t won with a registered alcohol vaporizer: I’m a busy man. In today’s fast-paced business world, I don’t always have time to absorb alcohol through my alimentary canal, and I need to convert it quickly into a fine vapor and inhale it into my lungs, where it enters directly into my bloodstream. A bill…
According to Dan Barickman, owner of upstart promotions company Double Happiness Productions, members of arena-filling lounge singer Michael Bublé’s (pronounced “boo-BLAY!”) backing band will jam with locals Organic Proof tonight at the River Market Brewery sometime between 9 p.m. and 1 a.m., whenever the booBLAY concert is over. Organic Proof comprises badass young jazz musicians John Brewer (keyboards, piano, miscellany)…
Download this police report. Print it out. Fold it up and put it in your wallet. Next time anyone ever suggests going to the News Room (3740 Broadway), produce the printout and show it to them. Download as PDF: The Hagan Report The victim in Wednesday’s brutal beating at the News Room was Jeff “Git” Hagan, a 41-year-old veteran of…
Gogol Bordello, with Skindred Thursday, March 20, at the Beaumont Photos by SCOTT SPYCHALSKI Categories: Music Tags: Beaumont, gogol bordello
Manager of bands, photographer, auteur and archly Anglophilic Kansas Citian Harley Sears recently posted a video of an interview he conducted with original Sex Pistols bassist Glen Matlock. You may remember Sears from the story we ran in November about his involvement with fashion designer Keanan Duffty’s line of David Bowie-inspired clothes at Target. Nicely done, Harley. And while we’re…
%{}% BY CHRIS PACKHAM Very important man aspires to very important job: Giant, shambling Mayor Mark Funkhouser wants to be a superdelegate at the Democratic convention in August. Your children may already be dead! The Kansas City, Missouri school district is closing three school cafeteria kitchens after a health inspection. If three area Quiznos restaurants were shut down on the…
%{}% BY CHRIS PACKHAM BOMBS OF TERROR: The tehrrists planted an improvised explosive device in an empty Times Square military recruiting station early this morning — I swear to Christ, they’re coming for you, so TOTALLY BE TERRIFIED VOTE JOHN MCBUSH IN 2008 FOR FOUR MORE YEARS! Fun-hating Dave Ramsey would not have bought that entertainment district. Kansas City faces…
Pitch contributer and Patchchord.com founder John Kreicbergs is hopping mad about the rumor that the Plaza III Steakhouse might be discontinuing live jazz. Excerpt: As a budding high school jazz saxophonist, I recall many nights spent at the Plaza III listening to some of the best jazz musicians in town. While my well-worn recordings of Coltrane, Miles, Bird, Dizzy, Dexter…
As part of the American Jazz Museum’s “Celebrating Women in Jazz” series, composer and saxophonist Tia Fuller opens a weekend engagement at the Blue Room (1616 East 18th Street) at 8:30 p.m. with Miriam Sullivan and Shamie Royston. Fuller’s father played jazz bass, and her mother was a singer; like many kids from musical families, she studied multiple instruments in…
Remember in, like, 1987, when Bobcat Goldthwait’s stand-up routine included dead-on mimicry of Bono’s messianic posing and solemn warbling? It wasn’t so much parody as a thinly veiled confession: Goldthwait had a total man-crush on the lilliputian Irish rocker. We don’t know if Bobcat still hearts Bono, but we do know that the phlegm-alicious comedy vet is still fuckin’ funny….
A friend fresh out of the service argues that public apathy about Bush’s war is a direct result of how well the effects of the conflict in our culture have been contained. Other than the immediate families and friends of service members, most of us never feel it. For the American prep-school boys of John Knowles’ A Separate Peace,…
Last year, Raymore cowboy Luke Snyder earned a spot in the history books of the Professional Bull Riders for attending so many consecutive bull-riding events. His tough streak — 198 and counting — continues this weekend at the Sprint Center. Snyder is among 45 bull riders competing for a $1 million world-championship title. The buckin’ begins at 6:50 p.m. today and…
The X chromosome binds together the entirety of humankind. Everybody has at least one, but only females have two in a row. This proves that women transcend gender and become integers as the Roman numeral for 20. Embrace the math and the estrogen tonight at the Eighth-Annual Lunafest at Liberty Hall (644 Massachusetts in Lawrence).Lunafest is a collection of nine…
Northern Exposure fans know Elaine Miles as Marilyn Whirlwind, the heavyset receptionist who raises ostriches and dishes out cynical nuggets of wisdom. Lawrence student Jon Ray was a fan back in the day, but the sophomore at Haskell Indian Nations University had another reason for appreciating Miles’ work. “When other Native Americans were playing stereotypical roles, she was playing a…
Art historian Richard Axsom describes Terry Winters’ printmaking style as “organic abstraction delineated with references to early biological life.” In lay terms, this means: Winters’ works brim with intriguing, ambiguous imagery. “Furrows” might depict a provocatively posed elephant; “Locus” appears to invent a hippo-python hybrid; and the spheres of “Morula” could be cells, spores or alien orbs. The identities of…
Omaha, Nebraska, native Wanda Ewing exhibits her provocative Bougie tonight through the end of the month at the Pi Gallery (419 East 18th Street, 816-210-6534). A satirical look at black womanhood through the lens of fashion-magazine iconography, the show takes its title from a name-calling derivation of bourgeois.Social observations aside, the covers are colorful, immediately attractive pieces of contemporary pop…
Would you give a sample of your genetic code to government scientists or tell Uncle Sam to keep his hands off your DNA? Kansas Citians will have the first word on what could become a national debate about the creation of a U.S. “biobank.” Already established in countries such as Sweden and the United Kingdom, biobanks collect biological samples and…
At last year’s first-annual River Otter Day, 120 people scooped 34,000 pounds of trash from the banks of the Missouri River in just four hours. That’s 17 tons of trash, or, if this were TMZ.com, 377.8 Olsen twins.The second-annual River Otter Day takes place today at the entrance of the Town of Kansas bridge at First Street and Main in…
At this point in our cultural history, it’s conventional wisdom that celebustalking paparazzi are degenerate subhumans, like payday lenders or telemarketers. Because the nexus of fame and photographic technology is now catching shots up Britney Spears’ skirt, it isn’t exactly heartbreaking to learn that amateur photographers — some of whom capture their celebrity photos with camera phones — are driving…
One of Latin America’s most loved conductors, musical prodigy Enrique Bátiz, gave his first piano recital at age 5. By 22, he had founded the State of Mexico Symphony Orchestra, which he has led to international acclaim. Also on Bátiz’s résumé are appearances with more than 150 orchestras, including the London and Moscow philharmonics. Tonight at 8, Bátiz brings his…
