Greg Swartz, a lifelong atheist and the organizer of Kansas City Free Thought, explains his beliefs. Sun., April 27, 1 p.m., 2008 Tags: Greg Swartz, Kansas City, Night & Day
Comedy group spoofs popular television shows. Fri., April 25; Sat., April 26; Sun., April 27, 2008 Tags: 2526, Night & Day
On a spring day one year ago, scientists in life vests and blue jeans invaded the bucolic slice of nature where Perche Creek empties into the Missouri River. The scientists, representing the U.S. Geological Survey and a lab from the University of Missouri-Columbia, suspended mesh cages in the river’s current and filled them with fathead minnows — the white…
The family as microcosm of a divided country: Two brothers come of age in late-’60s Italy, as political strife reaches their provincial Latina (a city laid out by Mussolini’s government). A bounding prologue shows younger Accio entering adolescence in a seminary, already a waiting vessel for any guiding ideology. At home, older brother Manrico (Riccardo Scamarcio) has become a Communist…
Once more, Harold Lee (John Cho) and Kumar Patel (Kal Penn) are on a road trip, this time not in search of the perfect late-night slider — a positively Homerian quest — but looking for the old college friend who can clear their names with the U.S. government after Kumar gets busted trying to light a smokeless bong on an…
I’ve seen this episode of Baby Mama before, sometime in January 2007, when it was titled “The Baby Show” and aired on the other prime-time series starring Tina Fey, 30 Rock. (Wait — you say Baby Mama is a movie and not a TV show? Seriously?) It was funny the first time around when Fey, as late-night-TV exec Liz Lemon,…
There’s basically only one reason to see Olivier Assayas’s meta-sleazy, self-consciously hypermodern, English-French-Chinese-language globo-thriller, Boarding Gate, and her name is Asia Argento. An authentic daughter of darkness (child of Italian horror auteur Dario Argento) and self-proclaimed Scarlet Diva (the title of her 2000 psychodrama), an actress who gives the impression that there’s little she hasn’t tried and nothing she…
“Lust for Luster” by the Roseline, from Lust for Luster (self-released): Over the past two years, the Roseline has quietly become one of the best live acts in the area. Purveying a sparkling brand of singer-songwriter Americana, the group touches on the late-night brilliance of Whiskeytown and Josh Ritter. Frontman Colin Halliburton’s colorful couplets match Ryan Adams punch for punch,…
“For Whom the Bell Tolls” by Harptallica, from Harptallica: A Tribute (self-released): Few metal bands have had their catalog revisited quite as often as Metallica. The once pioneering thrash band has heard its songs reimagined on countless tributes, wedded with the Beatles by parody band Beatallica and even arranged for symphonies. This time around, the Baton Rouge, Lousiana, combo known…
Though the Bronx ain’t exactly the next Delta, Popa Chubby has certainly put the place on the blues map. Equal parts Willie Dixon and Jimi Hendrix, Chubby (whose real name is Ted Horowitz) puts a rock twist on the blues without succumbing to blues-rock clichés. In the process, he gives both styles a much-needed kick in the pants and comes…
“Rich Kid Blues” by the Raconteurs, from Consolers of the Lonely (Warner Bros.): The one thing I hate is being labeled a side project,” moaned Jack White in August 2006, mere hours before the Raconteurs served as the house band for the MTV Video Music Awards. “We’ve invested too much time and effort into this band to be considered…
Melissa Howard is living the dream. She sued politicians for being politicians — and won. A Platte County jury recently awarded $2.1 million to Howard, a 46-year-old assistant prosecutor in Clay and Jackson counties. Howard had gone to court with a claim of racial discrimination. In 2006, the Kansas City, Missouri, City Council voted to reject Howard and two…
First of all: God bless Atlus. As a publisher devoted to bringing obscure Japanese gaming gems to the West — basically, the much-needed heir apparent of Working Designs — Atlus is the only hope for gamers who crave oddball, strange, or downright niche titles from the Land of the Rising Sun. It’s the closest thing we have to an…
If there are two things synonymous with Kansas City, they’re booze and barbecue. While the rest of the country sneaked sips at Prohibition-era speak-easies, Kansas Citians rollicked in the streets with liquor in one hand and some kind of barbecued meat in the other. So now that it’s the season of all things smoked, the Department of Burnt Ends has…
“Lonesome New Mexican Nights” by Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, (Stationary Heart Recordings 7-inch): Chicagoan Owen Ashworth is a lo-fi kingpin of sorts, having masterminded an absorbing catalog of junkyard electro-pop under the alias Casiotone for the Painfully Alone. His self-imposed limitations — four tracks, battery-powered keyboards and thrift-store electronics — disappeared in 2006 with the release of Etiquette and…
A year after its release, the Rosebuds’ third LP is getting an overhaul. Sweet Beats, Troubled Sleep (Night of the Furies Remixed) includes revisions from the likes of Bon Iver, Portastatic and Roger O’Donnell, keyboardist for the Cure and the Psychedelic Furs). “The remix of ‘I’d Better Run’ really reminded me that I love the Cure,” Rosebud Kelly Crisp tells…
“We Both Go Down Together” by Colin Meloy, from Colin Meloy Sings Live! (Kill Rock Stars): Colin Meloy, the Anglophilic frontman for indie rock darlings the Decemberists, hardly tops the list of the people you’d expect to hear singing Sam Cooke. After all, the wordy, talented songwriter is known more for his affected accent, glasses and stylistic wardrobe than for…
“Sweet Love for Planet Earth,” by Fuck Buttons, from Street Horrrsing (ATP): Englishmen Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power aren’t noise-rockers in the traditional, balls-to-the-wall sense. On the enthralling debut album Street Horrrsing, the two cut their warped, alabaster scree with warm keyboard swooshes and pattering percussion, creating a hypnotic, sweet-and-sour effect. In an April Fools’ Day conversation via…
Dear Readers: The paperback version of my book is out in stores now, cheap enough so that even a Guatemalan can afford it. And if you pick up this copy of The Pitch early enough, you might still have time to catch me at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 23, signing copies at the Sabatini Multicultural Resource Center, 1299 Oread on…
Letters, April 10 Smoke This! I’d like to respond to the comment made by Jill W. on the April 17 Letters page. She goes on and on (zzzzz) about complete nonsense unrelated to the smoking ban, meanwhile completely missing the point of the smoking ban. Nonsmokers do not care how often smokers partake in their nasty habit — we just…
Last week, I was goaded by Ellen Schenk, the co-host of KMBZ 980’s Morning News program, to actually eat a unique delicacy that I had been talking about — in this column and then on that show — for weeks: the deep-fried hot dog at Quick’s Bar-B-Q & Catering Company (1007 Merriam Lane in Merriam). Every Thursday at 8:20 a.m.,…
A couple of minutes into The Cure at Troy, just after an ominous volcanic rumble, we get the old God-in-the-machine bit that usually hits at the end of this kind of thing. A roar from above, a host of lights and a gush of the anticipation and apprehension that together make awe, and then we gather what’s really going…
The whispers are hard to ignore inside the federal courtroom in Kansas City, Kansas. It’s Monday, April 21, and in minutes, U.S. District Judge Kathryn Vratil will determine the fate of Jesse Franklin Herd III. Herd sexually abused and prostituted his 14-year-old stepdaughter at Erotic City, an adult entertainment compound in Blue Summit (“The People vs. Erotic City,” March 20…
At 24, Gabe Holcombe is just old enough to remember when a trip to the music store meant that you came home with cassettes. He’s not sure what his first tape was. Maybe R.E.M.’s Fables of the Reconstruction. Whatever it was, he dubbed his favorite songs onto another tape. “I would just buy a lot of blank tapes,” explains the…
