By NADIA PFLAUM It hadn’t occurred to me prior to meeting Travis, but being punk requires serious commitment. How long did it take him to pierce this jacket with hundreds of metal studs? “Years,” he said. He works at Freaks, so he’s quite familiar with piercing. The handcuffed crotch-area is an especially nice touch: In Travis’ neighborhood on Troost, he…
By ANDY VIHSTADT Justin Vernon, aka Bon Iver, posted a free EP on his MySpace page yesterday. The four-track studio session features songs from his debut For Emma, Forever Ago. Download the entire thing in the zip file below or watch it, along with an interview, here. MP3: Bon Iver, MySpace Transmissions EP Categories: Music
By Owen Morris Today is the first in what I imagine will be a sporadically updated series talking about the complicated and twisting alcohol laws of Kansas and Missouri. Yesterday, I had a lengthy phone conversation with Michelle Meyer, owner of Holy-Field Winery in Basehor, Kansas. Meyer was one of the subjects of a The Pitch cover story a few…
%{}% By CHARLES FERRUZZA Now that the trend for Chinese restaurants is to be sleek, modern and stylish like the new Mandarinism or the sexy Bo Lings location in the City Market, it’s getting harder to find those good old dumpy but comfortable and cheap Chinese storefront restaurants. You know the kind, with the lunch buffet of unrecognizable but edible…
digg_url = ‘http://blogs.pitch.com/plog/2008/09/daily_briefs_one_big_fat_lovea.php’; By CHRIS PACKHAM From the comments: philippa says: just to let u know that bomb thing and it is going to go off and destroy earth why do that for plz anserw mii coz i can not beleive u want to destroy alltha people i am really soz but anserw mii why do it and how did…
By OWEN MORRIS I love chocolate and I love beer but I’m not sure if I’d like them together. A local blogger shared my skepticism but was won over and vows to drink more. Oh, I can’t post any article about chocolate and beer without linking to this great The Onion article. (A Beer Sort of Blog) Have you ever…
Each Thursday, your Crap Archivist brings you the finest in forgotten and bewildering crap culled from area basements, thrift stores, estate sales and flea markets. I do this for one reason: Knowledge is power. Branson’s Country Music Cookbook Author: The gleamin’est stars in Branson’s cubic zirconia firmament Publisher: Anderson Publishing, Branson MO Date: 1992 Discovered at: 2nd Chance Thrift, 1229…
This special event from 9 a.m to noon features live jazz, an address by community leader Richard Mabion, a community discussion and presentations by state political leaders. Plus: Watch a video of a Barack Obama speech. At the end of the inspiring festivities, register to vote so that your voice is heard come November. Sat., Sept. 13, 9 a.m.-noon, 2008…
The Brick is home to not one but eight Best Of Kansas City awards from The Pitch. Find out why we love the place during Wednesday happy hours, when appetizers are half-priced and burgers are two-for-one. Drinks are even cheaper, with $1 yard beers, $2 wells, $3 imports and $5 celebrity martinis. Tags: Kansas City, Night & Day
David Howard, the retired gardner to HRH Charles Philip Arthur George, Prince of Wales, Duke of Rothesay, Duke of Cornwall, heir apparent to the thrones of the Commonwealth, speaks today in Kansas City for some reason. Maybe he’s just passing some time during a layover. At any rate, he was responsible for the very, very fine organic gardens of Highgrove,…
Constitution-hugging lefties who love the Bill of Rights and probably, like, want to marry it or something, meet tonight for the monthly meeting of the ACLU, an acronym for American Civil Liberties Union and a coincidental anagram for UCLA. The meeting happens every third Wednesday at the ACLU building at 3601 Main Street in Kansas City, MO. Call 816-756-3113, ext…
Walkabout is a 1971 British movie, or “film” as they say in the Commonwealth, about two children who are abandoned in the Australian outback when their father goes mad monkey kung-fu crazy, shoots at them, and then commits suicide. Forced to travel alone amongst the aborigines and to “go to the loo” in the “out-of-doors,” they travel, or “manoeuvre” through…
Marionetas de la Esquina uses colorful puppets, music and humor to create a charming hopeful story titled Emilio and the Enchanted Cow. Facing a difficult family situation, young Emilio focuses on what he likes to do most: draw. When a cow that he’s sketched magically comes to life, Emilio finds courage and new friends to help him. For ages 5…
There are many reasons to hate the Oakland Raiders. There’s hothead owner Al Davis, perhaps the biggest goon in the NFL. There’s fat-ass kicker Sebastian Janikowski, the “Polish Powderkeg,” who always seems to be making news for being a jackass. And then there are the fans. You have to hate those goddamned spikes that make Raiders fans look like two-bit…
Author and part-time Kansas resident Robert Day probably never imagined that the novel he wrote in 1977, The Last Cattle Drive, would still be in print more than 30 years later. But here he is, at the Writers Place (3607 Pennsylvania, 816-753-1090) for a 6 p.m. reading of his book, set to the musical accompaniment of the Kansas City Symphony…
Tonight’s show at Bar Natasha (1911 Main) will probably make you laugh and cry until mascara-muddied rivulets of tears run down your cheeks. One reason is that the bar is closing in five days. The other: an over-the-top cabaret show called Ban This IV: The Final Stab will make fun of everything, including politics, racism and KC’s smoking ban. The…
At last. Tonight, on the new Copaken Stage, marks the debut of new artistic director Eric Rosen’s tenure at the Kansas City Repertory Theatre. This is good news not just because Clay — a one-man hip-hop musical written by its star, Matt Sax, in collaboration with Rosen — is reputed to burst with life, insight and world-class beatboxing. Or because…
The curriculum at Kansas City Academy is based upon “expeditionary learning”— the idea that the best lessons happen when students get out of the classroom. That means the prep shool’s middle and high schoolers get to study the science of, say, prairie field restoration by actually tromping in fields. Ah, sweet life experience. It’s the stuff that goes on to…
For Americans, 9/11 neutered politicians, polarized the republic and reshaped lives. Then came the U.S. response: the war on terror, the Patriot Act and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Critique the September 12 paradigm with Laurie Anderson at the Lied Center of Kansas (1600 Stewart Drive, Lawrence, 785-864-2787). The celebrated performance artist and inventor of the “tape-bow violin” and…
It will be another four years before we can witness unreasonably jacked athletes dressed like superheroes performing contortionist feats. To cure the post-Olympic gloom, head to the University of Missouri-Kansas City tonight and Friday for the Wylliams-Henry Contemporary Dance Company’s fall concert. If you’ve never seen contemporary dance before, it’s like a gymnastic floor exercise, except longer, more graceful and…
The restaurant world and the world of rock and roll aren’t all that different. Egomaniacs head up bands as well as kitchens, where sex, drugs and booze may abound. Chef Anthony Bourdain revealed as much in his book Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly. As the host of the Travel Channel series No Reservations, Bourdain travels the world sampling…
One reason that cemeteries seem so scary is that they contain elements of the unknown. The assemblage of faceless names and mysterious history has long relegated graveyards to the world of haunted houses and ghost stories, where the fading headstones offer great inscrutability but little in the way of tangible fact. Take the first step toward changing your opinion of…
Kansas City’s Lyric Opera kicks off its 50th season with Puccini’s La Bohème, the opera that has inspired countless productions and variations, including the Broadway musical Rent and the film Moulin Rouge. Local fact: the Lyric Opera Company premiered the masterpiece in 1958, the year the local company debuted in KC. This time, the show will be performed in the…
It is no mistake that we use the term break bred to mean the ending of grievances. In an effort to quiet seemingly endless conflicts, local religious leaders are hosting From Pain to Peace: Bringing Bread — Building Bridges. The event commemorates the events of September 11, 2001, at 7 p.m. at the Community Christian Church (4601 Main, 816-561-6531). The…
