What’s creepier than any CGI-packed modern-day horror flick? The 1932 cult classic Freaks. Director Tod Browning didn’t have to rely on special effects to depict his authentic-looking sideshow. Browning, who once traveled with a carnival himself, cast real “freaks” — microcephalics, midgets, a limbless man and various gender-benders — for an extreme demonstration of the notion that real beauty is…
Despite the fact that his albums repeatedly kick the living shit out of most other albums on the face of the planet, Mark Mallman still typically gets referred to as the guy who performed a 26-hour song — and then topped it with a 52-hour song. Such stunts are par for the course for Mallman, an over-the-top performer who plays…
Most of the initial hype around Santogold pegged her as the next M.I.A. — a genre-mashing hipster diva with fly production and an ’80s-casualty fashion sense. But whereas M.I.A. largely appeared out of nowhere, Santi White cut her teeth as a producer and a punk-rock front woman with the Philadelphia band Stiffed. Her breakthrough self-titled album arrived in her 31st…
This bicoastal pairing features woozy rock acts inspired by the ’60s. Openers Delta Spirit’s bluesy balladeering merges rollicking Americana with ragged pub-rock saunter that’s fueled by singer Matthew Vasquez’s plaintive keening. Formerly the emo band Noise Ratchet, the San Diego quintet is supporting its debut, Ode to Sunshine. Like Delta Spirit, Philly headliners Dr. Dog work a soulful ramshackle sway,…
Pop artist Andy Warhol’s commercial success was symbolized by his studio, the Factory, which also served as the locus of a particular subculture of artists, musicians and a general assortment of social misfits drawn into Warhol’s orbit by the gravity of his appeal. Similarly, when Warhol namesake the Dandy Warhols achieved their initial commercial success on the back of European…
Nights in Rodanthe works so strenuously to satisfy its target audience’s every desire that it’s a minor surprise that the filmmakers didn’t provide cashmere blankets, a snuggly pair of slippers, and a warm cup of cocoa for everyone entering the theater. Based on sap master Nicholas Sparks’ novel, Nights introduces us to Adrienne (Diane Lane), an overworked mother separated from…
When you name your hip-hop outfit after an early-’90s horror flick and release an LP called O.S.T. (Original Soundtrack), there’s bound to be confusion. Then again, maybe that’s the key to People Under the Stairs’ success. After paying dues for over a decade, the Los Angeles duo has amassed a global audience while keeping its underground reputation intact. Thes One…
There’s a whole lotta fucking going on in Choke, Clark Gregg’s adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s first-person novel about a sex addict named Victor Mancini with severe Mommy issues — fucking in a cramped airplane bathroom, on a haystack, in a hospital chapel, even. There are sweaty flashbacks and splayed-out flash-forwards, too. The only time someone’s getting laid in a bedroom…
Beck ain’t lookin’ too sunny these days. Appearing in videos and press shots clad all in black and frowning from under a vast pilgrim hat, the former gonzo free-associator looks like a latter-day Cotton Mather. Adding to the mellow harsh are the apocalyptic themes on his new one, Modern Guilt: mass drownings, melting icecaps, anxiety and isolation. Take this sample…
“The Battle of Josephine,” by the Klangs, from Khorky Custer Khrusty Presents the Klangs (self-released): The sound of guitars, bass, drums and keyboards would be enough for most bands to get their point across. New KC outfit the Klangs does a little more to help the audience visualize the scenes in its songs about robots and alien wars. For the…
“14 Forever,” by Stars, from Sad Robots (self-released): “When you’re on the road all the time, you can really find that you end up repeating yourself,” Amy Millan says. “It’s kind of like a somersault in swimming pool. You don’t know up from down, there’s no oxygen and you’re not really going anywhere. That’s why it’s important to keep making…
I’ve known restaurateur Steve Cole for two decades, dating back to when he owned Café Allegro. At the time, it was Kansas City’s most glamorous bistro. In fact, in the late 1980s, I occasionally worked for Cole as a freelance waiter when his restaurant operated the upscale concession areas at the Lyric Theatre. Mary Simpson, now a regional director for…
Here’s the news, if you can call it that: Figlio, the 20-year-old Italian bistro on the northeastern tip of the Country Club Plaza, finally has a “new look.” What’s so amazing about that? The Plaza has evolved over the last two decades, while Figlio stubbornly remained a relic of the late 1980s. Oddly enough, Figlio decided to toss out the…
Freaks, sword swallowers, bearded ladies and other peculiar people brighten life on the midway. In contemporary art, work that’s carnivalesque suggests transgression, as well as people and cultures on the margins. Unfortunately, nothing like that awaits you at Sherry Leedy. Instead, Gerit Grimm trips gently down a carnival lane populated by the most ordinary of friends and neighbors. A German…
Thanks to Harold Pinter, serious playwrights no longer suffer the obligation to tell us what their plays add up to. In his breakthrough drama The Homecoming, now 40 years old, no character ever says “homecoming.” No characters seem aware that their lives might in some way represent something bigger. Nobody mentions that one of the story’s three brothers is a…
One Saturday evening early in the summer, 32-year-old Rachel Cahill went to Kauffman Stadium to see the Royals take on the Indians. Cahill went to the game with Amy Laws, one of her best friends from St. Thomas Aquinas High School. Rounding out the group was Laws’ fiance, T.J. Meyer, and his father. It was a gorgeous night, and as…
The Ivanhoe neighborhood, on Kansas City’s east side, covers a lot of ground but contains a small amount of wealth. Vacant land and empty buildings abound. At a city-sponsored workshop some years ago, residents proposed “Forgotten” and “I Hate My Neighborhood” as possible slogans. From this unlikely setting, an animated property dispute has emerged. The battlefront has shifted from a…
Was I an Anchor Baby? Dear Mexican: I am a 45-year-old male born in the United States. My mother and father were each born in ex-Yugoslavia (she Serbia and he Croatia). My father arrived in this country via a green card about four years before I was born, and my mother arrived 16 months before I was born after being…
Republicans are playing up Sarah Palin’s moose-huntin’, churchgoin’, baby-makin’ ways. Tennessee congresswoman Marsha Blackburn declared Palin “a voice that spoke with the accent of real America” at the party’s convention. But hockey moms and NASCAR dads make up only a portion of the Republican base. Sen. John McCain’s most generous supporters live in places like Mission Hills and polish golf…
Feature: “Trail Nuts,” September 11 That’s Footwork! Carolyn Szczepanski’s story on the Kansas City Trail Nerds is participatory journalism at its best. We’ve had stories written about us before, but to my knowledge, Szczepanski is the first writer to actually toe the line with us. She has gone where no other writer dared and taken The Pitch’s readers along for…
Scene darlings the Republic Tigers made it safely across the pond earlier this week for their first European tour. Sort of. According to Tigers tour manager Dave Gaumé’s blog, he and the band were detained for 24 hours in a windowless, concrete room because they arrived in Scotland sans work visas. “We played charades,” Gaumé writes. “We slept on disposable…
%{}% By CHARLES FERRUZZA A tip o’ the cap (one of my favorite expressions from the long-forgotten Cappy Dick comic strip — which offered weekly contests that I never won!) to that observant blogger Dan who correctly guessed that the copper-hooded fireplace was in the dining room of the Classic Cup Cafe on the Country Club Plaza. This contest is…
