Cisco Adler may be known for his dating history (Paris Hilton and Mischa Barton, among others) and the insta-celebrity infamy it brought, but his 15 minutes of fame isn’t limited to only sleeping with models and leaking nude photos on the Internet. Adler’s group, the two-man band Shwayze, is laying down some of the most infectious mainstream hip-hop out there…
It seems like every time Scott Weiland gives us reason to take him back, he’s back out on the street with a D.U.I. riding shotgun and a pound of blowhard (figuratively, of course). The tempestuous rock star has kept controversy alive in an era marked by boring yarl-rockers, serving jail time and calling Axl Rose a “fat, Botox-faced, wig-wearin’ fuck.”…
The Rodriguez kids, spread far from their native Chicago, reunite for Christmas under the roof of their patriarch (Alfred Molina). Spruce with superficial ethnic color and you’ve got a real niche filler. Recast with script retouches and plantains traded out for eggplant Parmesan or kielbasa, and the movie would work just the same. Feasible family resemblance was of no concern…
Golden Animals’ psychedelic folk-blues is so persuasive, you expect singer-guitarist Tommy Eisner to arrive in an Afghan coat with beads around his neck, wearing a pair of round, tinted John Lennon glasses. Eisner’s sultry croon bears passing resemblance to Jim Morrison; the Animals’ full-length debut, Free Your Mind and Win a Pony, relies on similarly shambolic, droning grooves. His guitar…
Robert Wise’s 1951 film was a condemnation of Cold War paranoia and a Christ allegory. Scott Derrickson’s remake pulls off a few fine sequences, but there are no big ideas. The nearly omnipotent alien named Klaatu (Keanu Reeves) gets a trigger-happy response when he lands on Earth. Only the widowed Dr. Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly) wants to make nice. But…
When you invite the neighborhood to be featured on your album, you run the risk that your neighbors will outshine you. The good news for the artists that populate Kansas City rapper Kredulous’ Tears of an Angel is that the host makes a facile business of jacking his swagger. Promise lurks in the first few moments of the album, when…
Andrew Morgan politely asks that you stop pirating music. “Go through iTunes and delete any music that you have not paid for,” Morgan writes in a note, titled “A Plea,” on his Web site. “When you steal music, you break hearts.” As a young musician on the cusp of success, the Leawood native has a personal investment in trying to…
Someday the whole stinking story will come out. The story about how the original Bristol Bar & Grill lost its lease and was exiled from the Plaza in 1995. Legendary restaurateurs Joe Gilbert and Paul Robinson opened the Bristol on the Country Club Plaza in 1980, and it’s no secret that another restaurateur, Nabil Haddad, coveted the location. The Bristol…
Gus Van Sant has never been a risk-averse filmmaker, but he directs his Harvey Milk biopic so carefully, there might be a Ming vase balanced on his head. Van Sant’s steps are deliberate, his posture is straight, his attitude is responsible, and his eyes are fixed firmly on the prize. No less cautious, Sean Penn plays Milk (1930–78), the martyred…
Maybe it’s because I’ve endured a dozen works-in-progress musicals over the last few years. Or maybe it’s because funky gospel and ’70s soul always put me in a good mood. Or maybe I’m just damn happy to finally see black women onstage who aren’t drowning in the floodwaters or singing about their hats. Whatever the reason, I found myself grinning…
As more than 400 students pour out of Allen Edison Village School in silent, single-file lines, a few of them can’t stifle dance moves. Passing through the hallway, a teenager in a red coat swings her arms in time with some unheard rhythm. Outside, approaching a convoy of 11 school buses, a young student with pigtails and a pink parka…
The Westin Crown Center was booked solid last Saturday night. The Hotel President, too. Hotel rooms near the Country Club Plaza went for $229 and up. Out-of-town shoppers and adulterers usually have an easier time finding beds here in December. But for the second Saturday in a row, Arrowhead Stadium hosted a college football game. Missouri met Oklahoma in the…
Day after blustery fall day, Aldo the painter toiled in his chilly studio, a dozen narrow brushes spread on a cracked oak table next to his battered easel. At 3 each afternoon, he would step back from his work, lift his heavy eyeglasses to his forehead and examine his canvas. Were the elves’ ears pointed just so? Were the reindeers’…
Dear Mexican: Many times, as I cross the border into the United States, I see bald cholos buying images (posters, blankets, baby bibs) of Al Pacino in Scarface. Where does such an obsession for this ugly Cuban come from? Is Tony Montana replacing la Virgencita de Guadalupe in cholos’ living rooms across America? Proud to Be an Illegal Alien Dear…
LETTERS: “GOOGLE EXPERT,” DECEMBER 4 Socialists R Us I was dismayed to read the letter from Joshua Lawson calling Barack Obama a socialist. Evidently he had to look up the word on the Internet. I learned what a socialist was, and what socialism is, in a school. For the many out there who don’t know what socialism means: Socialism is…
Tinsel & Glam Fashion Show $ Steve Aoki
Who: Disturbed with Sevendust and SkindredWhere: Uptown TheaterWhen: Monday, January 19, 2009Who Presents It: 98.9 the RockTickets: On Sale Friday, December 12, 5p.m. Who: Flogging MollyWhere: UptownWhen: Tuesday, February 24, 2009Who Presents It: 96.5 the BuzzTickets: On Sale Saturday, December 13, 10a.m. Who: Keller WilliamsWhere: Liberty HallWhen: Tuesday, February 24, 2009Tickets: On Sale Saturday December 13th 10a.m. Categories: Music Tags:…
A QuikTrip will open near Antioch Center next week, and the chief financial officer of the North Kansas City school district has questions about how the property taxes will be spent. QuikTrip built the store on the site of the former Bill Woods Ford dealership. The parcel falls within the boundaries of a tax-increment financing (TIF) plan created in 2005…
We’d hoped that Cordish’s removal of undesirables from the pulsing economic organ of chain bars and restaurants known as Power & Light was a one time thing. Sadly, it’s not just preachers having a hard time. Many more have been turned away by those hearty few charged with protecting the virtue of PBR Big Sky’s mechanical bull, the standing of…
For the cover of Grace Jones’ new album, Hurricane, which I am listening to right now and really digging, some confectionery engineers mass produced Grace Jones heads, Grace Jones arms, Grace Jones legs and other delicious, antioxidant-rich Grace Jones body parts out of chocolate (no word yet on whether they made the part your dad ordered.) Read the whole story…
For those looking around early for NYE parties, here’s one that’s out in public and at a bar and that actually might be quite good. Because debauchery has always ultimately had an Irish soundtrack As for the house band, it’s kind of mindblowing that the Kelihans — known to many as the Irish rock band in town that’s not the…
