As with a political party, electronic music doesn’t die. It mutates. Classic, four-to-the-floor, bass-kicking dance music continues to ooze new paths through the back alleys and proliferate in the shadowy corners of the musical mainstream. The subculture of electronic music, which began in the 1980s as a small, closely knit cult in major American cities, now includes an army of…
Let’s get one thing straight from the get-go: There is no Cowboy, there is no Indian, and there is no Bear. “Cowboy Indian Bear is a superhero who manifests himself through our music.” explains Marty Hillard, who comprises one-third of the newly formed Lawrence band. The other two members, C.J. Calhoun and Beau Bruns, also want nothing to do with…
Dining in strip joints — or gentlemen’s clubs, as most prefer to be called — isn’t for every taste. I’m not sure it’s mine. I still get my nose out of joint if my server looks disheveled or dirty, so you can imagine how discombobulated I was while eating a cheeseburger at Diamond Joe’s Gentleman’s Club when Sassy sat down…
Ari Folman’s broodingly original Waltz With Bashir is a documentary that seems only possible, not to mention bearable, as an animated feature. Folman, whose magic-realist youth film Saint Clara was one of the outstanding Israeli films of the 1990s, has created a grim, deeply personal phantasmagoria around the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Waltz With Bashir is named for Bashir Gemayel,…
Kansas City needs no introduction to China. World-renowned composers Chen Yi and Zhou Long teach at UMKC’s Conservatory. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art has one of the best collections of Chinese art in the United States. Mandarin is taught in some pubic schools in the metro. And no one is unaware of China’s role in the global marketplace. Still, many…
Toward the end of writer-director Mary Zimmerman’s adaptation of The Arabian Nights, actor Allen Gilmore, playing a man who hears and forgets a melody so beautiful that he searches through “the whole of Iraq” to hear it again, delivers a stirring account of the power of great art. “Time was frozen in my blood,” he says, “and I left the…
Everyone could use a good sex shop now and again. But how do you know whether a store deserves its reputation or your dollars? We at The Pitch are your secret shoppers. Naughty But Nice 8116 Hickman Mills Drive, 816-363-5366 At the corner of Hickman Mills Drive and Prospect, Naughty But Nice (formerly known as the Pleasure Chest) has the…
We all want to be stimulated and get what we pay for. No one wants to be judged, and everyone wants to be paid. More than 125 permits were granted last year by the Kansas City, Missouri, Regulated Industries Division for entertainers who wanted to perform in the city’s adult cabarets. This Valentine’s Day, satisfy natural urges and stimulate the…
The teachers have become students, and today they are learning about the devastating consequences of sex. Jeff Friedel, a professional chastity educator, is explaining to middle-school teachers that teenage girls who are sexually active are three times more likely to be depressed than girls who are not. Moments later, Friedel shows an image of a chlamydia-infected cervix. Friedel works for…
In his comfortable living room, Mario Canedo puts peaceful Latin music on the stereo. He mixes a batch of margaritas. Canedo has invited five gay Hispanic men to talk about safe sex. All of the men were born in Mexico, and they settled in the Kansas City area, the earliest one immigrating in the late 1980s. All are younger than…
Come here and cuddle, all you public-figure valentines. Mmmm, smell that bread line. Sure, things have rarely been tougher, but at least Interstate Bakeries emerged from bankruptcy last week (Plog: “Twinkie the Kid lives,” February 3). That means your dollars for Ding Dongs have saved Interstate during its long dark night of the soul. Americans spent four years holding their…
Dear Mexican: I have a question from one Mexican to another: Why do gabachos think we know everything about plants? During conversations with the estadounidenses, I get asked about plants, pruning, how to keep roses alive, etc. I understand many of my compatriotas working here are gardeners (and the best at it!), but that does not give us all a…
%{}%If you see the guy on the right, he’s wanted for the murder of a 17-year-old Overland Park woman. KCK Police say they want Ernest Rojas-Fernandez for the murder of Zenaida N. Marmol. They say 28-year-old Rojas-Fernandez is a Hispanic male, 5-feet-4-inches tall, 180 pounds. If you’ve seen Rojas-Fernandez, call 913-573-6020 or 816-474-8477. Categories: News Tags: Ernesto Rojas-Fernandez, homicides, kck
One of my favorite electronic acts, Junior Boys, is returning to the Record Bar on Friday, April 24. Joining the Canadian duo are Londoners Max Tundra According to the group’s MySpace blog, Junior Boys’ new one, Begone Dull Care, is coming out in April. You can stream the new single, “Parallel Lines,” at Domino Records (look for the “Domino Player”…
%{}% While City Manager Wayne Cauthen arrived early to his the city council Finance and Audit Committee meeting this morning, he was late for lunch at the meeting of The Downtowners. Cauthen spent most of his time — or it just seemed like it to me — pushing the idea for a convention hotel, noting several missed convention opportunities. He…
A developer who bought Hawthorn Plaza, the Main Street apartment building known for frequent police and ambulance calls, wants additional public assistance to fix up the place. But he’s run into opposition from the tax collector. Howard Fischer’s plans call for a mixed-use building that offers both low-income and market-rate housing. The former Naughty But Nice porn shop will be…
With an album name like The Prayers that Set Us Free, it’s pretty easy to see that McCoy is a band with a spiritual side. I take no issue with that, especially since the foursome based in KC and Manhattan, Kansas, plays some pretty righteous pop songs. Four tracks from McCoy’s album are available for streaming on the band’s MySpace…
Even carnivores have got to appreciate the naked (often literally) media stunts pulled by the proponents of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. It’s been several months since local activists affiliated with the national group have put on a street show to protest the treatment of circus elephants or the wearing of fur. Well, tomorrow they return — this…
Leave it to KCTV Channel 5 to get the gross new details on the Lawrence guy accused of sodomizing animals. Lawrence police arrested 20-year-old Cem Basoflas, a University of Kansas international student, last week and charged him with animal cruelty and sodomy. Now, Channel 5 gives us all the super-disturbing details in this interview with Midge Grinstead of the Lawrence…
Just read a beautiful piece of writing by Resistance is Fruitful, a new local blogger who is impressing us with his thoughtful (if not yet especially prolific) work. This February 6 post was an “Editor’s Pick” on OpenSalon.com. In it, Resistance remembers his childhood in Colby, Kansas — specifically, the parts of town built by the WPA during the Great…
The Taste of Chaos Tour, featuring Thursday, the Cancer Bats, and some emo-metal-kid bands that can be summed up with this logo/photo, probably the most horribly confusingly lame logo/photo that I have ever seen: Bring them the horizon? The one on the far right seems to want his mummy more. I’ll the parsing of sadly hilarious band photos to my…
