As one of the most prominent bands of early ’90s rock en Español, Aterciopelados (which translates as “The Velvety Ones”) refuse simply to sit back and enjoy the fruits of their labor. On their latest disc, Río, they urge fans to support the struggle for the recovery of the Bogotá River — one of the most polluted in the world….
Drawn from Superbad director Greg Mottola’s own experiences working at a ramshackle, suburban amusement park in the 1980s, Adventureland feels at once personal and generational. For the serious, aspiring travel writer James (Jesse Eisenberg), the summer of 1987 is supposed to be spent backpacking through Europe. But a family fiscal crisis forces him into the only job he can find,…
Beef can bury rappers. Ask Cannabis. But rapper Jayceon Taylor, better known as the Game, seems to feed off a steady diet of public slights and recriminations. Throughout a musical career that began in 2001, the Game has acquired more beef than a USDA marketing campaign. Early on, he and fellow California rapper Yukmouth traded barbs after Yukmouth claimed on…
The end of the band cannot be attributed to any one revelation or mishap. It was not megalomania, for example, on the part of any band member. No, Flee the Seen’s breakup is the result of many things — some personal, others not so personal. Like so many bands on the cusp of a breakthrough, this Kansas City crew fell…
If the devil is in the details, then even the most bored art devotee will be seduced by the manuscript paintings that make up the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art’s new exhibition. Rapturous devotion to the minutiae of costume, jewelry and gesture intensifies these images. If you love books and painting, not much bests these ornamental manuscript pages, with their crisp…
For all the controversy they’ve stirred up in New York and London, the creators of My Name Is Rachel Corrie have insisted that their play takes no side in any particular conflict, even though the one-woman show is about an American peace activist killed in Gaza by an Israeli bulldozer. Instead, they’ve argued, it’s a portrait of idealism, a celebration…
Even for a rock-and-roll band, the road out of Kansas City is hard to love. Past the edge of town in any direction, the land opens to an unrelenting blandness of farmland and prairie, gas stations and highway interchanges and cigarettes bouncing on the asphalt at 70 mph. Box stores, industrial buildings and parking lots herald another town, but it’s…
Newspaper headlines tell a somber story: “Lean days ahead at City Hall.” “Kansas City faces budget crunch.” “City’s empty pockets.” Recent headlines in The Kansas City Star? No, they’re from the past. The lean times arrived in 1980. The crunch hit in 1985. Pockets produced lint and little else in 1988. Nothing has changed, of course. The city passed a…
Hank Aaron and Jackie Rob/”Cool Papa” Bell and Hank Leonard/Yeah, they set the stage/But the baddest of them all was prob’ly Satchel Paige/Yeah, clear as the air you breathe/This beat is ballin’ like the Negro League. That isn’t usual children’s rap, from some kind of square, after-school-special hip-hop dabbler. Far from it. That verse is intoned by none other than…
Dear Mexican: Why are Mexicans so proud of the brutality of their police force? They seem to glamorize it in all their music and telenovelas. Batons Are Bats or Super Oracles Dear BABOSO: I’ll let you know when Dirty Harry, Detective Sipowicz, Chief Wiggum, and the producers of Cops get back to me, OK? Dear Mexican: Why aren’t more Mexicans…
Title: How to Pick Up Girls! Author: Eric Weber Publisher: Symphony Press, New York Date: 1970 Discovered: at Goodwill, Bonner Springs The cover promises: Much that the book fails to back up. Representative quotes: “The point of this story is not that the girl was ‘bad’ or ‘fast’ or ‘avant garde.’ All it indicates is that normal, healthy young chicks…
After several posts on Plog (The Pitch’s news blog at pitch.com) reported on recent layoffs at The Kansas City Star and business editor Chris Lester’s non-layoff departure for a job at the Chamber of Commerce, some commenters paid their respects: “As someone who works at a mainstream paper, I can tell you that those who work at alternative papers do…
A friend has just started studying tarot. Recently she called with a warning: “Don’t eat chicken today. The cards warn against it.” I’m superstitious by nature, so I took the woman at her word. And, luckily, I hadn’t planned to go to Stroud’s or Granny’s anyway. But the next time she called, I cut her off at the pass. “But…
This morning, KRBZ 96.5 FM (the Buzz) morning host Afentra brought Flee the Seen into the studio to chat and perform an acoustic version of “Good Morning,” a fan-favorite that never saw official release. Go to Afentra’s blog for the embedded audio of the arresting and poignant performance. (The full version is at FTS’s MySpace.) Unless you’ve had your head…
Roadies for Britney Spears’ “Circus” tour are loading equipment into the Sprint Center at this very moment! Shani Tate Ross, the director of communications and marketing at the Sprint Center, says that tomorrow night’s show is nearly sold out, with mostly premium and VIP tickets still available. Those seats run $125 to $549. It’s Britney, bitch, and “recession” ain’t in…
A warrant was issued today for Dominic L. Verser in the shooting death of 20-year-old Olivia M. Anaekwe. KCK Police are looking for Verser, who they claim killed Anaekwe on March 26 in the 7200 block of Gilmore Avenue. They say Verser, 22, is 5-foot-11-inches tall and 160 pounds. If you know where he is, call 913-573-6020 or 816-474-8477. Categories:…
Organized crime in Kansas City may not be dead (although a long way from the city’s bloody history). In a story hidden away in this morning’s Local section, The Kansas City Star reported that the FBI served several search warrants yesterday at the Northland homes of people who “have been investigated in the past for organized crime in Kansas City.” …
Hey Walt Bodine Show fans! Due to KCUR 89.3 FM’s spring pledge drive, the every-other-week food critics show airs tomorrow and not on its normal Friday. The show features (dare I say stars) Fat City’s very own Charles Ferruzza The topic this week is how the food critics have refined their palates and “the ins and outs of being a…
The Pitch’s Artopia party this Saturday at Screenland in the Crossroads (1656 Washington) is going to be sweet as hell. There’ll be tons of music, food, booze, dance, fashion and chances to mingle, flirt and chilly down with Kansas City’s coolest and most creative peeps. It signals our fourth year of presenting four local cultural Masterminds with gifts of $1,000…
The stock market has always shown “volatility” (market-speak for “nobody has any idea where the hell it’s doing”). Thus a market for physical items as investments has grown in the past couple of years, especially since the September meltdown. Early in October, the Wall Street Journal ran an article called “When stocks tank, some investors stampede to alpacas and turn…
I’ll try to suppress my urge to bitch about The Real World, but I don’t think I can summon the will to go next door to the Bulldog (1715 Main St.) for the free screening of Pedro tonight at 6:30. Planned Parenthood is throwing a premiere party for the MTV film about Pedro Zamora, the openly gay, HIV-positive Real World:…
Take that unpaid taxes. I just paid mine today. I guess Health and Human Services nominee and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius also just paid hers. The Kansas City Star says Sebelius and her husband owed about $8,000 in income taxes between 2005 and 2007 and paid up (plus interest) after discovering she was delinquent. Back in February, I did a…
