The quiet classiness of the Sherry Leedy Gallery (2004 Baltimore, 816-221-2626) provides a cool undertone that equally complements styles as disparate as tonight’s offerings: Ixchel, a survey of Guatemalan textile art; paintings by Valerie Beller; and some unconventional quilts by Bean Gilsdorf. Gilsdorf’s quilts are striking and stark, incorporating design elements of poster art and illustration. The quilt series, Like…
Putto and Mark Southerland comprise a match made in heaven. And tonight, in the courtyard just west of the Folly Theater (300 West 12th Street), it may be hard to tell the two apart. All flailing tentacles and twisting limbs, “Putto 2x2x4” — a work by Kansas City-born sculptor Michael Rees — conducts an endless, perverse dance on a digital…
The Kansas City Wizards square off against Chivas USA tonight at CommunityAmerica Ballpark (1800 Village West Parkway, Kansas City, Kansas). Chivas USA is not owned by a liquor concern. Rather, it’s a sister team to Club Deportivo Guadalajara of the Mexican League. Club Deportivo Guadalajara is known commonly as Chivas, or Goats. In its first season of MLS play, Chivas…
“I finally get to sleep with the head of the record label,” jokes BR549’s Chuck Mead of his new venture as a solo artist. Of course, the head of Mead’s record label is his wife of 20 years, who is helping him now that he has made a break from his critically acclaimed hillbilly band. Born and raised in Lawrence,…
There was a time when the American biker was considered a terrifying outlaw — drunk and violent, burning down the interstate and, if you were lucky, not stopping in your town. Some of today’s riders use that dangerous old image to help people. Example: Kansas City’s Bikers for Babies. According to the group’s Web site, Bikers for Babies raised more…
Singles dances are one thing. The singles event happening tonight at the Doubletree Hotel (10100 College Boulevard in Overland Park) goes beyond dancing. Singles Extravaganza 3 combines music by the band Platinum Express, more than 20 exhibitors and vendors, and keynote speaker Harold Ivan Smith. Oh, yeah, there’s a cash bar, too. Organizer Don Davidson says, “We’re aiming for any…
Nature and nurture come together each Sunday in Lawrence at Girls Garden. At a plot behind the United Way building (2518 Ridge Court), women of all ages — who don’t mind getting their hands dirty — meet from 1 to 3 p.m. to garden, talk and get to know one another. “It’s empowering to connect yourself with nature,” says Lisa…
Today’s events kick off outdoors at 9:30 a.m. with the Memorial Day Observance Ceremony, including a color guard parade, music by the American Legion Band, a Walk of Honor dedication, and a keynote address by Iraq War veteran Lt. Col. John L. Ward. The museum opens immediately following the ceremony, while the Military Vehicle Preservation Association displays vintage transports from…
Wally Backman played second base on the personality-rich New York Mets club that stomped on New England’s heart in the 1986 World Series. The career .275 hitter went into managing after his playing days ended. The Arizona Diamondbacks introduced Backman as their new manager on November 1, 2004, only to fire him four days later, after prior arrests and a…
(2000 Grand, 816-221-5858). From 3 to 6 p.m., order $20 pitchers or $4 glasses of sangria. Well drinks are $1 off, as are Fat Tire and Smithwick’s drafts. The bar, which has many of those garage-door-style windows, also offers a reverse happy hour from 11 p.m. until close with half-off appetizers, draft beers and domestic bottles. Wed., May 27, 3-6…
(512 West 75th Street, 816-361-9788). Like a phoenix, Kennedy’s has risen from the ashes of the Waldo fire that demolished its old building a couple of years ago. The new bar’s cool, contemporary design includes floor-to-ceiling windows that slide open. While you’re there, drink a toast to the firefighters who battled the blaze. Domestic pitchers are $5 all night; from…
(424 Westport Road, 816-960-0866). This self-proclaimed retro dive bar, which is connected to McCoy’s, boasts garage-door windows that open onto a cool little patio. Sit in an orange Naughahyde bar chair and enjoy $1 off well drinks and McCoy’s craft beers and $2 off house wines. From 3 to 6 p.m., the bar serves up $2 beef tacos. Wed., May…
For the second year in a row, Pezheads — that is collectors of those iconic candy dispensers — will converge in Kansas City to buy from, sell to and trade with each other. Admission to the KC Pezhead Gathering is free. The event is on the UMKC campus in the Bloch School of Business, room 101. Sat., May 23, 9…
Local poets (Jacob Johanson, editor of Off Beat Pulp magazine; and Iris Appelquist) team up to revive the now defunct, sometimes rambunctious, always titlating poetry event once known as ‘Prospero’s Pit.’ With an hour’s worth of open mic, is included a special featured reader from KC or from far, far away. Sun., May 24, 7-10 p.m., 2009 Tags: Jacob Johanson,…
Wide-eyed kids attended by their pouchy-eyed parents will have few complaints about Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian; all you people in between and beyond could do worse as well. Director Shawn Levy and star Ben Stiller return (as do Robin Williams, Steve Coogan and Owen Wilson) for this bank-breaking sequel to the 2006 original, in which a…
It has been at least two decades since Nine Inch Nails and Jane’s Addiction burst on the scene, inflaming imaginations with their decadent, hard-edged sound. The flame still burns bright. Indeed, this is no mere exercise in nostalgia. Jane’s Addiction has reunited with its original lineup for the first time since ’91, laying down a couple of classic unreleased tracks…
Mother Earth has left the building. On a rainy night, the old hippies are being hustled out the door. It was supposed to be a reunion party for the radicals, scenesters and music freaks who, from 1971 to ’74, frequented the rotting, rococo, hangarlike second floor of the El Torreon Building at 31st Street and Gillham, back when it was…
Before setting pen to paper, Sin Nombre writer-director Cary Fukunaga purportedly rode the rails in the company of real illegal immigrants traveling from Mexico to the United States. But from the looks of it, he spent even more time studying Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles’ slicked-up slum porn City of God: diminutive kids with guns, carefully lit and art-directed shantytowns and…
The intersection of alt-country’s dusty gravel road and power pop’s cherry-blossom-littered boulevard is well-traveled. But no matter how many times you cross it, it’s nearly always pleasant and endearing. Sons of Great Dane, a four-piece from Kansas City, seems content to park its ice-cream wagon at the corner of this intersection and set up shop. The group’s debut album, Why…
Every couple of months or so, we get a little care package from Justin Ripley. It isn’t filled with cookies or mittens but rather handmade CD-Rs with somewhere between 16 and 28 songs. Apparently, Ripley hasn’t done jack shit since moving from Lawrence to Seattle, preferring instead to lock himself in his bedroom and make albums while his wife slips…
The world could stand to be in love again, and the ocean levels are damn sure rising up, so here’s to revisiting Flood, They Might Be Giants’ brand-new record of 1990, that infectious and ingenious onslaught of folk-pop, tongue twisters and philosophical contemplation. Flood offers little of the itchy avant-gardism of earlier TMBG, but it’s tough to argue with its…
Are the Decemberists too literary, too melodramatic, too grandiloquent, too anachronistic for their own good, as their detractors suggest? That depends on what “too” means. Certainly, Colin Meloy and his Portland, Oregon, art-rock outfit have carved out a fairly unique and polarizing career with their vivid, dictionarynecessitating tales of old-timey chimney sweeps and seafarers and bewitching crane women, set to…
From 1971 to 1974, Midwestern youth, mind-altering rock, and THC-enhanced blues and country found a home inside KC’s Cowtown Ballroom at 31st Street and Gillham. Some of classic rock’s biggest names played at Cowtown — Van Morrison, Frank Zappa, Alice Cooper, to name a few — and acts such as Brewer and Shipley and the Ozark Mountain Daredevils honed their…
Charles Larry, better known to the city’s hip-hop denizens as F.L.O., wants to help support radio station KKFI 90.1. Having grown up with Mz. Shai, host of the station’s Saturday night Show-Me Mix Show, F.L.O. has a personal interest in making sure the station and its DJs avoid the recessionary ax. As a local concert promoter, F.L.O. estimates that he…
