Perhaps it’s New Zealand’s breezy way with pop music that bestows an extended life expectancy upon its inhabitants. The Brunettes are at the head of that class, crafting grown-up twee pop with the kind of coed cuteness that could make Mates of State all soft and sentimental. Duo Jonathan Bree and Heather Mansfield — with a Parisian coyness reminiscent of…
What’s love got to do with it? Quite a bit, according to Royce Diamond of Kansas City, Kansas. Like most of his listeners, Diamond has love issues. Though his latest effort, Aficionado, comes well after Valentine’s Day, it might be worth holding on to, until that date once again arrives. Unlike the greeting cards that do and don’t show up…
I’m getting tired of looking at this fucking computer,” says a feisty Mike McCoy, on the phone from his home in Austin, Texas. McCoy is in the homestretch of organizing the sixth-annual edition of his North vs. South Music Festival. Despite a relatively thin turnout last year, bands have been knocking down his door to be part of this year’s…
I flipped on the TV last week to see, on a local news station, a man who had seen a funnel cloud — cloud, not cake — briefly touch down near the suburb of Lee’s Summit. The man had captured a little video of the event on his cell phone. As I looked closer at the man holding the cell…
Energetic, inventive, swaggering fun, Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds is a consummate Hollywood entertainment: rich in fantasy and blithely amoral. It’s also quintessential Tarantino — even more drenched in film references than in gore. Tepidly received in Cannes and thereafter tweaked, Inglourious Basterds may still be a tad long at two and a half hours and a little too pleased with…
Early on the morning of Tuesday, August 17, 1999, Juliette Jones woke to a stranger massaging her feet. At first, she thought her legs were merely tangled in the sheets. The summer heat made sleep difficult, and the air conditioner chugging in Juliette’s window was losing its battle with the sauna outside. Juliette was 32, the single mother of a…
What’s the price of a lie? For the city’s largest general contractor, a little extra effort. J.E. Dunn Construction Co. agreed last week to find $1.1 million in work for businesses owned by women and minorities as it puts the finishing touches on its taxpayer-assisted headquarters downtown. The agreement puts an end to the nastiness created when Dunn used front…
Dear Mexican: My family hasn’t been in this country long — came here because of lousy treatment by other Europeans and didn’t live close enough to the southern U.S. border to have exposure to Mexico or Mexicans. So, anyone looking down on Mexicans can be mysterious to many of us who have migrated to the Southwest, like myself. My family…
Killa City on Plog at Pitch.com Body Count Thanks to you all at The Pitch for keeping a running tally of the number of homicides in the city. As we both know, the TV stations and The Star do not do that — they appear to capitulate to pressure from the “unholy alliance” of the city’s convention industry and the…
Consider yourself warned: the Jacka is coming, and he is bringing Tear Gas. The Bay Area denizen has been hustlin’ for a while — he’s featured on more than 50 discs, has dropped records of his own and has generally been singing the praises of purp for years (he was born in ’77) — but Kansas City will be getting…
This week’s Pitch is on the street now, and Nadia Pflaum’s cover story, “The Aftermath,” tells the story of a woman 10 years after a man raped her and left her for dead. Here’s a snip: It was not yet light outside when Juliette realized that a man, not her sheets, was holding her feet. At first, she thought it…
Smarmy straight-edge CM Punk couldn’t elicit as much hatred as a video of President George W. Bush (although a couple of guys loudly clapped at his cameo on the Titan Tron) even as he berated the crowd, calling them a bunch of boozing, pill-popping smokers at last night’s Friday Night SmackDown TV taping. Peter Rugg pointed this out in March…
It’s time to put away the cards and the dice. Forget about drinking based on what Brent Musberger says or when the Jenga blocks collapse. That’s because you can now buy the Arkeg Drink’n game —a kegerator-video game console hybrid that is the finest collaboration of appliances since the TV-DVD. It’s not cheap. The Drink’n game will run you $3,999….
Here’s my breakdown of the last five minutes: Blog blog blog. Search the web. Read RSS feed. “New Swell Season song?” Squeal like a 12 year-old girl. Download song, waiting impatiently. Press play. “Glen Hansard’s voice is so good. It’s like a warm blanket.” More listening. “Oh, Lord. This is so pretty.” Lower lip quivers. “I may cry.” Markéta Irglová’s…
The girlfriend of the man shot to death in the 10700 block fo Stark Sunday night told police that the victim had assaulted her the day before causing her to seek medical treatment, according to court documents. The woman told police that she returned to the home at 10718 Stark to get her personal belongings, but the victim, 42-year-old Anthony…
The museum community added a member this Saturday when the Currywurst Museum opened its doors in Berlin, Germany. It’s a shrine to the 60-year-old sausage, which is deep-fried, sliced and then liberally coated with ketchup and mustard powder. Eaters have a choice of whether to keep the casing made from intestines on the sliced sausages. If you’re asking why build…
For those of you who weren’t able to make it to Saturday’s show at the Crossroads, be it due to weather, financial straits, or otherwise, Railroad Earth’s set has made its way online to the Internet Archive. Stream it below or download it here. By the by, if you read through the comments from the review of Saturday’s show, RRE…
Jackson County prosecutors and jail staff need to work on their communication skills. They just don’t talk like they used to, and when they don’t, an accused killer walks. KCTV 5 reports that Demetrius Harbour, a man accused of killing his girlfriend, was released from the Jackson County jail Monday evening due to miscommunication between prosecutors and jail staff. Harbour…
The concept of eating local always has geographic limitations. And those limitations are most apparent with regard to meat — the challenge for cattle ranchers and farmers is in finding a local slaughterhouse. A group in the Puget Sound-area hopes to meet the demands of the locavore movement through the introduction of a Mobile Meat Processing Unit — a “slaughterhouse…
King Britt, who you may remember as Silkworm, the man responsible for all those beats behind Digable Planets, has put together a pretty fly mix tape. It’s called Kingstrumentals, and maybe mix tape isn’t the right way to describe it. Here’s what King had to say about the project: Sometimes in the studio, I feel I have too many options….
Please don’t eat the babies Note: As this post goes live, Fat City blogger Jonathan Bender and his wife are awaiting the birth of their first child. The prevailing wisdom is that once you have a baby, you’ll never eat out again. Or on those occasions when you do eat out, you can forget going anywhere but a chain…
We’d be fucked. But read all about it. Categories: News Tags: fox 4, zombies
Couple of crime stories out there right now. A 50-year-old man was shot last night following an argument with a group of people at 61st Street and Jackson Avenue, KMBC Channel 9 reports. View Larger Map The man’s injuries were first said to be life-threatening, but he’s now in stable condition, The Kansas City Star reports. No arrests so if…
