Mike Roark was diagnosed with mantle cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma two days after Valentine’s Day this year. After tests, transfusions, a half-dozen rounds of aggressive chemotherapy and a bone-marrow stem-cell transplant at KU Medical Center, the underinsured musician has massive medical bills. His family and friends have organized a benefit show and BBQ, headlined by Kelley Hunt and hosted by Micheal…
South Overland Park isn’t on the other side of the world from downtown KCMO. It’s only 20-some miles away. Replete with cul-de-sacs, soccer fields and high-end retail, it’s a natural spot for drinkers. See them in action at these bars — way south.• Blue Moose Mountain Grill (5317 West 151st Street, Overland Park, 913-948-9880): The southern outpost of the Prairie…
Izabela Filipiak is a poet, essayist, fiction writer and scholar. Born in Poland, she spent several years in the late 1980s as a political refugee in New York and took part in the literary revolution after the fall of the Iron Curtain in Poland in the 1990s. She is the author of Absolute Amnesia. Mon., Oct. 19, 7 p.m., 2009…
Once a staple on the old KLZR 105.9 (“The Lazer”), Danger Bob’s “The Hook” has remained seared into the minds of all who heard it, acting as both a recitation of famous urban legends and a declaration of the Lawrence band’s ability to write instantly catchy songs. When last we saw Danger Bob five years ago, the band was backed…
Mutemath has sounded like a modern-rock superpower for the better part of five years, but thanks to a misguided effort by Warner Bros. to promote the band as a contemporary Christian act, the New Orleans group got a delayed start reaping its spoils. Residing on the respectable mainstream fringe that includes groups such as Muse and Shiny Toy Guns, Mutemath…
Last February, Sugar & Gold played the best show of the year that practically no one attended. The San Francisco band brought its funky, sexy, slithery brand of retro-cool disco music to RecordBar, inspiring the 20 people in the bar to exchange collective where the hell did these guys come from? looks. Singer and guitarist Philipp Minnig looked the part…
Though a precursory loud-to-soft template had been well-established by groups such as Isis and Neurosis when Pelican came along in 2003, the Chicago instrumental quartet nonetheless stands out for its distinct brand of melodic heaviness. Much like those aforementioned experimental innovators, Pelican makes expansive, brooding, long-winded music. But the similarities end there. For one, Pelican leans more heavily to the…
Style Like Mind, the newest release from Steddy P, is by and large a continuation of the rapper’s previously stated preoccupations. “No Matter How,” the third track on the 13-track album, features Steddy grappling with the tall order of reviving hip-hop in his hometown of Kansas City — the same city, he reminds listeners, that booted out DJ Jazzy Jeff….
Upon first listening to Bent Left’s new EP, USS Awesome, it’s difficult to shake the perception that the band’s gruffly delivered vocals and rough, power-pop instrumentation owe a lot to Twin Cities-area punks such as Dillinger Four, Off With Their Heads, and Banner Pilot. But Bent Left sticks out from that crowd by politicizing its pop punk. Even though the…
The Calamity Cubes’ second album, Long Cold Winter, sounds like it drifted straight from the campground at the Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas, soaked in sweat, alcohol and a hint of something toxic — maybe gasoline or propane. Using guitar, upright bass and banjo, the Cubes employ a lean attack, though they’ll use a didgeridoo if the situation calls…
And so it came to pass that upon a Sunday night in the village of Waldo, seven travelers gathered to suck deep on the hookah of life and listen to the bards spin tales. The tales were of dying and being reborn, of beasts on the Earth and signs in the sky. The bards were four mystical djinn from the…
Vladivostok, a city of a half-million people in far-eastern Russia on the Sea of Japan, is an isolated place for a kid to grow up. A 10-hour flight from Moscow, the city is the eastern terminus of the Trans-Siberian railroad. It was once the Soviet Union’s biggest naval port. But for the members of Mumiy Troll, it’s home sweet home….
There’s a scene in The Hunger in which David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve — playing two of the most elegant, seductive vampires ever — prowl a New York nightclub that’s shadowy, loud, lurid and sinister. I couldn’t get that image out of my head during my visits to Ra Sushi, Leawood’s new installment of the Arizona-based bar-and-restaurant chain. Done in…
The bold environmental project that Colin Beavan began in Manhattan in the fall of 2006 — to expunge his carbon footprint by giving up material consumption, electricity, nonlocal foods, and basically all worldly pleasures for one full year — was always destined to have some naysayers crying “publicity stunt.” And to an extent, it is. Timed to coincide with the…
The movie wastes no time: Before the opening credits, a man watches two home invaders slaughter his wife and daughter — we don’t even know their names. Then deals are cut, and the murderer walks while his less culpable accomplice is sentenced to death, and the dad wonders, “But what about justice?” And then, a decade passes, dad has seen…
Directed by Spike Jonze from a 400-word children’s picture book first published in 1963, Where the Wild Things Are may be the toughest adaptation since Tim Burton fashioned Mars Attacks! from a series of bubblegum cards. Tougher, actually: Burton was working with ephemeral, anonymous trash; Jonze is elaborating on a classic by the distinguished author-illustrator Maurice Sendak. As its title…
In 2001, a one-and-done local art journal called Speck ran a long interview with painter and Kansas City Art Institute professor Lester Goldman, in which the older artist said titling his paintings was “the most fun” part of making them. Eight years later, the interviewer, Eric Sall, is an established artist working in New York City, and Goldman — arguably…
The signposts of history hugging the margins of 63rd Street are easy to miss. The wooden marker that highlights the intersection with the dusty Santa Fe Trail juts awkwardly from the lawn slab in front of a UMB Bank. The ornate metal placard that commemorates Big Blue Battlefield, the site of a Civil War clash, is dwarfed by the 18-wheelers…
Rick Hughes, the city’s richly compensated tourism chief, tends to repeat himself. Hughes is the president of the Kansas City Convention & Visitors Association. On May 19, he made a presentation to the Kansas City, Missouri, City Council. His mission: Get the council excited about building a big, new convention hotel. One of his PowerPoint slides said Kansas City is…
Dear Mexican: An uninsured wetback just hit my car and totaled his. He had no insurance and no license but did have a nice cell phone. In my limited Spanish, I asked him if he was OK, but he didn’t ask about me or my children. He was handcuffed and taken away to be booked for one hour to get…
Feature: “Best of Kansas City 2009,” October 1 Steak in the Heart Thank you for choosing Sullivan’s Steakhouse for “Best Steakhouse” 2009. Yours was one of the most clever and flattering write-ups I have ever read about my beloved restaurant. Sherry Joseph, general manager, Sullivan’s Steakhouse Best Slam I just reviewed your “Best of Kansas City 2009” issue and I…
Stephen Lynch
