Dear Mexican: For most of my life I was oblivious to the hate that Mexicans have for Salvadorans. I became aware of it when I made the huge mistake of marrying a Salvi. Once I became engaged to my Salvi girlfriend or whenever I would tell any Mexican that I married a Salvi, I was bombarded with so much hate…
I have a friend who lives in Paris. She keeps a tiny flat in an old building on an old street that’s steps away from many of the expensive, cosmopolitan bistros and cafés of the stylish Saint-Germain-des-Prés neighborhood. But my friend, who is American, does not dine at those upscale boîtes. No, she prefers the unassuming Italian restaurant just a…
If you happen to produce an indie-rock aerobics video, be sure to keep White Denim in mind. The Austin, Texas, group has been working out in tight jeans for the better part of five years, flexing their psych-rock chops on top of energetic tunes that flail in unpredictable directions. Mix in some bellowing, male voices and a few confounding prog-rock…
With his smart mixes and charismatic stage persona, the Dutch-born DJ Tiesto has been a pioneer of sorts since kicking off his career in the late ’90s. He was the first in his line of work to spin to a large crowd without an opening act, and in 2004 he broke new ground by performing at the opening ceremony for…
It’s hard to have high expectations for a band called Electric Tickle Machine. But as soon as the New York City band lays into its infectious garage pop, it tickles in all the right places. With slapstick lyrics such as Buy a puppy/It’ll make you more presentable, the mustachioed group’s performances are crowd-pleasing on multiple levels. Songs such as “Gimme…
Punk lifers the Bouncing Souls graduated from skateboards to electric guitars in high school and hit the road with a no-surrender ethos. The Jersey quartet has grown tighter and beefier over the years, going from a fun-loving, party-oriented outfit to a boisterous, chunky, hard-charging machine, abetted by the postmillennial addition of savage skin-pounder Michael McDermott (Murphy’s Law). While their music…
Founded by self-described urban guerrillas Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Ulrike Meinhof, Germany’s Red Army Faction was the Weather Underground, Symbionese Liberation Army and righteous outlaws of Bonnie and Clyde combined — robbing banks, planting bombs, shooting cops, and assassinating judges for the better part of the decade that followed the convulsions of 1968. Directed by Uli Edel from Bernd…
If you’ve ever wished that electronica included rap lyrics more often or are simply curious as to what rolling to hip-hop might feel like, you’ll like Heroes, the first solo release from Epcot. With help from producer Salva, the rapper and labelmate of Kansas City hip-hop expat Approach (who runs Datura from his base in San Francisco), Epcot throws a…
The day began with a halt. The news of Anne Winter’s death on Thursday, October 22, at age 45, spread through phone calls and Facebook updates. Beginning that night, her closest friends began posting expressions of loss. From there, it spread like an outbreak, and the whole music scene seemed to shut down. For 18 years, Winter and her husband,…
Toward the beginning of his new solo debut full-length, Curse Your Branches, David Bazan sings a chorus that, whether he means it to or not, encapsulates the basic premise of his entire body of work. As the elaborate, midtempo rhythm of “Hard to Be” falls away, with just a keyboard wailing like a steel guitar in the distance, the weary-voiced…
The Yiddish shtetl shtick that opens Joel and Ethan Coen’s new movie — a Jewish peasant stumbles on an old Hasid who may be a Dybbuk — is pretty clumsy, but at least it tips its hat to the great existential comedy that A Serious Man might have become if it weren’t buried beneath an avalanche of ugly Jew iconography….
It’s easy and not inaccurate to say — as many have — that Andy Warhol was a mirror. But even today, a generation after his death, the tinted, magnified, multiplied reality of his art looks like nothing in nature, nothing we could hold up to a looking glass. It resembles only itself — you know a Warhol when you see…
To what standard should we hold a mad undertaking like the Coterie Theatre’s Maul of the Dead? To the raunchy burlesques of director Ron Megee’s Late Night Theatre days, at which Maul hints with perverse wit, parodic dialogue and some entry-level pansexualism that sets the teenagers in the audience giggling before opening their minds toward the end, when two men…
It never takes long for Pellom McDaniels to get the question. It’s the first day of a new semester. McDaniels, who teaches history at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, is standing in front of his 100-level class: American History to 1877. He’s wearing a pressed olive-green suit. His head is shaved bald. With his broad shoulders and 300-pound frame, he’s…
A good test of public stewardship occurs when $2 million accumulates in a bank account. What happens when competing interests reach for the cash? Such a scenario played out recently in Kansas City, Missouri. Elements of the story include a porn shop and an accusation that a lawyer at a prestigious firm misbehaved. I mention the $2 million at the…
Feature: “Road Movies,” October 15 The Right Stuff As an artist represented by Stuff (for eight years now), I was happy to see that Carolyn Szczepanski’s story about 63rd Street got to the essence of what Stuff is. In large part, I have Stuff to thank for the possibility of working full time as an artist now. They work vigilantly…
Rob Thomas
Tiesto
Given that the campaign to renew the COMBAT tax is in full swing, we figured it was time to look at the numbers. Ready? Here’s the breakdown of how $10,487,768 of your tax dollars — 2009’s COMBAT anti-drug tax fund — was doled out among local agencies. (The agencies are categorized by the COMBAT goal they serve: Prevention, Treatment, D.A.R.E….
My colleague Jason Harper over on the Wayward Blog has an update on the death of Anne Winter, who owned and operated the Recycled Sounds record store for 18 years, until it closed in 2006. Winter committed suicide last Thursday in her home. She was 45. Harper notes that some locals have anonymously set up a donation site at AnnieWinter.org…
I don’t care what your opinions on novelty music are, this video for Flight of the Conchords’ “Sugar Lumps” is comedy gold. And still better than the Black Eyed Peas’ “Boom Boom Pow.” Sugar Lumps (feat. Arj Barker) – Flight of the Conchordsby vojha But is it better than the Mighty Boosh? More (intentionally) comedic hip-hop after the jump. Categories:…
