Professional chefs and culinary students from the Greater Kansas City area will create works of art out of giant ice blocks. Winners of the competition will receive a cash prize and their carving will be displayed in the Ballroom Foyer of the Hyatt Regency Crown Center where hundreds of restaurateurs will view the masterpieces before attending the 2010 GKCRA Inaugural…
If you speak Gaga, you belong at the Uptown Theater’s Conspiracy Room (3700 Broadway, 816-753-8665) tonight for a showdown between two sartorial psychos: Lady Gaga and Madonna. At the door, a swarm of peskypaparazzi wait to capture you in all your finery. Will it be the Kermit the Frog-skin coat or the fire-shooting cone bra this evening? Only you can…
If you like your entertainment based on novels but don’t feel like seeing The Lovely Bones, then we recommend watching the Jules Verne classic Around the World in 80 Days, which has come to life at the Kansas City Repertory Theatre. Just try to be bored as moneybags Phileas Fogg takes a gentleman’s wager that the world can be crossed…
With three Stalin-era Russians and an aloof American prodigy making up the program’s composers, you’d think this weekend’s Kansas City Symphony performances would be keep-your-gloves-on cold. But the season’s best (and most modern) lineup glows like hot coals. Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 1 comes out heavy on the woodwinds and lands with big percussion (timpani solo alert!). Stravinsky’s “Suite From Pulcinella”…
Many Kansas City hip-hop artists need to keep their day jobs. But they should all ask to be off from 3 to 5 p.m. today, when some pioneering locals hold an urban-music-oriented networking and info-sharing event called, simply, the KC Music Forum. Co-founder Jaz Brewer, engineer and owner of 64111 Studio (one of the area’s leading hip-hop factories), along with…
As part of Yoga Day USA — our national celebration of the ancient Indian discipline — yoga, massage and personal-training studio KCFitnessLink opens its doors today for free classes and an open house at the Kansas City, Kansas, space (510 North Sixth Street, 816-256-4443). While Director of Programs Darryl Olive and company often lead classes uncommonly found elsewhere in town…
With its menu full of Mediterranean and American specialties, Café Cedar (2 East Second Street in Parkville) already celebrates culture. Today, however, the part of the restaurant’s heart that belongs to the Middle East gets priority. Patrons can fill their own bellies while ogling the gyrating torsos of local belly dancers, from whose hips and exposed navels sparkly items jitter…
As the winter months wear on, it’s easy to lay low while Jack Frost lays waste to the landscape. It doesn’t take long, however, for the coziness of a warm abode to transform into cabin fever. Escape the fate of your homebound peers tonight with thoughts of summer at Lawrence’s Jackpot Music Hall (943 Massachusetts). Bolstered by the theme “Summer…
If you think you have a tough commute, consider the member schools of the Summit League. Previously known as the Mid-Continent Conference, the Summit League was rebranded last year in a desperate attempt to expand the league’s geographic area or provide frequent-flier miles to athletic personnel. The conference’s far-flung schedule continues tonight at 7:05 as the UMKC Kangaroos and North…
Having pride in where you come from — or at least where you are right now — requires a sense of history. And it’s never too early to start filling a kid’s head with stories of the past. So grab some local youth, preferably preteens, and take ’em to the Coterie Theatre (2450 Grand) for a musical introduction to one…
As the competition for your drinking dollars heats up, a new place has begun to settle at the corner of Southwest Boulevard and Washington. For about a month now, Rhythm & Booze (423 Southwest Boulevard) has occupied the location of former short-lived dives Static Bar and G-Spot. After a three-month remodel, husband-and-wife team Jenn and Rhythm Piatt have opened their…
It’s impolite to guess an actress’s age, but Kimberly Akimbo, now enjoying an effective shoestring production at Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre, invites — hell, demands — that we do so. Nancy Marcy, who strikes me as about 60, stars as a teenager. She glimmers sadly in the title role, an awkward high-schooler whose body ages at four times the normal rate,…
Ever since Scott Roeder allegedly killed abortion doctor George Tiller, the liberal elite have been wringing their hands, and prissy media types have been mincing about: Oh, no — what’s going to happen during the trial? God, you people are such babies. In the good old days — the days of men and sweat and the hot steel of justice…
What’s a nice guy like Martinez Hillard doing in a place like this? Perched on a scuffed bar stool in Lawrence’s grungy Harbour Lights, the tall, dreadlocked musician explains what attracts him to a scene that can be tough on newcomers and tougher on stalwarts. “When I moved to Lawrence in 2007, a lot of people were telling me that…
Dear Readers: Siempre, the wisest words that appear in this column come from ustedes, y the following two cartas prove this maxim. The first one addresses my year-end column, in which a working-class gabacho insisted that his people apapachan a Mexicans mucho. Dear Mexican: Half-Mexican here. I was fortunate enough to catch your column while I was visiting for the…
Believe it. Pockets of Johnson County folks were delighted with the outcome of the 2008 presidential election. The Obama-Biden ticket captured 61.4 percent of the vote in one Fairway ward. Obama won Prairie Village by more than seven percentage points. In Mission, the margin was 20. Of course, Obama’s popularity did not reach from one end of the county to…
Feature: “The Year in Killa City,” December 31, 2009 Where’s Kansas City’s Government? Anyone who is reading Justin Kendall’s “The Year in Killa City” or who has kept up with the series of Plog pieces reporting the senseless, random and endless violence in parts of our community must be appalled. Those who should be particularly engaged include the mayor, City…
Yesterday’s honky-tonk hero, Bad Blake, arrives at a Clovis, New Mexico, bowling alley. It’s another in a string of low-paying, low-turnout gigs with pickup bands half his age, grinding the greatest hits out of an old Fender Tremolux, including his breakout with the chorus, Funny how falling feels like flying … for a little while. But Bad’s not flying these…
Eduardo Loredo leans against the wall of the cardiology clinic at Children’s Mercy Hospital. Slouched like a kid at his locker, with a blue backpack slung over his left shoulder, the 14-year-old wears the look of casual indifference that matches his wardrobe: baggy Dickies’ pants low on his hips, an oversized Ecko hoodie that blares its brand in black lettering…
The longing gothic folk of E.P. Hall begs to be heard on a chilly night. The Indianapolis duo’s full-length debut in 2009, Mommy Crow, is filled with fingerpicked guitar notes, soft bells and the pleading voice of bookish frontwoman Elise Percy. Her collaborator, Andy Goheen of experimental lo-fi outfit Sticky and the Bees, pairs understated electronic effects with Percy’s Beth…
Few are willing to hazard a guess on how to pronounce UUVVWWZ’s formidable moniker. For the record, say: double U, double V, double W, Z, which you may want to practice in front of a mirror a few times before heading to the Jackpot Saturday night. With nebulous song structures, chanted vocals and that secret-handshake name, the Nebraska group has…
For Josephine Collective, more is always more. The local pop-punk group disbanded after a screeched swan song at the Beaumont Club last May. Little did its fans know that Josephine Collective would reunite eight months later for a (truly) final send-off in the exact same venue. Better late than never, right? With its churning, aggressive emo-pop, Josephine Collective developed a…
Yo La Tengo has been couching warm pop songs in moody fuzz for nearly 25 years. Last year’s sprawling, eclectic Popular Songs stays true to the band’s aesthetic. Yo La Tengo’s sound, which turned deliciously droney at the turn of this century, still lets singer and guitarist Ira Kaplan blast feedback freakouts into snappy melodies and gritty garage rock. With…
I recently discovered a local restaurant that is something I never dreamed possible: a Japanese steakhouse without those big teppan-yaki grills and those chefs telling bad jokes as they spin eggs, toss shrimp, juggle pepper shakers, and create flaming volcanoes out of onion rings. I’ve been complaining about this shtick for years, even though I know I’m in the minority….
