No fashion-conscious multiplex movie seems to face opening day without some grave issue of our day propped in its buttonhole. Daybreakers dials up resource scarcity, class conflict, the military-industrial complex, and big pharma. (Actual line: “It was never about a cure. It’s about repeat business.”) The rationed near future of Daybreakers recalls Soylent Green, except everyone knows they’re eating people…
For years, Hollywood has wrestled with adapting C.D. Payne’s 1993 novel, Youth in Revolt — actually, three novels were collected under one title, and so the possibilities were endless given 500 pages of material to mine. In 1996, Fox filmed a pilot starring Chris Masterson as Nick Twisp, the 14-year-old, “I’m Single, Let’s Mingle” T-shirt-sporting, foreign-film-watching, Frank Sinatra-listening, Oakland-stuck virgin…
One of the great things about this newfangled Internet era is that you no longer have to wait a year between album releases to hear a band’s new jams. Continents bandleader Jim Button recently posted a new single on his MySpace and Facebook pages called “A Simple Kind” that’s quite simply the best song the former Button Band frontman has…
Rooftop Vigilantes’ live shows have a tendency to go awry — in a good way. Each show’s punk-rock spirit occasionally causes broken strings, faulty cables and burned-out amps, but the band plows through technical difficulties in a way that makes Rooftop Vigilantes one of the best live acts around. A recent performance at the Replay Lounge found singer and bassist…
With an aesthetic that gyrates wildly around the nexus of harmolodics and punk, the Brannock Device has been making each moment count for 15 years, and such fierce experimentation has recently taken on new colors. First, the band brought aboard one of Kansas City’s most accomplished and fearless guitarists, Marco Pascolini (of Mr. Marco’s V7 and Expassionates), to take the…
A highly influential producer and arranger, pianist Allen Toussaint has had a profound impact on iconic New Orleans artists, such as the Meters and Dr. John. Toussaint has cast a long shadow over the New Orleans sound — and funk in general — for more than 50 years, and his sonic vision and signature strutting groove continue to reverberate far…
Let’s not confuse the namesake of the new Jack Gage American Tavern at 50th Street and Main with an American Jack Gage, such as the late film and TV director of the 1940s and ’50s or the boyish-looking New York-based writer for forbes.com. No, restaurateur Blair Hurst named his clubby pub after the British Jack Gage, a scrappy fight promoter…
Republicans and NASCAR, baby boomers and suburban cul-de-sacs, Hollywood actors and prescription narcotics — certain things, it seems, are simply meant for each other. Jazz and hip-hop, like the freewheeling country of their birth, share America’s fascination with up-by-the-bootstraps improvisation. In jazz, chords are like urban settings — skeletal structures that house and inspire creativity and rebellion. Similarly, hip-hop artists…
When Foibe Nibitanga got a ticket to a new life in the United States, she didn’t expect the fear and hunger of the refugee camp to follow her to Kansas City. The 39-year-old Burundi native leans forward in one of the worn, mismatched chairs in her Prospect Avenue apartment, trying to speak over the squeals and cries of toddlers who,…
Planning a party used to be simpler — it was important to have a decent bottle of wine or two, in order to avoid judgment, but the beer merely needed to be cold and plentiful. Now, whether it’s because I’m older or I’m living in the era of craft brews, I find myself spending more time slack-jawed in front of…
Director Kevin Smith hasn’t given up on his attempted conversion of Megan Phelps-Roper, the gay-hating granddaughter of Fred Phelps, via Twitter. Phelps-Roper reached out first with a tweet about her Lady Gaga parody. Smith read between the lines. And he had a proposition. Guessing that’s frowned upon in the Phelps’ house. Phelps-Roper was unfazed. Categories: News Tags: Clerks, Kansas City,…
Ever dreamed of putting your lips up to the soda fountain and depressing the drink lever? Don’t do it. The Smithsonian Food & Think Blog links to a disturbing study from the International Journal of Food Microbiology that analyzed the “microbial population,” on 30 soda fountain machines. Categories: Dining, Food & Drink Tags: bacteria, E. coli, food safety, gastric distress,…
There’s always been a glamorous — if seemingly unlikely — connection between fried chicken and waffles. Some reports date the marriage of Southern fried bird and hot buttered waffles to the 18th century, when Thomas Jefferson brought a waffle iron back from Paris. It’s really a marriage made in cholesterol heaven, baby. The first “famous” vendor of the waffle-chicken platter…
Ruether’s Facecbook pic Shawnee teen and accused road-rage assailant Jake Ruether is apparently out on bond, according to his Facebook page. Ruether was charged with aggravated battery causing great bodily harm after allegedly stabbing a man several times in the chest following an incident at 95th Street and Quivira Road Sunday afternoon. He was arrested Monday. Law enforcement reports say…
If your idea of heaven is a quiet Sunday with a newspaper, a cup of hot tea and a plate of maki sushi rolls, Ann Ai, the owner of Edokko Restaurant — 8615 Hauser Street in Lenexa — has a deal for you. On Sundays only, from noon until 9 p.m., diners can order as many maki rolls as they want…
Christopher Lee – the 87-year-old classically trained British actor better known as Saruman the White in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Count Dooku in Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith – is recording a symphonic metal concept album about Charlemagne. Let’s let that sink in for a minute. Based on the historic conquests of the first Holy…
Having recently rediscovered the fact that Alkaline Trio’s Goddammit is probably one of my favorite albums of the ’90s, I’m actually looking forward to the emo-punk three piece’s new album, This Addiction. The title is actually fitting, considering the wide variety of pre-orders Epitaph posted in their merch store today. There are seven different ways you can pre-order This Addiction,…
Much as it pains me to say it, Zoom is a band of whom I’d always heard, but never actually heard until long after their passage from the local scene. Considering I was 14 when Helium Octipede was released, it’s unsurprising I wasn’t really aware of Zoom until I moved to Lawrence in 1997. Of course, at that point, Jeremy…
During its 7 a.m. news broadcast today, KCUR 89.3 reported that the Kansas State Board of Education would hold public hearings in May to address the teaching of evolution to the state’s children. The brief quoted Steven Case, a University of Kansas biologist and assistant professor, who told the station that the hearings’ organizers lacked academic credibility. The quote was…
%{}% Former Kansas Attorney General and Johnson County District Attorney Phill Kline might be making an appearance at the trial of Scott Roeder, the man accused of killing Wichita abortion provider George Tiller. Roeder’s defense attorneys have subpoenaed Kline, and public defender Mark Rudy told the Wichita Eagle that Kline will be called to testify about his attempts to prosecute…
Hmm. You wouldn’t think you could put a few cute girls in thigh highs and translucent dresses and bore me to tears, but Warpaint have managed to do so. It’s a shame, because their song, “Elephant,” from their debut Exquisite Corpse (great Hedwig reference, kids) is a more highly refined version of what the Yeah Yeah Yeahs did with “Maps.”…
Jackson County Sheriff’s deputies seized guns, money and computers from the Independence’s New Covenant Faith Church (also known as the House of Prayer) during a Monday night raid. They also arrested someone for violating the Federal Firearms Act. That person was pastor Lloyd Sartain, but he was reportedly released without being charged. View Larger Map Authorities say the investigation is…
