Astronomically speaking, the Ruby Suns have imploded. On the heels of 2008’s pluming psych-pop nugget, Sea Lion, frontman Ryan McPhun retreated into his Auckland, New Zealand, studio to create the heavily synthesized Fight Softly. Inspired by childhood loves like Phil Collins and Hall & Oates, McPhun’s pan-global indie-tronica is grounded by propulsive tribal rhythms. The unapologetically peppy Fight Softly grooves…
Sick of Brooklyn indie rock? Meet Staten Island’s Cymbals Eat Guitars, a recent export of New York’s least lauded borough. Joseph D’Agostino, the band’s frontman, guitarist and songwriter, steeps his songs in a rich, swirling cacophony that slumps into feedback-fuzzed valleys and explodes into ear-splitting peaks. The band’s topographic sprawl plucks with equal ease from Arcade Fire’s epic song structure…
What: Reports from Jackson County’s Juvenile Court Date: 1946 and 1948 Discovered: at Westport estate sale Representative quote: “The habit of stealing cars was now strongly established in Bill, and cars would continue to be parked on streets with keys in the ignition.” In his preface to a 1948 report on Jackson County’s latest experiments on juvenile ne’er-do-wells, Judge Roy…
Last year, a friend of mine returned from a trip to Joplin singing the praises of a restaurant chain that I’d never heard of: Cheddar’s Casual Café. “The food was really good,” he said, “and so inexpensive. Most of the dinner entrées cost less than 10 bucks.” My reaction was, “Gee, that’s nice. It sounds like a Denny’s or a…
The term mother culture summons hazy images of Mesopotamia and shamanic chants. Thankfully, the mysticism implicit in the local band that goes by that name doesn’t translate to its new EP. Mother Culture’s debut exhibits four punchy flavors of the band’s rollicking fusion of melodic alt-rock with communal, Cloud Cult-like vocals. At times, it even sounds like it belongs on…
Margo May is no stranger to the spotlight. The local songbird often can be found serenading crowds, guitar in hand. She also has broken into the final rounds of the American Idol competition not once but twice, which is strange considering that May’s light, dusty soprano isn’t built for belting. Instead, it’s the sound of a raspy little lullaby sung…
Scholars often bookend black art between the Harlem Renaissance and ’60s counterculture, pinching it uncomfortably between Duke Ellington’s big bands and the poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks. In the title of his album, Black Art, Kansas City rap artist Nic-Rel makes a point that’s important and implicit: Hip-hop is black art. It’s a monster thesis, really. Do KRS-One and Rakim belong…
Meet Our Masterminds: Winners of the 2010 Awards Once again, The Pitch presents some of this city’s aesthetic adventurers with $1,000 each — no strings attached — just for doing what they do. Each year, we ask our readers to nominate artists, innovators and entrepreneurs who are changing the city’s cultural landscape. This isn’t a popularity contest or a lifetime-achievement…
At 5:30 on a rainy Wednesday afternoon, two yellow buses idle next to the headquarters of the Kansas City, Missouri, School District. Afrikan Centered Education Collegium Campus students and parents exit the bus, their expressions somber. Teenagers wear identical black blazers with the school’s red-and-orange shield sewn onto the lapels. A mother keeps track of her son with her right…
