The last time MGMT hit Kansas City, the band was surfing an immense wave of popularity following the release of its debut album, Oracular Spectacular. This time, fans can expect the feathers, face paint and ubiquitous pop anthems to be absent. With their new release, Congratulations, Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser have dived knees-first into the outer spaces of David…
Holy Fuck isn’t just a clever (or not-so-clever) band name formulated to attract press. It’s also the sweaty, wide-eyed reaction that fans have to the band’s live show. The Toronto quartet stands out in a sea of indie electronica acts because of its visceral onstage energy. Proudly advertised as laptop-free, Holy Fuck uses nonmechanical drumming, live bass and two tables…
Mumford & Sons have no ancestral connection to the travails they sing about on “Dust Bowl Dance,” but Brits have a long tradition of expropriating American roots music. Americana is the London quartet’s dominant influence, from banjo-driven bluegrass to Dobro-dusted folk. And there’s an echo of such U.K. acts as the Waterboys, the Pogues and Fairport Convention in Mumford &…
Title: Riding High! “John VanCleve” Writes to a U.S. Senator About Roosevelt, Communists and New Deal Congressmen Author: David Milton Proctor Date: 1940 Publisher: Brown Publishing Company, 1016 Baltimore Discovered at: Mission Hills estate sale Representative quote: “If he is a liberal, then Mussolini, Stalin and Hitler are ‘liberals’ because their methods and ambitions are very similar.” Unlike most of…
Feature: “Tears for Beers,” May 27 Let the Music Play! I just wanted to comment on Jason Harper’s article on Kansas City, Kansas, leaders cracking down on Dawayne Gilley’s KCK Street Blues Festival. Once again, The Pitch is providing an interesting insider look into an important Kansas City issue. I’ve been a semi-regular attendee at several KC-area, outdoor blues shows…
In Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Castaing-Taylor’s unforgettable sheep-herding documentary, the breathtaking vistas of big-sky country come close to heaven. But it’s telling that AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” can be faintly heard over the sound of the electronic contraptions that hired hands use to shear the docile creatures during one of the roundup’s preparatory stages. Sweetgrass captures the arduousness and the…
Like its predecessor, 2010’s The Karate Kid begins with an uprooting. Young Dre Parker (Jaden Smith) and his mother are introduced in their Detroit apartment, now packed into boxes. Daniel (Ralph Macchio) shipped off to the Valley; Dre is going to China. A vulnerable skate kid behind on his growth spurt, Dre attracts horrible bullying from a jealous classmate and…
Purely for the reliable pleasure of Michael Caine’s company, I arrived ready to praise what threatened to be another drama of life and death in broken Britain. For a while, Caine holds his own as the titular pensioner, defeat registered in the quiescent slump of his shoulders. A cheap knockoff of Prime Suspect takes shape, laden with copious “guvs” and…
An exercise in voyeurism, Maren Ade’s superbly performed, emotionally graphic Everyone Else is more fascinating than enjoyable. Placing a youngish, newly formed couple under relentless observation, Ade’s two-hour squirmathon gets a bit more intimate on the subject of intimacy than the viewer might wish. Chris (Lars Eidinger), an underemployed architect, and Gitti (Birgit Minichmayr), a middling music-industry publicist, take a…
A contemporary crime drama edged with Greek tragedy, Ajami is an untidy, despairing, oddly exhilarating joint venture of writer-directors Scandar Copti, an Israeli Arab, and Yaron Shani, an Israeli Jew. Set on the tinderbox margins of a run-down quarter of the Tel Aviv–adjacent city of Jaffa, the movie’s multiple plots and unwieldy, mostly nonprofessional ensemble of Arabs and Jews might…
On his way to a tour stop in Kansas City, ubiquitous rapper 50 Cent called The Pitch to discuss his upcoming movie, his literary taste, his politics, and why the rapper turned mogul still considers himself a work in progress. The Pitch: The Internet is on fire with news about your weight loss for your upcoming movie role in Things…
This decade’s psychedelic pop has a new attitude: Think big. You can see it in the growth of grand-sounding assemblages with large, free-floating memberships: Polyphonic Spree, Lansing-Dreiden, Henri Fabergé and the Adorables. But no group has imbued its naturally large sound with a personal intimacy like Alex Ebert’s shambolic Los Angeles 10-piece, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. Edward Sharpe…
Mike Zheng’s journey to Lenexa from China, where he was born in 1970, included a few interesting stops — including Costa Rica, where his grandparents ran a Chinese restaurant and where young Mike learned to speak Spanish as well as Mandarin. In 1993, Mike moved with his family to Overland Park. By then, he had learned English. “I started college…
Throughout Eating Raoul, a battalion of toned, eager-beaver performers doff clothes down to underthings and shake their eager beavers. This tends to happen in shows directed by Steven Eubank, Kansas City’s young prince of outré musical theater. In shows such as Debbie Does Dallas and 2008’s marvelous Reefer Madness, Eubank elevated such naughtiness into memorable — even thrilling — theater….
Dear Mexican: I worked a summer job during college in the late 1960s in southern Arizona, where most of my co-workers were Mexicans from the state of Sonora. Their favorite expression when something was broken was no vale verga, literally “not worth dick” but actually meaning “totally fucked up.” What happened with this expression? Forty years later, when I use…
Sheryl Leavey owns a printing company in Merriam. In an effort to cut costs, she decided to outsource the bindery department. Seven women lost their jobs. Leavey says the bindery workers resigned. Her former employees say they were pushed out to make way for a cheaper, more acquiescent work force. In any case, Leavey has significantly lowered her costs. A…
Kevin Ireland created his blog in January 2008. He called it “My Divorce Sucks.” “If you are reading this then you probably know me,” his first post begins. “I needed a way to let everyone know what is going on with my divorce without having to rehash things all the time.” Kevin’s wife, Kimberly Ireland, had filed for divorce on…
Tonight is the premiere of Bravo’s new reality show, Work of Art: The Next Great Artist. KC’s own Peregrine Honig is one of 13 artists competing for a fat solo show and a fat check. Honig says the experience was like boot camp. “Fancy boot camp,” she adds. To prepare for the onslaught of cameras, Honig got advice from designer-friend…
It’s all about George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic, who’re at Crossroads at Grinders tonight. Show’s at 7 p.m. Warning: you will need to be high to enjoy this show. Maybe you require a little reminder of how terrifyingly awesome George Clinton is? Check out the “Fo Yo Sorrows” video Big Boi dropped a few months back, featuring Clinton looking haggard…
It’s a little ways off, but word of Menomena’s North American tour came down today, and Lawrence made the cut. The Portland trio will stop by the Bottleneck on October 12. Live, the band incorporates prominent drums, Spoon-y piano, a baritone sax, and about a thousand other instruments, and then weaves a variety of loops through — and somehow it all…
Where was this place? In yesterday’s Fat City post about restaurant collectibles, local antique dealer Carol Barta dismissed old menus as not having the same value as old flatware and china because people can’t use them at home on a daily basis. But commenters Colby and Judy disagreed, saying they love to look at old menus. Well so do I,…
Image via Flickr: Cote Wild Turkey bottles always end up empty at the end of the night for some reason… Don’t forget to add some bourbon to your shopping list. Wild Turkey Master Distiller Jimmy Russell stops at the Prairie Village Hy-Vee Wine and Spirits Store (7711 State Line Road, on the Missouri side) from 3 to 5 today. He’ll…
