What does KC have in common with Sin City? Both are subjects of blood-soaked critically acclaimed graphic novels. Union Station author Ande Parks may not be as famous as Frank Miller, but the Baldwin City, Kansas, writer and artist is on his way up. In 2006, his Capote in Kansas became the first graphic novel deemed a Notable Book by…
Like a tomboy on her Tuff Skins or Missouri roads on tires, director Scott Cordes is hard on sets. By the bang-up climax of On an Average Day — playwright John Kolvenbach’s drama of long-estranged brothers having it out in their childhood home — the dilapidated kitchen has been crashed through, shot up and so soundly demolished in some places,…
Anyone who’s been obsessed with sex for as long as Missouri state Sen. Matt Bartle has must be into some freaky shit. Earlier this month, the Missouri Legislature finally passed the Lee’s Summit Republican’s anti-strip-club bill. It was the last, desperate gasp of a man haunted by mammaries. Bartle has been trying to regulate Missouri’s adult industry since 2005. You…
Smoke curls around Christmas decorations still hanging in late January inside the Hide Out, a bar at the end of a Gladstone strip mall. The high ceiling and exposed beams do little to muffle the din of phlegmy coughs and Miller High Life-flavored chatter on this frigid night. Still, about half the crowd is transfixed by the wholesome-looking young woman…
Dear Mexican: I work at a high school where a significant number of our students don’t have papers. Two students I worked with for four years (one from Mexico, the other from Paraguay) graduated last June, and they are now attending community college. They both have read your books. My questions: What do you recommend to undocumented students regarding working…
Ten years ago, city officials in Overland Park decided to become innkeepers. They went to the bond market to finance the construction of a hotel next to the convention center that the city was building. Deals of this nature involve risk. The Overland Park City Council had reason to feel confident, however. A consulting company named HVS had predicted that…
Though Sundance-screened and sporting an upscale cast, Vincenzo Natali’s Splice has a mad-science quality. Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley are Clive and Elsa, a married couple of “rock star” genetic engineers who are introduced midwifing the birth of a lab-grown, maggoty sack of tissue, which we’ll soon observe in a mating tango that’ll put you off your popcorn. Clive and…
This roller-coaster spinoff to Forgetting Sarah Marshall often feels as if it’ll jump the tracks and smash to the ground in a thousand pieces of WTF. It’s a complete and utter mess from the big-loud-dumb start to the awwww-that’s-so-sweet finish. And it’s less a narrative than a loosely stitched-together hodgepodge of scenes starring the same characters as they hurl toward…
Passionate Republican, fervent Orthodox Jew, ruthless wheeler-dealer and super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff fashioned himself into a human ATM who lined the pockets of politicians on every side of the aisle. Sooner or later, everybody was at least marginally in his debt. His meteoric rise and fall may seem on its surface to be yesterday’s news, but as recounted here by filmmaker…
So far this year, few performances rival that of Frank the Dinosaur, who sings “Tighten Up” in the first video from the Black Keys’ new album, Brothers. In case you haven’t seen it, Frank is a lip-syncing prehistoric puppet, not the band’s new third member. The Black Keys still comprise only singer and guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney….
Australian quartet the Temper Trap suggests the offspring of U2 and Journey, with a sweeping, theatrical sound lifted by glimmering guitars. Singer and guitarist Dougy Mandagi’s baritone is nearly as lithesome as the swiveling guitars, evolving from a willowy, Jeff Buckley-style falsetto to an arena-ready croon. The guitars unabashedly channel the Edge — sonorous single-note lines soaked in reverb and…
Rocky Votolato built himself a sturdy platform for going solo. When his band, Waxwing, imploded in 2005, Votolato was in the right place at the right time. Emo had taken the nation by storm, and teenage girls were replacing their Backstreet Boys posters with depictions of sensitive tattooed boys. Votolato’s affection for folksy, acoustic ballads and heart-on-his-sleeve lyrics branded him…
Historically, electronic music has luxuriated in the cold sterility of clattering beats, unearthly keyboard tones and glitching loops. Now that most music is produced and enjoyed digitally, the separation between genres has shrunk, culminating symbolically with Caribou’s capture of 2008’s Polaris Music Prize (awarded to the top Canadian album) for 2007’s Andorra. The electronic psych-pop release projects the melodic warmth…
As far as Shirley Miller is concerned, summer vacation has already begun. Shirley knows this because the college kids from the University of Kansas have been driving to Kansas City more frequently, drinking too much at the bars in the Power & Light District, and stopping in for breakfast at her place of employment — the Town Topic on Broadway…
Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness — besides giving birth to one of the most overused literary lines of all time (“The horror! The horror!”), one of the cheapest literary knockoffs of all time (Lord of the Flies), and an entire film crew’s mental and physical collapse (Apocalypse Now) — appears to have inspired the name of one of Kansas City’s vivacious live bands. Hearts of Darkness, also…
As the death of the Gulf Coast ecosystem comes gushing blackly from the Macondo Prospect oil field 5,000 feet underwater, Dallas painter David Bates is in Kansas City for the opening of The Katrina Paintings, his exhibition at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. But he has one eye on the Gulf of Mexico and plans to head back as…
Ross Freese slows his car to a crawl and drops his voice as if he’s about to tell a secret. He throws a glance over his left shoulder, advising his passengers to survey a brick home at the corner of Harrison and 44th Street. The two-story structure isn’t anything special. It blends with the rest of the modest homes in…
Keith Johnson Hard to think of another band from these parts touring as successfully as the Baby Birds are right now. They wrapped up a jaunt through the East Coast and Midwest about four days ago and already they’ve announced another tour. Set for July, it sees them visiting some pretty reputable venues, particularly in New York, where they’re hitting…
Update (3:45 p.m. June 2): Michael Thompson has been charged with second-degree murder and armed criminal action in the death of Darrell Dancy. The police report offers a lot more detail. Michael Thompson’s son told police that a brick was thrown through the window of Thompson’s home in a room where his brother and infant nephew were staying. Thompson claimed…
Updated (3:24 p.m. June 2 from original story on 7 a.m. June 1): A witness told police that Loyal R. Hayes invited John and Joseph Hooker to his mother’s house at 4511 Monroe so he could rob and kill them. But Hayes, 23, was allegedly worried about getting blood inside his mother’s house, the witness claimed. So he took the…
Plan your teen party now! Everyone needs a vintage barbecue cookbook during the summer months. The art of grilling outdoor evokes those happy days when good ol’ Dad — not my dad, but I’m talking metaphorically here — put on an apron and oven mitts and a chef’s toque just like the good ol’ Dad on the cover of the…
Future Islands, who play a synthy brand of post-punk they refer to as “post-wave,” are at the Foundation Room. They’ve been through the Bottoms before, when they opened up Dan Deacon’s party at the Pistol last May. Opening tonight is Lower Dens, who have a very good song on their Myspace page called “Hospice Gates.” Harmonious indie-pop upstarts O Giant Man…
If you’ve been wondering what’s been happening with Bernard Jackson, the man accused of four Waldo area rapes in the 1980s, well, he had a court date today. Jackson was arraigned on 18 felony charges today that The Kansas City Star’s Tony Rizzo reports are part of a new grand jury indictment, replacing a 15-count criminal complaint filed last month….
