Archives: September 2010
New iPhone app continues the transformation of the ballpark into your living room
With all-you-can-eat seats, air-conditioned suites, and a new iPhone application that enables you to order concession items without getting up, the only advance left for baseball fans would appear to be a remote that lets you speed up the in-game action. Slashfood notes that Major League Baseball Advanced Media is testing a new iPhone application at Citizens Bank Ballpark in…
Turner Gill lords over Kansas Jayhawks football team like puritanical 1950s father figure
Turner Gill is taking away booty calls. No girls after 10 p.m. Any night. Not at her place. Not at your place. Not any place. Kansas football coach Turner Gill doesn’t want his football players fornicating. OK, he didn’t say that but that’s the implication of Gill’s puritanical policy that straight up says no hanging out with girls after…
That’s epic, dude: Five songs of colossal proportions
Because Fucked Up releases Year of the Ox on Merge Records today, we figured it would be a super time to highlight some really epic songs. Year of the Ox is the fourth record in Fucked Up’s cycle of songs based on Chinese 12-year cycle. All of the songs thus far have been lengthy, amazing, mind-expanding tracks. Let’s draw attention…
Single File: Greg Enemy, ‘Muggsy Bogues’
In this environment, free mp3 singles have emerged as one of the best ways for artists to get their stuff out there. With Single File, we’ll be spotlighting hot local tracks that pass the Wayward smell test. First up: rapper Greg Enemy’s latest, “Muggsy Bogues.” Categories: Music Tags: Greg Enemy, single file
Pie for everyone — canned pumpkin shortage looks to be over
Finding canned pumpkin over the past year felt a bit like tracking down Justin Bieber tickets. You needed to work the phones, show up early and still pray for a bit of luck. A poor harvest combined with trendy status meant that pumpkin was a precious commodity, and Nestle — which has cornered nearly 85 percent of the market with…
Ken Cannon, fringe Kansas gubernatorial candidate, will be tried for making death threat
Oh, snap. Greg Thoman learned that trash talking Reform Party gubernatorial candidate Ken Cannon is not smart. At an April Tea Party event in Salina, Kansas, Cannon allegedly threatened to kill Thoman after he took a cheap shot at Cannon’s dead son. Thoman told a judge on Friday that Cannon confronted him at the event, and began yelling and insulting…
KJHK’s Farmer’s Ball is now accepting submissions
It’s that time of year again: KJHK’s Farmer’s Ball will be taking over the Jackpot in Lawrence on Thursday, October 21 and Friday, October 22. Lawrence bands, here’s how you submit your stuff: KJHK wants to hear your two best songs on disc or mp3, and our beloved staff will select the top 8 submissions for the Ball. You can…
Slayer’s Kerry King hates on the Chiefs, Reign In Blood remains awesome
Why do you hurt me Kerry King? Why? I don’t normally want to reach out, but you readers should know I’m having a hard time writing today. Worlds are colliding, and I’m forced to make a terrible decision. Justin Kendall has now physically restrained me lest I harm myself or someone else and is forcing me to file this…
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists rocking the Jackpot tonight in Lawrence
“Pop punk” is an apt tag for what Ted Leo does with his band, the Pharmacists. He infuses punk songs with chunky hooks and choruses. Unfortunately, “pop-punk” calls to mind bratty, throwaway Warped Tour acts — and Ted Leo ain’t Yellowcard. He’s a modern keeper of the original punk flame: a fiery, passionate, political voice with Fugazi-level punk ethics. Categories:…
Kansas City teachers get $14 million performance grant, but union will try to spoil the fun
No word if the $13.6 million was delivered by caped crusader. The wave of support for school reform crested last week, when Oprah devoted two hours to beating up teachers unions and promoting a documentary, Waiting for Superman, that apparently does the same thing. And today, the wave crashed in Kansas City, when KCMO schools received a federal grant…
Special dream edicion
Dear Mexican: I understand NYC isn’t your jurisdiction, but maybe you have some insight, or maybe this is also a problem for other smart and successful Latinas. My question: Why is it so hard to find an educated Mexican — or hell, even a Latino man who isn’t a pretentious hijo de papi or thinks he’s a god for being…
Vampire Weekend
If you haven’t heard of Vampire Weekend by now, you must be living under a particularly sturdy, FM-free rock. The Ivy League rockers have had their mugs plastered all over the more palatable outer fringes of alternative culture. The band’s smash eponymous debut exploded in 2008, and this year’s Contra enjoyed heavy publicity, after the band was snagged in a…
Valient Thorr
Valient Thorr infused its first four albums with heady rhetoric about work, life and political duplicity, under the cover of balls-out rock. Informed by a Tao of searing Iron Maiden licks and MC5’s revolutionary zeal, these North Carolina hair farmers emanate adrenaline-spiked fury. The music suggests an extreme sport involving Sterno, acetylene torches, roller skates and pain. (Hey, it reminds…
The Mountain Goats
Mountain Goats auteur John Darnielle might be the finest lyricist of his generation. In terse, powerful portraits of characters who reveal more than they say, he has surveyed lowlifes and tweakers, compared a fraught relationship with a Louisiana graveyard where nothing stays buried, and described a pair of enamored teens as twin high-maintenance machines. While working as a psychiatric nurse,…
The Social Network
Everyone will opine (and Tweet) on this Scott Rudin–produced, Aaron Sorkin–scripted, David Fincher–directed, universally anticipated tale of Facebook’s genesis and founding genius — at least until something sexier comes along. The main talking point is the movie’s unlovable protagonist. As written by Sorkin and played by Jesse Eisenberg, Facebook mogul Mark Zuckerberg is a character far more compelling than his…
Sara Swenson
“Passing Cars, Passing Time,” an elegant folk tune with a shuffling momentum, is the standout track on Sara Swenson’s sophomore album, All Things Big and Small. It works because Swenson cedes some ground to her band, rather than making her vocals the center of attention. That’s not to say her voice — vacillating between Sarah McLachlan’s celestial soprano and Beth…
Find The Pitch
