There’s nothing like a good old ball-busting roast to get a party started. Billy Belzer — who’s been a member of Mongol Beach Party, New Amsterdams, The Ssion and Uncle Tupelo member — is hosting a multi-media show at the RecordBar on December 17. Here’s the skinny: I’m hosting a show at Kansas City’s RecordBar that will benefit Kansas City…
They lift their forks to their mouths in the hopes that one day what they do will matter. Mounds of hamburgers and dozens of pizza are consumed, all in the name of not letting meal-plan credits expire. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the University of Maryland’s Competitive Eating Club, and according to AOL News, they just want somebody to eat…
UPDATE: Kansas City police have identified the homicide victim from 44th an Myrtle as 29-year-old Ivan J. Miller. Police are still seeking leads in the case, so if you know something, call 816-474-8477. Original Story (November 29): Kansas City homicide detectives are investigating after a man’s body was found in a field near 44th and Myrtle around 8 a.m. Monday….
Michael D. Givens was stabbed during a fight in the parking lot of a Raytown McDonald’s on November 18. Six days later — on the night before Thanksgiving — the 19-year-old died from his wounds. On the night of the stabbing, Raytown police took a Kansas City man into custody at the scene of the fight. However, the man was…
This past Saturday, the ACBs played a record release party for their new album, Stona Rosa. We wrote about it in the paper. At the show, the band premiered their video for “Street Fighter II,” a song off the album. The video was made by the dudes in local video crew KYDJ, and in it the band is doggedly pursued…
Kansas college students, one man is fighting for your right to bear arms on campus. Republican state Rep. Forrest Knox told the Star that he’s going to push a bill that would allow students to carry concealed firearms in buildings without security measures like metal detectors or guards. “My plan is to move that forward,” Knox told the Star. “We…
While the rest of us either spent Black Friday fighting ravenous hordes for a discount Nintendo Wii, or sleeping off a turkey hangover, attorney Dick Bryant was getting ready for the next step in the fight for strip club rights in Missouri. Friday happened to be the unfortunate day when Bryant learned that a Cole County judge ruled against Missouri’s…
Dear Mexican: This güero downloaded the Arizona S.B. 1070 bill, searched the document for “Mexicans,” and did not come up with a single hit. What’s up with that? Because you are such an acknowledged expert at pointing out Mexican hating here in the American Southwest (your words, not mine), I thought I would let you school me and show me…
It’s been more than a year since Micah Riggs opened his coffee shop at the corner of 35th Street and Broadway, and though few of his neighboring businessmen have spoken to him, or would even recognize him, they hear things. “He’s busy down there,” says Kenny, a bartender with dull-black spectacles and a drooping belly. Kenny slides a bottle of…
Forget landlocked back porches — Mofro makes whiskey-drenched, pontoon-deck music that boogies down murky swamp waters. Main Mofro man JJ Grey grew up around Jacksonville, Florida, which explains the backwoods beats and woozy harmonica that swagger through many of his songs like a drunken uncle at a family reunion. The band’s 2006 album, Lochloosa, moves from lurching downbeats to danceable…
When My Chemical Romance’s last album, The Black Parade, came out in 2006, few fans of its gothic, theatrical rock anticipated the record’s sharp veer away from angry emo mopers, like “I’m Not Okay (I Promise).” The release of The Black Parade’s title track heralded a new era in the group’s horror-ridden, grandiose history, one that saw the band embrace…
In Brooklyn’s dog-eat-dog music scene, Sleigh Bells has wrestled its way to the top of the pile. Its performances at 2009’s CMJ Music Festival left critics and music geeks slack-jawed, and thus was the group anointed 2010’s next big thing. The Brooklyn duo has found a way to make its odd marriage of over-the-top, blown-out guitar riffs and pop vocals…
In 1981, a not-so-groundbreaking film called Zorro, the Gay Blade came into the world, only to be promptly forgotten. (The world wasn’t ready for a gay Zorro.) Twenty-five years later, a band in need of a name decided to pay homage to this long-lost non-classic, and so was born the Gay Blades. A few years later, another band paid homage…
This year’s Murder Ballad Ball is fraught with thieves, gunslingers, lovers, and a hearty helping of the dish best served cold: revenge. The musicians of Killa City are raising money for their uninsured brethren with songs of blood, retribution and death at Polly’s Revenge: The Murder Ballad Ball of 2010. Curated by Dutch Humphrey and Kris Bruders, the event’s second…
On Saturday, Blackpool Lights — the newly resurrected project of the Get Up Kids’ Jim Suptic — swings through RecordBar on its first tour in two years. Last week, The Pitch spoke to drummer Billy Brimblecom, a former Kansas Citian living in Nashville. The Pitch: How did the Blackpool Lights’ reunion begin? Billy Brimblecom: Jim e-mailed me last Christmas and…
I’ve never had to cook a holiday meal by myself, but I contribute the occasional side dish. Last Thanksgiving, my offering was aloo gobi, a dish of sweet potato and cauliflower. I thought it was a great alternative to the usual marshmallow-topped casserole, until this year when the dish was specifically unrequested. Turns out, everyone likes the traditional menu just…
Ray Pierce Jr., known to the city’s hip-hop fans as Steddy P, takes a break from editing a video on his computer and smiles. In a little more than a week, IndyGround Entertainment, the record label he founded, will celebrate its sixth anniversary. He leans back in his chair, and his eyes get big. He pauses, as if considering the…
The owner of a politically connected excavation company is set to foist his unused ranch land onto the city. Two weeks ago, Cindy Circo and Terry Riley, who represent Kansas City’s 5th District on the City Council, asked for $500,000 from the city’s Capital Improvements Fund. The request said the money would be used for “park improvements” in the district….
Michele Hozer and Peter Raymont’s portrait of idiosyncratic Canadian piano prodigy Glenn Gould bedecks their subject’s early grave with homage. Gould’s ex-lovers, few true friends and biographer come forth to tell what they saw of the musician’s phobic, closely guarded mind. Smitten with his iconoclastic image, this slow-rolling bio gives as much time to the genius’ exterior. Early press portraits…
Comely, independent, willful young lass returns to collect family inheritance in rural England, drives the local men wild, makes several misalliances, and inadvertently precipitates a catastrophe before nature finally takes its course. Adapted from Posy Simmonds’ excellent graphic novel, Tamara Drewe knowingly updates Thomas Hardy’s gloomy pastoral Far From the Madding Crowd and entertainingly postscripts Hans Christian Andersen’s “Ugly Duckling.”…
In a perfect world, every neighborhood in Kansas City’s metropolitan area would boast at least a couple of the independently owned restaurants and cafes that are found on or near the Massachusetts Street corridor in Lawrence. I can’t imagine anything more comforting than the thought of rolling out of bed on a frosty December morning, tossing on just enough clothing…
Julian Assange needs to watch his back. The latest round of WikiLeaks has expanded the list of people who want him dead, including one Ron Newman: julian assange is an enemy of all free nation”””””’s ,he need’s to be stopped!for the good of all nation’s!if i had the intel i would kill him myself! Heads of state and government officials,…
Kansas City’s favorite political gadfly/light rail pusher Clay Chastain doesn’t live here anymore. But that’s not going to stop him from running as a write-in candidate for mayor. The relentless self-promoter and mass transit disciple, who also unsuccessfully ran for mayor in 1991 and 1999, sent out a press release yesterday that claims a “slew of petition signers” have pleaded…
