Weekend makes sonic aggression palatable. A cursory listen of the San Francisco trio’s debut LP, Sports, makes clear that the band has studied its Jesus and Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine. But retro-rock it ain’t. The record is part barn-storming post-punk, part shoegaze and part ambient swill — full of detachment, bone-crushing beats, buried vocals and serrated guitar work….
Early on a Tuesday night, dressed like they just stepped off a plane from Marlboro Country, Adam Lee and Johnny Kenepaske, of Adam Lee and the Dead Horse Sound Company, stride into Chez Charlie’s in midtown to discuss their second full-length release, When the Spirits Move Me. It’s a honky-tonk-heavy album that celebrates whiskey, women and the beauty of lap…
Absurdist comedians Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim hit the Midland Monday as part of their Tim & Eric Awesome Tour, Great Job, Chrimbus Spectacular 2010. The show includes a performance by their ’70s Southern-rock parody band, Pusswhip Banggang. The Pitch recently spoke to an impressively deadpan Heidecker about band dynamics. The Pitch: So you’ll be performing as Pusswhip Banggang, but…
In the climax of Morning Glory, Rachel McAdams is dressed in the kind of cocktail dress that a screen heroine wears when a slow-building love plot is coming to a head. It’s the perfect costume for, say, leaving one suitor to run across Manhattan to another, which McAdams’ Becky ultimately does, although the competitors for her attention are professional rather…
When we first see bi computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) in The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, the final adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s trilogy, she’s being transported to a hospital, bloodied almost beyond recognition, the result of a bullet put in her brain by Zalachenko (Georgi Staykov), her barbaric father, at the end of Part 2. Her pummeled,…
Charles Ferguson’s follow-up to his Iraq War gut-twister, No End in Sight, is a documentary that inspires less shock and awe than sickening ire. The movie opens with the cautionary tale of little Iceland, an idyllic nation so stable that, as put by one local, it enjoyed “almost ‘end of history’ status.” But the beat goes on: Evil entered the…
It’s based on actual 2001 events in Ohio that caused an unmanned freight train, laden with toxic waste, to go haywire, but Unstoppable could just as well be set in the shining sun of Ronald Reagan’s 1980s. As the driverless locomotive begins gathering speed across rural Pennsylvania, it crosses through blue-collar hamlets full of hardworking men and women, loyal dogs…
Phil Canty, one of four men behind the Lawrence music collective Team Bear Club, is cultivating an unsuspecting virtual audience. “With the help of the Internet, we’ll be reaching out and touching everyone,” Canty says. “Whether they like it or not.” It’s not as creepy as it sounds. Canty has spent the past two years navigating the tricky terrain of…
I don’t know all the details of the behind-the-scenes drama at the attractive Leawood restaurant called Zest. But there must have been some kind of culinary coup because one day last July, the restaurant’s charismatic co-owner, Joe DiGiovanni, and the executive chef, Linda Duerr, were suddenly unemployed. The surviving partner, Mike Schreiber, brought in the management team at Avenues Bistro–Brookside…
What for anyone else would be a relaxing visit to the Plaza is anything but for Markus D. Lee. Before Lee enters the Barnes & Noble bookstore, he circles the block, surveying the street. Couples walk hand in hand, shoppers swing J. Crew bags, panhandlers jingle their change cups. Nothing out of the ordinary. Most importantly: no cops. Lee rides…
Kansas City’s streets are a scary place where you can make a trip to Walmart, come home and get shot in the stomach by a stranger attempting to rob your neighbor. Two women made the a grocery run at the big box retailer last night and came home to find a strange man walking behind homes in the 7800 block…
There are only seventeen days until Thanksgiving. Since this week is really the ideal time to start make holiday restaurant reservations, Fat City is going to treat you, over the next few days, to a veritable smorgasbord of possibilities, from fancy dinners to lowbrow buffets and take-out feasts that you can serve at home (on your own china) prepared by…
I was eating breakfast in a little diner in South Kansas City last week and watched a woman at the next table take all of the little packages of jelly from the black plastic tray on her table and dump them into her purse. She didn’t seem to give a damn whether anyone was watching. Why should she? Many restaurant…
Maria the Poodle is pandering for votes for Mayor Mark Funkhouser once again, as the Funk tries to ride a wave a cute into office. If anything it’s an interesting sociological experiment: pitting his poodle’s cuteness against the disgust for the mayor. Funk also uses his famous friend, 98.9 The Rock jock Johnny Dare, in a cameo role. Categories: News,…
Roy Blunt got a nice promotion on Election Day. The career politician is moving on up from the U.S. House to a de-luxe office in the Senate. Voters in 2010 were feeling rambunctious to the point that some congressional incumbents did not make it out of the primary. Yet Blunt, a consummate Washington insider, breezed into office, drubbing Robin Carnahan…
The Grande Granada Gala II (gah, alliteration!) is happening on November 13. Its goal is to “push the limits of consciousness.” Even if mind-expansion isn’t your bag, live art and music might be. Categories: Music Tags: Antimosity and the Freedom Writerz, Approach, granada, Right of Way, The Cosmopolitics
Most of us make terrible choices when it comes to deciding how we’ll celebrate our 21st birthday. Thankfully, most of us aren’t working as brewmasters. But you will wish that you knew Steven Pauwels back in college after trying Boulevard’s new 21st Anniversary Fresh Hop Pale Ale. On shelves today, it’s worthy of celebrating regardless of whether you’ve got an…
Firefighters discovered Angela Newsom’s body inside a burning car on Friday. The 36-year-old Chilicothe woman had been missing since Wednesday but that changed when firefighters in Cameron responded to a fire on that city’s east side around 12:30 p.m. The discovery investigators to declare her death a homicide investigation. Shawn Griffith, 39, has been charged with second-degree murder; he is…
Last week, we gave you the skinny on the new Get Up Kids record, There Are Rules. Today, news of a different sort from their camp. Reggie and the Full Effect, the bizarro solo project from TGUK keyboardist James Dewees, is reuniting for a one-off show on New Year’s Eve. It’ll be their first performance since fall 2008. Categories: Music…
Missourians, see that Slate map above? You might not be able to read it through the haze of cigarette smoke blocking your computer screen. Missourians, you are in rare company. While fewer than 13 percent of Americans smoke every day, you bucked that trend. Missouri is one of five states with the highest percentage of smokers who light up every…
Saharan Gazelle Boy and Breathe Owl BreatheBridgeport Friday, November 5, 2010 This month’s First Friday yielded an impressive show down in the Crossroads. Local bedroom pop act Saharan Gazelle Boy shared the stage with one-of-a-kind Michigan trio Breathe Owl Breathe. (This is the latest in a string of noteworthy acts that Saharan Gazelle Boy has opened for. The past month…
Apocalypse Meow 3, the third annual event held by the Midwest Music Foundation to help raise money for the Musician’s Health Care Fund for Musicians living and working in Kansas City and the surrounding areas, went down this weekend at the Riot Room and the Midwest Music Company. Categories: Music Tags: Apocalypse Meow 3
