Christmas can either be merry, jolly and gay, or it can be vaguely disturbing. Take the date-rape-y lyrics of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” for example; or the voyeuristic “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town.” Another good example? David Bowie and Bing Crosby’s version of “Little Drummer Boy,” which starts out with an introduction that resembles a porn sketch. Bad acting,…
You won’t have the opportunity to enjoy “good food and good times” at O’Charley’s any longer. According to the Kansas City Business Journal, O’Charley’s Inc. has closed its location in Kansas City (9150 N.E. Barry Rd.) and Independence (20220 E. Jackson Dr.), as part of a restructuring plan that led the publicly traded company to shutter 16 of its underperforming…
News reports described 55-year-old Deborah J. Riggs as “a nurse with a history of drug abuse.” Her record more than backs it up. So does the guilty plea that she entered yesterday to charges that she diluted five patients’ morphine. The Goddard, Kansas, nurse admitted yesterday that while working at for Halstead Health and Rehabilitation that she removed between 32…
Between now and December 24, if you buy a Sexy Accident band t-shirt, the band will give all of the revenue they generate to Operation Breakthrough. (That’s $10-$18 a shirt that goes straight to charity.) What’s in it for you? A t-shirt, dumbass. And what’s in it for the band? Well, they’re just the type of folks that dig that…
It’s the most rip-roaring, fist-pumping, beer-slopping party night of the year. So, pressure’s on, Kansas City: where will you spend those first few minutes of 2011? Making out, pressed up against a dumpster behind Crosstown Station? Guzzling champagne at the Jackpot? Moshing at the Riot Room? It’s your choice! Check out some of our favorite picks in the city for…
People in Kansas Department of Health and Environment are really hard workers. In fact, the bureaucrats are so devoted their job of approving or denying a permit for a proposed coal-fired power plant Sunflower Electric Power Corp. that they’re working late and on weekends this month. The Star reported that the mysterious end-of-year vigor might have something to do with…
In parts of this fine state, there is a certain understanding between liquor-store clerks and teenagers: We will not card you, under-age drinker, provided you promise to buy your booze by the truck-load and get hammered in the comfort of your own garage, preferably while enthusiastically ranking the girls of your high school by hotness on a chalk board, like…
On June 5, hundreds rallied at the Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza in Phoenix in support of Senate Bill 1070, the harshest state immigration law in the nation that had been signed into law six weeks earlier. The crowd of mostly middle-aged, working-class white people waved handmade signs blaring such slogans as “14 Million Jobless Americans, 13 Million Illegals, DO THE…
If a band can be defined by its drink of choice, the Latenight Callers would be a 12-year scotch. “The aesthetic of what we do is timeless,” baritone guitarist Krysztof Nemeth says. “We’re like the house band at David Lynch’s pool party.” Technically, the Latenight Callers occupy the electro-noir genre: a sexy blend of synths, reverb-heavy guitars and dancing bass…
The great gilded age of the American Brunch was probably the late 1970s, when there was fierce competition among restaurants to lure in the hard-partying young sophisticates who got up late and were happy to pay a premium for a starchy buffet and a potent mimosa or Bloody Mary. In those days, Sunday brunch was a sure way to extend…
Dear Mexican: Someone wrote you awhile back wondering why Mexicans have made a mess of their beautiful country. You got all bent out of shape because he called Mexico a Third World country instead of a “bottom tier” First World country. I think you missed the point of the argument. Any way you look at it, Mexico should be much…
An odd duck of a romantic comedy, How Do You Know strays far from a barrel of laughs. The movie’s rhythms are loose, disjointed and peppered with strategic silences or half-finished thoughts, and the punch lines are few. There’s not much mugging for the camera, other than from Jack Nicholson, hamming away as a triumphantly errant parent. But writer-director James…
The Fighter is based on the true story of Lowell, Massachusetts, light welterweight champ “Irish” Micky Ward. Starring Boston working-class hero Mark Wahlberg, it plays like a Rocky-fied fairy tale for our time: Consigned to Palookaville, a sweet, unassuming boxer with more heart than brains steps up — all the way to the top of the world. This is David…
A nearly irresistible exercise in bravura absurdity, Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan deserves to become a minor classic of heterosexual camp — at the very least, it’s the most risible and riotous backstage movie since Showgirls. Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake has had a spooky quality at least since Tod Browning appropriated a few bars of it to introduce his 1931 Dracula; Aronofsky…
By putting a slew of local talent in one place, a record-label showcase is a cheap way to cop a feel. Kansas City’s the Record Machine — home of such acts as Cowboy Indian Bear, Max Justus and Soft Reeds — slots showcases every couple of months, but this one offers a new crop of handpicked local acts. The label…
A plague of Christmas shows has already broken out around the Kansas City area, but the rowdiest of these events is usually the annual Holiday Hoedown at Liberty Hall in Lawrence. It’s half honky-tonk hootenanny, half offbeat variety show, and it’s hosted by beloved local bluegrass bands the Wilders and the Midday Ramblers, making for a night of good, old-fashioned…
Like Seth Rogan in a medium T-shirt, Millionyoung fits within chillwave only by stretching the genre’s confines. Mike Diaz’s brainchild possesses the requisite sleepy, sweeping synths and canned percussion of a bedroom-pop project, and its ambient shimmer suggests late-night melancholy and longing. But it’s not as lo-fi or shambling as its peers. On last year’s Be So True EP, the…
Advocating that a band record live rather than take advantage of all that a studio has to offer is a bit like telling your girlfriend that you like her better without makeup. But I’m about to be that boyfriend: I love you, Grisly Hand, but I like you better when you’re a little less done up. By now, critics —…
A lot of down-tempo music fits comfortably into the genre’s reputation as a soundtrack for an Ecstasy comedown: slow, steady, textured grooves that lull you from a maniacal high and — in theory, at least — prepare you for the moment when you call it a night. Monta at Odds makes down-tempo music, but it’s probably more likely to appeal…
Kemet “thePhantom*” Coleman, who announced his retirement earlier this year, is back like MJ, wearing the 4-5. His newest release, The Night thePhantom* Stole Christmas, cements the local rapper’s position within Kansas City hip-hop’s burgeoning avant-garde. His hypnotic delivery is far from Tech N9ne’s scattered pontifications, but the album is a prime example of Tech’s increasing local progeny: artists who…
With A Very Joan Crawford Christmas at the Unicorn Theatre, the veteran entertainment team of Ron Megee and Jeff Church is serving up a giant glazed ham for the holidays. The juicy target: Joan Crawford, a performer whose persona remains so camp that she needs no sendup. We encounter her at Christmastime at the very end of her career, about…
Pinstripes and Texas nights don’t appear to be in Zack Greinke’s future. The New York Yankees and Texas Rangers may see the (from all indications) soon-to-be-former Royals pitcher as a consolation prize if they don’t get free agent Cliff Lee, but Kansas City may not be willing to wait for either of them to try to fill their Lee-sized hole….
I was thinking that there are more songs with the word bouillabaisse than the Beastie Boys 1989 opus “B-Boy Bouillabaisse” and Allan Sherman’s comedy song “Togetherness.” It’s a great word, bouillabaisse. The Provencal fish stew takes its name from two words: bolhir — to boil — and abaissar, or simmer. The dish has gotten very expensive lately. The hefty bowl…
The state of Missouri twice approved Courtney Edwards’ family for $300 a month in food stamps. Edwards’ husband is a Marine and raising a family with four children on his salary has been tough. As Edwards told KMBC Channel 9, the assistance was a “huge help.” That was until the state demanded the money — $4,724 — back. Categories: News
