Thanks to the folks over at Soundspike, you don’t have to wade through Pollstar’s 2010 year-end concert data: They’ve already drawn the conclusions for you. The concert-driven site has come up with seven trends that went down last year in ticket sales, and what they might mean for this year’s season. You might already have guessed some of them (like…
Kelly Canter is the Courtney Love of country stars. Spectacular meltdowns onstage have forced Kelly (an inconsistently twanging Gwyneth Paltrow) into rehab. There, she jams in more than one sense with singer-songwriter-janitor Beau (Tron fox, Garrett Hedlund), until her husband, James (actual country star Tim McGraw, who inexplicably doesn’t sing until the closing credits), drags her on a three-date comeback…
Woman power retrofitted as a holiday heart stirrer, Made in Dagenham recounts the real-life 1968 strike for equal pay by 187 distaff machinists at the Ford plant 12 miles outside London. These unwitting soixante-huitards in Mary Quant hot pants and five-story bouffant hairdos are led by Rita O’Grady (Sally Hawkins), forced to balance her raised consciousness with wifely and motherly…
Let’s just chill down here,” says Roger Lee (better known as R.L.) Brooks, a Rolling Rock dangling from his fingers. The four members of his band, Maps for Travelers, are gathered around a scarred table, sipping from cold green bottles after a long day. “I hate being in the office because I feel like I’m the boss up there,” Brooks…
Dear Mexican: I was alerted today to the problem of trash that’s dumped in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, and I am trying to track down more articles about the issue. That is how I found you. There are lots and lots of piles of trash — look like clothes — in a wash in Arizona. Can you tell me what’s…
Generously bankrolled (then shelved) by an imperiled Weinstein Company and peopled with Academy Award nominees, it’s tempting to call All Good Things an upscale version of straight-to-cable, true-crime crap, which only makes it sound more entertaining than it actually is. In a fictional retelling, Andrew Jarecki, director of 2003’s documentary Capturing the Friedmans, reopens the case of Robert “Bobby” Durst,…
Mark Farina was spinning dance records when many of us were nothing more than our fathers’ bad intentions. Farina’s expertise developed from an early love of new wave and industrial music, and he embraced Detroit techno and Chicago house during their late-’80s heyday. In 1989, Farina hosted a radio show at Northwestern University with house legend Derrick Carter. Though Farina…
In her best-selling 1985 autobiography, Elvis and Me, Priscilla Beaulieu Presley claims that her husband couldn’t stomach singers whom he thought were “all technique and no emotional feeling,” such as Mel Torme and Robert Goulet. “They were responsible for two television sets being blown away with a .357 Magnum,” she writes. On this 76th birthday of the King, forget about…
Ever since hip-hop became a mainstream affair, white folks have done what they do best: Co-opt it and rework it for the suburbs (or college kids). Minneapolis is famous for the indie hip-hop label Rhymesayers, which has done much to legitimize white-boy hip-hop with such artists as Atmosphere, Brother Ali and KC’s own Mac Lethal. Minneapolis also has spawned Koo…
You don’t have to travel to Scarborough Fair to indulge in the shades and flavors of parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. The new Olive Café uses plenty of fresh herbs in its dishes and serves steaming pots of sage tea. That beverage is a beautiful, amber-colored brew with a sublime fragrance. It reportedly is powerful in allaying migraines, bronchitis and…
Police have identified Tyson L. Strong as the man killed in a double shooting last Wednesday outside a Jiffy Lube at East 31st and Gillham Plaza. According to witness accounts, Strong and an unidentified man pulled into the Jiffy Lube lot with a friend and opened fire on a white car for reasons that have yet to be fully explained….
The East Bottoms saloon was site to one of the liveliest parties of 2010. Pitch photographer Brooke Vandever was on hand to capture one of the year’s last parties. Check out shots of Big Bill Morganfield, Kenny Neal and local bluesmen of Levee Town. Categories: Music Tags: Big Bill Morganfield, Kenny Neal, Levee Town
As we’ve already reported, the Decemberists are stopping by the Uptown on February 7. The band will be out supporting its new album, The King Is Dead, which doesn’t drop in the United States until January 18. You can hear the entire album now, though, over at NPR. Click here to listen. The band will be joined by Gillian Welch,…
Fat City reader Reg Robertson of Overland Park wrote to ask this: “What, in your opinion, are the three best sushi restaurants in Kansas City?” Well, Reg, I like sushi well enough, but I’ll confess that I probably lack the true passion for the dish that many of our Fat City readers have for truly glorious sushi. We’ll let them…
Guess what? 1991 was 20 years ago. That doesn’t mean we have to stop paying tribute to the Greats of Musical Eras Past, though. This Thursday at Riot Room, there’s a tribute to Nirvana, the Cars and the Psychedelic Furs. Nirvana will be given the (penny)royal treatment by the Negative Creeps (featuring members of Overstep & the Grand Marquis), Moving…
Chiefs offensive coordinator Charlie Weis is packing up his ruby red Rascal and hitting the road to take the exact same job at the University of Florida. He plans on staying with the team through the playoffs. It was fun while it lasted. When Weis was hired in January, it appeared that the team general manager, Scott Pioli, was assembling…
Macaroni and cheese will be a trend … again? We did a little eye-rolling last month over the list of 2011 food trends “predicted” by a National Restaurant Association poll of more than 1,000 American chefs. After all, a lot of the so-called predictions were already standard practices in many restaurants. Nation’s Restaurant News writer Bret Thorne is now adding…
We have lost a burger brother today. Charles Ferruzza wrote earlier this morning about the closing of B:2 A Burger Boutique in Lee’s Summit. Thus, it only seems fitting that Fat City honor the grill that has gone silent with a series of artistic works involving burgers. Categories: Dining, Food & Drink
Raise money, provide kids with scholarships, and figure out how to get your kid playing music. What’s not to love? Kansas City Young Audiences is hosting a Community School of the Arts scholarship fundraiser to provide opportunities for children to participate in some of the organization’s Kansas City’s art programming. Come watch these kids perform and sign yours up, too….
The East Bottoms saloon was site to one of the liveliest parties of 2010. Pitch photographer Brooke Vandever was on hand to capture one of the year’s last parties.
The fries are cold. Your server has disappeared into the strange void that servers inhabit between dinner and dessert. And your first two choices are unavailable. New places struggle with service and food because no restaurant is perfect. But how long do they have to get it right? Categories: Dining, Food & Drink
By now, you should have beaten your throbbing hangover into submission, cringed over your drunken text messages and remembered (well, sort of) where you were in those first few precious moments of 2011. I was judging the Donkey Gong Show over at RecordBar, wearing David Wayne Reed’s fake clip-on tie and making Labyrinth references behind a podium. (Nice.) Where were…
Our photographer, Scott Spychalski, caught wind of some of the New Year’s Eve mayhem at Raoul’s and Fuel in Overland Park. We’ve also got some shots of New Wave tribute band the Zeros. Enjoy more after the jump. Categories: Music Tags: new year’s eve, new years eve, the Zeros
Kansas City loves its jazz and hip-hop tributes — and so do we. Les Izmore, Diverse and Reach are at it again: The ensemble will reinterpret A Tribe Called Quest’s seminal album, Low End Theory, this month. ATCQ’s sophomore album enlisted the help of various jazz influences, including the jazz bassist Ron Carter. This tribute will go down at the…
