Beef? Not beef? A question for the lawyers concerning the content of Taco Bell’s crunchy tacos is now up to your taste buds to decide. While it’s not a nonsensical quad steak burrito (how many kinds of steak are there?), Taco Bell is offering a free taco if you like its Facebook fan page. Are you willing to take a…
Gayle Jean Thornberry allegedly wanted the adoptive mother of her biological grandchildren dead. She’s accused of trying to hire someone to kill the Webb City woman. The details are really, really strange. According to The Crime Scene, Thornberry, 45, was arrested at a motel after trying to buy a “throwdown” weapon from an undercover agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement…
Do listeners usually flee from your band? If so, the Hospital Hill Run is looking for you! At 7 a.m. on June 4, 2011, thousands of runners will hit the streets of Kansas City for the 38th annual Hospital Hill Run! These participants will choose between a half marathon, 10K and 5K. All three races will begin and end at…
A man and woman called 911 on each other after a domestic dispute in Northeast Kansas City. It was a pretty nasty fight, with the woman accusing the man of pushing her down and choking her and the man alleging thatthe woman stabbed him in the neck with a piece of a broken mirror, according to the Star. The woman…
Carrie Rodriguez was a classically trained violinist before she took up country fiddle to back Alejandro Escovedo, Lucinda Williams and Chip Taylor for most of her early career. It was a young musician’s dream: Taylor discovered Rodriguez at the South By Southwest Festival in 2001 and decided to take her on tour with him to Europe. Categories: Music
Offering hardworking musicians a spare floor, couch or bedroom used to be one of the best ways to befriend a band that’s pounding the pavement. Now, the tradition is revived, thanks to technology. A website called Better Than The Van lets random people sign up to host road-weary musicians at their house. Here’s what the website says: Better Than The…
Missouri authorities don’t appreciate the DIY-spirit of some folks. A marijuana grow house was busted up in Grandview and authorities seized more than 380 pot plants, the Star reported. The Missouri Highway Patrol and the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department arrested a 54-year-old man and a 52-year-old woman for felony possession of a controlled substance with the intent to distribute. That’ll…
The young men shuffle into the classroom all wearing the same red shirt. They know why they’re here. They’re already cracking jokes about it. “Real men beat their wives,” one says. “Real men scratch where it itches,” another counters. “Real men take care of business,” a more mature one advises. “I’ve got a kid I’m trying to take care of.”…
The Kansas City Actors Theatre and the UMKC Theatre Department, under the superb direction of Barry Kyle, have combined forces with the National World War I Museum to mount Joan Littlewood’s unapologetically anti-war musical, Oh, What a Lovely War! The result of this artistic collaboration is a stunning, one-of-a-kind theatrical achievement. Oh, What a Lovely War! was a runaway hit…
Cody Wyoming cuts through laughter and frustrated side talk on the third run-through of the Rolling Stones’ eccentric, spiraling ballad “Let It Loose.” “This is the toughest one,” Wyoming says with his hand raised, gathering everyone’s attention in this dimly lighted West Bottoms rehearsal space. “We’re starting off with it, so we can have some fun later.” The announcement elicits laughs,…
Dear Mexican: I’m a white, rural, ninth-generation Texan who left the farm, and I’m now a lawyer for a large corporation in one of the largest cities in the state. Maybe a quarter of my clients speak Spanish, so the company is paying for me to learn Spanish. I’m glad, not only for work-related reasons but also because I just…
To age brutishly is Liam Neeson’s apparent career goal — the actor continues to follow the Nicolas Cage path from respected thespian to big-budget ass kicker. In this tepid thriller from Jaume Collet-Serra (Orphan), Neeson is Dr. Martin Harris. After a head conk in a Berlin car accident puts him in a coma, he awakens to discover that his wife,…
Miguel Arteta’s amiable Cedar Rapids is a mild comedy of embarrassment, set in the dark heart of Middle America and starring Ed Helms as Tim Lippe, a prematurely middle-aged man-child. Taking an airplane for the first time in his life, the country mouse goes to town. As the most idealistic insurance salesman in Brown River, Wisconsin, Lippe is dispatched by…
The late Canadian writer Mordecai Richler (best known here for The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz) was a bellicose practitioner of fiction in the manner of Philip Roth and Saul Bellow, with a mad helping of Joseph Heller. The joyfully anachronistic Richler took fierce delight in skewering the politics and culture of his beloved, hopelessly divided home province of Quebec. But…
Dissolute action-movie star Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff), first seen doing laps in his black Ferrari, has no destination in Somewhere, Sofia Coppola’s mood ring of celebrity lassitude. Coppola’s fourth feature is, at times, similarly aimless and empty. But those who groan that the writer-director has made another indulgent film about the obscenely privileged have overlooked Coppola’s redoubtable gifts at capturing…
To all you hard-drinking, hard-partying survivors of hard rock’s golden age: Congratulations on still being alive. Your bodies are worn, your brain cells fried and your livers hardened. After all these years, you need salvation. You need a messiah. We’re not talking about Dr. Bob or Bill W. here. We’re talking about Motörhead bassist, founding member and perennial cirrhosis courter…
“I wish I had sworn on this album so I could’ve gotten one of those P.A. explicit labels,” the Smith Westerns tweeted when its second record, Dye It Blonde, came out last month. It may not sport an eye-catching parental-advisory sticker, but Dye It Blonde does brighten up Smith Westerns’ glammy, garage-rock hooks with some studio gloss that wasn’t on…
Over the past few years, Fake Problems’ reach has broadened, with the band influenced by Cursive and Bright Eyes as much as by the working-class anthems of Bruce Springsteen. Its songs show an uncanny ability to simultaneously uplift and entertain (case in point: “The Dream Team,” from 2009’s It’s Great to Be Alive). Not every number is meant to be…
Wild Nothing exists in the netherworld among pulsating dance pop, melodic British dark wave and shimmering shoegaze. Even leader Jack Tatum’s sad tenor recalls such British romantics as the Smiths, Love and Rockets, and the Cure. The band peels back the songs’ recorded layers with attack and energy in a live setting, transforming into a true-and-tried rock act. Headliner Abe…
The Fig Tree Café & Bakery in Lee’s Summit may be the area’s best example of the restaurant as melting pot. The owners, Robin Graves-Altoom and Taleb Altoom, took a former Minsky’s Pizza location, polished it up and created a cozy family-style diner that serves comfort food American (Philly cheese steaks, cheeseburgers, Reuben sandwiches) and Middle Eastern (gyro and shawarma…
Seriously, we love trying to answer the questions we get here at Fat City. Over the weekend, we received inquiries about two venues that don’t exist anymore and where to find a fried pork brain sandwich. Fat City reader Jim from New York asked this question: “Do you remember a nightclub called the Boom-Boom Room? My sister is in a…
This is not a love story. The therapist-accused-of-stalking-a-soldier soap opera continues. This time, therapist Rachelle Santiago’s attorney claims that his client’s treatment while locked up in Leavenworth may be considered “cruel and unusual” punishment,” the AP reported. Santiago, 43, is accused of stalking the unnamed soldier and his family. Last week, a federal judge ordered Santiago to be committed for…
Somewhere between the gypsy-punk of Gogol Bordello and the blatnaya pesnya (criminal’s songs) of Russian Chanson lies local band Nuthatch-47. Its laughable lyrics, world beats and folky melodies are a fresh Kansas City sound. (See “Russian Gangster’s Grandma.”) Frontman Max Kunakhovich has begun a new side project called POL-KILO, which means “half a kilo” in English. “It’s a media project…
