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 withhim to Europe. He then recorded three albums…
Loretta Lynn’s first top-10 single, “Success,” dropped 49 years ago. Since then, the American icon from Butcher Holler, Kentucky, has laid a solid groundwork for women in country music. Never forgetting her humble roots, Lynn has always been a voice for blue-collar, working-class women. Gems like 1967’s “Don’t Come Home a-Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind)” and 1975’s “The Pill”…
Depending on one’s perspective, Sebadoh is touring in support of Bakesale and Harmacy 15 years too late (a decade and a half after the albums’ original release dates) or a couple of months too early (reissues of both are due in the spring). To oversimplify the band’s ridiculously confusing history — which involves Dinosaur Jr., Sentridoh, and one co-founder quitting…
Certain standard items are on almost every room-service menu: a club sandwich, a hamburger, a Cobb salad. But in this more sophisticated and competitive age, some hotel owners have expanded their room-service offerings well beyond the expected. The Vincent, a 60-room boutique hotel in England, a couple of years ago began including a sex kit in its minibars: massage oil,…
It’s been about 25 years since the members of Salt-N-Pepa met at Queensborough Community College and started rapping together. In 1986, the trio released Hot, Cool & Vicious, with its breakthrough hit, “Push It.” (Yes, you’re getting old.) After winning a Grammy, making their acting debuts and selling a ton of records, the trio broke up in 2002. Five years…
Thrash metal was on the verge of an implosion in 1991. One of the earliest, most unfortunate casualties of the genre’s abrupt decline was Death Angel, a Bay Area quintet whose members were still in their midteens when they released 1987’s The Ultra-Violence. Over the course of two albums, Death Angel evolved into an ambitious, technically formidable force. And in…
Kansas City police released video of a Subway getting robbed on Sunday morning with the hope that someone will recognize the robbers (watch the video after the jump). The robbers hit the Subway at 6311 Troost at 9:40 a.m. The video shows two black men in hoodies and surgical masks pointing guns at a cashier and demanding money in a…
A 12-year-old boy was seriously injured in a shooting Sunday at the Blue Valley Court Townhouses. Fox 4 reported that the boy’s 18-year-old brother was also shot. The brothers were reportedly sitting on a porch near 20th and Wheeling when three men walked up and opened fire just before 3 p.m. The preteen was shot in the neck while his…
The downside of the Valentine’s Day holiday falling on a Monday evening is that after a night of dining and drinking champagne — and whatever else follows that behavior — you’ll have to stumble into work the following day, maybe a little worse for wear. Another potential negative is that Valentine’s is, traditionally, the night that everyone goes out to…
Detroit may be a city crippled by a severe economic downturns, government failure and crime — and thus the subject of some serious jokes about it being a murder-prone hellhole — but it’s still a city at the heart of America. Its people are hardworking joes (and janes), and its cultural contributions are vast, including Motown, the beginning of punk,…
Last month, we asked readers to close their blinds, zip up their pants, and click through our first-ever sex survey, in an attempt to surmise how Kansas City gets down. Click you did: About 1,100 people completed the survey, providing an amusing (if slightly unscientific view) of Kansas City’s collective sex life. We’ll reveal the results on Wednesday, but in…
Last week, the Melodians — the legendary Jamaican reggae group responsible for “Rivers of Babylon” — played its gentle, bouncing island music at Crosstown Station on Bob Marley’s birthday. We’ve got a slideshow of the bands that played that night, including locals the New Riddim. Check it out after the jump. Categories: Music Tags: new riddim, The Melodians
The quest to define our country by what we eat and drink continues with GOOD’s, “The United States of GOOD Beer.” The readers of GOOD voted on which independent, sustainability-oriented craft brewer should represent a given state, a response to The Houston Press’ The United States of Beer map. The goal was to knock out industrial brewers, meaning that Missouri…
The Kansas City Chiefs lost Super Bowl I 35-10 to the Green Bay Packers. We may finally get to see the 1967 game; the Wall Street Journal reports that a videotape of the game has finally been discovered. If you didn’t see the game in person or on NBC or CBS, then you probably haven’t seen the game, the Journal…
Glitter and boobs will abound in Kansas City on August 17 — outside of Bazooka’s, for once. Since Ke$ha obviously isn’t a big enough dose of slutwave for our city in 2011, Katy Perry will bring her roster of radio earworms to the Sprint Center late this summer. Categories: Music Tags: cupcakes, katy perry, slutwave, teenage dreams
I will never understand frat boys’ interest in smacking each other’s asses with paddles, and the activity has the University of Kansas’ Interfraternity Council facing sanctions for violating KU’s anti-hazing policy. A KU investigation found that new and old members of the council’s executive board smacked each other’s asses with paddles after a transition ceremony in November, the Lawrence-Journal World…
On the first Monday of February, 12 years ago, Rural Grit Happy Hour was born on the stage of the Grand Emporium. Its host, Ike Shelton, presided over a melange of local musicians in KC’s roots scene who were bonded together by the Rural Grit collective, a recording label and artistic community. Categories: Music Tags: Amy Farrand, Betse Ellis, Ike…
Step 1: Buy this ice cream, unarguably the best flavor of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream ever to be packed in a carton. Categories: Dining, Food & Drink
If Dr. Eric Christensen, the managing partner of the one-year-old Hamburger Mary’s restaurant, was concerned about the report in last week’s Kansas City Star about his restaurant possibly having to move out of the big purple building at 101 Southwest Boulevard, he didn’t seem remotely flustered yesterday. Christensen was on hand to handle musical duties for the restaurant’s fifth weekly…
The economic downturn poses a quandary for straight couples. Sex is a fun activity that doesn’t come with a Ticketmaster surcharge. But it can result in the creation of a dependent who requires diapers, formula and a phone plan with unlimited texting. Area couples appear to be doing a little bedroom math, because fewer babies are being born in Kansas…
