Archives: March 2011
Ty Segall gets fuzzy at the Jackpot tonight
Most references to Ty Segall are inevitably followed by comparisons with the late Jay Reatard. Stylistic similarities are generally exaggerated, but they have an eerie amount in common. First, their backgrounds: Both men fronted lively punk acts before going solo. Then there’s the recording ethos. (In June, Segall releases his third solo album in three years, Goodbye Bread.) Lastly, there’s…
Kansas City Royals’ Hall of Fame ballot is a total joke
For the first time, fans will have a vote on which former players will be inducted into the Royals Hall of Fame this year. The Royals’ website describes its team HOF this way: The Royals Hall of Fame was established in 1986 to celebrate the accomplishments of those players, coaches and other personnel who have made exceptional contributions to the…
Middle Brother combines alt-country from Dawes, Delta Spirit and Deer Tick — with a twist
Middle Brother must have sneaked into older brother Monsters of Folk’s bedroom and ripped a page out of its diary. The supergroup of sorts is another alt-country dream team with a little less cheek in its title: John McCauley of Deer Tick, Matt Vasquez of Delta Spirit and Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes. Magazines with folk boners are already pleading with…
A bone-crunching, soggy endurance test with Missouri’s least elite adventure racers
As I fly over the handlebars of a women’s mountain bike, just before crumpling into a ditch on the side of this mushy trail, my brain fires off a supremely clear thought: This isn’t right. It isn’t right because I’m watching the front wheel of the black-and-turquoise Specialized seize up and vanish out from under me. It isn’t right because…
American Heartland, Egads and the Barn Players treat us right
With his Inspector Clouseau mug and snappy delivery, Tim Scott was born to play comic detectives. The opening words are his in the American Heartland Theatre’s No Way to Treat a Lady, and at first I wasn’t sure whether they were being spoken or sung, so natural and intelligent is Scott’s phrasing. His voice might waver on ballads, but its…
Kansas City’s bands conquer Austin at the MidCoast Takeover
Soon, MidCoast Takeover descends upon the city of Austin, Texas, with one mission: to rock. The South by Southwest showcase — footed by local forces such as RecordBar, Crosstown Station and the Riot Room, among others — features more than 30 acts from the Midwest for a locally centered sonic sampler. We spoke with some of the traveling talent about…
El Paso is the American Juarez, only better
Dear Mexican: Why is it que cada vez that I talk to a Hispanic (not many Mexicans in New York, yet), it seems that they have a fantasma that they think lives in their house? I know that Carlos Mencia has used this in his material, but I wonder if la raza is more liable to be haunted than other…
Paul
This isn’t the third installment in the so-called Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy featuring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. Note the missing element: Edgar Wright, who directed and co-wrote with Pegg both the 2004 zom-com Shaun of the Dead and 2007’s Hot Fuzz, in which Pegg and Frost re-enacted at least one scene from every buddy-cop movie ever made. Greg…
Nora’s Will
José (Fernando Luján) has been divorced from Nora for 20 years, and they were married at least that long. Now he keeps an apartment across from hers, and she keeps binoculars. Just before Passover, she succeeds in killing herself after decades of attempts, and José is convinced that she planned for him to discover her body — as well as…
The Music Never Stopped
Based on a case study by Oliver Sacks, this adaptation tells the story of Gabriel Sawyer (Lou Taylor Pucci), a homeless hippie whose burnout isn’t the product of drug abuse but a ballooning benign tumor that has erased his memory. Institutionalized in the mid-1980s and rejoined with the suburban New York parents (J.K. Simmons and Cara Seymour) he had abandoned,…
The Lincoln Lawyer
This adaptation of Michael Connelly’s 2005 legal thriller is both convoluted and completely predictable, which fans at least should appreciate. The title refers to Mick Haller (Matthew McConaughey), an L.A. ambulance chaser who conducts business from the back of a Town Car commandeered by his faithful driver, Earl (Laurence Mason). Haller is handed a high-profile case defending a real-estate mogul…
Limitless
A gleeful celebration of nonstop doping, Limitless offers up a dim Better Living Through Chemistry fantasy that refuses to rain on its own pill-popping parade. Struggling novelist Eddie (Bradley Cooper) acquires fame and fortune after he takes a magic tablet dubbed NZT, which unlocks his brain’s full potential. He is now a four-digit IQ superman. Director Neil Burger mirrors his protagonist’s newfound abilities with…
The Last Lions
As aficionados of Puppy Bowl can attest, attaching stories to the comings and goings of animals is surefire entertainment. Veteran nature filmmakers Dereck and Beverly Joubert pitch their documentary about a lioness and her cubs as a weepie-thriller, with an impassioned psychological commentary majestically intoned by Jeremy Irons. Chased to an island in Botswana’s Okavango Delta, our heroine, Ma di…
Jimmie Vaughan
Jimmie Vaughan’s current tour — supporting his first album in nine years — is billed as “Jimmie Vaughan Plays Blues, Ballads & Favorites.” It’s straightforward and plainspoken, just what you’d expect from one of the most well-known Texas bluesmen. In the late 1970s, Jimmie Vaughan formed the Fabulous Thunderbirds with singer and harpist Kim Wilson, bassist Keith Ferguson and drummer…
Class Actress
Elizabeth Harper’s story is so damn Brooklyn that it’s almost cliché. After releasing an album of acoustic coffeehouse songs under her own name, she hooked up with two producers, Scott Rosenthal and Mark Richardson, in the hip New York borough, and they deftly swept her singer-songwriter sound into electronic territory. The result: Class Actress, a steadfastly vintage-sounding unit, like a…
DeVotchKa
Many people first heard DeVotchKa when the band scored the 2006 movie Little Miss Sunshine, but the quartet’s origins go back a decade earlier. Initially a backing band for burlesque shows and fetish model Dita Von Teese, the Denver outfit has exploited its multi-instrumental talents to forge a dynamic sound rich in sonic detail. The band’s expansive approach centers on…
New Orleans comes to Lawrence
Galactic, among the most visible ambassadors from the thriving New Orleans funk and jazz scene, has been working out one long, heated jam since about 1994. The boys from the Big Easy bring that spicy Southern flavor to Lawrence with a longtime member of another New Orleans institution, Cyril Neville. That name should ring a bell for funk fans: Neville…
Joplin export Me Like Bees packs a punch
In early February, Me Like Bees wowed crowds at Coda and RecordBar with its dizzying mix of aggressive rock and grooving rhythms. The two-year-old Joplin band — three members have KC roots — is swinging back this way on March 23 to promote a self-titled debut that magically conducts its live electricity in recorded form. The Pitch sat down with…
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