Todd Roeth Joe Pug is one genuine dude. At shows, he engages the audience in conversation, and expresses his opinions and ideas without worry (we know from experience – we reviewed his Bottleneck show last year). Excellent qualities in any touring singer-songwriter. Pug’s road to musical artistry was an odd one. He was a playwrighting student at the University of…
%{}% Let’s deconstruct the statement “the more, the merrier.” It is the quality of the merry that truly matters, not the quantity. This sentiment becomes especially important because we have entered into the concentrated earth (physical) sign of Taurus. Leaving the headstrong fire of Aries, now we all learn the lesson of what truly matters. What lasts? We can stubbornly…
Our old friend, former KSHB Channel 41 investigative reporter, Russ Ptacek is making some big noise in his new job as the chief investigative reporter for WUSA 9 in our nation’s capital. Ptacek’s investigation into sick and dead workers at the Bannister Federal Complex in KC has been mentioned during a congressional hearing. Minnesota Congressman Timothy Walz asked the GSA’s…
Barbecue got sexy for an hour. Then it got dirty. And then everybody started to have tummy rumblings. That was the world of Kansas City, according to Anthony Bourdain and his Cold War-era sidekick, Zamir Gotta (In Russia, barbecue eats you) on Monday night’s No Reservations. “Tomorrow I’m going to burn these sticky, smoky, airborne grease-infused clothes and have a…
Village Voice: Robert Sietsma The Tebow sandwich at the Carnegie Deli. Whether Tim Tebow makes you want to throw up, his presence in our culture can’t be denied. As ESPN writes, he’s got a sandwich, beer and burrito named after him. At least some of that has to do with being traded to the New York Jets – the Big…
For those lucky few who’ve been attending the Lawrence edition of Nerd Nite, the appearance of the Kansas City version has been eagerly anticipated for over a month now. Having attended all of the Lawrence shows since last November, I can state that it’s a fine way to gain knowledge, as well as a pleasant buzz. (Full disclosure: I will…
Chef Tito is creating a new Latin Bistro Express at 1710 West 39th Street. Tito Le Chef, the larger-than-life persona of local chef Basilio Dios, is once again in perpetual motion. The vivacious owner of the Latin Bistro and Culinary Center at 6924 North Oak Trafficway had no sooner closed his short-lived taqueria and lunch spot in downtown Kansas City,…
Aboveground, tailgate-party charcoal smolders as heavy clouds threaten Opening Day at Kauffman Stadium. Under Lot M, Neil Witte walks down a long concrete ramp and passes a line of close to 100 people dressed in blue polo shirts. These workers are waiting in line to register as concessionaires. Two stories up, they’ll sell food and drink to a standing-room-only crowd….
Name: Haleigh Harrold Occupation: Development Manager, American Jazz Museum Hometown: Creswell, Oregon Current neighborhood: The Northland Who or what is your sidekick? My 3-year-old daughter, Temwa What career would you choose in an alternate reality? International aid worker What was the last local restaurant you patronized? Smokehouse Bar-B-Que Categories: News Tags: american jazz museum, Haleigh Harrold
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are engaged — it’s official! The news broke last weekend, and the media half-life of the nonstory promises to be long. All right, we care. But are we as interested in Jolie’s film about Bosnia, In the Land of Blood and Honey? Yeah, I haven’t seen it, either. That pull of frivolous, good-news reporting versus…
Places I don’t belong: zumba classes, well-lighted bars, Bath & Body Works, church, Miami. Also: fancy opening-night parties at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. And yet, through some collision of unnameable, unknowable forces, there I was last Friday night, celebrating the debut of the Nelson-Atkins’ latest exhibit, Inventing the Modern World: Decorative Arts at the World’s Fairs, 1851–1939. Young professionals!…
It’s Kansas City, and everybody plays in everybody else’s bands, but even by those standards, the members of Ghosty are remarkably promiscuous collaborators. This point is driven home when I meet with the band at the Brick, a venue chosen because drummer Bill Belzer is playing a show there later in the night with his other band, Lazy. Ghosty frontman…
Israeli writer-director Joseph Cedar’s award-winning comedy — about a petty feud between Talmudic scholars who are father and son — suffers from terminal condescension. Eliezer (Shlomo Bar-Aba) has been passed over for an Israeli academic prize 16 times; he’s like the Randy Newman of this particular honor. Then he gets a call telling him that he’s this year’s award recipient….
Gus is trying to lose weight. He’s getting married in the fall. Still, he can’t resist when a coffee-shop barista offers him a bag of chips with his sandwich. Some things — chips, beer — he just can’t live without. Only 5 feet 3, Gus has a slim face with a neatly trimmed goatee. A baggy John Deere sweatshirt and…
Suzanne Vega and Duncan Sheik In 2011, folk-pop legend Suzanne Vega wrote and starred in an off-Broadway play, Carson McCullers Talks About Love, and she collaborated on the play’s music with singer-songwriter Duncan Sheik. Sheik is best-known for his mid-’90s triple-A hit “Barely Breathing,” but he also draws water on Broadway as a composer. The two, who apparently hit it…
Robert Krause likes change. The chef and restaurateur is a restless soul, he says, and that restlessness makes him consider drastic moves. “If I could, I’d change the menu every two weeks,” he told me recently. He was referring, in particular, to Esquina, the restaurant that he opened two years ago with his wife, Molly Krause, and two investors. Esquina…
Amber Hansen can tell you about the drawbacks of telling people about artwork before it’s done. Talk was always part of the plan for the Lawrence artist’s most recent undertaking, The Story of Chickens: A Revolution. But her work sparked an outcry before it took physical form. Hansen drew national attention in February, shortly after the Story of Chickens proposal…
Esquina has relaunched with a Mediterranean theme and plenty of small plates to be scarfed down while looking out at Massachusetts Street in Lawrence. Photos by Angela C. Bond.
Conquerors The curators of the first annual KC Psychfest – a two-day party (May 18 and 19) at the Strawberry Hill art space FOKL – have announced the official list of acts performing, and just about every weird and/or druggy band in Kansas City and Lawrence is playing. I am starting to get pretty pumped for this event! Hit the…
