Kansas City blues rockers the Billybats have been lying low as of late, for a couple of disparate reasons. Firstly, they’ve been recording a new album, Lather Rinse Repeat, for which they’ll have their CD-release party this Friday, May 4, at Coda. Secondly, singer and guitarist Jason Vivone’s car was hit by a truck on Interstate 435 just north of…
Nick Spacek By the time the Granada doors opened for M83 last night, the line reached nearly to 11th Street. I’d spent the better part of an hour killing time half a block over at the Replay, while the more industrious fans secured their places for the show. It took 30 minutes to get everyone inside; by then, the only…
Franks takes its Chicago dog seriously. The West Bottoms has always been the color of beef. Dan Clothier wants to change that. The fresh flowers dotting the picnic tables in front of his restaurant and the bright-yellow awning adorning the façade are among the visible updates to the gritty neighborhood that once held Kansas City’s stockyards. Clothier also is adding…
The latest video from the Sexy Accident went viral this weekend, if my Facebook feed is to be counted as a legitmate sampling of the KC and Lawrence music scene. The Zac Eubank-directed clip for “What We’d Do” (off Ninja Ninja Fight Darth Vader) is a bit of naughtiness that left us in need of a cold shower. The Sexy…
The restored two-story home sits atop a steep hill, giving way to a postcard – worthy view of the charming downtown shops and stately university buildings below. But lately the serene spot has triggered not calm but shock, curiosity and, sometimes, delight. Jaws first fell open in March. That’s when the website for the new Parkville bed-and-breakfast became the talk…
During happy hour at the new Cafe Italia, a pizza calabrese topped with spinach, prosciutto, artichoke hearts, olives and feta, is offered for $9.95. Somehow, miraculously, a few of the tropical fish in the big tank behind the bar in the former Shogun Japanese Steakhouse building at 601 English Landing Drive in downtown Parkville survived, even after the building sat…
Name and occupation: Ryan Weber, president of KCnext What is KCnext? KCnext – the Technology Council of Greater Kansas City is a nonprofit organization that serves as the regional advocate for the tech industry, supporting more than 75 technology-company members in the Greater Kansas City Area. KCnext is committed to growing the existing base of technology firms, recruiting and attracting…
A certain amount of eccentricity is vital to the creation of good art, so artists enjoy a wide berth when it comes to things like maturity, manners and general social development. I love me some art and music and books and film, so I am usually willing to overlook the fact that about half the artists I know — in…
Little Shop of Horrors is a crowd-pleaser, a musical designed to rekindle the pleasures of B movies. The Kansas City Repertory Theatre production, now on the Copaken Stage, offers pleasures enough to ensure that it’s a hit, with its phantasmagoric set and staging, amusing book, and head-bouncing — if mostly unmemorable — pop-rock songs (book and lyrics by Howard Ashman,…
It’s Wednesday night, half past seven, which means the Retro Lounge — the smallest of the three stages at Knuckleheads Saloon, on the far east end of the building — is transforming into the Gospel Lounge. The crowd that comes for the Gospel Lounge looks about the same as the usual Knuckleheads crowd, but a few clues suggest something is…
The cinematic poet laureate of young, urbane pretension, Whit Stillman has been threatening to make a “normal” movie for well over a decade now. He’s been linked to various adaptations, period pieces and studio films since 1998’s The Last Days of Disco. So it’s nice to finally have him back with Damsels in Distress, a comedy about young women in…
For better and worse, The Avengers is less a movie than the world’s biggest collector’s issue. Since 2008’s Iron Man, audiences have dutifully stuck around to see the post- or mid-credits bonus scenes, showing the beginnings of the saga to come. Each clip gathered new players and parceled out story teasers. Your ticket to each installment in this Avengers initiative…
Sasha Victorine calls Livestrong Sporting Park “a living lab.” And whether they know it, Sporting Kansas City’s smartphone-clutching, blue-clad fans are the experiment’s guinea pigs. Victorine should know. The former midfielder for the Kansas City Wizards, Sporting KC’s previous incarnation, is the director of business development and operations for Sporting Innovations, a venture launched by the soccer club last October…
Rupert Murdoch’s media empire couldn’t compete with Kansas City app designer RareWire. In the 2012 Appy Awards (yes, it’s a thing), RareWire’s app for The Atlantic magazine went head-to-head against Murdoch’s much-hyped The Daily for the Best iPad Publishing award. And the 14-employee company, headquartered in Kansas City’s Crossroads District, came away victorious over The Daily, in which Murdoch reportedly…
In 1973, New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath slipped his long, muscular legs into a sleek pair of pantyhose and exposed them to TV viewers. “I don’t wear pantyhose,” Broadway Joe assured America in the commercial for Hanes Beautymist pantyhose. “But if Beautymist can make my legs look good, imagine what they’ll do for yours.” Endorsements have come a long…
Google Fiber, with its promise of ultra-high-speed fiber-optic Internet access, is the area’s most talked-about technological advancement. It isn’t the most interesting thing going on in the metro’s tech community, though. That’s the point of this week’s cover story. But we’ll get to that in a minute. We know that you want to hear about Google Fiber first. Which is…
Spring Dance Three of Kansas City’s merriest live acts gather on the Grinders stage to celebrate the arrival of T-shirt weather. The night opens with swinging country from the Grisly Hand (7:30 p.m.), then segues into classic R&B and soul covers (plus some new originals) from the Good Foot (9 p.m.), and closes out with Afrobeat grooves courtesy of Hearts…
There aren’t many restaurants in Kansas City that operate out of former movie theaters. Until recently, in fact, I could name just two (not counting the Marquee Lounge, inside the AMC Mainstreet 6, which is still a cinema). There’s the creperie Chez Elle, located in the former auditorium of the 99-year-old Summit Theatre, and the Fairway Houlihan’s, which was once…
Tits and ass bombard us constantly. That’s how straight white guys sell things to other straight white guys. Most of these ubiquitous images are so absurdly overstuffed and overheated that they’re just not sexy. There’s skin in Now Knowing, and there’s sex — not the act but the awareness of it. The point isn’t nude flesh but naked identity. Kansas…
Sama Zama is serving up a variety of Japanese dishes in a former Westport theater. Photos By Angela C. Bond.
Sam Brownback’s approval numbers look bad. Or good. Who the hell knows? President Barack Obama doesn’t officially have a Republican opponent yet. The trio of Missouri Republicans hoping to unseat Sen. Claire McCaskill have yet to sift out a challenger. And our local members of Congress have yet to even start the real campaign work. Nonetheless, poll fatigue is already…
Caveman No luck trolling Craigslist for tickets to tonight’s m83 show at the Granada? RecordBar is offering a pretty solid alternative. Caveman advances a calm, reverb-y, rock agenda that calls to mind an overcast day at the beach. The Brooklyn band adds synths and kinky percussion to the equation, though, which feels very of-the-now. (Listen here.) Lockett Pundt, guitarist of…
Sharon Van Etten A darn diverse crop of announcements this week, in addition to yesterday’s news that My Morning Jacket and Band of Horses are coming to Starlight in August. Death Grips, a noise-rock outfit hailing from California, is headed to the Bottleneck Friday, June 22. Indie darling Sharon Van Etten will perform at the Riot Room Monday, August 20….
Serious Eats This is not your average pizza-delivery truck. The pizza trucks in our universe run the gamut. Kansas City still has room for a new concepts. Perhaps some adventurous driving chef will begin slinging dumplings, Korean barbecue or doughnuts. And as long as we’re throwing out ideas, would-be KC truck operators should look east to New Jersey, where the…
