The Empty Spaces Some fine local bands are participating this Friday in the Crossroads Block Party, which is happening on 19th Street between Wyandotte and Baltimore from 4 to 11 p.m. Slated to play, in order: Spirit Is the Spirit, the Caves, Ghosty, Fullbloods, Everyday/Everynight, Cowboy Indian Bear, Empty Spaces, and Soft Reeds. More info here. The party is being…
The Kansas City Royals’ homestands haven’t been pretty. This week’s Pitch feature asks the experts to give the Kansas City Royals a performance review at the midway point of the season (read it here). Today, we wonder: Why have the Royals been so bad at home? What do our experts believe the franchise should do? And what should manager Ned…
Click here for a guide to July First Friday.
Chicken feet in black bean sauce, pork ribs, and pork buns can be eaten in luxury at the new Bo Lings on the Plaza. This week marks the official one-month anniversary of the new Bo Lings Chinese Restaurant on the Country Club Plaza. Owners Richard and Teresa Ng spent a fortune opening their dream location – they had wanted to…
Photo by Sabrina Staires Joe Cox and friends will be ready to help Kansas City visitors. You can give Siri a short summer vacation during All-Star Week. Got a question? Just tweet #KC. Or ask @VisitKC. A dedicated group of Kansas Citians is standing by to answer. Kansas City’s first social-media command center is being set up to answer queries…
Chef Erin Wishon is gearing up for big crowds at the K. Erin Wishon is about to throw a legendary barbecue. Aramark’s executive chef plans to cook 50,000 pounds of meat for All-Star Week, in the Southern Pride smokers behind the right-field fence at Kauffman Stadium. “We’ve got to show people what Kansas City is about, and I embrace the…
Name: Derek Klaus Occupation: Senior communications manager for @VisitKC, helping earn national publicity for KC from the likes of the Today show, The New York Times, X Factor and Travel + Leisure. Hometown: Wichita, Kansas Current neighborhood: Merriam Who or what is your sidekick? It’s a close tie between iced coffee and Swedish Fish. What career would you choose in…
The Royals could use a break. The Kansas City Royals’ 2012 has so far been a lot like the last season. The club started with a record-breaking 12-game home losing streak (and its home record is still the league’s worst). They’ve hit the fifth-fewest homers and scored the sixth-fewest runs, and their pitchers have walked more batters than just three…
David Glass: Should he sell the Royals? This week’s Pitch feature asks the experts to give the Kansas City Royals a performance review at the midway point of the season (read it here). We heard from national sports reporters Jeff Passan (Yahoo Sports) and Sean Keeler (Fox Sports) as well as respected Royals bloggers Rany Jazayerli (Rany on the Royals),…
Part drug- and money-addled whirlwind of psychotic one-upmanship, part testament to the value of an omnivorous popular culture, Savages is Oliver Stone getting down and dirty and druggy. The result is a glorious feast of violence, mayhem, filthy lucre, and outstanding domestic and international booty. Good-hearted botanist Ben (Aaron Johnson) and stone-cold Army vet Chon (Taylor Kitsch) run a pleasant…
The latest product of Woody Allen’s one-man movie mill is called To Rome With Love, a title as insipid as anything that’s wobbled off the Garry Marshall line in recent years. Don’t be fooled: There are Olive Gardens that feel more authentically Italian than this shabby tourist trap. And, as in the overpopulated agent bait of Marshall’s New Year’s Eve…
Warm up your surcharge because this Spider-Man has one reason to exist: the 3-D. There are other, more human reasons to see it: a convincingly gawky Andrew Garfield, a suspiciously grown-up Emma Stone, a surprisingly forgivable Sally Field. But even this reboot’s surest dramatic satisfactions (Harry Potter digester Steve Kloves is one of the movie’s three credited writers; the script…
The day of the 1973 All-Star Game, the morning paper published several full pages of stories, covering a range of topics — from player dramas to deep analyses of the teams. Some gems discovered on microfiche in the Kansas City, Missouri, Central Library include: • A lengthy story highlighted Henry Aaron’s quest to dethrone Babe Ruth as all-time home-run leader….
July 6-10: All-Star FanFest (Bartle Hall, Kansas City Convention Center) If you want to revel in All-Star Game festivities but can’t get your hands on the scarce game tickets and can’t afford the $180–$345 tickets to the Home Run Derby, the All-Star FanFest is the best option. The five-day event held at Bartle Hall (301 West 13th Street) is a…
On a recent Monday afternoon, Negro Leagues Baseball Museum president Bob Kendrick is running late. As Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game approaches, Kendrick is taking meetings and giving interviews at a dizzying pace. One of the little sentimental joys of waiting in his office lobby is reading the framed sports page from August 6, 1994, covering the opening of the…
Curt Nelson is the self-proclaimed “king of the geeks.” Nelson is the director of the Royals Hall of Fame, and his windowless office, buried under the museum, which is beyond left field, is cluttered with bats, jerseys and other memorabilia. In 1999, Nelson began working for the Royals’ marketing department and started curating the hall in 2007. And it’s no…
The best way to lure Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game to your city is to have more than one team. Thanks to the Yankees, the Mets and the Brooklyn Dodgers, the Summer Classic has landed in New York City eight times in its long history. (And it returns there next year for a first visit to Citi Field, 49 years…
The halfway point of the season is here, and the Kansas City Royals could really use this All-Star break. The franchise has been snakebitten with injuries and endured a 12-game skid, but at this writing the boys in blue are within striking distance of first place in the American League Central, a few games behind the Chicago White Sox. To…
Even at summer’s most punishing, when the air is thick and sticky and unmoving, there’s something irresistible about outdoor theater. There’s something about Starlight and Theatre in the Park. And there’s something about the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival, now celebrating its 20th season in Southmoreland Park. Southmoreland makes an ideal setting for Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a funny,…
Every Wednesday morning, Mark Manning heads into the KKFI 90.1 studio at 39th Street and Main and carries out, with enthusiasm, the mostly thankless task of hosting and programming two hours of community radio. Since 2004, his show, Wednesday MidDay Medley (10 a.m.–noon), has focused on Kansas City’s artistic community, with a heavy emphasis on the music scene. Most of…
Teen Dream, the 2010 album from Baltimore dream-pop duo Beach House, is a tough act to follow. It’s dark, ethereal, haunting, and still somehow a very accessible pop record. And yet Bloom, this year’s follow-up, is no letdown — it’s a logical extension of the distinct sound that guitarist Alex Scally and singer Victoria Legrand have been honing since 2004….
Warped Tour The malls in this city are dying a slow death, but mall punk lives on. No summer event attests to the purchasing power of the Hot Topic set quite as emphatically as Warped Tour, which returns to Sandstone (now Cricket Wireless Amphitheater). Taking Back Sunday, All Time Low, New Found Glory, the Used, Rise Against, and Anti-Flag are…
The little sandwich board on the sidewalk in front of the two-month-old Affäre announces the venue as a German restaurant. It’s a sign that has confused a number of potential walk-in patrons, who have looked at chef-owner Martin Heuser’s menu and asked, “Where’s the Wiener schnitzel? Where’s the hasenpfeffer?” Affäre is not that kind of German restaurant. It’s nothing like,…
City Paper was founded in 1981. SouthComm Inc., the Nashville-based owner of The Pitch, announced today that it has purchased Washington City Paper and Creative Loafing Atlanta. The company now owns eight alt-weeklies, in addition to several specialty publications. Both City Paper and CL Atlanta were owned by investment firm Atalaya Capital Management, which in March stepped up efforts to…
