It’s a fine line between smart and snoozefest, and especially so when it comes to downtempo music. Thievery Corporation usually gets the ratios right, though. The D.C.-based DJ-production team of Rob Garza and Eric Hilton threads international ideas — Afrobeat, reggae, tropicalia — into its silky-smooth grooves. The duo’s lyrics — veering toward the political, at times radically so —…
Facebook: First Watch Pancakes keep nuclear families together. Overland Parkians love their flapjacks. And First Watch understands this. The Florida-based breakfast chain opened its fourth OP location (and 11th overall in the Kansas City area) this week at 7301 W. 151st St. (next to Papa John’s and Price Chopper). You’ll see a lot of fresh-fruit crepes and various iterations of…
Big Sexy needs Big IT help. Call it karma or a conspiracy, but just when Fox Sports’ Jason Whitlock pens something relevant to Kansas City fans, his Twitter (and its 140,000-plus followers) account has been hacked. The story is up on BuzzFeed, documenting Whitlock’s frustration that this has been going on since Monday. It’s been a rough few days for…
Pig into this one. There is no shame in brown-bagging it. This is how most of us squeeze out a few dollars to dine at Bluestem, Justus Drugstore and Lidia’s. But just because you’re looking at a sandwich in Tupperware doesn’t mean you have to settle for rubbery, slick bologna. La Quercia, a brilliant purveyor (and marketer) of ham out…
Westboro Baptist Church folks are pushing ideology rather than candidates. Jack Wu discovered the Westboro Baptist Church’s YouTube videos while studying at California State University-East Bay. Wu, who is running for the Kansas State Board of Education’s 4th District seat, identified with the church’s extremist brand of Christianity. Wu says Westboro’s bent— that everyone but church members will go to…
Kansas City! A fine town! Our town! Read all about it in our Best of Kansas City issue, out today. Sure, you can check it out online, but wouldn’t it be more pleasant to pick one up and hold it in your hands? Superior perusing that way. A shorter music section this week due to Best Of, but we’ve still…
More trophies should feature pigs. The Pitch’s Best Of edition is on newsstands and the Internet today. There’s Best Food, Best Drink and all the necessary components for the Best BBQ Plate. When we start to dive into specifics, there are Best Place to Meet the People Who Grow Your Food and Best Supermarket. The results of the Readers’ Choice…
Photo by Sabrina Staires Name: Kate Corwin Occupation: President, Green Works in Kansas City Tell us about your work with Green Works: We educate urban high school students about the environment and then raise money to place them in paid summer internships in the environmental field. The goal is to get these students involved in meaningful environmental projects and introduce…
If you live or work in downtown Kansas City and you have a car, and you want to fill up that car with gasoline, there aren’t many options. There’s a gas station on West Pennway just off the ramp to Interstate 35, but it’s on downtown’s western edge, plus it’s completely automated — no convenience mart, no cashiers. There’s the…
Gentleman Savage (EP) There’s not a huge amount of overt Beatle worship going on in our local scene these days. You’re more likely to recognize the influence of acts — David Bowie, R.E.M., Big Star, Wilco — that borrowed inspiration from the Beatles. But occasionally, a group gets all primary-source on you, and that’s what’s going on with the new,…
Trying to cram decades of music history into just over an hour is difficult, and director Sue Vicory deserves credit for even trying. Her film would have benefited from less name dropping and more music, but she has coaxed some formidable local artists — the McFadden Brothers, Karrin Allyson and Bobby Watson among them — to talk about their craft….
History calls Jimmy Carter’s presidency a failure for two primary reasons: the era’s crippling inflation (which began under Nixon and spiked under Ford, though Carter’s policies certainly didn’t help) and his administration’s response to the Iranian hostage crisis that began in November 1979. Argo, actordirector Ben Affleck’s new film, revisits the latter by telling the inside story of an unorthodox…
It’s Wednesday afternoon in Merriam, and there’s no traffic around one of the city’s nicest shopping districts. Zero traffic. Wait, here comes someone. A blue PT Cruiser ventures into the parking lot at Merriam Village, along Interstate 35, just south of Johnson Drive. The car lingers a moment in front of the storefronts, then loops back out again. The storefronts…
Die Antwoord There’s some confusion, it seems, about whether Die Antwoord is a joke. Having spent some time with the South African electro-rap crew’s music and videos, I’m not sure how anybody could see them as anything other than a subversive comedy act à la Ali G. I am not a gay/This penis is for the girls/My penis is clean/My…
A man wearing an apron and a camouflage-patterned hunter’s cap tore apart a pork butt with his rubber-gloved hands, oblivious to the Marilyn Monroe look-alike onstage at the other end of the room. The singing blonde belted out Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way,” and the 33rd annual American Royal World Series of Barbecue was under way in the West Bottoms. Last…
If there was a job title that could neatly sum up what Luke Rocha does, it might be dime-store mystic. The artist resurrects discarded images and objects and breathes new life into things that other people have tossed out. As for the word mystic, what else but some higher plane of consciousness must be guiding Rocha’s odds and ends from…
%{}% Alt weeklies can’t claim to have invented the list culture that’s now so dominant in media (the rankings of bands and athletes, the roundups of favorite restaurants and taverns, the empirical dissections of politicians and public figures). But long before the Web came along, the nation’s free papers did pretty much start the whole “favorite blank in your city…
The 33rd annual American Royal World Series of Barbecue was held Friday, October 5, through Sunday, October 7, in the West Bottoms. A record 545 barbecue teams competed in the open division for the unofficial title of the world’s best barbecue team and the $12,500 check for being crowned Grand Champion. Photos by Brooke Vandever.
This is bad story. And now for something completely awful… The Star has a nominee for Kansas City’s saddest and cruelest crime story of the year. Grandmother Vera Adams has been charged with assault for allegedly attacking the 23-year-old girlfriend of Adams’ son. The scene that prosecutors have constructed sounds unbelievable: Late Saturday night, Adams called the victim and asked…
Last month, I wrote up Garment House, a new-ish private club downtown. (It’s not really that private; apply here.) At the time, the deal with the place was, you become a member and then you can show up, plunk down $40 ($35 if you’re a lady with lady parts), and drink from a premium open bar all night. Today I…
University of Kansas The fountains are pink for a reason this month. It’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month everywhere except the Kansas City International Airport. Marcia Deitrick, a breast-cancer survivor, talked to KCTV Channel 5 about what she says was a ‘humiliating pat-down,’ after a female Transportation Security Administration agent checked the area around her breasts. The agent had earlier radioed…
Crown Center The sushi will still be rolled at Kabuki. California rolls are staying at Crown Center. The Kansas City Business Journal reports that Kabuki Japanese Restaurant has resolved its suit with Crown Center Redevelopment Corp. over back rent and will remain in its space at 2450 Grand. Kabuki is one of the city’s oldest sushi joints, having opened in…
