Archives: October 2012

Tonight! Thievery Corporation at the Midland

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 —…

First Watch opens new location in Overland Park

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…

Jason Whitlock’s Twitter was (is still) hacked

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…

Cheap Slice: La Quercia Prosciutto Americano at Costco

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…

Wu don’t know Jack

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…

Open Thread: Pitch Best of Food and Drink

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…

The Pitch‘s Questionnaire with Green Works in Kansas City President Kate Corwin

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…

Valero Days: Remembering downtown’s nastiest gas station

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…

CD Review: Three new 1960s-pop songs from Gentleman Savage

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,…

Kansas City Jazz and Blues: Past, Present and Future

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….

Argo

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…

Never-occupied Merriam Village is razed to make way for IKEA

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…

Music Forecast October 11-17

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…

It’s our win-win-win-win-win-win issue, with our first Hall of Fame entrants

%{}% 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

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 Kansas City’s worst crime story of 2012 so far

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…

Garment House has dropped its open-bar price

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…

KCI TSA was out of line with public pat-down of breast-cancer survivor

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…