According to Diana Vreeland, two things shaped global culture after World War II: the atomic bomb and the bikini. Fair enough. By the time we hear this half-ironic utterance — captured in the brisk, bubbly Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel — the documentary’s title figure has also recalled her glimpse of Hitler in prewar Europe. The dictator’s absurd…
Stop me if you’ve seen this before: A woman suffers a devastating injury, struggles with subsequent depression and mopes in misery until a hunky new love teaches her to live again. If you’re avoiding Jacques Audiard’s Rust and Bone precisely because the outline of its plot sounds familiar, don’t. The director of A Prophet and the underrated James Toback reworking…
The red-white-and-blue barber’s pole is still out front at 3402 Troost. The painted pillar outside the former Barbershop 67 feels permanent, feels like it’s helping hold up the weight of this neighborhood. On a recent Thursday morning, the door swings open at the shop, now called Diamond Cuts. Owner Phil Diamond Jr.’s cheeks rise with a grin as wide as…
Six years ago, Jared Presler met Matt Weston in the yaoi aisle at a manga shop off Highway 40 and Noland Road. That store no longer exists, but the two 20-somethings have been partners ever since — romantic partners and, as of last weekend, business partners. From Friday through Sunday, Presler and Weston chaired the first annual Ahn!Con, a gathering…
The First Christian Church of Blue Springs last weekend held its seventh annual Freezin’ for a Reason, in which church members camped outside in the cold to raise awareness about — and collect blankets and coats for — the homeless. Its mission and its message were clear. I wish I could say the same about Housebreaking, a muddle of a…
Ordering a bottle of red at the new Cooper’s Hawk Winery & Restaurant, on the Country Club Plaza, is sort of like asking your server to perform the “Largo al factotum” from The Barber of Seville. After the cork comes out, the wine is theatrically decanted, with the server pouring the contents over a glass ball filled with glycerin, aerating…
Last week, The Pitch caught up with Alicia Solombrino, the leading lady of the local, long-running dance-punk foursome the Beautiful Bodies. Sleep-deprived and tea in hand, Solombrino had just flown in from Los Angeles, where her band had been crowned the winner of the 16th annual Ernie Ball Battle of the Bands. In addition to thousands of dollars of music…
I just got back from an emergency piano tuning,” Shawn Hansen told The Pitch last week. If you were heretofore unaware that pitch correction can take on such urgency, you’re not without company. But sometimes a storm of events arises, and a piano tuner such as Hansen must bounce into crisis mode. “It was for a radio show that’s being…
Trampled by Turtles, with Carl Broemel Because of its terrible name and the people on my Spotify feed who stream its songs, I assumed that Trampled by Turtles was another shitty Mumford & Sons knockoff band. As it turns out, that’s not entirely true, although it does employ a lot of acoustic instruments. The group, which formed in 2003 in…
The lobby of the Kansas City Convention Center doesn’t look like the promised “harvest of souls.” It resembles an airport during the holidays. Long and winding lines of luggage-toting people wait, laugh and share hugs. They’re here for the International House of Prayer’s annual Onething conference, which has promised to bring 25,000 young adults together with Jesus. That number doesn’t…
Facebook: Sporting KC It looks like Sporting will be getting a new name for its stadium. Sporting KC’s CEO Robb Heineman has spent the better part of the past year maintaining that his club will keep the name Livestrong Sporting Park on its stadium. He apparently won’t have to defend that position for much longer. ESPN’s Darren Rovell reports that…
Shirley Oyer will spend six months in prison. Shirley Oyer, a Kansas City woman who admitted to participating in the largest tax-refund fraud in state history, was sentenced to six months in prison on Tuesday. The Pitch wrote about Oyer and her colorful family (one son wrote a book claiming to be the second coming of John the Baptist) last…
Daniel Meredith is a talented liar. Daniel Meredith, a con man The Pitch wrote about in August 2012, was sentenced to 11 years in prison on Tuesday afternoon. Meredith told his victims fantastic lies to get them to invest in his schemes. His colorful scams included nonexistent land holdings in Bolivia, calls from former presidents, and a story of highjacking…
Hello again! It’s been what seems like an extremely long time – almost three years – since Each Other All the Time, the debut album from Lawrence’s Cowboy Indian Bear. The quartet’s new record, Live Old, Die Young, will be released this spring, and yesterday the band released a single from it, “Does Anybody See You Out?” It’s a six-minute…
The case of the poorly thrown wiener returns. Kansas City Royals mascot Sluggerrr is going back to court for allegedly beaning a guy in the eye with a hot dog. On Tuesday, a Missouri appeals court reinstated John Coomer’s lawsuit, which claims that he suffered a detached retina and other injuries after getting pegged by a dog tossed by the…
Flickr: DavidHT Will gamers be fighting taxation and alien invasion? Missouri Rep. Diane Franklin has violent video games in her crosshairs. The Camdenton Republican introduced HB 157 yesterday, a bill that levies a 1 percent tax on any “violent video game,” which is defined as “a video or computer game that has received a rating from the Entertainment Software Rating…
Facebook: Brewbakers The craft beer boom is going full bore in Lenexa. The options just keep coming for craft-beer drinkers in Kansas. Brewbakers Bar & Grill, a pub with a focus on craft brews (hence its seven taps of Boulevard beer), has opened in Lenexa at 9482 Renner Boulevard (just off I-435). Things on the menu to keep an eye…
Flickr: Government & Heritage Library, State Library of NC You may once again be able to behold the Wonder. It’s not just barbecue joints that want Wonder Bread. Flowers Foods Inc. has emerged as the leading bidder for Wonder Bread, along with five other Hostess bread brands. The food company based out of Thomasville, Georgia, has pledged $355 million (which…
One of the new great hopes of the No Depression/alt-country scene is John Fullbright, a 24-year-old singer-songwriter wunderkind. He’s been compared with everybody from Steve Earle to Townes Van Zandt to Randy Newman to Woody Guthrie, with whom he shares a hometown of Okemah, Oklahoma. But I think his work most resembles the literary Southern wisdom you find in Mike…
Lisarae Photo Design Gin+ Campari + sweet vermouth = Negroni Lisarae Photo Design J.K. O’Hanlon Local author J. K. O’Hanlon asked her husband, Paul, to mix her a cocktail one evening. “His eyes got round, and beads of sweat pearled on his forehead,” she later wrote. “Here was one of the most competent human beings I’ve ever known stressed out…
A show narrated by Anthony Bourdain and hosted by chef David Chang was eventually going to end up in Kansas City for barbecue. And in the 15th episode, appropriately titled “Smoke,” of the PBS show “The Mind of a Chef,” there’s a loving tribute to Oklahoma Joe’s. It’s a few smoked food beauty shots for your Monday afternoon. But if…
Touring in support of last year’s kinda quietly received Centipede Hz, Animal Collective will be stopping by the Midland on Thursday, March 21. (Has AnCo ever played KC before? I can’t remember a show. It played Lawrence back in 2007.) The electronic psych group will be joined by Domino labelmate/knob-twiddler Dan Deacon. It looks like there might be a presale…
