Archives: May 2013

Hot Club of Cowtown singer and violinist — and KC native — Elana James on her band’s latest, Rendezvous in Rhythm

“I think this creepy obsession with new, new, new, personal ‘I wrote it’ stuff is a kind of plague on American traditional music,” Elana James tells The Pitch. “What’s wrong with reinterpreting traditional melodies or, in our case, standards and traditional songs from the early part of the 20th century, in an absolutely current, sincere and thrilling way?” James is…

Replay Records’ slow and steady approach to local vinyl

The Replay Lounge is a Lawrence institution. Everyone knows this. The Mass Street bar and venue, which opened in 1994, is an excellent place to drink, play pinball and hang out with dudes who have lived in Lawrence for a really long time. It employs musicians, books local bands and national touring acts, always charges a paltry $3 cover, and…

Carb stomping through a month of KC’s tastiest two-handers

Someone is always trying to tell us that a given year is the year of the sandwich. These clever people suggest that the sandwich has overtaken bacon, the slider or the cupcake as the new it food. But the sandwich isn’t the dish of any one year — it’s an everyday food, a workaday meal. The sandwich is where we…

Mapping your favorite sandwiches

If Kansas City has a signature sandwich, it’s surely beef brisket, thickly stacked on cheap, doughy white bread. But humankind cannot exist on barbecue alone — or Wonder bread, for that matter — and any city with cosmopolitan ambitions salutes sandwiches from different regions of the United States. You might not see such interstate creations in abundance, but if you…

Watch Hospital Ships’ kinda-gross new video for “Servants”

In print this week, we chatted with Brad Shanks of Replay Records, and rounded up a few recent releases from the the Lawrence label. One of them was a split 7″ with the Hips and Hospital Ships. The latter’s new album, Destruction in Yr Soul, is out June 18 on Graveface Records. Yesterday, both Pitchfork and Stereogum previewed “If It…

Petro America: guilty verdicts all around

petroamericacorp.com Petro America boosters are looking at jail time The jury in the Petro America case has returned guilty verdicts for all defendants in the Petro America trial. The trial, which started April 17, went to the jury around noon Tuesday. Deliberation lasted nearly 24 hours. Isreal Owen Hawkins was the CEO of a Kansas City company that held itself…

Owen Hawkins tries to talk his way out of the Petro America mess

File Hawkins wanted to represent himself at trial. Paul Bax was asleep when he got the call. It was May 8, and he’d finished working his graveyard shift for the U.S. Postal Service. He was being summoned to testify in one of the oddest trials in Kansas City memory. Bax wasn’t blowing off a subpoena. Rather, this was his first…

Darin Mason, convicted sex offender, found coaching basketball in Northland

KSHB Darin Mason has been charged with a new felony. It’s been a crappy spring for news about youth sports coaches. A few weeks back, soccer coach and popular party DJ Joel White was charged in federal court for allegedly taking nude photos of children. On Tuesday, a grandfather in Clay County Googled his son’s basketball coach, Darin Mason, and…

Wolfe-es has classic stick-to-your-ribs breakfast

You can blame brunch, but, at some point, breakfast got complicated. French toast got gussied up, pancakes have been stuffed beyond recognition and the cocktails seem to matter as much as the food. Thankfully, fans of breakfast have places like Wolfe-es Restaurant (842 Osage Avenue) in Kansas City, Kansas. Here, the food is straightforward, the prices are reasonable and people…

Investigation finds anonymous campaign against Linda Mau in Roeland Park doesn’t violate state law

This mailer didn’t cross campaign laws because it happened in Roeland Park. The Johnson County District Attorney can’t make a legal case against an unsourced campaign mailer that took Roeland Park mayoral aspirant Linda Mau to task for codes violations and bounced checks. The Kansas City Star reported Wednesday that the anti-Mau flier that went out to Roeland Park residents…

Cody Rhodes keeps his family’s tradition alive on WWE’s Monday Night Raw

WWE Cody Rhodes gets Raw The Rhodes wrestling family has spilled a lot of blood in rings around the world, including Kansas City. Patriarch “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes was a champion in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s (holding the NWA Central States Heavyweight Championship in ’68, and dropping the NWA World Heavyweight Championship to Ric Flair in September 1981…

The Pitch‘s Questionnaire with T2 creative director Travis Schlitter

Photo by Sabrina Staires Name: Travis Schlitter Occupation: Creative director for the motion design and animation team at T2 Studios. If you’re curious about what the hell that is, hit t2.tv. If you still have questions, call me. I like curious people. Hometown: Hays, Kansas Current neighborhood: Union Hill Who or what is your sidekick? I can’t imagine anyone being…

Tonight! Ra Ra Riot at, er, the Riot Room

Most riotous. My experience with Ra Ra Riot is that each of the Brooklyn-via-Syracuse act’s albums has one unstoppably addictive track – “Can You Tell” on the group’s 2008 debut The Rhumb Line; “Boy” on 2010’s The Orchard – surrounded by about nine inoffensive but forgettable chamber-pop songs. On this year’s Beta Love, the group has largely ditched the cellos…

Kansas City Mayor Sly James names his KCI advisory panel

Sly James assembles his KCI team. Lawyers from two of Kansas City’s bigger law firms, the man who helped design the original Kansas City International airport, the president of a local labor union and one of the most prominent skeptics of a single-terminal KCI are among Sly James’ appointees to an airport advisory group. James wants a 24-member advisory board…

Fritz’s Smoked Meats’ Bette Rogers is a meat avalanche

This is a carnivore-nal. For the past month, I’ve been on the opposite of the Atkins Diet. I have been in pursuit of every carb-laden, meat-stuffed, cheese-filled sandwich within 40 minutes of Kansas City. I have followed recommendations from readers, friends, party guests, bus drivers, lawyers and sandwich artists cheating on the place that pays them to ply their trade….

Kansas City employee Matt Tholen pleads guilty to role in fantastical insurance-fraud scheme

Blue Cross Blue Shield’s wellness program gets exploited at City Hall. The jig’s up for one Kansas City emergency medical technician involved in the infamous City Hall insurance-fraud scheme. Matt Tholen admitted his guilt on Monday to a count of wire fraud, related to his role in what’s apparently a wider-ranging scheme than originally thought. He’s the first to plead…

Rush Limbaugh took a “mind-boggling” trip to the K this weekend

MLB.com Rush wasn’t expecting TVs and computers. Most Royals fans who are up on their team history know that Missouri native son Rush Limbaugh worked for the team in the early 1980s. That, of course, was before he became the nation’s leading right-wing radio blowhard. Today on his show, Rush chatted about how he spent this weekend in Kansas City,…

Pan-Asian buffets: You just can’t have too many of them

Metcalf Avenue is getting another Asian-style buffet. There’s always room for more. The old Fuddrucker’s location at 8725 Metcalf, last occupied by the short-lived Royal Buffet (it lasted about five months), is getting a new tenant: another Asian buffet! According to the hand-lettered signs taped to the window of the venue, the “grand opening” of the new Pacific Buffet will…