If the Crossroads District seems more crowded than usual this First Friday, you’re not hallucinating. October 4’s Out in the Crossroads marks the anniversary of the 1987 Washington, D.C., march for LGBT civil rights. Besides that celebration, several shows are worth some extra navigation time and parking hassle. At the Mattie Rhodes Gallery (915 West 17th Street), the Día de…
Yoder’s Twitter profile image If there’s one politician for whom the federal-government shutdown has been awesome, it’s U.S. Rep. Kevin Yoder. Every Kansan’s favorite only 3rd District Congressman has been everywhere lately – CNBC, KCTV Channel 5, KMBZ 980. And the family-borrowing, shape-shifting, holy-water-booty-dunking Republican is killing it on Twitter. Along with the usual photo-op stream, Yoder’s feed is a…
As The Pitch has covered before, many if not all of the big checks funding the campaign for the passage of the translational medical research sales tax come from interests closely aligned with the institutions that will benefit from a half-cent sales-tax increase or the Civic Council of Greater Kansas City. Those institutions are Children’s Mercy Hospital, St. Luke’s Health System…
You’ve probably been thinking to yourself lately, “My goodness, that tweed three-piece suit I purchased from that darling little vintage shop three years ago has been disgracefully out of my outfit rotation.” The poor orange-and-brown-hued ensemble beckons you mournfully from its lonely, forgotten corner of your closet, and you drag your eyes to a sight that causes you slightly less…
It’s not always the case that “free music” is equivalent to “good music you should hear,” but in the case of Midwest Music Foundation’s Midwestern Audio series, local listeners are in luck. This Saturday, October 5, the second installment of the series will be released at RecordBar. The Midwestern Audio Volume 2 is a compilation disc, featuring tracks from local…
An audience with the Queen. It appears that Marina Shifrin, the University of Missouri graduate who spectacularly quit her job via viral video earlier this week, will land on her feet after all. In an extremely uncomfortable segment that will air on The Queen Latifah Show today, Shifrin says, of her video, “I think sometimes you need to forcefully close…
Spirit Is The Spirit // Pillows // Music Video from Micki Hadley on Vimeo.
Click here for this month’s First Friday gallery openings and events.
Contemporary jazz with accessibility intact: What else would you expect from four veterans of the eclectic People’s Liberation Big Band? The James Isaac Group starts with saxophonist Isaac, also part of the ensemble Killer Strayhorn. His warm tenor tone invites you to ride solos of unique twists and intriguing turns. Mike Stover’s steel guitar, familiar to Grisly Hand fans, spices…
Sean Tillmann — stage name Har Mar Superstar — is a polarizing artist. You either totally adore him or seriously can’t stand him. Those in the former camp love him for his bawdy, over-the-top persona. Har Mar Superstar is entirely comfortable performing in front of hundreds of people while wearing only a sparkly thong, with his hairy back and protruding…
Here is how to do this: Put on Ha Ha Tonka’s new record, Lessons. Sit back. Close your eyes. You’re lying on the grass, under the stars, breathing with the music. After less than a minute, the band has drawn you in. “Dead to the World,” the first song, extends a hand to you with its sweeping orchestral introduction. Lead…
Is/Is Full disclosure: Is/Is is a Minneapolis band, a relatively popular one, and I have seen it perform multiple times. It does kind of a lo-fi, DIY, postpunk thing, like releasing new music on limited-edition cassettes. It would all sound a little too precious if Is/Is wasn’t such a legitimate rock band, managing to somehow turn fuzzy, disjointed, static chords…
Oscar-winning documentarian Roger Ross Williams is probably best known for getting Kanye’d at the Academy Awards in 2010. Fellow producer Elinor Burkett charged the stage and blasted Williams before he could deliver his speech. It was a curious development for Williams’ upbeat documentary Music by Prudence, which spotlighted Prudence Mabhena, a disabled but remarkably gifted Zimbabwean musician. When the filmmaker…
Getting to Lynda Bonewald’s office requires navigating a maze of windowless corridors on an upper floor of the University of Missouri–Kansas City’s School of Dentistry. Past the door, her Hospital Hill work space is no place for the claustrophobic. It’s an unassuming little room, out of proportion with Bonewald’s status as one of the nation’s better-regarded scientists in her field….
In this era of neatly packaged, smoothly run corporate restaurants, Esther Mulbah’s little strip-center spot in Lenexa isn’t just old-fashioned. It’s downright aberrant. Her five-month-old Esther’s African Cuisine seems to do everything wrong — by conventional standards. And that’s why I like it so much. Sure, I wasn’t thrilled about an hour wait for my meal on a Saturday night,…
The Civic Council of Greater Kansas City, one of the main supporters of a sales-tax increase for medical research up for a November 5 vote, lobbed a $400,000 check to the campaign committee in charge of convincing Jackson County voters to spring for the half-cent tax. The donation is by far the biggest single contribution by any one party to…
A big save by the KCPD. On the night of September 28, KCPD Sgt. Steven Griswold was dispatched to assist a broken-down car on Interstate 470. When he arrived, the driver attempted to jump 60 feet off the overpass. Griswold snagged him at the last second and pulled him back to safety. (The man is now at a hospital, where…
Brooke Vandever Black House Collective is getting some notice. Life just got a little easier for four local arts groups. Black House Collective, the Fishtank, FOKL and Front/Space have been named among this year’s Robert Rauschenberg Foundation SEED Grant recipients. Each will receive $10,000 annually for the next three years. Groups come to the foundation’s attention through an anonymous process…
Former Kansas City Ballet member Christopher Barksdale-Burns will don more gay apparel this month in St. Louis. It takes a lot of dough – for gowns, jewelry, wigs and shoes – to compete in the 2014 Miss Gay America Pageant (held in St. Louis October 9-14), and the reigning 2013 Miss Gay Missouri America, Christa Collins, can’t waltz out onto…
Careful opening that beak, buddy. So, a white guy in Kansas has said something idiotic and sparked another tiresome round in the culture wars. Except this time, it wasn’t a knuckle-dragging Republican channeling those simpler days when women kept silent and gays were too ashamed to hold hands in public. No, this particular white guy is a member of the…
An auto parts store is slated to replace this Northeast restaurant. Yes, Sabor Centro Americano is still open.The question is, how much longer? The restaurant, at 2661 Independence Avenue in the Historic Northeast, has been serving the cuisine of Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Costa Rica in a former Captain D’s for the past seven years. But the clock appears…
