The iconoclastic chef Ray “Pete” Peterman didn’t care what people thought of him or the distinctive way he operated his 16-month-old restaurant, Peanches, at 900 West 39th Street. He wanted to do it his way – and he did. That meant turning away walk-in customers, only accepting reservations, attempting a prix-fixe only menu (a noble experiment, but it didn’t last),…
If you haven’t spent the night camping out in front of Best Buy eagerly awaiting the bloodbath that is Black Friday, perhaps you’re one of the few cool kids who have readied a list of rare and limited vinyl releases. We’ve rounded up a list of the special offerings at local record stores today. Mills Record Company – Open at…
This week, Lawrence’s Whatever Forever music collective will release their first compilation, Family Vacation, on cassette and Bandcamp. The compilation has been steadily growing since the first few tracks were put online back in March, which is where it was initially intended to stay. “We didn’t originally plan on releasing a physical copy of this,” says Whatever Forever’s Bobby Sauder,…
You keep scratching at Oldboy, looking for something beneath its blood and grime, but your fingernails just darken with the effort. Spike Lee, remaking the stomach-turning 2003 South Korean revenge fantasia, might have refracted the pulpy source material through his moral lens. Instead, he turns Josh Brolin loose with a hammer, calls in a Samuel L. Jackson favor and picks…
Filmmaker Alexander Payne loves his home state enough to live there half the year. He reveres Hollywood’s silent era so much that he threatened a walkout if he couldn’t shoot his latest movie in black-and-white. And he wanted to give 77-year-old Bruce Dern a shot at a great valedictory performance. Those are fine reasons to have made Nebraska — but…
Credit the perfect home for getting John Rensenhouse back in our midst. The KC native’s career has included national Broadway tours, getting killed on TV, meeting fans on the street. Part of the core company of Kansas City Actors Theatre, he has become a familiar local presence as both an actor and a director. While readying the play Almost, Maine…
At this point, the Everette DeVan Jam Session has established itself as a local tradition. Each Tuesday night, Everette DeVan’s trio opens with some jazz standards, maybe even a little blues. Between DeVan’s organ solos and Matt Hopper’s illuminating guitar riffs, the audience sways with joy, helped along by Danny Rojas’ driving percussion. Then there’s the young, up-and-coming vocal talents…
With his spectacles, western shirts and Indiana Jones fedora, Webb Wilder does not immediately come across as a musical force. Don’t be fooled: The guitar-slinging troubadour is a legacy act, with a reputation for infusing old-school rock with just a spoonful of country. Wilder has enjoyed a steady career since he and his band, the Beatnecks, formed back in 1985,…
Mikee Pruitt has spent the past three years in North Bend, Nebraska, building a farm from the ground up with a friend, and he looks the part: blue flannel shirt, tan corduroy overalls, dark-brown corduroy blazer. He wears an Abe Lincoln beard and a haircut that could be the product of jagged kitchen scissors. His brown eyes crinkle at the…
The ACBs, the Hips, Shy Boys Local indie darlings the ACBs have a true talent for heartbreaking pop songs. Lead singer Konnor Ervin’s delicate, childlike voice casts long, lonely shadows on songs with titles such as “Under Weight” and “Xanies.” Those songs figure on the band’s Little Leaves, from earlier this year, a disc that plays with contrasts: Summery, shimmering…
In 2009, Davy Rothbart read a New York Times article about the Medora Hornets, a small-town high school basketball team in Indiana that had gone 0-22 the previous year. The players came from families living near the poverty line; some were said to play in work boots because their parents couldn’t afford to buy them basketball shoes. Rothbart is the…
Every Wednesday, the farmyard is delivered to Local Pig — two cows, 10 pigs, two lambs, 120 chickens, and a smattering of ducks and rabbits. This week’s cows, which weigh about 1,500–1,800 pounds when slaughtered, are delivered in six pieces from Jeff Jones’ ranch in Seneca, Kansas. On a Friday in early November, general manager Adam Northcraft breaks down the…
“Look, I think there’s been a mistake.” “Did you say steak?” “No. Mistake.” “Oh. See, now you got me all excited.” — Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, 1999 There has been no mistake. You’re reading the Steak Issue because turkey is just an appetizer in Kansas City. So get excited. We put a panel of Kansas Citians through a gauntlet of…
A steak dinner represents success, earning power, prosperity. For a century, your ability to afford a juicy rib-eye at a good restaurant at your leisure has signaled your proximity to the American dream. And we notice when we have to eat something else. President Herbert Hoover is said to have promised Americans “a chicken in every pot” (a promise he…
%{}% If an art exhibition can be said to have curb appeal, a drive past the Todd Weiner Gallery right now yields the visual equivalent of a hot pickup line. Jim Sajovic’s new solo show, Hix Fragments & (pash’n), is hard to miss from the street. Explosive colors dazzle like fireworks through the gallery’s glimmering glass windows. And that effect…
Berry Anderson Chef Celina Tio relaxes – for a minute – inside the yet-unopened Belfry bar and restaurant. The original plan for chef-restaurateur Celina Tio’s the Belfry is still intact: the 34-seat space located in the same building as her five-month-old Collection restaurant (1532 Grand) is to serve grab-and-go or grab-and-stay dishes for breakfast and lunch and its own menu from…
The Besnard Lakes with Pioneer and the Phillistines Riot Room, Kansas City Tuesday, 26 November, 2013 Despite the biting November weather last night, the Besnard Lakes managed to give a show at the Riot Room that kept the eager audience lingering well into the early morning hours. The show commenced with a short set from Pioneer, followed by hometown rockers…
As far as holidays go, Thanksgiving usually reaches its fun capacity somewhere in between stuffing your face with, uh, stuffing and hiding from dreaded extended family members who have all these questions about your supposed “love life.” If you find yourself in need of a viable excuse to escape this week, we’ve got you covered with a short list of…
