Keith Urban is one of those huge international stars of “modern country.” Aside from his affected U.S. Southern accent (dude was raised in Australia) and his tight jeans, there’s very little that is actually country about Urban. The production and lyrical content of his songs are much closer to those of, say, Selena Gomez (who will be following Urban at…
Just over a year ago, I saw Tristen open for one of my personal music heroes, Justin Townes Earle, at the Varsity Theater in Minneapolis. I remember this petite little thing with an adorable bobbed cut, wearing cowboy boots, daisy dukes, and a white-leather fringe jacket. She sang songs of her 2011 debut album Charlatans at the Garden Gate with…
Kiki is cozy. Kansas is a pretty fucked-up state. But Missouri isn’t exactly a model of good government. One major problem in the Show-Me State is that it’s one of the few remaining in the nation where there are no caps on the amount of gifts or campaign contributions that politicians can accept from lobbyists. In addition to allowing rich…
I wasn’t sure I was in the right place. Black-clad attendants stood at the Muehlebach Funeral Home’s entryway, through which I saw a roomful of people. Was this a service after all, rather than the scheduled performance of Three Viewings? The man and the woman handing out programs and taking tickets really were a former funeral director and his wife…
A faded yellow light illuminates the keyboards of a piano at center stage as an old, scratchy recording of Fats Waller sounds. So begins Ain’t Misbehavin’: Waller’s voice, or his ghost, materializing before us. And before he and his notes have faded away, musical director Angie Benson has discreetly slipped onstage and onto the bench and, with her back to…
Interstring’s music has an intensity and an intricacy. The jazz masters have performed together for more than 15 years, and they’ve developed a tightly woven interplay. Rhythms have defined this music since guitarists Rod Fleeman and Danny Embrey, bassist Bob Bowman and drummer Todd Strait first came together to play some standards, some bop and some originals. Over time, these…
Following the EF5 tornado that leveled 25 percent of Joplin, Missouri, in May 2011, the Joplin indie-rock band Me Like Bees responded the best way its members knew how. Singer and guitarist Luke Sheafer, guitarist Pete Burton, drummer Tim Cote and bassist Nick Bynum together wrote the haunting but buoyant “Naked Trees.” Enduring tough times while searching for that elusive…
It’s hard to say what the Minneapolis MC Dessa is best-known for: her membership with indie hip-hop collective Doomtree, her own material or the poetry and essays she writes. But you can hear all her ambition on Parts of Speech, the deeply personal, tightly wound, ballad-intensive solo project that’s bringing her to Lawrence this week. The Pitch: How have people…
Spend an afternoon with Lee Langston and you find yourself charmed by his easy smile and his comforting openness. Somehow, you start telling him about your own hopes and dreams and heartbreaks, though you’ve come to talk about his work and his projects. Langston is intuitive like that. He asks questions. He wants to listen. He believes in the power…
The Gold Magnolias I’m as over this whole retro-revival thing as the next person, but I can’t get enough Gold Magnolias. This is an act that isn’t simply trying on genre hats to fit the zeitgeist. The Brooklyn five-piece (tenor-sax player Ryan Anselmi is a Kansas City native) is serious about the intersection of rhythm, blues and soul, and it…
Suicides are up in Kansas — way up. An October report from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment revealed that 505 Kansans killed themselves in 2012, a startling 31.5 percent jump from the 384 suicides committed in 2011. That sobering increase can be attributed, in part, to ripple effects from the recession. Suicide numbers tend to climb in economically…
There are moments when I really want my life to be a Bollywood movie. I want singing and dancing and spectacular costumes and Sushant Singh Rajput and Parineeti Chopra as my co-stars. I’m not exactly sure what I would be doing in this movie, but I know I’d get to wear sandals and an embroidered sherwani and sip a cold…
It has been five years since the start of the financial crisis. Are you doing any better? Not so much, answer the artists in We’ll Make Out Better Than Okay, a debut exhibition from the Charlotte Street Foundation’s new curator-in-residence, Danny Orendorff. Among the 15 or so American artists from whom Orendorff has selected works for this interactive show is…
Benny Feilhaber came to Sporting Kansas City this season after the hyped-up midfielder failed to live up to expectations last year with the New England Revolution. But Feilhaber would play an easy-to-miss yet critical part in sending his old mates on their way to golf tee times while Sporting Kansas City moves along in the Major League Soccer playoffs. Sporting…
A dessert that’s synonymous with St. Louis has infiltrated our side of the state. Gooey butter cake, which tastes just like it sounds, is on the menu at Waldo Pizza and Lattéland. Though many variations of the recipe exist, it’s generally composed of a yellow-cake base in a crackly crust, topped with a sticky and buttery layer and a dusting…
April Fleming Toro Y Moi Granada, Lawrence Tuesday, October 5 When a musical artist becomes very closely associated with a movement, even a flash-in-the-pan one, it can be hard to escape. Chazwick Bradley Bundick, the man behind Toro Y Moi, can’t quite seem to shed the “chillwave” label, despite that type of music being a few years behind him. I…
I know that basically the entire music-listening population of Kansas City has been eagerly anticipating the tour-date announcement from the Miley Cyrus camp, and this morning, we finally have the news: April 15, at the Sprint Center. Hallelujah. The 38-date tour kicks off on Valentine’s Day next year in Vancouver. The official press release reminds us that Bangerz debuted at…
Jessica McCoy made headlines again this week, three months after she earned the moniker “Royals Fountain Lady” by getting arrested for dancing in the outfield fountains at Kauffman Stadium. McCoy was on vacation in the City of Fountains in August when she showed up to a Kansas City Royals game, had a few too many drinks, and hopped a barrier…
Brooklyn five-piece the Gold Magnolias released their self-titled debut album back in 2011 without much fanfare or acclaim, but their throwback, soulful sound has managed to garner them a small and dedicated following. The boys – guitarist Hudson Mueller, keyboardist Evan Felts, bass player Daniel Foose, drummer Jeff Barton, and saxophonist Ryan Anselmi – are all originally from the South…
