If Tech N9ne is hip-hop’s underground king, what do you call Rich the Factor? Dude is so underground, he might not even exist. He’s like the rapping ghost of Kansas City. Anyway, the ghost debuted a new track yesterday called “Me & You” off his upcoming release Scrill or Be Scrilled 3. The track features BoyBig and is available for free…
As of this week, Nirvana is on its way to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — and its Washington peer Bikini Kill should be there, too. Not that Kathleen Hanna and her bandmates in the landmark Riot Grrrl act have much use for that particular institution, but their contribution to the culture is incalculable. Director Sini Anderson’s documentary…
It wouldn’t have been possible for Adam McKay and Will Ferrell’s sequel to Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, their 2004 hit, to match the out-of-left-field inventiveness of that original. Before it entered the pop lexicon, Anchorman, one of Ferrell and McKay’s earliest odes to the cultural detritus of expired American machismo, seemed to will into existence an entire style…
David O. Russell says American Hustle — his swift, overstuffed valentine to 1980s Martin Scorsese by way of 1970s Vidal Sassoon — completes a rapid-fire trilogy about American dreamers. That’s one way to look at it. From The Fighter (2010) through Silver Linings Playbook (2012) to this latest picture, you can indeed draw a thematic line or two through the…
The first time I saw Inside Llewyn Davis, I told people who asked me about it that the movie wasn’t very good. Following two masterworks of adaptation (No Country for Old Men and True Grit) and a satisfyingly prickly original (A Serious Man, wedged between Cormac McCarthy and Charles Portis), writer-directors Joel and Ethan Coen had taken things too easy…
Hearing live jazz in Kansas City from the mid- to the late 1980s often meant catching Ida McBeth’s group. In the first couple of numbers before McBeth took the stage, the ensemble’s young guitarist, Steve Cardenas, stood out with solos as likely to evoke the lyricism of Pat Metheny as the punch of McBeth’s R&B. Cardenas has since moved to…
If you haven’t already heard of Riff Raff, Google him. You’ll find interviews, videos and articles highlighting an eccentric, Houston-raised rapper ready to achieve fame and earn his fortune. On the fame front, he has the Internet version locked up. Riff Raff’s personal YouTube channel is a holy grail for absurdists. In his home-recorded video for “Versace Python,” a shirtless…
“Is it wrong, wanting to be at home with your record collection?” asks Rob Fleming in Nick Hornby’s classic novel High Fidelity. “There’s a whole world in here, a nicer, dirtier, more violent, more peaceful, more colorful, sleazier, more dangerous, more loving world than the world I live in; there is history, and geography, and poetry, and countless other things…
Brothers Alex and Austin Ward have walked a long and winding road as founding members of indie-rock band the Noise FM. First from Fort Scott, Kansas, then Lawrence, and now calling Chicago home, guitarist and lead singer Alex and drummer Austin have dealt with several lineup changes and false starts since they formed the band in 2005. When they moved…
I read a lot of books. I set out to finish 150 before December 31 this year — a personal record — and I’m close. But I can never keep up with the impossible number of books published each year. I’m always seeking a balance between all that new stuff and an ever-growing stack of old books awaiting my attention….
Muscle Worship If you’re looking for a relaxing weeknight show, you should steer clear of the Replay on Thursday. Lawrence rock quintet Muscle Worship is about the furthest thing from chilled out, and these guys wouldn’t have it any other way. The group makes wild, reckless-sounding music and puts on live shows known for their formidable volume. But it’s not…
I have a long list of things I have tasted and would prefer not to try again. Plenty of these items are misfires from otherwise reliable kitchens. So it is with the most recent addition to my no-fly list, the “white BBQ sauce” served with the pulled-pork spring rolls at Lawrence’s excellent new Merchants Pub & Plate. The spring rolls,…
For a moment recently, you could see Jun Kaneko’s art in three places: a stage, a gallery and a park. All were within walking distance of one another — a convenience, given that the moment was fleeting: Kaneko’s contribution to the recently produced version of The Magic Flute is already out of sight. But a solo exhibition has been extended…
Why is America an unusually violent country? Probably not because guns are everywhere. The attacks of September 11, 2001, set in course a lot of change in America: the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the passing of the Patriot Act, the waging of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It has been a year and about a week since…
Yesterday, local record label Money Wolf Music – artists include the Hillary Watts Riot, the Silver Maggies and more – announced the launch of a brand-new songwriting contest for high-schoolers, supported by a grant from Bread! KC and the Folk Alliance International. In the press release, Money Wolf Music co-founder Christian Hankel says the goal of the contest is to…
The Kansas City Chiefs clinched a playoff berth in Sunday’s 56-31 victory over the Oakland Raiders. And they did so on the back of Jamaal Charles. The Chiefs running back didn’t just carry Kansas City into the playoffs. He likely smashed your fantasy-football opposition and led his owners to the fantasy-football championship game. Congrats if you had Charles. And if you…
David McElwee died after taking a product labeled “male sexual stimulant,” which he had bought from Erotic City. Now McElwee’s family is suing the adult bookstore and the pills’ manufacturers, the Nevada-based NovaCare LLC and Impulsaria LLC. A lawsuit filed in Jackson County Circuit Court against Erotic City’s parent company, Enlightened Reading Inc., and the above-named companies alleges that 37-year-old…
Name: Courtney Lewis Occupation: Media relations for the Kansas City Public Library Hometown: Thomaston, Connecticut Current neighborhood: Valentine What I do (in 140 characters): I have an awesome job: I get to promote the fantastic Kansas City Public Library. It’s the coolest thing to get paid to tell everyone about all of the amazing programs going on here. What’s your addiction?…
Merchants Pub & Plate is an upgrade of Teller’s. Pitch food critic Charles Ferruzza reviews the rebooted Lawrence restaurant. See photos courtesy of Angela C. Bond.
Go ahead and call me a grump. But I think listening to a recording of “All I Want for Christmas Are My Two Front Teeth” four times during a one-hour meal is more than any one individual should ever have to endure. Luckily, the food at Pho Good, the 18-month-old Vietnamese restaurant at 10703 Shawnee Mission Parkway, is so delicious…
Paula Gettles makes a kick-ass ham and navy bean soup. It was one of the featured items last week at her three-week-old restaurant, In the Garden, tucked into a corner of a former Hy-Vee supermarket at 6495 Quivira Road, in Shawnee. The supermarket was transformed into a suburban vintage venue, Nellie-Nico’s Antique Mall, three years ago by Janelle Coons, a…
Hope Stetson Dillon says she was hired only to get the kitchen up and running at the 13-month-old Vivalore, a combination restaurant, antique shop and event space in the historic Englewood neighborhood of Independence. The restaurant is owned by brother-and-sister entrepreneurs Whit Ross and Cindy Foster; Foster says that after a meeting with Vivalore’s new manager, Dillon gave her notice….
