Archives: January 2014
Previewing Oklahoma State vs Kansas Tickets
It all started with some words about Andrew Wiggins from Marcus Smart during Big 12 Media Day and suddenly the showdown between Oklahoma State and Kansas on January 18 became one of the most anticipated Big 12 basketball games in recent memory. Back in October Smart, the Oklahoma State star, claimed Wiggins, a freshman at Kansas, had yet to prove…
Previewing Kansas State vs Kansas Tickets
There’s nothing better in college sports than rivalries and some of the best college rivalries come between two schools in the same state. The Sunflower Showdown between the University of Kansas and Kansas State University is one of the biggest in-state rivalries in the NCAA. The results in the basketball games have been a little one sided, Kansas holds a…
Upcoming Kansas City Area Concert Schedule
The Kansas City area will have some big draws for concerts for the first half of 2014. Some of the biggest names in music will be playing the best and biggest venues in the area. Everyone could be sure to find a concert of their liking, regardless of their taste in music, as artists from multiple genres will be passing…
Coachella lineup announced: OutKast, Muse, Arcade Fire, the Replacements, Lorde and more
Ah, Coachella. It’s the music festival that rarely disappoints when it comes to its lineup, and this year has some particularly special treats. OutKast is reuniting, for starters, and is the Friday-night headliner, while Muse will top the bill on Saturday and Arcade Fire on Sunday. The Replacements are also on the bill, which is especially noteworthy because, well, it’s…
The chicken or the egg? Which would you rather eat?
The age-old question, “What came first, the chicken or the egg?” has been discussed, probably, for as long as the feathered fowl have scratched the earth. A more provocative question to pose to Kansas City diners might be this: Which do you prefer eating? The chicken or the egg? The answers, hopefully many, can be heard tomorrow at 10 a.m….
Joe’s Downtown Donuts & Coffee: where the customers like big pastries
There’s no scale behind the counter at the four-day-old Joe’s Downtown Donuts & Coffee, which was disappointing to me, anyway: The glazed apple fritters in the glass display case look as if they weigh at least a pound each. Even I draw the line at eating a pound of pastry at one sitting. But manager Matt Flanagan says that he…
Mime Game with the Travel Guide, Psychic Heat and more at Recordbar this Friday
For a relatively young band, Mime Game has quite the history. Frontman Dillon DeVoe (what a name) rose to almost-fame in the mid-’00s as the lead singer for Kansas alt-rock outfit Josephine Collective, which was signed to (and later dropped from) Warner Bros. Records. When that band split, DeVoe took up with Mime Game and relocated to Kansas City. This…
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St. Louis’ Ultraman plays a rare show this Sunday at the Riot Room
Despite hailing from just the other end of Interstate 70, it has been a few years since St. Louis hardcore act Ultraman has played Kansas City. The band has been around since 1986, broke up in 1991, and re-formed officially in 1999. Since then, they’ve played two or three shows a year. One of Ultraman’s first performances this year is…
The sweet life with Sasha bakery’s Carter Holton
Carter Holton didn’t grow up going to bakeries. The 26-year-old pastry chef had a mother who baked his birthday cakes and a grandmother who taught him how to bake a pie. But Holton, like most of his fellow millennials, thought of a bakery as just another department at the supermarket, like produce or meat. The traditional small-business bakery isn’t extinct,…
August: Osage County
“Why don’t you go fuck a fuckin’ sow’s ass!” And so Meryl Streep’s matriarch introduces herself in August: Osage County. Drugged out, suffering from mouth cancer and oozing insolence, Streep’s Violet Weston fires this redneck salvo at her long-suffering husband (Sam Shepard). The older and less self-conscious she gets, the more fun Streep appears to have with her performances. And…
In Spike Jonze’s forward-gazing Her, AI evolves toward heartache
With each successive film — including the Jackass movies he has produced — writer-director Spike Jonze excavates more of humanity’s emotional hidey-holes. His aptitude for the rough edges of character isn’t something you necessarily expect from someone so gifted at using the physical space of the frame (and so adept at freaking out the frame’s occupants). His new movie, Her,…
Jazz Beat: Deborah Brown, at the Blue Room
Kansas City jazz singer Deborah Brown happens to be an international star, better known in Europe — where she spent 12 years — than in her hometown. She has appeared with orchestras in Russia, Denmark and Sweden, and she has performed with an enviable list of jazz greats, including Clark Terry and Johnny Griffin. To hear Deborah Brown — when…
Andrea Gibson’s Truce never surrenders
Andrea Gibson lays out certain truths that often go unsaid. She talks gender, sexuality and class. On Truce, the spoken-word album that she put out last October, the 37-year-old poet and activist swings in like an unexpected garden-party guest who points out a bouquet of dead flowers. More than on her previous five releases, she pushes past surface-level politics to…
As they move from weird to “Normal,” the Bad Ideas make good plans
On a chilly Thursday evening, near the corner of Lloyd and 43rd Street, a few tentative guitar chords break the cold silence, the only sounds except for the occasional car crunching down a snow-packed road. Yellow light warms a few plastic-covered windows of the nondescript white house, from which that guitar screech emanates. The Bad Ideas are holding band practice…
Music Forecast 1.9-1.15: David Garrett, the Zero Boys, Ras Kass, Scott Hrabko, and more
Mime Game For a relatively young band, Mime Game has quite the history. Frontman Dillon DeVoe (what a name) rose to almost-fame in the mid-’00s as the lead singer for Kansas alt-rock outfit Josephine Collective, which was signed to (and later dropped from) Warner Bros. Records. When that band split, DeVoe took up with Mime Game and relocated to Kansas…
Mark Woodworth’s two murder convictions were overturned, but Missouri wants to try him a third time
Mark Woodworth grew up in the fields just outside Chillicothe. By the time he could walk, neighbors found the boy wandering between the cornstalks, chasing his father with the family dog in tow. Woodworth, now 39, still pulls long hours harvesting these acres. His hair and goatee are salted with gray, his eyes heavy and tired. He has the same…
Taco Republic brings street-food chic closer to Main Street USA
Tacos are solid investments for a restaurant owner: cheap to make and popular with all ages. That means there’s a wide taco spectrum, one that runs from increasingly ambitious fast-food chains (Taco Bell, Taco Bueno) to more authentic and fashionable destinations. Well within that part of the range is the three-month-old Taco Republic, the latest culinary brainchild of Alan Gaylin’s…
Going hammer and tongs inside George Rousis’ blacksmithing studio
Outside a weathered house on Woodland Avenue, the clang of metal striking metal reverberates up and down your spine as you approach the front door. You wonder if the man inside will hear you knock. You look at the intricately sculpted iron handle, and the sounds make sense. Beyond the door is the studio of George Rousis, metalsmith. The space…
Paul Davis, the Kansas Democrat who wants to replace Sam Brownback, raised $1 million in 2013
Longtime Lawrence politician Paul Davis closed out 2013 with barely more than $1 million going to his campaign coffers in his bid to make Sam Brownback a one-term Kansas governor. Brownback has yet to file his 2013 report, although it’s certain that he has raised more money than his challenger. A Brownback spokesman told The Topeka Capital-Journal that Brownback expects to…
Calling all beer geeks: Master Brewers Association wants to get you certified
Continuing what seems to be a Kansas City dedication to beer enthusiasm, the Master Brewers Association of the Americas (which happens to be one of the oldest beer-industry associations in North America) is offering a Beer Steward Certification Program. The first session is taking place on Monday, January 13, at the Kansas City Bier Co. Monday’s all-day seminar covers a range…
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