Archives: January 2014
Free State Brewing Co. releasing a beer in honor of William S. Burroughs’ 100th birthday
William S. Burrough’s 100th birthday is next month, but Free State Brewing Co. is giving a gift to beer drinkers. The Lawrence brewery is scheduled to release Burroughser Weisse on Wednesday, February 5, to celebrate the writer of Naked Lunch’s birthday – and they’ll be pouring it in a commemorative glass with a design by local artist Jessica Rold. Burroughser Weisse is…
Jadea Kelly’s ‘Lone Wolf’ is your Folk Alliance International Song of the Day
The International Folk Alliance Conference & Winter Music Camp comes to KC February 19-23. To get you geared up for the folk blowout, every day we’re posting a song we like by one of the event’s showcase artists. It’s kind of impossible not to fall in love with Toronto’s Jadea Kelly. The singer-songwriter was first recognized for her haunting vocals…
Sporting Kansas City updates Crossroads mural, celebrates championship victory
Sporting Kansas City is getting its money’s worth with its Crossroads mural. Once a Major League Soccer All-Star Game advertisement (and I believe there was a playoff version), the latest incarnation celebrates Sporting’s MLS Cup Championship – an honor worth highlighting on downtown’s skyline. We ran across 17th Street and Main today to snap a photo of the updated painting. March…
Gangstagrass mastermind Rench on what bluegrass and hip-hop have in common
As part of our International Folk Alliance Conference preview series, we’re rounding up a bunch of notable acts that are coming to town and chatting about what’s happening in their world. The International Folk Alliance Conference takes place from February 19-23. Details here. Formed in 2006 by Brooklyn producer Rench, Gangstagrass is uncommon in that it mixes what seems like…
Rob Riggle, Paul Rudd and Jason Sudeikis’ Big Slick Poker Tournament and Party scheduled for June 20 and 21
The Big Slick Poker Tournament and Party returns to Kansas City June 20 and 21. The date was announced Sunday on the charity event’s Facebook page, and Rob Riggle has since posted a “save the date” video so you don’t “fuhgeddaboudit.” Riggle, Paul Rudd and Jason Sudeikis started the annual poker tourney, which raises money for Children’s Mercy Hospital Cancer Center, in…
KC Rep cuts to the heart of Romeo and Juliet
We all know the story. Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy and girl commit ritual suicide. Romeo and Juliet is Shakespeare’s most-performed cautionary tale, a spectacle of adolescent angst that no new generation can resist modernizing (as in Baz Luhrmann’s slick 1996 love letter to handguns and Hawaiian shirts). So kudos to director Eric Rosen for staging the Kansas…
The Unicorn’s Grounded doesn’t quite have it all
Pilot projects a rock star’s hubris and feels herself “a god” when she flies fast and high on military missions. Boom! she exclaims in Grounded, a one-woman show at the Unicorn Theatre. The floor of this production’s round stage spins, and Pilot appears to wind up and take off. This is me! This is me! she repeats, the words foreshadowing…
Jazz Beat: Megan Birdsall, at the Broadway Jazz Club
Megan Birdsall, a singer who swings standards with a matchless sensibility and a wonderful voice, has assembled a diverse and gifted cast of characters to join her Friday night at the Broadway Jazz Club. Guitarist Rod Fleeman’s Kansas City gigs range from the Kansas City Jazz Orchestra to blues jams at the Phoenix. Bassist Ben Leifer is one of the…
The Black Angels’ Alex Maas talks psych-rock and learning from Roky Erickson
Opening for Roky Erickson is Austin psych-rock ringleader the Black Angels. This is the second time the Black Angels have supported Erickson on tour, the first being in 2008. A conversation with Erickson is a screwball spiral of answers, so Angels’ lead signer, Alex Maas, helped shed some light. We called him at his Austin home. The Pitch: On your…
Roky Erickson gives us a semi-lucid phone conversation
Over the decades, Roky Erickson has played in several bands, most notably the 13th Floor Elevators, widely viewed as a prime genetic force in American psychedelic and garage-rock music. When talking to Erickson, it’s easy to forget his legend. The 66-year-old’s answers are as sincere as they are oblique. He has a tendency to ignore questions and answer with whatever…
Tim Ellis’ debut as Outsides is a summertime escape
Tim Ellis was trapped two years ago. He had a record deal with Warner Bros. but found himself lost in the shuffle as the major label acquired and merged its properties. Warner Bros. bounced Ellis from label to label and forbade him from playing live shows to test new material that he’d been writing. Last April, Warner Bros. finally dropped…
Music Forecast 1.30–2.5: Jason Eady, MewithoutYou, Judah & the Lion, and more
Latenight Callers, Kentucky Knife Fight If you’ve never seen the Latenight Callers, you should know that the local quartet has sexy on speed dial. Lead singer Julie Berndsen is a vampy force with a voice to match her pinup-girl look. On the band’s debut full-length, Songs for Stolen Moments, Berndsen slinks and slithers through gothic synths and drumbeats like a…
Looking for answers to Kansas City’s nagging questions rattling around our brains
One of the joys — and frustrations — of living in a major American city is that we never know everything about it. Knowledge holes linger no matter how many times we drive the streets or use the civic furniture. We’re going to try to fill in those gaps. In 2012, we answered several questions in our introductory “Answering Machine.”…
Cucina della Ragazza squeezes a lot of flavor into a tiny Westport storefront
Some private homes in the metro have dining rooms bigger than the one inside the five-table Cucina della Ragazza. But not many restaurants feel more like a person’s home than this new Italian deli and café in Westport. You could say this month-old venue — the name roughly translates as “kitchen of the young girl” — is the dining room,…
Missouri executed Herbert Smulls at 10:20 p.m. Wednesday
%{}% Kansas City attorney Lindsay Runnels last spoke with her client Herbert Smulls at 9:30 p.m. Wednesday. They talked for 10 minutes, Runnels from her downtown Kansas City law office and Smulls in a prison in Bonne Terre, Missouri. At 9:40 p.m., a prison guard arrived to get Smulls and cut off the phone call over the inmate’s protestations. Runnels…
Judge removes Missouri attorney general from any further prosecution of Mark Woodworth
A Platte County judge on Wednesday said he could find no reason why lawyers with the Missouri Attorney General’s Office should continue prosecuting Mark Woodworth. Owens Lee Hull appointed Livingston County Prosecutor Adam Warren to carry on in place of the attorney general as Woodworth approaches his third trial for the 1990 shooting death of Cathy Robertson in Chillicothe, Missouri….
Need an occasion to eat a pastry? Here are five
You’re already teetering on the brink of giving up resolutions, which seemed so solid just weeks ago, when you walk into the bakery. But really, what’s the point of subjecting yourself to zumba, sugar-free lattes and kale smoothies if you don’t let loose once in a while? In fact, the end of January is a good time to risk a…
Ariana Restaurant is a little bit country, a little bit Afghan
Ariana, the restaurant that replaced the old Waid’s at 1130 West 103rd Street in Watts Mill Plaza, started serving a $10.99 all-you-can-eat dinner buffet this week that included several Afghan dishes (chicken korma, kabuli with beef) and that longtime staple of Kansas City cafes: deep-fried chicken. Our server explained that the new restaurant didn’t want to lose the patrons who…
Boulevard’s Rye-on-Rye on tap now at Tannin Wine Bar
If you haven’t sampled Boulevard’s Rye-on-Rye yet, here’s your chance. Tannin Wine Bar and Kitchen (1526 Walnut) tapped a keg of it Monday afternoon (via Twitter). We confirmed that Rye-on-Rye is still flowing at the Crossroads wine bar as of this morning. No word on how many kegs they have or how long it’ll last. Boulevard released the limited-edition Smokestack…
The Howlin’ Brothers’ ‘Big Time’ is your Folk Alliance International Song of the Day
The International Folk Alliance Conference & Winter Music Camp comes to KC February 19-23. To get you geared up for the folk blowout, every day we’re posting a song we like by one of the event’s showcase artists. Nasvhille’s the Howlin’ Brothers are Ben Plasse, Ian Craft and Jared Green. They are not technically blood relatives, but on the band’s…
CM Punk reportedly off WWE shows, including Sunday’s Sprint Center card
Bad news for Kansas City fans of WWE star CM Punk. The Straight Edge Superstar is off all WWE shows going forward, according the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. All shows would include Sunday afternoon’s card at the Sprint Center. Punk has been advertised on the Kansas City show in a three-on-one handicap match against the Shield (Roman Reigns, Dean Ambrose and Seth…
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