Archives: January 2014

Krista Meeks, Riverside teen, tagged with manslaughter for selling LSD analogue that killed 15 year old

Platte County prosecutors charged 17-year-old Krista Meeks, who is suspected of selling a synthetic knockoff of acid, with manslaughter for providing the drug to another teenager who died after taking it. Meeks was arrested last October and charged with a felony count of selling imitation drugs, but on Wednesday she faced much steeper legal problems now that Platte County Prosecutor…

Ras Kass is at Czar tonight

It seems like there are two camps when it comes to rapper Ras Kass: Either you’ve been a devoted fan since you first got a hold of his acclaimed 1996 debut Soul on Ice or you’ve never heard of the Los Angeles MC and don’t really get what the big deal is. If you’re in the former party, then you have…

Fire Retarded’s Bobby Hussy on his record label, the band’s new album and tour

Musician Bobby Hussy is best known for his work as guitarist and singer for Madison, Wisconsin, garage-rock duo the Hussy. He’s also the man behind Kind Turkey Records, which has released material from the Pharmacy and TV Ghost. Currently, however, he’s playing guitar and touring with Madison’s Fire Retarded, which has its debut full-length, Scroggz Manor, due out on Big…

Eric Miller, co-creator of the Gossup app, answers The Pitch‘s questionnaire

Name: Eric Miller Occupation: Social-media strategist at Barkley, co-creator of the app Gossup Twitter handle: @schmeric Hometown: Iowa City, Iowa; Olathe Current neighborhood: The West Side What I do (in 140 characters): I tell clients what they should and should not do with social media, I help create apps and I like to party. What’s your addiction? Vinyl. Don’t underestimate…

Rosso

Pitch food critic Charles Ferruzza reviewed Rosso in the Hotel Sorella on the Plaza’s western edge (read his review here). See photos via photographer Angela C. Bond.

2014 Kansas City Royals Tickets: Five Most Expensive Home Series

We know it’s early, but with just over a month to go until pitchers and catchers report to spring training, we wanted to take an early look at Kansas City Royals tickets for the 2014 MLB season. The Kansas City Royals came close to playoff contention last season and will enter 2014 looking to improve upon what was their best…

George Saunders is in town for a reading/talk this evening

George Saunders will be at Unity Temple on the Plaza tonight. The writer George Saunders is more or less universally beloved by the literary establishment and pretty much every aspiring literary writer in America. Saunders’ brilliant, tender, beautiful short stories – in CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, Pastoralia and, most recently, Tenth of December – have earned him, in 2006, a MacArthur…

Chicago and REO Speedwagon are coming to Starlight Theatre in August

For the first time, legendary rock bands Chicago and REO Speedwagon are joining forces for a co-headlining tour this summer. The 15-date run spans the month of August, and Kansas City will have the opportunity to see the heroes who have inspired so much air guitar, at Starlight Theatre on Thursday, August 7. Apparently, this tour is more of a…

Get Valentine’s Day Lady Antebellum Tickets for Under Face Value

Lady Antebellum, Kip Moore and Kacey Musgraves will be making a run in the Kansas City area in the middle of February with a show February 14 at the INTRUST Bank Arena in Wichita and another show the next night at the Sprint Center in Kansas City. Lady Antebellum tickets start at $56 for the 14th and $61 for the…

The Serious Artist Tour, with comedians Joe McAdam, Nick Rouley and the Puterbaugh sisters, is at RecordBar tomorrow

Joe McAdam. Joe McAdam left KC several years ago for Chicago, where he did the comedy thing – stand-up gigs and eventually playing the Ed McMahon sidekick role on The Late Live Show, a live, Letterman-style talk show that drew positive notice from comedy tastemakers like Splitsider and the AV Club. This week, McAdam is doing a four-city trip in…

Chef Phillip Martin wants a creperie on wheels

A show of hands, please. Is there anyone in Kansas City who does not want to operate his or her own food truck? (Well, me.) Phillip Martin, the 39-year-old executive chef at the Primrose Retirement Community in the Northland, would like his own food truck – to serve crepes – and even has a catchy name for it: Crepe Diem….

Sporting Kansas City and its owners among the biggest Sam Brownback campaign donors

Sporting Kansas City, its owners and related entities pumped thousands of dollars into Sam Brownback’s re-election campaign, records show. Neal Patterson and Cliff Illig, co-founders of Cerner Corp. and co-owners of Kansas City’s Major League Soccer team, each donated $2,000 to Brownback. Their wives also donated $2,000 apiece.  Robb Heineman, CEO of Sporting Kansas City, chipped in $1,000. The team…

Beena Brandsgard is back and jazzing up Leawood’s Carma

Last month, the three-year-old branch of the long-running Brookside restaurant, Carmen’s Cafe, received a new name – Carma. It was just the latest change for the Park Place restaurant, at 11526 Ash, which had a change in operators in late November when brothers Juan and Francisco Bautista, owners of the Brookside venue, stepped away from an ownership interest. The restaurant’s…

Swagger Fine Spirits & Food closing on January 19

Next Sunday will be the last call for the five-year-old Swagger Fine Spirits & Food at 8431 Wornall, according to the employees working in the popular south Kansas City saloon. The bar and grill was opened by brothers Derek Boone and Dustin Craighead in 2008, although it has been operated, primarily, by Boone. Bartender Jerry LaForce tells The Pitch that Swagger…

Kansas Supreme Court reverses convictions, life sentences of ex-Kansas police chief Mike Akins Jr.

Citing prosecutorial misconduct, the Kansas Supreme Court has reversed 15 convictions and two consecutive life sentences of ex-Inman, Kansas, police chief Mike Akins Jr. In 2009, Akins was accused of molesting, inappropriately touching and soliciting his stepchildren. Akins was convicted and sentenced in February 2011. The court remanded the case for a new trial. Read the court’s opinion here. Akins’ attorney, Dan…

Attorneys for death-row prisoners say Missouri obtains lethal-injection drugs illegally

A new chapter in Missouri’s long and troubled capital-punishment history is being written early this year with accusations that state officials have illegally obtained the drugs needed to put prisoners to death. Missouri scheduled 51-year-old Herbert Smulls for execution on January 29. He was convicted of the 1991 shooting death of a jewelry-store owner in St. Louis County. The state…

The family-values crowd is suing Gov. Jay Nixon over his executive order allowing married gay couples to file tax returns in Missouri

The fight against the inevitable rages on. Back in November, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon announced that, by his executive order, the State of Missouri would begin accepting tax returns filed by gay couples who have married in other states. It’s a strong step for the state, though nothing earth-shattering, given that the majority of Americans support gay marriage and 17…

The Zero Boys are at the Riot Room this Sunday

The Zero Boys are kind of like the ultimate Midwestern punk heroes. The hardcore foursome from Indianapolis – an unlikely birthplace for a punk legend – released its debut, Vicious Circle, in 1982. Though the band never quite achieved the same glorious heights as some contemporaries – the Dead Kennedys and Black Flag – it has remained widely acknowledged as…