Hop heads will want to be at Kansas City Bier Co. tonight. The German-style brewery at 310 West 79th Street is tapping its first keg of HopfenSack at 4 p.m. KC Bier Co. touts on Facebook that HopfenSack was “inspired by Boulevard Brewing Company’s legendary and elusive ‘Nutsack,’” and the brew will be a “very limited, very hoppy, and very special version of our German IPA HopfenDoof.”…
Missouri vs Nebraska; Tigers against Cornhuskers; the Battle for the Victory Bell. Whatever you want to call it, this series was one of the best in college football for over a century playing 104 times since their first meeting in 1892, which Nebraska won. Nebraska leads the all time series 65-36-3 and presently are in possession of the Victory Bell…
Cloud Nothings with Promartyr and The Ray-tones Riot Room, Kansas City April 29th 2014 The Ohio post-emo outfit Cloud Nothings returned to the Riot Room in Westport last night in support of its just-released third LP Here and Nowhere Else. Singer-songwriter Dylan Baldi’s trio began as a home recording project in the late ’00s, but has quickly blossomed into a…
Chelsea Handler’s brand of humor is probably not for everyone. I’m sure there are certain people who wouldn’t be entertained by, say, her explicitly detailed account of how she discovered masturbation (at a sleepover in the third grade, where all the girls called it “getting the feeling”), or the story of how she briefly attempted to foster a little person…
One look at English psych-rock band Temples and you’d assume the four-piece had spent an afternoon rolling around in a costume chest stuffed with garments from the late 1960s and ’70s: all mock turtlenecks, jeweled sweaters, faded denim, velvet shirts and fringed sleeves. Lead singer James Bagshaw’s hair is a mesmerizing mass of curls, and he usually appears onstage with…
What’s your occupation? Smithers: Freelance writer Rensing: I guess I also work at Hallmark in my free time. Where’s your hometown? Smithers and Rensing: Independence What’s your current neighborhood? Smithers: Lower Hyde Park Rensing: South Plaza Explain what you do (in 140 characters). Smithers and Rensing: Organize a 12-hour, citywide party each spring that celebrates survivors, remembers those we’ve lost…
This Sunday, May 4, Love Garden Sounds – one of the area’s best-loved record stores, open since 1990 – celebrates a (somewhat belated) 24th birthday with an exciting lineup of out-of-town bands and local favorites: Woods, Quilts, Blood on the Wall, Your Friend, Oils, Psychic Heat, Gnarly Davidson and CS Luxem. It’s a pretty big celebration, taking place at the…
Champagne is a dangerous liquid for me. Too often, I’ve forgotten that it does, in fact, contain alcohol. So it was with some minor trepidation that I slinked into the new champagne bar Ça Va at 5 p.m. on a Tuesday, reminding myself that restraint was essential for the evening’s task. Justin Norcross – who, along with the Rieger’s Howard…
Protocol dictates that you get about a year to send a wedding gift before the couple can write you off – unless you’re Jeff Goldblum. The actor offers yet another lightly variegated brand of himself in Le Week-End, arriving in time to deliver a fine late present to an English couple in Paris to celebrate-slash-mourn their 30th wedding anniversary. The…
Alice Munro, the Canadian short-story master who last year won the Nobel Prize for literature, isn’t an easy fit for the movies. Much of what makes her writing exquisite is its deep interiority. Even when her taciturn characters exchange words – and they sometimes exchange impossible words – what you read could be a conversation you’ve never managed to have…
Search for Vivian Maier on Amazon and you’ll see a prominent disclaimer on the page offering the most readily available book of her photography. The publisher has left a number of the volume’s pages blank on purpose, cautions the mega-retailer. From the paper stock to the printing quality, complaints about the not-very-expensive book abound among the customer reviews. What do…
When Marc Webb, director of the quirky romantic comedy (500) Days of Summer, was given the reins to reboot Spider-Man so soon after Sam Raimi’s largely successful trilogy – two near masterpieces, one humdrum moneymaker – many were perplexed. Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man, released in 2012, didn’t exactly set the universe on fire, but it did have its strengths: a…
Burns & McDonnell CEO Greg Graves was the star of the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce’s 123rd Annual Dinner. On that night in 2010, Graves was introduced as the chamber’s chairman for 2011. The event, held inside the Hyatt Regency–Crown Center ballroom just before Thanksgiving, is the local business community’s Super Bowl. It’s a gathering of hundreds of businesspeople and…
Freedom has a melody, and it sounds like jazz. That’s one takeaway from Water by the Spoonful, the Unicorn Theatre’s latest production and Quiara Alegría Hudes’ 2012 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama. Spoonful is Hudes’ second play about the Puerto Rican-American Ortiz family, part of a trilogy that began with Elliot, a Soldier’s Fugue. (The final play, The Happiest Song Plays Last,…
Leslie Fraley nixed the runway and the young, svelte models for Finefolk’s first fashion show. For the intimate affair, held inside an art gallery — Haw Contemporary in the West Bottoms — she instead cast everyday women of all ages. Finefolk’s location is equally unexpected. The women’s clothing boutique sits several blocks west of the bustling Crossroads District, down an…
Five years ago, if you walked into Jardine’s late on a Saturday night, you might have found a packed room listening to Shay Estes and Trio ALL. Trio ALL is an acronym for drummer Zack Albetta, pianist Mark Lowrey and bassist Ben Leifer. Through their own arrangements of jazz standards and popular music, the four-piece ensemble brought an original tilt…
Temples One look at English psych-rock band Temples and you’d assume the four-piece had spent an afternoon rolling around in a costume chest stuffed with garments from the late 1960s and ’70s: all mock turtlenecks, jeweled sweaters, faded denim, velvet shirts and fringed sleeves. Lead singer James Bagshaw’s hair is a mesmerizing mass of curls, and he usually appears onstage…
Ask five Kansas City music lovers to name a favorite spot for live music, and you’ll get at least five answers, enough to fill your calendar for a week. And I did just that: Solicited the opinions of a handful of local music veterans about the venues they love — the more under-the-radar, the better. (And, of course, one of…
