You can reel in the years (or something) this summer when 1970s rock legend Steely Dan rolls through town on its new tour, Jamalot Ever After. Walter Becker and Donald Fagen have reunited once again and will be touring with an eight-piece backing band (including two saxophonists, a trombone player and a trumpeter). Steely Dan is at Starlight Theatre on…
The last time The Pitch wrote about Frazier Glenn Miller, it was days ahead of the 2010 general election in which Miller was a write-in candidate for the U.S. Senate. Miller, the fringiest of fringe candidates, had created something of a firestorm back then when broadcasters balked at airing his virulently racist campaign advertisements despite laws that generally require television and radio stations to…
John Cale is perhaps best known as one of the founding members of the Velvet Underground, but at this point in his career, that’s really a footnote. His work as producer of such seminal albums as Patti Smith’s Horses, Nick Drake’s Bryter Later, and the Stooges’ self-titled debut demonstrate his sonic abilities, while Cale’s solo work continues to go on…
Over five years after retired Kansas City firefighter Bill Crow opened a small, unassuming diner at 8950 Wornall, he’s closed it down. Back in 2008, Crow called the restaurant the Cook Shack Cafe and brought in several family members to help him run the place. The Cook Shack Cafe – which served breakfast and lunch only – closed for good…
I was one of those people who stood in the long, long line that snaked around the block to get into the Guild, at 16th Street and Locust, last night for the first annual Pitch Bacon & Bourbon Festival. No one seemed to mind the wait to enter the event space because it was unquestionably a fabulously festive affair. I…
The Pitch held its first Bacon & Bourbon Festival on Thursday, April 10, at the Guild. See photos of the drinky porkathon by Pitch photographer Angela C. Bond.
Kansas City gets a taste of Chicago tonight when a trio called Bailiff, which specializes in blues-tinged dark rock, takes over the Czar. Bailiff’s 2011 debut album, Red Balloon, was a sweltering, muscled collection of songs that stomps and sizzles and spits with power and energy, a la the Black Keys’ early efforts. It was the kind of thing that should…
Real Estate with Your Friend Liberty Hall in Lawrence Thursday, April 10 A wonderful evening in beautiful downtown Lawrence was made even more lovely with the laid-back show at Liberty Hall. Let’s be honest: Shows of this ilk really showcase what a show palace Liberty is. A rock show there reverberates like mad, but lovely indie acts shine on its…
Taco Bell gave its breakfast menu a splashy nationwide launch March 27, with heavy focus on what the fast-food company called “the highly anticipated and revolutionary Waffle Taco.” I held out as long as I could, but eventually I was ordered to try one, along with the chain’s “all-in-one A.M. Crunchwrap.” More like all-in-one revulsion. I am not just being…
No one expects to find Paris along Westport Road, especially as it bends away from the night lights toward the state line. But for 12 years, Maija Diethelm-Floyd has made her address along this stretch an unlikely portal to the 7th arrondissement. Boozefish Wine Bar (1511 Westport Road), with its cozily narrow space and dark woodwork and moody lighting, is…
Lawmakers in Missouri and Kansas in recent years have tried to push various abortion restriction measures that seem to operate under the premise that women who seek to terminate their pregnancies are like impulse shoppers. Proposals like those that would require women to look at ultrasound photos of their unborn fetuses before an abortion have popped in and out of…
Pro wresting icon the Ultimate Warrior died Tuesday, and so did a big piece of my childhood. The Warrior (James Hellwig, the man who wore the face paint, tassels and spandex, had legally changed his name to “Warrior”) reportedly clutched his chest and collapsed while leaving a hotel in Arizona, less than 24 hours after making an appearance on WWE’s Monday Night Raw….
Lending a helping hand in KCK. Doris Betts, a 54-year-old personal-care attendant in Kansas City, Kansas, has been submitting bills to Medicaid since 2008 for her services. They’re for all the usual services that those in her line of work provide to clients: bathing, house cleaning, meal preparation, toileting, transferring and prompting patients to take medication. Betts had seven different…
It is, of course, Homer Simpson who has defined our culture’s love of bacon. His declaration that he could be a vegetarian only if bacon grew on trees pretty much sums up our endless hunger for the stuff. Bourbon doesn’t grow on trees, either, but the corn-based, fermented whiskey is both vegetarian-friendly and a fine complement to all things fried,…
The sprawling campus stretches almost a mile alongside Bannister Road, just east of Troost. A brick wall close to the street is decorative but not without function. What the barrier encircles has been a military-industrial nexus for generations, including a Department of Defense dump and a production facility for nuclear-weapons components. The stories from people who have worked at the…
Martini Corner is not a pair of words I’m ever eager to pronounce. Not because I have a problem with the bars and restaurants along the Union Hill block that goes by that name. I don’t. I just find the name too aspirational, too contrived, too inaccurate — Red Bull being more essential than sweet vermouth to these establishments’ bottom…
By 2020, Kansas City’s downtown may more resemble a neighborhood than a business center. “I’d say it already is,” says Kansas City, Missouri, City Councilman Ed Ford, whose district once included downtown. “We have more residents and probably less jobs than we did 10 years ago. I think we’ll see that trend continuing.” Not probably. Definitely. Downtown Kansas City lost…
Real Estate In the five or so years since its debut, Real Estate has done a bit of growing up — and it shows on Atlas, the latest album from the New Jersey natives. The effervescent pop and beach rock of Atlas at times sounds at odds with the band’s despondent lyrics. On multiple songs, frontman and father-to-be Martin Courtney…
Kelley Gant’s website used to read, “Unfortunately, Kelley is not yet a mainstay in the Kansas City jazz scene.” Fortunately, that has been updated. Mentored by Everette DeVan, Gant had co-hosted, with Dionne Jeroue, DeVan’s Tuesday-night jams at the Phoenix. Now Gant is breaking out with her own group, including expert bassist Bob Bowman and guitarist Rod Fleeman. Twenty years…
