Twitter Earnest with the prez. White House press secretary (and noted Guided by Voices superfan) Jay Carney resigned this afternoon, after three years in the position. Replacing him is Josh Earnest, who until today served as deputy press secretary. Earnest hails from south Kansas City. His mother and father (a psychologist and a director of Pembroke Hill’s athletic department, respectively)…
Unless you’re one of the bad ones, there is a special dignity in being a bar regular. There’s comfort and camaraderie, but also a degree of privacy – you’ve got your life in the bar, and your life outside it. Possibly we romanticize this dynamic because we are drunks. But who cares? It feels true. In any case, we’re always…
Whether the Chicago Afrobeat Project brings all 14 band members or just a few, it’ll be interesting to see them crowd the RecordBar’s stage. Even better will be hearing the lively mixture of Afro-Cuban, juju, funk and jazz elements crafted into songs to make you move and shake. Prepare yourself for a steamy night of spicy rhythms and international flavors….
Cher turned 68 on May 20. She hardly looks it, but what would you expect from the Goddess of Pop? She belongs to a higher caste of beings, and fans in Kansas City get to experience her flawlessness: those chiseled cheekbones and over-the-top costumes that have inspired the careers of countless drag queens. Bonus: 1980s pop idol Cyndi Lauper opens….
With other states holding off on carrying out executions and Missouri’s own method called into question, the pipeline of condemned prisoners headed off to the death chamber in Bonne Terre could continue with John Middleton. The Missouri Supreme Court on Friday ordered that Middleton’s execution take place on July 14. Middleton was convicted for his role in the 1995 slaying…
Final Friday with the Peter Schlamb Quartet is quickly establishing itself as a monthly jazz event at Take Five Coffee + Bar. Peter Schlamb’s vibraphone sparkles with crisp originality. Hermon Mehari has established a trumpet style of uncompromising strength and sensitivity, and is equally at home with the music of Duke Ellington, bebop or modern compositions. Bassist Karl McComas-Reichl sets…
St. Paul & the Broken Bones Paul Janeway is an average-looking guy with nerd glasses. But the frontman’s magnetism is revealed with the seven-piece soul outfit St. Paul & the Broken Bones. Janeway is a true talent who has spent a lot of time studying James Brown. It has paid off. The Bones’ debut album, Half the City, flaunts the…
Horror flicks have burdened doll images with some unwelcome cultural baggage, but even card-carrying members of the “creeped out” set won’t be able to keep from marveling at Julie Farstad’s Under the Orange Sky. The exhibition is the first booked into PLUG Projects’ new Solo Space, a gallery reserved for Kansas City–area artists, and it’s a showcase of the artist’s…
Mother’s Brewing Co. is bringing some special beers to Screenland Armour (408 Armour Road, 816-421-9700) Friday night for the premiere of A Million Ways to Die in the West. The Springfield, Missouri, brewery is taking over the North Kansas City theater’s taps and bringing along Black Cherry Sherry Thang and Askinosie Chocolate Imperial Three Blind Mice, in which we’re told the chocolate…
With the extreme secrecy enveloping Missouri’s death-penalty protocol coming under greater scrutiny, Attorney General Chris Koster has come up with an end-around to using private pharmacies to develop lethal-injection drugs. Koster told lawyers at the Lake of the Ozarks on Thursday that the Missouri Legislature should establish a state-run laboratory to produce its own lethal-injection chemicals. That, Koster says, would…
Demi Lovato is a busy girl. She’s hardly had time to breathe since wrapping her Neon Lights Tour, and now she’s gracing fans with a fresh round of dates this fall. The DEMI Tour stops at the Sprint Center on Tuesday, September 23. Here, you’ve probably heard this one. And if you’re not totally sick of dialing past it on…
HD – Demi Lovato – Neon Lights (Official) from ღ Demi Lovato ღ on Vimeo.
Joe Ely is a true Lone Star State cowboy. Since the Texas native’s 1977 debut album, he has strung together a career that has included collaboration with the Clash and performances with Bruce Springsteen and Lyle Lovett. Of those three, Ely is most like Lovett: a remarkable artist in the country tradition. His singular voice can make any song, no…
If tiny Smithville, Missouri (population 8,700 – more or less), is best-known for one restaurant, it’s the critically acclaimed Justus Drugstore, opened by Jonathan and Camille Eklof Justus in 2007. But a young couple from Nebraska – chef Brian Hove and his wife, Jacquie – are offering a new reason for traveling the 20-something miles from Kansas City to Smithville. Seven…
Power-pop five-piece the Naked and Famous found worldwide success in 2010 with the bombastic, mirror-shattering anthem “Young Blood.” Synths, hooks and epic pop abound again on the Auckland, New Zealand, band’s latest full-length, In Rolling Waves. The new material is meant to sound weighty and mature. But, really, it doesn’t matter what the band is singing about – probably youth, likely…
Twitter. Trent LeDoux will be sentenced for bank fraud. Alan LeDoux was a prominent figure in Republican politics for decades in Kansas. He served for six years as an aide to Sheila Frahm, the former Senate majority leader. He was also chief legislative liaison to Governors Mike Hayden and Bill Graves until 1995, when Graves set him up as director…
Kris Kobach is Kansas’ Secretary of State, although sometimes it feels like he serves as a top legislator or perhaps attorney general for other states. Arizona is one of these states, where Kobach has used his legal acumen to help lawmakers there devise legislation aimed at illegal immigrants. Arizona used Kobach’s help in drafting 2010’s Senate Bill 1070. The measure…
Earlier today, literary agent Helen Brann confirmed that internationally renowned poet, author and activist Maya Angelou had died at her home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She was 86 years old. Angelou received the National Medal of Arts from Bill Clinton in 2000 and the Presidential Medal of Honor from Barack Obama in 2011. These awards commemorated her literary and cultural contributions…
It’s not that hard to find the one-month-old Hobo’s Grill & Bar, even if I got lost twice trying to find it. The saloon is due east of the Isle of Capri Casino. Turn right on Kansas Avenue, look sharp for 1036 North Agnes (across the railroad tracks) and there it is, an unassuming little building surrounded by unassuming little…
I’m not exactly sure when it happened, but at some point in the mid-1990s, buffet brunches – the big, fancy affairs with ice sculptures, hand-carved roast beef, bowls of peel-and-eat shrimp, and tables groaning with plates of pretty desserts – began to fall out of favor. Buffet brunches are costly to produce; that’s why the restaurants offering the nicest ones…
