Archives: August 2014

News

Making Movies’ Enrique Chi kicked off a monthlong residency at Ça Va last night

Natalie Gallagher,

As if Ça Va in Westport didn’t already have everything you needed to survive (champagne, a ridiculous cheese plate, soft low lighting), bottle master and co-owner Justin Norcross is bringing live music into the fold. Beginning last night and running every Tuesday evening in August, Enrique Chi of Making Movies will be hosting a casual, stripped-down residency. “We’ve wanted to do…
News, Politics

Streetcar loses on Tuesday, and other election news

Steve Vockrodt,

Kansas City, Missouri, Councilman Russ Johnson took to Twitter earlier this week to thump his chest about his accomplishments ahead of Tuesday’s election. “I have a solid 11 year record building all modes of transportation,” Johnson proclaimed on Monday. Like many things Johnson says, that pronouncement was a lot of hot air. Johnson is on his way out as a…
Movies

Rich Hill: down but not out in Missouri

Dan Lybarger,

The city of Rich Hill, Missouri, boasts a population of just 1,400 people — three of whom are about to become more familiar to fans of U.S. documentaries. The movie titled Rich Hill, told from the point of view of three teenage boys struggling to get by despite financial and personal tumult in their lives, took the Grand Jury Prize…

Chanté Gossett’s latest collection brings her a step closer to the marketplace

Krystin Arneson,

In most of the design world, form follows function. A big exception, at least some of the time: fashion. Couture superstars and recently graduated novices alike happily let their whims carry them overboard and out to sea, far from the shallow waters of the ready-to-wear humdrum. An exception to the exception: Chanté Gossett, a recent textile-design alumna of the University…
News

Cop Donald Hubbard said he had no choice when he shot and killed firefighter Anthony Bruno last fall. That’s because he’d already made some bad decisions

Karen Dillon,

The evening of November 30 was going the way any couple planning to live the rest of their lives together would have hoped. The family members and friends invited by Anthony and Stephanie Bruno to the Town Pavilion’s rotunda almost overwhelmed the opulent venue. Here were 350 people, all of them eager to toast the newlyweds. Stephanie Steele, 29, had…
Music

Music Forecast 8.7-8.13: Chicago and REO Speedwagon, Miley Cyrus, Young Jeezy and more

Natalie Gallagher,

The Casket Girls The best part of Savannah, Georgia’s Casket Girls isn’t the raw vocal talent of Phaedra and Elsa Greene. The sisters aren’t the strongest singers. The power of this group is Ryan Graveface, who has cultivated the group’s creepy dark-pop sound since its surreal 2012 debut, Sleepwalking. Graveface goes further with hazy and hypnotic songs and synths that…

Music

Jazz Beat: Paul Shinn Trio, at Green Lady Lounge

Larry Kopitnik,

Some claim to hear a hint of Art Tatum in Paul Shinn’s piano playing. Shinn himself cites the influence of master keyboardist Benny Green, and when I listen, I hear the crisp inventiveness and often percussive flow of Oscar Peterson. The performance of a pianist whose playing recalls even one of those jazzmen, much less all three, is exceptional. And…
A&E

H&R Block Artspace’s Flatfile is all about touching

Liz Cook,

The transgressions start with touch. The only way to navigate the 2014 Kansas City Flatfile, at the H&R Block Artspace, is to break ingrained taboos and touch the art (not without a pair of oil-absorbing white gloves that you’re given). It’s a strange experience at first, flipping through the files with childlike reverence, afraid that someone might stop you or…

Slap’s BBQ

Veteran competitive-barbecue teammates Mike and Joe Pearce and Brandon Whipple have opened this small lunch-only barbecue joint in Strawberry Hill. Read Pitch food critic Charles Ferruzza’s review here, and see photos by Pitch photographer Angela C. Bond.
News

Urban Chestnut to expand distribution to Kansas City this year

Justin Kendall,

St. Louis brewery Urban Chestnut’s beers will be available in Kansas City later this year. According to Feast Magazine in St. Louis, Urban Chestnut will be partnering with Major Brands to get its brews into the KC market. Urban Chestnut will also be making inroads in Columbia and Jefferson City, starting this week. “We’ve been more than eager to supply our beer…

News

Cardinals Tickets Well Below Average For World Series Rematch

Nick Tranfaglia,

A World Series rematch will be taking place this week, but the two teams are going in two different directions. After taking two out of three games against the Milwaukee Brewers at home over the weekend, the St. Louis Cardinals welcome the Boston Red Sox to Busch Stadium for three games this week. While the Red Sox will miss the…
News

Roeland Park revotes, approves LGBT anti-discrimination ordinance

David Hudnall,

Since March, the debate in Roeland Park over whether to pass an ordinance granting the LGBT community equal protection under the law has added high drama to the sleepy municipality’s otherwise snoozy council meetings. Last week, it looked as though a resolution had been reached, when the council voted to oppose the ordinance. But a decision in the Council of…
News

International House of Prayer seems perfectly fine that former Grandview Mayor Steve Dennis misappropriated their money

Steve Vockrodt,

Grandview-based International House of Prayer made an odd and rather forgiving statement when that city’s former Mayor Steve Dennis got popped by the feds for misappropriating the church’s donations. IHOP, the 24-hour prayer ministry started by Mike Bickle, told media outlets in February that Dennis was “a man of integrity.” That’s despite the fact that Dennis had just been charged…
Dining, News

What local restaurant is serving this fresh, icy dessert?

Charles Ferruzza,

A granita is a semifrozen dessert — related to gelato, sorbet and Italian ice — but requiring a more complicated preparation technique; to achieve the more coarse, Sicilian-style crystals, fresh juices are frozen but with frequent agitation and scraping to create separated crystals. A granita is not flavored ice but frozen juices or coffee or even wine. In the case…