Gerald Spaits has toured with Marilyn Maye and Karrin Allyson, and for decades has been recognized as one of Kansas City’s premier go-to bassists. But his original compositions are less well-known. On Saturday night at the new Take Five Coffee + Bar space, you can hear some of Spaits’ original material, played by an A-list team: saxophonist David Chael (who…
%{}% As a kid, Bryan Boehm would sit in his parents’ car and move around the dial on the push-button radio. In the staticky jumps from station to station, he heard voices. Over time, he started talking back to the voices. “I would get interesting responses back — direct answers to my questions,” he says. When Boehm was 18, a…
On a chilly October night, I stood on the moon-soaked lawn of the John Wornall House Museum, gawking at a tiny window. The Wornall carriage house was the last stop on this evening’s ghost tour of the historic Civil War-era home, and it promised to be the creepiest. Its purported tenant is the surly specter of a man who hated…
I have always been a fan of Stroud’s, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. There were gripes when longtime owner Mike Donegan moved the restaurant from its original location on 85th Street — a roadhouse dating from the early 1930s — to a newer, freestanding building in Fairway, in 2008. Some people said the food wasn’t as good. But…
“We’d had so many cops come in and buy these,” Peregrine Honig says. The artist and entrepreneur is talking about the $30 Royals undies that were, until a few hours ago, selling well at her Crossroads lingerie boutique, Birdies. Today, however, brought a different kind of call from the law. The Department of Homeland Security sent a couple of agents to…
For most of the night’s live WWE Raw event at the Sprint Center, St. Louis’ Randy Orton taunted Royals fans, predicting that the Royals would lose the World Series and wouldn’t win for “at least another 100 years.” This led to thunderous “Let’s go, Royals” chants and many boos. Of course, WWE’s Superman, John Cena, defended this cowtown’s honor — although…
In every crisis is an opportunity, goes the old saying. Kansas City’s once-mighty online-lending operations are familiar with the idea. Many offered short-term loans to people in financial crisis, then charged them exorbitant interest rates and hidden fees to trap the borrowers in a cycle of debt. They got very rich doing this. Now most have been shut down or…
All of Kansas City is swept up in Royals fever these days. Even non-sports fans find themselves drawn to the energy and irresistible underdog story of our hometown team. So tonight, any bar with a TV will be swelling with baseball lovers new and old. If you’re one of those fair-weather fans who aren’t used to the roaring crowds for…
There are hamburgers and there are Pitch Burger Week hamburgers: fabulous $5 burgers available at 14 different metro restaurants through October 26. If you haven’t already made plans to sample at least one or, more likely, three of these special burgers, you might want to take a look at the particulars of this event, which runs the ground-beef gamut, from…
The team wouldn’t take the field for another 31 hours, but Kauffman Stadium’s Majestic Team Store was hopping yesterday, ahead of the Royals’ first World Series appearance in 29 years. The Jumbotron, visible from the parking lot, had begun flashing graphics tailored to the event, and several people stood beside their cars, snapping pictures with their phones. Inside the store,…
%{}% A fair housing complaint filed last week by the owner of project-based Section 8 apartments on Armour Boulevard may prod the City Council into resolving the matter. On Monday afternoon, a resolution that speaks to settling differences between the city and Eagle Point Companies appeared on the docket for Wednesday’s meeting of the Kansas City Neighborhoods, Housing and Healthy…
Ryan Adams Uptown Theater, Kansas City Monday, October 20 In his 20-plus-year career in music, Ryan Adams has become notorious for a lot of things. He has a history of onstage “meltdowns.” He has left angry voicemails for music critics. He struggles with Meniere’s disease. He quit drinking and restricted alcohol in venues he played in. Something seemed noticeably different…
Former Britain’s Got Talent starlet Susan Boyle will pay a visit to Kansas City’s Arvest Bank Theatre this Thursday as a part of her first US headlining tour. Rising to fame in 2009 after her cover of “I Dreamed A Dream” went viral, the unconventional star has continued to produce chart topping albums in both the US and her native…
The new album from electronic-music project SBTRKT, Wonder Where We Land, is crazy good. Producer and mastermind Aaron Jerome has composed it like a grown-up adventure story, and each song is a trembling page turn from a dark, new avenue. Singer Sampha is with him for much of the record, his low voice elevated by atmospheric synths and layers of…
Christmas is coming a little early this year for some longtime Rilo Kiley fans. Jenny Lewis, former lead singer, is touring In support of her new solo album, The Voyager. Lewis stops at Liberty Hall on Friday, December 5. Tickets on sale this Friday at 10 a.m. Details here. Categories: Music Tags: concert announcement, jenny lewis, just announced, Liberty Hall
Kansas City is the 12th and final stop on Samuel Adams’ Kosmic Mother Funk Grand Cru tour. KC won a drinkers’ vote to take the last spot in the tour, so plan on trying some KMF at a few yet-to-be-named bars around town at the end of November and early December. What is KMF? It’s a Belgian ale, aged in gigantic Hungarian…
Marijuana advocates in Missouri notched a small victory in 2014, when the state Legislature passed a law legalizing the production of hemp oils containing low levels of THC. The state has already begun issuing applications to the epilepsy patients for whom the law was introduced. Permits will allow recipients to possess up to 20 ounces of the oil. It’s a tiny…
Someone shot Angel Hooper at a southeast Kansas City 7-Eleven. Several people saw it happen. But few will discuss it. Hooper was in the wrong place at the wrong time last Friday night. The 6-year-old was with a family friend at 10615 Blue Ridge Boulevard when shots rang out in the parking lot of the convenience store at 7:15 p.m….
For his 14th studio album, released in September, Ryan Adams decided that it was time to self-title. What is he trying to tell us? Did he run out of ideas for album names? Or could it be that the 11 songs speak to who Adams is more than any other record? If that’s the case, rejoice, fans of Tom Petty:…
