Name: Becky Blades Occupation: stARTist (a word I’ve coined for a serial beginner) Hometown: Kansas City Current neighborhood: South Kansas City, Missouri What I do: I start things — artworks, articles, social projects, businesses, trips and board meetings. If I can’t find someone else to do it, I’ll finish them, too. What’s your addiction? Art. I love looking at it,…
If Oliver Sacks woke one morning with some exotic amnesia and believed himself to be Nicholas Sparks, he might sit down and bang out a neurology tearjerker like Still Alice. He’d also have to forget, of course, that the Harvard-trained neuroscientist Lisa Genova had already discovered a lucrative publishing niche that pairs brain trauma with domestic drama to make book-club-ready…
With a vocabulary dominated by grunts, groans and moans, Timothy Spall, as 19th-century British painter J.M.W. Turner, sometimes seems to be making a case for his character as the world’s first human beatbox. Words aren’t this man’s primary means of communication, at least as Spall and writer-director Mike Leigh render him in Mr. Turner. But the artist was articulate with…
The past couple of years, we’ve marked Valentine’s Day by talking to our crushes: men and women around town who are doing things cool enough to make us swoon a little. This year, we went looking for people who had crushes of their own: on the city. We’re not talking about garden-variety hometown-priders, the “I share too much pro-KC clickbait…
Lara Shipley is humbler than she ought to be. The photographer has had an auspicious year — teaching at the Kansas City Art Institute, launching her own press and, most recently, securing a place in the National Museum of Women in the Arts’ Women to Watch exhibition. Now, before she makes the trek to Washington, D.C., the Epsten Gallery shows…
%{}% %{}% I wouldn’t call Joe Birch, the chef-owner of Brookside’s Avenues Bistro, the most laid-back fellow I’ve ever met. In fact, he’s usually so busy that he doesn’t so much walk through his dining room as he vibrates across it, a couple of millimeters off the floor. But Birch maintained an almost Zen-like composure when it came to the…
Eclectic. Offbeat. Downright weird. These are some of the words that come to mind when considering Mark Southerland’s jazz. He performs with a sax plus instruments of his own creation, including sax variations that twist and swirl into oddball shapes, sometimes making bleeps and sometimes finding notes that traditional instruments don’t produce. Costuming is integral to the presentation. Already an…
I think us being weirdos has been the most beneficial thing for our band,” Ian Teeple says. The guitarist and lead singer for the Fog adds, “We’re, like, actual weirdos.” His eyes widen a little. Teeple, 21, is seated on the floor of bassist Brendan Dulohery’s midtown apartment. Dulohery, 20, and drummer Frazier Krohn, 18, are nearby on a vintage…
You’d think that Jason Isbell was an inconsolable wretch if you judged him only by his songs. On his most recent album, 2013’s harrowing Southeastern, he gave his life a harsh look and set the resulting confessions to goosebump-raising melodies. Company loved misery: The record swept the 2014 Americana Music Awards, where Isbell won Artist of the Year, Album of…
%{}% %{}% John Mellencamp After enough listens of John Mellencamp’s Plain Spoken, you can begin to pick out how his voice has aged since the heyday of “Jack and Diane.” The Indiana native sounds a bit rougher around the edges, a little lonelier, on his latest album. Mellencamp has traded the swelling American pride of “Small Town” for the blues-fueled…
The Great Kansas Leap Backwards marches on with each new day, bringing worse news than the last. On Tuesday, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback signed an executive order that unraveled one issued by Kathleen Sebelius in 2007, which added sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of job protections for state employees. Brownback then issued a subsequent order that bans…
Late last week, The Kansas City Star reported that Doug Weltner, who owns the parking lot on Westport Road between Pennsylvania Avenue and Mill Street (north of Buzzard Beach, west of Harry’s Bar and Tables), has plans to construct two new retail buildings on his property. Those buildings would house a Qdoba Mexican Grill (fast-casual Tex-Mex), a Pickleman’s Gourmet Cafe (sandwiches)…
Ever since 2000, the Hilton Garden Inn hotel in downtown Kansas City, Kansas, has been a money loser. Because it’s half-owned by the Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas, the hotel requires public subsidy to stay afloat. The UG is now thinking about offloading that liability. A spokesman for UG confirms today that City Hall is looking for a…
Nickelback will be kicking off a North American tour on February 14 that will see the band play 61 shows through the end of August. Towards the start of the tour, the band will make its way to Kansas City to play a show on March 2 at the Sprint Center. According to TiqIQ, the current average price for Nickelback…
Things seem to be moving quickly now for Independence duo Madisen Ward and the Mama Bear. Following the news in October that the band had been signed to Glassnote Records, it was announced that Madisen Ward and the Mama Bear would also be playing the 2015 Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival and were recording a debut full-length. And on Wednesday…
If you have a soft spot for the sweet, sweet balladry of 1970s crooners, you’re in luck. In support of last year’s Melody Road, Neil Diamond has just announced a spring tour. On Sunday, April 26, he stops at the Sprint Center. Tickets go on sale on Friday, February 13, at 11 a.m. Purchase them here. Categories: Music Tags: concert announcement,…
“Least bad alternative” — words no one wants to hear from an expert about their planned financial strategy. And yet, that’s what Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research called an arcane financial instrument called pension obligation bonds, a strategy that Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback seems eager to pursue in the midst of the state’s self-inflicted budget crisis. The Boston College…
Still looking for last-minute Valentine’s Day plans? Fear no more, for a string of concerts will be held around Kansas City throughout the end of the month. Among that list are Barry Manilow, K-Ci & JoJo, The Beach Boys, Bob Seger and John Mellencamp. If you’re looking to see some more modern acts, however, country singers Chris Young and Lee…
The film version of Fifty Shades of Grey, a bondage-themed erotic novel that has sold approximately 900 trillion copies and which Sir Salman Rushdie says is so poorly written that it makes Twilight look like War and Peace, hits theaters this weekend. Just in time for Valentine’s Day — oh, the humanity! This Important Cultural Milestone is being accompanied by…
Stan Yoder, the owner of the three-year-old Bread for All Bakery and Tandoori Naan Cafe, closed the venue permanently on Saturday. On the restaurant’s Facebook page, he announces: “It has been a pleasure serving you the past three years. This Saturday, February 7th, will be our last day of operation for Bread for All….My dear wife of 40 years has…
The Crossroads Arts District’s brewery boom is in full swing. Torn Label Brewing Co. opened in late 2014, and now Border Brewing Co. has scheduled its grand opening for Saturday, February 21. Border, at 406 East 18th Street, plans to open that day from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. and then reopen Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. The brewery…
In support of last year’s They Want My Soul, Spoon has just announced a North American tour. The band will be stopping at the Midland on Monday, May 18. Courtney Barnett, the Districts and Deep Sea Arcade are opening for the band on select dates – sadly, not the Midland one, for which the supporting act has not yet been announced. …
