Matt Hill has been performing giallo-inspired electronic music under the name of Umberto for over half a decade now. Hill left Kansas City for points west back in 2013, and we can’t think of the last time he performed his Carpenter-like jams in our neck of the woods. This make’s Umberto return to Kansas City at the Brick tomorrow, on…
The wait for cans of Boulevard beer is almost over. Boulevard’s Heavy Lifting IPA is set to hit store shelves in the metro area on Monday, March 30, meaning Boulevard cans will soon be in your hands. Yes, cans! Heavy Lifting (6.2 percent ABV and 80-plus IBUs) is going to be a year-round release based off of Boulevard’s Tasting Room…
From The Grave… by UMBERTO
Thursday, March 26Renegade night, with Depravity Peanut Butter Cup Milk Stout and brewer Brian O’Connell, at Barley’s Brewhaus (5031 W. 135th St., Leawood), 4:30 p.m. Tapping of Prairie Artisan Ales and Siren’s Ratchet, at Flying Saucer (101 E. 13th St.), 7 p.m. Sweet $2 16-ounce beers, at Gordon Biersch (11652 Ash, Leawood), 3–11 p.m. Friday, March 27 Final Firkin Friday,…
There are, most would agree, quite enough comedian-hosted podcasts in the world today. So at first blush, it sounded a bit sad that veteran comic and actor Gilbert Gottfried was promoting one of his own — an old-timer hopping on a trend way, way too late. But it turns out that “Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast” is not a contrived…
Last Friday, I was part of the food critics panel discussing, on KCUR 89.3’s Central Standard, the subject of offal: “animal innards and extremities.” According to Food Lover’s Companion, these include brains, cheeks, intestines, feet and ankles, kidneys, livers, tripe and such. Those ingredients are very much back in style. Just take a gander — pun intended — at the menu at…
When I worked in a dreary corporate office, I used to meditate during my lunch break. I’d park my car in an empty strip-mall parking lot, close my eyes and focus on the sound of traffic whizzing down the nearby highway, trying desperately to think of nothing. My brain would not cooperate. Instead of relaxing, I found myself fixating on…
%{}% A couple of years ago, Wisconsin-based home-improvement store Menards looked poised to fan out across the Kansas City metro area, adding perhaps as many as six stores in short order. The chain, which readers may recall from its annoying catchy commercial jingle (“save big money at Menards!”), has played an erratic cat-and-mouse game with local municipalities and others across…
“Bourbon is as American as apple pie,” bartender Rachel Freeman tells me. She leans against the bar at the Power & Light District’s newest restaurant, Cleaver & Cork, having set out more than a half-dozen tasting glasses filled with that golden-brown nectar. Bar manager Andrew Olsen nods his agreement with Freeman, and indeed there’s no arguing the point. Bourbon was…
The bigger news than Van Halen’s forthcoming summer tour, it seems, is the part where the band will be appearing live on television with lead singer David Lee Roth (who rejoined the band in 2006 after a 21-year absence) for the first time in decades. If this sounds like must-see television to you, turn into Jimmy Kimmel Live on March…
Name: Erik Wullschleger Occupation: Director of LiveKC Hometown: Omaha, Nebraska Current neighborhood: Waldo! What I do: Get millennials away from their couches, build advocacy for KC and encourage them to do something to make this city great! What’s your addiction? Meeting new people in KC. What’s your game? I love playing disc golf. Not saying I’m great at it, but I…
In years to come, I’ll be able to name the day when my lifelong recurring dream of a Borgesian archive, endlessly lined with factual fictions forever unopened, mutated into one of such a repository tended by baby octopuses. Those who can claim to have dined at chef Ferran Adrià’s elBulli, the legendary and now-closed Spanish citadel of avant-garde gastronomy, are…
If every recovering addict is a redemption in waiting, a shaky rise after a crushing fall, David Widner will tell you that he descended from a higher altitude than most. “I had a net worth of $1.4 million in 2001,” Widner told me in February. “Cocaine took it all.” He had met me for coffee at Crows, south of the…
Ben Caplan & the Casual Smokers With his cavemanlike hair and beard and his old-fashioned glasses, Ben Caplan certainly looks the part of the artist. That he is some kind of Hercules-voiced powerhouse musician is just a bonus. Caplan’s songs are part primal blues, part vaudeville and every bit soul-awakening. Heads-up: This dude is already a huge deal in Australia…
%{}% %{}% Last fall, when Trampled Under Foot announced its breakup after 12 years as a KC blues mainstay — and following the sibling act’s most successful year — a collective wail went up. The mourning period has turned out to be relatively short. March 10, Danielle Schnebelen’s new Danielle Nicole Band issued an EP titled Wolf Den: six smoldering,…
Lawrence’s Paper Buffalo holds its weekly practice in the basement of bassist John McCain’s childhood home. The room is crammed with relics of an early 1990s boyhood, the bookshelves stacked with thick genre mass-market paperbacks and VHS tapes and the walls adorned with bird illustrations. One corner of the room remains dedicated to what appears to be a high school…
There’s a precious quality to Candace Evans’ voice. The striking singer has a childlike intonation at times, vivacious and charming — the kind of voice with which to wile away an evening. Evans accompanies herself on piano, a double-threat talent. And though her repertoire is wide — from Broadway to classic pop — you’ll find no bubbly lounge jazz in…
