Archives: March 2015
Phish is coming to Starlight in August
Legendary jam band Phish is hitting the road this summer, with a stop through Kansas City in August. Try to contain your excitement, guys. The band performs at Starlight on Wednesday, August 5. Tickets go on sale Friday, April 3, at 9 a.m. Details here. Categories: Music Tags: concert announcement, just announced, phish, starlight
East Side pastor Tony Caldwell sued by state of Missouri for real-estate fraud
Bishop Tony Caldwell, founder of Community Unity KC, an activist church on Kansas City’s East Side, is one of the defendants named in a lawsuit filed today by Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster. The suit alleges that Caldwell and Brandon Miller, the principals of Tri-State Holdings-32 LLC, sold Kansas City-area homes purchased at delinquent tax auctions, usually in the $30,000-$40,000…
Osteria Il Centro celebrates 20 years of wine and pasta
Gregg Johnson had an anniversary yesterday, but he didn’t celebrate it. The veteran restaurateur — and owner of 12 Minsky’s Pizza venues in the Kansas City metro — opened his popular south Plaza restaurant, Osteria Il Centro (5101 Main), on St. Patrick’s Day of 1995. It might be the luck of the Irish or the right restaurant in the right…
4 Hands rare tappings at Flying Saucer, River North beer school at Burg & Barrel, Avery tap takeover at Barley’s Midland and more beer events
Thursday, March 19 Brewers table, featuring 4 Hands Brewing Co. brewers and reps; food pairings; and tappings of Madagascar, the Woodsman third-anniversary edition (only keg outside the brewery), barrel-aged Late Harvest Saison (collaboration with chef Josh Eans) and Downfall bourbon barrel-aged imperial stout with raspberries, at Flying Saucer (101 E. 13th St.), 7 p.m. Beer madness, featuring one $10 beer…
Meeting six of Kansas City Fashion Week’s brightest talents
Whether your heart flutters for feathers or sings for sequins, Kansas City Fashion Week is ready to move you. This weekend, the region’s premier designers take over Union Station to show off their fall and winter collections. Now in its seventh year, the event looks right at home in one of the metro’s most iconic locations. I talked with six…
Jazmine Sullivan signaled her triumphant return to music at the Midland last night
Jazmine Sullivan with Jordan Bratton The Midland, Kansas City Tuesday, March 17 For the full slideshow, go here. There wasn’t a single moment of Jazmine Sullivan’s show at the Midland last night that didn’t serve to further endear the resurrected star to her audience, but there were plenty of memorable highlights. Perhaps the most powerful came late in the set,…
Kathy Gates, owner of the Running Well Store, discusses running, bumping into the Olsen twins and more in this week’s Pitch Questionnaire
Name: Kathy Gates Occupation: Owner of the Running Well Store Hometown: It’s complicated … but KC is my hometown. I was born in KC, then the family moved to Huntington Beach, California (Surf City, USA!). Then back to Platte City for my high school years. So in grade school, I was “That Midwest Girl” and in high school “That Cali…
Can anyone revive Kansas’ decimated Democratic Party?
Washington Days is coming unglued. The annual meeting of the Kansas Democratic Party has ground to a halt. In the windowless meeting room of the downtown Topeka Ramada Inn March 7, party leaders can’t figure out where eastern Kansas ends and western Kansas begins. They can’t even agree on the meaning of their own party’s bylaws. A proposal to elect…
Music Forecast 3.19–3.25: Bob Seger, Tommy Castro, TV on the Radio, and more
The Fog, Bummer, Nubiles, Slave Label The lineup at FOKL Thursday night is not something you can miss with a clear conscience. Four young bands at the top of the local hardcore scene (or on their way there) are set to kick up the volume of this show to levels that would make your neighbors call 911. High Dive Records’…
Sylvan Esso chases honesty in music
On paper, Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn are unlikely bandmates. She was one of the lead singers in the all-female folk trio Mountain Man. He produced electronic beats for Megafaun and worked on his own as Made of Oak. United as Sylvan Esso, though, Meath and Sanborn share a musical partnership that goes down as easy as champagne at a…
Jazz Beat: Ida McBeth, at the Blue Room
Just as Julia Lee was the vocal symbol of Kansas City jazz in the 1950s, the iconic Ida McBeth, many would agree, is today’s equivalent. For more than 30 years, audiences have flocked to hear McBeth pour her soul into every shiver-inducing moment of a live performance. In her capable hands, a song transforms into a feeling. Her talent knows…
Adriana Nikole finally feels at home
On a bright weekday afternoon at Mills Record Co., a couple of people are flipping through used records in the store’s recent addition. They seem unperturbed by the impromptu photo shoot that has taken over the stage area, where Adriana Nikole has taken out her guitar and, at the photographer’s request, begun to play. She does so quietly, her music…
Charisse keeps its part of downtown approachably fancy
Location, location, location. Maybe. I’ve never completely bought into the notion that address alone sets a new restaurant’s fate in motion. Cafés die in seemingly bulletproof locales, and I’ve seen the occasional dining flower come up through very hard pavement. (One thing I do believe in, however: the curse. But that’s another column.) But what about seemingly viable spots that…
Women Playing Hamlet‘s ladies doth protest too little
If you’ve ever bemoaned theater’s lack of PowerPoint slides or Baha Men references, I’ve never met you. But you might be the ideal audience for Women Playing Hamlet, a cute and uncomplicated new comedy from playwright William Missouri Downs. The Unicorn gives Downs’ script the royal treatment, loading down four talented actors with sampler platters of roles that, in an…
Lauren Mabry plumbs utility and color at Belger Crane Yard Studios
“Impulsive ceramist” sounds like an oxymoron. It’s hard to imagine improvisation figuring into such a painstaking, multistage endeavor, in the same way it’s hard to imagine ancient scribes idly chiseling song lyrics into stone tablets. At Belger Crane Yard Studios, though, Lauren Mabry’s roomy Passages suggests just that kind of offhanded ease. In a show that expands our collective imagination,…
New hands at some bakeries roll out the same great bread
Money and bread have changed hands lately in Kansas City. Two popular downtown bakeries — Bloom Baking Co., in the River Market, and Fervere, in the Crossroads — have new owners. Sarah Darby purchased Bloom Baking Co. March 1 from Janet O’Toole and Stephen Zaragoza, who opened the bakery in 2010. Darby, who was a nurse for 14 years, tells…
Missouri Court of Appeals reinstates potentially massive asbestos lawsuit against Jackson County, others
Judges for the Missouri Court of Appeals gave new life to a lawsuit that could expose Jackson County and a contractor to millions in damages for claims that it improperly handled asbestos during renovations of the courthouse in downtown Kansas City more than 30 years ago. The appellate court on Tuesday said that a lawsuit filed in 2010 should proceed…
Music Stars New and Old Take Center Stage at Sprint Center This Week
Kansas City’s Sprint Center is one of the premier arenas in the country and will be very busy with talented sports and music performers throughout March. Fresh off hosting the Big 12 Men’s Basketball Tournament, there are a few major musical performances coming up. With ticketing data provided by TiqIQ.com, we can look at some of the top events held…
After St. Pat’s Day, St. Joseph takes over with lots and lots of sweets
In Kansas City, St. Patrick’s Day has very little to do with religious veneration (although there are almost always spirits involved). Things are a bit more circumspect two days later, when many churches in the metro celebrate the patron saint of Sicily: St. Joseph. For well over 100 years, Sicilian immigrants living in and around the Columbus Park neighborhood practiced a…
Find The Pitch
