Appleseed Cast’s current lineup may have only frontman Chris Crisci remaining from the days of Mare Vitalis, but that doesn’t mean that Crisci and his crackerjack group of young bucks can’t delve deeply and find the reserves necessary to play the album in its entirety. The album, released by Deep Elm in 2000, is one of those albums that’s…
What a week for Dent County, Missouri. First, the county commission voted to lower the courthouse flags to half-staff one day every month for the next year as a way of mourning the Supreme Court’s recent decision that same-sex couples deserve the right to marry. Then the vote was rescinded after it earned Dent County national-laughingstock headlines. Then, yesterday, a…
UPDATE: The Kansas City Star is reporting that there may be some road blocks, as it were, to this plan. City Manager Troy Schulte tells the daily in an e-mail: “The city needs to conduct a legal review of the Westport proposal to see what structure would work and what requirements would be placed on the festival permit. In other words, we…
Two popular restaurants — one in Lawrence, the other in Brookside — closed this spring after fires required that the buildings undergo extensive repairs: Meg Heriford’s six-month-old Ladybird Diner at 721 Massachusetts, in Lawrence, and Michael Forbes Bar & Grille in Brookside. The Ladybird Diner was damaged by a fire in an adjoining bar and grill on March 3; Michael…
THURSDAY, JULY 16 Free State tap takeover, with Homestand Helles, Cloud Hopper Imperial IPA, Garden Party, and Cherry Bomb lager, at Barley’s Brewhaus (16649 Midland Dr., Shawnee), 4:30 p.m. Cherry Bomb is exclusive to Barley’s Midland and the Free State taproom. Amager/Jester King Danish Metal, at Flying Saucer (101 E. 13th St.), 7 p.m. Beer and food pairing with free…
I have always equated the boilermaker — or the shot-and-a-beer serving — with a cheap pour of whiskey and an even cheaper draft. (In my experience, Jameson and PBR usually do the trick.) There is always a time and a place for this classic combination. For me, it was usually after a long shift of schlepping plates at a restaurant….
Only in the ’80s could Labyrinth have happened. Behind the scenes: Muppet king Jim Henson and Howard the Duck mastermind George Lucas, in sometimes contentious collaboration. Onscreen: David Bowie, fresh off Let’s Dance, as a goblin king, and Jennifer Connelly, very pre-Requiem for a Dream, as a lousy baby sitter. Lots of puppetry, some singing. The 1986 fantasy is the…
The St. Louis Cardinals are one of the oldest and most storied franchises in Major League Baseball. Their 11 World Series titles are more than any other National League team, and second only to the New York Yankees for the all-time lead. Redbird teams over the years have featured outstanding pitchers such as Bob Gibson, Cy Young, Dizzy Dean, Bruce…
Mare Vitalis by The Appleseed Cast
Name: Erin Rosales Occupation: Entrepreneur, artist and manic dreamer Hometown: Kansas City, Missouri Current neighborhood: North Kansas City What I do: I’m an artist. I teach and inspire others to create art and make things in my interactive arts studio, Dare to Dabble. What’s your addiction? Tea and shrimp but not in that particular order. I about cried when I…
Mother’s Brewing Co. 215 South Grant Avenue, Springfield, Missouri The charter bus left Central States Beverage 20 minutes late, foreshadowing what would become a theme for this trip: tardiness. Jon Poteet, the beer distributor’s vice president of marketing, had invited me to tag along with some contest winners headed to Mother’s Brewing Co. in Springfield. I’d been planning a trip…
To get to what’s good — in fact, very good — about Amy Schumer’s coming-out as both big-screen star and solely credited screenwriter, let’s first dispense with what’s less than good. It’s not a long list, but it’s rife with the sort of distracting lapses that relationship-phobes such as those depicted in Trainwreck refer to as “deal breakers.” Viewers who…
I had hoped to undertake my Ant-Man experience — seeing Paul Rudd made internationally bankable in a 3-D spectacle, writing about whether this big summer movie is big and summery enough — without bogging down in refreshers on the Marvel-verse or last year’s behind-the-scenes turmoil as shooting was about to begin. Please, no Captain America homework. Lord, no Reddit threads…
File under “scary as fuck.” That’s one way to classify Bummer’s newest EP, Spank, and it’s pretty accurate. If the Olathe trio’s goal was to prove just how mercilessly loud and savage it could be, then Spank chalks up the chilling victory over just six songs. (Two of those — album opener “Estocada” and “Infinite Witches” — are reprised from…
Jeff Black, Kevin Gordon Jeff Black has spent more than 25 years in Nashville, but that doesn’t mean the Kansas City native has forgotten his roots. Friday, the singer-songwriter returns for an intimate show at Knuckleheads’ Gospel Lounge. Black is a storyteller in the tradition of Pete Seeger, and his talents seem to sharpen with each release. Case in point:…
Every month on 12th Street Jump — the jazz variety show recorded live at the Broadway Kansas City (formerly the Broadway Jazz Club) and broadcast over 100 NPR stations — jazz masters honor a legend with music, while hosts keep the hour flowing with wit. Wednesday, Charlie Christian is the focus of the program. Christian, who died in 1941, brought…
The difference between Dominique Hall’s debut album, last year’s ATOMS, and this April’s EP, Free Food, is hard to find at first. Hall, who performs as Dom Chronicles, still coats his raps in a fine layer of hazy beats, a sonic parallel to lyrics that often draw inspiration from weed and women. But in nearly every track on Free Food,…
In an e-mail a few days before our interview, Alec Nicholas explained that his band, Organized Crimes, didn’t make a habit of practicing. All the same, he wrote, I was welcome to join him and his bandmate at the Strawberry Hill apartment they share. My presence would give them a good excuse, Nicholas said, to rehearse a few songs. When…
KC theater in mid-July usually means one thing: Fringe Festival, that 10-day convergence of local and out-of-town theater, music, comedy, spoken word, dance, burlesque and film. But this month, the usual has company. Besides Fringe Fest, which holds a preview night July 16 and begins performances July 17, there’s Central Standard Theatre’s the Invasion, a parallel 10-day festival composed of…
I’ve experienced and tasted a number of things at Erik Borger’s Il Lazzarone pizzeria since it opened in the River Market. I’ve eaten some remarkable wood-fired pizza (and been served one that was all but inedible). I’ve been waited on by a couple of excellent servers (as well as by two who were memorably disappointing). I’ve marveled at the impressively…
Tammy Henderson loves her view. Last November, she opened Shimmerwyck, a shop featuring jewelry and accessories by more than 30 Kansas City-area artists. Since then, the purple-haired North Kansas City native has come to feel right at home on West 39th Street. “People watching — that’s my favorite thing,” Henderson told me when I stopped by her shop one rainy…
It has been 10 months since federal authorities raided the offices of Mission Hills residents Tim Coppinger and Ted Rowland, following a civil complaint filed by the Federal Trade Commission. The feds alleged that Coppinger and Rowland ran an online payday-lending scheme that not only deceived borrowers about the costs of their loans but also deposited money into the bank…
The Olathe Police Department today posted a photo of a 60-pound carp that turned up in a drainage ditch near the Persimmon Hill subdivision last week. The fish was dead, but, as you can see, also monstrous and terrifying. Police believe the three-and-a-half-foot fish washed out of Persimmon Hill Lake, which is inside the Olathe subdivision. Jamie Schmidt, an animal…
