As an artist known for making impressively scaled signs and combining hip-hop symbols with references to Christianity — Google him and his brilliant Prayer Booths still come up first — Dylan Mortimer has always made personal art. But his latest exhibition transcends the personal for something revelatory. Cure is his externalized dialogue with God, one in which he attempts to…
Restaurateur George Englezos, the former owner of the Olympic Grill, 9100 U.S. Highway 40, has fair reason not to think of himself as happy. Seven months ago, he was shot in the face during a botched robbery at the Olympic Grill. The injury left him hospitalized for three months, and he bears its scar. But the bullet, which exited the…
The death penalty is dying in the United States. One by one, states have decided that the financial and moral costs associated with killing prisoners in the name of is own people are not worth it. For states that stand resolutely behind this method of justice, the courts have shown signs of trepidation with the death penalty. The haphazard methods…
Today marks the start of the official Restaurant Week, featuring 185 dining venues in the metro offering special lunch and dinner menus for 10 days, with a portion of sales donated to local charities (including the Children’s Center for the Visually Impaired and Cultivate Kansas City). But at least three restaurants — Jasper’s, Julian, and Marina Grog & Galley at…
Ted Cruz this week started deploying a rhetorical strategy against Donald Trump that should sound familiar to political watchers with long memories in Kansas City. On Tuesday, Cruz told conservative syndicated talk radio host Howie Carr that Trump “embodies New York values,” suggesting that’s somehow a bad thing. Cruz leveled the claim in response to a question about Trump playing…
The hottest team in the NFL rolled along in their first game of the NFL playoffs, as the Kansas City Chiefs took it to the Houston Texans on the road at NRG Stadium last Saturday, winning 30-0 in a game where they dominated from the opening whistle. The Chiefs returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown, led 13-0 at halftime…
On April 1, Weezer will release a new self-titled album, which the band is calling The White Album. Local fans of the Santa Monica band won’t have to wait long to hear the new material live: Weezer kicks off a supporting tour this summer, with Panic at the Disco and Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness joining the bill for the North American…
Let’s hope the third time sticks for Janet Jackson. After canceling her original October show at the Sprint Center and her subsequent February rescheduled date, the singer is back on track with her Unbreakable tour, and will finally arrive in Kansas City on Monday, July 18. When Jackson postponed several fall 2015 dates, she cited doctors’ orders for vocal rest;…
Caffeine addicts, rejoice: The Roasterie has just announced that it’s planning to launch a line of cold-brew coffee, with ready-to-drink bottled options, in February. “We’ll have two bottled options — one straight coffee and one flavored coffee, which will essentially be like an iced latte — that will use two new toddy recipes we’ve created,” Elliot Wiersgalla, the Roasterie’s Green…
If you didn’t get to catch the Wilson sisters when Heart stopped at the Midland this past December, good news: The band is on tour this summer, and they are in fine company with Joan Jett & the Blackhearts and Cheap Trick. The trio stops at Starlight on Monday, August 15 as part of its “Rock HallThree For All” Tour….
Thursday, January 14 Jolly Pumpkin Pinchadiscos tapping, at Flying Saucer (101 E. 13th St.), 6 p.m. Urban Chesnut Winter Warmer Night, with Smoked Bock Hollermoffel, Erlkonig Pale Wheat Doppelbock, Harwood Myth English Porter, and Kinsale Export Stout, at Bier Station (120 E. Gregory Blvd.), 5-11 p.m. Free beer with a new or gently used board game or book donation, at…
Remember those times in college when you forgot to buy groceries, and all you had in the kitchen was a box of rice noodles, a block of cheese, a couple cloves of garlic and some ketchup? And maybe you weren’t quite sober, and you looked at these items, cracked another beer, and said, “Yeah, I can make this work”? The…
In Sam Brownback’s Kansas, problems lurk inside the walls of the White House and in the clinics that provide women’s reproductive health services. Budget catastrophes and an ongoing crisis with a state mental health hospital aren’t of Brownback’s concern. At least not on Tuesday evening when he delivered his fifth State of the State address, the annual rite of passage…
Welcome to the machine, Bonner Springs. Florence + the Machine, that is, with special guest Grimes, is playing to Cricket Wireless Amphitheater on Tuesday, May 24. A ticket pre-sale is going on now, so you still have a shot at getting a seat up front. Also, this is going to be awesome and cathartic. Don’t believe me? Here’s the How…
Son of a bitch, give me a bigger venue. Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats easily sold out a show scheduled for February 1 at the Riot Room. Anyone who saw the band’s December show at the Midland knew that tickets would go fast. So it’s great news that the show is being moved to the Midland — and tickets…
Does Kansas City, Kansas, need a hotel within chip-shot distance of an existing hotel on Rainbow Boulevard? Does it need four different types of incentive to make it work? Not everyone on the Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas, Board of Commissioners is sure. This past December, the UG approved the creation of a tax-increment-financing district for a 100-room,…
Joe Stanziola tells me, with a shy look, that most of his recordings are concept albums. I detect a trace of sheepishness. “I never mean to write concept albums,” he says. “But Almost Blue happened because I’ve been getting into jazz lately, and I wanted to cover Chet Baker’s ‘Almost Blue,’ but I’m not that great of a singer.” Stanziola…
Hipshot Killer recalls a specific era of ’80s punk rock. Owing more to the melodic likes of Descendents and Husker Du than to the usual angry suspects, the Kansas City punk trio has developed a following among those who enjoy the band’s self-described “powerpunk” — an apt descriptor for the potent blend of power-pop and early Midwestern hardcore. It’s been…
