Bernie Sanders knows the deal in these parts, how vulnerable Kansans feel the burn of Gov. Sam Brownback’s policies. “I know in Kansas you’ve got a governor who likes to beat up on the poor,” Sanders said Wednesday at a campaign rally at Bartle Hall in Kansas City, Missouri. “…It’s such an easy topic to beat up on the poor.”…
Blake Shelton, of the biggest names in country music, will play a near-sold out show at The Sprint Center on Friday night. Shelton’s tour kicked off February 18 a the US Bank Arena in Cincinnati, Ohio and will run until March 19 where it wraps in Pittsburgh at the CONSOL Energy Center. The tour announcement came last October, just before…
When I called Sama Zama in Westport to see if I needed to make a reservation before attempting the restaurant’s spicy-ramen challenge, the woman who answered said six words: “You need to sign a waiver.” Then she hung up. Later that evening, as I sat in the small, brightly colored Japanese restaurant with the actual legal document in front of…
If George Lucas taught us one thing with his Star Wars saga, it’s that the force is strongest with the license holder. The original 1977 movie cemented its hold on the collective imagination with the incalculable assistance of toys (first by an overwhelmed Kenner) — to which Lucas had kept the rights, ensuring the director’s incalculable fortune. The loving documentary…
Nothing turns a dignified, rational adult into a quivering, whimpering mess faster than kittens. So you can imagine the wobble factor for a place called the KC Kitty Café. At a Saturday pop-up event the cafe held at Wine & Design in North Kansas City earlier this winter, the kittens arrived, and people stopped making sense when they talked. “Oh,…
Crane Brewing Co.’s doors are now open a couple of days during the work week. Tuesdays and Thursdays — from 2 to 6 p.m. — you can swing by the brewery (6515 Railroad Street, Raytown) to buy bottles of Crane’s four flagship beers. (The tasting room is still under construction.) In addition to those mainstay brews, Crane is selling its…
Mike Sanders resigned as Jackson County executive in December. He said he wanted to spend more time with his kids. Now it’s February, and he has two jobs. Sanders, a lawyer who stepped down abruptly during his third term as county executive, took a job soon after his resignation at Humphrey, Farrington & McClain, a prominent law firm in Independence,…
Thursday 2.25Today is a good day to rent Steve Jobs, out on Blu-ray now, and ruminate on its box-office failure. After a book, a feature and a documentary, maybe audiences simply had Jobs fatigue. Or maybe it was too nontraditional of a biopic; there was much theatrical artifice in screenwriter Aaron Sorkin’s pre-product-rollout three-act structure. But those things made Jobs…
Twitter handle: @pilesofemily Hometown: Prairie Village Current neighborhood: North Kansas City What I do: Every day is different since I juggle business development, copywriting, creative strategy, project management and marketing. I love it! What’s your addiction? Zumba! What’s your drink? Vanilla Cream Ale (or any other beer) at Big Rip Brewing Company. Where’s dinner? Usually in our kitchen. I’ve embraced…
St. Lucia St. Lucia’s latest album, Matter, finds the group in a swirling vortex of ’80s-inspired synth-pop highs, each song reaching higher than the one before it. South African–born frontman Jean-Philip Grobler recalls the saccharine pipes and energy of Passion Pit’s Michael Angelakos, but there is considerably less darkness in St. Lucia’s songs. Matter is a joy-filled dance album that…
When hundreds of adults get together for the express purpose of eating too much sugar, things are bound to get weird — in a good way. Such is the premise of The Pitch’s annual Sugar Rush event, a sweet celebration in which you’re encouraged not only to eat dessert first, but exclusively. More than a dozen shops and restaurants fill…
Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre doesn’t typically shy from challenging, lengthy, large-cast productions, and its latest project, Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Skin of Our Teeth, ranks high in the small company’s win column. It’s a daunting bit of canon — three acts, in such symbolic settings as the Ice Age, the Great Flood and Tomorrow. Wilder wrote the play during wartime,…
I can think of no greater disappointment in the appearance-versus-reality department than the swan. What an image of grace she seems: a long-necked, snow-white bird, gliding serenely across a glassy pond. What an instrument of chaos she is: a territorial, hate-beaked behemoth, weaving like a cobra and squeaking like a chew toy. The Kansas City Ballet’s exquisitely danced Swan Lake…
This really feels like my first grown-up bartending job,” Erik Marsical tells me, his boyish face fixed in a grin. Last month, he took over as bar manager for the Leawood 801 — but it’s not his first time in charge. Since moving to Kansas City a little more than two years ago, the Oakland, California, native has helped open…
To get to the green-walled studios of KUAW radio, you start at downtown’s southern tip and proceed east — away from where you see joggers and streetcars, past the gin joints of Martini Corner, the pork tenderloins of Kitty’s and the incense clouds of the Desert Wisdom Bookstore. You’re on 31st Street, and you’re still traveling east, past the Bluford…
Warm, warped synths and eccentric guitar lines float happily around Mild West, the terrific new album from Fullbloods. Together, the album’s 11 songs — written by lead singer and guitarist Ross Brown, with the help of guitarist Jerad Tomasino, bassist David Seume and drummer Bill Pollock — are a freewheeling throwback to coke-washed ’70s disco glam, all perilous V-necks and…
Under artistic director Clint Ashlock, the Kansas City Jazz Orchestra is venturing into new old territory. Big bands have long played Top 40 — the Count Basie Orchestra recorded an album of Beatles music in 1966 — but Friday night, the KCJO takes on not only the Beatles but also the Rolling Stones, the Who and the Zombies. With its…
