NEW YORK CITY — Online-payday-lending mogul Scott Tucker pleaded not guilty Tuesday here to federal criminal charges of racketeering in connection with unlawful debt collections. Pleading not guilty to the same charges was Tim Muir, Tucker’s attorney and general counsel of AMG Services Inc., a business at the center of a payday-lending empire that was incorporated on tribal lands but…
Melissa Click is not a sympathetic figure. News organizations reporting on the University of Missouri professor who agitated against reporters and police officers during last year’s campus protests usually use still-frame images from videos that make her look deranged. Her request for “some muscle” to remove a student journalist from covering a protest held on public property made her one…
Walter Becker and Donald Fagan — together, the influential rock act Steely Dan — have just announced a summer tour called The Dan Who Knew Too Much. There is no sign of a new album, not since 2003’s Everything Must Go, so we can only assume the summer setlist will be packed with the band’s greatest hits — something longtime…
For those about to rock … Sunday is your night. AC/DC’s Sprint Center show has been rescheduled for Sunday, February 28. So prepare to shake all night long … Sunday (and deal with your Thunderstruck hangover Monday). Here’s the official word from the Sprint Center website: AC/DC are forced to reschedule their upcoming show in Kansas City from Monday, February…
While the rest of the country is growing concerned about the effects concussions on athletes playing contact sports — namely football — Kansas lawmakers want to get kids back in the game as quickly as possible. The Kansas House on Tuesday passed a measure that expands the type of medical professionals who can clear a concussed athlete and return the…
Kurt Schaefer, a Republican state senator from Columbia, wants to do away with the earnings tax in Kansas City and St. Louis. First it was because of his annoyance caused by both cities trying to increase minimum wage beyond the state level. Then he transformed his argument into a question over whether the earnings tax is constitutional. Schaefer introduced a…
The ’90s live on this summer, when the Goo Goo Dolls — who were once nominated for no less than four Grammy Awards, by the way — stop at Starlight on Saturday, July 23. The band, which is responsible for such songs as “Slide” and “Iris,” last released an album in 2013, but rumor has it that we’re going to…
Paul Simon — one half of the legendary duo Simon & Garfunkel and the man who, as a solo artist, gave us hits like “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” and the entirety of Graceland — is hitting the road this summer. He stops at Starlight on Saturday, June 11. Tickets go on sale Friday, February 26, at 11 a.m. via…
Folk Alliance International Conference February 17-21, 2016 Westin Crown Center Hotel By design, the Folk Alliance International Conference puts the absolute top of the folk performance curve on display. At the very worst, the music is still, you know, good. So over past few gorgeous February days, the only obstacles to edification were on the attendees, who may occasionally have…
Boulevard Brewing Co.’s Cellar Five expansion project is officially finished. What’s it mean? More beer. A lot more beer. The 3,600-square-foot building is home to six, 1,000 barrel fermenting tanks. Those tanks can be seen towering two stories in the sky over Southwest Boulevard, and they increase Boulevard’s fermentation capacity by 40 percent, pushing it to more than 300,000 barrels…
Bill Frisell, the in-demand guitarist whose silvery sound is a genre unto itself, is still blown away by the whole jazz-to-Jimi spectrum of popular music. Writer Jake Nussbaum, introducing a 2014 Believer interview with the musician, writes, “At the mention of a new name Bill’s response was always the same: to sit in thought for a moment, and then light…
Jeremy LaFaver, a progressive Democrat who represents Brookside and surrounding areas of Kansas City in the Missouri House of Representatives, will not run for a third term. LaFaver tells The Pitch that while he enjoys his role as a legislator, the political realities of being a Democrat in GOP-dominated Jefferson City, and a desire to spend more time with his young children,…
Two of Kansas City’s best-known chefs — Jonathan Justus of the Justus Drugstore in Smithville and Patrick Ryan, operator of the Port Fonda locations in Westport and Lawrence — are among the local culinarians nominated as semi-finalists for the 2016 James Beard Award. Justus and Ryan were both nominated in the Best Chef: Midwest category. That was the category that…
After a 15-year run as the premier “ladies who lunch” restaurant in the metro, the popular Bloomsbury Bistro inside the Mission Road Antique Mall at 4101 West 83rd Street, will close on Saturday with its chef-owner Cari Jo Cavalcante in attendance to bid farewell to the patrons who have kept the lunch-only venue a vital presence in Prairie Village. Cavalcante,…
Black Sabbath Sprint Center, Kansas City Wednesday, February 17 It’s impressive to listen to folks excited about a band, but it’s another thing entirely to feel it coming from every single person in attendance. The sheer intense expectation of the crowd prior to last night’s Black Sabbath show at the Sprint Center was palpable. To say people were stoked for…
Thursday 2.18Nobody gets in people’s faces quite like Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. Robert Smigel spews his usual mix of biting attacks and potty humor in the new 90-minute Triumph’s Election Special 2016, courtesy of Funny or Die and streaming for free on Hulu. Warning: Watching desperate politicians and their blind supporters get bested by a vulgar, cigar-chomping hand puppet…
John Couture grabs his laptop and calls up renderings for the expanded patio at his beer bar and bottle shop, Bier Station. The excitement is noticeable in his eyes. “We’re totally redoing it,” Couture says. The 30-seat patio will feature retractable, waterproof canopies and gas-powered heat lamps. Workers broke ground on the project last week, with a goal of finishing,…
Scott Tucker made a fortune — $419 million, according to the Federal Trade Commission’s estimates — in payday lending. That fortune paid for an $8 million home in Aspen, a handful of Ferraris and his motorsports hobby. Tucker was a main driver for Level 5 Motorsports, a high-end auto-racing team that competed in North America and Europe. He spent his…
Twitter handle: @KCDroneCompany Hometown: Barnhart, Missouri What I do: A normal day consists of building flying robots and blowing minds. We are a distribution company. We collect and analyze data. Then we distribute decisions. Machine vision, predictive analytics and virtual reality are some of the “things I do.” What’s your addiction? My family. (Help me score some wifey points.) What’s…
