Archives: September 2016

News

Jennifer Sheffield, senior client partner at Spotlight, talks playing games, Google Fiber, Weezer and more in The Pitch Questionnaire

Justin Kendall,

Twitter handle: @jenfivecent Hometown: Overland ParkCurrent neighborhood: FairwayWhat I do: At Spotlight, it is my goal to create and sustain meaningful, mutually beneficial relationships between our clients and industry analysts.What’s your addiction? Hot sauce from Limestone Pizza in Lawrence; HGTVWhat’s your game? One of my friends, Jon Cheese McKesten, created a game called Hidden in Plain Sight. Person A hides…

A&E

Survive the presidential debate, Revisit Black Swan, get acquainted with Transparent, and more AV treats

Thursday 9.22Netflix continues fostering underground talent and bringing new ideas to serialized TV. Joe Swanberg, best known for quiet improvisational movies about modern relationships (Drinking Buddies), is the force behind Easy, an eight-episode series available today for streaming. The show promises to examine modern romance and features performances by Orlando Bloom, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Jake Johnson, Malin Akerman, Marc Maron, Dave…
Music

Concert Calendar: Drive-By Truckers, Amos Lee, Leon Bridges, Banks & Steelz, Ra Ra Riot, Local Natives, Too $hort and more

Natalie Gallagher,

Drive-By TruckersSon VoltDrive-By Truckers is inviting controversy with its forthcoming record, American Band, out September 30. To be honest, it’s a perfect year for it. The Georgia band celebrates two decades together, and perhaps to honor the coincidence that such a milestone is achieved during one of the most polarizing election years in history, this album encompasses themes of police…
Music

The Sexy Accident releases a new album … and a card game

Jessica Sain-Baird,

Jesse Kates is a fan of tangible music objects.“I used to like vinyl records, cassettes, CDs — not so much because they were a better format for listening but because they gave you something to hold, something to look at, something to be reminded by,” says Kates, Sexy Accident bandleader. “If you had a shelf full of music, it would…

Food & Drink

Chef Carlos Falcon to open south KC location of Jarocho Pescados y Mariscos, Thomas says goodbye, and the week’s restaurant events

April Fleming,

Carlos Falcon — one of the most talked-about chefs in Kansas City the past two years — is heading southeast. He aims to open a second, 60-seat location of Jarocho Pescados y Mariscos, his popular Kansas City, Kansas, Mexican seafood restaurant, later this year. Jarocho South, as Falcon plans to call it, will open at 13145 State Line Road, on…

A&E, Stage

The Kansas City Repertory Theatre mourns a flawed Evita

Liz Cook,

As I watched the Kansas City Repertory Theatre’s production of Evita, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s musical biography of Eva Perón, I couldn’t help but think of a line from the show’s second act. “As a mere observer of this tasteless phenomenon,” our de facto emcee says of the Peróns, “one has to admire the stage management.” Indeed, there’s…
A&E

Colby K Smith’s Navah finds beauty among clutter

Tracy Abeln,

The title of the show and most of the works in it is “Navah.” There’s no intervening statement posted anyplace, so I asked the Late Show’s Tom Deatherage, “What’s Navah?” He almost rolls his eyes, launching into a rote recitation about “Hebrew word, means to …” Right, I didn’t pay attention because this work doesn’t need you to know anything…

Music

JAZZ BEAT: Jazz Disciples play the Blue Room on Saturday

Larry Kopitnik,

Each month, for nearly 20 years, the Jazz Disciples have played the Blue Room. Overlooking a Kansas City staple can be easy, but this is an ensemble of exceptional musicians who represent the modern face of 18th and Vine. Saxophonist Gerald Dunn has been featured in bands with Illinois Jacquet and Bobby Watson. He plays an inventive, contemporary sound and…

Music

Ariana Grande is coming to the Sprint Center

April Fleming,

Teeny tiny pop star (and Saturday Night Live slayer) Ariana Grande is returning to Kansas City for a Sprint Center appearance on Saturday, March 18. The “Dangerous Woman Tour” follows the 2016 release of an album by the same name. Grande last appeared at Independence’s Silverstein Eye Center Arena in 2015.Tickets go on sale this Friday, September 23, via Live…

News

Blindfolded Jason Kander assembles AR-15 in campaign ad

David Martin,

Jason Kander’s U.S. Senate campaign is getting international attention for a new campaign ad in which he coolly puts together an AR-15 rifle while wearing a blindfold. “Did This Missouri Democrat Just Make the Best Campaign Ad of the 2016 Election?” an AdWeek headline asked on Friday.The ad is Kander’s answer to criticism that he’s squishy on guns. The camera…

Music

Death Valley Girls’ Bonnie Bloomgarden talks rocking the dead and more ahead of tonight’s show at the Replay Lounge

Nick Spacek,

Calling Death Valley Girls a garage-rock act undersells it. While the music on the Los Angeles quartet’s second full-length, ***Glow in the Dark, has a lo-fi aspect to it, there’s definitely a whole lotta death rock goin’ on. The band’s video for “Disco” is a freaky pagan affair, featuring legendary L.A. DJ Rodney Bingenheimer, and directed by Troma ingenue Kansas…
Food & Drink

SoT brings high-end cocktails to Grand Boulevard

Natalie Gallagher,

When I first met Erik Mariscal, a year and a half ago — when he was still the bar manager at Local Pig Westport, may it rest in peace — he told me his dream: opening a tiki bar in Kansas City. It was a fantasy he happily reiterated each time I saw him after that, whenever I asked him…

The Menzingers highlight a great triple bill tonight in Lawrence, Katy Guillen and the Girls pet Voodoo Kittens, and more must-see shows

Ron Knox,

There are a few good reasons to go to the Bayside show tonight at the Granada, in Lawrence, but Bayside isn’t really one of them.Bayside is great, of course — that third-wave emo holdout has delved more into pure pop theatrics as it’s gotten older, without forgetting to write big, powerful punk songs. But what you want to do is…
Movies

West Side Story goes somewhere special tonight at the Central Library

Scott Wilson,

Sometimes, when you have to go with a backup plan, you curse the lack of a viable third option.Sometimes, though, smart people come up with a Plan C that’s almost better than Plan A.Such was the case when weather forced the Kansas City Public Library to move the August Off the Wall movie ​indoors. Usually, that would have meant screening…

NOFX coming to Liberty Hall in November

April Fleming,

I’m fairly certain NOFX just puts out the same record again and again (and again), but who cares — it’s one of pop-punk’s classic acts, and somehow hastn’t aged, even decades into the business. The band is preparing its 13th release, First Ditch Effort, and will be hitting the road this fall. The tour includes a Thursday, November 17, stop…

News

7th Heaven sued by parents of slain cashier

David Martin,

The parents of Cheri Bland, the 7th Heaven employee who was shot dead in the store on August 26, are suing the store for negligence, alleging that a manager failed to act against an “imminent threat.”Bland died in what police determined to be a murder-suicide. Police said Desmond Bell, 26, shot himself after fatally shooting Bland, 29.According to the suit,…
Food & Drink

Boulevard brewmaster Steven Pauwels talks the end of Long Strange Tripel and Chocolate Ale, and new beginnings in 2017

Justin Kendall,

I meet up with Boulevard brewmaster Steven Pauwels and ambassador brewer Jeremy Danner in Boulevard’s gleaming new recreation and tour center. I need answers about Long Strange Tripel. Why is it getting retired? Why?“Because you didn’t buy enough,” Pauwels tells me. He laughs.I laugh, too, but my pain is real. He’s right. I should have bought more LST. We all…
A&E, Art

Hieronymus Bosch: Touched by the Devil, opening Friday, shows how the Nelson’s Bosch was authenticated

Dan Lybarger,

It is said that the Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch never left ‘s-Hertogenbosch, the town where he was born and where, 500 years ago, he died. But the art he left behind — bizarre, grotesque, hilarious, terrifying — could have been conceived only by someone who’d seen places (heaven? hell?) accessible to no one else. Not the stuff of Sunday school…
Music

Gary Clark Jr. served up a blues banquet at CrossroadsKC last night

Mike Warren,

Gary Clark Jr.with Eric TessmerCrossroadsKCWednesday, September 14, 2016 Gary Clark Jr. may have absorbed the blues in Austin, but his tastes wander well beyond Texas. Tellingly, his “play in” music included Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Prince, Sam and Dave, and David Bowie. That blend, with the addition of generous echoes of Stevie Ray Vaughan and the Alberts (King and Collins),…

News

The Daily Show With Trevor Noah skewers new Missouri gun law

David Martin,

Missouri lawmakers voted to override Gov. Jay Nixon’s veto of a sweeping gun rights bill on Wednesday. Among other things, the law eliminates the safety training and background checks now required for carrying a concealed weapon.Opposed by the Missouri Police Chiefs Association and the bishops of the state’s four Catholic dioceses, the law was mocked by The Daily Show With…
A&E

Six things to do this week: Adam Devine, Bob Saget, Strut With Your Mutt and more

Adam Devine8 p.m. Saturday, September 18Lied Center, 1600 Stewart Drive, LawrenceRingling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus Xtreme7 p.m. Thursday, September 157 p.m. Friday, September 1611 a.m. 3, 7 p.m. Saturday, September 171, 5 p.m. Sunday, September 18Sprint Center, 1407 GrandPicasso at the Lapin Agile by Steve Martin7:30 p.m. Thursday, September 15 through Saturday, September 172 p.m. Sunday, September 187:30…

Movies

Blair Witch is nothing you haven’t seen before

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. So it goes for writer Simon Barrett and director Adam Wingard, who, with Blair Witch, have set out to expand the universe of 1999’s The Blair Witch Project and reboot its franchise potential. Seventeen years ago, the original $60,000 film, by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez, shocked audiences and box offices alike,…