Archives: September 2016

The Kansas City Chiefs home opener headlines six things to do this weekend

Kansas City Chiefs home opener vs. San Diego ChargersOne Arrowhead WayArrowhead StadiumNoon. Sunday, September 11Dancefestopia5 p.m. Thursday, September 81:30p.m. Friday, September 911 a.m. Saturday, September 10Noon Sunday, September 11La Benite Riverfront Park, Sugar CreekThe Music of Led Zeppelin with the KC Symphony8 p.m. Friday, September 9Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts1601 BroadwayIndependence Uncorked1-6 p.m. Saturday, September 10 Bingham-Waggoner Estate, 313 W….

Helmet and Local H are touring together, including a stop in Kansas City

And with that, all men (and some women) of a certain age rejoice – alt-rock heroes Helmet are embarking on a lengthy tour this fall in support of a new album, Dead to the World. The band’s local stop will be on Tuesday, December 13, at the resurrected RecordBar (1520 Grand). Bonus: Helmet is touring with Local H. Tickets are…

TV station sues Merriam over video of fuel theft

KSHB-TV has filed a lawsuit in an effort to compel the City of Merriam to release video of a former public works director stealing from a fuel truck.In 2014, a foreman who worked in the city’s public works department became suspicious that department director Randall Carroll was gassing up his personal vehicle with fuel stored in 78-gallon tanks in the…

Sully, with Tom Hanks, lets Eastwood check off some new boxes

You could call Sully — director Clint Eastwood’s straightforward recounting of U.S. Airways Flight 1549, the Miracle on the Hudson, and its aftermath — a meditation on American professionalism as American heroism, except that it isn’t built for deep thought. At about 95 minutes, it’s closer in length to a Rawhide rerun than it is to anything Eastwood has helmed…

Yana Beranek, partner at Useagility and co-founder of Pointworks Academy, talks running, drinking, cheering on the Royals and more in The Pitch Questionnaire

Hometown: Born in Brooklyn, New York, but a KC “native” since I was 4 years old.Current neighborhood: BrooksideWhat I do: At Useagility, I lead our UX research and design teams in the creation of easy-to-use digital products for our clients. At Pointworks Academy, we train people in UX.What’s your addiction? Trail running. Anywhere, anytime.What’s your game? KC Royals baseball. I…

Louis C.K. moves on to Better Things and One Mississippi, Masters of Sex and South Park return, and more visual distractions

Thursday 9.8A new season of Louie may not be coming anytime soon, but Louis C.K. is certainly keeping busy with FX by producing shows for his friends. Coming off the success of Zach Galifianakis’ strange and wonderful Baskets, C.K. is producing the semi-autobiographical Better Things for his pal and Louie co-star Pamela Adlon. She plays a single mom raising three…

Mission Taco Joint keeps rolling, Barley’s Brewhaus is now Barley’s Kitchen + Tap, Ostrea on the way, plus the week’s restaurant events

Slowly but steadily, Mission Taco Joint is inching closer to its buildout, along with International Tap House, at 1801 Oak in the Crossroads. That address, you’ll recall, was the unlikely endpoint of a car chase in November 2014, with the pursued vehicle causing the dramatic collapse of the building’s  southwest corner. It was subsequently purchased by developer Matt Abbott, who…

Talking Charlie Parker with Jeff Robinson, the man who brought him home last month

When Jeff Robinson becomes Charlie Parker onstage, as he did in August at the Green Lady Lounge downtown, the transformation startles. The performer, middle-aged, with two sons and a wife in Boston, disappeared. In his place was Bird, slumped in a chair at a small table, his double-breasted suit unbuttoned and askew, the booze helping him brag and name-drop and…

Fine print: Zine Con makes KC a DIY boomtown this weekend

If you’ve ever made your own calendar, or stapled together some pages of your writing for a few friends to read, or assembled a few of your better drawings for posterity, you’ve basically started down the road to making a zine. Zine as in not-quite-magazine (pronounce it like that: zeen). As in DIY (do it yourself). As in old-school self-publication…

Siah Armajani’s bridges lead this week’s art events

Being at the confluence of the Missouri and Kaw rivers, Kansas City, like so many U.S. towns and urban centers, is laced together by bridges. Twelfth Street, Red Bridge, Bond, ASB — these structures carry our history as much as they carry traffic day in and day out. That’s one thing you ponder as you look at the major new…

Life, Animated director Roger Ross Williams finds true colors on the autism spectrum

For generations, Disney animated films have offered reliable escape from the real world. For Owen Suskind, these movies were the way into it.Suskind demonstrated signs of autism when he was 3 years old and spent much of his youth in silent isolation, away from other children and even apart from his family. Then Owen’s father, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind…

Developer Chris Payne gets busy in Raytown without expecting handouts

Developers are not fighting to get into Raytown, an integrated, inner-ring suburb lacking what a city development plan describes as “imageability.” Enlivening the city’s downtown is an ongoing struggle. In 2001, the city acquired a building that First Baptist Church of Raytown left when it relocated to a site along Missouri 350, the divided highway that makes the city feel…

Concert Calendar: Frightened Rabbit, Crossroads Music Fest, Gary Clark Jr., Tegan & Sara, Bob Mould and more

Frightened RabbitFrightened Rabbit frontman Scott Hutchison is kind of your archetypical tortured artist. On the Glasgow band’s latest album, Painting of a Panic Attack, he mines the well-trod themes of heartbreak and depression. Instead of being trapped in his own self-pity, Hutchison addresses his own faults. There are some self-indulgent moments, but overall, Painting of a Panic Attack reads more…

Missouri is a mass incarcerator

Mass incarceration is far worse in rural Missouri than it is in other parts of the country.The New York Times recently analyzed prison admissions at the county level. The analysis showed a “prison belt” reaching from Texas to Indiana, driven largely by counties with fewer than 100,000 people. The data suggest that drug offenders continue to receive harsh sentences in…

Jimmy Eat World to return to Lawrence in October

You know you like a little bit of power pop – and few bands create as much of the stuff as Jimmy Eat World. The band is preparing for its ninth release, Integrity Blues, due out Friday, October 21. In anticipation of the release, the band is planning a Lawrence show at the Granada (1020 Massachusetts) on Tuesday, October 18….

It’s sad that Len Dawson is still calling Chiefs games

Chiefs legend Len Dawson decided to return to the booth for another season. It was a mistake. Dawson is in his 32nd season as the color commentator for Chiefs radio broadcasts. At age 81, he is not up to the task. Not even on the reduced schedule he announced this summer.I listened to the third quarter of last night’s game….

ACLU sues Missouri over selection of execution witnesses

The ACLU of Missouri has filed a federal lawsuit challenging the state of Missouri’s process for selecting witnesses for executions.Chris McDaniel, a reporter who covers the death penalty for BuzzFeed News, applied to witness a Missouri execution in early 2014. He has yet to receive a response from the Missouri Department of Corrections, even though the state has executed 17…

Various Blonde, Heidi Lynn Gluck, Keef Mountain, and more: August’s must-see local videos

If you’ve read this week’s issue, you’re obviously aware there are tons of great local releases out now. And now, if you watch your way through all of these videos, you’ll know all about the releases coming out in the next couple of months. Whether you like Keef Mountain’s stoner doom, Various Blonde’s genre-breaking beats, the heartbreaking pop of Heidi…