The Pitch’s Bacon & Bourbon Festival is just what it sounds like: hog heaven. Graphic tees, bumper stickers and Arby’s commercials agree: Everyone likes bacon. Sure, there are a few exceptions — vegetarians, people who don’t eat pork for religious reasons, most pigs). And the savory American favorite finds its perfect complement in a certain brown liquor. In fact, bacon…
Rye10551 Mission Road, Leawood, ryekc.com Dismiss this address as suburban and you’ll miss out on a fine view: tree-shaded grass and a large pond. Rye’s patio view is, in fact, more scenic than what you’ll find at most outdoor spots around town. Enlist a friend for a sunny afternoon and relax in one of the space’s comfortable loungers or under…
It’s a varied visual and aural pallet this month, with loud and heavy from the likes of Bummer and Hyborian, a jazzy video debut from Pearl Allure, some beats from Kawehi and Rory Fresco, poppy alt-rock from American Slim, and the art-damaged garage punk of Arc Flash.Bummer, “Freedom Cobra”Bummer’s split with San Antonio’s Pinko will be out this Friday, and…
Monday, April 10Manifesto (1924 Main) turns eight years old today and is marking the occasion by bringing in guest bartender Ryan Rama, from Altamar Brands distributors. The bar is running $8 cocktail specials, with a margarita time-out shooter available from 5 to 8 p.m.Wednesday, April 12Venture up to Cinder Block Brewery (110 East 18th Avenue, North Kansas City) this evening…
It was St. Patrick’s Day, and Kansas City punk quartet Red Kate was dressed to celebrate: black shirts, black jeans, black boots.To be fair: A green T-shirt did peek from beneath the black button-up worn by L. Ron Drunkard, the band’s singer and owner of maybe the most preposterous stage name in the city. But that hint of green was…
Would you go to something billed as The Worst Show Yet? What if it involves chainsaws?See what Paintallica — a group of artists who united in 2002 at the University of Iowa — has improvised for an installation at Leedy-Voulkos Art Center (2012 Baltimore) that opens from 6 to 9 tonight. The collaboration promises to be raw and uncensored and…
Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley has hired two partners and an associate lawyer from a high-profile law firm to fight a $900,000 settlement agreement that his agency had agreed to last week but backed away from a day later.The Kansas City-based Shook, Hardy & Bacon, one of the country’s largest law firms — it has represented Big Tobacco, top pharmaceutical companies…
Since the late 1980s, Trace Beaulieu and Frank Conniff have been best known for torturing two reluctant astronauts and a pair of acerbic bots with bad movies. On Mystery Science Theater 3000, they played the mad scientists (or Mads) Dr. Clayton Forrester and TV’s Frank, who subjected series creator Joel Hodgson and, later, Michael J. Nelson to such turkeys as Manos:…
It’s Saturday night, an hour ahead of showtime for the National Wrasslin’ League, and inside the Kansas City Scottish Rite Temple’s courtly green room — modestly perched podium on one end, a massive etching of a Masonic double-headed eagle on the other, blood-red carpet and white walls in the hundred or so feet between — the vibe is cheerful but…
With just nine non-Coachella U.S. dates on its schedule this year, Radiohead has made itself a precious commodity on the 2017 touring circuit. As of now, Kansas City is the band’s only Midwestern slot in the roster this year, and tickets to the performance sold out within two hours. (AEG did release dozens of seats for purchase in the days…
Earlier this week, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer dismissed ProPublica as a “left-wing blog.” ProPublica is not a left-wing blog. It is an independent, nonprofit news organization responsible for some of the finest investigative reporting in America. Sean Spicer is a sad, doomed clown, and he got owned for trying to imply that ProPublica is down in the hyper-partisan…
What happens to a dream deferred? At the Kansas City Repertory Theatre, it metastasizes into an evening of compulsory theater.It helps when the script in question is A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry’s 1959 magnum opus about the aspirations of a black family from Chicago’s South Side. The play opens in a tidy but threadbare apartment in the Woodlawn neighborhood,…
Grim days for retail brick-and-mortar chains. Many of the old giants — Sears, Macy’s, KMart, Kohl’s — are closing stores across the country. Gordmans filed for bankruptcy in March. Today, Payless Shoesource, the budget footwear chain founded in Topeka and headquartered there since 1956, made its debut in bankruptcy court.According to the bankruptcy filing, Payless has somewhere between $1 billion…
There are bands that don’t age well, and there are acts whose sound and feel are timeless. Count the Violent Femmes among the latter: Its debut record, almost as old as The Pitch at 35, still sounds subversively fresh. And its performances are fun — the Femmes played our 25th-anniversary party, and even before the show started, the audience was…
Kansas City-raised journalist Walter Cronkite said in 2004 that his long-held view of Dwight D. Eisenhower — whom history has sometimes painted as a do-nothing preisdent — had changed over time. “I came to realize how wrong I’d been about him and his presidency.” Because Eisenhower often worked behind the scenes and was careful about his public remarks, the true impact…
Ghostface KillahWith Stik Figa and BLKFLANL; 8 p.m. April 4 at the Granada, all ages, $28His last scheduled Kansas City show (back in 2012) was canceled, and so was his last Lawrence show (2013), but if all goes as planned, Ghostface Killah (born Dennis Coles) will keep his date with the Granada. Wu-Tang Clan bashed New York over the head…
Fleet Foxes is set to release its first album in six years this June: Crack Up. It’s also been that long since the band toured, and among its slew of fall dates is a stop at the Midland in Kansas City on Tuesday, August 8. Tickets are $36.50-$40 and go on sale to the public at 10 a.m. April 7, via…
The disability discrimination lawsuit of Lori Lynn Walker, a former state prison guard who worked in Kansas City, has taken an unexpected turn.Walker’s lawsuit against Missouri Department of Corrections officials, who face dozens of discrimination lawsuits and are being investigated by a legislative subcommittee, was set for trial Monday. It would have been the first trial since The Pitch published a…
Last week, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback vetoed a bill, passed by the Kansas Senate and House of Representatives, that would have expanded Medicaid in the state, effectively providing medical care to roughly 150,000 low-income Kansans. Though Democrats and many Republicans voted for Medicaid expansion, Brownback and other fringe conservatives believe denying health coverage to poor people is a bad idea…
April is flush with great local theater, but there’s good reason to shuffle Five Guys Named Moe, now playing a limited run at the Black Repertory Theatre of Kansas City, to the top of your list.Clarke Peters’ 1990 musical — based on a 1943 musical of the same name by songwriter and bandleader Louis Jordan — grins with variety-show banter…
Mondays, we round up the week’s most interesting food and drink events in the Kansas City area. Besides the meals and classes below, remember that this weekend marks April’s First Friday, so a host of food trucks will be scattered throughout the Crossroads on Friday evening.Monday, April 3To commemorate the Royals’ season opener, Barley’s Kitchen & Tap (11924 West 119th…
Two bills currently wending their way through the Missouri Senate seek to roll back longstanding protections for employees in Missouri. One, SB 43, seeks to amend the Missouri Human Rights Act in a way that makes it more difficult for employees to prove claims of discrimination and harassment. It would also cap whistleblower damages. The other, SB 45, makes it…
Depending on one’s perspective, the timing of the annual town hall meeting of the Kansas Legislature’s Olathe delegation Saturday couldn’t have been better.Or worse.Legislators around the state are being bombarded with calls to override Gov. Sam Brownback’s despicable veto of the Legislature’s bill expanding Medicaid eligibility to an estimated 150,000 Kansans. For the bill to become law, two senators and…
