Archives: March 2018

Music

Topeka noise-rap crew Young Mvchetes emerges from the shadows

Aaron Rhodes,

Jackson Street Lofts is a former Catholic elementary school that sits about 100 yards from the Kansas State Capitol, in Topeka. The building was renovated in 2015 and chopped up into apartments, many of which retain the school’s spacious green chalkboards. Up the spiraling metal stairs from one of these classrooms-turned-living-spaces is a makeshift studio where the members of Young…

Tiffany Brown: KCFW Q&A

Kelcie McKenney,

Tiffany Brown’s line TRBrown is a women’s ready-to-wear brand filled with cozy faux furs, layers, and earth-toned fabrics. Her designs promote female empowerment, especially her newest line #GPWR. She’s a self-taught seamstress who has only been designing clothes for two-and-a-half years, but her line will be featured in Kansas City Fashion Week’s Saturday night show. This is her first time…
News

Owners of new Crossroads hotel appear to be ruthless corporate gentrifiers

David Hudnall,

A few years ago, a Chicago firm called Aparium Hotel Group bought two buildings at 2101 and 2107 Central Avenue (just east of Lulu’s in the Crossroads) with the intention of converting the properties into a 125-room boutique hotel, restaurant, and bar. The city council fast-tracked approval of the project, citing concerns that a delay on the vote could jeopardize…
Beer & Spirits

BKS Artisan Ales is making great beers. But they’re not easy to come by.

Liz Cook,

Stanning for BKS Artisan Ales, the four-month-old brewery in what we are now calling East Brookside, can be deeply frustrating. Although the beers are ready for the limelight, the business seems trapped in a perpetual state of rehearsal. The brewery doesn’t fill growlers, citing quality control and production volume concerns. It doesn’t sell beer flights, though the tap list is…

Meghann Wheelock: KCFW Q&A

Kelcie McKenney,

Kansas City native Meghann Wheelock has a packed portfolio of brands she’s designed for, including Guess Jeans, Betsey Johnson, Target, and Dillard’s. But her personal brand, Ethel and Dean, is one of two children’s lines featured in this season’s Kansas City Fashion Week. Wheelock will be debuting a new line at Saturday’s show, but her last season, “Hook,” is an…
News

Can local makers help revive KC’s ailing malls?

Angela Lutz,

“Welcome to my little shop,” Tara Fay says, from behind a booth inside an Oak Park Mall storefront. Wearing royal blue heels, high-waisted jeans, and a vintage Metallica tee that shows off an array of colorful tattoos, Fay’s busying herself sorting thrift finds she snagged in Omaha the previous evening. She somehow seems right at home here in this suburban…

Margarida Kessens: KCFW Q&A

Kelcie McKenney,

“Functional and fashionable” is perhaps the best way to describe the purses and convertible backpacks of Day’s Eye, by Margarida Kessens. A native of Spain, Kessens seems to be influenced equally by Spanish culture and her needs as a mom of three. Day’s Eye will be the only handbag line at this season’s Kansas City Fashion Week, and Kessens is…

Schyler Slaven: KCFW Q&A

Kelcie McKenney,

Model-turned-designer Schyler Slaven has an eye for mixing the creative and the analytical. With a degree in apparel and textiles, her knowledge of fabrics is the foundation for her line Schyline. It’s a men’s and women’s lounge/resort-wear line that was inspired by Slaven’s time abroad in Melbourne, Australia. Ahead of Schyline’s runway walk at the Kansas City Fashion Week Wednesday…
Art

Haw Contemporary’s full-circle path to the Crossroads

David Hudnall,

“The Crossroads,” John O’Brien told The Kansas City Star in 2007, “is going to continue to develop whether I’m here or not.”O’Brien, a pioneer of the downtown arts district, was explaining to the paper why he had decided to sell 1901 Baltimore, the building that housed the Dolphin, home to his beloved gallery and frame shop. The buyer of the…
Music

Howard Iceberg, KC roots music elder statesman, has a new concept album and a show Thursday at the Ship

David Hudnall,

After working as an immigration lawyer in Kansas City for nearly four decades, Howard Eisberg began sliding into retirement a couple years ago. He received his official approval from the Missouri Bar to be placed on inactive status in early 2017. Three days later, Trump announced his first travel ban. “I was back on a teleconference the next day with immigration…

Kansas City Fashion Week kicks off Wednesday. Here’s what to know.

Kelcie McKenney,

This year’s Kansas City Fashion Week (KCFW) is packed with designs that are light, breezy, and bright — at least that’s our initial impression of what will walk the runway beginning tomorrow, Wednesday, March 28. This, the seventh year and thirteenth season of KCFW, features a lineup of 28 local and national designers. Kelsie O’Brien, KCFW spokesperson, says she sees in…
News

We’re old enough to remember when Kevin Corlew wasn’t such a champion of women’s workplace rights

Barbara Shelly,

In late February, on Facebook, Missouri Rep. Kevin Corlew officially, if belatedly, became a friend of the #MeToo movement.“As our law currently stands, if a person has been sexually harassed or abused in the workplace, employers can require confidentiality or non-disclosure agreements when arbitrating,” he wrote in a post. “That’s why I filed 2552. Workplace policy must change to make…

Easter brunch ideas, plus beer and wine dinners at Parker, Corvino, HopCat, and EJ’s: KC’s food and drink events for March 26 through April 1

April Fleming,

Tuesday, March 27Corvino Supper Club & Tasting Room (1830 Walnut Street) continues its Raven’s Nest Winemaker Series tonight with a specialty dinner featuring wines from Meyer Family Cellars out of Mendocino, California. The Raven’s Nest dinners feature representatives from the winemakers as well as a five-course meal prepared and served by freshly minted James Beard Award nominee chef Michael Corvino….
Questionnaire

Alley Gage, local makeup artist turned face of Sephora, answers The Pitch Questionnaire

Kelcie McKenney,

For its holiday advertising campaign, the beloved French cosmetics chain Sephora hired from within, so to speak. The company encouraged its 11,000 North American store employees to apply to be featured in ads featured in Sephora store windows and a print and social-media campaign. Roughly 1,000 employees responded. Alley Gage, a senior makeup artist who works at a handful of…
News

March for Our Lives Kansas City, in photos

Chase Castor,

Hundreds of thousands of Americans took to the streets today demanding gun law reform. In Kansas City, about 5,000 people showed up at Theis Park to hear activists, politicians, and high school students speak at the March for Our Lives event. Our photographer Chase Castor was there to document the afternoon. Categories: News
News

Where to March for Your Life this Saturday in the Kansas City area

David Hudnall,

This Saturday, something on the order of a half-million people are expected to converge on Washington, D.C., to participate in March for Our Lives, an anti-gun-violence rally organized by students in the wake of the Parkland school shooting in Florida and the thousands of other senseless acts of gun violence facilitated by the National Rifle Association, an American terrorist organization. Similar…

The Casket Lottery’s Nathan Ellis on the band’s brief return (and its vinyl reissues) ahead of Saturday’s Bottleneck show

Nick Spacek,

The Casket Lottery’s debut LP, Choose Bronze, turns 20 years old next year. Originally released via Kansas City’s Second Nature Recordings, the album, along with the post-hardcore group’s Moving Mountains and Survival Is For Cowards, is getting reissued for Record Store Day by Boston label, Run For Cover Records. In addition to the records being once again available individually and as…
Music

Exclusive stream: The Mowgli’s ‘Kansas City’

Nick Spacek,

Los Angeles indie-pop band The Mowgli’s biggest hit is the city-centric “San Francisco,” but for all that West Coast love, the band has some Midwest roots: guitarist-singer Josh Hogan is from Oklahoma City, and singer-guitarist Colin Dieden grew up in Overland Park. Dieden’s local connection — as well as the band’s massive airplay on 96.5 The Buzz and appearances at…
Movies

Pacific Rim: Uprising is a colossal dud that may very well sink the entire franchise

Let me tell you from experience: The worst choice you can make before seeing the new action sequel Pacific Rim: Uprising is to bone up by watching Guillermo del Toro’s 2013 Pacific Rim, which introduced a world where giant kaiju monsters come from the deep to destroy the world and are battled by scrappy two-person teams of humans that power…

Talking with sexual assault survivor Chessy Prout about the #IHaveTheRightTo movement ahead of her appearance Thursday at Unity Temple

Kelcie McKenney,

In 2014, at St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire, Chessy Prout, a high school freshman, was sexually assaulted by a senior named Owen Labrie. A year after a very public trial in August 2015, Prout came forward and identified herself as the previously anonymous survivor. She has since written a biography, with help from Boston Globe Spotlight Team reporter Jenn Abelson,…