The new normal for music. // Photo by Jim Nimmo Walking into the front door and down the stairs of my suburban two-story split home gives way to what used to be a finished basement used for watching sports and playing PS4. Now, it is a home gym, a Zoom conference meeting room, and my office (with a folding chair…
Boulevard has announced two limited-time additions to the Unfiltered Wheat lineup: Unfiltered Grapefruit Wheat and Unfiltered Kiwi Wheat, which began hitting shelves in Kansas City today. Over the past few months, Boulevard’s brewers have taken everything they know about brewing Unfiltered Wheat Beer, and tweaked the recipes ever so slightly to add the perfect levels of fresh fruit flavor and…
The Riot Room has a special place in our hearts as music fans. Unfortunately, no large gatherings means no live music, which means no business. City Barrel wanted to do something to help. Hence: Six Feet Apart. Six Feet Apart is available for pre-order now and available for pick-up Friday, May 8th. From CB: We brewed this beer before the…
KC Jazz Ambassadors have launched a “Gig Grant” program to help local jazz musicians who may be out of work due to the coronavirus make ends meet. “With clubs like the Blue Room, Green Lady, the Majestic, Chaz, Café Trio, Gaslight Grill, and others all closed, our talented jazz musicians have no place to work,” explained KCJA president Mark Edelman….
Photo by Joe Carey You might not believe this, but people are drinking more lately. Liquor sales are up 27 percent nationally. Wine sales are up 26 percent. Another thing that’s on the rise? Streaming. Not that you, a socially isolated person who’s probably watching a lot of movies and consuming a lot of alcohol, need numbers to prove this,…
Heidi Holicker (l) and Deborah Foreman (r) in Valley Girl. If we’re going to be 100% honest, the upcoming release of the much-delayed Valley Girl remake this Friday looks like a feature-length musical episode of Riverdale. You have a ’90s teen icon—in this case, Alicia Silverstone—playing a parent, there are repurposed ’80s songs, and well, Riverdale’s own Josie McCoy,…
Blood Quantum announces what kind of movie it is early on, making a bold statement in its very first scene. You might ask how bold, to which I answer: zombie fish. That’s right. Jeff Barnaby’s indigenous Canadian zombie movie starts with a freshly gutted undead salmon, and it only gets crazier from there. Blood Quantum feels like a delightfully gory…
Rankings of restrictions in states from 1 – 51. // Photo courtesy WalletHub Ahead of the city’s “soft opening” tomorrow, the current comparison of state-by-state restrictions seems worth observing. With some states beginning to open up for business and relax limitations put in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic, WalletHub today released its report on the States with the Fewest…
The taste of summer just got a little sweeter. Boulevard Beverage Co., a “side hustle” from Boulevard Brewing focusing on projects outside its traditional beer homeland, today announced a new line of beverages: Quirk Spiked & Sparkling. Their take on hard seltzers uses real fruit juice and comes in three flavors. It’s exciting for KC to get its feet wet…
The KCMO Health Department is hiring temporary Community Health Workers to assist with tracking positive COVID-19 cases around the metro. The best path forward for the city involves ramping up testing and tracking, and like other communities, our Health Department is ramping up employment for this as quickly as possible. The job was posted yesterday and the application deadline is…
A quiet, empty Westport. // Photo by Alyssa Orr This article was written in early April for publication in our May issue. Up-to-date details are not reflected. As of May 4th, there are 8,754 cases in Missouri with 358 total deaths. Kansas has 5,245 cases and 136 confirmed deaths. From the same date, a study cites Missouri as having the…
Let’s be honest: there are only so many episodes of Forensic Files you can binge before your conversations stop sounding hypothetical. The question, “You know what these people keep doing wrong?” no longer comes across as quizzical, but more like preparation, and your significant other’s sidewise glances are more than a little bit tinged with alarm. In that case, here…
Congrats are in order. // Photo courtesy Macmillan In our professional opinion, this f’ing rules. (We’re trying to stop cursing, just in case we might be up for a Pulitzer someday.) Local author Anne Boyer was just awarded the prestigious Pulitzer Prize in the category of General Non-Fiction. Her book is The Undying: Pain, Vulnerability, Mortality, Medicine, Art, Time, Dreams,…
This post was paid for by Centric Projects. MBE/WBE Subcontractors and Vendors invited to bid: Centric Projects is soliciting MBE/WBE Subs/Suppliers for KD Academy at Prospect Ave. & E.22nd St. Bids are due 5/22/2020 at 2:00 PM via fax 816-389-8301 or email bids@centric.build Questions to: mike.sisk@centric.build Plans and specifications will be available for download after May 8, 2020. Prebid…
James Beard Awards medal. // Photo courtesy James Beard Foundation After a string of bad news for local restaurants, a silver lining: for the second year in a row, Chef Michael Corvino of Corvino Supper Club & Tasting Room has been named a finalist for the James Beard Foundation’s “Best Chef: Midwest” award. Finalists were announced in a livestream on…
A perfect birthday baby. // Photo by Brock Wilbur Today is “May The Fourth”, a day for the traditional celebration of the Disney IP Star Wars. It is based on the saying “May the Force be with you” from the movies. I doubt I needed to explain that to you, but you never know. I didn’t understand why April 26th…
Faron Meek of FM Music // Photo courtesy FM Music To reopen his record shop, FM Music’s Faron Meek found inspiration while sitting on the couch with his wife and co-owner, Holly, one Saturday night. “On television, some show about people looking at what log cabin to buy, this guy was inside the log cabin and opened up a little…
Guest Joshua Bell. // Photo courtesy Kansas City Symphony After canceling their big, annual outdoor concert scheduled for Sunday, May 24 (Memorial Day weekend), the Kansas City Symphony decided to create a “best of” compilation broadcast from the past 17 years in place of a live concert. It’ll air twice locally: 7 p.m. May 24 and 8:30 p.m. May 25…
From the beginning, the year 2020 was unlike any we had seen in KC. It started with the first Super Bowl victory in 50 years and then it began to go bad. As a restaurant worker, we relished the first two months. Business was booming and people were happy. We might have heard some little thing on the news about…
In an event that should have received more fanfare, a small contingent of doctors and others on Friday dropped off a truckload of signed petitions at the offices of the Missouri secretary of state. The petitions signal the eagerness of Missouri voters to accomplish what their state legislature has failed to do for years — expand Medicaid access to thousands…
News time. // Photo by KC Night Live Local KC performers got tired of waiting for SNL to come back. While the major network show has been back for two weeks, the SNL-shaped hole in our hearts has been filled by the ensemble cast of these lockdown lads and ladies. New episodes roll out every Saturday night. Some friends started…
We’ve been asking members of the KC community to submit stories about life under house arrest. If you’ve got a story you’d like to share, please send it to brock@thepitchkc.com for consideration. Today, local photographer (and Pitch intern) Samantha Sprouse shares a gallery of shots from her recent time in the world. Illustration by Jack Raybuck I went out hoping to…
A scene from Butt Boy // Courtesy Exile PR The worst sin a film titled Butt Boy can commit is taking itself too seriously. Like the rest of us, the film’s Writer, Director, and Star Tyler Cornack is not without sin and greatly struggles to find a successful tone with his farty farce. Though there are glimpses of sharp humor…
Protestors in KC // Photo by Jim Nimmo It began with TV shots of angry people all over the nation. It seemed all at once. From Philadelphia to California to Kansas City, protestors were angry. Very angry. From city to city, they demanded that businesses reopen. They said COVID-19 was a lie, an exaggeration. They waved Trump flags and wore…
