Our Favorite Ramone

FRI 5/16

This year’s Joey Ramone Birthday Tribute gets rocking at 7 tonight at El Torreon (3101 Gillham Plaza). For six bucks, local bands — Cretin, the Throttlers, My Unnamed Parade of Stars, Lust-R-Tones and Tanka Ray — perform classic Ramones songs. We hope, however, that they’ll be inspired (perhaps by audience requests) to give us more than “Ramones,” “Leave Home,” “Rocket to Russia, “Road to Ruin” and “End of the Century.”Joey tributes have popped up all over the country since the punk pioneer died of lymphatic cancer two years ago at age 49; many of them raise money for cancer research. Maybe we can lay special claim to the gangly icon because his favorite New York City haunt was Max’s Kansas City. Proceeds from this bash go to Kansas City Hospice.

If charitable intentions don’t get you to El Torreon, ponder this: Without Joey and his fellow Ramones, Kansas City likely would have no Sister Mary Rotten Crotch, no Tanka Ray, no Rock Over London, no Gadjits, no Underdog Conspiracy, no Mi6, no Exit 79, no Skags …

Ramone’s legacy is so prolific that mourners from far outside New York’s East Village punk scene are still moping about in “1951-2001” T-shirts. Grungers have Kurt. Rappers have Tupac. Old people have Elvis. Punk kids have Joey.

So, it looks like you’re going. We recommend wearing a leather jacket, tinted glasses and torn jeans.— Sarah Smarsh

Boy Howdy
The Bell Road Barn Players take on Mamet.

THUR-SAT

Who would have thought that expletive king David Mamet could direct a G-rated movie? But his 1999 adaptation of Terence Rattigan’s The Winslow Boy was just that. The Bell Road Barn Players stage Rattigan’s drama about a determined father who contests his son’s expulsion from school after a mysterious theft. The Winslow Boy is not as well-known as Rattigan’s The Deep Blue Sea or Separate Tables, but neither is it the kind of middle-of-the-road play he was accused of writing. Those charges were largely his fault; Rattigan was known to boast that he wrote for “nice, middle-aged Aunt Edna,” a persona he completely invented. The play runs through Saturday at the Jenkin and Barbara David Theater in Alumni Hall on the Park University campus. For reservations, call 816-585-0218.— Steve Walker