Best Of
Arts & Entertainment >>
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Best Tribute to Lewis and Clark
Boulevard Draft Raft
While Kansas City went nuts over the Lewis and Clark bicentennial extravaganza during the 4th of July weekend -- which was replete with cheesy re-enactments, a "Lewis and Clark laser show" and a fireworks display that kind of went bust -- the coolest tribute was quietly docked over at Kaw Point,... More >>
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Best Ode to Booty
Found Party
Found Magazine is the kind of subcultural phenomenon that could easily come unhinged from the hipster fad that spawned it, turning into something that people of all ages, all political persuasions and all hairstyles just fucking love. Everybody gets a kick out of finding weird stuff and trying... More >>
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Best Trivial Pursuit
Trivia Riot, 7 p.m. Fridays at the Brick
Like Jeopardy meets dodgeball, Trivia Riot rewards the factoid-fluent while offering the opportunity to bombard the esoteric-information-impaired. Teams answer questions on current events and geography, play name-that-tune with television-show theme songs and dig deep for pop-culture... More >>
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Best Going, Going, Sold!
Divine Intervention Set
Venus Envy, an auction that funded area activists' trip to the March for Women's Lives in Washington, D.C., was a thoroughly engaging event, from the sex toys and fetish wear that generated top-dollar donations to Missy Koonce's quick-witted work as host. But the evening's final item, a... More >>
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Best Night for Radio Lovers
Ira Glass at Unity Temple, April 20
When Ira Glass came to town on a Tuesday night back in May, the $25 ticket might have contributed to a decision-making crisis for This American Life devotees. Tuesday nights, the guest of honor's show airs on KCUR 89.3 -- for free. We almost skipped out on it for that very reason, but we're glad... More >>
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Best Place to Speak Your Mind
Trago on Wednesday nights
Wednesday-night readings at Trago, called Urban Literation, are a casual alternative to the competitive atmosphere of cash-prize spoken-word spots. The atmosphere lets first-time readers feel comfortable and inspires top talents to let down their guards. Several writers, headed by Bonafyde G... More >>
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Best Place to Show and Prove
Higher Ground Entertainment's First Fridays
People just don't get dressed up on the weekends anymore. Sure, there are still plenty of suits on the Plaza, but Westport clubs suffer from crass displays of near-nudity and vinyl shirts that outshine SUV headlights. Higher Ground Entertainment's First Friday events, monthly affairs that target... More >>
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Best Classical Music Promotion
Classics Uncorked
Classical music and wine certainly seem to go together; both seem like appealing ingredients in a high-culture night on the town. But the two seldom share such a link, given that most music halls don't sell alcoholic beverages. Correcting this oversight and filling the art-plus-alcohol void... More >>
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Best Effort to Bring Fine Arts to Kansas City
Harriman Arts Program
We're proud of the University of Missouri-Kansas City's Conservatory of Music, and we try to catch performances of the Lyric Opera, the ballet, the symphony and a host of smaller, local companies on occasion. But we also know that Kansas City is not one of the showiest centers for classical... More >>
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Best Free Entertainment
Summer Movies
Finally, Crown Center found a suitable replacement for its late, lamented free Friday-night concerts. Its outdoor movies, shown at the pavilion that serves as an ice-skating rink during the winter, ranged from high art (Rear Window) to seasonally appropriate schlock (Independence Day, with... More >>
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Best Addition to the Plaza
Shane Borth
The Country Club Plaza, with its romantic Spanish architecture and outdoor summer concerts, is the perfect place to spy a new crush -- and not just for those 13-year-olds hanging out by Abercrombie & Fitch. This truth applies to a more mature set, as well. But in this case, one person happens to... More >>
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Best Evidence of Capitalism in the Art Crowd
Italian Summer
Many Kansas Citians fear gentrification of the Crossroads, but that boat's tour guides are already drowning in a sea of capitalism. Italian Summer, the June 12 fashion show organized by Birdies, Second Honeymoon and Spool, was so named to acquire the interest of a certain scooter company. "We... More >>
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Best New Studio/Gallery in the Crossroads
Hammerpress
Maybe it's the romance of the old-fashioned printing press that makes us biased toward Brady Vest's Hammerpress, but we know we're not the only ones who are in love with his work. Vest's designs on fliers and music-show posters -- as well as on random scraps of cardboard left around his studio... More >>
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Best Place to Escape the Crowds on First Fridays
Galleries in the Eastern Crossroads
The best way to escape the claustrophobia-inducing crowds on First Fridays, not to mention the hot dog vendors, the beer gardens and the Mix 93.3 Summer Concert Series, is to head a few blocks east of Baltimore. The MoMo Studio and Zone Gallery at 19th and Locust; the Farm, the Next Space and... More >>
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Best Art Show
The Gun and Knife Show
The Gun and Knife Show this spring was relevant, but its relevance didn't get in the way of its looking nice. The show was conceptual, but the work made a strong impression at first glance -- you could love it or hate it first and think about why later. It was funny and tongue-in-cheek at... More >>
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Best Photography Show
Ladislav Bielik
We think the purpose of photography is, very simply, to show reality in a different light. When the Arts Incubator brought photographs from the 1968 Czech popular uprising to town in May, we saw a Big Historical Moment transform from words in history books into people on a street. You know how,... More >>
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Best Sculpture Show
"Randy Regier: Recent Sculpture"
Randy Regier makes sculptures that look like antique toys. In fact, his craft is so impeccable and his artwork so convincing that the only clue that it isn't what it seems to be is its tongue-in-cheek packaging. Labels such as Gypco, Nyeevatoy, Futilitoy add an element of social commentary to... More >>
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Best Artist (1 Comment)
Lynus Young
A few years ago at a gallery opening for Lynus Young at the Telephone Booth, one viewer commented that his work looked like vomit on canvas. Intended as a compliment, this observation gets to the heart of why Young is such a great artist. His work isn't always very good (i.e., the bathtub video... More >>
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Best Printmaking Show
"Terry Allen: Voices & Scrawl"
Terry Allen tells tales through his artwork. His stories are fictional, he claims, though "they lie their way to the truth." Although he is not known primarily for his print work -- he's a musician, video artist, playwright and installation artist -- Allen uses prints to develop his narratives,... More >>
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Best Graphic Design Show
"Close-Up in Black: African-American Film Posters"
Close-Up in Black: African-American Film Posters chronicled the history of films created by or starring African-Americans through the graphic medium of the movie poster. A traveling Smithsonian exhibit from the collection of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the show began with... More >>
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Best Acquisition
Damien Hirst's "The Last Supper"
Even if the Kemper Museum's first acquisition of work by British bad-boy artist Damien Hirst isn't one of his more notorious pieces (like the sliced-up cow or the dead whale suspended in liquid), it's still laudable. The Last Supper series consists of 13 60-inch-by-40-inch prints. It takes... More >>
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Best Church Art
Dylan Mortimer's
"Prayer Booth"
Dylan Mortimer, the Kansas City Art Institute grad whose Prayer Booths graced the Avenue of the Arts last year, has moved to New York for a graduate degree, and the booths have been shipped off to Chicago for display at the Navy Pier Walk 2004. All save one, which found a home outside the... More >>
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Best Wall Art
"Pet Store" by Alexis Rockman
Give H&R Block Artspace Director Raechell Smith 200 inches and she'll take it a mile on the Artspace's west-facing Public Wall, a billboard-size tabula rasa at 43rd Street and Main. Around last Halloween, Missouri photographer Deanna Dikeman's Diane Arbus-like snapshot of an elderly couple on a... More >>
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Best Curatorial Debut
Stacy Switzer's "Join Us: Calls to Ecstasy From the Edge of Oblivion"
Stacy Switzer, former curator for the Salina Arts Center, began her career as artistic director for Grand Arts with Join Us: Calls to Ecstasy From the Edge of Oblivion. The eight artists and artists' coalitions in Switzer's debut show beckoned their audiences to enter a utopia of technological... More >>
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Best Curatorial Concepts
Davin Watne
Davin Watne closed the doors of the Dirt Gallery in March 2003, but that hasn't stopped him from continuing to curate shows. For Alias, at the Urban Culture Project's Bank gallery this past spring, Watne asked artists to create work while assuming another identity, promising never to reveal who... More >>
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Best Combining of Local and National Artists
Bruce Hartman
Bruce Hartman, curator at the Johnson County Community College Gallery of Art, regularly includes metro-area artists in his shows. For last spring's True Stories, Hartman featured drawings and clothing construction by Kansas City artist Christopher Leitch along with figure work by five national... More >>
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Best Performance Art
"It's OK"
We'll admit it: Performance art tends to rub us the wrong way. If somebody has something to say to us, we'd just as soon forgo charades and cut to the chase. But for his one-night show called It's OK, David Ford guided people through a draining maze of sensory experiences. It started in the... More >>
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Best Actor or Actress
Sam Cordes
It's not surprising that Sam Cordes has a gallon of greasepaint in his genes -- his father, Scott Cordes, is one of Kansas City's best actors, and his mom, Lisa Cordes, is an arts activist and playwright. Sam confidently played a Cockney thug -- a role not written for a kid -- in the Coterie's... More >>
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Best Theatrical Debut (1 Comment)
Peter Macy in Down Every Street Productions' "Tape"
With the admirable mission of bringing edgy theater to the 'burbs, Down Every Street Productions made an auspicious debut in July, mounting Stephen Belber's dark and perversely funny Tape. Energetically directed by Natalie Stackhouse, the show featured only three characters, played by present or... More >>
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Best Ronald Reagan Tribute
Ron Megee
With its less-than-subtle liberal leaning, the Beauty Slays the Beast event on June 27 at Davey's Uptown provided a surprising setting for a touching memorial to the Great Communicator. It was also unusual to see Late Night Theatre gender-bender Ron Megee so perfectly cast as a male character.... More >>
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Best Shakespeare That Wasn't Shakespeare
"After Juliet"
There are several reasons why the Coterie Theatre has a national reputation, chief among them its refusal to talk down to its teenage audiences. The company is seldom coy with its material; it calls a bitch a bitch, as we heard in Sharman Macdonald's smart and entertaining After Juliet, which... More >>
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Best Play About 9/11 That Wasn't About 9/11
"Everyday Heroes"
For a couple of years now, playwright Laurie Brooks has contributed thoughtful and provocative plays to the Coterie's teen audiences. The one staged last March, Everyday Heroes, was probably her most important. We were stunned to find out she'd written about the fleeting nature of heroism before... More >>
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Best Onstage Argument Against the Sanctity of Marriage
"The Goat"
If there are plays about the sacred and holy union known as heterosexual marriage, Edward Albee didn't write them. From 1962's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? to his most recent, The Goat, Albee's plays startlingly dissect the institution, and real-life married couple Mark Robbins and Elizabeth... More >>
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Best Cuss Word in a Christmas Show
"A Christmas Story"
American Heartland Theatre attendees who may have expected a nostalgia piece as sweet as ribbon candy might have been taken aback with last winter's production of A Christmas Story. Based on the popular 1983 film, the comedy included among its likable hero's multiple childhood foibles an... More >>
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Best Play Bunny
Jessalyn Kincaid in "The Velveteen Rabbit"
An actor's dignity is perhaps never more challenged than when donning an animal suit. Whether playing Pooh or a blue schmoo, many thespians would rather be stuck in a nightmare tour of Fame than be buried beneath big, floppy ears. But that was Jessalyn Kincaid's wardrobe for The Velveteen Rabbit... More >>
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Best Animal Fashion Show
Jennifer Myers Ecton's "Seussical" costume design
In this summer's U.S. premiere of the new, abbreviated Seussical at the Coterie, there was so much going on with Jennifer Myers Ecton's costume designs that we were compelled to see the show twice. For this blend of Dr. Seuss characters and stories built around Horton the Elephant, Ecton... More >>
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Best Pool Party
"Metamorphoses"
For every Missouri Repertory Theatre import that managed to disappoint during the past year (such as It Ain't Nothin' but the Blues), another made a strong impression -- perhaps none as much as Metamorphoses in January. Creator Mary Zimmerman's stroke of genius was to set Ovid's versions of... More >>
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Best Ticket Packages
Male Nudity Onstage
During the first quarter of the 2004 theater calendar, both the Missouri Rep's Metamorphoses and the Minds Eye Theatre's Caligula showed full monties in the same week. As winter thawed into spring, genitalia resurfaced in Late Night Theatre's Killings at Kamp Tittekaka, though this venue was... More >>
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Best Moonlighter
Ry Kincaid in "Curious George" and "Little Bastard"
In a city with as much theater as this one, actors have been known to close one show on a Sunday and open a new one two days later. In June, however, Ry Kincaid took that tendency to another extreme. During the day, he frolicked with simian grace through the title role in Theatre for Young... More >>
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Best Theatrical Breakup
Set Design for "Liliom"
Though the Missouri Repertory Theatre has changed its name to the Kansas City Repertory Theatre, it was still called the Missouri Rep when its late-spring production of Liliom allowed set designer Nayna Ramey to pull out all the stops. Set in a seedy part of Budapest, the show unfolded upon a... More >>
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Best Curtain Call
"Sordid Lives"
In its production of Del Shore's Sordid Lives last autumn, Christopher King's Minds Eye Theater let audience members spend two hours with some unapologetically trashy families. One of the comedy's characters was nearing two decades of institutionalization because he was too gay for his kin's... More >>
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Best Local Writer
Thomas Frank
Homeboy Thomas Frank made the bestseller list this year writing about Kansas -- and it was a metaphor brilliant enough to earn him Best Of status, even if he doesn't live here anymore. In What's the Matter With Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America, Frank makes a hell of a case that... More >>
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Best Addition to the Film Scene
Screenland Theatre
Built in 1913 as a cold-storage facility, Butch Rigby's plush Screenland Theatre reopened its doors to the public in July, showcasing newly renovated offices, an events center and a fantastic, state-of-the-art, 150-seat movie theater. It's the new home of the kitschy Chucky Lou A/V Club and... More >>
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Best Local Film Festival
Reel Democracy
A one-day film fest with limited thematic scope, Reel Democracy earns this year's Best Festival nod because of its election-year importance. Its strongest documentary, Unprecedented, revealed disturbing disenfranchisement evidence that even Fahrenheit 9/11 hadn't addressed. Outfoxed collected... More >>
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Best Local Filmmaker
Kevin Willmott
University of Kansas professor Kevin Willmott generated an international buzz when his faux documentary, CSA: Confederate States of America, turned heads at the Sundance Film Festival in January. The film imagines what life would be like if the South had won the Civil War. We were especially... More >>
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Best Performance in a Movie by a Former Resident
Paul Rudd in "Anchorman"
Actor Paul Rudd, who was reared in Overland Park, is perhaps best known for playing the stepbrother to Alicia Silverstone's Cher in the charming Jane Austen update Clueless. Since then, Rudd, a former class president at Shawnee Mission West High School, has seemed to struggle to find his place... More >>
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Best Movie-DJ Mix
Music Film Festival
With its swanky screening room, the Empire Room has a history of cinematic dalliances. In addition to playing the likes of Pulp Fiction and There's Something About Mary on mute to give weekend revelers a little extra visual stimulation, it has allowed Steve Tulipana to host Monday Movie Madness,... More >>
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Best Radio Rivalry
KRBZ 96.5 vs. KMXV 93.3
They say you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, but the folks at KRBZ 96.5 (the Buzz) have no interest in sweet-talking their rivals at KMXV (Mix) 93.3. And if honeybees die after one sting, the Buzz must be a wasp. Consider the alt-rock renegade's relentless efforts to stick it to... More >>
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Best Holiday Broadcast
The Wilders on "Sonic Spectrum"
It was a crazy Saturday afternoon of last-minute shopping when we turned on the car radio and heard the sounds of salvation. This wasn't the godawful Christmas crap sucking the life out of the other FM airwaves but rather the holiday edition of Robert Moore's Sonic Spectrum show on KCUR 89.3.... More >>
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Best Saturday Night All-Ages Cruising Soundtrack
Lazlo's "Hard Drive"
On weekends, several radio stations cater to the club crowd with techno shows or beat-matched Frankensongs. But earlier in the evening, when teenagers are headed to punk clubs, movie theaters or backyard parties, 96.5's Lazlo spins riveting rock blocks that recall classic college radio. The... More >>
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Best All-Ages Shows
Pewep in the Formats
When we say a show is all-ages we don't mean "intended for people who are just shy of 21." We mean all ages -- as in toddlers to fogies. At several Reading Reptile shows, the sparkling, college-age performers in Pewep in the Formats sang and danced in unison -- and in costume -- in front of... More >>
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Best All-Ages Venue
The Stray Cat
The Stray Cat ranks high on a list of things that feel unsafe but aren't, right up there with wooden roller coasters and walking over sidewalk grates. Derek Moore, Chris Manley and Dafe Hughes call the Stray Cat both their home and their office. The kids who come to the club's events just call... More >>
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Best Battle of the Bands
Band Scramble
Competitive concerts can bring out the best in bands, injecting fresh adrenaline into stagnant songs. But they can also be a drain on fans, whose attendance is essential in contests decided by crowd response. Once anything becomes mandatory, the thrill disappears. The Brick's Band Scramble... More >>
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Best New Battle
Superwolf vs. the Creighton Organization
DJ battles are the norm, and battles of bands come a dime a dozen. But what about DJs versus bands? Isn't that the real question anyway? We think it might be. One breezy spring night, a bunch of funk lovers filed into the divey, wood-paneled corners of Chez Charlie to kick back and take in the... More >>
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Best Rock Renovation Project
The Architects
As dramatically depicted in the tragicomic tale of Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star, early life success can mean a tough path to maturity. Brandon, Zach and Adam Phillips spent their teen years on a wild ride with the ska-sparked Gadjits -- shooting fashion spreads for Rolling Stone, recording... More >>
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Best Up-and-Coming Act
Doris Henson
With White Elephant, Doris Henson became the natural beauty of the local glam-rock landscape, making a dazzling impression without cosmetics, costumes or chant-along choruses. Embracing Young Americans-era David Bowie's brass accents and sassy delivery while discarding the Thin White Duke's funk... More >>
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Best Musical Prodigy
Austin Turney
Precocious pianists and angelic-naughty prepubescent crooners dominate the underage entertainment ranks, but kids seldom dive into the unforgiving world of malevolent metalcore. Before he was old enough to drive, now-16-year-old guitarist Austin Turney started shredding in a group called Worth... More >>
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Best Homegrown Diva
Joyce DiDonato
Joyce DiDonato is becoming a familiar name on the international opera stage, stunning audiences in the title role of La Cenerentola at La Scala in Milan, Italy, and as Sister Helen in Dead Man Walking at the New York City Opera between performances in Japan, Spain, Israel and France. But though... More >>
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Best Impromptu Performance
The Rainbow Lady onstage with Rex Hobart and J.B. Morris
So, there we are at PotPie one night, sippin' on scotch and enjoying the acoustic, alt-country tunes of Rex Hobart and J.B. Morris, when in walks trouble. But she's more of the oblivious-hippie kind of trouble than actual Trouble-trouble. Dressed in a flowy skirt and toting an African tonal drum... More >>
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Best Rendition of "I Will Survive"
July 11 at Le Fou Frog
Perhaps the most ubiquitous of all post-breakup confidence-boosting anthems, Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" clearly taps into something larger than us all. It's something that, from the standpoint of the nonbreakup-afflicted, seems truly awful; from the perspective of the recently dumped, it's... More >>
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Best Borrowed Gloom
Unknown Pleasures and Magfuckingnificent
In a way, there's something ghoulish about appropriating the deeply personal pain of a suicidal singer. But when Steve Tulipana becomes Ian Curtis in the Joy Division tribute band Unknown Pleasures, he doesn't dwell on the late frontman's profound despair. Instead, he pays tribute to Curtis'... More >>
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Best Split-Personality Rock Show
Broadcast & Iron and Wine
It's rare for a crowd at a rock venue to fall silent, especially when the headlining band is the booming, horror-movie-inspired lounge outfit Broadcast. But because the band opening for Broadcast was the harmonic, folksy duo Iron and Wine, all bets were off. The people who arrived for the... More >>
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Best Comeback Album
Fat Tone, I'mma Get'cha
Most artists who make a "comeback" album are returning from a creative hiatus complicated by things like rehab, rhinoplasty or the grand jury testimony of a 14-year-old prostitute named for a foreign car. Kansas City rapper Fat Tone upped the ante with the release of I'mma Get'cha, his musical... More >>
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Best Ego Trip
Prince
Everyone knows somebody with a story about watching Elvis pump gas at a Texaco station in Albuquerque or Jimmy Hoffa batting cleanup for the Savannah Sand Gnats or the Virgin Mary making an appearance in his gravy at a Cracker Barrel in Dumfries, Virginia. But tall tales are even more incredible... More >>
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Best Rebuttal Record
S.G., Kutt Calhoun, Mr. Luna and Grant Rice
Sometimes a disgruntled letter to the editor just doesn't cut it. Which is why Tech N9ne underlings S.G., Kutt Calhoun, Mr. Luna and Grant Rice responded in verse to a story written by Pitch music editor Nathan Dinsdale with the heavily nuanced "Fuck Nathan Dinsdale." The rappers had obviously... More >>
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Best Bad Concert Promotion
Restraint
One would think that a band called Restraint would know how to show a little, you know, restraint. But the group's promotional poster for a July 25 album-release party at the Beaumont Club left us with that not-so-fresh feeling. The flier, which featured a photo of a woman wearing panties... More >>
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Best Patchouli Party
Wakarusa Music and Camping Festival
Goddamn if that freaky Field of Dreams voice wasn't telling Kevin Costner the truth after all. If you build it, they will come. But it doesn't hurt to book Guided By Voices, Los Lonely Boys, Robert Randolph and a slew of stonerific second-stagers to perform in a hippietastic locale, all crammed... More >>
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Best Rap Performance for Soccer Moms
Tech N9ne
If any local act was ever going to blow up the bubblegum balladry of 93.3's annual Red White and Boom popfest with a little hometown cookin', it was going to be Tech N9ne, who has inspired rabid regional fanaticism. Sharing the bill with the likes of Liz Phair, Richard Marx and Maroon 5 was a... More >>
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Best Outdoor Concert
David Bowie
Kansas City misses out on some major tours, but it also has the good fortune to lure stadium-size artists to smaller-than-usual venues. The Pixies, packing arenas elsewhere, visited the cozy Uptown Theater last weekend, and Pixies fan David Bowie played on the regal, relatively intimate... More >>
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Best Upstaging the Headliner
The Ssion
Hype is a smarmy bastard. If it rears its head often enough, some people might even believe it. But those expecting Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs to live up to the hyperventilating descriptions of her as the New York doll and new patron saint of women in rock may have been surprised when she... More >>
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Best Last Stand
Jane's Addiction
Few people can say they were there when a rock star's fiery ascent sputtered, then exploded before disintegrating into irrelevance or, worse, self-parody. You know, that brief moment just before Elvis became Fat Elvis. Well, about the only thing Jane's Addiction seems to be hooked on these days... More >>
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Best Worth-the-Wait Local Release
The Stella Link, "Mystic Jaguar ... Attack!"
The Stella Link began production on its debut disc, Mystic Jaguar ... Attack!, in February 2003. The quartet continued to gig regularly, previewing the intricate instrumental passages and multilayered countermelodies that would make up the eagerly anticipated effort. After a July 2003 concert at... More >>
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Best Local Musician
James DeWees
If it seems as if every other cul-de-sac kid with his heart dangling from his Dickies is a member of the latest soul-baring suburbanite band to spark, pop and fizzle in the minds of the mall-rat masses, it's because he is. But even in an era when anyone who spends more than $200 at Hot Topic is... More >>
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Best Local Release
Namelessnumberheadman, Your Voice Repeating
Like Your Voice Repeating, several recent releases by area bands (the Get Up Kids' Guilt Show, Elevator Division's Years, Old Canes' eponymous effort) cast spells with subtle songs, the types of tunes that can dominate a room without volume or velocity. Namelessnumberheadman's second full-length... More >>
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Best Rock-Star Meltdown
Wes Scantlin
We need to lay off Wes Scantlin. Apparently, we're driving the erstwhile homeboy and Puddle of Mudd lead singer to drink. A lot. His detractors may argue that the Kansas City native can't sing very well before he gets shit-canned, but Scantlin showed at a February 22 show in Toledo, Ohio, that... More >>
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