The nominees are in. The voting is open. The 2007 Pitch Music Awards are on a collision course with your ass.
Hell yes.
A panel of more than 30 local music experts -- people whose lives are invested in the Kansas City and Lawrence music scenes in one way or another -- have chosen the nominees in categories that we feel best represent what's going on in the sonic landscape here.
The voting begins now, and the process culminates with the year's best local music pub crawl, Friday, August 3, with the Pitch Music Showcase in Westport. That's followed by the Awards Ceremony, where the winners are crowned as copious drinks are consumed and hijinks are perpetrated at the Uptown Theater on Friday, August 10.
See a list of the nominees after the jump.
The Veils, the Comas, and American Catastrophe. Tuesday, June 19, at the Grand Emporium
Reviewed by Jason Harper
Do you know anyone who likes seeing shows at the Grand Emporium these days? I'm afraid I don't. The sound is usually bad, the bar staff ain't the friendliest in town, the stage is ugly and half-assed, and it's just not a cool place to hang out and see a show. It's a facility. They have drinks, a stage, and an interior, one local musician recently commented, that looks like it was designed by the Cylons. It's really a shame, with so few venues in town, that its owners don't work harder on making it an appealing place to the people on the scene. Because, since it's changeover from hallowed blues dive to sterile disco, I've seen some good shows there by relatively major bands -- the Delgados, the Perishers and Aqualung, Hard-Fi -- some of which actually were very well attended.
It was downright embarrassing how few people turned out last Tuesday to see Brooklyn's the Comas and London's the Veils, two up-and-coming acts that by rights should have been playing where people would be there to see them. Opening for them was local act American Catastrophe. I missed them because they started at like 8:45, no exaggeration. The venue had decided to book it as an all-ages show, with "curfew" at midnight.
The Veils' Finn Andrews finished the night with a serenade in the women's restroom. Photo by Scott Spychalski.
...or Sandstone, or whatever you call it. Anyway, the company once known as ClearChannel just sent out this press release, penned by its Hollywood-based communications director:
LIVE NATION TO EXIT VERIZON WIRELESS AMPHITHEATERIN BONNER SPRINGS AT END OF 2007 CONCERT SEASON
Move Reaffirms Company’s Strategy to Refocus Venue Mix in Certain Markets
LOS ANGELES, CA – June 20, 2007
Live Nation (NYSE: LYV), the world’s leading live music company, announced today that it will not seek to renew its lease to operate, book and manage the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Bonner Springs, Kansas under its existing terms, which expire at the end of 2007. The 2007 summer concert season will not be affected by this decision. The move comes as Live Nation seeks to optimize its venue portfolio.
Live Nation hopes to be able to place many of the small number of employees affected by this decision elsewhere in the company.
Live Nation remains committed to its 2007 slate of concerts at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater and will continue to bring top quality talent to other venues in the Kansas City area.
What's next in the KC venuescape?
Kelsey Smith’s alleged killer, Edwin R. Hall, has at least one supporter. Local blog Heycameraman dug up a MySpace page in support of Hall. The MySpace page is set to private, so I couldn’t check it out without becoming a friend of the 31-year-old woman from Newfoundland, Canada. The page is titled “Innocent until proven guilty” and “Pray for Jack.” It includes a photo of Hall from a court appearance.
Now he’s in a new kind of trouble.
Brown was the target of an undercover operation by the Kansas City Police Department’s Narcotics Unit. According to these court documents filed by the Jackson County prosecutor, Brown is charged with three counts of possession with intent to sell crack, possession of marijuana and resisting arrest for allegedly running from the arresting officers.
Attention! This is what a bicycle looks like: According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, it is “a light two-wheeled vehicle with a steering handle, saddle, and pedals.” And get this: Bicycles were once used as transportation devices! Ha! Can you believe it? People once used those man-powered contraptions to get to work instead of fueling up the mini-tank SUV!
The Plog offers you this lesson in history because, according to this report just released by the U.S. Census Bureau, bicycle-riding commuters in Kansas City are nearly extinct. As Eric Rogers with the Missouri Bicycle Federation and the KC Coalition for Walking and Bicycling recently pointed out on his bike advocacy blog, KCMO ranks last among 50 cities surveyed. In 2005, Rogers says, just 50 of 216,000 workers pedaled to the office on a regular basis. Kansas City ranked below average in bus riders, walkers and car poolers, too. What does all this mean? Mull it over during your scorching-hot, gridlock-ridden drive home tonight. – Ben Paynter
Wolfmother. Tuesday, June 19, at the VooDoo Lounge.
Reviewed by Ashley Brown
In a complex designed with the glazed, somnambulatory gambling patron in mind, it’s hard to tell things apart. The eye swirls at the epileptic lighting within the gut of Harrah’s Casino. In fact, after we ran through the revolving door at the main casino entrance, my friend Derek was almost fatally drawn in by the rapturously patriotic bright lights outside of Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar and Grill.
By contrast, our destination, the VooDoo Lounge is a cool blue affair adjacent to TKILTBG (as we came to affectionately call it) and, as it turns out, the place adheres rigidly to published concert start times.
Wolfmother had already taken the stage and launched into their prime radio hit “Mother” when we came in. I forget what a good song it is, a pounding-mallet-type hymn to femininity at its most elemental (“Yep, you’re a woman… you’ve got a vagina and all that junk,” per Derek).
Going through some piled-up e-mails, I came across a dispatch from a fellow named Tim Sylvester.
It was amazing. And I must share.
This fair-skinned youth went to Wakarusa, was really looking forward to it, and the first day, he gets sunburned.
So what does he do the rest of the festival?
Wears a ninja mask.
And what happens?
He gets harassed and taunted by festival goers who don't know the difference between a ninja and a terrorist.
Ninja? Terrorist? Or just an ordinary suffering human being like you and me?
In the early 1980s, he was one of the first stars of then-fledgling, now-juggernaut kids’ cable channel Nickelodeon. Coulier helmed the desk on Out of Control, a half-hour fake news show that included tripped-out Monty Python-style animation and kid-approved segments such as “Isn’t It About Time for a Hurry-up?” which sped up tedious chores like homework and haircuts.
Most people know the guy as Joey Gladstone, the wiseacre with a heart (and wavy mullet) of gold on ABC’s long-running sitcom Full House. But he also voiced ´80s cartoons, including Muppet Babies and animated Ghostbusters spin-offs as Bill Murray’s character, Peter Venkman.
The impressionist is in town for a gig June 22-24 at the shiny new Stanford & Son's Comedy Club at Legends in Kansas City, Kansas. I had the infinite pleasure of catching up with one of my childhood heroes for this item in the Pitch Night & Day section. Here’s a full version of the Q&A that readers of the dead tree edition of the Pitch won’t see:
Judy Ancel, the director of the university’s Institute for Labor Studies, was informed of her impending unemployment via letter sent by Bubacz to Longview Community College on May 29. The letter said UMKC would be ending its funding and connection with Ancel’s Institute for Labor Studies, which had operated as a partnership between UMKC and Longview.
Voltaire - the saloon, not the philosopher - opens tonight
Big Rip Brewing Co. expands the Northland's beer universe
Marilyn Manson and Alice Cooper are headed to Cricket Wireless Amphitheater
KC Pride Festival 2013? Yes, it's still on
WWE's Monday Night Raw returns to Kansas City October 14
Shawn Ratigan and Bishop Robert Finn face two new civil lawsuits
A consultant tells KC that big retail could save Citadel Plaza
Police leave Union Station after suspicious package found