You've read about it in calendar; here's another reason why you should go to La Esquina (1000 West 25th Street) for the Urban Culture Project's musical/playacting tribute to Pink Floyd's The Wall: YOU'LL GET TO HEAR "WHEN THE TIGERS BROKE FREE!"
Floyd geeks (and World War II buffs, for that matter) will understand what a treat that'll be. Written and recorded at the same time as the original album but not released until the movie version of The Wall came out, "Tigers" (or "Tygers" as it's sometimes referred to), is about Roger Waters' dad getting killed in WWII. The song sets up the whole premise of The Wall movie and will be played close to the top of this weekend's tribute show.
If you don't get goosebumps when Waters sings that last line, "And that's how the High Command took my daddy from me," then you're not a real man.
Shows are at 10 p.m. tonight and Saturday and 8 p.m. Monday. Cost is $10. Get there early because they'll probably sell out.
Pale Riders
By ANDY VIHSTADT
NPR covered the Raconteurs recent visit to D.C. a few nights ago. Stream the entire show here, or get it to go at the Live Concerts from All Songs Considered Podcast
By CHRIS PACKHAM
Graduation Season: In what can only be construed as a colossal mistake by the regents at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, I gave the commencement address to the graduating class this week.
I'd called the business office to yell at someone about some bullshit fees they were still trying to collect for some classes I'd dropped out of years ago, and every time somebody told me they couldn't help me, I'd demand to talk to their immediate superior. Against all plausibility, I eventually got kicked all the way up the ladder to university Chancellor Dr. Guy H. Bailey. There was some miscommunication on my end, and Bailey somehow came away with the idea that I was the Carl Sagan Endowed Chair of Astrophysics at Cornell.Most regulation commencement addresses affirm the student's search for knowledge while looking toward their future, and unfortunately, as a millenarian fundamentalist Christian, I actually don't believe that any of these students have one -- except insofar as boiling for all eternity in a sea of hog entrails is a "future." I opened with the observation that, in event of Holy Rapture, my gown and mortarboard would be "unmanned." I'd just gotten to the part of the Book of Revelation where the plague of indestructible locusts led by Apollyon, chief demon of the abyss, ravage the wicked forces of the antichrist, when Bailey personally dragged me away from the microphone and security hustled me out of the building.
Similarly, I expect that sooner or later, someone is going to drag Ross Balano, my new favorite Midwest Voices columnist, away from his keyboard, probably screaming "ATTICA! ATTICA!" On Wednesday, he coined a new term, "Big Abortion," to refer to the mammoth multinational corporate abortion industry you read so much about in the Wall Street Journal. It's a callback to archaic business writing terminology such as "Big Steel" and "Big Cotton" that your great-grandfather used back when he was giving Werther's Original candies to your grandfather for being such a special, special little boy. Today, Balano is accusing Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius of, uh, personally advocating for back-alley abortions, or something? It's priceless, and related to Dr. George Tiller and Phill Kline. It appears on the same page as the obstinately sane Yael T. Abouhalkah, demonstrating the diversity of opinion at Midwest Voices, which bodes well for the future of the Star until such a time as the Euphrates River dries up and is prepared for battle from the armies of the east.
Does Craig Nigrelli think girls are yucky? A special investigative report: In an unintentional shopping mall caricature of the "straight" community confronting the "freaks," Craig Nigrelli at KCTV Channel 5 exposes the Ménage nightclub in the West Bottoms in a shocking report set to an extended dance remix of the late Robert Palmer's "Some Like it Hot."
But don't get the wrong idea: Nigrelli definitely does not like it hot, soundtrack notwithstanding, as evidenced by his on-camera bullying of a not-at-all douchey-looking club manager. He also gets on-camera comments from some pleasantly trashy-looking club patrons outside -- for such a stridently anti-boner correspondent, Nigrelli's report sure does linger over a lot of exposed flesh. When management wouldn't allow cameras into the club, a KCTV Channel 5 producer went undercover, paying the $20 cover and presumably gawking at patrons like a farmboy visiting the big city for the first time. He gives his sexxxy eyewitness account of all the sexxxy sexiness from behind an identity-obscuring, and very sexxxy red drape. Definitely worth watching if you're a fan of inherent, unintentional contradictions, which I totally am. TEN POINTS FOR GRYFFINDOR!Suck it, you provincial hill-folk: As usual, I spent the morning looking for local media stories which I could then make fun of, when Google threw up this unexpectedly insulting road block:
Maybe Kansas City isn't large or populous, Google News. And maybe we do have open sewage running through our toniest shopping district. And sure, our schools teach the controversy, but at least our kids know that the power of prayer is the only real way to keep the AIDS off, as evidenced by our African-level rates of HIV infection. Maybe we don't have your fancy cars or your flashy clothes, Mr. Google, but we have our pride, and a vibrant Payday Loan District, and also apparently at least one sex club. And you can never take that away.
The Runaway Sons, Thunder Eagle and Dead Set
Thursday, 5/29/08
The Point, KCMO
Better Than: Other fates that have befallen people at the Point (getting stabbed, maced, etc.).
Download: MP3, Thunder Eagle, "Whiskey Pills Lady Shake"
By JASON HARPER
The Point, with its perennial David Basse and Phil Woods jazz poster up in the window and reputation as an outlaw Plaza sports bar, is about the last place you'd expect to find live punk rock, but the bar's basement level is perfectly suited for a brat-smackin' rock show. The space, which consists of a well-maintained bar area with TVs and tables and a basement room that looks like any midtown stone basement, has in the past been exploited by DJs, but thanks to booker Neill Smith, bass player for Attack on Uranus, the place has become the site of $2 punk and rock shows two Thursdays a month.
Last night brought out a crowd of haggard hipster dudes and a few chicks for a show that got increasingly loud and reckless as the night wore on.
By JASON HARPER
The new Olympic Size limited-run LP You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone is chock full of sexy dread and longing. It should be mass printed and airlifted to those people who live in vast modern apartment complexes by exurban airports and handed out along with frequent flyer programs to lonely traveling businessmen. The music is bleak, bedroomy, warm and twilit, with clean, interweaving guitars, somnabulent keyboards and drums that drop like sleeping pills in a plastic cup. Far from any indie-rock trends and full of spaces, Olympic Size conveys the loneliness and isolation of grown-up single life, a similar territory stalked by the band's recent showmates, American Music Club.
(Continue reading and grab MP3s after the jump.)
by FLANNERY CASHILL
This Friday Death Cab for Cutie seizes the City Market with openers the Kooks and Rogue Wave.
Meanwhile the Brick prepares for one-man hyper-band The Show is the Rainbow and locals Don't Tell Pope, TriHawk and the Hit Shitters. No Pabst ordered without irony.
The Replay Lounge helps raise money for a baby named Addison and her much needed liver transplant with a show featuring Scenebooster, Fourth of July and Dri.
And La Esquina presents the last of three tributes to rock icons with Ron Megee's production of Pink Floyd's The Wall. The show features Jeff Harsbarger, Mark Lowry, Cody Wyoming and Brodie Rush as Pink. No lasers this time, just raw, in-your-face phallic imagery.
Saturday and Sunday after the jump.
By PETER RUGG
Earlier this month, Kansas City jurors twice declined to punish people with a death sentence for a racially motivated crime. The most recent case being when a judge sentenced 22-year-old Steve Sandstrom to life in prison for the 2005 murder of William McCay.
The cases could be a sign of a trend: A newly released report from the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs pegged Kansas City with a near-doubling of hate crimes from 2006 to 2007.
By CHRIS RASMUSSEN
The song played in the stadium during the first inning last night said it all: "We're Not Going To
Guillen the role model?
The Royals lost their 11th in a row last night, with Twins manager Rod Gardenhire damning us in the worst imaginable way: accepting victory by offering pity and condolences.
During the losing streak, Jose Guillen erupted. He described his teammates as "babies" accustomed to failure. He blasted the culture of failure that permeates the Royals organization -- the soft bigotry of low expectations that exists after decades of losing. He used the word "fuck" more than 40 times -- a word uttered more times by Royals fans in the last two weeks.
By CHRIS RASMUSSEN
The song played in the stadium during the first inning last night said it all: "We're Not Going To
Guillen the role model?
The Royals lost their 11th in a row last night, with Twins manager Rod Gardenhire damning us in the worst imaginable way: accepting victory by offering pity and condolences.
During the losing streak, Jose Guillen erupted. He described his teammates as "babies" accustomed to failure. He blasted the culture of failure that permeates the Royals organization -- the soft bigotry of low expectations that exists after decades of losing. He used the word "fuck" more than 40 times -- a word uttered more times by Royals fans in the last two weeks.
By CHRIS RASMUSSEN
Jose Guillen's post-game tirade may have claimed a target.
Today, Billy Butler departs for Omaha. This is a shock, because in April, Butler and Alex Gordon were the two most-promising Royals hitters in the lineup. Butler may or may not have been a target of Guillen's clubhouse criticism of "babies" who are satisfied with collecting base hits but no victories.
Parisi's Pete Licata is a World Barista Championship semifinalist
KCPD will breathalyze patrons at Tanner's tonight
Don't mess with the Army, feds remind two local businesspeople
Soundgarden's sludgy sound, last night at the Midland (review)
Yo La Tengo is at Grinders tonight
Voltaire - the saloon, not the philosopher - opens tonight
Story celebrates with a pig roast and other weekend possibilities
Marilyn Manson and Alice Cooper are headed to Cricket Wireless Amphitheater