DECEMBER 2 0–2 6, 2 012 | F R EE | VOL . 3 2 NO. 2 5 | PI T CH.COM
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Everybody's favorite KC-raised actor is your new pinup for middle age. Soooo dreamoo y!
As Innocent as
he looks?
DECEMBER 20–26, 2012 | VOL. 32 NO. 25 E D I T O R I A L
Editor Scott Wilson Managing Editor Justin Kendall Music Editor David Hudnall Staff Writers Charles Ferruzza, Ben Palosaari Editorial Operations Manager Deborah Hirsch Calendar Editor Berry Anderson Clubs Editor Abbie Stutzer Food Blogger, Web Editor Jonathan Bender Proofreader Brent Shepherd Contributing Writers Tracy Abeln, Theresa Bembnister, April Fleming, Dan Savage, Abbie Stutzer, Lucas Wetzel Intern Nadia Imafidon
A R T
Art Director Ashford Stamper Contributing Photographers Angela C. Bond, Chris Mullins, Lauren Phillips, Sabrina Staires, Brooke Vandever Design Intern Chloe George
P R O D U C T I O N
Production Manager Christina Riddle Multimedia Designer Vu Radley
A D V E R T I S I N G
Sales Manager Erin Carey Senior Classified Multimedia Specialist Steven Suarez Multimedia Specialists Michelle Acevedo, Kirin Arnold, Collin Click, Page Olson Director of Marketing & Operations Jason Dockery Digital Marketing Manager Keli Sweetland
C I R C U L A T I O N
Circulation Director Mike Ryan
B U S I N E S S
Accounts Receivable Jodi Waldsmith Publisher Joel Hornbostel
SOCCER CITY FC Kansas City cements this town’s reputation as a soccer haven. BY B E N PA L O S A A R I
S O U T H C O M M
Chief Executive Officer Chris Ferrell Chief Financial Officer Patrick Min Chief Operating Officer Rob Jiranek Chief Marketing Officer Susan Torregrossa Chief Technology Officer Matt Locke Business Manager Eric Norwood Director of Digital Sales & Marketing David Walker Director of Accounting Todd Patton Creative Director Heather Pierce Director of Online Content/Development Patrick Rains
N A T I O N A L
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WAY OF THE GUN Linda Lighton and Taking Aim are suddenly on target.
A D V E R T I S I N G
VMG Advertising 888-278-9866, vmgadvertising.com Senior Vice President of Sales Susan Belair Senior Vice President of Sales Operations Joe Larkin
BY T R AC Y A B E L N
17
B A C K P A G E . C O M
Vice President Sales & Marketing Carl Ferrer Business Manager Jess Adams Accountant David Roberts
PALE HORSE
D I S T R I B U T I O N
The Pitch distributes 45,000 copies a week and is available free throughout Greater Kansas City, limited to one copy per reader. Additional copies may be purchased for $5 each, payable at The Pitch’s office in advance. The Pitch may be distributed only by The Pitch’s authorized independent contractors or authorized distributors. No person may, without prior written permission of The Pitch, take more than one copy of each week’s issue. Mail subscriptions: $22.50 for six months or $45 per year, payable in advance. Application to mail at second-class postage rates is pending at Kansas City, MO 64108.
A new Parkville tavern is slow out of the gate. BY C H A R L E S F E R R U Z Z A
21
C O P Y R I G H T
The contents of The Pitch are Copyright 2012 by KC Communications, LLC. No portion may be reproduced in whole or in part by any means without the express written permission of the publisher. The Pitch address: 1701 Main, Kansas City, MO 64108 For information or to leave a story tip, call: 816-561-6061 Editorial fax: 816-756-0502 For classifieds, call: 816-218-6759 For retail advertising, call: 816-218-6702
ON T HE COVE R
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QUESTIONNAIRE NEWS F I LT E R STAGE ART FILM CAFÉ FAT CITY NEW YEAR’S EVE LISTINGS MUSIC STREETSIDE NIGHTLIFE SAVAGE LOVE
MEANWHI LE AT PI TC H. C O M
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ANONYMOUS targets Westboro Baptist Church over plans to protest Sandy Hook Elementary. GENGHIS GRILL closes in Overland Park. Report: Paternity of JOVAN BELCHER’S CHILD questioned.
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QUESTIONNAIRE
ANITA CORDELL Current neighborhood: Shawnee
What movie do you watch at least once a year?
Who or what is your sidekick? My husband. He
It’s a Wonderful Life
has been a fan of mine since before we even dated and MORE has been a supporter, as best he can, in my endeavors. Although he T A INE ONL .COM is unable to attend most H C PIT events or sets, he is there in spirit and always pushes me to achieve more than I thought I could, and he pushes me to be a better person.
What local tradition do you take part in every year? I try to attend The Nutcracker with my
Q&As
girls every year, as well as one candlelight service around Christmastime. Also, driving through some of the wonderful neighborhoods with Christmas lights all over. I’m in love with the Christmas spirit.
Celebrity you’d like to ride the Mamba with at Worlds of Fun: Robin Williams
What career would you choose in an alternate reality? I would still like to try being an
Person or thing you find really irritating at this moment: OK, without sounding com-
astronaut, a pilot or a singer.
pletely irrational, I get irritated at adults who don’t keep their words with their kids, or anyone for that matter. If you’re going to give a consequence, then be sure and follow through. I want kids to be able to trust what others say so they don’t grow up getting used to not telling the truth themselves. There, I said it.
ported the VA for years, but I will also support many others in small ways or as they come up throughout the year. I think there are many great organizations, so I don’t support just one.
J AC O B WA L K E R
What was the last local restaurant you patronized? Spin, for the gluten-free, five-
What’s your favorite charity? I have sup-
ite place — I just think eating it is important. I also like the Plaza area or the Legends.
the day, but I won’t tell you what day, because then it would age me.
Favorite place to spend your paycheck: Any
Finish this sentence: “Kansas City got it right when …” They made major renovation
“In five years, I’ll be …” Hopefully producing
What local phenomenon do you think is overrated? The condos downtown should have
Disney building.
thrift store I can find.
never been priced so high. Now, many people are suffering from foreclosures on them.
Where do you like to take out-of-town guests? To eat barbecue. I don’t have a favor-
actress
Christian artists. I love the heart of many of their songs.
Hometown: Leavenworth, Kansas
cheese pizza — WITH the pine nuts left ON! Yeah, baby!
Real-estate agent,
endeavors for downtown.
a feature-length film, and be a lot more gray, with more stock in L'Oréal. LOL.
“Kansas City needs …” To revamp the Walt
What TV show do you make sure you watch?
“On my day off, I like to …” A day off ? Never. “People might be surprised to know that I …” Used to be a flight attendant for TWA back in
I watch the news mostly.
take(s) up a lot of space in my iTunes:
Pasty Cline. Yep, I’m a fan of hers. Call me “Crazy,” but I have a dream of being able to sing one of her songs. I also support many
What subscription — print, digital, etc. — do you value most? I’m a die-hard Groupon fan.
Must see the new deals every day.
Last book you read: One B1g Thing: Discovering What You Were Born to Do by Phil Cooke Favorite day trip: Jamesport, Missouri — the
Amish town
Describe a recent triumph: Receiving two
awards at the San Diego Christian Film Festival and receiving the Altman Grant for Filmmakers here in KC.
The devil is in the details. And we know the details. About pretty much everything. www.jocolibrary.org/staffpicks pitch.com C EOM 0 - 2X6,, 220 00 1 2X pitch.comD E M NBT EHR X2X–X
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NEWS
GIMME SHELTER
Why is a new, no-kill animal shelter still sitting empty in Independence?
BY
BE N PA L O S A A R I
CHRIS MULLINS
he Independence City Council potentially derailed a plan to operate a new animal shelter in the city. On Monday, December 17, it voted 6–1 to delay making a decision on an agreement to pay Jackson County to subcontract with Great Plains SPCA to operate a new $5.3 million shelter. Council members and residents raised concerns about several parts of the deal, including spaying and neutering costs, the jobs of 10 current part-time shelter employees and the aftermath of the five-year contract, according to The Examiner. On January 14, the council is scheduled to hold a study session to discuss the concerns. The 27,000-square-foot shelter, with a lodge-style look of wood and stone accents and a hunter-green roof, was slated to open in August 2012 and replace the aging Independence Animal Shelter. More than a year ago, volunteers at the shelter publicly complained about the treatment of animals and the shelter's management. The mostly anonymous volunteers criticized then-shelter manager Aimee Wells, circulated photos of dogs with mange, and retold stories of animals suffering. A Pitch story ("Dog Days," August 11, 2011) revealed the shelter's less-than-ideal conditions. The hot and dank building was crowded and lacked air conditioning. Wells and Larry Jones, director of the Independence Health Department, said the staff did its best to run the shelter with limited resources. They stressed that change was coming with the new Jackson County shelter set to open in 2012. A 2009 contract between Independence and Jackson County called for the county to pay for the shelter’s construction and for the city to be responsible for operating it for 30 years. A political impasse this fall delayed the opening. Jackson County Legislator Dennis Waits, a shelter proponent, argued that the city hadn’t budgeted for a no-kill shelter (meaning that 10 percent or less of the animals are euthanized). The shelter has sat empty for months while
B R O O K E VA N D E V E R
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Jackson County and Independence negotiated who would operate it. The two sides finally announced a tentative deal in the first week of December in which Independence would contract with Jackson County to run the shelter, and the county would subcontract the work to Great Plains SPCA. For the first two years, Independence would pay Great Plains $435,000 a year to run the facility, then $515,000 in each of the final three years of the deal. The shelter would have opened January 1 under the arrangement. Before the Independence City Council delayed the deal, Great Plains SPCA CEO and Executive Director Courtney Thomas was excited about the nonprofit potentially taking over the shelter. “The shelter is four times the size of the existing shelter,” Thomas told The Pitch. “There’s a greater opportunity to have a positive impact on the animals of Jackson County and beyond.” The new facility has easier-to-clean cages and an HVAC system that circulates fresh air several times an hour to reduce the spread of airborne diseases. In addition, the shelter has five large outdoor play areas, a shop, and
a veterinary area that Thomas said could host college classes. The cosmetic changes are also noticeable. For instance, cages have been replaced with glass doors. “We’ve done away with that jail-like look that is pretty common in many shelters,” Thomas explained. “[We] really wanted to focus on showcasing the animals in a very positive way, moving away from the stigma that the shelter is a bad place.” No-kill shelters are expensive ventures, not only for the city and the county but also for Great Plains SPCA. “The reality is, we could convert Kansas City to a no-kill community overnight with the increased capacity at the Independence facility,” Thomas said. “But it takes money to do that. It’s going to cost us just over $1.3 million to run this facility.” If the Independence City Council agrees to the deal, Great Plains will have to fill the $865,000 gap through donations. Thomas said the cost is worth moving the metro to no-kill. “We’re taking this on at a huge financial
Courtney Thomas (above) and Great Plains SPCA have big plans for the new animal shelter. But for now, the old shelter (left) remains open. risk and burden to our organization because we do believe it’s possible,” Thomas said, “and we do believe that the community will get behind us and support this, and we want to see this happen.” Great Plains’ running the Independence shelter would signal another increase in its profile among animal-shelter and animaladoption nonprofits. On December 15, Great Plains opened a new 10,000-square-foot shelter in Merriam, replacing the group’s facility from the 1960s. Thomas said the Merriam facility was paid for by a single “donor family that wanted to honor the legacy of their past pets.” Meanwhile, the delay on the Independence shelter means that it will sit empty for at least another month. The Independence City Council considers it again on January 22.
E-mail ben.palosaari@pitch.com
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NEWS
SOCCER CITY
FC Kansas City cements the metro’s reputation as a soccer haven.
T
BE N PA L O S A A R I
Psst, Hope — Come Here! Three Players We Want in KC
M
AP
embers of the U.S. Women’s National Team can expect some control over where they play in the newly formed women’s professional league. Here are three we’d like to see suit up here.
Hope Solo Goalie, age 31
Budzinski has a new goal. “Alex Morgan was just named the [U.S. Soccer] Female Athlete of the Year. And she’s going to be — bare minimum — playing in Kansas City twice, if she’s not playing for us,” he says. Kassouf says generating thrills enough to attract casual fans is going to be one of the new league’s biggest challenges. “The issue here is, can you get people excited about Alex Morgan or Hope Solo or Abby Wambach when they’re not wearing red, white and blue, and you can see them 10 times a year in your home market,” Kassouf says. Budzinski says previous leagues — including Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS), which folded in May — miscalculated by trying to emulate other professional sports leagues. “I think part of the problem is, in the previous incarnations, all of the team ownership groups were responsible for bringing all of their players in.” With a sport of limited profitability, that didn’t work. The new league is streamlined: eight teams, which will each be assigned roughly seven players, combined from the three founding soccer bodies. This, Budzinski says, allows the teams to develop unknown domestic talent. “As owners, instead of us going and maybe signing somebody like Marta [Vieira da Silva, the highest paid woman soccer player in the world], now what we’ll do is try to look for that next Alex Morgan. “We’re doing this because it’s what’s good for Kansas City and it’s what’s good for young female athletes,” he adds. “And
then you get to be a part of the top players in the world and U.S. Soccer and trying to win a World Cup. That’s what’s good for the game.” That sounds noble enough, but is that enough to keep this new league from the fate that befell the previous two? The question lingers: Can professional women’s soccer make money? The way U.S. Soccer plans on operating the league might make it easier for team owners to turn a profit. In November, Gulati explained that the league would be highly centralized to minimize cost. “U.S. Soccer will absorb all of the costs of running the front office so there is no capital contributions needed to the normal functions of a normal front office of scheduling, promotions, websites,” he said. “All of those things will be handled by U.S. Soccer,” he said. FC Kansas City has hired a head coach and an assistant coach, and TOTA is looking for a home field with a minimum of 5,000 seats. But the WPS’s average attendance was 3,518 in 2011, a season that followed the popularity boost of the women’s national team after the 2011 Women’s World Cup. Sporting Club, the ownership group behind Sporting Kansas City, didn’t bid to acquire a team in the new women’s league. That may seem telling, but Budzinski — who owns an indoor soccer building in addition to the Comets — is bullish. Cautiously bullish. “Would we like to make a profit? Yeah, of course we would,” he says. “Do we plan on making a profit? Not right off the bat. We think we can.”
E-mail ben.palosaari@pitch.com
Solo has reason to remember KC. In September 2011, when the National Team was training with Sporting Kansas City, Sporting forward C.J. Sapong serenaded her with a little rap. It was a wee bit awkward, but Solo was game. She’s a standout keeper whose public comments have made her a lightning rod — a potential boon to local sportswriters.
AP
B R O O K E VA N D E V E R
hey call Portland Soccer City, but I don’t agree with that. I think Kansas City is Soccer City.” The man speaking is Brian Budzinski, owner of the Missouri Comets, the indoor soccer team that plays at the Independence Events Center. And he has a new reason to believe that he’s right. Budzinski and his business partners, in an ownership group called TOTA (a reference to the indoor-game term “top of the arc”), now control two of KC’s three professional soccer teams. TOTA owns FC Kansas City (nicknamed the Blues), part of the National Women’s Soccer League that the U.S. Soccer Federation announced in November. The league’s creation comes only seven months after a previous women’s pro league went out of business. And that league was actually the second women’s soccer league to fold, a failure that ran conspicuously counter to the national boom in fandom enjoyed by the U.S. Women’s National Team. The structure of the new league — set to include teams in Chicago; Boston; New York; Washington, D.C.; New Jersey; Portland; and Seattle — looks a bit like sports socialism. U.S. Soccer wants the third time to be a charm, so it’s working with the Canadian Soccer Association LO G the Mexican Football MOLREINPE AT and Federation to pay salaG ON M/PLO ries for members of their P IT C H .C O national teams to play in the league. U.S. Soccer will fund 24 players, the Canadians 16 and the Mexicans at least 12. When announcing the league’s creation, U.S. Soccer President Sunil Gulati explained that the league was designed to focus on building talent. “What we need is a sustainable model: less hype, better performance,” he said at a November press conference. “The hype will come if we have the performance.” Downplaying hype is an idea that Jeff Kassouf can get behind. He’s the founder and managing editor of Equalizer Soccer, a website that covers women’s soccer around the country. “Sometimes it feels like optimistic as a stand-alone word is strong,” he tells The Pitch. “You’ve got to be realistic. The best way to put it is, it’s the most realistic shot so far.” That structure of distributing big names and skill among a small number of teams should help the league succeed as well as build hype, Budzinski says. He likens the strategy to the NBA’s exhibition games that send big stars to, say, the Sprint Center. “LeBron James comes, sells 16,000 tickets,” Budzinski says. “I mean, they [fans] aren’t coming to see Mario Chalmers. They don’t even know who they’re playing. Obviously, it’s not the same level. But it’s very, very similar.” A women’s soccer analog, he adds, is U.S. Women’s National Team forward Alex Morgan, who scored 28 goals this year.
BY
Abby Wambach Forward, 32
Duh. Wambach, a brilliant clutch scorer, has also become the face of the National Team. And sometimes that face is a little worse for wear. In August, she took a punch to the eye in a game against Colombia. Unfazed, she scored a goal later in the game before proudly tweeting a photo of the shiner. That’s grit we like.
Megan Rapinoe Midfielder, 27
If you’re ever feeling down, just search YouTube for Rapinoe’s goals and subsequent celebrations. The pure exuberance in her play is joyous to behold. And she has chops: The rising star set up one of the most remarkable American goals ever in the waning moments of the World Cup quarter-final game against Brazil in 2011. The U.S. was down 2-1 when Rapinoe’s pass somehow found Wambach’s head, then the inside of the net. (The U.S. eventually won on penalties.) Rapinoe is an explosive talent, and she’d grab local attention.
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WEEK OF DECEMBER 20-26 | BY BERRY ANDERSON
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PAG E
FR I DA
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1 2 . 21 r for you A cure a li o h c melan
STAGE Ron Simonian plays the G chord.
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PAG E
ART An explosive show at the Sherry Leedy closes soon.
18 PAG E
FILM Rudd’s in a rut at 40.
MAYAN MISTAKE The world is not ending today. Nasa.gov offers us reassurance: “If Nibiru or Planet X were real and headed for an encounter with the Earth in 2012, astronomers would have been tracking it for at least the past decade, and it would be visible by now to the naked eye. Obviously, it does not exist.” Even if the world isn’t going to end, you have an excuse to get out — just in case — and celebrate like it’s the night the Earth dodged a deadly asteroid. Starting around 7:30 p.m., jam bands Brother Bagman, Supermassive Black Holes,
T H U R S D AY | 1 2 . 2 0 | SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT
Nothing screams Merry Christmas! like a slasher film. Horror queen Jill Sixx (with an assist from Critical Mass Releasing and the Grindhouse Film Festival) hosts a 7:30 p.m. screening of 1974’s Black Christmas at Screenland Armour (408 Armour Road, North Kansas City, 816-421-9700). “Many consider this to be the first slasher film,” Sixx says of the flick in which sorority girls die. Get scared and give back — proceeds from the $5 admission fee go to sCare (Suspense Community Allocating Relief and Empowerment) Foundation, a Los Angeles nonprofit that supports at-risk youth (scarefoundation.org). Enter the raffle for prizes to then gift your creepy friends. Buy tickets and get more information at screenland.com/armour. continued on page 12
Old Sound, and Wolfmanz Brothers (a Phish tribute) each get a 75-minute set at Arts Asylum (1000 East Ninth Street, 816-301-7444). Stick around until 1:30 a.m. for a monster End Times Jam. Look for a zombie-themed photo booth and art for sale. The cost is $10 for the 21-and-older event. For more information, see facebook.com/theartsasylum. The Gaia Community — an Earth-based, pagan Unitarian Universalist congregation — hosts the Longest Night Ball, at the Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre (3614 Main, 816-569-3226). A midnight pageant celebrates the “depth of Winter and the promised return
of Spring” or so says longestnight.org. Snacks and nonalcoholic drinks are included in the $25 ticket price. (There’s a donation bar for more potent beverages.) The 18-and-older party starts at 9 p.m. and goes until 1 a.m. Expect an electronic dance-music extravaganza at Hibernate: Soulstice of Awakening, a 16-and-older throw-down featuring Frankie Bones, the “Godfather of American Rave Culture,” at Mission Theatre (5909 Johnson Drive, Mission, 913-362-2107). Tickets cost $30 at the door for the 7 p.m.-5 a.m. party. Search “Hibernate Kansas City” on Facebook for more information.
F R I D AY | 1 2 . 2 1 |
ONLY THE FAMOUS SURVIVE
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erformance artists Heidi Van, David Wayne Reed and Bess Wallerstein hunker down for A Celebrity Apocalypse, featuring “appearances” by Courtney Love, Lindsay Lohan, Stevie Nicks and Brindsay Kardilton, among others. “Brindsay will bring some issues to the table. She’s got a lot to think about — it’s the end of the world,” says Van, who plays a hybrid of tabloid queens Britney, Lindsay, Kim and Paris. “What’s going to happen to all her shoes? Will they travel with her to the afterlife?” The Fishtank Performance Studio (1715 Wyandotte, 816-809-7110) hosts tonight’s free party, which starts at 9 (doors open at 8), and Snow and Co. provides a cash bar. A canned-good donation and a celebrity costume are requested. pitch.com
DECEMBER 20 -26, 2012
THE PITCH
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DAY SATUR
12 . 22
STREET TEAM
inch is The Gr ou . g for y waitin
Each week, Pitch Street Team cruises around to the hottest clubs, bars and concerts. You name it, we will be there. While we are out, we hand out tons of cool stuff. So look for the Street Team... We will be looking for you!
Flogging Molly @ Indie
continued from page 11
Flogging Molly @ Indie
SeeOak more on the “promotions” link at p Ridge Boys @ Uptown
Oak Ridge Boys @ Uptown
Upcoming Events
S AT U R D AY | 1 2 . 2 2 | MIND YOUR MANNERS
Here are a few of the items on the menu for today’s Holiday Tea at Bluestem (900 Westport Road, 816-561-1101): bacon-and-swiss-chard quiche, rosemary goat-cheese gougères, spiced chestnut soup, fig-and-mascarpone tartlets, chocolate-peppermint cake and lemon-cranberry scones. And try the SerendipiTea, a high-end, socially and environmentally responsible loose-leaf tea. Check your coat for stains and reserve your spot — seatings at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. — by calling the restaurant. The cost is $25 for adults and $7 for kids under 10. See bluestemkc.com.
YOU’RE A MEAN ONE, MR. GRINCH
His heart might be two sizes too small, but the Grinch doesn’t mind mugging for pic-
tures with you and your little Whos. The Grinch stops by the City Market from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. and from noon to 1 p.m. today for photos during Whoville Holidays, the kidfriendly holiday tradition, with activities, crafts and an indoor bounce house. Get face time with the Grinch at the market’s northeast corner (400 Grand, suite 428). See more information at thecitymarket.org.
“SANTA … YOU DRUNK!”
More than 300 folks dressed as Santa, Mrs. Claus or some variation thereof are expected to take part in Santacon 2012, a fundraising pub crawl from 6 p.m. to 1 a.m., at 14 drinking establishments — in Martini Corner (31st Street and Oak), Westport (Westport Road and Pennsylvania) and Waldo (75th Street and Wornall). Tickets cost $40 and include free cover and drink specials at all participating locations, plus booze and trinkets on the bus. (Yes,
S U N D AY | 1 2 . 2 3 |
12.21 - Sevendust, Drowning Pool @ Indie 12.21 - End of the World Party @ Uptown Arts Bar 12.29 - Bill Goffrier & Karlee Dean @ recordBar
CRACKIN’ NUTS
T
he last chance to see Todd Bolender’s The Nutcracker, performed by the Kansas City Ballet at the Kauffman Center (1601 Broadway, 816-994-7200), is at 1 p.m. today. The 5 p.m. performance has already sold out, so move fast. Adult tickets cost between $49 and $119; call 816-931-2232 or see kcballet.org to purchase. 12
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DECEMBER 20 -26, 2012
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we said “booze on the bus.”) Register at santaconkc.com or at Kelly’s (500 Westport Road) from 4 to 6 p.m. Tickets are going fast. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.
T U E S D AY | 1 2 . 2 5 | LONGVIEW HOLIDAY LIGHTS
See 175 animated figures, decorated with more than 300,000 colored lights, that are on display for the 25th Annual Christmas in E R O M the Park. Put down your new toys and head to the Longview Lake T A INE ONL .COM Campground (10711 H C PIT West Scherer, Lee’s Summit, 816-503-4800) from 5:30 to 10 p.m. — watch for signs at View High Drive and Third Street. Admission is free. Find more information and a map at jacksongov.org/recreation.
EVENTS
W E D N E S D AY | 12 . 2 6 | WEIRDO ENDING
After three years, entertainer Amy Farrand is pulling the plug on the Weirdo Wednesday Supper Club, her multifarious weekly gig at Davey’s Uptown Ramblers Club (3402 Main, 816-753-1909) that has featured family-friendly bands (at least in the beginning), burlesque, boylesque and indie rock. The cover-free series wraps up tonight from 7 to 9 with songs from Cheri Lu Woods, sketch comedy by Kimberely Queen and the burlesque of Nada Darling. The Pitch caught up with Farrand to talk about the end of her experimental variety show. The Pitch: How did you know it was time to close out this event?
M O N D AY | 1 2 . 2 4 |
EATIN’, DANCIN’, KVETCHIN’
T
he Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City’s website calls its annual Bagel Bash (for 20-, 30- and 40-somethings) “THE Jewish party of the year.” A $30 ticket gets you access to an open bar, food (some is VAAD-supervised), a DJ and a dance floor at Gusto Lounge (504 Westport Road, 816-974-8786) from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. Buy a ticket for the 21-and-older event at jewishkansascity.org before December 23 and get $10 off.
Take a Christmas drive. Farrand: The three-year mark was approaching, and I had been feeling that it might be time to wrap it up. I didn’t feel like I was breaking new ground or taking any new risks with the show. It was no longer growing or evolving. It had also become a tether, keeping me close to home in order to be there every Wednesday. But it’s time. I will certainly miss the people. I have the best regulars and crew in the world. I love my weirdos Given the nature of this show, did you find yourself constantly improvising? Were there many uncomfortable silences? Yes, especially in the beginning. I did it by the seat of my pants at first, and I spent a lot of time trying out new ideas to see what did and did not work. I learned something new after every single show. The intention was to always improve the experience for the audience and the performers alike, but to also keep it fresh and honest. The show was constantly evolving for the first two years. What’s next for you? I have several irons in the fire. I plan on playing a lot more music in the next year, collaborating with friends, doing more solo shows in and out of town. I’ve decided to be a more frequent member of the Silver Maggies, and I have a new project I’m drumming in called Rum Doxy with Heather Lofflin from Whiskey Boots, Lizz Weiler on bass and Benjamin White on second guitar. In late January, I’ll begin working with children, teaching them music making and doing instrument-building workshops. I’m really looking forward to this. It will be a ton of fun. Then there’s comedy. I recently tried my hand at it, and it went pretty well. It was a lot of fun, and they didn’t boo me off the stage. That’s a good start. You’ve mentioned that Weirdo Wednesday might come back quarterly? The plan is to do quarterly shows under the same name and format, but to expand them by including more acts and taking the show later into the evening. There will also likely be a cover charge, so we can afford to pay the artists a little more and put on a bigger show.
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O
m o c . h c t i p . e r u
NFO I E R O RM
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IT
IS V , S T E K R TIC
S TA G E
OH, HOLEY NIGHT
BY
DEB OR A H HIR SC H
CYNTHIA LEVIN
Ron Simonian’s The Soul Collector doesn’t live up to its billing.
L
ester Dupree is out to save your soul — From left: Herrera, Simonian and Brennan and make a mean living doing it. In his Leyh, making the sale. new play, Ron Simonian plays the pastor in her husband: “God is my No. 1, but you are a portrayal that mimics televangelists and my No. 2.” The intent is scatological. Later, their money-raking techniques. Yet The Soul Collector, at the Unicorn Theatre, falls short Dupree’s description of his cure for his wife’s gynecological problem is graphically relayed. of satire or parody. Despite multiple targets — It’s crude stuff, and it does deliver some an invasive religious right, a combative and laughs. But the program’s format gets old as divisive fundamentalism — it misses its mark. Designed as holiday entertainment — kind Dupree jumps from one hot topic to the next, preaching and singing and railing against culof — the play is yet another derivation of A tural changes and nonbelievers (“atheists, Christmas Carol. There’s no mistaking Dupree as a hateful Scrooge type, but this Dickens agnostics, Mexicans”), homosexuals, Harry Potter and feminists, pandering to a narrowrevision is a distant relation. minded TV audience. References to news and In this production, co-directed by Cynthia Levin and Johnny Wolfe, the aim of political events are woven in, but Simonian’s writing aims low and broad. self-professed “soul collecMen, not women, he insists, tor” Dupree is to cleanse The Soul Collector minister because of the bibpeople’s souls, like a spiriThrough December 23, at the lical passage “Thy rod and tual baptism, in preparation Unicorn Theatre, 3828 Main, thy staff, they comfort me.” for the afterlife. And his TV 816-531-7529, And women, he emphasizes, show is the venue from unicorntheatre.org should “do it when and how which he preaches to an almen want” — a line of dialeged worldwide audience. logue that brought what I have to hope was From the center aisle, a cameraman (Francisco ironic fist-pumping verbal agreement from “Pancho Javier” Villegas) silently operates a one member of the audience. tiny device on a tripod, projecting the “show” His daughters sometimes take issue with on a screen at the back of the stage. While we watch the play, we simultaneously see what’s his teachings (on live TV? really?), but this family finds ways to work around its differsupposed to be a live broadcast. ences. After all, their goal is to sell: a “master Technically wanting, the images suggest power prayer plan” for $40, “Jesus Juice, just amateur hour, less network than public-access cable. Maybe that’s part of the point, but the $19.99 a case from Amazon.com,” among an abundance of other products and programs for challenged A/V adds little to the viewing experience, other than underscoring commercial the multitude. It’s here that Simonian’s play comes closest to making a point. — and other — programming breaks that arise Simonian’s big personality should be a in the course of this story. Dupree describes his soul-cleansing mis- good match for this kind of character, a dogmatic, charismatic TV preacher. But as writsion with enough wet imagery and sexual double-entendre to make you long for ten, Dupree and his family are holy-roller caricatures, and this piece has the depth drought. Dupree’s wife, Jessie (Kelly Main), of cartoon. Though Villegas’ “cameraman” joins him on the stage — this TV-studio set — becomes a welcome distraction when the and their two teenage daughters, Jodi (Megan one-act starts feeling too long, this Scrooge Herrera) and Tammy (Rachel Brennan Leyh), story needs a lot of re-envisioning if Simonian dance their way onto the platform with her. means for it to join the alternative-ChristmasThis is a musical, for which Simonian has written several songs that he performs, accompa- show canon. nying himself on guitar. (Backup musician John Lenati does good work here.) Jessie tells E-mail deborah.hirsch@pitch.com
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DECEMBER 20 -26, 2012
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ART
WAY OF THE GUN
Linda Lighton and Taking
BY
Aim are suddenly on target.
T R A C Y A BE L N
nally reserved for showing windmill scenes on functional dinnerware is employed here to present “decorative” items such as a pretty canister of anthrax virus. cast AK-47s, .44-caliber handguns, and gasRainwater’s drawings have a quiet charm pump handles with wheel-thrown bullets and that the 3-D works here do not. She presents lipstick tubes, these porcelain growths have a firearms as petals, and her knives and scimiquasi-organic tone while, in most cases, looktars adhere to the symmetrical arrangements ing rather literal (except for the colors of their glazes). Their surfaces are attention-hungry, that nature has already perfected. She also has mounted-style insects made of weaplurid and so glossy that they’re almost blinding. Yet each weapon maintains some human onry, with clever titles like “Ammophelius Mosquito,” and they work with the rest of mark, a defect of creation — a droop here, a broken bit there. These are no matte-black, the art in Taking Aim to achieve a basic goal of this show: to get us talking. factory-machined killing tools. When Taking Aim opened, people asked Lighton invited a couple of other artists to exhibit with her in this show, both of whom Lighton — who for a while now has been writing to elected officials about were already producing gun control — whether an weapons-based work as Taking Aim: artist could effect change social commentary. Seattle Linda Lighton, Charles through something visual. artist Charles Krafft uses Krafft, Jane Rainwater After December 14, there’s traditional European techThrough December 22, at new talk about whether, and niques to decorate slip-cast Sherry Leedy Contemporary how, anyone can change our ceramic weapons and other Art, 2004 Baltimore, gun culture. If you’ve spent objects, and Jane Rainwater 816-221-2626, sherryleedy.com any time on Facebook or (of Andover, Connecticut, Twitter the past few days, about an hour northeast of you’ve seen that people are Newtown) has contributed ink-on-paper drawings that look like botani- mostly sticking with their old positions, still cal silhouettes from a distance but are com- playing their seemingly unchangeable roles. That includes artists, who have long proposed of weapons radiating out like sinister tested war, violence and destruction with mandalas. their work. So nothing in Taking Aim (or in Krafft’s “Villa Delirium Delft Works,” only this article about it) is new, but the show is two pieces of which ended up here, are more effective than his realistically painted weap- still worth seeing in the days before it ends. ons. (The latter hang on the walls as trophies It’s worth looking at this art as part of a hard or in little cases; a set of two firearms on red conversation that just got even harder — and velvet inside a black box with a glass lid, for ex- seeing whether it feels any different today than it would have only a few days ago. ample, is titled “Assassin’s Kit.”) The blue-andwhite work, on the other hand, offers more detail and interest; a traditional format origiE-mail feedback@pitch.com
Left: “Bullet Kiss” by Linda Lighton; above: “Balkan Bunny” by Charles Krafft
T
o ceramic artist Linda Lighton, lots of things in this man-made world — emphasis on man — look like penises. Guns and bullets, for sure, but also gas-pump handles, lipstick and even shampoo bottles. There’s nothing especially shocking about this, given that E R O M she’s hardly the lone observer of this phenomenon and given that she AT E N I ONL .COM has been at it for a long H PITC time. Pointing out the male slant that drives our culture of competitiveness-over-cooperation has been a decades-long motivation in her art. Sometimes, though, the culture of destruction — centered, in this country, on the ubiquity of firearms and gun violence — finds some vicious new way to top itself. And sometimes an artist’s recent works are already in sad accord with the moment. Well before last Friday’s Sandy Hook massacre, Lighton had found herself awakened to the constant threat of random violence. It happened a couple of years ago, at the intersection of Gillham and Linwood, where her husband witnessed a six-person shootout around 8 a.m. She tells me that she wondered, “Is any of this getting reported?” She wanted to know: Does this happen every day? Shouldn’t we talk about it? How can we do it civilly?
ART
In 2010, Kansas City was the fifth most dangerous U.S. city, in terms of firearm deaths. According to Business Insider, it’s still in the top 20 (at No. 16, behind No. 3 St. Louis), sharing in the 1.2 million violent crimes the FBI says were committed in this country in 2011. Guns, the agency reports, were used in 67.7 percent of homicides, 41.3 percent of robberies and 21.2 percent of aggravated assaults. Since her husband’s encounter, Lighton has accumulated a binder full of local news clippings and statistical studies about gun-related killings, accidents and suicides. Her research is part of Taking Aim, a three-person show at Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art. She also now carries with her a headful of stories that go beyond data and statistics. In conversation with a small group of people in the gallery one recent weekend, she recounted a handful of grim episodes told to her by others who had survived gun violence or had seen it destroy someone else. A week before Taking Aim opened, somebody shot up an empty parked car outside Lighton’s studio. It was probably random, but everything she has come to understand about this subject feels personal. Her work is in the first room of the gallery, and if you were to walk in not knowing the artist’s deeply informed feelings (or any of the titles, such as “I Don’t Want a Bullet to Kiss Your Heart”), you might infer that the totems were celebrations of weaponry. Combining
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18
THE PITCH
This Is 40:
BY
Judd Apatow’s midlife boner.
S C O T T W IL S ON
Y
ou’ve made me Garfunkel!” Pete yells. “I don’t even know what that means!” Debbie answers. He means she’s the smart one, the songwriter, the Paul Simon — the one who can do without a partner, an Art Garfunkel, when the harmony sours. That’s the point Paul Rudd’s character tries to make to his onscreen wife, played by Leslie Mann, as This Is 40, about to crest its third hour, offers a funny, original moment. Garfunkel being, as music critic Robert Christgau memorably put it, vestigial. Vestigial turns out to be a good descriptor for This Is 40, writer-director Judd Apatow’s leaden, tone-deaf dramedy of a privileged couple facing the onset of middle age and its attendant tediums. Following The 40-YearOld Virgin, Knocked Up and Funny People — each more rambling and self-indulgent than the last, each somehow less enlightened about interpersonal emotion than what preceded it — the filmmaker has finally done it. He has at last made a big-budget movie out of deleted scenes. Debbie and Pete aren’t Simon and Garfunkel. They’re Air Supply. There was reason to hope that Apatow’s new movie would accomplish two things that seemed long overdue. With its smart cast, its promising trailer and an opening date smack in the middle of December’s awards-bait sweepstakes, This Is 40 looked like that whitest of whales, the prestige studio comedy — something that would fi nally earn its maker his James L. Brooks stripes. And maybe this would also be a superstar maker for KC-bred Rudd, who has quietly become his generation’s most reliable, effortless and likable comic actor. Nope. It’s farts, hemorrhoids and Viagra. It’s characters whose feelings and motivations change with the broken wind as they intone the kind of “honest” dialogue that no one really says — even in the let’s-ownmatching-small-businesses-but-never-reallywork Southern California sprayed onto the screen here. Apatow’s 40 is a 134-minute whale whose whiteness is a matter not of marine rarity but of unapologetic socioeconomic benefit. There are echoes of Brooks here — the one who gave us Spanglish, though, not the architect of Broadcast News and Terms of Endearment. (Brooks’ 2010 movie, How Do You Know, gave Rudd more to do and deserves reconsideration.) Still, if you want to see a guy crying alone in a parked BMW as he contemplates one missed mortgage payment and a looming downsize in his cupcakes-and-vintage-vinyl habits, if that image speaks to your experience of marriage or the way we live now, then This Is 40 might be for you. I wanted it to be for me. After all, I’m in my early 40s. I want the future to belong to Rudd (who graduated from my high school a couple of years ahead of me), and I have nothing but fondness for everyone else in
DECEMBER 20 -26, 2012
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40 — chiefly Albert Brooks, John Lithgow and Graham Parker (who cameos here as a more-comfortable-with-obscurity version of himself). Like every other sensible American pop-culture consumer, I worship at the altar of Freaks and Geeks, Apatow’s flawless TV co-creation. I have a home shrine to The Larry Sanders Show, which served as Apatow’s MFA program. I’ll even defend Funny People as a noble failure, as long as I don’t have to watch it again anytime soon. But I would rather pick a fight with my wife than endure This Is 40 a second time — an unfair criticism, perhaps, given that I’m not married. But I could meet a woman, fi nd a justice of the peace, send thank-you cards for the silver, and lose a knock-downdrag-out in less time than Apatow makes us spend with these flat, shrill characters. Maybe it’s that Apatow keeps sending people to the doctor, a punishment he has meted out across at least three movies now. Waiting rooms, examination tables, hospitals — they’re here again, symbols of physical vulnerability and useful visual metaphors wasted on the movie’s cheapest jokes. Maybe it’s 40’s embrace of sub-sitcom tropes: the easy (and dramatically convenient) spousal language of lies; the having-it-both-ways bullshit of making every woman a harridan whose ballbusting earns patronizing credit from the men for being the brains of the relationship; the criminal abuse of the gifted Melissa McCarthy. Or maybe it’s the way that Apatow has again made Mann, his real-life wife (their daughters, Iris and Maude Apatow, play Pete and Debbie’s children with pitch.com
Rudd and Mann stay frosty. annoying precociousness), a pitiless shrew. During that Simon-vs.-Garfunkel fight, Debbie tells Pete that they don’t like each other. She’s right, and the problem is that Mann and Rudd have made us believe it without finding anything in Apatow’s script to suggest that they’ll learn to like again. There’s nothing to find. “You look like a fake bank couple,” McCarthy’s character accuses Pete and Debbie during the movie’s only moment of sustained amusement. It’s a truth more painful than anything Apatow means to uncover in This Is 40. Because, yeah, they do look like some ad for a bank’s mortgage refi nances, and also because Pete and Debbie are about to get away with a whopping lie about the angry mom McCarthy plays — a shabbiness they and Apatow refuse to examine. Some have tossed out words such as maximalist or sprawling to describe Apatow’s storytelling, as though his movies were David Foster Wallace or Balzac, as though they were detailed and novelistic. Nonsense. His isn’t a style; it’s an affl iction, a pathological inability to trim. The kindest defense available for This Is 40 is that Apatow has stuffed an HBO-sized series into a movie-shaped box and wrapped it with old paper. That’s too generous. The mismatched pieces that make up This Is 40 aren’t just extraneous — they’re deeply off-putting. This is a movie you go to bed angry with.
E-mail scott.wilson@pitch.com M O N T H X X–X X , 2 0 0 X
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1
OUT THIS WEEK
JACK REACHER
Cruise: Jack-ed up.
J
the strained ties that bind Barbra Streisand’s overprotective mother to Seth Rogen’s petulant inventor are interesting enough to sustain a movie. Sadly, The Guilt Trip is not that movie. Rogen’s Andrew Brewster is all that his widowed mother, Joyce (Streisand), seems to think about. She calls him constantly, worrying over him and nudging him toward hydrating more often or doing Pilates. Andrew has other things on his mind, though — mainly trying to peddle his ecofriendly stain cleaner to Costco and Kmart. Still, Andrew worries about his mother, too. So when Joyce tells him that he was named after E R MO someone she once loved very much, he takes it upon himself to reunite T A INE h is mot her w it h t he ONL .COM PITCH man who got away. That means doing what every mismatched buddy team has done since Stan met Ollie: Hitting the road together and trying to bond. Screenwriter Dan Fogelman’s good intentions rarely rise above his and director Anne Fletcher’s staid execution. They burden Joyce with buffoonish tics and fail to develop the dynamic between mother and son, substituting bland dialogue, trite sentiments and lousy jokes. There’s a dire montage in which Andrew asks Joyce about menopause while the Scissor Sisters chirp “Take Your Mama” on the soundtrack, and there’s a toxic meet-cute involving a Texas good old boy (Brett Cullen) and a 4-pound steak. Streisand’s comic gifts — scarcely given a warm-up in the Focker movies, let alone a workout — are wasted here. She’s allowed to give a fairly down-to-earth performance in the movie’s fi rst third, but that soon devolves into full-on diva shtick. The Guilt Trip never questions why its characters act the way they do, and it doesn’t let them forge a meaningful new relationship. Instead, there’s the usual banal idea of happily ever after: a new beau for Joyce, a business deal for Andrew, and eternal reruns on TBS in the coming years — SIMON ABRAMS
ack Reacher opens with a horrific scene of carnage, as a sniper takes out a number of random civilians in downtown Pittsburgh. It’s a moment that many will find even more troubling in the wake of the recent Newtown shootings. But give Christopher McQuarrie’s film some credit: The scene is portrayed with an appropriate sense of its own monstrosity. The chill you’ll feel going up your spine and the palpable discomfort in the theater feel earned. The terror of that start, however, never finds a balance in the rest of the story, a mostly enjoyable thriller adapted from Lee Child’s novel One Shot. A surprisingly understated Tom Cruise plays Reacher, a mysterious and brilliant drifter-slash-private-eye who is called on to investigate the killings. Somewhat reluctantly, he agrees to help dig into the crime for the accused sniper’s defense attorney (a rather unfortunately over-the-top Rosamund Pike, never blinking). Sure enough, what appeared to be an open-and-shut case starts to look dodgy, and some mysterious people want Reacher dead or out of town. That’s when Reacher starts to think he’s on the right track. Alas, it’s also when the fi lm starts to go off the rails. For much of its running time, Jack Reacher works as an effective, almost nostalgically modest mystery, and we get a kick out of the slow, patient buildup of facts and evidence. But once the real bad guys are revealed, led by a deliciously creepy Werner Herzog (playing a man who once chewed off his own fingers to survive a Russian prison camp — talk about international man of mystery), the movie becomes more concerned with action and less with suspense. Worse, these villains aren’t so much diabolical as they are unconscionably evil. As the plot moves along, it succumbs to a game of corrosive brinksmanship, a crippling compulsion toward violent badassery.
— BILGE EBIRI
THE GUILT TRIP
L
ike Hope Springs earlier this year, The Guilt Trip sets out to explore an estranged familial relationship without sensationalizing it. That’s a promising idea, and 2
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DECEMBER 20 -26, 2012
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CAFÉ
PALE HORSE
A new Parkville tavern is slow out of the gate.
BY
CHARLES FERRUZZA
Rusty Horse Tavern • 6325 Lewis, Parkville, 816-746-5400 • Hours: 11 a.m.–10 p.m. Monday–Thursday, 11 a.m.–11 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m.–9 p.m. Sunday • Price: $$–$$$
W
hen Parkville restaurateur Kevin Heaton — probably best known for his Stone Canyon Pizza, on the riverfront hamlet’s main drag — took over the vacated Agave Mexican Grill & Cantina last spring, he turned the mediocre Parkville Commons venue into a cozy saloon serving craft beer and burgers. Beer and burgers are what most local taverns — or saloons or bars or joints or anyplace where the booze is a greater draw than the cuisine — traditionally offer. And when it opened MORE in May, Rust y Horse Tavern sold burgers and AT a few other sandwiches E N I ONL .COM (“Hand Held Meals,” acPITCH cording to the first menu) alongside an occasional dinner special. But a lot has happened over the past seven months. The venue’s fi rst chef, Lindsay Hintz, is gone, replaced by Miguel Sanchez in September. Sanchez ran the downtown boîte Honeymom’s with his wife, Susan Welling, more than a decade ago. Heaton and Rusty Horse Tavern’s general manager, Brian Wilson, have given Sanchez, who recently returned to Kansas City, enough freedom to expand the menu, which now includes a few consistent dinner entrées. The place has also dropped a couple of oddball starters, including the sweet-corn fritters and a smokedbacon dip, in favor of more familiar items, such as beer-steamed mussels and tortilla chips with queso and guacamole. A couple of the burgers have been removed from the race as well, including an “L.A. Burger,” topped with an avocado aïoli; a pulled-pork “Aloha Burger,” with a slice of grilled pineapple and some bok choy; and the Horse’s fi rst stab at a veggie burger, which was a tasty but ridiculously crumbly chickpea-based patty. The new meatless burger is made with black beans and mushrooms. Since Sanchez took over the kitchen, the Horse has positioned itself as more of a destination restaurant than just a neighborhood hangout. (“We get a lot of Kansas City residents driving over now,” Wilson says.) But the question isn’t whether Sanchez has the chops to lure folks north of the river for dinner. The question is whether a menu and a venue this simple are enough to get people who are outside the neighborhood to make the trek. The short answer is no, at least not for just a burger and a side of sweet-potato fries. The burgers here (made with short ribs, brisket, tenderloin and ground chuck from McGonigle’s Meat Market) are certainly fi rst-rate. But there are other good burgers that don’t take almost 30 minutes to reach. People do drive a half-hour for a good dinner entrée, though, and a few of the half-dozen
ANGELA C. BOND
CAFÉ
of pig. I was still hungry after I polished it off. More satisfying was Sanchez’s salmon, a farm-raised slab of pretty pink fish, rendered slightly crispy after being seared in a hot choices here make a reasonably compelling case. The best-selling meal here, fi sh and skillet and then doused in a pine-nut-andcurrant vinaigrette. chips, is excellent: flaky white cod drenched There’s no pasta on the entrée list, so the in Boulevard-beer batter and fried to a light meatless selections are spartan. A vegetarcrunch, served with a tasty (if a little runny) ian friend of mine enjoyed a fresh pear salad tartar sauce that’s made in-house. and a starter of two hummus purees: roasted The meatloaf platter needs some work. red pepper and roasted Like most meatloaf served garlic chickpea. The best in local restaurants, this Rusty Horse Tavern meatless holdover from the version (made with ground Hummus duo ...................$6.95 earlier menu is a fat, yeasty beef, pork and turkey) gets Jumbo pretzel ................$5.95 Black-bean and pretzel, deep-fried to order made in advance and is mushroom burger ........ $8.75 and served with a dollop of reheated when someone Meatloaf platter.............$9.95 queso and a pale-ale musorders the platter. This Beer-battered tard, but that’s not a meal. heat-to-order technique fish and chips ..............$10.95 It’s a delightful appetizer, works just fi ne for a meatSalmon ............................$15.95 which hasn’t grown in size loaf sandwich (which isn’t since I fi rst sampled it last on the sandwich list but May, though the price has risen by nearly half. probably should be), but all the pan gravy in Rusty Horse Tavern seats just 110 people Parkville isn’t going to make an hours-old in the bar area and the dining room, so a limhunk of loaf freshly moist and flavorful. Far better is the house-cured pork chop, ited menu is cost-effective for the kitchen, if not the public. There are modestly priced ordered with the silky, house-made mashlunch and dinner specials, and Wilson notes ers. But at the price that Rusty Horse Tavern that during the four-hour weekday happy charges for a single chop, it’s a stingy portion
The Rusty Horse Tavern ponies up some impressively large portions.
hour, a half-pound of fried chicken wings costs $5. That pricing might be what attracts families to this saloon. On each of my visits to Rusty Horse, the dining room was teeming with toddlers. (The servers are very accommodating to families.) The dessert selection varies from night to night, but a recent staple has been an excessively sugary, flourless chocolate torte and a very good bread pudding, the latter as fluff y and fragrant as a fresh-baked cinnamon roll. Rusty Horse Tavern isn’t in the center of Parkville but in a newer shopping strip a couple of miles away. The most visible landmark is a Sonic. Come to think of it, that drive-in chain has a slightly more extensive menu than Rusty Horse does, though without the impressive selection of craft beers. And without the talented Sanchez, who needs an opportunity to introduce a few more creative dishes to a tavern that really is going to get rusty unless it seriously picks up the pace.
Have a suggestion for a restaurant The Pitch should review? E-mail charles.ferruzza@pitch.com
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22
THE PITCH
n the night of his retirement party, at the bar he’d named after himself, 66-yearold Bobby Baker was busing tables. It wasn’t heavy work yet — the room hadn’t quite filled up. At the bar, people were watching Baylor’s football team pull out a surprise win over Kansas State. In the back of the room, a handful of bartenders from joints up and down Wornall Road drank alongside several of Baker’s regulars — mostly older, gregarious men with a strong taste for Crown on the rocks — their conversations punctuated by hearty backslapping. Baker occasionally reminded well-wishers that this was only his “semi-retirement party.” It was November 17, and he had some time left before January 1, the day he plans to turn the Waldo bar over to his daughter, Becky Hamrich. “It’s made me a good living,” Baker tells me on another recent day, sitting in the small, dark neighborhood favorite that he opened almost 19 years ago. “But I know what my dad means now when he used to say, ‘Everything isn’t always going to be peaches and cream.’ “My dad bought his first bar for $900,” Baker continues. “Pendergast was involved.” Johnny Baker always claimed that his original bar was located in a drugstore under a Tom Pendergast office, around 18th Street and Main. The best of the old family stories are pretty much unverifiable — the beer deliveries arranged by the Mafia, the one about rounding up voters for Pendergast. Whatever his affiliations or the origins of his business, though, Johnny Baker was a successful tavern owner by the 1950s, and his colorful work stories would ultimately lead his son into the same trade. “It was one of the biggest country-andwestern bars in the 1950s, a dance place,” Bobby Baker says of Johnny Baker’s, the Truman Road lounge where he got his first taste of nightlife. “It had an apartment above it, and it was a treat when me and my brothers could spend the night there on the weekends.” In 1973, he and his two brothers — Baker is the third of five siblings — signed a fiveyear lease to open another Johnny Baker’s, at 39th Street and Waddell (the space that today houses Missie B’s). Eventually, his brothers
DECEMBER 20 -26, 2012
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Last call for Bobby Baker. left. “It was a hard business for the wives to deal with,” Baker says. Johnny Baker died at age 88 in 1978, and the namesake satellite that his sons had opened in midtown closed the same year. After that, Baker returned full time to the trade he had learned in the Navy: welding. He worked for Wilcox Electric Inc., a Northland company that produced equipment for air-traffic control and navigation. When the work was slow in 1993, he and a friend, Joe Moretina, bought Caddy Shack, a bar just north of the River Market. “I was in for a year, but then I sold out because it wasn’t enough money for two people,” Baker says. During that time, though, Baker met Gail Mulvaney, owner of the self-named Waldo tavern Mulvaney’s. “We worked out a price, and I gave her a down payment,” Baker says. It was Valentine’s Day 1994, and Bobby Baker’s Lounge was born. “On my first night,” he says, “I bought three dozen roses for the ladies. I only gave away three, and the rest went in the trash.” To make ends meet, he lived in an apartment set up in the bar’s basement. “I got up at 4:30 a.m., did the money and made the banks, then I had to be north of the river at Wilcox at 6 a.m.,” Baker says. “I made bank deposits on my 10-minute break, slept on my lunch break, and got off at 2:30. I came back to the bar around 7:30, then tried to leave between midnight and 12:30.” After five years of this punishing routine, he made his last payment to Mulvaney. Competition was tight. “Around then, Waldo had Tanner’s, 75th Street Brewery, Waldo Bar, Jasper’s and Waldo Pizza,” Baker says. “Kennedy’s came in 1995 and did pretty well.” Baker says that first half-decade was a time of trial and error as he worked to figure out how to make regulars out of his new patrons. His father had sold hot dogs and pickled eggs; Baker imported mini pizzas from Waldo Pizza, across the street. He hired a six-piece band on the weekends and set up a martini bar in the back where he and another bartender wore bow ties and shook the cocktails.
S A B R I N A S TA I R E S
O
As Bobby Baker’s Lounge found a foothold in its neighborhood, Baker’s daughter became interested in the family business. In 2005, Hamrich took a bartending job at the Johnson County biker bar Fuel. She went on to similar gigs at Tommy Farha in Waldo and Pockets on 103rd Street. “My dad didn’t want me working behind the bar here after dark back then,” she says. Over the past decade, Hamrich also worked off and on for Baker. “My dad and I are way too much alike,” she says, explaining the breaks she took from the lounge. She told him that the only way she’d stay aboard full time would be if she could eventually buy the bar from him. In January, then, the shaker gets passed. Hamrich says her changes are going to be minor. She already has talked her dad into ditching the joint’s captain’s chairs for stools so that she can fit more people at the bar. She also wants to refresh the jukebox and replace the tile-andgrout bar with one made of wood. To ease the flow of traffic in the tight room, she plans to yank out the booths, in favor of high-top tables. But the idea is for Bobby Baker’s Lounge to go on feeling like Bobby Baker’s Lounge. Unlike her grandfather, Hamrich doesn’t foresee a bar empire. “I’m not greedy,” she says. “One place is good enough.” And she’s keeping it simple by not pursuing Sunday or 3 a.m. licenses. Bobby Baker says he’s going out on a high note. “All the people that come in this place,” he tells me, “I love ’em. You can say whatever you want about the younger generation, but being around them helps keep you young. There’s always someone to laugh with.”
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DECEMBER 20 -26, 2012
THE PITCH
23
NEW YEAR’S EVE EVENTS AND HAPPENINGS ALL YEAR, VISIT
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Unless otherwise noted, the following events take place Monday, December 31. Aftershock Bar & Grill: 5240 Merriam Dr., 913-384-5646. Drek, Order Number Eleven, Mad Libby, Knot Afrayed, 7 p.m., $10. Aura: 3832 Main, 816-960-4930. DJ Shaun Flo and DJ Dynamic, champagne specials, party favors, balloons and confetti cannons. Hosted by Rob Marrs, Cortez Patron, Omid Rostami and Vuthy Chap. Admission costs $20. For more information, e-mail info@aurakc.com. Beer Kitchen: 435 Westport Rd., 816-389-4180. DJ Finius at 10 p.m. Special New Year’s menu, and full dinner menu. Free champagne or handcrafted-beer toast at midnight. The Blue Room: 1616 E. 18th St., 816-474-8463. Reggie and Mardra Thomas, 8 p.m. Call for details and tickets. Bluestem: 900 Westport Rd., 816-561-1101, bluestemkc .com. Chefs Megan and Colby Garrelts prepare a seven-course dinner, $135 per person, plus tax and gratuity. Wine pairings to accompany the meal are an additional $65. Seatings at 6 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Bluestem’s lounge offers a limited menu with the restaurant’s Surf & Turf, $30 per person, plus tax and gratuity. Reservations (with credit card) required for dining-room seatings. Cancellations must be made 48 hours in advance to avoid a $100 charge per person. Call 816-561-1101, or see the website. The Bottleneck: 737 New Hampshire, Lawrence, 785-841-5483. Mountain Sprout, Ashes to Immortality, Tyler Gregory. The Brick: 1727 McGee, 816-421-1634. Karaoke New Year’s Eve Party. The Brooksider: 6330 Brookside Plz., 816-363-4070. New Year’s Eve with Dolewite, 10 p.m. Bulldog: 1715 Main, 816-421-4799. DJ Thundercutz performs from 9 p.m.–close. Complimentary party favors and champagne toast at midnight. General admission is free, with cash bar. The New Year’s Eve Party Package ($60) includes bottomless wine, wells, domestic drafts, and unlimited food from a limited menu, 8 p.m. Californos: 4124 Pennsylvania, 816-531-7878, californos .com. Champagne toast at midnight, and an array of namebrand liquors and specialty drinks, inclusive pricing. Premium bar tickets ($130) include entertainment by Kemet thePhantom* Coleman, who spins soul, funk and R&B. Premium bar tickets also include top-shelf liquors, an appetizer spread and seating. Call bar tickets ($90) feature access to name-brand liquors, domestic drafts and a tented smoking patio, reggae sounds from AZ-ONE and complimentary appetizers. Visit to reserve a seat now through December 27, 8:45 p.m. Charlie Hooper’s: 12 W. 63rd St., 816-361-8841. No cover and free party favors. Champagne toast. Great food and drink specials. Chaz on the Plaza: 325 Ward Pkwy., 816-802-2152, raphaelkc.com. Package includes a choice of the following accommodations: four-course dinner for two, with a choice of soup or salad, appetizer, entrée and dessert; live blues and jazz by the Hatchlings in the Chaz Lounge; a champagne toast at midnight in the historic lobby with commemorative Raphael champagne flutes, hats, balloons and noisemakers; and a Chaz breakfast for two on New Year’s Day, valet parking, and a late 2 p.m. checkout. Cost begins at $499. For information and reservations call 816-756-3800 or see the website. Crowne Plaza Hotel: 12601 W. 95th St., Overland Park, 913-217-1000, cpoverlandpark.com. Two packages offered. The Final Masquerade, from $249, includes deluxe accommodations for two, welcome gift, elegant dinner buffet with cocktails 6:30–9:30 p.m., music from DJ Mike Watts, and midnight balloon drop. A breakfast buffet opens at 8 a.m., and a New Year’s Day bar opens at 9 a.m., with late checkout at 2 p.m. The Family Fun Celebration package, from $159, includes deluxe accommodations for two adults and two children, Candy Land Crawl Through and Fire Dog Bell and Sports Arena, familyfriendly DJ, caricature and balloon artists, pool access, and breakfast for two adults and two children. For reservations, contact Stacey Freeman at 913-217-1004 or sfreeman@mkccp.com. Czar: 1531 Grand, 816-421-0300. Arm the Poor, Born in Babylon, DJ Jabberock, DJ S Ranx, 7 p.m., $5. Davey’s Uptown Ramblers Club: 3402 Main, 816-753-1909. Filthy 13, Phaze II, Be/Non, 9 p.m., $10. EBT: 1310 Carondelet (I-435 and State Line), 816-942-8870, ebtrestaurant.com. NYE Weekend (Friday, Saturday, Monday) prix fixe menu. Live music all three nights. For more information, call or see the website. The Eighth Street Taproom: 801 New Hampshire, Lawrence, 785-841-6918. Mingle New Year’s Eve Edition with Team Bear Club, 10 p.m. Extra Virgin: 1900 Main, 816-842-2205. All-you-caneat tapas buffet, $50 per person, with wine specials, craft cocktails and specially priced bubbly, beginning at 6 p.m. See Grand Marquis in the common area of Michael Smith and
Extra Virgin 8:30 p.m.–12:30 a.m. For reservations, call Nancy Smith at 816-842-2202 or see opentable.com. Fatso’s: 1016 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-865-4055. Ras Neville and the Kingstonians, 10 p.m. Foundation: 1221 Union (at Foundation Architectural Reclamation), 816-283-8990, foundationkc.com. New Year’s Eve 2013 at the Ship, DJ vs. Drums, Hymnlayas, Scammers, Umberto, and MissConception perform. Countdown Party begins at 9 p.m. with a $20 general admission. The New Year After-Party begins at 12:30 a.m., with a $10 cover. Bar service provided by Coach’s. Visa and MasterCard accepted. This event is for people 21 and older. Enter through the back alley behind Foundation at 1221 Union in the West Bottoms. The Foundry: 424 Westport Rd., 816-960-0866. DJ Leo Night Us at 10 p.m. Special New Year’s menu and full dinner menu. Free champagne or handcrafted-beer toast at midnight. Frank’s North Star Tavern: 508 Locust, Lawrence, 785-856-5080. Kiss 2012 goodbye with Pale Hearts, Stiff Middle Fingers and Monsoon Lazer, 10 p.m., $5. The Gallery Event Space: 61 E. 14th St. NYE Champagne Soiree, live jazz with the Dave Stephens Band and the New Jazz Order Big Band, 8 p.m., $125 individual admission, $225 per couple. Prime-rib carving stations with chef’s accompaniments, handmade artisan pastas, antipasto stations, decadent dessert display, all-inclusive premium bar, party favors, and champagne toast at midnight. Tickets at MissionTix.com/ GalleryNYE. For upgrades and more information, contact infor@thegalleryeventspace.com. Valet parking available ($15 in advance). For velvet rope VIP area, band reserved seating or premium champagne preorder, contact Fallon Gardner at 816-674-4137. The Granada: 1020 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-842-1390. Murder By Death, Cowboy Indian Bear, and Y(our) Fri(end). The 18-and-older show is $12 in advance or $15 at the door, 9 p.m. Granfalloon: 608 Ward Pkwy., 816-753-7850. Parties of 12 with reservations get complimentary champagne toast at midnight and party favors. Grinders: 417 E. 18th St., 816-472-5454, grinderspizza.com. Kansas City’s biggest ball drop. No cover charge. Food and drink specials all night, live music, and bonfire and patio seating. The Hideout: 6948 N. Oak Tfwy., 816-468-0550. New Year’s Eve Party with the Groove Pilots, 8:30 p.m. Historic Firestone Building: 2001 Grand. The Black Party IX: New Year’s Eve Bash, 9 p.m.–1:30 a.m. Open bar, four floors, three DJs featuring multiple genres of music, champagne toast and party favors; also, one exclusive VIP area featuring premium food from Tasso’s, champagne service and private DJ. General admission costs $85; VIP is $110, and VIP tables (eight tickets, VIP seating, two premium bottles) is $1,600. Valid photo ID required for the 21-and-older event. For more information and tickets, see blackpartykc.com. Howl at the Moon: 1334 Grand, 816-471-4695. Pre-New Year’s Eve Red Solo Cup Party, 7 p.m. Monday, December 30. Party drinks include Miller Lite, SKYY vodka and flavored drinks, and 86-oz. final-countdown buckets. Raffle drawings all night. For New Year’s Eve, packages are available: The Champagne Supernova Package starts at $115 and includes guaranteed seating, dinner buffet, premium open bar 7 p.m.–1 a.m., latenight appetizer buffet, champagne toast, party favors, and a KC Live all-access pass; the Just Dance package, $85, doesn’t include seating (and the open bar begins an hour later). Call Brandi at 816-471-4695 or e-mail kcsales@howlatthemoon .com to reserve. Icons Restaurant & Lounge: 1108 Grand, 816-472-4266. Improv Comedy Club and Dinner Theater: 7260 N.W. 87th St., 816-759-5233. NYE dinner buffet and show, with Loni Love, 7 & 10 p.m. Jackpot Music Hall: 943 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-832-1085. Approach, Cloud Dog, Radkey. Jazzhaus: 926-1/2 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-1387. The Majestics Rhythm Revue, $10. Kansas City Convention Center: 301 W. 13th St., 816-513-5000. New Year’s Eve Bash at the Grand Ballroom. Elegant buffet dinner and champagne toast, $99 per person. Dance to the hits of the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s with Atlantic Express, featuring Hal Wakes. The New Year’s Eve Grand Package from the Kansas City Marriott Downtown includes two tickets to the Ballroom Party, luxurious guest room, bottle of champagne at check-in, and breakfast for two and late checkout, $299 for two. For details or reservations, call 816-421-6800 or see KansasCityMarriottDowntown. com (promotion code EVE). Party tickets only available at Municipal Auditorium box office or through Ticketmaster, 800-745-3000 or ticketmaster.com. The Kill Devil Club: 61 E. 14th St., 816-877-8312. NYE Champagne Soiree, live jazz with the Dave Stephens Band and the New Jazz Order Big Band, 8 p.m., $125 individual admission, $225 per couple. Prime-rib carving stations with chef’s accompaniments, handmade artisan pastas, continued on page 28
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DECEMBER 20 -26, 2012
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DECEMBER 20 -26, 2012
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Torre's Pizzeria Beer Kitchen Any Specialty Pizza for $10 & 2 Late Night Happy Hour Friday & Slices for $4 Saturday 11pm-1am Westport Cafe and Bar Buzzard Beach $1.25 Domestic Drafts $2.50 Wells Shot and a Beer for $5 Westport Coffee House Californos 15% Off Any Coffee Drink $5 off $12 purchase Downtown Dark Horse $2 Wells $2 domestic draws $12 Anthony's Power Hours 8pm-10pm Fri & Sat 2 for 1 Any Item from Late Night Menu with Purchase of Two Beverages Dave's Stagecoach Inn John's Big Deck (Upper) $3 Jameson Shots and $2 16oz $3 Wells $4 Bombs and No Cover Cans of PBR Ernie Biggs Dueling Piano Bar River Market 2 for 1 cover CafĂŠ Al Dente Fidelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Cigar Shop $3 Mascot Shots, Buy One
Wyandotte
Danny's Big Easy Get Your Wristbands here!
Plaza
Wornall Rd
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i
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Ă&#x160;Ă&#x160;Ă&#x160;Ă&#x160;UĂ&#x160;,Â&#x2C6;Ă&#x203A;iĂ&#x20AC;Ă&#x160; >Ă&#x20AC;Â&#x17D;iĂ&#x152;Ă&#x160;Â&#x2021;Ă&#x160;/Â&#x2026;iĂ&#x160; Â?Ă&#x2022;iĂ&#x160; Â&#x2C6;Â&#x2DC;i Ă&#x160;Ă&#x160;Ă&#x160;Ă&#x160;UĂ&#x160; Â&#x153;Ă&#x153;Â&#x2DC;Ă&#x152;Â&#x153;Ă&#x153;Â&#x2DC;Ă&#x160;Â&#x2021;Ă&#x160; Â&#x153;Â&#x2026;Â&#x2DC;½Ă&#x192;Ă&#x160; Â&#x2C6;}Ă&#x160; iVÂ&#x17D; Ă&#x160;Ă&#x160;Ă&#x160;Ă&#x160;UĂ&#x160;*Â&#x153;Ă&#x153;iĂ&#x20AC;Ă&#x160;EĂ&#x160; Â&#x2C6;}Â&#x2026;Ă&#x152;Ă&#x160;Â&#x2021;Ă&#x160; Ă&#x2022;LÂ?Â&#x2C6;Â&#x2DC;iĂ&#x20AC; Ă&#x160;Ă&#x160;Ă&#x160;Ă&#x160;UĂ&#x160;ÂŁnĂ&#x152;Â&#x2026;Ă&#x160;EĂ&#x160;6Â&#x2C6;Â&#x2DC;iĂ&#x160;Â&#x2021;Ă&#x160; >Â&#x2DC;Â&#x2DC;Ă&#x17E;½Ă&#x192;Ă&#x160; Â&#x2C6;}Ă&#x160; >Ă&#x192;Ă&#x17E; Ă&#x160;Ă&#x160;Ă&#x160;Ă&#x160;UĂ&#x160;Ă&#x17D;Ă&#x2C6;Ă&#x152;Â&#x2026;Ă&#x160;EĂ&#x160; Ă&#x20AC;Â&#x153;>`Ă&#x153;>Ă&#x17E;Â&#x2021;1ÂŤĂ&#x152;Â&#x153;Ă&#x153;Â&#x2DC;Ă&#x160; Ă&#x20AC;Ă&#x152;Ă&#x192;Ă&#x160; >Ă&#x20AC; Ă&#x160;Ă&#x160;Ă&#x160;Ă&#x160;UĂ&#x160; >Ă&#x20AC;Ă&#x152;Â&#x2C6;Â&#x2DC;Â&#x2C6;Ă&#x160; Â&#x153;Ă&#x20AC;Â&#x2DC;iĂ&#x20AC;Ă&#x160;Â&#x2021;Ă&#x160;6iÂ?Ă&#x203A;iĂ&#x152;Ă&#x160; Â&#x153;} Ă&#x160;Ă&#x160;Ă&#x160;Ă&#x160;UĂ&#x160;7iĂ&#x192;Ă&#x152;ÂŤÂ&#x153;Ă&#x20AC;Ă&#x152;Ă&#x160;Â&#x2021;Ă&#x160; >Ă&#x20AC;Â&#x17D;Ă&#x160; Â&#x153;Ă&#x20AC;Ă&#x192;i Ă&#x160;Ă&#x160;Ă&#x160;Ă&#x160;UĂ&#x160;*Â?>â>Ă&#x160;Â&#x2021;Ă&#x160;"½ Â&#x153;Ă&#x153;`Ă&#x192; Ă&#x160;Ă&#x160;Ă&#x160;Ă&#x160;UĂ&#x160; Ă&#x20AC;Â&#x153;Â&#x153;Â&#x17D;Ă&#x192;Â&#x2C6;`iĂ&#x160;Â&#x2021;Ă&#x160; Ă&#x20AC;Â&#x153;Â&#x153;Â&#x17D;Ă&#x192;Â&#x2C6;`iĂ&#x20AC; Ă&#x160;Ă&#x160;Ă&#x160;Ă&#x160;UĂ&#x160;7>Â?`Â&#x153;Ă&#x160;Â&#x2021;Ă&#x160;+Ă&#x2022;Â&#x2C6;Â&#x2DC;Ă&#x152;Â&#x153;Â&#x2DC;½Ă&#x192;
www.thekansascitystrip.com pitch.com
DECEMBER 20 -26, 2012
THE PITCH
27
Theater Presents
LASER
LIGHT SHOW & 6 DJ’s!
EVERYONE IS VIP IN 2013 WILL WE MAKE IT TO 12.21.12?? Buy your tickets before the Mayan calendar ends on 12.21 & get last years pricing of $40 (limited to the first 400)
After Decemeber 21st $47 advance tickets $55 at the door. Largest indoor party in KC! Lowest all inclusive price in KC! Entrance one hour early (7pm)
open bar all night, premium beer all night.
Expanded laser & light show Increased snack options
Everyone gets access to all 6 rooms MAIN THEATER, CABARET, NOWHERE, THE CONSPIRACY ROOM, VALENTINE ROOM & BROADWAY ROOM
VIP HOTEL PACKAGES! CALL FOR MORE DETAILS 816.753.8665 or uptowntheater.com for more info
28 T H E P I T C H 2 THE PITCH
D E C E M B E R 2 0 - 2 6 , 2 0 1 2 pitch.com M O N T H X X–X X , 2 0 0 X pitch.com
continued from page 24 antipasto stations, dessert display, all-inclusive premium bar, party favors, and champagne toast at midnight. Tickets at MissionTix.com/GalleryNYE. For upgrades and more information, contact infor@thegalleryeventspace.com. Valet parking available ($15 in advance). For velvet rope VIP area, band reserved seating or premium champagne preorder, contact Fallon Gardner at 816-674-4137. Knuckleheads Saloon: 2715 Rochester, 816-483-1456. The Rainmakers, the Bel Airs and Watermelon Slim & the Workers reunion show, 8 p.m.–12:30 a.m. Two stages, three bars and midnight champagne toast, with party favors and snacks. Kitchen will be open and making a few specials. Tickets cost $47.50 in advance; VIP members free. The Levee: 16 W. 43rd St., 816-561-2821. The Magnetics, 10 p.m. Lew’s Grill and Bar: 7539 Wornall, 816-444-8080, lewsgrillandbar.com. Waldo New Year’s Eve Bash hosted by the Well and Lew’s Grill and Bar, beginning at 7 p.m. One ticket ($15 presale, $20 at the door) gains entry to both Lew’s and the Well all night. Champagne toast at midnight. DJ entertainment from DJ Kirby, DJ Matt B and DJ Jam. VIP table reservations available with arrival by 7:30 p.m. and minimum food and drink purchase. Liberty Hall: 644 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-1972. Sellout, 8 p.m., $15.50 in advance, $20.50 day of show. Mac’s South: 11816 Blue Ridge Blvd., 816-916-7698. New Year’ s Eve Party: Black Tie Affair, 8 p.m., with free buffet and champagne toast for $15 per individual or $25 per couple. The Majestic Restaurant: 931 Broadway, 816-221-1888. Mike Pagan and Millie Edwards on the main floor 6–10 p.m., and Bram Wijnands, Rod Fleeman,Barry Springer and Philip Wakefield in the Jazz Club 6:30 p.m.–12:30 a.m. Marriott Kansas City Downtown: 200 W. 12th St., 816-421-6800, KansasCity MarriottDowntown.com. The Grand Package includes two tickets to the celebration in the Grand Ballroom of the Kansas City Convention Center, deluxe room, bottle of champagne, party hats and horns, breakfast for two and late checkout. The Grand Ballroom celebration includes dinner buffet and dueling flambé dessert stations. Dance to 1960s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s music with Hal Wakes and the Atlantic Express. Champagne toast and balloon drop at midnight. Also: casino games, DJ, caricature artists and KC Photobooth. Package begins at $299, and an additional night costs $109. Additional tickets at $99 each are available at the box office or through Ticketmaster. Reservations are required. Call 816-421-6800 or see the website; request promotion code EVE. Martini Corner: 31st Street and Oak, 816-753-5990. Each ticket gains entry to six bars — Velvet Dog, Sol Cantina, the Drop, Tower Tavern, Haus and Club Monaco — and is good for unlimited drinks 9 p.m.–3 a.m. at all. A wristband allows patrons to go back and forth. General admission costs $75 and includes complimentary domestic beer, house wine and premium liquor drinks all night. VIP tickets cost $100 and include complimentary super-premium liquors, house wine, any beer and Red Bull mixers. Live DJs at each bar. Free champagne toast at midnight. Reserved seating at each venue is $25 per seat. McCoy’s Public House: 4057 Pennsylvania, 816-960-0866. DJ Boyfriend at 10 p.m. Special New Year’s menu and full dinner menu. Free champagne or handcrafted-beer toast at midnight. Mestizo: 5270 W. 116th Pl., Leawood, 913-752-9025, mestizoleawood.com. Four-course meal with several options; event includes glass of champagne. See website for full menu. Reservations highly suggested, $50 per person. Michael Smith: 1900 Main, 816-842-2202. Two dinner seatings and special menu. First seating (four-course menu at $75 per person plus tax and tip, with a $30 optional wine pairing) beginning at 6 p.m. Second seating (five-course menu at $95 per person plus tax and tip, with a $35 optional wine pairing) beginning at 8:30 p.m. See Grand Marquis in the common area of Michael Smith and Extra Virgin 8:30 p.m.–12:30 a.m. For reservations, call Nancy Smith at 816-842-2202 or see opentable.com. MiniBar: 3810 Broadway, 816-326-8281. Dropout Boogie New Year’s Eve Get Down, 9 p.m. O’Malley’s 1842 Irish Pub: 500 Welt St., Weston, 816-640-5235. Bob Reeder and the Wild Colonial Bhoys ring in the New Year. Pub-party door time is 4:30 p.m. Live entertainment begins at 8 p.m. and ends at midnight. Tickets cost $10 and include admission and collector’s champagne flute for midnight toast. Call 816-640-5235 for dinner reservations. Advance tickets available at ticketleap.com. One Block South: 7300 W. 119th St., Overland Park, 913-451-0444. Four venues and one cover for DJ Adam Bryce, DJ Darren Zarter and live music from Ancient Chinese Secret, $20 general-admission tickets available in advance at oneblocksouthkc.eventbright.com. VIP reservations also
available. E-mail info@oneblocksouthkc.com or call for more information. Phoggy Dog: 2228 Iowa, Lawrence, 785-856-7364. Cover band. Party bus runs back and forth between Phoggy Dog and R Bar all night. Cost is $10 wristband ($5 in advance) for access to $3 anything at each bar (even top shelf), party favors and balloon drop at midnight. Power & Light District: 14th Street and Main, 816-842-1045. Premium, all-access and all-inclusive (food and top-shelf bar) package at more than 12 venues, including Angels Rock Bar, the Dubliner, Fuego, Hotel Nightclub, Howl at the Moon, Johnny’s Tavern, Living Room, Maker’s Mark Bourbon House & Lounge, McFadden’s Sports Saloon, Mosaic Lounge, PBR Big Sky, Pizza Bar, Shark Bar and Tengo Sed Cantina, 9 p.m. Watch “a Battle of the DJs” (with Ashton Martin, Eric Coomes, Highnoone and Scene) spinning throughout the Kansas City Live block. General admission: $95 through December 24, $105 through December 30, or $110 day of; couples admission: $180, then $200, but not available day of the event. For VIP package information and hotel-package details, see nyekansascity.com. Quasimodo: 12056 W. 135th St., Overland Park, 913-239-9666. Dan Bliss performs 5:30–8:30 p.m. Jeremy Butcher and the Bail Jumpers perform 9 p.m.–12:30 a.m. The Ramada: 7240 Shawnee Mission Pkwy., Overland Park, 913-262-3010. Hotel room, dinner and dancing, a live DJ, balloon drop, midnight toast, indoor heated pool, arcade games and breakfast, for $129 per couple; or hotel room and party for $99. Dinner and party only cost $25 per adult, and party admission alone costs $20. R Bar: 610 Florida, Lawrence, 785-856-6969. Live DJ. Party bus runs back and forth between R Bar and Phoggy Dog all night. Cost is $10 wristband (only $5 if you buy in advance) for access to $3 anything at each bar (even top shelf), party favors and balloon drop at midnight. RecordBar: 1020 Westport Rd., 816-753-5207. The Golden Republic, Thee Water Moccasins and a special guest, champagne toast and party favors included, 21 and older, beginning at 9 p.m., $12. Replay Lounge: 946 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-7676. Inside: the Sluts, Rev Gusto and Alien Jones, at 10 p.m.; on the patio: DJ Proof, at 10 p.m. Rhythm and Booze: 423 Southwest Blvd., 816-221-2669. No lines, cover or tickets. Free champagne toast at midnight and free party favors, $10 at the door. Unlimited drinks and beer 9 p.m.–close, $20. The Riot Room: 4048 Broadway, 816-442-8179. Nug Life New Year, beginning at 8 p.m., $5 cover, with DJ Clockwerk, the New Riddim, Booty Jamz, free champagne toast at midnight. Stanford’s Comedy Club: 1867 Village West Pkwy., Kansas City, Kan., 913-400-7500. Lynne Koplitz, 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Trouser Mouse: 625 N.W. Mock Ave., Blue Springs, 816-220-1222. Trampled Under Foot, beginning at 7 p.m., $25 two-day general admission, $175 two-day VIP. Limited number of reserved tables available. VIP reservations include one table of five reserved seats (must arrive before 9 p.m.). The price of the table is the same whether for one or for five. Tickets include admission, champagne and party favors. A select menu is offered and includes a choice of three or four dinner options and a few appetizers. The Quality Inn, across the street, has discounted rates for Mouse patrons, and a local taxi is available. Union Station: 30 W. Pershing Rd., 816-460-2020. Rock the Clock at Union Station, with Rocket and Teresa from Mix 93.3. Dance to live music performed by Flashback. Appetizers, a martini ice luge, Parisi gourmet coffee, special lounge areas, and a midnight celebration with a champagne toast. Three price packages are available, along with overnight packages at the Westin and Sheraton hotels. Buy tickets online at unionstation.org/rocktheclock. The Uptown Arts Bar: 3611 Broadway. Megan Birdsall performs at 6 p.m. Late Night Comedy show begins at 10 p.m. Uptown Theater: 3700 Broadway, 816-753-8665, uptowntheater.com. Tickets cost $47 in advance, $55 at the door. Open bar and premium beer all night, with more party snacks. Expanded laser and light show. All guests have access to six rooms, including the Main Theater, Cabaret, Nowhere, the Conspiracy Room, Valentine Room and Broadway Room. Party begins at 7 p.m. For more information or details about VIP hotel packages, call or see the website. VooDoo Lounge: Harrah’s Casino, 1 Riverboat Dr., North Kansas City, 816-472-7777. DJ Kevin Scott, DJ Bobby Keys, 9 p.m., $20. The Well: 7421 Broadway, 816-361-1700, waldowell.com. Waldo New Year’s Eve Bash hosted by the Well and Lew’s Grill and Bar, beginning at 7 p.m. Purchase one ticket ($15 presale, $20 at the door) and gain entry to both Lew’s and the Well all night. Champagne toast at midnight. DJ entertainment from DJ Kirby, DJ Matt B and DJ Jam. VIP table reservations available with arrival by 7:30 p.m. and minimum food and drink purchase. For more information, call or see the website.
‘ WEDNESDAYS 9PM
9PM
DJ E Party Favors Drink & Shot Specials CHAMPAGNE TOAST AT MIDNIGHT TICKETS: $15 / adv. $20 / door
DirectTV
NFL
et
Sunday Tick
WE SHMOW ES ALL GA
DJ
F R ID AY SATURDA&Y
NIGHTS
1010 BROADWAY 816.471.1918 /therealquaff s www.thequaffkc.com pitch.com
DECEMBER 20 -26, 2012
THE PITCH
29
MUSIC
WHERE THE BEST MUSICIANS IN THE WORLD PLAY
KNUCKLEHEADS F re e S h u tt le in S u rr o u n d in g A reth e a
TOMMY GUNS
Catching up with Lasorda, Matt Pryor’s new, locally sourced synth-pop supergroup.
BY
LUCAS WETZEL
DECEMBER
19: Carl Butler’s Gospel Lounge 19: Outlaw Jim & The Whiskey Benders 20: Shannon McNally & Amy LaVere 20: Sky Smeed, Tyler Gregory & Adam Lee 21: Jimmie Bratcher’s CD Preview & Christmas Show @ 7pm 21: Dikku Du & Zydeco Krewe @ 9pm 21: Robin MountJoy @ 9pm
DEC 22: The Nace Brothers presents
26 Raildogs 26: 27: Blues Orleans 28: Jeff Bergen’s New Years Eve Elvis Show 28: Anthony Gomes 29: Biscuit Miller & The Mix 30: Samantha Fish
New Years Eve
TICKETS N OW ON SALE!
The Rainmakers
The Belairs &
Watermelon Slim & The Workers
For more info & tickets: knuckleheadskc.com 2715 Rochester, KCMO
816-483-1456
30
THE PITCH
F
eeling burned out on a 2011 tour with his iconic emo group, the Get Up Kids, Matt Pryor did the natural thing: He started another group. Along with keyboardist Dustin Kinsey, who currently plays in Pryor’s other other band, the New Amsterdams, Pryor set out to piece together an ensemble with little resemblance to the bands and releases of which he’d previously been a part. “I was in a bit of a dark place and wanted to do something that made music fun again,” Pryor tells The Pitch. “We wanted a group of musicians who were talented and creative, who would be easy to work with and fun to hang out with.” Less than two years later, that band — Lasorda — has an album out on Brooklyn, New York’s Clifton Motel label that was recently featured as a Spotify exclusive, along with new releases from Wiz Khalifa, Ke$ha and the Shins. Like Kinsey and Pryor, many of the musicians who contributed to Lasorda’s self-titled debut have roots in the Kansas City and Lawrence music communities. The record features Josh Adams (formerly of Snuff Jazz and Ghosty), Nate Harold (formerly of Koufax, currently on tour with bona fide pop hit Fun), and singersongwriter Suzannah Johannes. “I knew I wanted Josh Adams to play drums, and I knew we were interested in trying out a lead female vocalist,” Kinsey says. “Suzie has always been one of my favorite vocalists and interpreters, and I thought it would be interesting to juxtapose her voice with the music we were beginning to formulate in our heads.” As Kinsey was recruiting band members, Pryor was writing lyrics and putting together the skeletons of new songs. To keep things fresh, he avoided the usual musty basement studio. “I would write and record music and
DECEMBER 20 -26, 2012
pitch.com
then go sit at the pool with my kids and try and write lyrics,” Pryor says. “I felt a little creepy wearing those big headphones at the pool.” Once basic tracks were established, the group moved from a rehearsal space to Blacklodge Recording in Eudora, Kansas. Harold, from Lawrence, was brought in to play bass. Guitarist Mike Strandberg was also enlisted — Pryor and Kinsey had seen him on tour with Brooklyn’s Kevin Devine and the Goddamn Band — even though he hadn’t yet heard a note of Lasorda’s music. The addition of Johannes, Adams says, was “the icing on the cake.” “Something I’d always wanted to do was write songs to have someone else interpret,” Pryor says. “She [Johannes] has such a distinct, cool voice, so it was a perfect fit.” Kinsey and Adams had been bandmates in Ghosty and had recently performed with Adrianne Verhoeven’s San Francisco–based reggae band Extra Classic. They knew they’d be comfortable playing together in a variety of styles. “Dustin and Josh were totally on the same wavelength,” Pryor says. “They were going for kind of an ’80s, laid-back Miami Vice kind of thing, which you can also see in the cover art. The whole thing was designed to be as simple as possible.” “We wanted to make the beats very crucial to the songs,” Kinsey says. “I thought of it like these classic post-Kraftwerk Krautrock records when they started integrating more live music and a four-to-the-floor beat that wasn’t quite disco yet … beats that were rhythmic, pulsing, almost robotic.” As a result, Lasorda is sonically not far from a Swedish pop album or an indie dance record, if they were made with live drums. Many of the songs recall the smooth synth textures and airy vocals of the Chromatics (though
Picture them rollin’: Lasorda. not quite so detached). It’s the sound of some Midwestern musicians settling into a retrofitted West Coast afterlife. “I think the mood overall has neither a negative nor positive connotation,” Kinsey says. “It’s always trying to get to a place that’s upbeat, regardless of the themes of the lyrics, which could possibly be interpreted as more morose.” As of mid-December, Lasorda is available digitally just about everywhere on the Internet, and vinyl copies can be ordered from the Clifton Motel website. As for a tour, that’s a taller order. The band members are spread out across the country: Adams is in San Francisco, Strandberg is a native New Yorker, Harold is globe-trotting with Fun, and Kinsey has recently opened a bar in Eugene, Oregon. “Logistically, it would be difficult, but if there was ever an opportunity to make music, I think everybody would be interested,” Pryor says. One last thing: Lasorda, like the former manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers? Yes. Adams says a setting on Kinsey’s old Yamaha keyboard reminded him of the music and sound effects in the Sega Genesis game Tommy Lasorda Baseball, which he’d recorded on a tape recorder and used as dummy vocals. (Listen closely toward the end of the album and you’ll hear faint video-game crowd noise and shouts of “home run.”) “All I could think of was Kirk Gibson running around the bases pumping his fist, and that really informed my decisions on the mixing,” Kinsey says. “If you could just fuse Neu 75 and Sega Genesis and cram it into Kirk Gibson’s helmet, that’s Lasorda in a nutshell.”
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MONTH
pitch.com
DECEMBER 20 -26, 2012
THE PITCH
31
MUSIC
RADAR
M U S I C F O R E CAST
BY
Other shows worth seeing this week.
D AV ID HUDN A L L
T H U R S D AY, D E C E M B E R 2 0 Martina McBride: The Midland, 1228 Main, 816-283-9900. Shannon McNally and Amy LaVere: 8 p.m. Knuckleheads Saloon, 2715 Rochester, 816-483-1456. Veil of Maya, Upon a Burning Body, Volumes, Aerodyne Flex, Embrace This Day: The Granada, 1020 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-842-1390.
F R I D AY, D E C E M B E R 21 Handel’s Messiah by Spire Chamber Ensemble: 7:30 p.m. Trinity Lutheran Church, 5601 W. 62nd St., Mission. Shwasted, Hi-Boi, Pandah, Potter, DreadHeadSlut: The Granada, 1020 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-842-1390. Twisted X-Mas with Sevendust, Drowning Pool, Rev Theory, Heartist: The Midland, 1228 Main, 816-283-9900.
S AT U R D AY, D E C E M B E R 2 2 Handel’s Messiah by Spire Chamber Ensemble: 7:30 p.m. Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral, 13th St. and Broadway, 816-474-8260.
T U E S D AY, D E C E M B E R 2 5 FORRESTER MICHAEL
Mac Lethal, with DJ You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out: The Riot Room, 4048 Broadway, 816-442-8179.
FUTURECAST JANUARY
Clockwise from left: the Beautiful Bodies, the Grisly Hand, and the Caves
The Hips
Replay Records just put out a split 7-inch with a song apiece from Lawrence acts Hospital Ships and the Hips. It is fucking excellent, and you should totally pick it up. If I’m not mistaken, it’s also the fi rst official-ish thing the Hips have released, even though they’ve been playing together around Lawrence for almost two years. The group includes members of Fourth of July and Drakkar Sauna, and homes in on an oddball stoner-pop vibe that lands on just the right side of goofy. With Monsoon Lazer. Friday, December 21, at the Replay Lounge (946 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-7676)
The Casket Lottery
After nearly a decade sans new releases, the Casket Lottery had a prolific 2012. The Kansas City group released “The Door,” a 7-inch single, and “Split,” an EP with Touche Amore that features a surprisingly pretty cover of Beach House’s “Myth.” In November, its new full-length, Real Fear, arrived. It doesn’t sound much like Beach House. It’s more what fans would expect from the Casket Lottery: heavy, atmospheric emo rock. You can’t say
you weren’t warned — the About section on the band’s Facebook page reads, “Bummin’ you out since 1998.” With Dead Girls and Simple Lines. Friday, December 21, at Riot Room (4048 Broadway, 816-442-8179)
The Beautiful Bodies
This Christmas-night performance is billed as “A Beautiful Fucking Xmas with the Beautiful Bodies.” I don’t care for the vulgar language. But if being cooped up with your family all day finds you in need of a cabinfever cure, the Bodies’ boisterous dance rock is probably the best option in town. With Is Paris Burning and DJ Thundercutz. Tuesday, December 25, at RecordBar (1029 Westport Road, 816-753-5207)
The Caves, with the Grisly Hand
Not a lot of bands tour during the last half of December, which means it’s up to local acts to step up and fill venues around town. This double bill of KC acts is a special treat. The Caves are fresh off the release of their new
F O R E C A S T
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album, Duplexiaville, a fine bit of downbeat, acoustic alt-rock. The Grisly Hand’s sunnier disposition and Loretta Lynn vibes ought to nicely complement all those Christmasseason Beam-and-waters. Saturday, December 22, at Davey’s Uptown Ramblers Club (3402 Main, 816-753-1909)
Making Movies
Making Movies is closing 2012 about as on point as any band in town. The Latin-rock quartet just released Conciencia Colectiva, a free online mixtape that hews a little jazzy, thanks to local guest spots by Hermon Mehari, Mark Lowrey, Javier Mendoza, Julia Haile and others. And the band’s full-length, A La Deriva, produced by Steve Berlin of Los Lobos, is now out locally (though not nationally until March). It’s a riotous, rocking record, and I imagine they’ll be playing most, if not all, of it at this release party. With Heartfelt Anarchy. Friday, December 21, at RecordBar (1029 Westport Road, 816-753-5207)
K E Y .........................................Record-Release Party
..............................................................Brooding
.............................................................. Bilingual
................................A Very Lawrence Christmas
..................................... 30-Something Emo Kids
................................................ Women Shrieking
................................................. Acoustic Guitars
pitch.com
SATURDAY 2 Morrissey: Liberty Hall, Lawrence MONDAY 4 Lady Gaga: Sprint Center SUNDAY 10 Emilie Autumn: The Granada, Lawrence FRIDAY 15 Galactic: Liberty Hall, Lawrence SUNDAY 17 Electric Six, the Dead Girls: The Riot Room THURSDAY 21 Toro Y Moi, Sinkane: The Granada, Lawrence FRIDAY 22 Talib Kweli: The Granada, Lawrence WEDNESDAY 27 Maroon 5: Sprint Center
MARCH
......................................................Holiday Cheer
DECEMBER 20 -26, 2012
FEBRUARY
SUNDAY 10 Alabama Shakes: Uptown Theater MONDAY 18 Yes: The Midland
..................................................Pick of the Week
THE PITCH
MONDAY 14 Reel Big Fish, Pilfers, Dan Potthast: The Granada, Lawrence FRIDAY 18 Rodney Carrington: The Midland Jeff Mangum: sold out. Liberty Hall, Lawrence SUNDAY 20 Bloc Party, IO Echo: Liberty Hall, Lawrence Keane, Youngblood Hawke: The Midland SATURDAY 26 Frost: The Midland MONDAY 28 Sum 41, and more: The Granada, Lawrence WEDNESDAY 30 The Darkness: The Beaumont Club
pitch.com
APRIL SATURDAY 13 Bon Jovi: Sprint Center
M O N T H X X–X X , 2 0 0 X
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MON: RU RA WED 12/1 L GRIT 6PM, KAR THU 12/2 9 ACLU DOES AOKE 10PM Nâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;T 0 MIKE DILL HATE X-MA FRI 12/2 END OF THEON BAND 10PM, S 1 MON W ARCHS, T ORLD PARTY H R EC O O SAT 12/2 2 THE T & STEM, THE SLEMENTINES, KATY GU UM APPROP ILLIEN TRIO MIT SHOW R IA FRI 12/2 DREW BLA TE GRAMMAR , SAT 12/2 8 MARGO MACK & THE DIRTY, MON 1 9 MAGFUCK Y, AILEEN MAY, ELECTRIC TUE 1/12/31 KARAOKE INGNIFICENT, FO SPEED LEVIL HAIR OF COUNT DOWN UND A JOB THE DOG
We Deliver!
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34
Kool Keith brings the crazy to the Riot Room.
BY
D AV ID HUDN A L L
T
he last time Kool Keith performed in Kansas City, at Czar in April 2011, the Bronx rapper did not bring along a DJ. The music tracks backing his rhymes reportedly came from a guy pushing the tiny circular buttons on a Sony Discman that was hooked up to an amplifier. That struck me as pretty hilarious when I heard it recently, so I made it a priority to get to the Riot Room last Friday to see what obsolete technology he might have in store for us this time around. Kool Keith, if you are unacquainted, is probably the craziest rapper alive. He is now 49 years old, and his heyday was the 1990s. That’s when he created absurd alter egos like Dr. Octagon and Black Elvis, and found his niche spitting stream-of-consciousness lyrics about performing disgusting sexual acts in some futuristic landscape — Philip K. Dick by way of Caligula. He’s now essentially a legacy act, but he remains an elusive character about whom there are no clear answers. Did he really spend time in a mental institution? (He told a journalist that he did but later denied it.) Does he realize how ridiculous a lyric like I got my silk underwear for the atmosphere/Piss in your face and urinate in your hair is? Is he aware of how preposterous it is for a rapper of his stature to tour the country with just a Discman? How in-on-the-joke is Kool Keith? I am no closer to answers today than I was a week ago. But I can report that things did get a little bit nuts at his Friday show. As we waited for Kool Keith, DJ Stevie Cruz, who spins around Westport and plays in the local metal band Hammerlord, was buzzing around onstage, playing songs behind a laptop and decks, and doing thumbs up and thumbs down with the sound guy. I assumed he would scram once Kool Keith arrived. But then Kool Keith and his hype man, Cito — a sort of horrorcore Joe Pesci — took the stage, and Cruz stayed on as DJ. Apparently, Kool Keith has a strong aversion to bringing his own DJ along on tour. I don’t know how well this has been working in other cities, but it did not turn out so hot here. More on that in a second. Kool Keith was wearing sunglasses, a sequined scarf, a hat with earflaps, and a yellow Polo shirt that had “69U” stitched onto the back. Among the songs he and Cito touched on were “Girl Let Me Touch You” and “Two Brothers With Checks,” one from Kool Keith’s former group Ultramagnetic MCs. There were a few high points — “Blue Flowers,” from Dr. Octagonecologyst, remains an oddly beautiful song — but mostly what I took away from the show is that Kool Keith is really fucked up on something or just has zero enthusiasm anymore for his music (or both). Much of it felt like a half-assed karaoke performance, an impression deepened by the fact that Kool Keith was holding a mixed drink in his left hand for the first few songs. At the same time, the dude is funny,
1020 westport rd. kcmo 64111*816-‐753-‐5207 T H E P I T C H DECEMBER 20 -26, 2012
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whether or not he intends to be. How are you not going to laugh at lines like I take that bitch to get new hair, or an entire song called “Pussy on the Beach” whose only lyrics are Pussy on the beach, pussy on the beach, pussy on the beach, they sellin’ pussy on the beach? At one point he tried to freestyle, failed, and then started ramble-rapping about building a giant condom. The subtext, as I understood it, was that Kool Keith’s penis is too large for ordinary condoms, so he has to build his own extra-large rubbers. Midway through the set, Kool Keith removed his jeans, then removed the long johns he was wearing underneath his jeans, then put his jeans back on. To keep the momentum going, Cito turned this into a call and response. “His long johns is hot,” Cito said. “Now you say, ‘My long johns is hot.’ ” This went on for about a minute. It was around this time that the relationship between Cito and Cruz began to show cracks. I didn’t notice any technical difficulties because the performance was such a shitshow. The whole thing was just kind of terrible. But during “I’m Creepin’,” Cito kept looking back at Cruz, annoyed. “We’re gonna put you on the milk truck outta here if you keep playing around like that,” Cito said after the song. Cruz smiled and took it in stride, but a few minutes later, there was some kind of electronic hiccup and a track wouldn’t start. Cito got on the microphone and started saying typical boring hype-man filler while the problem was resolved. I went to get a drink and when I came back, Cruz had the mic and was talking up Kool Keith and trying to rouse the crowd. Uh, hey, Stevie Cruz: If you are on the same stage as Kool Keith, and Kool Keith has a mic, you probably should not be talking into a mic. “You’re talking too much,” Cito said.
This was before Kool Keith (left) took off his pants. “Why don’t you fi x the problem instead of talking all this shit?” Then Cito did a new call and response with the crowd: The DJ/Is a jackass. On the next song, Kool Keith looked back at Cruz and said, “Don’t touch that turntable. I don’t want to see you touching that turntable.” Cruz tried to play along, holding up his hands as if in a stickup. But he must have been really sweating up there. There was no formal indication, after another few songs, that the show had ended. Instead, there was Cruz again, center stage, holding a mic, as Kool Keith and Cito slowly moved toward the side of the stage. Cruz was saying what an honor it was to DJ for Kool Keith and that he’d been asked to do it only a few hours before. “I’m just a party DJ,” he said. “I’m no DJ Qbert.” He went on: “So we’re gonna have a good time tonight. Kool Keith is gonna party here at the Riot Room, I’m going to play some more songs for you …” Then somebody in Cruz’s line of vision shouted something or booed, and Cruz, without really missing a beat, shifted gears and started talking shit to the guy. “Yeah, dude, if you have a fucking problem, get the fuck out of here. Nobody gives a fuck what you think. No, no, don’t kick him out” — a bouncer had approached — “don’t kick him out. We’re gonna have a good time, right, as long as he shuts the fuck up.” In a way, Cruz was upstaging Kool Keith because the only way to upstage Kool Keith is to be crazier. Kool Keith seemed to recognize this. He and Cito headed down to the green room, and I didn’t see either of them again the rest of the night.
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35
NIGHTLIFE Send submissions to Clubs Editor Abbie Stutzer by e-mail (abbie.stutzer@pitch.com), fax (816-756-0502) or phone (816-218-6926). Continuing items must be resubmitted monthly.
T H U R S D AY 2 0 ROCK/POP/INDIE Davey’s Uptown Ramblers Club: 3402 Main, 816-753-1909. Josey Milner and guest, Jhay B, Tell the Others, Noveria, Obsidian, Vaness Park, Acadia. The Dubliner: 170 E. 14th St., 816-268-4700. Patrick Lentz. Jackpot Music Hall: 943 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-8321085. Sobriquet, Middle Map Kids, Oils.
Missie B’s: 805 W. 39th St., 816-561-0625. Karaoke on the main floor, 10 p.m. Quasimodo: 12056 W. 135th St., Overland Park, 913-2399666. Quasi Christmas Party with a special guest. RecordBar: 1020 Westport Rd., MORE 816-753-5207. Trivia Clash, 7 p.m. Sherlock’s Underground Coffeehouse & Pub: 858 State GS IN T Route 291, Liberty, 816-429-5262. LIS E AT Karaoke, ladies’ night. N I L ON M The Uptown Arts Bar: 3611 BroadPITCH.CO way. Uptown Heat, 10:30 p.m. Westport Flea Market: 817 Westport Rd., 816-931-1986. Trivia, Wednesdays, 9 p.m.
CLUB
BLUES/FUNK/SOUL
ELECTRONICA
B.B.’s Lawnside BBQ: 1205 E. 85th St., 816-822-7427. The Old No. 5s. The Brick: 1727 McGee, 816-421-1634. End of the World Party with the Mike Dillon Band. Jazz: 1823 W. 39th St., 816-531-5556. Grand Marquis. Knuckleheads Saloon: 2715 Rochester, 816-483-1456. Jimmie Bratcher, 7 p.m. Trouser Mouse: 625 N.W. Mock Ave., Blue Springs, 816-2201222. Kyle Elliott.
Jazzhaus: 926-1/2 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-1387. Bass Function.
ROOTS/COUNTRY/BLUEGRASS
The Riot Room: 4048 Broadway, 816-442-8179. 77 Jefferson, Jah Roots.
Kanza Hall: 7300 W. 119th St., Overland Park, 913-451-0444. StonyHogg. Knuckleheads Saloon: 2715 Rochester, 816-483-1456. Sky Smeed, Tyler Gregory, Adam Lee, Living Room session, 8 p.m.
HIP-HOP RecordBar: 1020 Westport Rd., 816-753-5207. Ben Grimm, Steddy P, Info Gates, Duece Fontane, Dutch Newman, 9 p.m.
JAZZ The Blue Room: 1616 E. 18th St., 816-474-8463. Elderstatesmen of Jazz and Esquire Band. The Majestic Restaurant: 931 Broadway, 816-221-1888. Paul Shinn, and Joe Lisinicchia. The Phoenix: 302 W. Eighth St., 816-221-5299. Damon Parker. 12 Baltimore: 106 W. 12th St., 816-346-4410. The Stan Kessler Duo, with Kathleen Holeman.
COMEDY Improv Comedy Club and Dinner Theater: 7260 N.W. 87th St., 816-759-5233. Dwayne Perkins. Stanford’s Comedy Club: 1867 Village West Pkwy., Kansas City, Kan., 913-400-7500. James Johann.
BAR GAMES/DRUNKEN DISTRACTIONS Buzzard Beach: 4110 Pennsylvania, 816-753-4455. Trivia, Ladies’ Night and DJ HoodNasty. J. Murphy’s Irish Pub and Grille: 22730 Midland Dr., Shawnee, 913-825-3880. Ladies’ night.
36
THE PITCH
OPEN MIC/JAM SESSIONS The Bottleneck: 737 New Hampshire, Lawrence, 785-841-5483. Stand-up comedy and open mic.
REGGAE
F R I D AY 21 ROCK/POP/INDIE The Bottleneck: 737 New Hampshire, Lawrence, 785-8415483. Shedding Watts, 3 Son Green, Interior Sea. The Brick: 1727 McGee, 816-421-1634. The Monarchs, the Clementines, Root & Stem, the Summit. Czar: 1531 Grand, 816-421-0300. The New Riddim, Radkey, Clearway 51. Gusto Coffee Bistro: 3390 S.W. Fascination Dr., Lee’s Summit, 816-767-1100. Euphorics. Jerry’s Bait Shop: 13412 Santa Fe Trail Dr., Lenexa, 913-8949676. The Shanks. Jerry’s Bait Shop: 302 S.W. Main, Lee’s Summit, 816-525-1871. The Clique. RecordBar: 1020 Westport Rd., 816-753-5207. The Doo-Dads, 5 p.m.; Making Movies CD release, Heartfelt Anarchy, 9 p.m. Replay Lounge: 946 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-7497676. End of the World Party with the Ants, the Recessionists, 6 p.m.
BLUES/FUNK/SOUL B.B.’s Lawnside BBQ: 1205 E. 85th St., 816-822-7427. Bobby Smith. The Brooksider: 6330 Brookside Plz., 816-363-4070. KC Groove Therapy. Eddie’s Lounge: 3512 S.W. Market, Lee’s Summit, 816-5374148. Loose Change. Icons Restaurant & Lounge: 1108 Grand, 816-472-4266. The Boss Kingz, 8 p.m. Jazz: 1823 W. 39th St., 816-531-5556. Valency.
DECEMBER 20 -26, 2012
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Jazzhaus: 926-1/2 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-1387. The Band That Saved the World. Knuckleheads Saloon: 2715 Rochester, 816-483-1456. Jimi Bratcher’s CD-preview concert and Christmas show, 7 p.m.; the Mountjoys, Living Room session, 9 p.m. The Levee: 16 W. 43rd St., 816-561-2821. The Good Foot. Quasimodo: 12056 W. 135th St., Overland Park, 913-239-9666. Hudspeth and Shinetop, 8 p.m. Trouser Mouse: 625 N.W. Mock Ave., Blue Springs, 816-2201222. The Mojo Roots.
ROOTS/COUNTRY/BLUEGRASS Bar West: 7174 Renner Rd., Shawnee, 913-248-9378. The Outlaw Junkies. Davey’s Uptown Ramblers Club: 3402 Main, 816-753-1909. Country Fried Christmas with Phantoms of the Opry, Loaded Goat, Tinhorn Molly, and more. The Dubliner: 170 E. 14th St., 816-268-4700. Garry Lincoln.
DJ The Eighth Street Taproom: 801 New Hampshire, Lawrence, 785-841-6918. DJ vs. Drums. MiniBar: 3810 Broadway, 816-326-8281. Soulnice. The Quaff: 1010 Broadway, 816-471-1918. DJ E. Saints Pub + Patio: 9720 Quivira, Lenexa, 913-492-3900. DJ TA. Z Strike: 1370 Grand, 816-471-2316. Fabowlous Fridays with DJ Nuveau, 9 p.m.
ACOUSTIC
BAR GAMES/DRUNKEN DISTRACTIONS ComedyCity at Westport Flea Market: 817 Westport Rd., 816-842-2744. Major League Improv, 7:30 p.m. Ernie Biggs Dueling Piano Bar: 4115 Mill, 816-561-2444. KC’s Original Dueling Pianos. Helen’s Just Another Dive: 2002 Armour Rd., North Kansas City, 816-471-4567. Trivia Riot with Roland, 7:30 p.m., $5 per person. The Hideout: 6948 N. Oak Tfwy., 816-468-0550. The Hideout’s Christmas Party. Hotel: 1300 Grand, 816-226-3232. Naughty Santa Clause Party with DJ Stonerokk. Missie B’s: 805 W. 39th St., 816-561-0625. Ab Fab Fridays, 9 p.m. Tengo Sed Cantina: 1323 Walnut, 816-686-7842. Snow Pants Party. VooDoo Lounge: Harrah’s Casino, 1 Riverboat Dr., North Kansas City, 816-472-7777. Mayan Calendar Release Party.
ELECTRO The Beaumont Club: 4050 Pennsylvania, 816-561-2560. The Floozies Christmas Show with Nmezee, Thumpur.
M E TA L / P U N K Aftershock Bar & Grill: 5240 Merriam Dr., Merriam, 913-3845646. Spiderstock: Too Cold for Spiders CD release, 6 p.m. Jackpot Music Hall: 943 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-8321085. The Convalescence, the Rackatees, Mr. and the Mrs.
VA R I E T Y
Great Day Café: 7921 Santa Fe Dr., Overland Park, 913-6429090. Half-Price Buddha.
JAZZ Accurso’s: 5044 Main, 816-753-0810. Bob Bowman and Joe Lisinicchia. Affäre: 1911 Main, 816-298-6182. Kevin Hiatt and Rob Foster, 6:30 p.m. The Blue Room: 1616 E. 18th St., 816-474-8463. Lee Langston’s Christmas Show. EBT Restaurant: 1310 Carondelet (I-435 and State Line), 816942-8870. Candace Evans. Knuckleheads Saloon: 2715 Rochester, 816-483-1456. Dikki Du & Zydeco Krewe, 9 p.m. The Majestic Restaurant: 931 Broadway, 816-221-1888. Joe DeFio, 5 p.m.; Bram Wijnands, and more, 7 p.m. The Phoenix: 302 W. Eighth St., 816-221-5299. Lonnie McFadden, 4:30 p.m.; Dan Doran Band, 9 p.m. Take Five Coffee + Bar: 5336 W. 151st St., Overland Park, 913948-5550. Matt Chalk with Diverse Trio. Thai Place: 9359 W. 87th St., Overland Park, 913-649-5420. Jerry Hahn.
COMEDY Improv Comedy Club and Dinner Theater: 7260 N.W. 87th St., 816-759-5233. Dwayne Perkins, 8 & 10:30 p.m. Skylight Restaurant and Sports Bar: 1867 S.W. State Rt. 7, Blue Springs, 816-988-7958. Mike’s Comedy Club, 8 p.m. Stanford’s Comedy Club: 1867 Village West Pkwy., Kansas City, Kan., 913-400-7500. James Johann, 7:45 & 9:45 p.m.
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Coda: 1744 Broadway, 816-569-1747. End of the World Party with the Cosmic Tady Brothers, BOD. Czar: 1531 Grand, 816-421-0300. Rags Boheme, A Kansas City Bellydance Soirée, 6-9 p.m., $5 cover. The Uptown Arts Bar: 3611 Broadway. French Cabaret, 7 p.m.; End of the World Party with local comedy, and Purusa, 10 p.m.
S AT U R D AY 2 2 ROCK/POP/INDIE The Brick: 1727 McGee, 816-421-1634. The Katy Guillen Trio, Appropriate Grammar, Drew Black and the Dirty Electric. The Brooksider: 6330 Brookside Plz., 816-363-4070. The Zeros. The Hideout: 6948 N. Oak Tfwy., 816-468-0550. The Allied Saints. Jerry’s Bait Shop: 13412 Santa Fe Trail Dr., Lenexa, 913-8949676. Midlife Crime Scene. The Levee: 16 W. 43rd St., 816-561-2821. Camp Harlow, 5 p.m. RecordBar: 1020 Westport Rd., 816-753-5207. Members Only ’80s tribute band, 9 p.m.
BLUES/FUNK/SOUL B.B.’s Lawnside BBQ: 1205 E. 85th St., 816-822-7427. Mama Ray Jazz Meets Blues Jam, 2 p.m.; Samantha Fish, 9 p.m. Jackpot Music Hall: 943 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-8321085. The Mountjoys, Lonnie Fisher. The Levee: 16 W. 43rd St., 816-561-2821. The Groove Agency, 10 p.m. Quasimodo: 12056 W. 135th St., Overland Park, 913-239-9666. Josh Vowell, 8 p.m.
M O N T H X X–X X , 2 0 0 X
THE PITCH
1
Sharks: 10320 Shawnee Mission Pkwy., Merriam, 913-2684006. Rock and blues jam, 8 p.m. Trouser Mouse: 625 N.W. Mock Ave., Blue Springs, 816-2201222. The Ben Miller Band.
ROOTS/COUNTRY/BLUEGRASS The Dubliner: 170 E. 14th St., 816-268-4700. Noe Palma. Knuckleheads Saloon: 2715 Rochester, 816-483-1456. The Nace Brothers Christmas party, 8:30 p.m.
DJ Beer Kitchen: 435 Westport Rd., 816-389-4180. DJ Finius. Club Monaco: 334 E. 31st St., 816-753-5990. DJ Pure. The Eighth Street Taproom: 801 New Hampshire, Lawrence, 785-841-6918. Gold Label Soul with Hector the Selector. Hotel: 1300 Grand, 816-226-3232. DJ Eric Coomes. MiniBar: 3810 Broadway, 816-326-8281. DJ Robert Moore. The Quaff: 1010 Broadway, 816-471-1918. DJ Chris. Z Strike: 1370 Grand, 816-471-2316. DJ Kirby.
JAZZ The Blue Room: 1616 E. 18th St., 816-474-8463. Jazz Disciples, Stephanie Moore. Jazzhaus: 926-1/2 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-1387. Jazzhaus Big Band. The Majestic Restaurant: 931 Broadway, 816-221-1888. Joe DeFio, 5 p.m.; Bram Wijnands, and more, 7 p.m. The Phoenix: 302 W. Eighth St., 816-221-5299. Tim Whitmer & KC Express, 4:30 p.m.; Janet Jameson, 9 p.m. Take Five Coffee + Bar: 5336 W. 151st St., Overland Park, 913948-5550. Mandy Nousain and Her Trio.
COMEDY Improv Comedy Club and Dinner Theater: 7260 N.W. 87th St., 816-759-5233. Dwayne Perkins, 7 & 10 p.m. Missie B’s: 805 W. 39th St., 816-561-0625. Dirty Dorothy, 10 p.m. Stanford’s Comedy Club: 1867 Village West Pkwy., Kansas City, Kan., 913-400-7500. James Johann, 7:45 & 9:45 p.m.
BAR GAMES/DRUNKEN DISTRACTIONS The Bottleneck: 737 New Hampshire, Lawrence, 785-8415483. Emo Nick, Isabelle Zacharias. Ernie Biggs Dueling Piano Bar: 4115 Mill, 816-561-2444. KC’s Original Dueling Pianos. Hamburger Mary’s: 101 Southwest Blvd., 816-842-1919. Charity Bingo, 5 p.m.; Maryoke, 9 p.m. Hotel: 1300 Grand, 816-226-3232. Hotel Saturdays. Hurricane Allie’s Bar and Grill: 5541 Merriam Dr., Shawnee, 913-217-7665. Karaoke, 8:30 p.m. Mosaic Lounge: 1331 Walnut, 816-679-0076. Mosaic Saturdays. Westport Coffee House: 4010 Pennsylvania, 816-756-3222. The Kick Comedy Theatre: the Kick-Off Improv Comedy Show, 8 p.m.
EASY LISTENING Great Day Café: 7921 Santa Fe Dr., Overland Park, 913-642-9090. The CQ.
M E TA L / P U N K The Riot Room: 4048 Broadway, 816-442-8179. Bent Left, the Right Here, the Donner Diaries, the Rackatees.
2
THE PITCH
M O N T H X X–X X , 2 0 0 X
R O C K A B I L LY Jazz: 1823 W. 39th St., 816-531-5556. Lonesome Hank and the Heartaches.
SINGER-SONGWRITER Coda: 1744 Broadway, 816-569-1747. Songwriter Showcase.
VA R I E T Y The Beaumont Club: 4050 Pennsylvania, 816-561-2560. Loud and Local III Christmas Show. Californos: 4124 Pennsylvania, 816-531-7878. Alacartoona. Czar: 1531 Grand, 816-421-0300. Swell One-Year Anniversary. The Granada: 1020 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-842-1390. Miracle on Mass. St. with Foxy By Proxy.
S U N D AY 2 3 BLUES/FUNK/SOUL B.B.’s Lawnside BBQ: 1205 E. 85th St., 816-822-7427. Crosseyed Cat; Christmas Eve, Eve Blues Party with Crosseyed Cat, 6 p.m.
DJ Hamburger Mary’s: 101 Southwest Blvd., 816-842-1919. Bad Music Sundays with Brett Dietrich, 3:30 p.m. Replay Lounge: 946 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-7676. Sunday Funday with DJ G Train on the patio.
ACOUSTIC Trouser Mouse: 625 N.W. Mock Ave., Blue Springs, 816-2201222. Acoustic Showcase.
JAZZ Chaz on the Plaza: 325 Ward Pkwy., 816-802-2152. Les Mengel Duo, 5-9 p.m. Jazz: 1823 W. 39th St., 816-531-5556. Dan Bliss. RecordBar: 1020 Westport Rd., 816-753-5207. Jeff Harshbarger presents an Alternative Jazz Series, with the Matt Otto Group.
COMEDY Improv Comedy Club and Dinner Theater: 7260 N.W. 87th St., 816-759-5233. Nephew Tommy, 8 & 10 p.m. Missie B’s: 805 W. 39th St., 816-561-0625. Dirty Dorothy, 10 p.m. Stanford’s Comedy Club: 1867 Village West Pkwy., Kansas City, Kan., 913-400-7500. James Johann.
BAR GAMES/DRUNKEN DISTRACTIONS
Knuckleheads Saloon: 2715 Rochester, 816-483-1456. Open Jam with Levee Town, 2 p.m., free. R.G.’s Lounge: 9100 E. 35th St., Independence, 816-358-5777. Jam Night, 5 p.m.
Aftershock Bar & Grill: 5240 Merriam Dr., Merriam, 913-3845646. Merry Christmas and Go to Hell with 3 Son Green and more.
Jerry’s Bait Shop: 302 S.W. Main, Lee’s Summit, 816-525-1871. The Magnetics. Knuckleheads Saloon: 2715 Rochester, 816-483-1456. Raildog, 7:30 p.m. RecordBar: 1020 Westport Rd., 816-753-5207. Bob Walkenhorst, 7 p.m.; Faces & Names, Clay Hughes Band, David George, the Poet Anonymous, 9 p.m. Replay Lounge: 946 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-7676. Be/Non, 10 p.m.
M O N D AY 2 4
BLUES/FUNK/SOUL
BLUES/FUNK/SOUL
Jazzhaus: 926-1/2 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-1387. Tyler Gregory and the Bootleg Band. The Levee: 16 W. 43rd St., 816-561-2821. The Lonnie Ray Blues Band. Quasimodo: 12056 W. 135th St., Overland Park, 913-239-9666. Rick Bacus, 7 p.m.
VA R I E T Y
The Eighth Street Taproom: 801 New Hampshire, Lawrence, 785-841-6918. Dave Shelton’s X-Mas Soul Review.
ROOTS/COUNTRY/BLUEGRASS The Hideout: 6948 N. Oak Tfwy., 816-468-0550. Christmas Eve with Outlaw Jim and the Whiskey Benders, 7 p.m.
DJ
Fuel: 7300 W. 119th St., Overland Park, 913-451-0444. Colby & Mole.
JAZZ
COMEDY The Uptown Arts Bar: 3611 Broadway. Late-night comedy, 10 p.m.
BAR GAMES/DRUNKEN DISTRACTIONS RecordBar: 1020 Westport Rd., 816-753-5207. Mr. and Mrs. T’s X-Mas Eve Tradition, 10 p.m. Replay Lounge: 946 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-7676. Sam’s Club Karaoke.
T U E S D AY 2 5 Trouser Mouse: 625 N.W. Mock Ave., Blue Springs, 816-2201222. Rock Christmas Show.
COMEDY Stanford’s Comedy Club: 1867 Village West Pkwy., Kansas City, Kan., 913-400-7500. Lynne Koplitz.
Hurricane Allie’s Bar and Grill: 5541 Merriam Dr., Shawnee, 913-217-7665. Bike night; karaoke, 8:30 p.m. The Quaff: 1010 Broadway, 816-471-1918. Karaoke, 9 p.m. The Red Balloon: 10325 W. 75th St., Overland Park, 913-9622330. Karaoke, 8 p.m., free. The Roxy: 7230 W. 75th St., Overland Park, 913-236-6211. Karaoke. The Uptown Arts Bar: 3611 Broadway. Uptown Poetry Slam with Nightlife Jones. Westport Flea Market: 817 Westport Rd., 816-931-1986. Trivia.
DJ The Beaumont Club: 4050 Pennsylvania, 816-561-2560. KC X-Mas 2012.
BAR GAMES/DRUNKEN DISTRACTIONS
The Bottleneck: 737 New Hampshire, Lawrence, 785-841-5483. Smackdown Trivia and Karaoke. Missie B’s: 805 W. 39th St., 816-561-0625. Show Stopper Karaoke, midnight. Tengo Sed Cantina: 1323 Walnut, 816-686-7842. Up in Smoke Holiday BBQ Party.
OPEN MIC/JAM SESSIONS
W E D N E S D AY 2 6
Groove Station: 9916 Holmes, 816-942-1000. KC Blues Jam with Crosseyed Cat, 2-6 p.m. The Hideout: 6948 N. Oak Tfwy., 816-468-0550. Open blues jam.
ROCK/POP/INDIE
pitch.com
Californos: 4124 Pennsylvania, 816-531-7878. BCR. Chaz on the Plaza: 325 Ward Pkwy., 816-802-2152. Max Groove Trio, 6 p.m. The Majestic Restaurant: 931 Broadway, 816-221-1888. Bram Wijnands, 6 p.m. The Phoenix: 302 W. Eighth St., 816-221-5299. T.J. Erhardt.
BAR GAMES/DRUNKEN DISTRACTIONS
ROCK/POP/INDIE
Jazzhaus: 926-1/2 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-1387. Open, friends and candlelight, free. Jerry’s Bait Shop: 13412 Santa Fe Trail Dr., Lenexa, 913-8949676. Open at 5 p.m. Jerry’s Bait Shop: 302 S.W. Main, Lee’s Summit, 816-525-1871. Open at 5 p.m. The Well: 7421 Broadway, 816-361-1700. Open at 5 p.m.
pitch.com
Coda: 1744 Broadway, 816-569-1747. Sonic Spectrum with DJ Robert Moore.
ACOUSTIC
Davey’s Uptown Ramblers Club: 3402 Main, 816-753-1909. DJ Desmodus. The Riot Room: 4048 Broadway, 816-442-8179. Christmas Party with Firehouse DJs.
The Dubliner: 170 E. 14th St., 816-268-4700. Patrick Lentz.
DJ
OPEN MIC/JAM SESSIONS Czar: 1531 Grand, 816-421-0300. Guerrilla Movement, 10 p.m. Jerry’s Bait Shop: 13412 Santa Fe Trail Dr., Lenexa, 913-8949676. Jam Night, 9 p.m. Tonahill’s 3 of a Kind: 11703 E. 23rd St., Independence, 816833-5021. Blues, country and classic rock hosted by Rick Eidson and friends.
M E TA L / P U N K The Bottleneck: 737 New Hampshire, Lawrence, 785-8415483. Melting Point of Bronze, Iron Guts Kelly, Load Blower, Sister Rat.
DECEMBER 20 -26, 2012
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37
S AVA G E L O V E
HELPING HANDS Dear Dan: This is a touchy and gross subject. I’m a 17-year-old girl growing up in an adoptive family in Australia. I was sexually abused by my birth family, and I think it really fucked up my sexuality. The only thing that gets me off is the idea of people absolutely destroying their lives for an orgasm. I started with mild S&M stories and then moved on to grosser stuff like murder (stories and online images) and pedo (stories only), and lately I’ve been thinking about my (adoptive) parents. The thing is, it doesn’t have to be a particular category. As long as it’s the most vile thing I can think of, it will get me off. There isn’t a pattern as far as gender, age or relationship to the people I am fantasizing about; it just has to be horrible, the kind of thing that would destroy you in real life. These fantasies alone are scary enough, but because they are literally the only things that get me off, I can’t even really tell if I’m attracted to boys or girls or none of the above. I’m scared to talk to a counselor about this because I don’t want to freak my parents out. I mean, I’ve got my quirks, but overall I seem like a pretty healthy kid, and I try not to worry them. I don’t expect you to solve this problem via your column, but do you have any ideas for how I could get help with this without messing up my family?
Not Over Painful Experiences Dear NOPE: Sane people can have extreme and/or violent sexual fantasies, and extreme and/or violent sexual fantasies do not make sane people crazy. (Let’s call them EVSFs for short, shall we?) But you need to talk to a shrink, not because you’re hopelessly damaged or the only person out there with EVSFs but because you’re troubled by your fantasies. And that’s understandable. It’s difficult to have EVSFs — or find a healthy way to incorporate EVSFs into your sex life or figure out how to dial EVSFs way the fuck back if there’s no healthy way to incorporate them into your sex life — when your erotic imagination is constantly dragging you to new and more disturbing places. Your erotic imagination seems to be on the hunt for new “wrong” thoughts, images, stimuli and scenarios. You need to seize control of your sexuality, and you need help doing that, or your sense of estrangement from your sexuality will continue to grow. That said, you could be seeing causation where there is only coincidence. There are a lot of people out there who didn’t suffer the kind of abuse you did, or any kind of abuse, but who nevertheless have EVSFs. Some people with troubling fantasies or interests have found relief with low-dose antidepressants; some folks with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have been helped by novel programs that incorporate MDMA, aka Ecstasy, into their treatment plans. You could be suffering from PTSD, considering your history. A good therapist — one with whom you’re completely honest — may be able to help you reshape and redirect your fantasies in the 38
THE PITCH
DECEMBER 20 -26, 2012
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direction of still-intense, less-wrong, notconstantly-escalating stimuli that give you the “wrongness” charge you need without nuking your mental health or your life. (Stay away from all pedo porn sites, even “stories only” porn. Please.) And a good sex therapist can help you draw a clear distinction between your adult sexuality — whatever form it takes — and your history of sexual abuse. (I shared your letter with a sex researcher I trust, and she urged me to urge you to insist on seeing a reputable therapist who does sex therapy specifically because they’re less likely to be sex-negative and therefore less likely to react with prudish or panicked judgments when you disclose your EVSFs.) Considering the abuse you suffered at the hands of your family of origin, I trust that your adoptive parents are aware that you may need professional help throughout your life and that your asking for help is a good sign about (1) you as a person and (2) them as parents. At your very first appointment, ask your shrink to confirm that your sessions are confidential. If, for some reason, your shrink tells you that he or she can’t offer you complete confidentiality (which they can and, in most places, are required to do by law, unless you’re a danger to yourself or others), thank the nice shrink for his or her time and ask your parents to make you an appointment to see a different shrink. Please get help, not because you are or may be kinky but because you’re struggling with doubt, you’re confused about your sexual orientation, and you’re rightly worried about the way your erotic imagination keeps upping the “wrongness” ante. And remember: Not all counselors or shrinks are created equal. If you don’t like or click with the first one you see, tell your parents you want to see someone else.
Dear Dan: I’m gay and I have a brother who’s gay. The problem is, he’s very much into humiliation. He exposes himself online and allows his online “masters” to have control over his pictures and videos. I found his pictures recently, and the embarrassment and humiliation were a huge turn-on for him. (In real life, we’ve never
BY
D A N S AVA G E
shown any interest sexually in each other whatsoever. But when he asked if I had any naked pictures, I told him that I did and sent some to him, and somehow that was a bit of a turn-on, I must admit.) On to the real problem: Soon, my brother told me that he felt really guilty, cleaned up his hard drive, deleted all his pics and mine and asked me to do the same, and swore off playing online. But I found evidence that he has resumed this habit. This has been a pattern for him, he says, and he insists that he was somehow damaged in childhood. I told him that I see him as my kinky brother and that he might be happier if he could just accept himself. But I don’t think he should quit his “addiction” cold turkey because it hasn’t worked in the past.
Bro of Kinky Bro Dear BOKB: There are people who manage to turn their lives upside down in pursuit of their turn-ons — there are people whose sex lives are complete fucking shitshows — and all they’re into is heterosexual sex in the missionary position in their own bedrooms with the lights off. Your brother’s problem isn’t his childhood or his kink. His problems, plural, are his self-loathing, his attempts to swear off his kink (which leads to these binge-and-purge cycles), and the reckless ways that he indulges his kink when he’s bingeing. Instead of running from his kinks, which he can’t do, your brother needs to find safer, saner ways to satisfy his desire for erotic humiliation and submitting to someone else’s control. People with humiliation kinks managed to find ways to get off before the Internet came along, and so can your brother. And you need to establish better boundaries. No more swapping pics with your kinky bro, bro, and no more hunting for evidence of your bro’s ill-advised online adventures. Find the Savage Lovecast (my weekly podcast) every Tuesday at thestranger.com/savage.
Have a question for Dan Savage? E-mail him at mail@savagelove.net pitch.com
MONTH
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DECEMBER 20 -26, 2012
THE PITCH
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