The Pitch: March 28, 2013 by FW Publishing

MARCH 28–APRIL 3, 2013 | FREE | VOL. 32 NO. 39 | PITCH.COM

A rainbow coalition gives Heavy Vinyl Westboro the brushoff . Salina's surprise cash crop: This Gay House audiophile records. PAGE 4

PAGE 22

PARADISE LOCKER MIGHT MAKE THE BEST-TASTING MEATS IN THE COUNTRY.

HIGH QUALITY SCREEN PRINTED

T-SHIRTS

MARCH 28–APRIL 3, 2013 | VOL. 32 NO. 39 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 Events Editor Berry Anderson Food Blogger, Web Editor Jonathan Bender Proofreader Brent Shepherd Contributing Writers Tracy Abeln, Theresa Bembnister, April Fleming, Leslie Kinsman, Chris Milbourn, Dan Savage, Lucas Wetzel Editorial Intern Katie Miller

YOUR LOGO HERE

Joe Williams

★★★H

START@

“

WONDROUSLY ALIVE.

PRINTED T-SHIRTS

$120

SAM RILEY GARRETT HEDLUND AND KRISTEN STEWART AMY ADAMS TOM STURRIDGE DANNY MORGAN ALICE BRAGA ELISABETH MOSS WITH KIRSTEN DUNST AND VIGGO MORTENSEN

MK2 AND AMERICAN ZOETROPE PRESENT A FILM DIRECTED BY WALTER SALLES, SCREENPLAY BY JOSÉ RIVERA, THE FILMMAKING TEAM BEHIND ‘THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES.’ BASED ON THE NOVEL BY JACK KEROUAC

816.842.5683

www.unionscreenprinting.net

HOW DOES HALF OFF SOUND?

4050 PENNSYLVANIA AVE, (816) 561-5222 KANSAS CITY

BY J O N AT H A N B E N D E R

ARTIST IN RESIDENCE

P R O D U C T I O N

Production Manager Christina Riddle Multimedia Designer Vu Radley

At the Kemper’s Café Sebastienne, Jennifer Maloney’s art

A D V E R T I S I N G

stays contemporary. BY C H A R L E S F E R R U Z Z A

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

HEAVY VINYL

S O U T H C O M M

Chief Executive Officer Chris Ferrell Chief Financial Officer Patrick Min Chief Marketing Officer Susan Torregrossa Chief Technology Officer Matt Locke Business Manager Eric Norwood Director of Digital Sales & Marketing David Walker Controller Todd Patton Creative Director Heather Pierce Director of Content/Online Development Patrick Rains

.com

3707 WEST 95TH STREET (913) 642-1133 OVERLAND PARK

neighborhood butcher shop.

Art Director Ashford Stamper Contributing Photographers Angela C. Bond, Chris Mullins, Lauren Phillips, Sabrina Staires, Brooke Vandever Design Intern Chloe George

N A T I O N A L

LEAWOOD THEATRE

is bringing back the

Sales Manager Erin Carey Senior Classified Multimedia Specialist Steven Suarez Multimedia Specialists Michelle Acevedo, Collin Click, Page Olson Director of Marketing & Operations Jason Dockery Digital Marketing Manager Keli Sweetland

EXCLUSIVE ENGAGEMENT STARTS FRIDAY, MARCH 29 TIVOLI THEATRE

Paradise Locker Meats

A R T

unionpress 1219 Union West Bottoms

A REAL JOY RIDE.”

CUSTOM HOGS

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

D I S T R I B U T I O N

WWW.THEMADONES.US

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.

KC Pitch Wednesday, 3/27 1col(2.06)x4

C O P Y R I G H T

A sonic boom from Salina: the LP BY DAV I D H U D N A L L

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

22 3 4 5 6 11 15 17 19 20 22 28 30

ON T HE COVE R

QUESTIONNAIRE PLOG NEWS FEATURE F I LT E R ART FILM CAFÉ FAT CITY MUSIC NIGHTLIFE SAVAGE LOVE

MEANWHI LE AT PI TC H. C O M

PHOTOGRAPHY BY BROOKE VANDEVER

THE PITCH

M A R C H 2 8 -A P R I L 3, 20 1 3

pitch.com

Charles Ferruzza remembers WALT BODINE. HARRISON FORD comes to Kansas City for a 42 screening in April. WIZ KHALIFA headlines Dancefestopia’s 2013 lineup.

M O N T H X X–X X , 2 0 0 X

THE PITCH

Are you

QUESTIONNAIRE

TARA COOPER

Opera singer

INFORMED?

ScreenTee Gallery

Located

Custom printing

Hometown: Kansas City, Missouri

816.756.5977

Custom Embroidery

Current neighborhood: Olathe

Boutique

Who or what is your sidekick? My husband and our dog, Brynn

What career would you choose in an alternate reality? Chef or marine biologist

EDITORIAL NEWSLETTER

in Westpo

no minimums no setup fees free design help

www.screenteegallery.com

Where do you drink? I am in love with the cocktail menu at the Rieger Hotel.

What’s your favorite charity? I think Harvest-

ers is a wonderful local charity. We recently ate at the American during Restaurant Week and were excited to help.

Favorite place to spend your paycheck: All

the places? Lately it’s been Sephora, Macy’s, HomeGoods.

What local phenomenon do you think is overrated? KU sports … I say that as a true MU Tigers fan, although that gets awkward because I’m currently attending KU for my doctoral studies.

Where do you like to take out-of-town guests?

The Plaza, Brookside or Westport. We’ve also brought quite a few people to the KC Zoo and the Royals’ stadium.

Finish this sentence: “Kansas City got it right when …” It built the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. That building is an absolutely beautiful architectural piece, and both houses are a dream to sing in.

“Kansas City screwed up when it …” Created a bunch of giant divided roads so you can never turn left when you want to.

“Kansas City needs …” More public-transit options outside the current bus system. “People might be surprised to know that I …” Am a giant nerd and love to play video games.

“On my day off, I like to …” Take our dog to a local dog park, catch up on reading or TV I’ve missed, see movies, and catch up on the chores that have gotten neglected. “In five years, I’ll be …” Singing at opera houses all over the world, being a parent and wife and, I hope, raising a new puppy to keep our current dog happy. What TV show do you make sure you watch? Downton Abbey. New Girl is also a favorite.

take(s) up a lot of space in my iTunes:

It varies but I’m on a Mumford and Sons kick.

S A B R I N A S TA I R E S

What was the last local restaurant you patronized? 23rd Street Brewery in Lawrence

What movie do you watch at least once a year? Meet Me in St. Louis

Celebrity you’d like to ride the Mamba with at Worlds of Fun: Adele because the swearing

in her cockney accent would be marvelous.

Person or thing you find really irritating at this moment: The bugs that are starting to emerge and getting on my windshield.

What subscription — print, digital, etc. — do you value most? Amazon Prime = life changer.

RECEIVE UP TO

$200

Last book you read: I just reread one of my favorite books, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon. Favorite day trip: Going to Columbia for a football game.

What is your most embarrassing dating moment? It’s not technically a “dating” moment

because we’re married, but this Christmas I fell down the stairs at my in-laws’ house. I had to go to Urgent Care on Christmas Eve to make sure nothing was broken.

Interesting brush with the law? I got a ticket

in college … for swimming in our apartment complex’s pool. I lived in said apartment complex. There was never a lifeguard. We were fully clothed and sober and got in giant trouble with the cop who lived in the complex. I told my boss the next day because I was paranoid that they would call him, and he just laughed hysterically.

Describe a recent triumph: I was one of the

winners at the Metropolitan Opera National Council District Auditions here in Kansas City. I have sung for the competition three times prior and never moved on, so it was very exciting to win at this level. Cooper performs at the Lyric Opera of Kansas City in late April. Find her schedule at taracoopermezzo.com.

PER MONTH!

NEW TO SAVING LIVES?

NOT FOR LONG.

At BioLife Plasma Services, you’ll find the experience of donating life-saving plasma to be truly rewarding. So rewarding, we’re sure you’ll want to go from new donor to returning donor. 816.795.7002 19351 E EASTLAND CENTER CT. INDEPENDENCE, MO 64055 SCHEDULE YOUR DONATION AT BIOLIFEPLASMA.COM

$75

NEW DONORS OR PREVIO DON ORS WHO HAVEN’T DONATED IN SIX MONTHSUS OR MO RE, PRESENT THIS COUPON AND RECEIVE $75 IN JUST TWO DONATIONS. Must present this coup on prior

to the initial donation to rece and a total of $50 on your ive a total of $25 on your second successful donation. first Initial donation must be completed by 4.21.13 and second donation within 30 days. Coup on redeemable upon completing successfu only l donations. May not be com at participating locations. bined with any other offer . Only

pitch.com M A RMCOHN2T8H- AXPX–X R I LX 3, , 220001X3 pitch.com

TT HH EE PPIITTCCHH

PLOG

THIS GAY HOUSE

Aaron Jackson and his rainbow-painted house are behind enemy lines in Topeka.

his happens all the time,” Aaron Jackson says as he looks through his living-room window. A gold Ford Explorer has pulled to the curb. It’s idling so that its driver and a passenger can peer at the Westboro Baptist Church, across the street. They take in the upside-down American flag, the various signs declaring the church’s hatred of gay people. After a minute, the Explorer moves on. On this late February day in Topeka, inside the two-bedroom house at 1200 Southwest Orleans Street, across the street from the Westboro compound, Jackson and Davis Hammet are plotting. They’re talking about their plan to piss off Westboro, the hate group next door. Jackson and Hammet, both thin, energetic Destin, Florida, natives, have set out to make the Orleans Street house the latest outpost of Planting LOGT Peace, the nonprofit that P E R O M INE A Jackson founded. The ONL M / P L O G organization had so far P IT C H .C O focused on such causes as caring for orphans and deworming children in impoverished countries. But Jackson, 31, wants to make GLBT equality its next area of emphasis. This house, dubbed Equality House, will serve as a volunteer center for that effort. Its humanitarian use aside, their one-story home feels like a typical bachelor pad. Jackson and Hammet sleep on mattresses on the floor. When they moved in, they didn’t know that running the furnace required turning on the gas. When the outside temperature edged into single digits their first night, they pulled the oven into the family room. Hammet has fashioned a table out of packing Styrofoam and tape. Posters of Martin Luther King Jr. and W.E.B. Du Bois hang on a living-room wall opposite a large Human Rights Campaign flag. To make Planting Peace’s presence known in their adopted community — and to thumb their noses at Westboro — the men want to paint the outside of this house a vivid rainbow motif. In a few weeks, the house’s drab gray exterior will disappear under colors called Pineapple Soda, Mermaid Treasure and Tangerine Dream. Today, though, Jackson and Hammet are discovering that getting a house painter to commit to the job might be difficult. Jackson’s path to setting up in this house on a corner lot started with a WBC protest on graduation day at Washburn University in May 2012. A 9-year-old boy named Josef Miles improvised a counter-protest to WBC’s usual “God hates fags” signs by holding a small, handwritten sign reading, “God hates no one.” A photo of Miles went viral; Jackson saw it and started researching the church. While looking at the Westboro compound on Google Earth, he saw a real-estate sign in a nearby lawn. “I was like, that would be the perfect place to start our project from — right across the street from the Westboro Baptist Church. About five minutes later, I said: ‘I’ll paint the home the color of the pride flag.’ ”

THE PITCH

Jackson carries the flag. In July, the two men hired a realtor, and Planting Peace closed on Equality House last winter, paying $81,000. It was a rare opportunity behind enemy lines. Jonathan Phelps, a member of the church, tells The Pitch that his family owns about 20 homes in the immediate vicinity of the church. In fact, Phelps says, the church wanted this one, too. “My daughter was looking for a house, having just been married,” Phelps says. “We went to that house, and it was actually a money pit. It was a disgusting, filthy little place. If a house goes up for sale, we’re going to buy that sucker, unless it’s a little a stink hole like that one was.” The first five painters Jackson tried to hire all bailed when they heard the address of the house. They were concerned that the church would retaliate against their businesses. “It’s not really an unfounded fear,” Hammet says. He tells the story of a 28-year-old gay man he met. “His workplace would still get faxes — like, hundreds of faxes every day — like, ‘You’re employing this faggot. You’re all going to go to hell if you don’t fire this faggot.’ ” They finally found their man in Kansas City: Mike McKessor. And last week, the painter gave the house its spectrum makeover. “I’m not scared of them,” McKessor said during the job. He’s a Navy veteran, and he said he opposes the church for its protests at military funerals. He looked at the house as his crew worked on it. “This is good for the community.” As the rainbow stripes appeared on the siding, neighbors and passers-by began to take notice. At a little before 10 a.m., Ida Terry, 79, came out of her house across Southwest 12th Street to pick up her newspaper. She smiled.

M A R C H 2 8 -A P R I L 3, 20 1 3

pitch.com

She told The Pitch that her ex-husband was in the Army. Like McKessor, she detests the Westboro Baptist Church for protesting military funerals. “I can’t stand them,” she said. “I think this is great,” she continued, talking about the property brightening nearby. “I noticed it this morning, and I couldn’t quit looking at it. I love it.” Not without reservation, though: “The green that goes across there should be below the yellow,” she added. Throughout the morning, drivers pulled over and offered support. Two women drove up and ran out of the car to pose for photos. About a dozen cars honked on their way by. One driver called out the window of his black Toyota truck: “Love the new paint job!” Later, two gray-haired men with a sleepy brown dog in the backseat stopped their sedan. “Hey, that’s great!” one passenger shouted. Around noon, snow started to fall, slowing the work. “It was supposed to be warm and sunny today,” Jackson reminded his supporters. McKessor assured Jackson that the flurries would pass. “I’m from Florida, so tell me what ‘flurries’ means,” Jackson said. Inside, the house had become a chaotic, makeshift PR operation, with Jackson and his Planting Peace team doing interviews with Gawker, Topeka’s WIBW Channel 13 and the Huffington Post. Jackson and his friends cheered loud enough to hear them from the front yard when a story about the house was added to the homepage of his hometown newspaper, The Destin Log. Jackson retreated to a bedroom for a series of lengthy phone interviews, even as local reporters continued to pull up outside and knock on the door. He emerged after one phone call and said, “Wow, that was awesome! That was, uh, what’s the lady, she does the reporting for pitch.com

BE N PA L O S A A R I

CNN? Candy Crowley.” He started the next phone conversation, “Hi, somebody at this number called me, like, five times.” A few minutes later, Jackson wandered back into the impromptu operations center in the living room and said NPR had been in touch. Hammet replied: “The New York Times wants images they can use.” The two talked a minute, and Hammet wondered aloud, “This is the new normal, right?” Westboro members mostly stayed away. But two days after the painting, they’re ready to chat. Jonathan Phelps says the church doesn’t mind the attention-grabbing look because the members like to know who supports gay rights and who doesn’t. “There’s not a lot of gray area there,” he says. “There’s no gray in the fag flag or, as I like to call it, the sodomite rainbow house.” Phelps adds that any attention Equality House has received only furthers the church’s agenda. “The Gospel, because of this pretext, has been preached to the entire world,” he says. “Articles all over the world writing about this pretty house. But, by the way, while they write it, they have to tell about the Gospel.” The church, he says, has no plans to protest the house or its owners. “They’re good neighbors, as far as I’m concerned. But we’re better neighbors because we tell them the truth.” And when supporters or curious drivers stop by to check out Equality House? “While they’re there visiting the pretty house, they’ll get some Gospel preaching.” But people don’t seem to be stopping on Phelps’ side of the street right now. The traffic has been for Planting Peace, and it’s been big. “No exaggeration, probably a thousand people a day have stopped by,” Jackson says two days after the painting. “It’s just a constant flow of people stopping by and dropping off letters of encouragement, dropping off gift cards, telling us stories. The local Topekans have been so supportive. We had no idea that it would be to this magnitude.” Web traffic has also skyrocketed, bringing with it donations. “So far, we’ve probably brought in $50,000 through the Internet,” Jackson says. And he expects more funds by mail. For a volunteer-run organization (Jackson doesn’t draw a salary himself), the influx is a major change. “We’re ecstatic,” he says. Beyond support and donations, though, there are the people whom Planting Peace is meant to help. A note that Jackson found in the mailbox last Friday reads: “My parents became violent when I came out to them many years ago. I woke up thinking about that. I cried all the way here. I walked on your property and I stopped crying. I feel peace. Thank you.” After all of the interviews he has given the past few days, Jackson struggles for a moment to find words.

E-mail ben.palosaari@pitch.com M O N T H X X–X X , 2 0 0 X

THE PITCH

NEWS

CONNECTING THE ’DOTTE

Mayoral candidates Ann Murguia and Mark Holland explain themselves.

Ann Murguia

Executive director of the Argentine Neighborhood Development Association (ANDA); 3rd District commissioner for the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas

he Kansas City, Kansas, Public Library’s sleek, modern South Branch is a rare bit of new civic development in a neighborhood that’s pocked with blight and vacant businesses. On a snowy afternoon 11 days before the election, library patrons surf the Web on a bank of computers, kids roam the aisles picking out books, and people talk and read at bar-style high tables in a corner. “I chose this place because I wanted you to be able to see how, when you bring a large group of committed volunteers together for a common goal, what can happen,” Ann Murguia says. “I’m very excited to be part of a group of volunteers that raised $2 million for this $6 million library. And we did it in a relatively short period of time — it took about two and a half years — and I’m talking from the beginning of fundraising to the end of construction.” The Pitch: What one piece of experience makes you the better candidate? Murguia: I’ve lived in one of the most challenging urban neighborhoods here in Kansas City, Kansas, for 17 years now. Besides living here, I work here, and since I’ve been working here, I’ve realized just how difficult it is to redevelop these areas. As the executive director of ANDA, I’ve learned that, and I’ve been able to figure out ways to still develop this area, this library being one of my development successes in addition to the new grocery store that we’re building right now. [A Save-A-Lot store is set to open at 2100 Metropolitan.] I have been intimately involved with those kinds of developments, along with building new infrastructure and new housing. My opponent has not been involved with those kinds of things. And, to begin to turn this entire county around, not just a very specific area of this county, it’s going to be important that the next mayor knows how to do those things.

Murguia, Holland want your vote April 2. It’s been a friendly campaign, but tell us why your opponent would be a bad choice. Mark has no business experience and does not have any development experience in the urban core. Zero. It’s already challenging enough to make development happen in these areas. The last thing we need is a mayor who has no experience or results in that. Mark’s results, accomplishments, successes are all around what we’ve done as a commission collectively. Outside of that, there’s really nothing that my opponent can put his fingerprint on and say, “I worked on that. I actually did that. I actually made that happen.” He has never worked an economic-development deal outside of his work as a commissioner. He has never recruited a business. He has never been involved in the contract between a developer and a business. The YMCA of Greater Kansas City announced that it was closing its KCK location, on Eighth Street. What’s your reaction? I really wish that the Y would have come to us before they decided to close and actually have a conversation with us about how the government might be able to help keep the facility open. Unfortunately, they didn’t, and now it creates a hole in our community. It’s one less recreational, healthy option people have in the urban core. It’s very disappointing.

Mark Holland

Senior pastor at Trinity Community Church, a United Methodist Congregation; District 1 commissioner-at-large for the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas

CK’s Prescott Plaza shopping area, on 18th Street just off Interstate 70, looks like the sort of commercial development that could fit in the suburbs, rather than in the troubled urban core. There’s a Sun Fresh grocery store, a Jack in the Box, a few other necessity chain stores — and there’s the Mexican restaurant called Tapatio. This is where Mark Holland wanted to meet, in part to say that Prescott Plaza should serve as a beacon for what KCK has gotten right. “This site was a former truck stop that was rife with prostitution and drugs,” he says. “When it was torn down by the Unified Government, and a grocery store was put in, all these ancillary businesses came with it. This represents a very important strategic investment in Kansas City, Kansas. And it shows how you invest in quality in urban areas, and that success has a ripple effect in the neighborhoods around it.” The Pitch: What one piece of experience makes you the better candidate? It would be big-picture collaborative lead-

BE N PA L O S A A R I

ership. You don’t ever hear a quarterback on TV talking about “what I did.” It’s about what “we” did. What you accomplish, whether it’s in a church, whether it’s in a community organization, whether it’s in a city, you do it all by we. And that collaborative, big-picture vision is what separates me. I’ve been an at-large commissioner for six years, so I’ve been elected countywide twice and have been responsible to all the constituent areas of the county, not just one district. And that’s a dramatic difference in vision. The risk of representing one area is the risk of parochialism. You focus on the interest, and sometimes it can even be viewed that you’re in competition with the other districts. When you have that big-picture vision, you know that what’s good for one part of town is good for all parts of town. It’s been a friendly campaign, but tell us why your opponent would be a bad choice. Because I’m running against her. Because I’m the right candidate. When somebody’s an incumbent, you’re running against them. When there’s an open seat, we’re both running for an office and the good of the city. I’m running for mayor because I’m fourth-generation Wyandotte County, and I’m a third-generation pastor in the community. This is my hometown, and I want the best for it. The YMCA of Greater Kansas City announced that it was closing its KCK location, on Eighth Street. What’s your reaction? We need a state-of-the-art community center in downtown Kansas City, Kansas. And I think the Y would be a good partner. I don’t think that closing the Y necessarily helps our momentum to get to that. I don’t think it necessarily hurts it, either. If we’re going to talk about healthy communities, if we’re going to talk about being ranked 105th out of 105 counties in overall healthiness by the Kansas Health Institute, if we’re going to address those things, we need healthy living opportunities. And the YMCA or a rec center is one of the ways you do that.

E-mail ben.palosaari@pitch.com

THURSDAYS 7pm pitch.com M A RM CH R I L X3,, 220001 X 3 pitch.com O N2T8H- AXPX–X

TT H H EE P P II T TC CH H

5 1

HOGS

CUSTOM

PARADISE LOCKER MEATS PUTS HERITAGE PIGS AT THE CENTER OF LOCAL BUTCHERY’S FUTURE.

──

BY JONATHAN BENDER PHOTOGRAPH Y BY BROOKE VANDEVER 6 2TT HH E EP IP TI T CC H H MM AO RC A P RXI ,L 230, 02X0 1 3pitch.com pitch.com NHT H2 8X-X–X

never thought we’d be selling chefs fat,” Mario Fantasma says. In the off-white trailer that serves as his office, he glances at a framed photo of Mario Batali in which the celebrity chef is embracing Fantasma. “Hams, sausages, rib racks, Boston butts, sure. But fat, lardo, they just can’t get enough of the stuff.” Fat — more specifically, fatty pigs — fuels Paradise Locker Meats, the butcher shop and meat-processing plant that Fantasma runs in Trimble, Missouri, with his wife, Teresa, and their sons, Nick and Louis. The business has become an integral part of the movement to restore heritage pigs — older breeds such as Red Wattle and Duroc — to prominence in the United States. For most of the past decade, Fantasma, 56, has been processing pigs for Heritage Foods USA, the mail-order business that began as the marketing arm of Slow Food USA. Pork from his plant fills plates at Momofuku and Del Posto and Carnevino and Lidia’s.

“Paradise Locker Meats is at the epicenter of the heritagemeats movement,” says Patrick Martins, founder of Slow Food USA and Heritage Foods USA. “It’s the best-tasting meat in the country.”

he U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service estimates that U.S. slaughterhouses will process 23.3 billion pounds of pork in 2013 (a statistic that doesn’t account for potential furloughs of USDA inspectors resulting from the sequester), which makes the United States the world’s thirdlargest producer and consumer of pork. All those pig tattoos on chefs’ forearms and all those bacon desserts, however, are what make America No. 1 among pork fetishists. Only here could a word like baconalia have entered the lexicon. (The regrettable coinage belongs to Denny’s.)

In 2012, U.S. hogs were slaughtered at 604 federally inspected plants. The 12 largest plants accounted for 58 percent of the approximately 113 million pigs that became meat. The Triumph Foods plant in St. Joseph, Missouri, for example, processes 1,000 pigs an hour — more than six times as many hogs as Paradise processes in a week. Bigger plants need to be fed more pigs that are roughly the same size and shape. It’s a system that has squeezed smaller producers out of business. Over the past 15 years, the USDA’s ERS estimates that the number of hog farms has declined by 70 percent. This well-lamented decline comes with a less-heralded loss: that of the small-town butcher. “We’re all intertwined,” Teresa Fantasma says. “We can’t survive without the farmers.” Paradise Locker isn’t just surviving, though. Over the past decade, the operation has grown from five to 25 employees,

and it’s set to put Kansas City at the center of a comeback story: that of the neighborhood butcher. Local Pig and the Broadway Butcher Shop have both opened in Kansas City in the past year, and the online livestock-commerce hub Ag Local, a KC-based startup, launched earlier this month. All three are benefiting from a slaughterhouse that is not only aiding supply but also increasing demand for heritage pigs from area farms.

ouis Fantasma is leading a plant tour on a mid-March Thursday morning, showing the business to chefs who have flown in from both coasts. He gestures to a painting of Paradise’s original location that’s mounted above the retail shop’s front door. “My uncle had gone back to see a bull that was in the holding pen,” he tells his nine guests. “But when he got there, the bull

was hanging half out. By the time my dad got back there, the bull had busted through the pen and escaped.” He pauses, waiting for the group to spot the cow in the painting. “My dad had to hop in a truck and corral the bull. That was a heck of a first day.” Following Louis, the plant manager, are a radio crew from Heritage Foods USA, as well as that company’s Martins, and Sam Edwards III and IV from Edwards & Sons in Surry, Virginia. Chefs Jason Neve and Matt Harubin from B&B Ristorante in Las Vegas, Community Food & Juice chef Zach Kell, and chef Stephen Barber of the Farmstead at Long Meadow Ranch (in California’s Napa Valley) are here as part of a four-day trip to learn more about the butchers who ship to them. “We make our own wine, raise cattle, grow our fruits and vegetables, and make our own olive oil,” Barber says as people introduce themselves. “I’m from Vegas,” deadpans Harubin. “We have strip clubs and gambling.” Walking past the refrigerated coolers that line the west and north walls of the shop, these are men in a pig candy store. Louis passes out white plastic suits and hairnets and beard nets, and the men wrestle into the gear. In the butcher shop, a bookshelf by the door holds a copy of Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals, which has been turned open. Deer heads gaze out from one corner as Martins offers a little history. “They had to give up deer season in the hopes that the restaurant community would support this,” he says. “It was a big risk. You know community-supported agriculture. This is chef-supported agriculture.” The chefs troop up a concrete ramp, their feet passing over the phrase “Piggy’s Paradise,” which has been etched into the concrete. Beyond is a chute attached to concrete pens, where farmers from as far away as Iowa unload 150 pigs a week. Their water trough is heated in winter to keep it from freezing, and a misting fan keeps the animals’ temperature down in summer. “I remember the misting fan arrived, and I was putting it together,” Louis says. “Our slaughter guys asked if we got a misting fan for the kill floor. I laughed and told them, ‘No, it’s for the hog pen.’ ” The Fantasmas practice and promote humane killing, for ethical reasons as well as for practical concerns. A stressed animal, they believe, is more difficult to maneuver and yields tougher meat. On Mondays and Tuesdays, the plant’s hogslaughter days, the pigs are led up a small wooden gangplank into a pair of interior pens. At the end of the pens is a small door that leads onto the killing floor. Louis guides this white-coated pack through a different door, into a storage area that leads into a chilly, odorless room where an employee is busy forming hams. The meat is slid through a conical metal tube into a fine mesh netting, like a Christmas tree being bagged. The worker bangs each ham on the table to push out any air — a gesture that produces a wet plopping sound — before clipping the end of the netting. “I have a surprise for you,” Louis says. “I didn’t take you here to see the hams. This is actually the killing floor.” Each room in the plant, he explains, has multiple uses. The walk-in coolers hold the animals that are slaughtered on Mondays and Tuesdays. After being chilled — the temperature of the carcasses is lowered from 110 to 40 degrees over 14 hours — the pigs leave the coolers on Wednesdays and Thursdays. The hogs are then broken down in a separate room and returned to what was the killing floor to be made into bacon, bratwursts, ham, and dozens of other products. It is a ballet as neat as turning a room for a wedding. The dance is the only way this 6,000-square-foot plant can handle the volume that Heritage needs. It also allows plant workers to escape the typical monotony of a slaughterhouse. They’re not stuck on the line or cutting the same chops day in, day out. (This is one way to address a basic meat-industry problem: how to attract the next generation of workers to a job that requires extensive training and is, in most companies, dangerous and exhausting.) The processing scheduled today centers on a “cut sheet” based on Heritage’s weekly orders from restaurants around the country. “The stuff is sold prior to cutting, continued on page 8

pitch.com R COHN T 2H 8 -A R I LX ,3 2 , 0 20 pitch.comM A M XP X–X 0 1X3 TTHHEE PPIITTCCHH 37

FINISH

Custom Hogs

Cafe Racer

Exceptional Motorcycle & Scooter Service 1305 Union Ave. KCMO | 816-221-0711

JCN PKWY

THE PLAZA

CENTRAL

COURSE MAP TENNIS COURTS

WARD PKWY

BROOKSIDE BLVD

MAIN

VOLKER

NORTH

WATER STATION (62ND & BROOKSIDE)

BROOKSIDE RD

MEYER BLVD

MAIN

69TH ST

WORNALL

GREGORY (71ST)

75TH ST

START Sunday, April 28 Kansas City, Missouri A benefit for the Children’s Center for the Visually Impaired Call CCVI for further information: 816-841-CCVI Register online @ www.trolleyrun.org MARA and RRCA Sanctioned USATF Certified MARA Grand Prix Series 8 4

T HE E P P II T TC CH H TH

MO AN RT CH H 2 - A PXR, I2L030, X2 0 1pitch.com 3 pitch.com M X 8X–X

032-1128-2013-Pitch-map-2x10.indd 1

e ic

Don’t Forget!

Runners begin at 7:45 am Walkers begin at 8:15 am

nsas cit a K cycle se y r r o

Sabates Eye Centers Shook, Hardy & Bacon Inergy Buick/GMC Dealers of Greater KC Gragg Advertising Capital Electric JP Morgan Keen Wealth Management Group of Wells Fargo Advisors

mo t

Presented by:

3/15/13 3:22 PM

Insertion Date:

continued from page 7 as opposed to cutting and then shipping it to a warehouse and being sold,” Martins explains. The hog carcasses roll out of the cooler on hooks hanging from the ceiling, which run on rails that resemble skyscraper beams. A 230-pound Duroc pig is set aside for 715’s Michael Beard. The Lawrence chef uses at least a whole pig each week; the headcheese is part of his best-selling item, a sopressata pizza with chili peppers. The hog’s headless body is laid down on the first of a set of tables arranged in two lines. The moment after the pig touches a white cutting board, an employee begins to slice it in half with an electric saw. The chefs lean in closer, snapping pictures with their smartphones. “This is a really cool operation,” Barber says. As the pig passes down the line, fat and skin are trimmed off. Between tasks, the meat cutters, in white coats and hard hats, sharpen their knives, which hang on their belts. A whole pig takes less than four minutes to break down. Mario Fantasma calls the chefs over to see the only machine in the room. It’s a belly skinner — a small conveyor belt that carries the bellies under a row of metallic teeth to peel off the skin immediately. “We have to hand-skin,” Neve says. He estimates that his kitchen staff spends the better part of three hours breaking down a pig. “Everyone should have one of these,” Harubin says.

antasma grew up in a hardworking family in KC’s old Northeast. His mother, Vita, ran Vita’s Café on St. John and Wheeling for more than 20 years. Laborers from the nearby Montgomery Ward came by the little luncheonette for her cabbage rolls, tenderloins and Friday lasagna specials. His father built commercial ovens for 30 years at the Reed Oven Co. in the West Bottoms. Fantasma spent his first years out of high school at the same factory, working a drill press and coming home covered in rust from the steel and metal shavings.

Mario Fantasma has found Paradise. His introduction to the meat business was at S&S Meat Co., where he worked as a runner, pulling cuts and chops for the sales team. He did this for a year, until he had the opportunity to become a butcher’s apprentice. He spent two and a half years learning to cut. “I was standing all day in one spot cutting steaks,” Fantasma says. “I wanted to learn more. I had it in my mind to have my own business.” During his decade-plus as a butcher at S&S, he decided to move away from the city and commute to work. He and Teresa bought a house in Trimble in 1993. “You talk about fate — there was an ad in the local paper that Paradise Locker was up for sale,” he says. “It was exactly what I wanted.” They’re the fourth family to own Paradise Locker Meats since it opened in 1946. It was a concrete-and-oak box back then, tucked behind Clyde’s General Store. Deer hunters brought their kills to be dressed and butchered, and local farmers and ranchers hauled their livestock here. It doubled as the voting site for rural Paradise, Missouri. Fantasma took over the business in 1995, and the slaughterhouse became a one-man show. The retail part of the business was a freezer in a room separated from the kill floor by an old wooden door. After school, Louis and Nick helped their dad clean up, the way he once mopped the floors at Vita’s Café. “I wanted to make sure the boys understood what work meant,” Fantasma says. For him, work was 17 hours a day of skinning and cleaning deer carcasses, as many as 1,400 in a single season. That changed in 2002, when the smokehouse caught fire. The flames spread to the main building, claiming half the original structure. Fantasma chose to rebuild in a new location, in the neighboring town of Trimble, on what was then five acres of cornfields. He kept the name, a gesture to let the community know that he would continue to work with area ranchers and farmers. A crumbling concrete

LIED CENTER PRESENTS Friday

APRIL 5th 7:30 p.m.

ers attempting to keep a small ecological footprint — was the original idea behind block from the original slaughterhouse in Ag Local. The startup, which raised $1.5 million in seed capital last summer, has Paradise is embedded in the concrete walk since shifted its focus to attracting nameimmediately before the front door of the new, brand chefs to its software, which connects siding-clad building, which sits just off U.S. them with farmers. The system debuted Highway 169. One of the first calls that Fantasma took at with 20 high-profi le chefs in New York City this month; another 20 in San Francisco are the new facility was from Doug Metzger, a hog farmer near Seneca, Kansas, who was working coming in April. “I can’t believe that one of the oldest induswith a new mail-order company called Heritries in our country is the last to have software tage Foods USA. The business was specialfully integrated,” says Robert Roderick, Ag izing in heritage breeds and was looking for Local’s head of product and marketing. a processing plant that was USDA-inspected. Roderick says Ag Local’s inventory-manParadise Locker had begun as a customagement system can help eliminate some of exempt shop, meaning that it broke down animals for an owner, not for resale. But in fall the uncertainty that stifles growth in the sus2004, Fantasma switched the business from a tainable-meat market. Niche operations such state-inspected facility to one that’s federally as Paradise Locker can attract buyers willing to pay for a higher level of quality. “The way inspected. The change allowed Paradise to of the future is jumping into sustainable pay ship across state lines and process out-ofnow,” Roderick says. “That’s how we change state animals. For its first Heritage order, Paradise Locker the way meat is bought and sold.” It’s an old idea wrapped packed 10 hogs, split in half, in new butcher paper‚ a fair into crates with ice. Over the price for a carefully raised next two years, this stand“PEOPLE HAVE BEEN piece of meat. It’s how ing order for 10 hogs grew WAITING FOR AN your grandparents’ corner to 60 hogs a week. Paradise butcher operated. stopped breaking down EASY WAY TO FIND “Butchering is a lost whole deer — though the SUSTAINABLE MEAT.” art,” says the Farmhouse’s company still processes Michael Foust, who stopped meat for hunters and Share by Paradise on a recent the Harvest (a program that morning to pick up some caul fat and shoulder gives deer meat to shelters and food pantries) bacon. “But I see what these guys are doing — to focus on the hog business with Heritage. and I get excited. We need to build a comFantasma is mulling over an expansion that could increase the slaughterhouse’s ca- munity where each piece is strong by itself.” Paradise Locker has become a place where pacity to 200 hogs a week. The demand for chefs and farmers learn about each other’s heritage pork, echoing the nation’s oversized appetite for all things pig, continues to out- needs and look to a shared future. “We started out as a butcher,” Teresa says. “And strip his supply. “I wish we could get more,” says Sam now we’ve grown into a lifelong process and food movement.” Edwards III, the third-generation cure mas“Nobody in the meat business is going to ter from Virginia. “I’m always looking for better-quality pork and operations that are get super-wealthy,” Edwards III says after the Paradise Locker tour. “But we all have to work as clean and efficient as this [Paradise].” together to find the solution.” Alex Pope hears the same thing from cusMartins says the solution looks a lot like tomers at his East Bottoms butcher shop, Local Pig. He’s familiar with Paradise from Paradise. “If this was on either coast, they’d his days as the chef at R Bar. “I see a ton of be the most celebrated shop in the country, potential,” he says. “People have been wait- with lifetime achievement awards,” he says. ing for an easy way to find sustainable meat. “Instead, they just go to work, and people have It has to be simple enough that it’s an extra no idea what they have in their backyards. One five or 10 minutes, as opposed to driving to day, we’ll look at Trimble the way we looked a farm and picking up a side of beef.” at Berkeley, California, for organic produce.” Connecting consumers with sustainable meat — livestock raised humanely, by farmE-mail jonathan.bender@pitch.com

Paradise brings back the butcher.

Jazz Violinist

Regina Carter Reverse Thread includes traditional African music infused with contemporary jazz FREE ON-SITE PARKING

lied.ku.edu 785-864-2787

THE ULTIMATE INTERACTIVE MUSIC EXPERIENCE.

ONLY AT UNION STATION TICKETS START AT $8*. BUY TICKETS AT

UNIONSTATION.ORG FOLLOW US ON *member

pitch.com M A RM C HO N2T8H- AXP X–X R I L X3,, 220001 3X pitch.com

price

TT H H EE PP II TT C CH H

9 5

J O H NS O N C O U N T Y C O M M U N I T Y C O L L E G E

F R I D A Y

NIKKI GLASER

APR 12

• co-host of mtv nikki & sara show

7:30 PM

• last comic standing semifinalist

DOORS @ 7:00PM

NICK VATTEROTT

CARLSEN CENTER

• late night w/jimmy fallon & conan

YARDLEY HALL

$20 FOR GENERAL PUBLIC

• comedy central mash up

www.jccc.edu/TheSeries 913-469-4445

SHENG WANG • nbc stand up for diversity showcase winner

*adult language

•live from gotham • half hour special on comedy central

sponsored by student activities & performing arts series

THE PITCH

M A R C H 2 8 -A P R I L 3, 20 1 3

pitch.com

WEEK OF MARCH 28–APRIL 3 | BY BERRY ANDERSON

PAG E

ART This way to Dylan Mortimer

PAG E

FRIDAY

3 . 29

your forget Don’t . s r quarte

FILM These guys really are On the Road.

22 PAG E

MUSIC There’s another side to Salina.

T H U R S D AY | 3 . 2 8 |

THE DARK SIDE OF PRETTY

eautiful people generally have the advantage, right? See how true that really is at Screenland Crossroads

(1656 Washington, 816-421-9700), where there’s a free screening of Chasing Beauty, a documentary about the ups and downs of the multibillion-dollar beauty industry. Tickets are on a first-come, first-served basis and include a cocktail hour beginning at 7 p.m. and a post-screening Q&A with director Brent Huff. The film starts at 8. See screenland.com for more information.

FRIDAY-NIGHT TUMBLE In the name of using public spaces in different and unexpected ways, Sean Starowitz’s Rocket Grant–fueled, multicontextual Byproduct: The Laundromat continues with a 7 p.m. screening of the short, silent film Rent’s Due, at Walnut Place Laundromat (4241 Walnut). Starowitz tells us, “It explores urban politics, where the

laundromat encompasses the entire city. People live in washers and dryers, the kids attend school in a dryer, and rent is due in the form of quarters.” A discussion with director Andy McCone follows, along with a workshop on DIY laundry detergent led by UMKC theater professor Stephanie Roberts. Admission is free, and you can haul your dirty duds and multitask. “Bring laundry,” Starowitz says. Find out more about Byproduct at rocketgrants.org.

F R I D AY | 3 . 2 9 | HARD AND SOFT LIMITS

Surpassing the Harry Potter series, E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey books are now the fastest-selling paperbacks of all time. So, of course, there are spoofs, one of which you can see tonight. The double-entendreladen Spank! The Fifty Shades Parody, directed by Kids in the Hall veteran Jim Millan, plays the Midland (1228 Main, 816-283-9921) at 8 p.m. Tickets to the allages show cost $35 and include post-show photo ops. See midlandkc.com.

PINK ICE

Princess Merida makes her ice debut alongside Ariel, Sebastian, Belle and the Beast for Disney on Ice: Rockin’ Ever After. The five-day stand at the Sprint Center (1407 Grand, 816-949-7000) includes performances at 10:30 a.m. continued on page 12

pitch.com

Spank!

M A R C H 2 8 -A P R I L 3, 20 1 3

THE PITCH

Lunch & Bowl

Miss

ion

Mon thru Fri•11am to 1pm $10 per person will get you • 2 Games • Shoes • Hamburger, Fries & Small Drink

Bow

FRIDAY

3 . 29

s friend y a nd Micke . e ic e hit th

Celebrating 55 Years 1958 - 2013

www.missionbowl.com

Celebrating 55 Years 1958-2013

5399 Martway Mission, KS • 913.432.7000 1020 S. Weaver St. Olathe, KS • 913.782.0279

KANSAS CITY BALLET PRESENTS

FREE FIRST FRIDAYS AT THE BOLENDER CENTER

FRI APR 5 | 6-7:30 | “HEY-HAY, GOING TO KANSAS CITY” MEET THE ARTISTS AND ENJOY EXCERPTS

continued from page 11 and 7 p.m. today. Tickets for the little-girlin-your-life’s best time ever start at $8. See sprintcenter.com.

S AT U R D AY | 3 . 3 0 | CLEAN EATIN’

When it comes to making the transition to eating more locally sourced foods, Kansas City Food Circle co-coordinator Emily Akins recommends starting with one food item or one E R MO recipe. “It’s definitely a process, so we recommend that people take it T A INE one step at a time,” Akins ONL .COM PITCH says. So skip the Mickey D’s yogurt parfait this morning and head to KCFC’s Eat Local (and Organic) Expo at the Shawnee Civic Center (13817 Johnson Drive, Shawnee), where you can buy from more than 35 vendors, learn new seasonal recipes and meet with several community-supported agriculture reps from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. (Next Saturday’s expo goes down at the MCC-Penn Valley gym, at 3201 Southwest Trafficway, from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.) Admission is free. For more information, see kcfoodcircle.org.

EVENTS

Broadway

I-3 5

All events take place in the Michael and Ginger Frost Studio Theater at the Todd Bolender Center for Dance & Creativity

Union Station

Pershing

Bolender Center

500 W. Pershing Road Kansas City, MO Dancers: Molly Wagner and Travis Guerin. Photography: Kenny Johnson.

ONLINE RESERVATION REQUIRED RSVP AT WWW.KCBALLET.ORG

ARTI STI C DIRECTOR W ILLIA M WHI T E N E R

THE PITCH

M A R C H 2 8 -A P R I L 3, 20 1 3

pitch.com

hunt gets under way at 3. The party winds up at the Kickstand (10817 Truman Road, Independence). For details, see “events” at deadgirlderby.com.

THE NIGHT-CLUB INCIDENT

Former engineering grad student Jason Carrigan says his company, Sorry for Partying, is a lifestyle brand. “We create expression apparel for our awesome fans, who do ridiculous things in the name of partying,” he tells us. “We stick to the classy side of partying, our tagline being ‘An elegant way to apologize for everything so right, yet so wrong,’ ” meaning that thes4p.com steers clear of photos depicting the usual drunk, barely clothed women. Most everything else is fair game, though: hookup drinking games, passed-out sunburn fails, a roundup of drunken-karaoke staples. Get in on the good times when Sorry for Partying puts on the Let’s Get Sauced Bar Crawl in Westport, beginning at Kelly’s (500 Westport Road) at 2 p.m. Stops include Harpo’s, Dark Horse, Firefly, Buzzard Beach and Harry’s Bar & Tables. Admission ($25 in advance, $30 on the day) includes wearable swag. Sign up at sorryforpartying.at/westportkc.

A-BILLY DELUXE

Jody Hendrix, frontman of Them Damned Young Livers and founding president of Little Class Records, is also the man behind KEGS, NOT EGGS Mokan Twang, the entity promoting the Easter eggs are easy to miss in the spring Rockabilly (Everybilly) Prom. “Mokan greenery; 161-pound beer kegs are not. Twang is a little promotional Go for broke in the name of the brand that I started, to encomResurrection when the skating pass all of the diverse hillbilly women of the Dead Girl Derby music in the area,” he says. roll out their Easter Keg Hunt. “I’ve always thought that KC Teams of four begin at Loose Rockabilly was too pigeonPark (5200 Pennsylvania) near holed, mostly because there’s the playground, and then pick not even any real rockabilly up clues at different locations in KC. I thought KC needed a around the city. The goal: Find brand identity that references the magical keg. “There is only the culture and sound without one keg, and yes, when a team making people think they were finds the keg, they get to drink getting something rockabilly.” out of it all night,” says Leah Pick up what Hendrix is putDixon, DGD’s marketing rep. ting down when 12 of KC’s best Team registration ($50 for a team ’billy bands team up at the Riot of four) starts at 2 p.m., and the Hidden treasure

Room (4048 Broadway, 816-442-8179), beginning at 7 p.m., for a night of gritty tunes, PBR tallboys and perfectly coifed women. Grab tickets ($10 for singles, $15 for couples) at theriotroom.com, and look up Mokan Twang and Little Class Records on Facebook.

GREEN GOODS

In the fall of 2011, friends Alexis Webb Bechtold and Andrea Cronin sat at a busy KC craft show, eager to talk to potential customers. Many folks passed them by. “We realized that this just wasn’t our crowd,” Webb Bechtold says. So they put their heads together on ideas for a new show and came up with Zeleny Arts and Crafts Fair, an ecofriendly, indie-style expo that also serves as a fundraiser for their favorite like-minded nonprofits. In 2012, Zeleny (it’s Czech for the word green) was born. Check out goods from more than 40 vendors — we like the jewelry from Nuggets of Goodness and Domestic Vixen — at the Heartland Center (16965 Northwest 45 Highway, Parkville) from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. For details, see zelenyfair.com.

S U N D AY | 3 . 31 | KEEP LAWRENCE WEIRD

The shopping continues on the other side of the state line when regular patrons of the Replay Lounge (946 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-7676) take over the bar’s beer garden for an all-ages craft fair called Poisson d’Avril Boutiques des Folles. “There will be music and crafts of the odd,” organizer Heidi Yoder tells us. Examples include booty shorts, sardine-can art and tiny terrariums — DIY, baby. Pay the $2 admission, then hang out and purchase from 3 to 6 p.m. Look for the event’s full name on Facebook.

EASTER EGGS HUNT

There are two things about Easter Sunday that you can absolutely count on: the 1948 musical Easter Parade on Turner Classic Movies, and a cornucopia of brunch choices. Webster House (1644 Wyandotte, 816-221-4713), for instance, serves an off-menu brunch from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., featuring a vegetable quiche and a steak Benedict. The M&S Grill (4646 J.C. Nichols Parkway, 816-531-7799) has slotted a buffet from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. with all the breakfast staples, as well as stuffed salmon and parmesan tilapia. It costs $26 for adults and $10 for children. And the buffet at Papa Lew’s Soul Delicious (2128 East 12th Street, 816-421-3378) has never let us down before. It runs from noon to 6 p.m. and costs $12.33 for adults (children’s prices are based on age) for ham, fried chicken, baked chicken with dressing, and the traditional side dishes. Put on your bonnet and fill up a plate. — CHARLES FERRUZZA

M O N D AY | 4 . 1 | POWER PUFF

Training for one of the women’s football leagues in the metro begins today when the Kansas City Storm starts its Introduction to Football for Women program — part CrossFit, part boot camp and part football camp. “There is no minimum level of expertise or fitness needed to participate,” says Nance Wernes, the team’s president. “Everyone

will be offered a variety of drills and can take part in all they are comfortable.” The Storm wants to pick up 20 new players, so be ready at 6:30 p.m. at Rosedale Park (West 41st Street and Mission, Kansas City, Kansas). Health insurance is not required, but $99 is. Athletes who stick with eight sessions can play in an intrasquad game April 27 at Kemper Arena, before the season opener versus the KC Renegades. For more information, see kcstormfootball.com.

T U E S D AY | 4 . 2 |

25 YEARS FIGHTING AIDS IN KC

DRAFTS, DAMES AND A DOG

Y’all men think you have us figured out, but you really don’t. For one thing, many women prefer to keep it simple. And on Tuesday nights, fuss-free females like to hang out at the 403 Club in Strawberry Hill (403 North Fifth Street, Kansas City, Kansas, 913-499-8392), where the ladies’ night specials are $1 PBRs and $2 wells from 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. We’re satisfied trying to look cool playing pinball and darts, listening to our mid-1990s high school favorites on the jukebox. Barkeep Jessie Matthews serves us with a smile, an encouraging word and a fresh bar towel when we get a little teary after too many cheap bottles. She even brings her Spanish water dog, Chuy, for pets and kisses. It’s really kind of perfect. Get directions for picking us up at 403club.com.

W E D N E S D AY | 4 . 3 | GET ON THE BUS, GUS

Val “Somebunny” Baul’s calling in life, she tells us, is to connect the community and make sure people get to where they need to go safely. Luckily for us, her latest chauffeur gig is director of operations for the KC and Lawrence branch of Bus to Show, a Boulder, Colorado, nonprofit that’s dedicated to cutting the numbers on intoxicated-driving violations and organizing bus transport between concerts and other events. “Live music is a lifestyle to me, and this organization is all about connecting the community,” Somebunny says. Tonight’s round-trip goes from KC (or Independence) to Lawrence’s Liberty Hall for AWOLNation’s 8:30 performance (stops and pickup points are based on rider demand). To participate, reserve your ride at bustoshow.org and click on the KC/ Lawrence tab under Bus Party Calendar. Single rides cost $20 or $25, depending on location. One month of bus rides starts at $75. “We are excited to do our work because we are serving our community by providing a safe and sober ride to places they want to go anyway,” Somebunny says.

And there’s still no cure.

Help us fight AIDS in Kansas City! Create a fundraising page

www.firstgiving.com/aidswalkkc/aidswalk2013

Start a team with friends. Invite people to donate. Join us on April 27th. Theis Park in Kansas City on Saturday, April 27, 2013 Learn more at

AIDSWalkKansasCity.org

Thank You to our generous donors, sponsors, walkers and volunteers for helping provide food, housing, guidance and medical services to thousands living with HIV/AIDS in Kansas City for the past 25 years. You’re educating those at risk to prevent new infections. We can create an AIDS-free world together. UNDERWRITING SPONSORS

E-mail submissions two weeks in advance to calendar@pitch.com. Search our complete listings guide online at pitch.com.

pitch.com

M A R C H 2 8 -A P R I L 3, 20 1 3

Steve Metzler Brian Williams

THE PITCH

JUST ADDED!

FASHION SHOW BY:

LITTLE SHELL DESIGNS, WM COUTURE & EMMA LAMMERS

live art

Eduardo Bernal, Kent Davis, Vince Latona, Baker Medlock, Scott Allen, Dan Shanks, Chris Sembower, Tallgrass Artist James Taylor & Sterling Witt. Just added Eeks, Ryan Drake, Deuce Sharbonda & Hue!

live performances

Burlesque Downtown Underground, Kacico Dance & KCFAA dance artist Juanita Carter will perform Dunham Lives, choreography by Tyrone Aiken.

T I CK ET S

John Velghe & the Prodigal Sons, DJ Brad Ireland, Joc Max & Opening set by Vi Tran.

Ticket prices at door: $30/$40VIP

live music

sponsored by:

AVAILABLE NOW

at secure.pitch.com $20 $30 V I P ONLY 100 VIP Tickets available, VIP gets in a half an hour early and receives a goodie bag from sponsors. Call 816.561.6061 for info

Purchase a Passport to all Pitch events in 2013 for only $45.

THE PITCH

M A R C H 2 8 -A P R I L 3, 20 1 3

pitch.com

ART

H A LO T H E RE

Gospel.” There’s free will, after all, and the audience that day shared a fairly lengthy discussion about the concept of being enlightened, projecting light, choosing paths in life. This was also Mortimer’s work revealing its broad relevance. Sign disperses nine constructions, each of substantial size, around the cavernous gallery space in a way that allows each to be viewed and considered individually. The halos fi nd a natural background here, suspended over the concrete floor against cinder-block walls, with industrial lights towering above. The white walls provide plain backgrounds for Mortimer’s signs, erasing any visual static that would come if they were attached to some building’s exterior. Inside the gallery, without the clutter of unwanted context, the ideas on display can be contemplated purely. After 15 years of earlier work that incorporated words and phrases, Mortimer here goes with the concept of selling an idea (or sharing one’s deeper convictions and beliefs). To execute these ideas, which he has selected

messages with his Sign.

T R A C Y A BE L N

no idea what’s to come or even necessarily an understanding of what was before.” The arrow forms suggest this feeling. “All these different directions are happening, but it’s being held together,” he explained. “There’s a sense of direction in the seeming directionlessness of it.” This, he added, represents how he feels about life and all its craziness. There are two signs made of these interweaving arrows, painted to look almost like burnished gold. Welded aluminum frames are inset with round, incandescent white light bulbs, running the length of the gilt arms. The effect evokes nostalgia — for the old Las Vegas strip, mid-20th-century Times Square, carnival rides. “Pneuma” is a stack of six swooping arrows, each pointing in a slightly different direction. The word is Greek for breath, but through years of religious interpretations has come to mean soul or spirit. Its companion work, “Ruach,” is named for the Hebrew word for the same thing, and its eight arrows jut out in straight, stiff projections. From left: “Motion-Sensor Halo (Blue)” The subtle curve of some light bulbs at the and “Pneuma” center keeps the piece from perfection, alfrom sketches in Adobe Illustrator, he has lowing the suggestion of organic variation, of uncertainty. engaged a host of assistants for the fabricaOne of the largest works is an aluminumtion. (The credits section of his statement includes about 50 people who helped launch frame sign representing a cartoonish spatter of blood, blinking with a this show in some way.) The Lichtenstein-dot fi ll of red slight variations in craftsDylan Mortimer: bulbs in a hue of the most manship reflect different It’s a Sign! oxygen-rich blood. Morskill levels as well as some Through April 19 timer knows that blood has experimentation and learnat the Studios Inc. as many possible connotaing, and the pieces hold up 1708 Campbell tions as light, but he has well as a whole. 816-994-7134 been clear that his aim here thestudiosinc.org They are, in part, funcis not to glorify violence or tioning as sketches for ill health but to express the public art that Mortimer sheer reality of those things. would like to see take shape in the future. A companion piece is easy to read as an His process this time started with arrows, a exclamation point of dripping life (echoing reference to a phrase from Chapter 3 of the Gospel of John — in which the wind is said to the show title’s punctuation), a reminder that blow where it chooses and has a sound but is there can be meaning in spilled blood. What the body spends need not be lost in vain. something we can neither source nor predict. “In a sense,” he said March 9, “you’re being guided to some degree, though you have E-mail feedback@pitch.com

EG SCHEMPF

ntil you read their titles, you might mistake the claw-shaped chandeliers, studded with old-fashioned Christmas lights, for alien helmets or some device ready to take over your mind. But go ahead, step under them. Dylan Mortimer’s “Motion-Sensor Halo (with Rays)” lights up, producing a twinkly aura that surrounds you with light. Anyone looking at you can see you glow, as if from within. It’s a Sign! is Dylan Mortimer’s fi rst solo exhibition as a resident of the Studios Inc., and he makes it a crisp and blocky expression of bold design. The show’s title shouts out at least two meanings. One is a plain announcement that these objects are merely signs, sharing a bloodline with every other ubiquitous indicator of shops, services and situations. And, considering Mortimer’s open-faced Christian faith, there’s also the suggestion that a higher power stands ready to convey a message through some symbolic presentation. (His artist’s statement leans this way, saying this body of work shows “signs” of his “journeys and struggles with faith, health and life.”) A young pastor who is also an artist, Mortimer is too articulate and unassuming to force a belief system on the viewer. He told people at a March 9 talk that this is simply “a show where [he could] chill out a little bit.” He’s a seeker who knows that there are no solid answers, and Sign is open to interpretation. Mortimer has studied the history of art depicting holy persons with halos — ancient, Asian, Christian, Western. “ ‘You are the light of the world’ is a potentially confusing statement,” he told his March 9 group. “My perception of that whole chapter starts with ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit.’ But what about being poor in spirit is blessed? I take it as Jesus is coming to you. So even if you are poor in spirit, you are the light, you have worth enough to deserve glorification in that sense to the creator.” Mortimer said that turning that idea over and over reveals “the messiness of the

PHIL PETERSON

Dylan Mortimer holds up

pitch.com M A R CM H O2N8T- A I L 3X, , 22001 0 3X T T HH E EP P IT C CH H 151 pitch.com H PXRX–X IT

FIND MOVIE TIMES P ON

p “

THE MOST TALKED-ABOUT MOVIE OF THE YEAR IS

THE MOST UNFORGETTABLE MOVIE OF THE YEAR!” -Richard Roeper,

SELENA VANESSA ASHLEY LEYY RACHEL LE CHEL CH EL JAMES GOMEZ GOME GOM EZ HUDG HUDGENS ENS BBENSON ENSOON KORI ENS KORINE NE FR FRANCO FRAN ANCO AN CO

A FILM FILLM BY HARMONY FI HARMO RMONNY KORINE KORI RINE NE Album featuring new score by Skrillex and Cliff Martinez available on Big Beat Records/Atlantic Records

NOW PLAYING AT THEATERS EVERYWHERE! CHECK DIRECTORIES FOR SHOWTIMES • NO PASSES ACCEPTED

408 Armour Rd. NKC, MO. 64116 816.421.9700 www.Screenland.com/Armour

THE WHITEST KIDS U’ KNOW LIVE APRIL 2ND

1656 WASHINGTON KANSAS CITY, MO 64108

816-421-9700

SCREENLAND.COM/CROSSROADS

4 COLOR KANSAS CITY PITCH WEEKLY THUR: 3/28 2 COL. (4.77") X 3.5" ALL.SPB.0328.KCP

VV/ES

3/28: CHASING BEAUTY - FREE SCREENING WITH DIRECTOR Q&A 3/29: ANACONDA ROAST/THE ROOM DOUBLE FEATURE - $10 3/30: VIDE-OKE KARAOKE W/ BRODIOKE - ON THE BIG SCREEN $5

MARTIN SCORSESE RETROSPECTIVE: THE DEPARTED APRIL 1ST GOODFELLAS APRIL 14TH AND 15TH CARRIE: PROM THEME APRIL 4TH GIRLS NIGHT OUT: DIRTY DANCING APRIL 18TH

Trivia: EVERY WEDNESDAY AT 7PM 16

THE PITCH

M A R C H 2 8 -A P R I L 3, 20 1 3

pitch.com

$5 RETRO ARCADE ASK US ABOUT OUR PRIVATE PARTY PACKAGES!

FILM

INTO THE MILD

On the Road is uphill all the way.

S C O T T W IL S ON

INVITE YOU TO EXPERIENCE THE JOURNEY WITH ON THE ROAD

ella Swan, Lois Lane and Peggy Olson are doing housework together, catching up. (Mary Jane Watson couldn’t make it, but we’ll meet her again soon.) One scrubs the kitchen floor. Another washes dishes. All three compare notes on blow-job technique and necessity. Good fellatio, they agree, is the best prescription to ward off the domestic evil that men do. The men in this case are the drink-fueled, philosophy-hungry literary agonists of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, bedrock novel of the Beat Generation and instruction manual for shitty companions in any era. Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty have left no gutter unpissed in and no woman unabandoned during their travels so far. Now they’ve come to Old Bull Lee’s rural hideout for a little spiritual recharge, some semi-hallucinatory guy talk about Celine, Proust, fucking. Sal, of course, is Kerouac, and Dean is Neal Cassady. (Old Bull is William S. Burroughs, forever the shaman.) They talk big, trek hard and, most of all, mail furiously, with Cassady’s letters to Kerouac (and to Allen Ginsberg, whose poetry knights Cassady a cocksman), the glowing, unstable core of the Beat movement. (Cassady wrote to Ginsberg about his prose, about its failures of clarity, as though he knew none of it would be published in his short lifetime.) They’re sharing a postwar cultural moment, a communion eroticized by the conviction that they’re going to alter it, take it for themselves. It’s this moment, this blurring of the fictional On the Road with its own ghosts, that Walter Salles means to capture with his movie version (written by José Rivera). But the real historic summit onscreen is among the women: Kristen Stewart (heroine of the Twilight film franchise), Amy Adams (about to spend the summer with Superman in Man of Steel) and Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men returns April 7!), with dashes of Spider-Man survivor Kirsten Dunst. It has been almost 60 years since On the Road was published

(and longer than that since Kerouac typed it), and Salles has fatally miscast the nowunfamiliar faces at its center. English actor Sam Riley self-consciously plays Sal playing Kerouac, and he gets no charge from his supposed muse; as fast-talking Dean, dully handsome Garrett Hedlund drawls his lines like he’s reading for a Coors commercial. So the actresses are the most iconic faces (and expert performers) in this On the Road — a fact that brings into uncomfortable relief just how dated and misogynistic the source material is. (Salles’ movie also suffers from its proximity to last year’s The Master; that movie might owe a glancing debt to Kerouac, but it’s still a far better stew of domestic expatriation, wanderlust and male bonding than this one.) In Sal’s telling, Dean’s cocksmanship is an incidental symptom of a writer’s desperation, his fever to compose lasting sentences. (Among the ripple effects of Kerouac’s novel: untold armies of so-so writers aching to be cocksmen.) It’s hardly Dean’s fault that the women who succumb to his charisma often end up a hard combination of pregnant, cheated on and divorced. Stewart, Adams and Moss convey some sympathy for that predicament, for their characters’ in-the-way-ness, and they make light comedy of their scene. They know that when your William S. Burroughs is Aragorn

Riley, Stewart and Hedlund (from left) roll on. — Viggo Mortensen wanders down from the mountain for his few minutes as Old Bull — there’s not much doubt about dude supremacy. But it’s precisely here that Salles’ solemn, slogging adaptation flies out of the gutter, over the road and right into the ditch. Casting as Kerouac’s mistreated women a group of actors far more appealing than the leading men is either a mistake or a dodge, but it halts the movie’s shaky momentum with a lot of miles left to go. The movie is 125 minutes, but it feels like a bus ride from San Francisco to Denver — minus the Benzedrine. Whatever light Coke Zero buzz On the Road delivers comes from cinematographer Eric Gautier’s Ektachrome skies and beautifully bleak expanses of open country (set too infrequently to the wordy bop of old Slim Gaillard songs). But there’s a little too much romance in Salles’ compositions, a feeling that he’s again revisiting his 2004 earnest-bros travelogue, The Motorcycle Diaries. In his frames, the neonhued skid rows and the postcard-ready cottonpicking camps and the bug-trap apartments exert equal sighing fascination. Too much is period for period’s sake, motionless art direction impeding what should be a greedy quest for spontaneous, ecstatic movement. ■

FOR YOUR CHANCE TO ENTER-TO-WIN A PRIZE PACK TEXT THE WORD “DRIVE” AND YOUR ZIP CODE TO 43549 Rated R for strong sexual content, drug use and language. No purchase necessary. 25 winners will be chosen and notified by email.

OPENDING FRIDAY, MARCH 29 AT THE FINE ARTS THEATRE AND THE TIVOLI OnTheRoad-TheMovie.com

INVITES YOU TO A SPECIAL PITCH ADVANCETHE SCREENING! THURSDAY 03/28 4 COLOR 2.305” X 5.291” HR ALL.OTR-P.0328.PITCH

OUT THIS WEEK THE GATEKEEPERS

obody has lukewarm opinions about Israeli defense policies. Which means there’s plenty of potential audience for Dror Moreh’s Oscar-nominated The Gatekeepers, which assembles all surviving heads of the Shin Bet (Israeli Secret Service) and gets down and dirty about social and territorial policy. The result is historic and unprecedented, a film both matter-of-fact and willing to ask incredibly difficult questions of men who, for better or worse, took part in shaping the way Israel deals with itself and with others. (It’s hindered at first by a weird stylistic dependency on exploring the space in and around photographs through CG reconstructions. The effect feels distractingly like Panic Room–era

The not-so-secretive service David Fincher.) These people are fascinating for having helped change the operations of a nation, a process (including the metabolism

of its aftermath) that changed them as human beings and as representatives of a system inspiring fierce global debates. At times, the avalanche of socially conscious documentaries can overwhelm the casual viewer. There seem to be so many, and the ones not distinguished by substance, technique or cinematic flair start to run together. The Gatekeepers isn’t part of that blur. It’s essential viewing for anyone with a strong point of view about the divide between Israelis and Palestinians. Beyond that, it serves as a fascinating example of how process and bureaucracy can preserve humanity — or annihilate it.

— JASON SHAWHAN

TUESDAY, APRIL 2 – 7:00 PM Log on to WWW.PITCH.COM beginning Thursday, March 28 for your chance to win a complimentary pass for two. JURASSIC PARK IN 3D HAS BEEN RATED PG-13 FOR INTENSE SCIENCE FICTION TERROR. NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. 50 passes will be distributed via a random drawing on Monday, April 1. All entries must be received by midnight on Sunday, March 31. Please arrive early! Theater is overbooked to ensure a full house. Seats are not guaranteed, are limited to theater capacity and are first-come, first-served. Everyone entering the theater must have a pass.

APRIL 5

IN THEATERS FOR A LIMITED TIME

E-mail feedback@pitch.com

JURASSICPARK.COM pitch.com M A R CMHO2N8T-H A PXRX–X I L 3X, , 2200103X TTHHE E PPI ITTCCHH 171 pitch.com

THE PITCH

Come Celebrate SongKran!

The Traditional Thai New Year - April 4-6th

WINNER

1713 VILLAGE W. PARKWAY KANSAS CITY, KANSAS 913.299.8787 chiusanospizza.com

BEST OF

2009 KC

Enjoy our special dinner menu and Thai Traditions. dinner hours only

Thai Orchid r e s t a u r a n t

Lunch: Mon - Sat 11am to 2:30 pm Dinner: Mon-Thu 5 pm to 9 pm Fri & Sat 5 pm to 10 pm Closed Sundays 6504 Martway St. Mission West Shopping Center www.thaiorchid.us • 913.384.2800 Award Winning Authentic Thai Cuisine - Serving Kansas City Since 1991

HAPPY HOUR 2 for 1 ALL drinks

beers & wine at the bar

Mon-Fri : 4-6 Locally owned & operated!

Photograph: Angela Bond

MON: Industry Night - show your

industry card for 20% off EVERYTHING

TUES: Neighborhood Night w/Tim Whitmer

1/2 price Martinis & Wine by the glass

WED: 1/2 price Bottles of Wine THURS: 1/2 price Martinis & Wine by the glass SUGAR RUSH 2013’S

KC SWEETHEART

WINNER!

• 4890 Main St. KCMO • 816-753-0810

Or book online at: accursos.com Accurso’s Caters! ﬁnd us !

THE PITCH

M A R C H 2 8 -A P R I L 3, 20 1 3

pitch.com

3611 Broadway • KCMO 4 - 1:30 Mon-Sat

a community bar celebrating the performing arts

ollow us on acebook 2nd Thru Last Thur sdays

MBird’s Artist Showcase

Megan Birdsall hosts an evening of original music. 7:30pm. $3.

MORE THAN 50 ar ts events ever y month!

Check our website for details and other upcoming events www.uptownartsbar.com

CAFÉ

ARTIST IN RESIDENCE

At the Kemper’s Café Sebastienne, Jennifer Maloney’s art stays contemporary.

CHARLES FERRUZZA

Café Sebastienne • Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, 4420 Warwick, 816-561-7740 • 11 a.m.–2:30 p.m. Tuesday–Sunday, 5:30–9:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, closed Monday • Price: $$–$$$

ainter John James Audubon, who frequently described his meals in his journals, was once so poor that he ate only apples and bread. (For protein there was, according to one source, the occasional “cold raccoon for breakfast.”) The sculptor Louise Nevelson reportedly found sustenance in her struggling years by eating onions and drinking whiskey, when she was financially unable to prepare favorite dishes such as red cabbage and lamb. The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art has a Nevelson sculpture in its permanent collection, and Jennifer Maloney, head chef at the museum’s restaurant, has been known to cook with onions, red cabbage, lamb and apples. But don’t expect raccoon at Café Sebastienne. The chef has been at Sebastienne since 1995, the year after the midtown museum opened. The Maloney acquisition elevated the restaurant into something more than a stylish snack bar. In the beginning, the café’s lunch basics, the salads and the sandwiches, were from Venue restaurant just off the Country Club Plaza. When MORE Venue vanished, the museum signed a contract with Treat America, and T A E IN ONL .COM that local food-servicePITCH management company hired Maloney to cook at Sebastienne. When the Treat America contract ended, the museum kept Maloney and said goodbye to outsourcing. Maloney remains a good fit for this restaurant, where she began dinner service, on Friday and Saturday nights, in 2000. Maloney is married to a visual artist (painter Richard Van Cleave), and she takes her role as a culinary creative force very seriously. The artfully composed entrées at Café Sebastienne are often as eye-popping and attractive as some of the works hanging in the galleries. Has the restaurant really changed that much since the last time The Pitch reviewed it, nine years ago? (“Night Gallery,” November 18, 2004). It has. Maloney and her staff, including sous chef Janet Ross, have grown only more confident, and the dinner menu’s very simplicity reflects that assurance. It has never been an elaborate affair, and today there are rarely more than six entrée choices (with one vegetarian item or a dish that can be prepared without meat) and as many starter options. When it’s all this sturdy, you don’t need more. What you might require is a little more room. A recent Saturday-night starter of plump oysters, lightly breaded and flash-fried, practically swamped my plate, which wasn’t small. To make room for another starter, an excellent platter of roasted-red-pepper hummus, my party was forced to set those bulky bivalves on the next table over. I might have been tempted to do that even if someone had been sitting there, but the narrow, L-shaped room wasn’t very busy that

CAFÉ

ANGELA C. BOND

know the menu and the small, dynamic wine night. Some diners find this cozy room — lined list inside out, adjust as well, never letting you from floor to ceiling with 110 oil paintings by the late Frederick James Brown — a bit claustro- feel rushed. That makes it easier to ask for bread, which phobic. I don’t. In fact, I prefer its intimacy to I wish I didn’t have to do here. It seems like the adjoining atrium space (enclosed by a glass such an obvious necessity, given how many of roof in 2000), with its hard, sleek floors and kentia palm trees. (It’s the Kemper’s answer to Maloney’s creations turn on sauces or broths that demand greedy absorption. Foremost the Nelson’s Rozzelle Court: visually arresting among those, for me, might be the buttery, but hampered by punishing acoustics.) vermouth-scented liquid at the bottom of a The smaller dining area was originally designed for lunching almost as an afterthought bowl heaped with steamed mussels. But I’d (the first tiny kitchen got a drastic remodel smuggle in a loaf of Wonder Bread for sopping before I’d give up a drop of after Sebastienne proved to Maloney’s lyrical Srirachabe far more popular than the Café Sebastienne and-lobster sauce (drizzled Kemper’s staff anticipated), Crispy fried oysters............$14 over a flaky hunk of striped and the room still has a clubSteamed mussels ...............$13 bass that Audubon might house quality. It’s also now a Pan-roasted chicken.........$22 have written 10 pages about tribute to Brown, who died Grilled wild striped bass...$25 in his journal). And there’s last May at age 67, and it deCafé Benny...........................$18 Chocolate budino................. $7 also the flannel-thick potato serves to be among his artispuree with the pan-roasted tic legacies. The museum’s chicken. Maloney recently co-founder, banker R. Crosby changed her standard chicken dish to that Kemper Jr., not only commissioned Brown to comforting, home-style recipe. It’s delectably assemble the installation — called The History of Art and painted in the styles of 110 artists moist under a slightly crispy golden skin. This same chicken is now on the Sunday (Fernando Botero, Mary Cassatt, points bebrunch menu, too, where (like those fried oystween) — but also named the café for Brown’s daughter, Sebastienne, whose portrait hangs ters) it’s slightly less costly. (Maloney likes to use up her fresh weekend ingredients before in the dining room. the restaurant’s weekly downtime, Monday.) The room changes at night, when Maloney That Sunday meal includes smart renditions and company shift gears from lunchtime bustle of what you’d expect: generous French toast, to a sexy languor. The servers, veterans who

Art on the walls and on the plate a substantial croque madame sandwich, an omelet du jour. I prefer Maloney’s spin on eggs Benedict, in which a bright hollandaise complements a pair of delicate crab cakes. That’s not a variation common to these parts, and she pulls it off deliciously. During brunch hours, the atrium is dense with talk, conversations bouncing off the room’s many hard surfaces and tidbits landing where the speakers probably prefer they didn’t. I once overheard an entire dialogue from a table far across the room, and even I wish I hadn’t. Still, on a sunny day, the light and the food are soothing enough to counter any cacophony. At this brunch, you’ll want dessert, especially if it’s Maloney’s signature chocolate budino — the bastard child of chocolate pudding and ganache. It’s not to be missed at any meal, even if you’ve already downed a plate of warm, crumbly apple crisp (which comes topped with two scoops of candied-ginger ice cream). Both are musts, and both are — like almost every other dish from Maloney’s kitchen — museum quality. Her art continues to appreciate.

Have a suggestion for a restaurant The Pitch should review? E-mail charles.ferruzza@pitch.com

pitch.com M A R CMHO2N8T-H A PXRX–X I L 3X, , 2200103X TTHHEE PPI ITTCCHH 19 pitch.com 1

FAT C I T Y

DRAIN IT

JON AT H A N BENDER

Find your one shining moment at a new-to-you sports bar.

10540 South Ridgeview Rd. Olathe, KS 66061 • 913.897.1188

Last chance to see...

Whistle Stop Homicide 816-235-6222 www.kcmysterytrain.com

Beneﬁting

S A B R I N A S TA I R E S

Tickets now available at The Central Ticket Office:

The Mystery Train

rue sports fans understand two great truths about the NCAA men’s basketball tournament: It totally legitimizes day drinking, and you’re not doing it right if the beer isn’t accompanied by fried food or cheese. Fat City has bellied up to a couple of sports bars in search of the next place where you either forget about your bracket or blow your future pool earnings.

‘

The 9th Inning Sports Bar & Grill

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!

stival HomeGuard Fe r Ba rd co @ re

Upcoming Events

4.5 - First Friday in the Crossroads 4.5 - Benefit for AIDS Walk @ 2020 Baltimore 4.11 - KC Film Fest @ Alamo Drafthouse

Bier Station

See more on the “promotions” link at p HYP Draw s for a Cause @ Boulevard Brewing Co.

See more on the “promotions” link at p 20

THE PITCH

HomeGuard Festival @ recordBar

1512 East 18th Street The scene: This is the rare spot where halftime might be as entertaining as the game. There’s a small exhibit from the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum tucked in with the Pop-AShot, the pool table and the framed jerseys. Amid all the signed photos, you may spot a pennant you once had on the wall of your childhood bedroom. Frank White has his own lounge — a corner alcove with a pair of leather loveseats — and the Royals reign supreme, but the year-old sports bar otherwise doesn’t take sides. The professional crowd during the day loosens its collective collar later in the evening and gets down to the important business of eating and drinking. The deal: When things get busy, the kitchen takes a little while. But if you’ve been waiting, the staff notices — and that matters. We like the Umpire’s Wrap: grilled steak or chicken (dressed with ranch, honey mustard or buffalo sauce) wrapped in a flour tortilla with pepper jack, caramelized onions, roasted red peppers, lettuce and tomatoes ($9). This is a Miller, Coors, Bud kind of bar, but that means you’re just spending about $3 a beer instead of $5. Happy hour runs from 5 to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday and features $3 drafts, wells and cheese fries.

M A R C H 2 8 -A P R I L 3, 20 1 3

pitch.com

The Elders @ Uptown

120 East Gregory Boulevard The scene: Bier Station made a choice to limit its televisions to just two at each end of the handsome wood bar. As a result, basketball fans tend to perch on the black stools that line it. On a weekend afternoon, the conversation

There’s a space for you here. between a pair of drinkers dipped from the game on the monitor to the stars of Entourage, before moving inevitably to whether the latest beer in a tulip glass tasted like chardonnay. The deal: Let’s face it, you’re here for the beer. And Bier Station doesn’t disappoint. Less experimental drinkers will appreciate the 2-ounce pours (the bartenders are liberal with tasting glasses, too), while the bold are rewarded with the limited releases among the 21 taps. The craft-beer bar also has debuted an expanded Friday menu that includes bratwursts made by Affäre chef Martin Heuser and a collection of grilled cheese sandwiches. These join the place’s basic array of charcuterie, cheese plates and Farm to Market pretzels. Carnivores, dig into the Fujisan: a Japanese-inspired Thuringer pork brat with wasabi-mayo and a ponzu-spiked red-cabbage slaw on a pretzel bun. Vegetarians can dig into sharp cheddar and green apple sandwiched between Farm to Market sourdough slices.

Three More Shots

Mac’s Sports Pub (9617 West 87th Street, Overland Park). From television placement — there are really no blind spots in the joint — to pub food (cheese-filled and cheesecovered), this is a sports bar that understands its purpose. The Peanut (5000 Main). There’s something about a bar that’s packed with people yelling at a corner TV. It brings out a camaraderie not often seen outside the confines of a hot craps table. Also, the Peanut serves wings the size of Rhode Island. Mug Shots (1523 West 89th Street). This pocket bar inside Ward Parkway Lanes has three big things going for it: cheap pitchers, a willingness to fry anything you want to eat, and steps-away access to the ultimate bar game (bowling). E-mail jonathan.bender@pitch.com

15th Annual Exhibition of Farmers

LOCALLY GROWN, DELICIOUSLY PREPARED!

SERVING BREAKFAST & LUNCH: 7 DAYS A WEEK

Eat Local! & Organic Sat • March 30

9 - 2 • Shawnee Civic Center

gluten-free, vegetarian, and dairy-free options Specialty Baked Goods

WWW.FIGTREECAFELS.COM VOTED BEST DESSERTS 817 NE Rice Road, Lee Summit | 816.347.0442

Are you a

FOODIE? Sign up for DINING NEWSLETTER

Sat • April 6

9:30 - 2:30 • Penn Valley Gym NOW OPEN FOR DINNER until 9pm Tues-Sat Special! 2 dinners for $10.99 Includes choice of meats, beans & rice 1667 SUMMIT KCMO

Breakfast:

Mon-Fri 7-11am Sat 7-12pm Sun 8-1:30pm

816-471-0450

Lunch:

Mon-Sat 11-3pm Sun 11-1:30pm

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Does it matter?

409 W. Gregory KCMO 816.444.1933 www.theclassiccookie.com

FAMILY OWNED & OPERATED FOR 80 YEARS

Free Admission Free Parking Free Workshops

KCFoodCircle.org

BREAKFAST LUNCH DINNER & FULL BAR

39th St. & SW Trafficway Kansas City, MO 816-531-SOSA (7672) /Sosas39thStreetDiner

Classically Local...

Ingredient Driven Menu Supporting Local Farmers Award Winning Wine List Intimate and Comfortable

201 West 47th Street Kansas City, MO 64112 (816) 753-3565 • www.starkersrestaurant.com

Coffee

THAN JUST

DELICIOUS

SPECIALIZING IN

BREAKFAST & LUNCH

Pork Tender Sandwiches, Burgers, House Cut Fries

SANDWICHES

EAT ON THE CHEAP AT THE BEST

GREASY SPOON ON THE BOULEVARD.

816-842-6601 OPEN MON-SAT•11AM - 6PM 900 SOUTHWEST BLVD KCMO

PIZZA. IT’S WHAT’S

FOR DINNER.

1209 W. 47th Street Kansas City, MO 64112 816.401.4483 facebook.com/JohnnyJosPizza

couscous•tagines•kabobs

SOUPS & SALADS 1821 WYANDOTTE (CROSSROADS)

920 MAIN

(DOWNTOWN)

KC’s FAVORITE PIZZA • joespizza.com IN THE HEART OF WESTPORT 816.931.2777 JOESPIZZAKC JOESBUYTHESLICE

LARGE 16” 2 TOPPING PIZZA FOR $9.99 DINNER ONLY:

5PM-9:30PM MON-SAT •CLOSED SUN

M-TH 4-10PM | F-SAT 11-11PM | SUN 12-9PM

Good with coupon until 10pm, 7 days a week. Offer exp 3/28/13 Please present coupon when ordering. Not valid with other offers. One coupon per party per visit.

4116 Broadway Street, KCMO 816.753.7520 marrakechcafekc.net pitch.com

M A R C H 2 8 -A P R I L 3, 20 1 3

THE PITCH

MUSIC

HEAVY VINYL

A sonic boom from

Salina: the LP

D AV ID HUDN A L L

had Kassem doesn’t like compact discs. He never has — not now, not back when manufacturers started churning them out in the 1980s. There are CDs in his office at Acoustic Sounds, the Salina-based music empire that he runs. But he listens to those only to decide whether his company will rerelease a betterquality vinyl version of the music contained on them. “CDs push you out,” Kassem says, standing inside a concrete-reinforced vault adjacent to his office. He tugs randomly at the sleeve of one of the thousands of vinyl records stored here. “Vinyl is more emotional. It feels better. It draws you in. You start playing a CD, and dogs leave the room. “The major labels tried to kill vinyl,” he continues. “At first you’d go to Sam Goody, and they’d have a little box of CDs, and the rest was records. Two years later, it was all CDs and E R O M a box of records. So I’ve been swimming against the current ever since I T A INE ONL .COM started Acoustic Sounds. H C PIT But I trusted my ears. Now the Johnny-come-latelies are coming back to vinyl. I knew vinyl wasn’t really going anywhere all along. “But here’s what I didn’t predict,” he says, and his eyes gleam. “What I didn’t predict was that CDs would die so hard.” Kassem has earned the right to gloat. CD sales are plummeting, and vinyl sales rose for the fifth year in a row in 2012, from 3.9 million units in 2011 to 4.6 million units, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Kassem is perhaps better positioned than any individual in America to benefit from these trends. Acoustic Sounds and its subsidiaries, all of which are located on a 70,000-squarefoot campus near the train tracks that run north of downtown Salina, are essentially a massive bet on the market for vinyl. The company retails and distributes new and used records — plus an assortment of audiophile paraphernalia, such as turntables, preamps and speakers — online at acousticsounds.com. It supplies wholesale vinyl to independent record shops. It records artists at Blue Heaven Studios. It plates and presses vinyl records at its plant, Quality Record Pressings. And it reissues rare and out-of-print albums from such labels as Blue Note, Impulse and Prestige. It has been only two years since Kassem decided to start pressing vinyl in Salina, but Quality Record Pressings already has an international reputation for high-end audio. “I’ve visited almost every vinyl pressing plant in the world,” says Michael Fremer, senior contributing editor at Stereophile magazine and editor of analogplanet.com. “And QRP is right at the top, along with a handful of others. There’s Palace, in Germany. There’s Optimal, which is also in Germany. There’s RTI, in California. And there’s Chad and QRP. And I’m not sure there’s anybody else get22

THE PITCH

MEGAN DEJMAL

M US I C

Waxing on at Quality Record Pressings.

ting the consistency he’s getting. And here’s another thing: RTI has been around 30 years. Palace has been making records since before World War II. QRP just came out of nowhere.”

n 1984, Kassem moved from Lafayette, Louisiana, to Salina to get sober. Why the middle of Kansas? “You don’t send a drunk to New Orleans or Miami to get sober,” he says. He got a job as a cook at Russell’s Truckstop Café and started collecting records as a hobby. Using mail-order catalogs, he traded, bought and sold rare and high-quality blues and jazz records. By 1986, he put a name on his operation: Acoustic Sounds. Kassem has an obsessive streak and an audiophile’s ear — advantageous characteristics for record collectors — and his business grew quickly. He moved from a two-bedroom apartment to a house with four bedrooms to accommodate the stacks of records piling up. By 1991, Acoustic Sounds was doing $100,000 a month in sales. “The neighbors started complaining about the 18-wheelers delivering pallets of records outside,” Kassem says. “So we finally had to move to a commercial space.” Soon after he relocated operations to downtown Salina, Kassem started a reissue label, which he called Analogue Productions. He contacted record labels and negotiated deals to license their artists’ original analog recordings, then had them remastered and pressed

M A R C H 2 8 -A P R I L 3, 20 1 3

pitch.com

on high-quality vinyl. Then he sold the new records through Acoustic Sounds’ mail-order catalog. (Analogue’s first reissue was a classical record, Virgil Thomson’s The Plow That Broke the Plains.) Kassem also founded Analogue Production Originals (APO), a label dedicated to releasing new music from aging blues legends. In 1997, he bought an old Victorian church in Salina, converted it into Blue Heaven Studios, and began recording APO artists there. In the years since, APO has released new material from semi-forgotten blues figures such as Honeyboy Edwards, Jimmie Lee Robinson and Jimmy Rogers (a member of Muddy Waters’ original band), plus Kansas City blues legends Myra Taylor and Little Hatch. He often records these artists while they’re in Salina for Blues Masters at the Crossroads, the blues festival that Acoustic Sounds throws. “He’s recorded a wide range of American blues music down there,” says Chuck Haddix, local blues historian and host of KCUR 89.3’s The Fish Fry. “He brings a lot of love to those projects, and he does it right. The recordings he does are high-fidelity, 180-gram vinyl, and he captures these guys at the top of their game. He doesn’t put out that much, but what he does is top-shelf, both artistically and technically. It’s kind of a throwback to an earlier era. I mean, he holds a blues concert series in a converted church. Things take on a greater meaning in that kind of environment.” pitch.com

All record collectors dream of a big score, and Kassem’s came about in 2004, when he bought a collection of 30,000 sealed records from a widow in Olathe. “It was a pretty wealthy family, and they were all busy with jobs and careers, and they just didn’t have the time to deal with sorting through all the husband’s records and figuring out what was worth what,” Kassem says. “I offered them a lump sum, drove down and picked up some guys from under a bridge near Southwest Trafficway, and we hauled every last record out of that place.” Acoustic Sounds moved into an old Dillon’s grocery store shortly thereafter. Then, in 2011, it moved again, when Kassem decided to start pressing records himself.

assem’s voice sometimes arches up into a yell. It is unclear how much control he has over it. “Stand over here,” he barks, from behind his desk. Kassem wears hoodies to work, but not in the hip manner of Silicon Valley CEOs. He pairs them with sweatpants in a way that suggests a man who does not think too hard about his physical appearance. His cluttered office gives a similar impression. Two human-sized speakers occupy the space across from Kassem’s desk, where you might expect visitors’ chairs to be. The rest is just promo boxes and stacks of records. continued on page 24

M O N T H X X–X X , 2 0 0 X

THE PITCH

pitch.com

M A R C H 2 8 -A P R I L 3, 20 1 3

THE PITCH

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 MARCH:

27: Hamilton Loomis 28: Bleu Edmondson 29: Jeff Bergen’s Elvis Show 29: 4 Fried Chickens & A Coke 30: Junebug’s 50th Birthday Bash w/ Killborn Alley, Tom Hall & Rick Gibson

APRIL:

3: The Crayons 5: Trampled Under Fish Trampled Under Foot & Samantha Fish 5: Amy Lavere A Living Room Session

SATURDAY, APRIL 6TH 8th Annual Prom with the Belairs, Nikki Hill, The 78’S

& Whitey Morgan

continued from page 22 He drops the needle on People, Hell and Angels, an album of unreleased Jimi Hendrix songs that QRP recently pressed. “You see how loud it is, but it’s not hurting your ears at all? We can talk while it’s on,” Kassem says. “With bad recordings, you have to turn it down to really hear. I want to be able to turn it up. Why have the volume knob if you can’t turn it up?” He plays Counting Crows’ debut album, August and Everything After, which QRP also recently pressed. “If the guys in this band ever heard this, they’d fire every fuckin’ engineer or producer they ever hired before,” he says.

APRIL 9TH

JJ GREY & MOFRO with The Slide Brother

For more info & tickets: knuckleheadskc.com 2715 Rochester, KCMO

816-483-1456

THE PITCH

here are only about 15 vinyl pressing plants in the United States and 30 worldwide. This relative scarcity would seem to suggest opportunity. But opening a pressing plant is not as simple as buying some machines and hiring some workers to operate them. It has been decades since new pressing equipment was built. After CDs were introduced, manufacturers assumed that the record presses and plating tools required to make vinyl records would become obsolete, and they stopped producing them. To start their pressing plant, Kassem and his team had to track down old presses and then recondition them. The 10 presses and assorted machinery now churning inside QRP were hauled to Salina from such locations as London, Sweden and South Korea. Finding someone with the knowledge and ability to oversee a pressing plant presented another challenge; plating and pressing records is a highly specialized skill. Kassem was able to convince Gary Salstrom to leave RTI in California, where he had earned a reputation as one of the most respected plating technicians in the world, move to Salina, and become QRP’s plant manager. (Salstrom’s wife grew up in Overland Park, which worked in Kassem’s favor.) “It was very shrewd of Chad to bring Gary in,” says Marc Mickelson, the founder and editor of the Audio Beat, an online audiophile publication. “He’s a really renowned guy in the audiophile world.” “There are only a few Garys in the world,”

M A R C H 2 8 -A P R I L 3, 20 2 13 T H pitch.com E PITCH

M O N T H X X–X X , 2 0 0 X

Kassem (left) and Salstrom keep things turning. Kassem says. “His expertise pushes us to a serious level. Because of Gary, we’re able to produce the absolute highest-quality records.” Salstrom says he simply shares Kassem’s philosophy about QRP serving discerning listeners. “We can’t compete with [pressing plants] Rainbo and United. They’re bigger, and they can offer lower prices,” he says. “But the quality is not as good as ours. And there’s a larger group of people out there moving toward quality, and those are the people that are seeking us out.” In the beginning, QRP cranked out only the albums that Acoustic Sounds wanted to press and sell. Quickly, though, QRP attracted customers: Smaller labels looking to press vinyl that had to wait in line behind the Sonys of the world to get their records done. Now bigger labels are calling, having heard the quality of other QRP releases. So what is QRP doing that’s so different than other plants? “If you overcook vinyl, you get dead spots,” Salstrom says. “We keep plate lacquers at lower temperatures — plates at higher temperatures can induce pre-echo and high-end loss.” “I hate to make the analogy to McDonald’s, because QRP is producing the equivalent of gourmet food, but there’s a uniformity to the process at QRP that is kind of McDonald’slike,” Fremer says. “For instance, they’ve installed sensors inside the actual tools so they can control and monitor the temperature. Nobody else has those. Other companies depend on the skill and intuition of the pressmen. They’ve also installed a valve system, where they know the precise temperature of the water coming in and going out. In other plants, that temperature will vary, and it will affect the quality of the sound on the finished product. There are a lot of small things like that that they’re doing to ensure quality. Basically they’re using modern computer technology to take an old technology and make it much better, and much more consistent. “At first, the records were just OK,” Fremer says. “They had to work out the kinks of their system. But now I get records from QRP, and they’re quiet, flat and beautiful. You put the stylus in the groove, and you don’t hear any pitch.com

noise. The depth of the quiet is really amazing. Chad made the investment from the beginning to surpass everybody else in terms of technology, and it’s paid off.”

coustic Sounds doesn’t disclose its finances, but it keeps hiring — 56 employees at last count — and new business keeps coming in. On a good day, 500 orders leave the Acoustic Sounds warehouse. Recently, QRP pressed the entire Doors catalog, a boxed set of six studio albums that retailed at Acoustic Sounds for $400. Soon, Kassem’s company will repress most of the Beach Boys’ discography. My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James released his first solo album earlier this year; Salstrom plated it, QRP pressed it, and you can buy it on Acoustic Sounds’ website as a 200-gram vinyl LP. Kassem seems pleased by the progress, but he’s still scheming. He has his eye on a new target: MP3s. “One of the main things we’re finding is that people who want quality really want quality,” he says. “So the next thing we’re getting into is high-resolution downloads. They’re as close to vinyl as you can get. “I don’t give a shit about the money, I really don’t,” Kassem says. “This whole thing started as a hobby, and it’s still my hobby. To reissue my favorite albums and have them sound better than they did before — that’s what I’m about.”

E-mail david.hudnall@pitch.com

#9 – The Pitch – 03-28-2013 daveysuptown.com OPEN TIL’ 3AM

3402 Main 753-1909 WI•FI

MONDAYS @ 7PM: OPEN MIC SINGER/SONGWRITER WED | 03.27 gomography • the vile impurity 8PM | $5 torn the f**k apart • byleth FRI | 03.29 revolution circus• the doppelganger 8PM | $6 circus sideshow • apox • ichi zero mercury man & multi-max

acid baby jesus • hellshouvel

GARBAGE

odd-o-matic • ill da morte

April 10, 2013

aDrenaline MoB April 2, 2013

DaViD allan Coe April 11, 2013

CHEAP TRICK

The BlaCK Crowes

May 25, 2013

May 31, 2013

UPCOMING SHOWS: 3/30

Revive

4/19

Stairway to Zeppelin

4/5

Killer Queen

4/20

Saturday Night Vibrations

4/12

Flirt Friday

4/24

RAWednesdays

1-800-745-3000

• VooDooKC.com

Know When To Stop Before You Start.® Gambling Problem? Call 1-888-BETSOFF. Subject to change or cancellation. Phone and online orders are subject to service fees. Must be 21 years or older to gamble, obtain a Total Rewards ® card or enter VooDoo ®. ©2013, Caesars License Company, LLC.

pitch.com V2_88525.9_4.776x10.75_4c_Ad.indd 1

M A R C H 2 8 -A P R I L 3, 20 1 3

THE PITCH

3/21/13 4:18 PM

MUSIC

RADAR

M U S I C F O R E CA S T

Other shows worth seeing this week.

D AV ID HUDN A L L

T H U R S D AY, M A R C H 2 8 Anuhea, Justin Young: 7 p.m. The Bottleneck, 737 New Hampshire, Lawrence, 785-841-5483. Bleu Edmondson: 8 p.m. Knuckleheads Saloon, 2715 Rochester, 816-483-1456. R5, Taylor Mathews & Alex Aiono: 7 p.m. The Granada, 1020 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-842-1390. Bobby Rush: 8 p.m. Knuckleheads Saloon, 2715 Rochester, 816-483-1456.

F R I D AY, M A R C H 2 9 Milo Greene, the Kopecky Family Band: 10 p.m. RecordBar, 1020 Westport Rd., 816-753-5207. The Pinstripes, the New Riddim, Arm the Poor: 8 p.m. The Riot Room, 4048 Broadway, 816-442-8179. Plains, Single Lash, Agent X-12: 10 p.m. Replay Lounge, 946 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-7676.

S AT U R D AY, M A R C H 3 0 Architects, Six Percent, the Uzis: 10 p.m. RecordBar, 1020 Westport Rd., 816-753-5207. Minnesota, Protohype & DCarls: 8:30 p.m. The Granada, 1020 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-842-1390. Musiq Soulchild, Dwele: 8 p.m. The Midland, 1228 Main, 816-283-9900. Rockabilly Prom with Rex Hobart and the HonkyTonk Standards, Los Lobos Locos, the Konza Swamp Band, St. Dallas and the Sinners, River City Rejects, Crybaby Ranch, Phantoms of the Opry, and more: 6 p.m. The Riot Room, 4048 Broadway, 816-442-8179.

Clockwise from left: Thao & the Get Down Stay Down, Pink Floyd, and Tommy and the High Pilots

Sonic Spectrum Tribute to Pink Floyd

Don’t hold your breath at this tribute show for the Pink Floyd songs you hear on KCFX 101.1 (the Fox). Given the lineup — psychedelic electronica act Monta At Odds performs, as does a group of thrown-together local players (Kent Burnham, Lori DeManche, Jeff Harshbarger, Mark Lowrey, Chris Meck and Cody Wyoming) calling itself the Anderson Council — I’m thinking deep cuts from Meddle and The Piper at the Gates of Dawn are probably more likely. Sunday, March 31, at RecordBar (1020 Westport Road, 816-753-5207)

Thao & the Get Down Stay Down

Thao Nguyen’s oddball exuberance puts her in league with female singer-songwriters such as Annie Clark (St. Vincent), Merrill Garbus (Tune-Yards) and Joanna Newsom. (Newsom actually guests on Thao & the Get Down Stay Down’s latest LP, We the Common.) But Nguyen is poppier than those women, even as the genres she pulls into her songs are more catholic. We the Common is rooted in a kind of warped folk pop, but anything goes: banjo plucks, dirty blues licks, brass sections. The whole thing would be obnoxious if

Nguyen didn’t know her way around a tune, but she totally does. Wednesday, April 3, at RecordBar (1020 Westport Road, 816-753-5207)

Otis Heat, with the Grisly Hand

Blues, folk and funk ideas collide in the music of Portland, Oregon, trio Otis Heat. Results vary: Sometimes it’s a weirdo Black Keys vibe; sometimes it’s white-boy jam-band funk nonsense. The group is supported on this bill by local alt-country crew the Grisly Hand, which is celebrating the release of the first single from its upcoming album, uh, Country Singles. You won’t walk home with anything — the song will be available on the Grisly Hand’s Bandcamp for $1, and the new album isn’t out until late April — but everybody who downloads the song gets a “free surprise gift,” according to guitarist Mike Stover. Who are you to deny such an offer? Friday, March 29, at the Brick (1727 McGee, 816-421-1634)

1,000,000 Light Years

Santa Barbara’s Tommy and the High Pilots work a hook like a group weaned on 1990s radio rock. But they throw in inspiration from ’80s greats, too: Mellencamp and Petty on previous albums, Peter Gabriel on their upcoming fulllength, Only Human, out in May on Redbird Records. The risen Jesus says: Celebrate Easter with an indie-funk party at the Riot Room. Sunday, March 31, at the Riot Room (4048 Broadway, 816-442-8179)

K E Y

..................................................Pick of the Week

..................................................Cute Indie Chick

................................................. Not Actual Pilots

.................................................. Locally Sourced

...............................................Free Surprise Gift!

.................................................................. Twang

........................................ Hallucinogen-Friendly

................................................ The Lord Is Risen

...........................................Fake British Accents

THE PITCH

M A R C H 2 8 -A P R I L 3, 20 1 3

pitch.com

Adrenaline Mob: VooDoo Lounge, Harrah’s Casino, 1 Riverboat Dr., North Kansas City, 816-472-7777. Alt-J, Hundred Waters: 7 p.m. The Midland, 1228 Main, 816-283-9900. As I Lay Dying, the Devil Wears Prada, For Today, the Chariot: 6 p.m. The Granada, 1020 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-842-1390. Crash Diet, Crucify Barbara, Snakeskyn Whiskey: 8 p.m. Czar, 1531 Grand, 816-421-0300. Miracles of Modern Science, Attic Wolves: 10 p.m. Replay Lounge, 946 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-7676.

W E D N E S D AY, A P R I L 3 Awolnation, Blondfire, Mother Mother: 7 p.m. Liberty Hall, 644 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-1972. Logan Mize, Jill Martin & Ryan Mannuel: 7 p.m. The Granada, 1020 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-842-1390.

FUTURECAST Tommy and the High Pilots

Lawrence’s Range Life Records has transitioned into more of an ambient electronic

F O R E C A S T

label, anchored by blurry-soundscape creators such as Say My Name; Coke Weed X; and 1,000,000 Light Years, the solo project of Patrick Hangauer. I was playing 1,000,000 Light Years’ recently dropped Rainbow Keys EP in my office the other day, and a co-worker commented that it sounded like the music the ice-cream truck plays. I think what he meant is that it’s vaguely hypnotic, which it is. But it’s also layered and urbane, its New Age tones peacefully tempered by downtempo beats. Thursday, March 28, at the Riot Room (4048 Broadway, 816-442-8179)

T U E S D AY, A P R I L 2

pitch.com

APRIL THURSDAY 11 David Allan Coe: VooDoo Lounge, Harrah’s Casino, North Kansas City SATURDAY 13 Bon Jovi: Sprint Center THURSDAY 18 Katey Sagal: An Evening of Music and the Cast of Sons of Anarchy: The Midland FRIDAY 19 Wade Bowen: The Granada, Lawrence SUNDAY 21 Josh Ritter: Liberty Hall, Lawrence Tate Stephens: The Midland MONDAY 22 Weird Al Yankovic: Uptown Theater SATURDAY 27 Night of Tango with the Bach Aria Soloists: Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts MONDAY 29 James Blake: Liberty Hall, Lawrence TUESDAY 30 Fleetwood Mac: Sprint Center Gov’t Mule, the Revivalist: Uptown Theater

M O N T H X X–X X , 2 0 0 X

THE PITCH

KANSAS CITY’S OWN 3 DAY PUNK ROCK PARTY FROM 10-3PM

$12

$5 A DAY!

APRIL 5TH,6TH&7TH

THE PROTESTERS. DISMANTLE THE VIRUS. DEAD VEN. RED KATE. DOCUMENTARY. THE UNCOUTH. ITCHING REGRET. AMDX. ELECTRIC LUNGS. STINKBOMB. DEAD DEER. THE ALERTS. 5 STAR DISASTER. HIPSHOT KILLER. THE ALERTS. THE RACKATEES. THE TERMINALS. THE BIG IRON. THE DONNER DIARIES. THE SHIDOTS. FOUR ARM SHIVER. BOMBS OVER BROADWAY. THE HEMORRHOIDS. RIVER CITY REJECTS. MR & THE MRS. BEATEN DOWN BASTARDS. AND MORE 816-561-1099 • 3740 BROADWAY KCMO

We Deliver!

FRANK JAMES

SALOON

Lunch Buffet, Salad Bar Daily Food & Drink Specials

Bloody Mary Bar & Breakfast bar Sundays 11am - 2pm

Karaoke Sundays 6-10 • Happy Hour 3-6

MARCH 29TH: Titanium blue 10919 NW 45 Hwy (3.5 mi west of I-29)

FEATURED DEALS

SUNDAY BRUNCH

CHECK FACEBOOK FOR UPDATES

BUFFET

& STATION

.com

OMELETTE

BOTTOMLESS

March Madness Drink Specials & huge TV s to see the games

GET A $15

MIMOSAS

CERTIFICATE FOR ONLY $7.50

Valid at Saigon 39 1806 1/2 W 39th St. Kansas City, MO 64111 816.531.4447

5031 MAIN ST. // SOUTH PLAZA 816.960.4646

GET A $20

MON: RURA L FRI 3/29 G GRIT 6-9, KARAOKE 1 0 R SAT 3/30 IN ISLY HAND, OTIS HE PM AT 10PM BACK OF A DOLLS O BLACK CAR, THE LUCKNY FIRE, 1 THU 4/4 S CAMMERS, 0PM B LIND T KA SAT 4/6 W SEY RAUSCH & CHAEDXAS MARLIN, ATER L BROTH KATY GUILIALRS (FAT POSSUM REC ERS ORDS) EN FRI 4/12 T RUCKSTOP HONEYMOO N

CERTIFICATE

FOR ONLY $10 Valid at Marrakech Cafe 4116 Broadway St. Kansas City, MO 64111 816.753.7520

NEXT DEAL? Get the Insider’s scoop

Parkville, MO 816-505-0800

MORE DEALS

.com

Bar & Grill 1515 WESTPORT RD. • 816-931-9417

TRIVIA TUESDAYS • KARAOKE EVERY FRIDAY 9 - CL

LIVE MUSIC: Mar 30: Titanium Blue Apr 6: Northern Rock Apr 13: Blue Simon WIFI NOW AVAILABLE!

CHECK OUT THE NEW ALL DAY HAPPY HOUR

$4.95 DAILY LUNCH SPECIALS • NIGHTLY DINNER & DRINK SPECIALS

•816.455.3344•

$15 or $20 of New York style pizza

Bed & Breakfast stay for $125

Get $60 for $30

Get $25 for $12

Large Specialty Pizza for $10

Two movie ticket & large popcorn for $10

5410 NE ANTIOCH RD. KANSAS CITY, MO

$15 for $7.50

Chuisano’s

Get $50 for $25

pitch.com

M A R C H 2 8 -A P R I L 3, 20 1 3

Lunch deal for two for $16 $15 for $7.50

THE PITCH

KITCHEN OPEN TIL 12:30AM!

NIGHTLIFE Send submissions to Berry Anderson by e-mail (berry.anderson@pitch.com), fax (816-756-0502) or phone (816-218-6775). Continuing items must be resubmitted monthly.

•A LITTLE SLICE OF IRELAND•

T H U R S D AY 2 8

IN DOWNTOWN KANSAS CITY

Come Shake Your Shamrocks! THURS March 28th: Transients Duo 8-12am

PACKAGE BEER AND LIQUOR TO GO UNTIL 1:30AM

FRI March 29th: Lost Wax 10-2am SAT March 30th: Wonder Fuzz 10-2am

170 E. 14TH ST. KCMO IN P&L DISTRICT 816-268-4700 • THEDUBLINERKC.COM FACEBOOK.COM/THEDUBLINERKC

NO ROOM FEE

1715 MAIN | 816.421.4799 | KCBULLDOG.COM

BECOME A

JAZZ

Davey’s Uptown Ramblers Club: 3402 Main, 816-753-1909. The UFO Show with Pat Hopewell, 10 p.m. PBR Big Sky Bar: 111 E. 13th St. The Transients, 9 p.m. RecordBar: 1020 Westport Rd., 816-753-5207. Grenadina, Slum Party, Man Bear, 10 p.m., $7. Tomfooleries: 612 W. 47th St., 816-753-0555. Gov’t Cheez, 10 p.m.

The Blue Room: 1616 E. 18th St., 816-474-8463. Indigo Hour with Gray Matter, 5:30 p.m.; Doug Talley Quartet with Julie Turner, 8:30 p.m. Chaz on the Plaza: 325 Ward Pkwy., 816-802-2152. Max Groove. The Kill Devil Club: 61 E. 14th St., 816-877-8312. Miguel Mambo DeLeon, 10 p.m. The Phoenix: 302 W. Eighth St., 816-221-5299. Lonnie McFadden, 4:30 p.m.; Eboni and the Ivories, 9 p.m. Take Five Coffee + Bar: 5336 W. 151st St., Overland Park, 913948-5550. Eddie Moore & The Outer Circle, 8 p.m.

ROOTS/COUNTRY/BLUEGRASS Coda: 1744 Broadway, 816-569-1747. The Silver Maggies CDrelease show, 8 p.m. The Landing Eatery & Pub: 1189 W. 152 Hwy., Liberty, 816792-5230. County Road 5, 8 p.m.

DJ The Bottleneck: 737 New Hampshire, Lawrence, 785-841-5483. Team Bear Club’s Goomba Rave, 11 p.m. The Gusto Lounge: 504 Westport Rd., 816-974-8786. Pop Shots with Clockwerk & DJ Archi. Milieu: 7300 W. 119th St., Overland Park. DJ Rich B. MiniBar: 3810 Broadway, 816-326-8281. DJ Tequila Bear. The Uptown Arts Bar: 3611 Broadway. Playe, 10:30 p.m.

JAZZ The Blue Room: 1616 E. 18th St., 816-474-8463. Miguel “Mambo” DeLeon and Carte’ Blanc with Alyssa Murray, 7 p.m. The Kill Devil Club: 61 E. 14th St., 816-877-8312. Brandon Draper, 9 p.m.

INSIDER SIGN UP FOR OUR

NEWSLETTER

EASY LISTENING Chaz on the Plaza: 325 Ward Pkwy., 816-802-2152. Heather Thornton Trio, 6-10 p.m. Czar: 1531 Grand, 816-421-0300. Lucy Rose, Eyelit, 7 p.m., $8; Hot Caution Thursdays, 10 p.m., free. Jerry’s Bait Shop: 13412 Santa Fe Trail Dr., Lenexa, 913-894-9676. Jason E R MO Kayne, 9 p.m. The Phoenix: 302 W. Eighth St., 816-221-5299. Dan Doran, 7 p.m. Replay Lounge: 946 MassachuINGS LIST E AT setts, Lawrence, 785-749-7676. IN MacGregor Burns, Doby Watson, ONL M O .C PITCH Margo May, 10 p.m. Sunset Grill: 14577 Metcalf, Overland Park, 913-681-1722. Tony Antonucci, 7:30 p.m. The Uptown Arts Bar: 3611 Broadway. Songwriter’s Showcase with Megan Birdsall, 7:30-10:30 p.m.

CLUB

F R I D AY 2 9

http://www.pitch.com/kansascity/NewsletterInfoRegistration/Page

Live Music drink specials nightly:

nights

WEDNESDAY: $1 Night with Dueling Pianos 8:30-3am THURSDAY: Live Band Karaoke 9pm-3am FRIDAY AND SATURDAY: Dueling Pianos SUNDAY:

TUESDAY:

Brian Babcock covers whatever the hell he wants 10pm-3am 28

THE PITCH

M A R C H 2 8 -A P R I L 3, 20 1 3

Coda: 1744 Broadway, 816-569-1747. Rev Gusto, Claire and the Crowded Stage. Czar: 1531 Grand, 816-421-0300. Opossum Trot, Bears and Company, Rooms Without Windows, 8 p.m. Davey’s Uptown Ramblers Club: 3402 Main, 816-753-1909. Revolution Circus, 8 p.m. The Landing Eatery & Pub: 1189 W. 152 Hwy., Liberty, 816792-5230. The Jeremy Nichols Band, 9 p.m. Replay Lounge: 946 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-7497676. The Mad Kings, Heavy Figs, 6 p.m.

B.B.’s Lawnside BBQ: 1205 E. 85th St., 816-822-7427. Levee Town. Jazz: 1823 W. 39th St., 816-531-5556. Dan Bliss. Knuckleheads Saloon: 2715 Rochester, 816-483-1456. Four Fried Chickens & a Coke, 8:30 p.m.; Jeff Bergen’s Elvis show, 7 p.m.

ROOTS/COUNTRY/BLUEGRASS The Landing Eatery & Pub: 1189 W. 152 Hwy., Liberty, 816792-5230. Hazard County, 9 p.m. Quasimodo: 12056 W. 135th St., Overland Park, 913-239-9666. Brandon Miller Band, Lonesome Hank & the Heartaches, 5:30 p.m.

MONDAY:

Jazz and Blues with James Sullivan and special guests 7pm-3am

ROCK/POP/INDIE

BLUES/FUNK/SOUL

Folk and Country night with AJ. Gaither and Tyler Gregory 10pm-3am

VISIT

WWW.ERNIEBIGGS.COM

FOR SPECIALS AND LINE UP. LIKE US ON FACEBOOK FOR UPCOMING PROMOTIONS AND SPECIAL OFFERS.

pitch.com

HIP-HOP The Bottleneck: 737 New Hampshire, Lawrence, 785-8415483. Royce Diamond album release-show, 8 p.m.

ROCK/POP/INDIE

FOR UNCLE BILLS PRIVATE LOUNGE! (AVAILABLE SEVEN DAYS A WEEK FOR PRIVATE EVENTS.)

The Well: 7421 Broadway, 816-361-1700. DJ Ashton Martin.

DJ Black & Gold Tavern: 3740 Broadway. DJ Sam Blam. The Foundry: 424 Westport Rd., 816-960-0866. Tiberias. Milieu: 7300 W. 119th St., Overland Park. DJ JT Quick. MiniBar: 3810 Broadway, 816-326-8281. Shellac Attack, 10 p.m. The Quaff: 1010 Broadway, 816-471-1918. DJ E. Replay Lounge: 946 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-7497676. DJ Modrey Hepburn, 10 p.m.

COMEDY Improv Comedy Club and Dinner Theater: 7260 N.W. 87th St., 816-759-5233. Rodney Perry, 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. Artie Fletcher, 7:45 & 9:45 p.m. VooDoo Lounge: Harrah’s Casino, 1 Riverboat Dr., North Kansas City, 816-472-7777. Musical Blades.

SINGER-SONGWRITER The Brooksider: 6330 Brookside Plz., 816-363-4070. Noe Palma. RecordBar: 1020 Westport Rd., 816-753-5207. Jeff Porter, 7 p.m.

S AT U R D AY 3 0 ROCK/POP/INDIE Black & Gold Tavern: 3740 Broadway. Torn the Fuck Apart, Night Creation, Dischordia, Hellevate, Bleed the Victim, Lanternhill Nightmare, A Plague in Faith. The Brick: 1727 McGee, 816-421-1634. In Back of a Black Car, Dolls on Fire, the Lucky. Coda: 1744 Broadway, 816-569-1747. Busted Saints, Stone Deph, 10 p.m. Davey’s Uptown Ramblers Club: 3402 Main, 816-753-1909. Untamed, Mass, After Nations, Ghost$ of Normandy, 8 p.m. Double T’s Roadhouse: 1421 Merriam Ln., Kansas City, Kan., 913-432-5555. Skooter Trash. The Landing Eatery & Pub: 1189 W. 152 Hwy., Liberty, 816792-5230. Robe, 9 p.m. The Levee: 16 W. 43rd St., 816-561-2821. The Black Jackets; the Magnetics. RecordBar: 1020 Westport Rd., 816-753-5207. Drunkard’s Dream, 7 p.m.

BLUES/FUNK/SOUL B.B.’s Lawnside BBQ: 1205 E. 85th St., 816-822-7427. Mama Ray’s Jazz -Meets-Blues Jam, 2-5:30 p.m.; Fast Johnny, 9 p.m. The Kill Devil Club: 61 E. 14th St., 816-877-8312. The Old No. 5’s, 9 p.m. Knuckleheads Saloon: 2715 Rochester, 816-483-1456. Killborn Alley, 8:30 p.m.; Rick Gibson with Tom Hall and the Peacemakers, 10 p.m. The Phoenix: 302 W. Eighth St., 816-221-5299. Brother Bagman, 9 p.m. Quasimodo: 12056 W. 135th St., Overland Park, 913-239-9666. Rivertown, 5:30 p.m. The Uptown Arts Bar: 3611 Broadway. Ted Hoffman, 10 p.m.

ROOTS/COUNTRY/BLUEGRASS The Bottleneck: 737 New Hampshire, Lawrence, 785-8415483. Backroad Anthem. Sky Smeed Band,, 8 p.m. The Brooksider: 6330 Brookside Plz., 816-363-4070. The John Joiner Band.

DJ The Foundry: 424 Westport Rd., 816-960-0866. DJ Kid Twist. Hotel: 1300 Grand, 816-226-3232. DJ Eric Coomes. Milieu: 7300 W. 119th St., Overland Park. DJ Mike Scott. The Quaff: 1010 Broadway, 816-471-1918. DJ Chris.

HIP-HOP Czar: 1531 Grand, 816-421-0300. Underground Railroad Showcase with Odd-O-Matic, Jay-B, Polo Boyz, Nelson El, 9:30 p.m. Qudos Cigar & Cognac Bar: 1116 Grand, 816-474-2270. Grown & Sexy Saturdays.

JAZZ The Blue Room: 1616 E. 18th St., 816-474-8463. Jazz Disciples with Lisa Henry, 8:30 p.m.

COMEDY Improv Comedy Club and Dinner Theater: 7260 N.W. 87th St., 816-759-5233. Rodney Perry, 7 & 10 p.m. Stanford’s Comedy Club: 1867 Village West Pkwy., Kansas City, Kan., 913-400-7500. Artie Fletcher, 7:45 & 9:45 p.m.

EASY LISTENING Chaz on the Plaza: 325 Ward Pkwy., 816-802-2152. Jimmy Dykes & the Blisstonians, 7 p.m. Coda: 1744 Broadway, 816-569-1747. Scott Easterday, 7 p.m. The Uptown Arts Bar: 3611 Broadway. Frikus & the Hooligans, 8 p.m.

S U N D AY 31 DJ The Foundry: 424 Westport Rd., 816-960-0866. DJ Lazy B. 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. DJ G Train on the patio.

The Riot Room: 4048 Broadway, 816-442-8179. Last of the Wildmen, Jib Jab Jones, Now I Know For Sure, 8 p.m. Tomfooleries: 612 W. 47th St., 816-753-0555. The Transients, 9 p.m.

BLUES/FUNK/SOUL B.B.’s Lawnside BBQ: 1205 E. 85th St., 816-822-7427. Hudspeth and Shinetop, 7-10 p.m. Slow Ride Roadhouse: 1350 N. Third St., Lawrence, 785-7492727. Lonnie Ray Blues Band, 6-10 p.m. The Uptown Arts Bar: 3611 Broadway. Blues Hour with Briar, 5:30 p.m.

Czar: 1531 Grand, 816-421-0300. Elkheart’s Downtown Outlaw Fiasco, 7 p.m., free. Jazz: 1859 Village West Pkwy., Kansas City, Kan., 913-328-0003. Brendan MacNaughton. RecordBar: 1020 Westport Rd., 816-753-5207. Rex Hobart’s Honky Tonk Supper Club, 7 p.m., free.; Ryan Triggs, Ali Sperry, Caitlin Cannon & the Artillery, 10 p.m.

JAZZ The Majestic Restaurant: 931 Broadway, 816-221-1888. Hermon Mehari Trio, 6 p.m. The Phoenix: 302 W. Eighth St., 816-221-5299. Open Jam with the Everette DeVan Trio, 7 p.m.

BAR GAMES/DRUNKEN DISTRACTIONS

Clarette Club: 5400 Martway, Mission, 913-384-0986. Texas Hold ’em. The Fox and Hound: 10428 Metcalf, Overland Park, 913-6491700. Poker, 7 & 10 p.m. Frank James Saloon: 10919 N.W. Hwy. 45, Parkville, 816-5050800. Karaoke, 6-10 p.m. Hamburger Mary’s: 101 Southwest Blvd., 816-842-1919. Mary’s Drag Brunch, 11 a.m. Missie B’s: 805 W. 39th St., 816-561-0625. Dirty Dorothy, 10 p.m.; karaoke, 10 p.m. The Red Balloon: 10325 W. 75th St., Overland Park, 913-9622330. Karaoke, 8 p.m., free. Westport Flea Market: 817 Westport Rd., 816-931-1986. Texas Hold ’em, Sundays, 3 & 6 p.m.

Black & Gold Tavern: 3740 Broadway. Geeks Who Drink Trivia, 8 p.m. Coda: 1744 Broadway, 816-569-1747. Team Trivia with Teague Hayes, 7 p.m., $5 buy-in. Duke’s on Grand: 1501 Grand, 816-527-0122. Xtreme League Trivia, 8 p.m. 403 Club: 403 N. Fifth St., 913-499-8392. Ladies’ Night. Jackpot Music Hall: 943 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-8321085. Karaoke. MiniBar: 3810 Broadway, 816-326-8281. Robert Moore’s Name That Tune, 7 p.m., $5 entry fee. The Velvet Dog: 400 E. 31st St., 816-753-9990. Beer pong tournament, 9:30 p.m.

The Hideout: 6948 N. Oak Tfwy., 816-468-0550. Open blues jam, 7 p.m. Knuckleheads Saloon: 2715 Rochester, 816-483-1456. Open Jam with Levee Town, 2-7 p.m.; Back Room Jam, 1-5 p.m. The Majestic Restaurant: 931 Broadway, 816-221-1888. Mark Lowrey jazz jam, 5 p.m.

M O N D AY 1 ROCK/POP/INDIE Czar: 1531 Grand, 816-421-0300. Night Moves, Wild Man Wild, Tenement, Night Birds, Give, 4 p.m. The Granada: 1020 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-842-1390. Close to Home, Adestria, Alive in Standby, Dismember the Fallen, Histories, On the Shoulders of Giants & Species, 6:30 p.m. RecordBar: 1020 Westport Rd., 816-753-5207. Briar Rabbit, Sissy, 10 p.m.

JAZZ The Blue Room: 1616 E. 18th St., 816-474-8463. Ben Leifer, 7 p.m. The Majestic Restaurant: 931 Broadway, 816-221-1888. Mark Lowrey Trio, 6 p.m. The Phoenix: 302 W. Eighth St., 816-221-5299. Millie Edwards.

BAR GAMES/DRUNKEN DISTRACTIONS

OPEN MIC/JAM SESSIONS Quasimodo: 12056 W. 135th St., Overland Park, 913-239-9666. Dave Hays Band Open Jam. Stanford’s Comedy Club: 1867 Village West Pkwy., Kansas City, Kan., 913-400-7500. Open Mic Night.

W E D N E S D AY 3 ROCK/POP/INDIE The Bottleneck: 737 New Hampshire, Lawrence, 785-8415483. Monophonics, Kris Lager Band, 8 p.m. Knuckleheads Saloon: 2715 Rochester, 816-483-1456. The Crayons, 8 p.m. Replay Lounge: 946 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-7676. Muscle Worship, Vacation Club, CRYS, Lazy, 10 p.m. The Riot Room: 4048 Broadway, 816-442-8179. Caleb McGinn, Laura Wetzel, Adam Case, 8 p.m.

BLUES/FUNK/SOUL B.B.’s Lawnside BBQ: 1205 E. 85th St., 816-822-7427. Shinetop Jr., 7-9 p.m. Jazz: 1823 W. 39th St., 816-531-5556. Billy Ebeling. Jazz: 1859 Village West Pkwy., Kansas City, Kan., 913-328-0003. Salty Dawg. Knuckleheads Saloon: 2715 Rochester, 816-483-1456. Carl Butler’s Gospel Lounge, 7:30 p.m.

The Brick: 1727 McGee, 816-421-1634. Karaoke with Nanci Pants, 10:30 p.m. Bulldog: 1715 Main, 816-421-4799. Trivia, service industry night. Czar: 1531 Grand, 816-421-0300. Slaughter Movie House, 7 p.m. Moxie Bar & Grill: 4011 N. Oak Tfwy., North Kansas City, 816455-9600. Beer Pong Mondays with DJ E-Rock. RecordBar: 1020 Westport Rd., 816-753-5207. Sonic Spectrum Music Trivia, 7 p.m.

Coda: 1744 Broadway, 816-569-1747. DJ Robert Moore, 9 p.m. Davey’s Uptown Ramblers Club: 3402 Main, 816-753-1909. The Turntable Matinee with the Cowtown Playboys, 7 p.m., free. The Gusto Lounge: 504 Westport Rd., 816-974-8786. Smack in the Middle with Brent Tactic & Avant Garde.

OPEN MIC/JAM SESSIONS

Chaz on the Plaza: 325 Ward Pkwy., 816-802-2152. Max Groove Trio, 6 p.m. The Phoenix: 302 W. Eighth St., 816-221-5299. Brian Ruskin Quartet. Take Five Coffee + Bar: 5336 W. 151st St., Overland Park, 913948-5550. Matt Kane & Ben Leifer, 7-9 p.m.

The Bottleneck: 737 New Hampshire, Lawrence, 785-8415483. Taking Back Mondays with Sovereign States, 9 p.m. Davey’s Uptown Ramblers Club: 3402 Main, 816-753-1909. Songwriter’s Scene Open Mic with Jon Theobald, 7 p.m. The Uptown Arts Bar: 3611 Broadway. Jonny Green and Jake Stanton open mic and jam session, 8 p.m.

T U E S D AY 2 ROCK/POP/INDIE The Bottleneck: 737 New Hampshire, Lawrence, 785-841-5483. Jet Edison, Hyperbor, 8 p.m.

ROOTS/COUNTRY/BLUEGRASS

BAR GAMES/DRUNKEN DISTRACTIONS

OPEN MIC/JAM SESSIONS

‘

The Phoenix: 302 W. Eighth St., 816-221-5299. Tim Whitmer & KC Express, 4:30 p.m. Take Five Coffee + Bar: 5336 W. 151st St., Overland Park, 913948-5550. Chris Burnett Quartet.

JAZZ

COMEDY Improv Comedy Club and Dinner Theater: 7260 N.W. 87th St., 816-759-5233. Devin Henderson’s Mind Magic, 7:30 p.m. Michael’s Lakewood Pub: N. 291 Hwy. and Lakewood Blvd., Lee’s Summit, 816-350-7300. Humpday Comedy Night, 9 p.m. Stanford’s Comedy Club: 1867 Village West Pkwy., Kansas City, Kan., 913-400-7500. Adam Cayton-Holland, 8 p.m.

pitch.com

M A R C H 2 8 -A P R I L 3, 20 1 3

THE PITCH

FREE PARTYLINE

1-712-432-7900

MEET SEXY SINGLES ,

S AVA G E L O V E

VIRGIN DIARIES

D A N S AVA G E

REAL HORNY LOCAL GIRLS Chat , Connect or Live 1-ON-1!

(800) 409 - MEET 6 3 3 8

*Free Bonus Minutes with Package Purchase

THE PITCH

M A R C H 2 8 -A P R I L 3, 20 1 3

pitch.com

on protection and STI transmission. Above all, he needs to treat her with respect.”

Dear Dan: My brother is 22 years old and mentally ill with social anxiety on the scale of agoraphobia (officially diagnosed). He’s made significant progress in the past few years, but he’s stuck on the fact that he will only be able to pursue a job, have a social life, and tackle other obstacles after he loses his virginity. (He’s also a little Asperger’s-y.) It would be easy for me to drive him to Nevada and eliminate the issue. I don’t have any illusions that this will solve his problems, but my mom and I are hopeful that it would eliminate an excuse from taking positive steps forward. Should I offer to take him? Or force him to sort it out on his own despite his crippling social issues?

Dear Dan: I’m a straight guy who recently got out of a long-term relationship. Physically, she rocked my world. Unfortunately, she rocked my world mentally, too. It was a toxic relationship for both of us, but we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. I finally feel ready to date again, and last week I met this gorgeous girl — intelligent, successful, positive. But there is just one thing, and it’s killing me: She’s a skinny girl. I’ve always dated women with curves. Am I fetishizing curvy girls too much? What is my dick thinking here?

Socially Interactive Sister

My Dick, My Annoyance

Dear SIS: “I want to commend SIS for considering the services of a sex worker in such a positive and nonjudgmental way,” says Siouxsie Q, a San Francisco sex worker and the creator and host of The WhoreCast, a weekly podcast that seeks to humanize people in the sex industry. Some will object to your hiring a sex worker to help your brother out, but you can tell those people to go fuck themselves — or to rent The Sessions. In that 2012 fi lm, John Hawkes plays a poet who is paralyzed from the neck down. Helen Hunt plays a sexual surrogate whom the poet hires with the blessing of his priest. Hawkes’ disability in The Sessions was immediately apparent, but your brother’s disability is no less real for being invisible. So I don’t see why anyone should object to your brother getting a little professional assistance with his plight. Hire a sex worker for your brother if you think it will help, and there’s no need to drive to Nevada. Siouxsie suggests that you look for an “experienced” (read: somewhat older) escort in your area. A sex worker older than 25 or 30, who maintains her own website — and has write-ups on escort review sites — is far less likely to be trafficked or exploited, and is far more likely to be experienced and patient. She may have worked with men like your brother. So what do you do once you locate a prospective sex worker in you area? “Send an e-mail explaining the situation and your brother’s special needs,” Siouxsie says. “There are sex workers out there who specialize in working with clients with disabilities, and many have experience working with clients who might be very similar to her brother.” You should be able to fi nd one. If the fi rst woman you contact doesn’t work with men like your brother, she may be able to refer you to someone. Once you find your local Helen Hunt, prep your brother. “Give him a pep talk,” Siouxsie says. “Let him know about etiquette and protocol: no haggling, no prying for personal information. His personal hygiene needs to be impeccable, and he should know the basics

Dear MDMA: The dick wants what it wants.

That said, sometimes the dick wants more than the guy attached to it realizes. You may discover, once you start fucking around with this girl, that your dick must have curves and this girl is too skinny. Or you may discover that you’re so attracted to her, your dick can make the leap for her alone. Or you may discover that your dick wants more than one narrow type. Sometimes it takes meeting someone wonderful who isn’t the ideal you’ve locked onto to realize that your dick was into more than one thing, but your brain — your bigger, more powerful sex organ — was shutting your dick down. Here’s hoping your dick surprises you.

Dear Dan: I’m a 23-year-old bi female from

Vancouver, B.C., and I’ve been heavily subidentified since I started having sex nine years ago. (The age of consent was 14 then!) But lately, with the helpful guidance of my lovely boyfriend, I’ve been realizing I have a very pronounced Dom streak. I read The New Topping Book by Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy, and it was helpful, but I was wondering if you had any tips. I’m pretty uncomfortable topping my boyfriend. He’s always been the top, and I’m nervous about doing it wrong.

Another Novice Top Dear ANT: Give yourself permission to do it “wrong.” You’ll be less nervous about topping if you relax and give yourself permission to be nervous and inexperienced, a little awkward in your new role. You don’t have to be the perfect snarling dominatrix the first time you pick up a crop. You don’t have to be a snarling dominatrix ever, if that’s not who you want to be. Check out beyondthevalleyofthefemdoms.tumblr.com for insight on being your own dominant woman, not some FemDom porn cliché. Good luck! 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

Fantasy-Girlfriend.com

18+

Join Private Chat with Your Favorite Girlfriend or Flirt with them all!

se Browree For F + 18

Or call

1-888 X-FLIRTS (935-4787)

816-841-4000 913-279-9218 30 minute FREE trial

Keep it Real hot talk, local singles

FREE TRIAL

816.533.0045 More local numbers: 1.800.811.1633 18+ www.vibeline.com

FREE TRIAL

Discreet Chat Guy to Guy

816.533.0064

pitch.com

M A R C H 2 8 -A P R I L 3, 20 1 3

THE PITCH

LIC.#: 10-010

LICENSED MASSAGE

GRAND OPENING BEST ASIAN MASSAGE

OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK * FOUR NEW ASIAN GIRLS *

913-469-1616

Swedish • Deep Tissue • LomiLomi • 4-hands

Walk-ins Welcome

13410 College Blvd, Lenexa, KS 66210 cash / debit / Visa / Mastercard (Pflumm Rd. QT Gas Station)

Soft Breeze Spa Haskell

Alabama

Lawrence, KS 2331 Alabama Street Suite #103

Naismith

785-856-4994 23rd Street

World Renowned Psychic! Tarot Card Readings! Love Spells!

$10 SPECIAL

EXPERIENCED LEASING •AGENT WANTED• for Overland Park & Olathe

• Must be highly organized, a team player, & have strong communication skills with an outgoing personality • Hourly pay + commission

Send resume to nevindewar@yahoo.com and vijaydewar@yahoo.com

ATTENTION: EX-OFFENDERS & ATDoRISK JOB SEEKERS you need job placement assistance? Do you need your criminal record expunged?

Vehicle & housing available for Felons & At Risk Job Seekers Printing and general office services available Wills, Divorces, Child Support, Civil & Criminal Motions Filed Contact: Beyond The Conviction for these and other career and life barrier removal services. (SOME SERVICE FEES APPLY)

816-842-4975 or 816-718-7423 beyondtheconviction.org 32

THE PITCH

M A R C H 2 8 -A P R I L 3, 20 1 3

pitch.com

NOW HIRING FOR

CONCERTS CONVENTIONS SPORTING EVENTS CON S SSE CDCERT A P s DTICK VIE EL VDETS MO PAR s AP

at t o h s a e k a t er! e r a c w e n a

EVENT STAFF, USHERS, TICKET TAKERS

APPLY IN PERSON 4050 Pennsylvania Ste. 111 KCMO 64111 OR ONLINE www. crowdsystems.com EOE

WE ARE CURRENTLY HIRING FOR

FRONT DESK CLERKS (all shifts) RESTAURANT SUPERVISOR COOKS SERVERS

APPLY IN PERSON ANYTIME: 200 W. 12TH ST, KCMO | EOE | GREAT BENEFITS/GREAT LOCATION

pitch.com

M A R C H 2 8 -A P R I L 3, 20 1 3

THE PITCH

Research Subjects Do you have ASTHMA? Physicians at the Asthma Clinical Research Center at Truman Medical Center Hospital Hill are currently recruiting for studies for Astma Patients.

• You must be at least 18 years old. • On asthma medications and your asthma is controlled. • All study related care is provided at no cost for those who take part. • Financial compensation for participation is available. This Asthma Center is one of 18 prestigious Centers of Excellence funded by the American Lung Association. Please call 816-404-5503 for screening and to learn more about this research study.

Best Price Apts in Olathe! Torries Chase Apartments

1 BR starting at $490 2 BR starting at $599 913.782.8800 • www.torrieschase.com torrieschase@yahoo.com 139th & Mur-Len, Olathe KS, 66062

Park Apartments First Class Living in Downtown Overland Park

2 BR/1 Bath in Overland Park

Only $625!

913.381.6666 • www.parkapartments.org theparkaptsleasing@yahoo.com 79th & Metcalf, Overland Park KS

Classifieds

THE PITCH

M A R C H 2 8 -A P R I L 3, 20 1 3

pitch.com

p NORTHLAND VILLAGE $100 DEPOSIT ON 1&2 BEDROOMS

$525 / up Large 1, 2 & 3 Bedroom Apts and Townhomes Fireplace, Washer/Dryer Hook-ups, Storage Space, Pool.

I-35 & Antioch â&#x20AC;˘ (816) 454-5830

Are you out of housing options? Have Credit Problems? Previous Evictions?

We rent to the rent challenged

Holiday Apartments Studios FREE Downtown Area

$112/WEEK $150/DEPOSIT*

* Restrictions apply

APPLICATION WHEN YOU BRING IN On Site Loundry Facility Paid Cable TV THIS AD Holiday Apartments (816) 221-1721

Month to All Month Lease! Utilities

pitch.com

M A R C H 2 8 -A P R I L 3, 20 1 3

THE PITCH

330

APTS/JOBS/STUFF

816.218.6702 816.218.6759

FREE BANKRUPTCY CONSULTATION • PA Y M E N T P L A N AVA I L A B L E •

LAW OFFICE OF JENNIFER DODSON 435 NICHOLS ROAD SUITE 200 K A N S A S C I T Y, M O 6 4 1 1 2 8 1 6 . 9 7 7 . 2 7 6 3 W W W. J D O D S O N L AW. C O M

We are a debt relief agency. We help people file for bankruptcy relief under the Bankruptcy Code. The choice of a lawyer is an important decision and should not be based solely on advertisement.

MARCH 28 - APRIL 3, 2013

ADOPT: A Beautiful Home, Laughter, Love, Art, Music, Many Opportunities wait for 1st baby. Expenses paid. Astrid 1.800.844.1670

HOTEL ROOMS A-1 Motel 816-765-6300 Capital Inn 816-765-4331 6101 E. 87th St./Hillcrest Rd. HBO,Phone,Banq. Hall

KC MARRIOTT-Downtown

$37.06 Day/ $149 Week/ $499 Month + Tax

Supervisor-Cooks-Servers Apply In Person Anytime 200 W. 12th St.

DWI, SOLICITATION, INTERNET BASED CRIMES

NOW HIRING Front Desk Clerks-Restaurant lifestylesofkc.com House Parties Every Friday & Saturday Night. Hot Tub, Dance Pole, Live DJ, Pool Table 913-742-0022

816-221-5900

www.The-Law.com

Law office of David M. Lurie

Scared? Anxious? Confused?

Help Is Here!

DWI, Solicitation, Traffic, Internet Crimes, Hit & Run, Power & Light Violations. 816-221-5900 - www.The-Law.com David Lurie Attorney

99.7% Toxin Free w/n an hour We can help you pass Coopers 3617 Broadway, KCMO 816.931.7222

FREE CONSULTATION Call: The Law Office of J.P. Tongson (816) 265-1513

ADOPT: A Beautiful Home, Laughter, Love, Art, Music, Many Opportunities wait for 1st baby. Expenses paid. Astrid 1.800.844.1670

Attorney since 1976: 913-345-4100, KS/MO. Injuries, workers comp, criminal, divorce, DUI, traffic, and more. Low fees, Call Greg Bangs.

Simple, Uncontested + Filing Fee. Don Davis. 816-531-1330

* DWI * * CRIMINAL * * TRAFFIC * Practice emphasizing DWI defense. Experienced, knowledgeable attorney will take the time to listen and inform. Free initial phone consultation.

Reasonable rates! Susan Bratcher www.bratcherlaw.biz

HOTEL ROOMS DUI/DWI, KS, MO

P.I.--Work Comp.--Bankruptcy Reasonable rates! Susan Bratcher www.bratcherlaw.biz

Attorney since 1976: 913-345-4100, KS/MO. Injuries, workers comp, criminal, divorce, DUI, traffic, and more. Low fees, Call Greg Bangs.

ACT NOW INVESTIGATIONS

KC MARRIOTT-Downtown

Solving Cases For Over 24 Years

Front Desk Clerks-Restaurant Supervisor-Cooks-Servers Apply In Person Anytime 200 W. 12th St.

****Confidential****Professional**** Infidelity-Domestic Dramatic Family & Child Issues

913-469-0006 actnowinvestigations.com CASH FOR CARS

Wrecked, Damaged or Broken. Running or Not !

Cash Paid ! www.abcautorecycling.com 913-271-9406

$99 DIVORCE $99

Simple, Uncontested + Filing Fee. Don Davis. 816-531-1330

A-1 Motel 816-765-6300 Capital Inn 816-765-4331 6101 E. 87th St./Hillcrest Rd. HBO,Phone,Banq. Hall

$37.06 Day/ $149 Week/ $499 Month + Tax

816-453-2240

Fully Licensed & Insured. KS-MO

FREE CONSULTATION Call: The Law Office of J.P. Tongson (816) 265-1513

$99 DIVORCE $99

816-453-2240

Help Is Here!

SPEEDING, DWI, POSSESSION, ASSAULT

913-469-0006 actnowinvestigations.com

DUI/DWI, KS, MO

Scared? Anxious? Confused?

AFFORDABLE ATTORNEY

Fully Licensed & Insured. KS-MO

P.I.--Work Comp.--Bankruptcy

Cash Paid ! www.abcautorecycling.com 913-271-9406

99.7% Toxin Free w/n an hour We can help you pass Coopers 3617 Broadway, KCMO 816.931.7222

Solving Cases For Over 24 Years

THE LAW OFFICE OF DENISE KIRBY 816-221-3691

CASH FOR CARS

816-221-5900 - www.The-Law.com David Lurie Attorney

****Confidential****Professional**** Infidelity-Domestic Dramatic Family & Child Issues

AFFORDABLE ATTORNEY

SPEEDING, DWI, POSSESSION, ASSAULT

Wrecked, Damaged or Broken. Running or Not !

DWI, Solicitation, Traffic, Internet Crimes, Hit & Run, Power & Light Violations.

ACT NOW INVESTIGATIONS

NOW HIRING

DWI, SOLICITATION, INTERNET BASED CRIMES

816-221-5900

www.The-Law.com

Law office of David M. Lurie

lifestylesofkc.com House Parties Every Friday & Saturday Night. Hot Tub, Dance Pole, Live DJ, Pool Table 913-742-0022

SPEEDING DWI CRIMINAL SOLICITATION Call Tim Tompkins Today KCTrafficlawyer.com 913-707-4357 816-729-2606