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The Pitch: August 16, 2012
The Pitch, August 16-22, 2012. Kansas City's Alternative Weekly.
AUGUS T 16�2 2, 2 012 | F R EE | VOL . 3 2 NO. 7 | PI T CH.COM A U G U S T 1 6 �2 2 , 2 0 1 2 | V O L . 3 2 N O . 7 Editor Scott Wilson Managing Editor Justin Kendall Music Editor David Hudnall Sta Writers Charles Ferruzza, Ben Palosaari Editorial Operations Manager Deborah Hirsch Calendar Editor Berry Anderson Clubs Editor Abbie Stutzer Food Blo er, Web Editor Jonathan Bender Proofreader Brent Shepherd Contributing Writers Tracy Abeln, Theresa Bembnister, April Fleming, Dan Lybarger, Matt Pearce, Dan Savage, Abbie Stutzer Intern Hayley Bartels Art Director Ashford Stamper Contributing Photographers Angela C. Bond, Chris Mullins, Lauren Phillips, Sabrina Staires, Brooke Vandever Production Manager Christina Riddle Multimedia Designer Rafaella Chaves Advertising Director Dawn Jordan Senior Classi ed Multimedia Specialist Steven Suarez Classi ed Multimedia Specialist Andrew Disper Multimedia Specialists Michelle Acevedo, Kirin Arnold, Erin Carey, Payton Hatfield Director of Marketing & Operations Jason Dockery Digital Marketing Manager Keli Sweetland Circulation Director Mike Ryan E D I T O R I A L B LI GHT FLI GHT The KCPD East Division development rolls ahead over angry holdouts. BY M AT T P E A R C E A R T 6 P R O D U C T I O N MEMBERS ONLY The Beacon lights the way for club-seeking diners. BY C H A R L E S F E R R U Z Z A A D V E R T I S I N G 19 C I R C U L A T I O N B U S I N E S S STAY C L ASSY Tying one on at the 2012 Pitch Music Awards. BY DAV I D H U D N A L L Accounts Receivable Jodi Waldsmith Publisher Joel Hornbostel Chief Executive O cer Chris Ferrell Chief Operating O cer Rob Jiranek Director of Accounting Todd Patton Director of Operations Susan Torregrossa Creative Director Heather Pierce Director of Content/Online Development Patrick Rains Chief Technology O cer Matt Locke Director of Digital Products Andy Sperry Business Manager Eric Norwood Voice Media Group 888-278-9866, voicemediagroup.com Senior Vice President Sales Susan Belair Senior Vice President Sales Operations Joe Larkin National Sales Director Ronni Gaun Vice President Sales & Marketing Carl Ferrer Business Manager Jess Adams Accountant David Roberts 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 o ce 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. The contents of The Pitch are Copyright 2012 by KC Communications, LLC. No portion may be reproduced in whole or in part by any means without the express written permission of the publisher. The Pitch address: 1701 Main, Kansas City, MO 64108 For The Pitch information, call: 816-561-6061 To report a story, call: 816-218-6915 Editorial fax: 816-756-0502 For classi eds, call: 816-218-6759 For retail advertising, call: 816-218-6702 S O U T H C O M M 24 N A T I O N A L A D V E R T I S I N G B A C K P A G E . C O M D I S T R I B U T I O N C O P Y R I G H T ON T HE COVE R 4 5 6 11 14 15 16 19 20 22 28 34 PITCH QUESTIONNAIRE PLOG FEATURE F I LT E R STAGE ART FILM CAF� FAT CITY MUSIC NIGHTLIFE SAVAGE LOVE MEANWHI LE AT PI TC H. C O M Are you ready to hop on the MATT CASSEL BANDWAGON ? REGINA SPEKTOR and CRYSTAL CASTLES are coming to Kansas City. JASPER'S named top Italian restaurant in KC by Zagat. PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRIS MULLINS 2 THE PITCH AUGUST 16-22, 2012 pitch.com pitch.com M O N T H X X�X X , 2 0 0 X THE PITCH 2 QUESTIONNAIRE MITCH BRIAN Hometown: Hutchinson, Kansas Current neighborhood: Fairway Who or what is your sidekick? Cody Wyoming (or maybe I'm his -- it's confusing, like Jack Burton and Wang Chi in Big Trouble in Little China). What career would you choose in an alternate reality? Film composer What was the last local restaurant you patronized? Oklahoma Joe's, which had a line Writer, filmmaker, professor out the door and around the building, but we'd called in and been given a pickup time and were in and out in under 10 minutes. Remember this strategy. Where do you drink? McCoy's Public House or a certain speakeasy in the West Bottoms What's your favorite charity? Wayside Waifs and Midwest Music Foundation. I like dogs and musicians. Favorite place to spend your paycheck: Vinyl Renaissance they no longer have a freak show or hootchiekootchie tent, you can still get into a little boat and ride through "Ye Old Mill" accosted by monsters. The State Prison also has a great exhibit there. What local phenomenon do you think is overrated? Anything to do with zombies. Where do you like to take out-of-town guests? The men's room at the Golden Ox where, hanging above the urinals, there is a panoramic photograph of the aftermath of a massive stockyard re in the Bottoms. Celebrity you'd like to ride the Mamba with at Worlds of Fun: John Waters Favorite person or thing to follow on Twitter: I don't follow anyone on Twitter and will never ask anyone to follow me there, either. Finish this sentence: "Other than the Kauffman Center, Kansas City got it right when ..." It supported the National World War I Museum, the Union Station renovation, and the Crossroads Arts District. say stupid shit and simply make things worse for everyone. Person or thing you find really irritating at this moment: Right-wing loudmouths who "Kansas City screwed up when ..." It stalled on a light-rail system. (But the streetcar plan sounds like a good start.) world-class lm festival. zine, and Asian DVD Club What subscription -- print, digital, etc. -- do you value most? Net ix, Film Comment maga- Last book you read: Kansas City Noir (my advance copy -- the book comes out October 2). St. Joseph "Kansas City needs ..." An NBA team and a "People might be surprised to know that ..." Despite co-creating Batman: the Animated Series, I'm not really that much of a Batman fan. Favorite day trip: Glore Psychiatric Museum, What is your most embarrassing dating moment? Although it's been decades now, I still "If I were in charge ..." What? You mean I'm not? What TV show do you make sure you watch? Stephen Colbert ... or Pawn Stars Ennio Morricone Jaws wince at the memory of taking a rst date to see Looking for Mr. Goodbar. Interesting brush with the law? I was pulled over while eating a burrito. The burrito spilled on the oor. I reached down to recover it, and the cop thought I was going for a weapon. Describe a recent triumph: The play A Bucket of Blood sold out 15 of 17 shows at the Living Room in March. Mitch Brian teaches lm studies and screenwriting at UMKC. He is rewriting a TV pilot and starting a new screenplay. take(s) up a lot of space in my iTunes: What movie do you watch at least once a year? What local tradition do you take part in every year? The Kansas State Fair where, although 4 THE PITCH AUGUST 16-22, 2012 pitch.com PLOG MILLION-DOLLAR DAN f you were to believe Daniel Meredith, President Barack Obama and former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton have him on speed dial. The former commanders in chief occasionally call Meredith with advice on a little land-ownership problem he's having in Bolivia. See, Meredith, the self-professed son of the founders of media giant LOGT Meredith Corporation, RE PE MOL A IN ON M / P L O G received 300,000 acres in the South American P IT C H .C O country from his CIAagent father, who was based there in the 1960s. Halliburton wants to drill for oil on the land, which also features an airstrip and a gold mine. Meredith believes that there's potential for $2.7 billion in pro ts on the property. But the land is in limbo between the Bolivian and U.S. governments. Greasing the palms of local o cials and paying to get the land properly transferred to Meredith is expensive. He's looking for backers willing to front him cash in exchange for equity in the property. If you trust in any of these yarns spun by 51-year-old Daniel Meredith, there are a thousand Nigerian princes who would like your e-mail address. The truth is, past and present American presidents don't call Meredith. There's no gold mine or oil well in Bolivia. And Meredith has no tie to the Meredith media empire. What he does have is an upcoming stint in federal prison. On August 7, Meredith pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of selling securities without a license and two counts of ling fraudulent tax returns. Those are blandsounding o enses compared with the frauds Meredith ran, dating back to 1995. Meredith's public defender didn't return a request for comment, but court documents describe the strange lies he told his victims. The Bolivian land scheme had a kernel of truth, according to court documents. Meredith's estranged father, Donald, told investi- Daniel Meredith didn't just rip people off -- he told fantastic lies. BY BE N PA L O S A A R I I gators that he bought land in Bolivia in the 1970s and transferred it to Daniel several years ago. Donald said he thought the land was overgrown, worth less than $20,000 and mired in title problems. That was enough for Meredith to build a whole compound of lies. Authorities say Meredith shook down one victim, identi ed in documents as J.D., for at least $47,300 in 2006, $373,600 in 2007, and $1.87 million total. Another victim, G.R., started making payments in 1995 and couldn't tell investigators the total amount of money he gave Meredith. At some point during the fraud, Meredith drew up a phony contract for G.R. to sign that supposedly gave the victim 50 percent ownership of the imaginary property. G.R. also gave Meredith $9,500 when Meredith claimed that his father had been kidnapped (he had not). Authorities say other victims contributed $950,000 more to the Bolivian scheme. A few of Meredith's investors demanded their money back, but Meredith unleashed whopper after whopper to avoid paying. He told one investor that President Clinton per- sonally sent a courier with a cash- lled safe to Kansas City, but the courier was arrested in Arkansas. Meredith went to the Natural State to check on the money. He gured that the only way to get it back was to get a gun and hijack the plane carrying the safe and force the pilot to land. And, don't you know it, then Meredith couldn't get into the safe. Another time, Meredith met with an upset investor at Ameristar Casino. He often met his victims at the casino, where he also gambled away their money. At this meeting, he brought a man who he claimed was an agent with the National Security Agency. The investor didn't believe that an NSA agent would come to the meeting. Months later, the investor saw the so-called agent and confronted him. The impostor told the investor that he had "just been doing a buddy a favor." Meredith later admitted that he lied to the investor. When Meredith needed to back up a lie, he used props. He once gave an upset investor, who wanted money back, a suitcase supposedly lled with $1 million. The real contents: dumbbell weights. Meredith gave another in- vestor a du el bag, claiming that it contained not only cash but also explosives that would be triggered if the bag were opened. The bag was lled with newspaper. Meredith didn't limit himself to a single scam. Court documents say Meredith tried to enlist investors in 2007 to build Scooter's coffeehouse franchises in Kansas City. Meredith never had a connection to the chain and never broke ground on the co ee shops. The Scooter's scam brought it all crashing down for Meredith. In March 2011, Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan issued a cease-and-desist order outlining how Meredith promised investors a 100 percent return, possibly in just one month. Carnahan alleged that Meredith took $150,000 from investors, and she admonished Meredith for not telling his investors (one from Kansas, one from Missouri) about the potential risks involved with opening ve Scooter's locations. Carnahan noted in a press release that Meredith told investors demanding their money back that "the funds would be hand delivered by an FBI agent." Following the secretary of state's actions, federal prosecutors began investigating Meredith, prompting his guilty plea. Another victim told investigators that she gave Meredith $13,000 to start a shing-lure company. But it wasn't even a bait-and-switch; Meredith took her money and never started the company. The federal government is seeking to recoup $3,113,450 from Meredith, who used some of his victims' money to buy quarter horses and show them at competitions. He also remodeled his Excelsior Springs home, tiling the garage with his initials. Much of the money, however, was lost to gambling. In 2007, he lost $76,454 playing blackjack at Ameristar. In Meredith's plea agreement, federal prosecutors noted that his gambling losses were 15 times his reported income for the year. After pleading guilty to the three felonies, Meredith is facing 11 years in prison. E-mail firstname.lastname@example.com pitch.com M AO UN GT UH S TX1 6 - 2X 2,, 2 20 00 12 pitch.com X�X X T TH HE E P PI IT TC CH H 5 1 BLIGHT O n June 21, 2008, then-Mayor Mark Funkhouser held a party at 27th Street and Prospect, one of the grungiest, most crime-ridden corners in town. Barbecue magnate Ollie Gates was there. So was a jazz quartet. There was free food, and there was a bus to carry Funk and his entourage up and down streets normally populated on a Saturday night with hookers and pushers. "This area will no longer be forgotten," Funkhouser told the crowd, which included the Black Chamber of Commerce. "This area must be a priority." Then the party ended, and everybody went home. The hookers and the pushers near 27th and Prospect returned to business as usual. The people who actually lived there went back to hearing their neighborhood maligned as one of the most dangerous parts of town. (HBO once produced a documentary about it: 27th & Prospect: One Year in the Fight Against Drugs. Not really the way anybody wants their home to be known to the world.) The area was blighted, no doubt, with an empty lot for every empty promise from a politician (up to and including Funkhouser) hoping to end ills created decades ago by segregation and white ight and forces more powerful than any mayor's reckoning. But change was afoot, for real this time. Four years later, 27th and Prospect, as everybody thinks they know it, is about to get wiped o the map. And if you think that's a good thing, you probably don't live there. I t's gone through a real transformation from good to bad," says Alvin Brooks, a longtime anti-crime activist who has done work in the area. "And this, I believe, will help in its restoration." He's talking about the proposed East Campus project, a $57 million idea to combine the Kansas City Police Department's new East Patrol Division station and its crime lab under one roof. To do so, the city plans to wipe out four residential blocks in the Wendell Phillips neighborhood between Prospect and Brooklyn avenues, between 26th and 27th streets. The project has generated a lot of optimism among outsiders about the future of a long-blighted area. A new police facility, some argue, will kill crime and bring jobs with one expensive gesture -- the long arm of the law reaching in with the hand of gentri cation. But the plan, progressing toward its rst demolitions in early October and construction next year, has also brewed anger, hope and racial animus -- a bitter social cocktail created when the complexities of local politics mixed with the brute force of eminent domain. The backdrop of all this drama: a historic but largely forgotten neighborhood shaped by racial politics and occasional violence. Almost all of the 66 or so homes in these four blocks were built between 1892 and 1917, with only one built in the past 80 years. Most of its inhabitants today are black. Kansas City zoning codes after 1900 limited black families to a square between 10th and 27th streets, bounded on each end by Troost and Brooklyn avenues. Tired of City Hall's ghettoizing policies and racist neighborhood covenants, a few black families crossed the invisible line a century ago and moved onto the 2400 block of Montgall Avenue. Six of their homes were rebombed in 1910 and 1911. By 1934, the neighborhood was about 50 percent black, according to a city housing survey. But the areas east of Prospect and south of 27th Street remained mostly o -limits to anyone black. Brooks, 80, remembers that part of the city when white people still lived there. And he remembers the white ight of the 20th century's second half: block-busting property agents going door-to-door to scare white families into selling their homes, peddling paranoia about the new black families that were moving in. "The realtors would buy houses on white blocks, sell one to a black person, then go to a white neighbor, say, `Hey, look who's moving in,' " Brooks says. "Once in a while, you'd get a knock on your door and a white realtor would say, `Oh, I'm sorry, I've got the wrong house.' And then they'd go to the white family next door." It's also a significant historical area for Kansas City's black community. Leon Jordan, one of Kansas City's pre-eminent civil rights leaders and its most powerful black politician during the 1960s, used to live at 2745 Gar eld. He owned a bar called Jordan's Green Duck, at THE KCPD'S EAST ROLLS OVER ITS ANGRY HOLDOUTS EMINENT 6 2 T H E P I T C H A U G U S T 1 6 - 2 2 , 2 0 1 2 pitch.com T H E P I T C H M O N T H X X�X X , 2 0 0 X pitch.com FLIGHT BY MATT PEARCE | PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRIS MULLINS 2548 Prospect. He was gunned down there by black assailants one night in 1970 (at the Mob's bidding, speculation still insists). The decades since Jordan's slaying haven't been kind. In the late 1990s, crime was so bad that the Rev. John Modest Miles started placing white crosses at the intersection of 27th and Prospect to memorialize homicide victims. Brooks recently attended a candlelight vigil for Andrea Hooks-Shields, whose burned body was found May 14 about a dozen blocks away. She hung out on 27th Street a lot, Brooks says. "That was her beat." If the city puts a police station at 27th and Prospect, the thinking goes, maybe someone like Hooks-Shields won't walk the streets nearby. If the city puts a police station at 27th and Prospect, maybe someone like HooksShields won't get killed. hange comes not with a bang but with a sales tax. On November 2, 2010, Kansas City voters approved the extension of a quarter-cent sales tax rst enacted in 2002 that had already funded several of the police department's new police stations and other upgrades. The department needed a new crime lab; at that time, its current lab was taking nine months to process DNA samples. It also needed a new home for the East Patrol Division, its busiest, housed now in a building that was once the cops' radio station. And it needed a place to put both. Twenty- ve locations were considered, and the four blocks from Brooklyn to Prospect, between 26th and 27th, t the bill. It was easily accessible to Interstate 70 and U.S. Highway 71, and it was lled with empty properties that could be obtained without much fuss. The bonus: Crime stats might be lowered -- ideally bringing down the whole city's numbers -- by the mere presence of a new police facility. The problem: Not all of the properties were vacant, so every single owner -- including residents who had lived there for decades -- would have to move, like it or not. "When I rst heard about it, and when I rst realized 27th and Prospect was the location that would rise to the top, it was something that I was not in favor of at all," says Jermaine Reed, Kansas City's freshman 3rd District city councilman, who represents the area. "However, understanding the details and understanding the economic impact it would bring to the community, I said, `Hey, this is good for the actual community, and this is something that we should push.' " Once residents at 27th and Prospect got wind of the project, though, Reed (who is black) paid for his support of it. In June, 3rd District constituents opposed to the plan turned in a petition with more than 1,000 signatures to the Kansas City election board, demanding Reed's recall. The e ort ultimately failed, but the venom behind it was real. The unlikely genre of antidevelopment hip-hop had a hit this year with a song uploaded to the site blightmekc.com. Among the anonymous rapper's rhymes: Uncle Tom Jermaine Reed?/Respect ain't free/Brooklyn to Prospect when you on your knees/Smiling after cheese/Lap dog swallowing KCPD's seeds. "People will try to do and say and be malicious and evil as much as they can," Reed says. "But the reality of it is, it's not about me. At the end of the day, we as a community have to move forward, and that's exactly what I plan to do." L C ike most places thought to be dangerous, the blocks around 27th and Prospect are safer than their reputation suggests. On this Thursday evening in early August, the workday is over. But few have come home to this neighborhood. Most of the homes here that weren't already abandoned are empty now. Windows that haven't been boarded up are busted open. Except for the occasional passing of cars along 27th Street, it's quiet. A basketball's bounce echoes from somewhere not far o , and there's the arhythmic rattle of an abandoned house's dangling aluminum siding, brushed by a breeze. Occasionally, a police siren breaks the silence. City o cials estimate that KC now owns 85 percent of the homes in this four-block area. They're negotiating to pick up the rest. For now, the blocks continued on page 8 CAMPUS PROJECT LAST OBSTACLE: AGAINST DOMAIN. pitch.com A U G U S T 1 6 - 2 2 , 2 0 1 2 T H E P I T C H 7 pitch.com M O N T H X X�X X , 2 0 0 X T H E P I T C H 3 Blight Flight continued from page 7 exist in near lifelessness: stray cats wandering the streets, an old couch rotting on somebody's former porch, a tree limb fallen over a sidewalk that hardly anybody walks anymore. But this time next year, o cials believe, work will be well under way to put 28,000 square feet of police station and 76,000 square feet of crime lab right here. That means, they say, 1,140 jobs during the project's construction. Look around, though, and there's still living going on here, cars still parked out front here and there, homes still held together by maintenance and a ection. At 2611 Brooklyn, Ameena Powell has been a erce holdout. "Recall Reed" signs still dot her property, even as several of her immediate neighbors' homes have been sold to the city and boarded up. Powell appears to be the driving force behind blightmekc.com and much of the effort organized against the new facility. Her real-estate business's Twitter account, @TheProducersGrp, originally dedicated to promoting the sale of distressed properties (often for $15,000 or less), has recently taken to spamming corporations and celebrities to draw attention to the cause. "Help us get the word out. Fight eminent domain," she tweeted at Rick Santorum, Perez Hilton, Kim Kardashian, San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee, and a parody Mitt Romney account. (She didn't respond to phone messages from The Pitch and wasn't home when a reporter stopped by.) Others in the area are eager to talk but are reluctant to do so on the record. They don't want their names attached to discussion of a contentious political project. "I'm 73, and I just don't have the energy to ght anymore," explains one resident who has sold to the city and is set to move out in September. Sitting on a folding lawn chair on the home's front porch, the owner talks about the dead bodies that have been discovered in the abandoned houses around here in recent years -- one next door, the other two doors down. The owner's greater concern was the illicit nightclub said to have taken over the house at 2625 Wabash. "They have dancers coming in over there, and we can't sleep Thursday, Friday, Saturday nights." But despite the loud music and the crime, the owner didn't want to move from a place that has been home since 1989 and doesn't approve of the police project. "I didn't like it. I didn't have a chance to give my opinion on it. They just came in and said the deci- sion had been made and we have to move." Sophia Easter didn't want to go, either. "You gotta realize, she'd been in that house over 40-something years, and all of a sudden you gotta move?" says her daughter, Denise Fortune, who spoke for her mother during the negotiation process with the city. "It was horrible. I think it's still taken a toll on her, even though she's moved." The city o ered to provide residents three di erent appraisals for their homes and pay the highest. Bonuses were added for residents who had lived a long time in their homes, and the city pledged to help pay moving costs. O cials say reaction among those who have sold has nevertheless been bittersweet. Fortune agrees. She says most homeowners she knows have ended up in slightly nicer houses than the ones they left behind. But the price of eminent domain has been more than just a dollar sign, exacting a further toll on pride already bruised by decades of blight talk. "I think if you talk to the homeowners, it took them by surprise," says Fortune, who lives nearby. "And then they're going to say it's the highest crime area? And you're like, really? Nobody wants to hear that about where they live, especially all the time in From left: the current KCPD crime lab, the proposed campus, and the existing East Patrol Division. the media. Would you want to live in an area like that?" Throughout the development process so far, residents have o ered complex and contradictory views of the crime in their neighborhood: It's mostly perpetrated by outsiders. It's not so bad. It's unsafe at night. The police station is a great idea. The station is all wrong. "Who wants to see a big old police station right here?" asks PerSonna Parks, 41, as she and a neighbor visit on her railless front porch overlooking 27th Street and facing the old rows of houses where the police will soon move in. "Nobody! Do you want to see a police station here?" "No," the neighbor says with a chuckle. "I see enough of 'em already." "Exactly," Parks says. "Always creeping in the alleyway, always in your business, never there when you need them. It's a lot of taxpayers' money for a whole lot of overkill. It don't make me feel no safer." E-mail firstname.lastname@example.com We have a new way you can pay your Library fees: PAY ONLINE! It's easy, fast, convenient and secure. Visit www.jocolibrary.org to pay your fines online. 8 4 T TH HE E PITCH A TX 1X�X 6-22 2X pitch.com MU OG NU TS H X,, 2 20 01 0 pitch.com mo t nsas cit a K ycle s y er rc o Cafe Racer Exceptional Motorcycle & Scooter Service 1305 Union Ave. KCMO | 816-221-0711 v e ic pitch.com AUGUST 16-22, 2012 THE PITCH 9 WEEK OF AUGUST BY BERRY ANDERSON 14 PAG E FRIDAY STAGE KC Actors Theatre builds a better Mousetrap. awdy ts get b Puppe . at PMP 8.17 PAG E 16 FILM Ai Weiwei is totally not sorry. 24 PAG E DID SOMEONE SAY `PUPPETS'? The details, as we know them so far: The Kansas City Puppet Slam at PMP Studio (1006 East Linwood, 816-756-3500) promises offensive language and adult themes. The hourlong show contains from ive to seven short vignettes, each presented by different puppeteers. Will there be blood? Puppets don't bleed, silly! Sex? Most puppets are made of foam and felt, so ... yeah, maybe. See for yourself at 8 p.m. (and Saturday, also at 8). PMP says 18-and-older, please. Tickets cost $10; call 816-235-6222. For more information, see paulmesnerpuppets.org. STREETSIDE Sunday night is already hazy. T H U R S D AY | 8 . 16 | After tonight's game against Oakland, there are just two more opportunities to watch the Royals from the NightlifeKC.com Lounge. Overlooking right ield, on the Budweiser Patio above Rivals Sports Bar, the lounge boasts plush seating, shade, a DJ booth, custom photo ops and premium booze. "The bar is open after the game, so after everyone else has cleared out, it's like a private club at the stadium for us," says Jen Scott, owner of NightlifeKC.com. A $30 admission gets you in the door with two drink tickets. (It's for the 21-and-older crowd.) Sure, the Royals are on the skids, but Scott advocates throwing back G&Ts with your hot dogs -- and ogling Eric Hosmer. "He's not too hard on the eyes," she says. See? It's not always about the box scores, y'all. For tickets, see royals.com/nightlifekc. DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION THE ROYAL HANG "Swing dancing has been evolving since the '20s," says Kyle Patel, director of Kansas City Swing Corps. The group is putting on West Coast Swing Night at Madrigall (1627 Oak, 816-472-4400). "When most people think of it, they picture what they've seen in movies -- a depicE R MO tion of what swing was many decades ago. West Coast Swing is a modern AT E N I ONL .COM variant, derived from the PITCH Lindy Hop. It's very versatile and can be danced to many different genres, from blues to hip-hop to top 40." We've looked it up on YouTube, and sure enough, it looks almost exactly like people dancing. Shake your thang from 8:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. for a $5 cover, or just drink $3 margaritas, wells, and domestic and import bottles. See kansascityswingcorps .com. continued on page 12 F R I D AY T COMMUNITY BOUNTY 8 . 17 EVENTS he Ivanhoe Neighborhood -- the area bounded by 31st Street, Emanuel Cleaver II Boulevard, the Paseo and Prospect Avenue -- has its own Small Growers Farmers Market. It's part of a project called Grown in Ivanhoe, which community activist Dina Newman calls "a working model of an urban food `micro-oasis' within the `macro-realities' of an urban food desert." Every Friday through September 28, vendors sell their goods from 5 to 7 p.m. in the parking lot of the Nutter Ivanhoe Neighborhood Center (3700 Woodland, 816-921-6611). The big thing? Okra, Newman says, that is "grown fresh here and sells out immediately." She calls it "the new cash crop in the 'hood." See growninivanhoe .wordpress.com/farmers-market for details. pitch.com Eileen Ellis at the Ivanhoe market AUGUST 16-22, 2012 THE PITCH 11 4943 Ward Parkway, Kansas City, MO 64112 Beautifully placed in the Sunset Hill Area 4 Bedrooms, 4 Full and 3 Half Baths, Sq : 6,500 (approx). SATUR MLS#: 1706652 | $1,949,000 CAR LOVERS DREAM! 8 CAR GARAGE Approx 6500SqFt. Walk out your front door to the Country Club Plaza. Home is a dramatic statement of energy e ciency w/old world Sharon G. Aubuchon charm & distinctive modern elegance. Cell 816.863.3003 e features of this home that make O ce 913.652.4378 it highly energy e cient include geothermal zoned heating and cooling Email: email@example.com Web: sharonaubuchon.reeceandnichols.com systems, tankless hot water. racker Uncle K Follow . o J t. to S 8.18 DAY continued from page 11 F R I D AY | 8 . 17 | FINDING MECCA Beth Sarver wants to fund urban arts and teach mindfulness. She also wants to dance. "When Jilly's used to be open and had their Thursday-night dance parties, with Se�or Oz and Fat Sal, I used to call it church and dance all night," she says. "I'd come out feeling uplifted and more connected to my community." To bring back that feeling, the TEDx organizer and self-proclaimed "solutionary" artist has started MECCA -- Mindful Educators Catalyzing Community Allies -- and lined up a dance party. Tonight's MECCA Movement, at the Kultured Chameleon Gallery (1739 Oak, 816-974-8278), is an allages affair. A $10 cover gets you the synergistic flow of positivity and creativity by way of jungle juice, snacks, and fresh beats from Joc Maxx and Sike Steez. The party goes from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. Search MECCA Movement on Facebook. S AT U R D AY | 8 . 18 | RHYMES WITH HESTIVAL A weekend without a local festival is like a day without sunshine. Forget that a day with rain sounds pretty good right now and spend some outdoor time at one of these events. Ethnic Enrichment Festival at Swope Park (Swope Parkway and Meyer Boulevard). Turkey, Norway, Laos, Nepal, Bolivia and many other nations are reppin' at this threeday food-and-entertainment showcase, now in its 33rd year. Also featured: craft and culture booths, a beer garden, and world activities for kids. It's 6�10 p.m. Friday, noon� 10 p.m. Saturday and noon�6 p.m. Sunday. Admission costs $3; those 12 and younger get in free. Parking is free, too. For more information, see eeckc.org or call 816-513-7553. Parkville Days Riverfest at English Landing Park (First Street and Main, Parkville). The 44th annual affair includes a parade Saturday morning, carnival rides, more than 100 arts-and-crafts booths, food, games and various all-ages diversions. Admission is free. Hours are 6�10 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m.�10 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m.�6 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free; for details, see parkvillemo.org/riverfest.html. Trails West Festival in St. Joseph (Civic Center Park, 1100 Frederick Avenue, adjacent to City Hall in St. Joseph). About 45,000 people are expected at this event, billed as northwest Missouri's largest arts festival. How many of them are coming to see Uncle Kracker? Find out after you've experienced the ine arts, the crafts and the food, and maybe watched some of the historical reenactors and other entertainment. Admission comes with the purchase of a Trails West button or T-shirt ($7 in advance or $10 at the gate); children 12 and younger, accompanied by an adult, get in free. Hours are 5�11 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m.�11 p.m. Saturday and, on Sunday, from noon till the end of the mainstage concert. See stjoearts.org for more information. S AT U R D AY 8 . 18 SLICES OF HEAVEN he fourth annual Summer Pie Contest at RecordBar (1020 Westport Road, 816-753-5207) is the brainchild of Sarah Star Wilkison. "Our aim is to celebrate the art of baking but also encourage people to think outside of the box or tin," she says of this competition. Pies are judged on the following: pre-sliced, post-sliced and overall impression -- criteria that apply to most things. Last year's winner, by Emily Beth Schmidt, was a crushedpretzel crust filled with chocolate mousse and topped with fresh strawberries. Mmmm. The contest is free to enter, and you'll need to bring your written recipe. Arrive at 2 p.m. For more information, search for RecordBar Pie Contest on Facebook. 12 THE PITCH AUGUST 16-22, 2012 T pitch.com S U N D AY 8.19 Clyde Manor S DECO ECHO o many examples of Art Deco architecture exist in KC that the Historic Kansas City Foundation offers Art Deco bus tours. See how some of these buildings are being used 80 years later as HKCF guides lead you through downtown and midtown (and keep the bus's air conditioner turned up). At press time, today's tour was already wait-list-only, but reservations are being taken for next Sunday, August 26. The tour costs $18 a person and leaves from the Plaza Branch of the Kansas City Public Library (4801 Main) at 1 p.m. For information or tickets, see historickansascity.org or call 816-931-8448. M O N D AY | 8 . 2 0 | BEST-OF SPOTLIGHT BEST NEW BAR 2011: THE 403 CLUB It usually takes awhile for things to catch on in Strawberry Hill, but the 403 Club has done just ine from the start. And now that it offers happy hour seven days a week (from 4 to 7 p.m.), six pinball machines and, according to owner Artie Scholes, an "ever-increasing list of craft beers," business is poised to go full-on gangbusters. "We're still not getting much neighborhood business, but once football season starts and we open early on the weekends, it'll get crazy in here," he says. It's easy to ind (403 North Fifth Street in Kansas City, Kansas, 913-499-8392) but hard to pull away from. For more information, see 403club.com. Get your spook on. (as well as Thursday, August 23, Monday, August 27, and Wednesday, August 29). For more information, see edgeofhell.com. T U E S D AY | 8 . 21 | BOO-YAH We doubt that the folks at Full Moon Productions want a Doritos-dust-covered, sweatpants-wearing, puffy-faced midtown 20-something to join their haunted-house cast, but we've seen a few of you people on the MAX who should be creeping around a West Bottoms spook factory come October. What's Full Moon really looking for? "A wide range of skills and characters, from classic horror to modern-day zombies, vampires and other creatures," says Amber Arnett-Bequeaith, chief terror of icer at the Beast (1401 West 13th Street), the Edge of Hell (1300 West 12th Street), Macabre Cinema (1222 West 12th Street) and the Chambers of Edgar Allan Poe (1100 Santa Fe). "We'll be hiring for over 300 positions, including featured creatures, street characters, parking-lot attendants, concessions, ticket sales, and some of the popular `Thriller Dancer' positions," she adds. Job creation! Horror-house auditions begin at 6 p.m. and run at the same time Wednesday W E D N E S D AY | 8 . 2 2 | WORLD PARTY With the programming now at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, Southwest Boulevard and Broadway are poppin' off more often than First Fridays, and the West Side is as trendy as fanny facials. So isn't it time to give Coda (1744 Broadway, 816-569-1747) a second look? For instance, from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. Wednesdays, Sonic Spectrum's Robert Moore hangs out his shingle for a new residency. Tonight's theme: International Pop Night. "I'll be spinning classic '60s French jet-set pop, British invasion, American go-go and Beat music, West African psychedelic pop, Jamaican ska and rock steady, and Peruvian Chicha," he says. And there's no cover. Damn, son, that's some free tuneage. E-mail submissions to Filter editor Berry Anderson at email@example.com. Search our complete listings guide online at pitch.com. ANGELA C. BOND pitch.com AUGUST 16-22, 2012 THE PITCH 13 S TA G E TO THE MANOR BY D E BO R A H HIRS CH KCAT peers into Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap . Independently Owned & Family Operated N EWTIL ES R EP ER E! A RE H Depend on us for pet supplies, toys, food, grooming and special orders! Next to Sunfresh 4029 Mill St. (816) 561-7387 | citypets.wordpress.com STALK US! A WE DARE YOU twitter.com/pitchstreet facebook.com/thepitch MENTION THIS PITCH AD AND RECEIVE DOUBLE YOUR RIDE TIME! Please call for details! 25825 Edgemore Rd. Paola, KS 913-783-4301 kcwatersports.com CELEBRITIES! ARTISTS! AUTHORS! VENDORS OF ALL KINDS! TICKETS AVAILABLE ONLINE NOW at ConX.com. *Military 50% Discount!* *Valid by showing Military ID at the box office.* Limited VIP Passes and Celebrity Dinner tickets are available online while supplies last. Ramada Conference Center 1601 N. Universal Ave I-435 & Front Street Kansas City, MO 14 THE PITCH AUGUST 16-22, 2012 ConXKC.com /conXkc ugust may signal summer's end, but it's also Trust no one in this room. the start of a new season for Kansas City drawn personalities. Natalie Liccardello, as Actors Theatre. And I'm not alone in feeling glad at KCAT's return. At a preview of The Mousetrap, Mollie, and Charles Fugate, as Giles, could be considered the leads -- they're the inn's prothe house was almost full. Agatha Christie's famous whodunit kicks o the troupe's "Sum- prietors. But Rusty Sneary, as Detective Sgt. Trotter, is also a commanding presence, and mer of Mystery" and KCAT's eighth year. each performer focuses your attention whenThis self-defined "artist-led and artistdriven" company consistently does skillful ever his or her character has the oor. Matt Weiss nearly steals Act 1 with his buoywork. And it isn't shy about challenging its audience -- last August, it put on two Harold ant and comical interpretation of Christopher Wren, the first guest on the scene. Peggy Pinter plays. With The Mousetrap, it engages Friesen is the uptight, old-school Mrs. Boyle, in some fun, too. who can't nd anything right about the place. Christie devised this story as a 45-minute radio play. Its popularity led her to rewrite it (The post-World War I societal shifts alluded to in Downton Abbey come to mind in Mrs. as a full stage show, and it has long held the record as the longest running play in history. Boyle's references to England's changes after In London, The Mousetrap is in its 60th year World War II.) She wonders why a taxi didn't of continuous production, and in the same meet her at the station and why she doesn't theater since 1974. That's tens of thousands of see servants. And she's always cold. Gary Neal performances and millions of viewers. Johnson's Major Metcalf maintains a more Even for those who don't generally read comforting, low-key presence, which doesn't mysteries or seek out that genre in theater or mean he goes unnoticed. No one does. lm (someone like me), The Mousetrap works As guests continue to arrive and interact as a brainteaser, something within the manor's con nes, to puzzle over and analyze Emily Peterson shows up The Mousetrap as it plays out. And it conwith a low voice and mascuThrough August 26 at tains plenty of humor, even line clothing to embody the H&R Block City Stage though it's based on a true enigmatic Miss Casewell. Theatre, Union Station, (and sad) occurrence (three And the adept Victor Raider30 West Pershing Road, children who were placed Wexler is the Italian Mr. 816-235-6222, kcactors.org in a horribly neglectful and Paravicini, who appears abusive foster home in the without a reservation be1940s). The underlying event is woven into the cause his car became stuck in the snow. Hmm. smart script, lending it depth. They all refer to that murder in London, still Mark Robbins, a KCAT founding member, on the news, aware that they're isolated and deftly directs a talented local cast in a staging that the police haven't found their suspect. that begins with such a bang, you're startled And ... I must stop here. Describing the plot into attention from its rst moments. further risks giving something away and ruinThe action takes place in a guesthouse in ing the fun. 1950s rural England, not far from London. The top-notch production is complemented Mollie and Giles Ralston, married about a year, by the attractive great hall of Monkswell Manor have just opened Monkswell Manor and are (design by Jim Misenheimer) and the period welcoming its rst ve patrons. The day brings and winter-appropriate costuming (by Lauren heavy snow, the kind that strands travelers. Roark). In fact, you might take a wrap yourself. And a radio announcer has just delivered news The H&R Block City Stage Theatre, in Union of a murder in London and a witness's descripStation, can run on the cooler side. And there tion of a man seen in the area at the time. are already shivers from this show's intrigue. The eight actors, all strong, comprise a true ensemble in their depictions of discrete, wellE-mail email@example.com pitch.com B R I A N PA U L E T T E ART PRESS POT Reviving a staple at Front/ Space with Zine Dream . BY 4611 Jarboe Street, Kansas City, MO 64112 Beautifully placed in the Villas on Plaza West 4 Bedrooms, 3 Full Baths, over 5,000 Sq THER E S A B EMBNI S T E R Left: "Soul Freida Seelen Friede" by Lara McCoy-Rolofson; above: "Eat Your Eyeballs" by Ada Potter block west of the First Friday hot zone that is 18th Street between Baltimore and Wyandotte sits Front/Space, a discreetly compact storefront gallery. For September's First Friday, its tiny front room is the site of Zine Dream, an exchange and work space for producers of independent publications. A generation before Tumblr, creative types used ink and paper -- pamphlets, iers, booklets, some photocopied and stapled and others surprisingly slick and magazinelike -- to disseminate text and images made (or found) outside E R MO mainstream interests. These days, all it takes to broadcast ramblings T A INE or snapshots to a global ONL .COM H PITC audience are a few keystrokes. But some people still publish old-school -- distributing the results by hand or by mail -- in e orts requiring no less diligence than when the zine was born. The Pitch discussed Zine Dream by e-mail with Front/Space co-founder Leandra Burnett. The Pitch: For those who may be unfamiliar, what's a zine? Burnett: Zine is short for magazine, which implies that it's an alternative approach to traditional or status-quo publishing habits. Zines, as we most commonly think of them, are collective e orts to give deliberate voice and speci c information about neglected, taboo or radical topics. The physical form of this comes to particular light given that, on the Internet, everyone can instantly self-publish his or her own thoughts, politics, identities and artistic ights for unimaginable audiences, but they have to compete with an in nite amount of other content that's constantly being recirculated through the Web. Along with all of the other thoughtful and creative ways to publish something in print, zines hold a huge relevance in contrast to this. We tried really hard to nd another word for small-scale and/or independent publishing, but zine just has that immediate ring to A ART it. So there are some technical di erences that we have to ignore between things like artists' books, chapbooks, pamphlets, comics, even the di erence between "independent" and simply small-scale productions. And where do you get them now? You can nd zines at most record stores and at co ee shops, and bookstores like Prospero's. There used to be an Infoshop in Lawrence, and there was the old Solidarity space. The Kansas City Public Library even has a zine collection, which I think is pretty amazing. You can nd the collection at the Missouri Valley Room in the Central Library. They even just had a call for submissions for their own zine! Where did the idea for Zine Dream come from? There are three parts to Zine Dream: the zine exchange on September 7, the work space, and the reading space. The instructions for participating in the exchange are as follows: Contact us at email@example.com with your interest and bio. Drop o 20 copies by Saturday, August 18. Receive 15 di erent zines back at the exchange event on First Friday, September 7. In Front/Space will be the work space and reading room, which we're really looking forward to assembling in the space this month. As for the idea, we knew we wanted to organize a di erent kind of project for the end of this summer. Front/Space is about inviting people in and allowing them to work on projects that they really enjoy. So as residents and directors, we were considering projects and pursuits we've had in the past and could also share with a new audience. Lindsay Dei k is a printmaker, and she had been a part of a print exchange recently, which was one of the rst things she brought up. Kenny Szlauderbach is a writer, and in college he was a part of a print and shortction exchange that was editioned and read at Wonderfair in Lawrence. Sarah Murphy and I are both avid pen pals, which in itself can be an ongoing creative exchange. There's been a lot of conversation in the arts community in Kansas City about critical writing and response to the great amounts of activity we've been seeing, and it de nitely begs the question of whether we as a public are still responding or creating dialogue through text. There are a lot of e orts springing up to create more independent publications in Kansas City, and our contribution with Zine Dream is to allow these to surface in one place and mark the presence of independent publishing, even for just a short amount of time. I also feel like I'm always hearing about someone organizing a zine or working on one with their friends, asking who wants a copy sent to them, just to get it out and done. That's de nitely something that Front/Space has also been good for, providing a place where people can nd an audience for their work, a reason to nish ongoing projects. Why was it important that Zine Dream include both an exchange and a work space for creating? The exchange happens on the opening night, but the work space and reading space remain in the Front/Space to continue the action of the exchange throughout the month. The materials required to make a zine are pretty simple: a copy machine, tape and scissors. Most of the time, you'd just go to a copy shop and run copies of cut-and-paste layouts. This method of working is really satisfying, especially when most of our jobs are done entirely on computers. In fact, when we were rst starting Front/Space, Sarah Murphy and Brooks Fitzpatrick went to Kinko's to make our original signage in a very similar way that one would make a zine, so I guess you could say the zine aesthetic is sort of built into Front/Space itself. There's a democratic nature to zines. You should always feel open to make your own, regardless of the production quality or the scale of subject you try to take on. MLS#:1710923 | $895,000 Stunning French Country all stucco w/stone trim Villa over 5,000 sq of luxury living space! Beautiful art decor living space provides beautiful views of Plaza. Custom nished with a gourmet kitchen. Stunning European-designed open living space with tile oors, fully nished lower level, and stunning bathrooms! Must See! Condo of your dreams! Sharon G. Aubuchon Cell 816.863.3003 O ce 913.652.4378 Email: email@example.com Web: sharonaubuchon.reeceandnichols.com E-mail email@example.com pitch.com pitch.com A TX 1X�X 6-22 2X TT HH EE PP IITT CCH MU OG NU TS H X,, 2 20 01 0 H 15 1 Our 63rd Year! FILM THE ACCIDENTAL BIOGRAPHER THE WORLD'S GREATEST DRIVE IN 4k Digital Projection & dts DIGITAL SOUND How Alison Klayman made Ai Weiwei's dissent personal. BY D A N LY B A R G E R Diary of a Wimpy Kid 3 10:20pm Now Showing Aug 17th-19th 8:45pm Bourne Legacy 1051 MERRIAM LANE, KCKS WWW.BOULEVARDDRIVEIN.COM TED ALCORN Klayman (above) chronicles dissident artist Ai Weiwei's criticisms of China. journalism, good documentary work. But I saw that as pretty far o from my abilities at that exact moment. I didn't have a China background, I was fresh out of school, and I also recognized that I needed to be kind of brought up to speed. I also didn't even know if I was going to stay in China. I went there on a ve-month trip after college [Brown University]. If China didn't work out, I was going to go somewhere else. Did you have any trouble getting the footage out of China? It was certainly something I had to make a plan for, being familiar enough and wary enough of the fact that I may run into a challenge. We backed up the footage on two separate hard drives that were identical. I had over 200 tapes, and I kind of split them up between a couple of people I knew who were traveling back to the U.S. at the time, so that I wasn't always traveling with all my equipment and 200 tapes, which I thought might raise some eyebrows. But to be totally honest, the entire time I was based in China -- four years, coming and going or traveling in the country -- I never once had my equipment searched at the airport. Again, I didn't take it for granted that it wouldn't happen to me, but the truth is that it never did. Ai seems to taunt the government throughout the lm. Through Twitter, he invites his fans to meet him at a caf� after ling a complaint with regional police, who had beaten him the year before. That was part of a long list of things about Ai Weiwei and his approach and the people who sort of shared his outlook and his tactics. I thought it would be really interesting to an international audience, the idea that transparency is a vital sort of value that needs to be promoted in China. Part of the way an advocate of transparency is going to protect himself is to be out in the open. It showed me part of his boldness but also showed me this whole community that does take to this kind of openness, keeping this information out there as sort of a way of life. Speaking of that, I was struck by how freely he discussed how his son was born. He candidly admits that his wife was hurt because the child was born out of wedlock. For me, that was an important part of the story to have in, with the right balance and emphasis. His son is an incredibly important part of his life, perhaps the most important part of his life. He was a new father, and that has changed him over the last few years. But also, this is a transparency advocate, who lives his life very openly. Does he have a private side? I do think the answer is yes, but at the same time, the way that he answers those questions -- I thought that was a thing that an audience would want to see. You also arrived at a key moment in his life. At any point, did you ever think, "I'll never be able to nish this," because he was detained for part of the time the lm was made? I was already actively in the process of editing in New York at the time that he was detained. For me, it became the scariest part of this entire process. A lot of people say, "Were you scared in China?" The scariest part was those 81 days, when I actually was in New York, because it was such a dark time. There was so little information. It raised the stakes for the lm. The lm really ends, I think, at the moment when the chapter kind of ended. I feel like what's been happening since he's been released is sort of best covered by journalism because, in terms of documentaries, it'd be hard to say what the real meaning is. But everything that happened from 2008 till 2011 really seems like a distinct chapter in his life. PRE-MIXED SYNTHETIC URINE KIT Kit Contains: SOLUTION SIMPLE THE � 3.5 oz of the highest qualit y sunthetic urine available � Adjustable belt � T wo heat pads � Temperature label 1 YEAR SHELF LIFE BEST Selection of Glass in KC! 11-8 Mon - Sat � Noon - 6 Sun 3617 Broadway KCMO 64111 816.931.7222 facebook.com/coopersbroadway ith his pudgy frame and eccentric manner, Ai Weiwei is hard to see as a threat -- but that's how the Chinese government has labeled him. The 55-year-old Beijing artist is best known in this country for helping design the "bird's nest" stadium that housed the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and he co-designed a re ecting pool for this summer's London games. When Ai put together a blog and a series of underground documentaries that criticized his government's handling of the 2008 Sichuan earthMORE quake, he started a long, dangerous tug of war. Ai declared that the "tofu T A INE construction" of the reONL .COM H PITC gion's schools contributed to the deaths of thousands of children, and that little had been done to help their grieving families. His criticisms led to the authorities beating him, and detaining him for 81 days in 2011. He just lost his appeal of the state's $2.4 million tax-evasion case against him. His passport has been revoked. But he continues to speak out, doing so recently in a July column for the British paper The Guardian. Freshman documentarian Alison Klayman, who followed Ai for nearly four years, vividly captures his struggles in Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry. Without being dogmatic or dry (few documentaries feature door-opening cats), the lm details the impact of his art and the risks of his activism. (It opens Friday in Kansas City.) Speaking to The Pitch by phone from New York, Klayman recalls the di culties of assembling a movie about a man whose story is far from complete. The Pitch: When you went to Beijing in 2006, you didn't intend to make a lm about a dissident artist. Klayman: I de nitely did not have any plans or awareness of who Ai Weiwei was. I really think that I did have an aspiration to do good W FILM E-mail email@example.com pitch.com 16 THE PITCH AUGUST 16-22, 2012 pitch.com MONTH 5399 Martway Mission, KS 913.432.7000 1020 S. 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MIMI'S VIETNAMESE CAFE KSU GAMES AT GAME DAY SPECIALS MONDAY NIGHTS: SPRING ROLLS $1 EACH DINE IN ONLY LUNCH: MON-FRI 11-2 SAT 12-3 1806 1/2 W. 39TH ST KCMO DINNER: MO-TH 5-9 FRI/SAT 5-10 (816) 531-4447 913.403.8571 | luckybrewgrille.com 5401 Johnson Dr. 50� Wings $2.50 Domestic Drafts 18 THE PITCH AUGUST 16-22, 2012 pitch.com CAF� MEMBERS ONLY friend of mine calls the Beacon "a clubhouse for Rockhurst graduates to have a couple of beers." Co-owner Whitten Pell prefers that people call the four-month-old restaurant at 5031 Main a tavern. Neither is completely accurate. Before opening the Beacon, Pell had limited restaurant experience. In fact, he had none. But he did have a vision for this space, which was last occupied by the ill-fated Jack Gage American Tavern. It would be a neighborhood saloon, in the fashion of, say, Cheers (the sitcom bar, not the real-life chain). It would appeal primarily to the middle-aged, middleclass Catholics who grew up in the surrounding Visitation Parish. People like those thirsty Rockhurst alumni. People like Whit Pell. Judging by the Beacon's interior, what haunts the brass-bar dreams of Pell and his fellow travelers is the faux-rustic pub dining room of the Rockhill Tennis Club. People still miss that E MOR departed venue, which enjoyed a partisan following, even if the food T A E IN ONL .COM itself de ed loyalty. The PITCH Beacon gives off such a similar feel that you can almost smell a swimming pool and hear tennis players missing their ground strokes. Some restaurants, for better or worse, are supposed to be clubhouses (O'Neill's Restaurant & Bar in Leawood comes to mind), places so relaxing that their constituents happily eat there a couple of times a week. I worked as a waiter in a midtown restaurant with that very sensibility; the regular clientele, composed primarily of artists, was so loyal that the most familiar of them came in when they weren't hungry. It was their o cial hangout. I subscribe to the Groucho Marx theory about clubs ("I wouldn't join any club that would accept me as a member"), so I tend to avoid dining rooms that are aggressively chummy. I admit, though, that this is my own idiosyncrasy, something perhaps left over from trying to avoid my high school cafeteria. Most people I know love to dine in a place where everybody knows their name. That's what Whit Pell and his investors -- many of whom also live in this neighborhood -- are counting on. "And that's exactly what has happened," says Pell, who works the dining room like a veteran restaurateur: shaking hands, gossiping, clucking over the food and service (he watches his young, ambitiously attentive servers like a hawk). "We've been marketing to the core neighborhood around this restaurant, and that's the customer base we're bringing in." Locally based Applebee's may call its cookie-cutter restaurants "neighborhood grills," but the Beacon is the real thing. The neighborhood part comes easily on its own, but the grill part is under discussion. The The Beacon lights the way for a certain kind of club-seeking diner. BY CHARLES FERRUZZA The Beacon � 5031 Main, 816-960-4646. � Hours: 11 a.m.�11 p.m. Sunday�Thursday, 11 a.m.�midnight Friday and Saturday � Price: $$�$$$ A ANGELA C. BOND CAF� standard-issue pub dishes. The traditional Beacon's menu is already getting a shakechoices are all here and all studiously unpreup, after a review of rst-quarter sales. According to Pell, the plan is to condense the tentious: a bowl of chili; that old Houlihan's standby, French onion soup; and a variation original, which is heavy on sandwiches and burgers (at fair price points, between $9 and on a cobb salad that bears little resemblance to the Hollywood Brown Derby's original. $13). Two of those, which are vegetarian(If Bob Cobb weren't already dead, seeing friendly items, are coming down: the Italian ranch dressing poured on caprese wrap (a mozzarella his namesake salad would sandwich) and a pita stu ed The Beacon kill him.) with seared vegetables and Mango-barbecue pulled-pork There are a couple of clinblack beans. Another casusliders ..................................$8 kers, including "the rockalty: the grilled, double-cut Asian chop salad .................$12 ing Russian" burger topped pork chop, which I tasted Rocking Russian burger .....$11 with cold onion straws and and thought was excellent Grilled strip steak ..............$22 Russian dressing. But the and well-priced. ("We'll Grilled pork chop ................$17 Eggs Benedict ......................$9 French dip sandwich is bring it back as a daily speBiscuits and gravy ............... $7 rst-rate, and the $22 strip cial," Pell says.) steak is damn good, sided The Beacon would do well with pan-roasted vegetables to shrink some of the actual and a mound of mashers that were, when I food, too. It's easy to make a decent meal out ordered the dish, actually hot and buttery. of a couple of the starters, but that's not apA grilled chicken breast, topped with crisp parent when the appetizers are listed as "hors d'oeuvres." An hors d'oeuvre is a savory little Granny Smith apples and a blanket of melted gruy�re, has an e ective charm. concoction, like a canap� ("a one- or two-bite Safe, ino ensive chicken dominates this size" according to Food Lover's Companion). saloon's safe, inoffensive menu. Breaded Pell's isn't the only place to lose sight of that simple idea, but giving that name to a plate of chicken tenders are among those hulking hunky mango-barbecue pulled-pork sliders is starters, and no fewer than three entr�esized salads include the bird (the Asian chop egregious (though a little tasty). salad, with Thai-basil chicken, didn't live "I don't know why we used that word," Pell up to the menu buildup). The dinner list, told me later. "It's so pretentious, and we're too, includes a grilled breast (dripping with anything but a pretentious restaurant." (The roasted-pepper butter), a bubbling chicken man really does stay on message.) Size notwithstanding, the menu, created Parmesan (very good) and a hearty potpie in a soothing garlic cream sauce (that will be a lot by Pell and a culinary consultant, emphasizes The Beacon beckons with, clockwise from left, the Main Street spinach salad, deconstructed cheesecake and the dessert waffle. more comforting when autumn rolls around). I've dined here just once for Sunday brunch, and I'll probably keep it that way. That's a tough meal to pull o in any neighborhood saloon, but the Beacon's brunch menu adds unnecessary complications. No, strike that: It su ers from delusions of grandeur. If you're going to o er eggs Florentine and eggs Benedict, you need a hollandaise that's not thin and stingy. And a pub standard -- biscuits and gravy -- here comes out second-rate, with sausage gravy (housemade, Pell says) that could hardly be less robust or creamy. I saw just two occupied tables in the room that morning, and that says volumes. Pell and his partners need to remind themselves that, as much potential as the Beacon has as a basic lunch-anddinner spot, this is a neighborhood bar and grill, not Caf� Europa. "We do understand what our clientele wants," Pell told me when I challenged him on that brunch. "When our new menu comes out in a few weeks, we'll be introducing halfprice burger night and prime-rib night, and begin serving fried chicken on Sundays." Good! The Beacon may yet see the light. Have a suggestion for a restaurant The Pitch should review? E-mail firstname.lastname@example.com pitch.com UO GN UT SH T X 16 -22 , , 22 00 10 2X T T HH E EPP II TT CC HH 19 pitch.com A M X�X X 1 HAELANGELOS MIC Italian Grill Lunch Dinner Full Bar 17104 E. 24 Hwy. Independence, MO (816) 257-1122 Bring this in for FREE Cannoli! (with purchase) FAT C I T Y BLOCK PARTY BobKat-Dan looks for cheddar in the cheese-smoking business. BY JON AT H A N BENDER "Michaelangelos Grill is a neighbor worth having." - Charles Ferruza p B S A B R I N A S TA I R E S OPEN LATE DAILY OPEN EARLY TOO $ WESTPORT 1106 WESTPORT RD KC, MO 816-561-3500 20 THE PITCH WINES 8 99 1.5 Liter WALDO 8447 WORNALL RD KC, MO 816-363-3984 AUGUST 16-22, 2012 ob Kiefer was just another smoke jockey 14 years ago, slowly applying heat to a pork butt and beer to himself in varying intervals, when his then-girlfriend asked if he could smoke cheese. "I just started experimenting on a standard upright smoker," Kiefer says, "and that worked -- incredibly poorly." The staples of cattle cookery -- hickory and oak chips -- overpowered the mild avor of most cheeses. Only sharp cheddar stood up to the smoke, and even then the resulting substance was smoky rst and cheddary second. He tried resting the cheese on pans of ice in the smoker, but the heat still robbed it of its creaminess. "You usually cook meat at 225 degrees for so many hours," he says. "If you cook cheese at 225 degrees, you'll just have a runny mess in the bottom of your smoker. Thankfully, I never did that." Still, he says, "I ruined a lot of cheese for seven years. But I stuck with it." He started the second seven-year phase of his experiment by taking his smoked cheeses to holiday parties and barbecues. Friends began requesting and dropping o wedges of cheese for him to smoke. Then they wanted to buy the cheese. The 40-year-old former skycap at Kansas City International Airport had a new business. In 2010, he opened BobKat-Dan Gourmet Products with a shop in Kingsville, Missouri. "There are obviously plenty of barbecue places in Kansas City," Kiefer says. "I don't think I do such a great job [with meat] that I could crack that market. But I think I found a little specialty niche of my own." He uses wood from orchards in Lexington, Missouri, a blend of apple and cherry. (He occasionally res up grapevines or persimmon wood for limited releases, though they're too expensive for regular use.) For cheese, he turned to Wisconsin to supply his havarti, fontina and cheddar. He imports gouda from Holland, blue cheese from Finland. Kiefer finds his niche in smoked cheese. His rst sale was to Waldo Pizza, where smoked cheese is now available on its salads, sandwiches and pizza. "Either I have some ability as a salesman, which I'm not too sure about, or probably the cheese is that good," Kiefer says. Gram & Dun has four varieties of BobKat-Dan cheese on the menu; Blue Grotto uses his smoked fontina on pizzas; Green Room Burgers & Beer o ers a pepper-havarti cheeseburger; and the Boulevard Brewing Co. has cubes (hand-cut by Kiefer) of smoked cheddar and havarti for sale in its tasting room. But Kiefer isn't just selling a product. He wants to rehabilitate the image of smoked cheese. For him, smoke is the modi er, not the de ning avor, a mistake he often tastes when sampling the competition. (BobKatDan cheeses are on shelves at the Hy-Vee at 7620 State Line and at McGonigle's, Nature's Own and You Say Tomato.) "It's like the difference between a gas grill and a charcoal grill that you re up with lighter fluid as opposed to the wonderful invention of a paper chimney," he says. "On my cheese, you get the avor of the cheese. A lot of smoked cheeses, you get that chemical taste of liquid smoke that drives out the creaminess, smoothness of the cheese." Kiefer has had enough success so far to move his operation downtown. Last summer, he built out a kitchen in the McQueeny-Lock Building, in the Crossroads. Over the next year, he intends to redo his website so that he can begin shipping orders around the country. And Kiefer has a line of barbecue rubs that he hopes to package. But in the interim, he says, he'll keep ring up his smoker, and keep his wood trained on a di erent part of the cow than the rest of Kansas City. H OW T O E AT SMOKED CHEESE Bob Kiefer prefers, of course, that you use his brand of smoked cheese. But his pairing advice, his bias notwithstanding, is pretty solid. "The smoked cheddar is phenomenal with [Boulevard's] un ltered wheat," he says. "Smoked havarti pairs really well with darker beers like the Sixth Glass or Bully Porter." In the kitchen, he says, "Blend [smoked] havarti and fontina together, and you've got a great mac and cheese." He adds: "I make that for my boys all the time. These days, we don't eat as much cheese as we used to, and my boys get angry, but I explain that Dad has to make a living." And then there's the grill. "If you love to grill steaks," Kiefer says, "pick up some of the blue cheese and put it on top. You'll want to nish the steaks with the cheese on top for a minute or until the cheese softens." pitch.com E-mail email@example.com pitch.com MONTH It's our 31st Birthday! We are celebrating by offering 1981 prices on Burgers* and Bartenders choice Aug 13-16 *Mini Burgers Offer expires August 27, 2012. Discounted item must be of equal or lesser value. 817 Westport Rd KCMO 816-931-1986 westportfleamarket.com Killer in the Clown Car The Mystery Train Last chance to see... Blue Springs' ing Favorite Family Restaurant GET YOUR TICKETS NOW! 816-813-9654 Restaurant & Bar 1867 1 8 6 7 SW SW S State tate R Route out ou te 7 7,, Blue B lue S Springs, prings pring s M MO O Mon - Wed 11am - 12:30am Thurs - Sat 11am - 1:30am Sun 11am - 12am | 816 816.988.7958 8 16. 16 .98 988 8 .79 .795 58 www.kcmysterytrain.com Happy Hour : 3-6pm & 9pm-close L I V E E N T E R TA I N M E N T F R I � S AT Need a drink? Mobile Happy Hour App Find Happy Hours by: Time, Feature, Name or Location on your IPhone, Blackberry or Android pitch.com AUGUST 16-22, 2012 THE PITCH 21 Check out P MUSIC REMOTE CONTROL or most of its existence, Secret Cities has created its brightly detailed psych-pop long distance. The group started as a pen-pal tape trade between guitarist Charlie Gokey and keyboardist Marie Parker, who lived in di erent parts of North Dakota. Alex Abnos, a Kansas Citian, came on as drummer after meeting Gokey and Parker on an Elephant 6 fan message board on the Internet (for real). Since then, Secret Cities has toured the country, released two recE MOR ords, and won the praise of such tastemakers as Paste, Stereogum and T A E IN Carrie Brownstein. The ONL .COM PITCH band embarks on its rst live dates of 2012 this week and kicks things o here in KC at RecordBar. We caught up with Abnos ahead of the show for a status update. The Pitch: So where are you all living now? Abnos: We've all switched locations again since the last time we played here. I live in New York City now, Charlie lives in D.C., and now Marie is our KC contingent. What's everybody doing in their respective cities? Charlie is starting his third year of law school at Georgetown this fall. Marie is a music teacher in the KCK [school] district. And I just nished my M.S. in journalism at Columbia. I'm currently working as a freelancer in NYC. How do you think being isolated from one another like that informs the band and the music? In the past, being so separate allowed us time to rethink our songs and get as many random tangents into them as possible. Now, after doing nearly two years of touring together, I think we're looking at it more as a step than a method. It's been really nice to get together and work some of these new songs out in the presence of one another before going our separate ways and going into our own worlds. What can we expect from the shows on this tour? This tour is going to be an interesting one. When we started playing live regularly two years ago, we had ve members: the three of us; Trevor, [our] second drummer; and a touring guitarist. Neither of two touring guitarists worked out for various reasons, so we toured with just the three of us and Trevor for the last year. We worked it out, it sounded good, everyone was happy. Now, due to unforeseen circumstances, Trevor won't be able to come on this tour ... . So for the rst time, Secret Cities will perform as a three-piece. We've pretty much had to go back to the drawing board in terms of our live setup. Whereas before we kind of relied on pure volume, we'll probably be a bit quieter this time around. We're also working to involve a greater variety of instruments. For example, I'll be playing some ukulele in addition to drums. But it's tough to say right now. We're still kinda pulling it together. Any new songs, new material? Secret Cities' long-distance relationship BY D AV ID HUDN A L L F M US I C We will be performing a fair amount of new songs on this tour, but again, it's hard to say exactly how many right now. Marie has three or four, Charlie has three or four. I am actually super-excited about stripping things down like this. Having less options means we'll really have to make the best out of what we have. I think we'll end up discovering some useful things that we can carry over into recording something new. Which is an altogether di erent mountain we'll have to climb after this tour. PHREAKING OUT AT THE ARTS ASYLUM T wo years ago, Courtney and Alex Perry purchased an abandoned Baptist church at Ninth and Harrison. Two months ago, after extensive renovations, the local couple opened the doors as the Arts Asylum. They've reimagined the building as a sort of full-service home base for local artists: a place where you can rent work space, teach classes and display art. In addition to the studios and two galleries, there is a large event hall on the main oor that the Perrys have been renting out for weddings and special events. It still kind of looks like a church in there: Rows of old, wooden pews ank an elevated stage sprouting out of the northern end of the room. Opposite the stage, there's even an old choir loft perched up above. Saturday, at what its organizers are calling the KC Summer Phreak Out, the Arts Asylum reconnects with its roots as a house of worship, though it's unlikely there will be much mention of, say, the New Testament. The praise will instead be directed toward Phish -- an act with Jesus-like status in the jam-band scene (its forefathers the Grateful Dead being God). had a bunch of fun, and so we did it again, and then we started playing out there a lot, and it's kind of spiraled out from there. It's become this fun little passion project." The group (named, naturally, after a Phish song) has ditched its Canoe Club acoustic arrangements and built up a repertoire of about 75 Phish songs, which it performs using the proper Phish primary instruments: electric guitar, bass, drums and keyboard. The KC Summer Phreak Out grew out of Gould and fellow local bassist Alexis Barclay's long-running desire to create something together. "Alexis and I have always said, if we could ever gure out a way to be in the same band, we could do something really great," Gould says. "But it's tough to squeeze two bass players into the same band unless you're doing a P Funk thing or something. So we nally decided to start putting some events together. And this is the rst one." To make the KC Summer Phreak Out more of an event, Barclay and Gould (they're calling their production company Electric England Productions) enlisted the Cody Wyoming Deal, a versatile local tribute band that has staged Freezing each other out: Secret Cities shows honoring the music of such acts as the Presiding over the service is the local Phish Rolling Stones and Alejandro Escovedo. On Saturday, they'll perform the Velvet Undercover band the Wolfmanz Brothers. ground's Loaded in its entirety, something "The idea was, since Phish is coming Phish did at its 1998 Halloween show in Las through town in the middle of the week, on Vegas. Those two facts are a Wednesday" -- see Music not unrelated. Forecast, p. 26 -- "let's do a Secret Cities, "I was at that show," party the weekend before, with Howth and Gould says. "And I'm a when people are starting to Spirit Is the Spirit huge Velvet Underground get excited for it," says WolfThursday, August 16, fan. I just thought having manz bassist Eric Gould. at RecordBar. the Cody Wyoming Deal Gould plays in a handdo Loaded would be a cool ful of bands, including Free KC Summer way to tie it in to the Phish Band Radio and Particle, Phreak Out theme, but also be a separate the latter a mainstay on the Saturday, August 18. draw for people who just like national jam-band circuit. Doors at 7 p.m., the Cody the Velvet Underground but The Wolfmanz Brothers, Wyoming Deal at 8:30, don't care about the Phish which also includes Lucas and two sets from the folklore stu ." Bingham, Ben Hutchinson Wolfmanz Brothers at 10. Saturday's show (which and Patrick Suckiel, is a relaalso includes a performance tively new project that came together at the Canoe Club in Lake Lotawana, from bluegrass act the Rural Grit All-Stars) is free. "We wanted it to be an easy introducwhere Gould lives. "The owner there holds a series called Pickin' On, where musicians come tion to live music at the Arts Asylum," says Blair Cave, who is promoting the show via his in and do acoustic interpretations of various acts," Gould says. "We did a Phish night and company, Next Level Promotions. And Gould says he and Barclay are hoping to put together another event at the Arts Asylum, possibly around Halloween. "Maybe bring in a national act and pair it with a local act," Gould says. "I think those are the types of shows that excite people in Kansas City, rather than just booking your band at a club once a month at a bar. If you can create something that's more of an event, something more meaningful and fun that has more of a positive impact on the city -- that's the focus, that's our goal with this." -- DAVID HUDNALL Phishing trip: Wolfmanz pitch.com E-mail firstname.lastname@example.com M O N T H X X�X X , 2 0 0 X THE PITCH 1 22 THE PITCH AUGUST 16-22, 2012 pitch.com KNUCKLEHEADS AUGUST F re e S h u tt le in th e S u rr o u n d in g A re a WHERE THE BEST MUSICIANS IN THE WORLD PLAY MUSIC | STREETSIDE STAY CLASSY VENUE HOTTEST in Johnson County BY D AV ID HUDN A L L Tying one on at the 2012 Pitch Music Awards. 15 : Randy McAllister & Buddy Whittington 16 : Ramblin Jack Elliot Eric Sardinas 17 : SKID ROW An Animal Rescue & Support Benefit LIVE MUSIC 5 NIGHTS A WEEK � OPEN TUES-SAT NO COVER, 4pm - Midnight Y 18 : 3rd Annual Outlaw for Paws ROCK PAPER SCISSORS 7-10PM MARBIN MUSIC 8-11PM JUSTIN MURRAY [SOLO] 5:30-7PM JEREMY BUTCHER & THE BAIL JUMPERS 8-11PM JACQUE GAROUTTE 5:30-7PM LEVEE TOWN 8-11PM DAVE HAYS BAND OPEN JAM 8:30PM-12:30AM SERVING JON RUSSELL'S SERVED FROM 5PM - 10PM WEDNESDAY AUG 15 THURSDAY AUG 16 FRIDAY AUG 17 Nace Bros, Outlaw Jim & The Whisky Benders Green Goddammits 22 : MilkDrive 23 : Tad Robinson Kenny White 24 : Marty Stuart 25 : Hearts of Darkness [The Pitch Music Award WINNER!] and the Goodfoot SATURDAY AUG 18 TUESDAY AUG 21 AWARD WINNING BBQ [The Pitch Music Award WINNER!] 26 : Outlaw Jim Band 29 : Deke Dickerson The Rumblejetts 31 : Samantha Fish SEP 1 : Leon Russell 12056 W. 135th St. OPKS 913-239-9666 www.quasimodokc.com 135TH ST. & QUIVIRA TICKETS N OW ON SALE! AUG 31 17 AUG AU G 29 For more info & tickets: knuckleheadskc.com 2715 Rochester, KCMO 816-483-1456 ou know that Mad Men episode where they go to the CLIO Awards, and Don Draper wins the award and then goes on an epic, rock-bottom bender? Well ... I guess that's not technically how it went down Sunday night at the 16th annual Pitch Music Awards at the Uptown. Nobody saw to it to give me an award, for example. And instead of a fashionable old suit with a skinny tie, I was wearing a shirt I purchased at the Nordstrom Rack at 95th Street and Quivira. And when I drink, I don't get all dark and morose like Draper. I just talk too loud and too much. So, OK, the analogy is imperfect. But! It was a boozy evening, and there were circular tables with white tablecloths, and awards were distributed. Congratulations to all the winners and nominated acts! We'll see everyGettin' served by the Soul Servers. one again next year. But some quick memories Unfortunately, I think he's also the same dude from the party. � There were twice-baked potatoes at the who kept shouting out "fuck you" and "you suck" every time a winner was announced. open-bar VIP party in the Conspiracy Room Somebody probably should have kicked him prior to the show. Twice-baked, people! � Soul Servers opened the show with a out of the party, now that I'm thinking about it. � Mark Lowrey, Enrique Chi, Hermon three-song set of e ervescent hip-hop jams. Mehari, and maybe one or two other musiGreat vocal interplay, everybody looking fresh, a "Stepping Stone" sample: Those guys cians performed some sultry jazz-tinged songs and brought in a woman and a man to are on point. ballroom dance onstage as accompaniment. � After paying $12 for a tall Pale Ale draft Later, when Making Movies played, they -- this isn't Yankee Stadium, Uptown! -- I had two women wearing sneaked backstage and kimonos and playing viohunted around for free Winners of the 2012 lin. This is the part where booze. I happened upon Pitch Music Awards everything starts to swirl The P itch 's d i rec tor of Best Americana/Bluegrass: together for me. Were there marketing, Jason Dockery. THE GRISLY HAND Best Blues: really women in kimonos "Where's the free shit?" I TRAMPLED UNDER FOOT asked. "Are you holding onstage? I think that's true, Best Country/Rockabilly: on me?" He was de nitely but I probably wouldn't bet THE RUMBLEJETTS holding on me, but I didn't more than $20 on it. Best DJ: SHEPPA make a big thing out of it. � Melin spent a decent Best Electronic: MOTORBOATER After screaming, "Don't amount of time throughBest Emerging Act: THE CAVE GIRLS you know who I am?" at out the night chiding pop Best Experimental: EXPO '70 Best Garage/Punk: him and storming away, I nominees the ACBs for losPIZZA PARTY MASSACRE watched the Grisly Hand ing in their category for ve Best Hip-Hop: REACH perform from the side of straight years. I thought it'd Best Jazz Ensemble: the stage. They looked be great if they didn't win THE PEOPLE'S LIBERATION BIG BAND handsome and glowing, all again -- his jokes would Best Jazz Solo: MARK LOWREY bathed in the bright stage have been meaner and, thus, Best Live Act: HEARTS OF DARKNESS lights. funnier that way. But as it Best Metal: HAMMERLORD Best Pop: THE ACBs � Also while backstage, I turned out, this was their Best Rock: COWBOY INDIAN BEAR walked past one of the two year, drawing to a close their Best Singer-Songwriter (Female): models hired to assist host lovable-loser status. AMY FARRAND Eric Melin with the awards � Melin was also not shy Best Singer-Songwriter (Male): onstage. I gave her the ol' about making fun of the LENNON BONE double-eyebrow raise and categories and nomination a big grin. She just kind process -- it's not as easy as of shook her head and looked away. But she it seems, assholes -- and decided to bring smiled a little bit, I think. Baby steps, y'all. back a category that we nixed this year: best � The first award of the night, for best reggae act. After the last award was handed garage/punk act, went to Pizza Party Masout, he announced late-'90s, KC-bred, postsacre. Some gutter punk with a tattoo on grunge act Puddle of Mudd as the winner of his face accepted the award on behalf of the best reggae act. What I assume was a Puddle band. He was completely shitfaced and spoke of Mudd song blasted over the speakers, and with a fake German accent. It was kind of that was that for the 2012 Pitch Music Awards. funny. I talked to him outside; his name was Graham, and he seemed like an OK dude. E-mail firstname.lastname@example.com B R O O K E VA N D E V E R 24 THE PITCH AUGUST 16-22, 2012 pitch.com pitch.com AUGUST 16-22, 2012 THE PITCH 25 MUSIC RADAR BY Other shows worth seeing this week. T H U R S D AY, A U G U S T 16 Il Divo: Starlight Theatre, 4600 Starlight Rd., 816-363-7827. Ramblin' Jack Elliott: 7 p.m. Knuckleheads Saloon, 2715 Rochester, 816-483-1456. XV, Chase Compton, That Kid Ty, Jet Moran: The Granada, 1020 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-842-1390. M U S I C F O R E CAST D AV ID HUDN A L L F R I D AY, A U G U S T 17 B.B. King: Starlight Theatre, 4600 Starlight Rd., 816-363-7827. Shinedown, Godsmack, Staind, Papa Roach, Adelitas Way: 12:30 p.m. Cricket Wireless Amphitheater, 633 N. 130th St., Bonner Springs, 913-721-3400. S AT U R D AY, A U G U S T 18 Justin Moore: 7 p.m. Kearney Amphitheater at Jesse James Park, 3001 N. Missouri 33, Kearney, 816-903-4730. 311, Slightly Stoopid, the Urge, SOJA, Mac Lethal, Six Percent: 4:30 p.m. Cricket Wireless Amphitheater, 633 N. 130th St., Bonner Springs, 913-721-3400. T U E S D AY, A U G U S T 21 Parallels, Dynasty Electric, White Girl: 9 p.m. RecordBar, 1020 Westport Rd., 816-753-5207. Mangy old dope-smoking Willie Nelson, with his grizzled face and creepy braids, is far from a natural t for the Kau man Center. (And it will de nitely be interesting to see if anybody gets popped from this show for smoking weed.) But the man is a country legend, and when you reach legend status, your lowbrow qualities have a way of becoming highbrow-friendly. Nelson's latest is called Heroes, and it's a mix of new material and old covers. It's also chockablock with collabs, including Kris Kristo erson, Merle Haggard, Billie Joe Shaver, Sheryl Crow and, oh God, Snoop Dogg. Thursday, August 16, at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts (1601 Broadway, 816-994-7200) Willie Nelson Phish W E D N E S D AY, A U G U S T 2 2 Kevin Fowler, Cody Johnson, County Road 5: The Granada, 1020 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-842-1390. (hed)p.e., High Rise Robots: 8 p.m. The Riot Room, 4048 Broadway, 816-442-8179. Alpha jam-band Phish hasn't released new material since 2009's highly forgettable Joy, but then it's not about the albums with Phish. It's about the live experience, brah. It's about selling enough Sammy Smiths in the parking lot to make it to the next show, brah. It's about that tasty "Guyute" tease during "Harry Hood," brah. I kid; I kid because I love. Nostalgia for my teenage years goes a long way, and I will enjoy the shit out of this show, no matter what (though I wouldn't be opposed to them cutting ve minutes o a jam every now and again). Wednesday, August 22, at Starlight Theatre (4600 Starlight Road, 816-363-7827) FUTURECAST AUGUST THURSDAY 23 Goomba Rave Back to School edition with Riff Raff, Lil Debbie, Tyga Style, DJ G Train, Maal A Goomba: The Bottleneck, Lawrence Pretty Lights, Paul Basic, Araabmuzik: The Midland FRIDAY 24 Tech N9ne: Crossroads KC at Grinders SATURDAY 25 Dawes: Crossroads KC at Grinders TUESDAY 28 Lyle Lovett and His Large Band: Yardley Hall at JCCC WEDNESDAY 29 Black Stone Cherry, Stellar Revival, Obsidian: The Beaumont Club FRIDAY 31 Journey, Pat Benatar, Loverboy: Livestrong Sporting Park Toy Piano Collective Sharon Van Etten, with Hospital Ships and Ruddy Swain The album I keep thinking about while listening to Sharon Van Etten's latest, Tramp, is The Trials of Van Occupanther by Midlake. Both are elegant, mournful indie-folk records that maintain a consistent dreamlike mood throughout. I don't love Tramp the way I love Van Occupanther, but it's growing on me, and I won't be surprised to see it on a bunch of bestof-2012 lists. Monday, August 20, at the Riot Room (4048 Broadway, 816-442-8179) "The goal isn't for it to be a jazz or hip-hop or psychedelic or Afro-Latin show," Mark Lowrey says about his latest venture, which he's calling the Toy Piano Collective. "It's to be all of those things and maybe something else. I'm basically trying to showcase some of the baddest MFs in KC." In addition to Lowrey, a good many toy pianos and possibly a kalimba, the collective includes Brian Steever (drums), Pablo Sanhueza and Pat Conway (conga, bongo, pandeira, bat�), Hermon Mehari (trumpet), Sephiroth (aka Kartoon) on the mic, and Leonard Dstroy spinning. Saturday, August 18, at Czar (1531 Grand, firstname.lastname@example.com) Clockwise from top left: Sharon Van Etten, Wille Nelson and Phish Skid Row, with Federation of Horsepower Heyday-era frontman Sebastian Bach keeps hinting that he might rejoin his old cronies in Skid Row, but thus far he seems content touring with assholes like Axl Rose and starring on terrible VH1 shows with assholes like Ted Nugent. Therefore, this version of the 1980s metal band, which still includes three core members, is booked at Knuckleheads and not, say, the Midland. Which is not to say it won't still be a hell of a time. Friday, August 17, at Knuckleheads Saloon (2715 Rochester, 816-483-1456) SEPTEMBER SATURDAY 8 Y'allapalooza: 3 p.m. Livestrong Sporting Park SUNDAY 9 Twin Shadow: The Granada, Lawrence THURSDAY 13 Powerman 5000, Swill, Syn City Cowboys, Razorwire Halo: The Beaumont Club SUNDAY 16 Avicii: The Midland WEDNESDAY 19 Odd Future: The Granada, Lawrence WEDNESDAY 26 Masters of Illusion: The Midland FRIDAY 28 Ben Folds Five: Starlight Theatre F O R E C A S T ..................................................Pick of the Week ..........................................................Old Hippies ....................Portable Vaporizers Recommended .............................................. Dreary Love Songs 26 THE PITCH AUGUST 16-22, 2012 K E Y ................................................Plink, Plink, Plink .................................................. Locally Sourced ..........................................................Mom Jeans ..................................................Leather Jackets pitch.com ......................................................... Pretty Lady ...................................................Noodle Dancing ..........................................................Hula Hoops ............................................................So Druggy OCTOBER MONDAY 1 Florence + the Machine, the Maccabees: Starlight Theatre FRIDAY 5 Owl City: The Beaumont Club pitch.com M O N T H X X�X X , 2 0 0 X THE PITCH 1 Outdoor Stage August 17th, 2012 7:00pm KNUCKLEHEADS SALOON with Federation Of Horsepower & 11After (all female rock band) $25 Advance, $30 Day of Show or call 816-483-6407 pitch.com AUGUST 16-22, 2012 THE PITCH 27 SIGHTS, SOUNDS, IMPERIAL FLAVOR 1531 GRAND, KANSAS CITY, MO (816) 421-0300 - www.czarkc.com NIGHTLIFE Send submissions to Clubs Editor Abbie Stutzer by e-mail (firstname.lastname@example.com), fax (816-756-0502) or phone (816-218-6926). Continuing items must be resubmitted monthly. REGGAE Afrobeat: 9922 Holmes, 816-943-6333. Reggae Rockers, 10 p.m. NOW HIRING F R I D AY 17 ROCK/POP/INDIE The AllStar Rock Bar: 7210 N.E. 43rd St., 816-452-2660. SNAFU. The Bottleneck: 737 New Hampshire, Lawrence, 785-8415483. Marmalakes, Sons of Fathers. The Granada: 1020 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-842-1390. Opiate. KC Live! Stage at the Power & Light District: 13th St. and Grand. Trippin' Billies, 8 p.m. RecordBar: 1020 Westport Rd., E R 816-753-5207. London Transit, In MO Back of a Black Car, Vehicles, Dream Wolf, 9 p.m. The Riot Room: 4048 Broadway, S G IN 816-442-8179. Opossum Trot, LIST E AT N I Gunship Radio, the Author and the ONL M Illustrator, Jib Jab Jones, We Make PITCH.CO Noise, 8 p.m.; Sweet Down Deep, on the patio, 8 p.m. FOOD BY T H U R S D AY 16 ROCK/POP/INDIE Mike Kelly's Westsider: 1515 Westport Rd., 816-931-9417. Michael Schultz, Frankowski. Replay Lounge: 946 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-7676. Smoking Nurse, the Conquerors, 10 p.m. The Riot Room: 4048 Broadway, 816-442-8179. Eve to Adam, Sky Seems Red. TUE - TacoTuesday w/Czar-rita specials WED - Indie Hit Makers Showcase w/Industry Q&A Panel from 6-9:30pm w/Host Mike Borgia/Gurerilla Movement Showcase 10pm-Close THUR - Philly Thursday's/Hot Caution w/Vi Tran, Katie Gilchrist & friends FRI - Fish Taco Friday's w/Czar-rita & craft beer specials BLUES/FUNK/SOUL B.B.'s Lawnside BBQ: 1205 E. 85th St., 816-822-7427. Levee Town. Jazz: 1823 W. 39th St., 816-531-5556. Grand Marquis. Knuckleheads Saloon: 2715 Rochester, 816-483-1456. Jimmie Bratcher, 7 p.m.; Eric Sardinas, 9 p.m. Quasimodo: 12056 W. 135th St., Overland Park, 913-239-9666. Marbin. Trouser Mouse: 625 N.W. Mock Ave., Blue Springs, 816-2201222. The Joe Moss Band. CLUB FRI 9/14 ZZ Ward � SAT 9/22 Jealous Sound SAT 11/10 Neil Hamburger 1ST FRIDAY EVENTS FEATURING LOCAL AND REGIONAL ARTISTS EVERY MONTH! BLUES/FUNK/SOUL B.B.'s Lawnside BBQ: 1205 E. 85th St., 816-822-7427. Bobby Smith. Clarette Club: 5400 Martway, Mission, 913-384-0986. Eric Jerardi Band. Coda: 1744 Broadway, 816-569-1747. Filthy 13. The Hideout: 6948 N. Oak Tfwy., 816-468-0550. Levee Town. Jazzhaus: 926-1/2 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-1387. Cory Phillips, 10 p.m. The Levee: 16 W. 43rd St., 816-561-2821. The Good Foot. Quasimodo: 12056 W. 135th St., Overland Park, 913-239-9666. Justin Andrew Murray, 5:30 p.m.; Jeremy Butcher and the Bail Jumpers, 8 p.m. ROOTS/COUNTRY/BLUEGRASS KC Live! Stage at the Power & Light District: 13th St. and Grand. Jerrod Niemann, 7 p.m. DJ The Bottleneck: 737 New Hampshire, Lawrence, 785-8415483. Goomba Rave, with Team Bear Club. Replay Lounge: 946 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-7676. Love Garden Sound System on the patio, 10 p.m. JAZZ EBT Restaurant: 1310 Carondelet (I-435 and State Line), 816942-8870. Candace Evans Trio. Hotel Phillips: 106 W. 12th St., 816-221-7000. The Stan Kessler Duo with Kathleen Holeman, 5 p.m. The Majestic Restaurant: 931 Broadway, 816-221-1888. Bram Wijnands, Mark Lewis, 6 p.m. ROOTS/COUNTRY/BLUEGRASS Bar West: 7174 Renner Rd., Shawnee, 913-248-9378. The Outlaw Junkies. The Brick: 1727 McGee, 816-421-1634. Tiny Horse, (of) tree. Jerry's Bait Shop: 302 S.W. Main, Lee's Summit, 816-525-1871. County Road 5. COMEDY Improv Comedy Club and Dinner Theater: 7260 N.W. 87th St., 816-759-5233. Don "DC" Curry, 8 p.m. Stanford's Comedy Club: 1867 Village West Pkwy., Kansas City, Kan., 913-400-7500. Kevin Brown, 8 p.m. DJ The Beaumont Club: 4050 Pennsylvania, 816-561-2560. Back to School Party with DJ Vince, 9 p.m. Mosaic Lounge: 1331 Walnut, 816-679-0076. DJ ERock; Mosaic Friday hosted by Luke Rich, with DJ Allen Michael. The Quaff: 1010 Broadway, 816-471-1918. DJ E. Replay Lounge: 946 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-7497676. DJ Kimbarely Legal on the patio, 10 p.m. VooDoo Lounge: Harrah's Casino, 1 Riverboat Dr., North Kansas City, 816-472-7777. Flirt Friday. Z Strike: 1370 Grand, 816-471-2316. Fabowlous Fridays with DJ Nuveau, 9 p.m. p EVERY WEDNESDAY Lonnie Ray Blues Band EVERY THURSDAY Live Reggae with AZ One FRIDAY, AUGUST 17TH The Good Foot - 10pm SATURDAY, AUGUST 18th Camp Harlow - 5pm The Magnetics- 10pm NIGHTLY SPECIALS FOOD AND DRINK BAR GAMES/DRUNKEN DISTRACTIONS B.B.'s Lawnside BBQ: 1205 E. 85th St., 816-822-7427. Mardi Gras in August. Bulldog: 1715 Main, 816-421-4799. Brodioke, 9 p.m. Buzzard Beach: 4110 Pennsylvania, 816-753-4455. Trivia, Ladies' Night, 7 p.m. Club Rain: 8015 Troost, 816-361-2900. Strawberries, Ciroc and Champagne Party, 9 p.m. Czar: 1531 Grand, 816-421-0300. Hot Caution Thursdays, 10 p.m., free. Double Nickel Bar: 189 S. Rogers, Ste. 1614, Olathe, 913-3900363. Texas Hold 'em. Fuel: 7300 W. 119th St., Overland Park, 913-451-0444. Bike night. Hamburger Mary's: 101 Southwest Blvd., 816-842-1919. Charity Bingo with Valerie Versace, 8 p.m., $1 per game. Mac's Place: 580 S. Fourth St., Edwardsville. Karaoke. RecordBar: 1020 Westport Rd., 816-753-5207. Trivia Clash, 7 p.m. Sherlock's Underground Coffeehouse & Pub: 858 State Route 291, Liberty, 816-429-5262. Karaoke, ladies' night specials. ACOUSTIC RJ's Bob-Be-Que Shack: 5835 Lamar, Mission, 913-2627300. L.A. Fahy, Michael Beck. JAZZ The Phoenix: 302 W. Eighth St., 816-221-5299. Lonnie McFadden, 4:30 p.m.; Dan Doran Band, 9 p.m. Take Five Coffee + Bar: 5336 W. 151st St., Overland Park, 913948-5550. Will Matthews. Trouser Mouse: 625 N.W. Mock Ave., Blue Springs, 816-2201222. Marbin. WORLD Blvd. Nights: 2805 Southwest Blvd., 816-931-6900. Good Fridays: International Party Experience, 10 p.m. EASY LISTENING Jerry's Bait Shop: 13412 Santa Fe Trail Dr., Lenexa, 913-8949676. Interactive Acoustic with Jason Kayne, 9 p.m. BAR GAMES/DRUNKEN DISTRACTIONS Club Rain: 8015 Troost, 816-361-2900. Happy hour, 5 p.m. J. Murphy's Irish Pub and Grille: 22730 Midland Dr., Shawnee, 913-825-3880. Karaoke, 9 p.m. Missie B's: 805 W. 39th St., 816-561-0625. Ab Fab Fridays on the main floor, 10 p.m. Mission Bowl: 5399 Martway, Mission, 913-432-7000. CountryN-Bowl, wear western clothing, win prizes, 10 p.m.-12:30 a.m. Retro Downtown Drinks & Dance: 1518 McGee, 816-4214201. Trivia Riot, 7 p.m. Smokehouse Bar-B-Que: 6304 N. Oak, Gladstone, 816-4544500. Happy hour, 4-6 p.m. Tengo Sed Cantina: 1323 Walnut, 816-686-7842. American Gladiators Weekend. FOLK Coda: 1744 Broadway, 816-569-1747. John Keck's Devils and Angels. OPEN MIC/JAM SESSIONS Double T's Roadhouse: 1421 Merriam Ln., Kansas City, Kan., 913-432-5555. Blues Jam hosted by RocknRick's Boogie Leggin' Blues Band, 7 p.m. The Indie on Main: 1228 Main, 816-283-9900. Open mic, Low Dough Beer Night, 8 p.m. Jerry's Bait Shop: 302 S.W. Main, Lee's Summit, 816-525-1871. Jerry's Jam Night, 9 p.m. PATIO & DECK BANQUET & PRIVATE PARTY FACILITY 28 THE PITCH AUGUST 16-22, 2012 pitch.com M E TA L / P U N K Jackpot Music Hall: 943 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-8321085. Melting Point of Bronze, Ask an Adult, Dismantle the Virus. Replay Lounge: 946 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-7676. Supersonic Piss, Torben, Dry Bonnet, 10 p.m. VA R I E T Y Knuckleheads Saloon: 2715 Rochester, 816-483-1456. Brookelyn's Bombshells Outlaws for Paws with Outlaw Jim and the Whiskey Benders, the Nace Brothers, the Green Goddammits, 2 p.m. Jackpot Music Hall: 943 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-8321085. KC Disco Club. Replay Lounge: 946 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-7676. Sunday Funday with DJ G Train on the patio, 10 p.m. BAR GAMES/DRUNKEN DISTRACTIONS The Bottleneck: 737 New Hampshire, Lawrence, 785-8415483. Smackdown Trivia and Karaoke. Bulldog: 1715 Main, 816-421-4799. Game night, beer pong, TV trivia, shot dice. Clarette Club: 5400 Martway, Mission, 913-384-0986. Texas Hold 'em, 7 & 10 p.m. Frank James Saloon: 10919 N.W. Hwy. 45, Parkville, 816-5050800. Karaoke, 6-10 p.m. Fuel: 7300 W. 119th St., Overland Park, 913-451-0444. SIN. Missie B's: 805 W. 39th St., 816-561-0625. Show Stopper Karaoke, 12:30 a.m. Replay Lounge: 946 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-7676. KVKL Kickball League Benefit, 10 p.m. Saints Pub + Patio: 9720 Quivira, Lenexa, 913-492-3900. Free pool. Smokehouse Bar-B-Que: 6304 N. Oak, Gladstone, 816-4544500. Happy hour, 4-6 p.m. Wallaby's Grill and Pub: 9562 Lackman, Lenexa, 913-5419255. Texas Hold 'em, 6 & 9 p.m. Westport Flea Market: 817 Westport Rd., 816-931-1986. Texas Hold 'em, 3 & 6 p.m. REGGAE Californos: 4124 Pennsylvania, 816-531-7878. Liv Stat. S U N D AY 19 ROCK/POP/INDIE Jerry's Bait Shop: 13412 Santa Fe Trail Dr., Lenexa, 913-8949676. The Stolen Winnebagos. Jerry's Bait Shop: 302 S.W. Main, Lee's Summit, 816-525-1871. Sam Pace and the Gilded Grit. JAZZ Ironwoods Park: 14701 Mission, Leawood. Free Jazz Concert Series, 6 p.m. The Majestic Restaurant: 931 Broadway, 816-221-1888. Rich Hill, 11 a.m.; Mark Lowrey Jazz Trio open jam session, 5 p.m.; Mark Lowrey, in the jazz club, 6 p.m. Piropos Grille: 4141 N. Mulberry Dr., North Kansas City, 816-7413600. Dueling Piano Summit, 3 p.m. RecordBar: 1020 Westport Rd., 816-753-5207. Jeff Harshbarger presents an Alternative Jazz Series with Peter Schlamb, 7 p.m. S AT U R D AY 18 ROCK/POP/INDIE The AllStar Rock Bar: 7210 N.E. 43rd St., 816-452-2660. Local Stranger. The Brooksider: 6330 Brookside Plz., 816-363-4070. The Zeros. Davey's Uptown Ramblers Club: 3402 Main, 816-753-1909. Drew Black and Dirty Electric, Schwervon, the Electric. Jerry's Bait Shop: 302 S.W. Main, Lee's Summit, 816-525-1871. Nervous Rex. Legends at Village West: 1843 Village West Pkwy., Kansas City, Kan., 913-788-3700. Sean McNown, 5 p.m. The Riot Room: 4048 Broadway, 816-442-8179. Not a Planet, Everyday/Everynight, Saint Lux, Sundiver. Sidecar at the Beaumont Club: 4050 Pennsylvania, 816-5612560. Yes, Inferno, Aren't We All Dead, and more. BLUES/FUNK/SOUL Californos: 4124 Pennsylvania, 816-531-7878. Soltri. Trouser Mouse: 625 N.W. Mock Ave., Blue Springs, 816-2201222. Wes Jeans, Kayla Reeves. COMEDY Improv Comedy Club and Dinner Theater: 7260 N.W. 87th St., 816-759-5233. Don "DC" Curry, 7 p.m. Missie B's: 805 W. 39th St., 816-561-0625. Dirty Dorothy on the main floor, 10 p.m. Stanford's Comedy Club: 1867 Village West Pkwy., Kansas City, Kan., 913-400-7500. Kevin Brown, 7 p.m. DJ The Gusto Lounge: 504 Westport Rd., 816-974-8786. Retox Sundays, 8 p.m. BLUES/FUNK/SOUL The Bottleneck: 737 New Hampshire, Lawrence, 785-8415483. The 1 oz. Jig, and more. Freddy T's: 2111 E. Crossroads Ln., Olathe, 913-780-3900. The Old No. 5s. Jazz: 1823 W. 39th St., 816-531-5556. The Garrett Nordstrom Situation. Quasimodo: 12056 W. 135th St., Overland Park, 913-239-9666. Jacque Garoutte, 5:30 p.m.; Levee Town, 8 p.m. Take Five Coffee + Bar: 5336 W. 151st St., Overland Park, 913948-5550. Blues For Brains. Trouser Mouse: 625 N.W. Mock Ave., Blue Springs, 816-2201222. Cadillac Flambe. ROOTS/COUNTRY/BLUEGRASS The Brick: 1727 McGee, 816-421-1634. John McKenna Band, the Blackbird Revue, David Burchfield, happy hour show. Czar: 1531 Grand, 816-421-0300. Howard Iceberg and the Titanics, the Winston Apple Show, 6 p.m. Liberty Hall: 644 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-1972. Truckstop Honeymoon, Drakkar Sauna. DJ The Jones Pool: 10 E. 13th St. Manufactured Superstars with DJ Highnoone, DJ Eric Coomes, and more, noon. The Quaff: 1010 Broadway, 816-471-1918. DJ Chris. Replay Lounge: 946 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-7676. The Warm Up with Wolfgod, 6 p.m.; DJ Cruz on the patio, 10 p.m. HIP-HOP RecordBar: 1020 Westport Rd., 816-753-5207. Steddy P, DJ Mahf, Mathew Sawicki, Les Paul, Farout, Dom Chronicles, Belligerent, 9 p.m. JAZZ Hotel Phillips: 106 W. 12th St., 816-221-7000. The Stan Kessler Duo with Kathleen Holeman, 8 p.m. The Majestic Restaurant: 931 Broadway, 816-221-1888. Joe DeFio, on the main floor, 5 p.m.; Bram Wijnands, Tommy Ruskin, Mark Lewis, 7 p.m. COMEDY Improv Comedy Club and Dinner Theater: 7260 N.W. 87th St., 816-759-5233. Don "DC" Curry, 8 & 10:30 p.m. Stanford's Comedy Club: 1867 Village West Pkwy., Kansas City, Kan., 913-400-7500. Kevin Brown, 7:45 & 9:45 p.m. BAR GAMES/DRUNKEN DISTRACTIONS Hurricane Allie's Bar and Grill: 5541 Merriam Dr., Shawnee, 913-217-7665. Karaoke, 8:30 p.m. The Indie on Main: 1228 Main, 816-283-9900. Karaoke with KJ David, 9:30 p.m. MoJo's Bar & Grill: 1513 S.W. Hwy. 7, Blue Springs. Free pool, happy hour, 1-4 p.m. The Red Balloon: 10325 W. 75th St., Overland Park, 913-9622330. Karaoke, 8 p.m., free. M E TA L / P U N K Jackpot Music Hall: 943 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-8321085. Wringer, the Rackatees, Radkey, Smash the State. SKA Jazzhaus: 926-1/2 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-1387. Checkered Beat. 2 THE PITCH M O N T H X X�X X , 2 0 0 X pitch.com pitch.com AUGUST 16-22, 2012 THE PITCH 29 MAC'S P LACE BIKE NIGHT EVERY MONDAY! $3.50 Jacks & $2.50 wells $1 DRAWS ALL DAY! OPEN MIC/JAM SESSIONS PU B & G RU B Thu 8/16: Fri 8/17: Karaoke 8 - 12pm CHECK OUT OUR DAILY LUNCH AND DINNER SPECIALS! 580 S. 4th St. Edwardsville, KS (S. of K-32 on 4th St.) 913/441-2636 | Macsplacepub.com Find us on Facebook! DJ Brad C 9 pm - 1am Sun 8/19: Jam Session 7 - 10pm $1 DRAWS 4-7PM! Sat 8/18: JT & The Wild Game 9 pm - 1am FRI 8/17 (OF) TREE, TINY HORSES SAT 8/18 JOHN MCKENNA BLACKBIRD REVUE, DAVID BAND, BURCHFIELD 6PM THU 8/23 ATTIC WOLVES, NOBODY PARTIES BUT RO D FRI 8/24 THE SAWYERS, CHRIS DARBY & FRIENDS , BEN SUMMERS SAT 8/25 PHASE II, CADIL LAC FLAMBE WED 8/29 OUTLAW JAKE & THE CHAIN GANG, LOADED GOAT The Hideout: 6948 N. Oak Tfwy., 816-468-0550. Open blues jam, 7 p.m. Jazzhaus: 926-1/2 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-1387. Sunday Salvation with Booty Bass, 10 p.m., $3. Knuckleheads Saloon: 2715 Rochester, 816-483-1456. Open Jam with Levee Town, 2 p.m., free. R.G.'s Lounge: 9100 E. 35th St., Independence, 816-358-5777. Jam Night hosted by Dennis Nickell, Scotty Yates, Rick Eidson, and Jan Lamb, 5 p.m. BAR GAMES/DRUNKEN DISTRACTIONS Coda: 1744 Broadway, 816-569-1747. Team Trivia, 7 p.m. Improv Comedy Club and Dinner Theater: 7260 N.W. 87th St., 816-759-5233. Clash of the Comics, 7:30 p.m. Jackpot Music Hall: 943 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-8321085. It's Karaoke Time!. MiniBar: 3810 Broadway. Pop Culture Trivia, 7 p.m. Replay Lounge: 946 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-7676. Replay Horror Picture Show on the patio. Westport Flea Market: 817 Westport Rd., 816-931-1986. Chess Club, 7 p.m. M O N D AY 2 0 ROCK/POP/INDIE The Granada: 1020 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-842-1390. The Congress, Root and Stem. RecordBar: 1020 Westport Rd., 816-753-5207. Last Night's Regret, miRthkon, SimpleSmith, 9 p.m. OPEN MIC/JAM SESSIONS The Hideout: 6948 N. Oak Tfwy., 816-468-0550. Taco Tuesday Troubadour Songwriter Open Mic, 6 p.m. Stanford's Comedy Club: 1867 Village West Pkwy., Kansas City, Kan., 913-400-7500. Open Mic Night. BLUES/FUNK/SOUL The Blue Room: 1616 E. 18th St., 816-474-8463. Blue Monday Jam. The Hideout: 6948 N. Oak Tfwy., 816-468-0550. Blue Monday Trio. M E TA L / P U N K The Riot Room: 4048 Broadway, 816-442-8179. Vektor, Hellevate, Alsatia, Meatshank. ROOTS/COUNTRY/BLUEGRASS We Deliver! VA R I E T Y Jerry's Bait Shop: 302 S.W. Main, Lee's Summit, 816-525-1871. Kilroy Presents. FRANK JAMES Karaoke Sundays 6-10 � Happy Hour 3-6 Lunch Buffet, Salad Bar Daily Food & Drink Specials SALOON CHECK FACEBOOK FOR UPDATES LiLive Music every Saturday & Sunday! Food & Drink Specials! JAILHOUSE SUMMER CONCERT SERIES Barnyard Beer: 925 Iowa, Lawrence, 785-393-9696. Mudstomp Mondays. Jackpot Music Hall: 943 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-8321085. Thomas Wynn & the Believers, Tyler Gregory. W E D N E S D AY 2 2 ROCK/POP/INDIE Czar: 1531 Grand, 816-421-0300. Daikaiju, My Rotten Self, Various Blonde, 9:30 p.m. Jerry's Bait Shop: 302 S.W. Main, Lee's Summit, 816-525-1871. The Canes. RecordBar: 1020 Westport Rd., 816-753-5207. Bob Walkenhorst, 7 p.m. The Riot Room: 4048 Broadway, 816-442-8179. Official Phish afterparty with Lenny Mink and friends, 11:50 p.m. DJ Davey's Uptown Ramblers Club: 3402 Main, 816-753-1909. Liquid Lounge. Sat 8/18: MID LIFE CRIME SCENE 9pm-1am Sun 8/19: JEFF LUX 3-7pm $2.50 Draws & $1.50 16oz Aluminums on Sundays 3-7pm Bands - Send your CD & we'll call you JAZZ Jazz: 1823 W. 39th St., 816-531-5556. Jazzbo. 8/17 scott ford acoustic 8/24 River Rock Parkville, MO 816-505-0800 BAR GAMES/DRUNKEN DISTRACTIONS The Brick: 1727 McGee, 816-421-1634. Karaoke with Nanci Pants; Rural Grit Happy Hour, 6 p.m. Jazzhaus: 926-1/2 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-1387. Karaoke Idol with Tanya McNaughty. RecordBar: 1020 Westport Rd., 816-753-5207. Sonic Spectrum Music Trivia, 7 p.m., $5. Replay Lounge: 946 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-7676. Sam's Club Karaoke. Westport Flea Market: 817 Westport Rd., 816-931-1986. Texas Hold 'em, 8 p.m. BLUES/FUNK/SOUL B.B.'s Lawnside BBQ: 1205 E. 85th St., 816-822-7427. Shinetop Jr. Czar: 1531 Grand, 816-421-0300. Thomas Wynn & the Believers, the Old No. 5s, David George, 7 p.m. Jazz: 1823 W. 39th St., 816-531-5556. Billy Ebeling. The Levee: 16 W. 43rd St., 816-561-2821. The Lonnie Ray Blues Band. Quasimodo: 12056 W. 135th St., Overland Park, 913-239-9666. Rick Bacus Trio. 10919 NW 45 Hwy (3.5 mi west of I-29) 22730 MIDLAND DR AT K-7 & SHAWNEE MISSION PKWY 913-825-3880 daveysuptown.com OPEN TIL' 3AM 8PM/$7 3402 Main 753-1909 WI�FI ROOTS/COUNTRY/BLUEGRASS Knuckleheads Saloon: 2715 Rochester, 816-483-1456. Milk Drive, 8 p.m. M E TA L / P U N K The Bottleneck: 737 New Hampshire, Lawrence, 785-8415483. Metal Monday. LIVE MUSIC. NO COVER EVERY WEDNESDAY 7-9:30PM FREE AMY FARRAND'Wed S WEIRDO WEDNESDAY SUPPER CLUB 8/15 Landon Liest Acoustic PHIL Showcase WANG 8PM/$3 Thu 8/16 thur 8/16 Michael Schultz w/ Frankowski 10PM/$5 THE RETURNERS Fri 8/17 Eddie Delahunt Fri 8/17 Sat 8/18 Mother Kali Tues 8/21 Critters Tye Dye Tuesday BURLESQUE, VAUDEVILLE, Wed 8/22 Acoustic Showcase DJ Coda: 1744 Broadway, 816-569-1747. DJ Robert Moore, 10 p.m. The Gusto Lounge: 504 Westport Rd., 816-974-8786. Life 3-D. 1515 WESTPORT RD. � 816-931-9417 VA R I E T Y Californos: 4124 Pennsylvania, 816-531-7878. Opera Supper, 6-9 p.m. BOHEMIAN CARNIVAL Sat 8/18 THE ELECTRIC LUNGS, SCHWERVON, DREW BLACK AND THE DIRTY ELECTRIC 9:30PM/$5 STEAM PUNK, 9:30PM/ BLARNEY STONED $7 ADV, $10 DOOR WED 8/15 LANDON LIEST ACOUSTIC SHOWCASE THU 8/16 MICHAEL SCHULTZ W/ FRANKOWSKI FRI 8/17 EDDIE DELAHUNT SAT 8/18 MOTHER KALI TUES 8/21 CRITTERS TYE DYE TUESDAY ACOUSTIC Mike Kelly's Westsider: 1515 Westport Rd., 816-931-9417. Acoustic Showcase. T U E S D AY 21 ROCK/POP/INDIE The Bottleneck: 737 New Hampshire, Lawrence, 785-8415483. A Silent Film, IAmDynamite. Jerry's Bait Shop: 13412 Santa Fe Trail Dr., Lenexa, 913-8949676. Scott Duncan; Travelers Guild. JAZZ The Majestic Restaurant: 931 Broadway, 816-221-1888. Paul Shinn, 6 p.m. The Phoenix: 302 W. Eighth St., 816-221-5299. T.J. Erhardt, 7 p.m. Mon 8/20 LIQUID DANNY MCGRAW BAND Wed 8/22 MEMBERS OF BROTHER BAGMAN & WOLFMANZ BROS 10PM/$5 SLEEP AGENTS Fri 8/24 BLACK JACK ROW 9PM/$6 DJ'S BIG BROTHER & MELODY 10PM/ FREE LOUNGE $4.95 DAILY LUNCH SPECIALS � NIGHTLY DINNER & DRINK SPECIALS CHECK OUT THE NEW ALL DAY HAPPY HOUR WIFI NOW AVAILABLE! WED 8/22 ACOUSTIC SHOWCASE BLUES/FUNK/SOUL B.B.'s Lawnside BBQ: 1205 E. 85th St., 816-822-7427. Trampled Under Foot. COMEDY Stanford's Comedy Club: 1867 Village West Pkwy., Kansas City, Kan., 913-400-7500. David Kious, 8 p.m. ROOTS/COUNTRY/BLUEGRASS Czar: 1531 Grand, 816-421-0300. Elkheart's Downtown Outlaw Fiasco, 6 p.m. BAR GAMES/DRUNKEN DISTRACTIONS Bulldog: 1715 Main, 816-421-4799. Liquid Lounge drink specials. Danny's Bar and Grill: 13350 College Blvd., Lenexa, 913-3459717. Trivia and karaoke with DJ Smooth, 8 p.m. 403 Club: 403 N. Fifth St., 913-499-8392. Pinball tournament. Jackpot Music Hall: 943 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-8321085. Speed Dating. The Roxy: 7230 W. 75th St., Overland Park, 913-236-6211. Karaoke. The Union of Westport: 421 Westport Rd. Pop Culture Trivia. Thu 8/27 BLACK TIE LACERATION DJ Coda: 1744 Broadway, 816-569-1747. DJ Whatshisname, service industry night, 9 p.m. The Gusto Lounge: 504 Westport Rd., 816-974-8786. The Dropout Boogie, 10 p.m., free. THE RACKATEES, Wed 8/29 DJ LOST BOY 10PM/$5 THE ATOM AGE, RED KATE 9PM/$5 ESE, THE HOLLY 750'S 12AM/$5 JAZZ Finnigan's Hall: 503 E. 18th Ave., North Kansas City, 816-2213466. Abel Ramirez Big Band, 6 p.m. Jazz: 1823 W. 39th St., 816-531-5556. Rick Bacus and Monique Danielle. The Majestic Restaurant: 931 Broadway, 816-221-1888. Hermon Mehari Trio, in the jazz club, 6 p.m. The Phoenix: 302 W. Eighth St., 816-221-5299. Open Jam with Everette DeVan, 7 p.m. OPEN MIC/JAM SESSIONS Jerry's Bait Shop: 13412 Santa Fe Trail Dr., Lenexa, 913-8949676. Jam Night, 9 p.m. Tonahill's 3 of a Kind: 11703 E. 23rd St., Independence, 816833-5021. Rick Eidson and friends. GREASERAMA PRE-PRE PARTY Thu 8/30 THE CAVE GIRLS BLOODSHOT BILL 8:30PM/$5 30 THE PITCH AUGUST 16-22, 2012 FREE TO SERVICE INDUSTRY VA R I E T Y Davey's Uptown Ramblers Club: 3402 Main, 816-753-1909. Amy Farrand's Weirdo Wednesday Social Club, 7 p.m., no cover. pitch.com THREADZ BY HEADZ McGEE FOR THE HEADS UMPHREY'S T E S CLOTHING - JEWELRY ACCESSORIES - ART TICK ABLE NOW AVAIL OFFICIAL CROSSROADS TICKET OUTLET 1607 Westport Rd. KCMO 816-442-8400 Mon - Thurs 12-9pm � Fri - Sat 12-10pm � Sun 12-6pm 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! STREET TEAM Mon - Thurs 12-9pm � Fri - Sat 12-10pm � Sun 12-6pm presented by: l brew Festiva UNICO Micro @ Zona Rosa Neon Trees @ KC Li ve Block Pitch Music Awards @ Uptown Theater Upcoming Events Pitch Music Awards @ Uptown Theater 8.17 - Trippin Billies @ KC Live Block 8.17 - Rockstar Energy Drink Uproar Festival @ Cricket Wireless 8.20 - Umphrey's McGee @ KC Crossroads 8.23 - Pretty Lights @ The Midland See more on the "promotions" link on the p pitch.com AUGUST 16-22, 2012 THE PITCH 31 32 THE PITCH AUGUST 16-22, 2012 pitch.com DOWNLOAD OUR NEW IPHONE APP NEW LOCATIONS! THE BLUE LINE HICKOCK'S 816.512.5555 thekansascitystrip.com FEATURED SPECIALS MICHAEL FORBES BAR AND GRILLE Specials - 2 for 1 Wells $1.50 Yard Beer $3 Margarita's, Reverse Happy Hour 930-1am Must be purchased at the Trolley stop. Tickets ONLY $10 BROOKSIDER SPORTS BAR & GRILL - $3 Corona bottles No Cover EXPERIENCE KANSAS CITY'S NIGHT LIFE ON FRIDAY & SATURDAYS 1 ROCKIN FLEET OF TROLLEYS � OPERATING 7PM - 3AM � 8 ENTERTAINMENT DISTRICTS 5 0 + R E S TAU R A N T S & BA R S � E XC L U S I V E F O O D & D R I N K S P E C I A L S M & S GRILL $6 Crown Royal Drinks with Wristband MCCORMICK & SCHMICK'S Happy Hour 9pm to 1030pm Great Drink and Food Specials! THE OAKROOM at the Intercontinental $5 Wells $5 House Wine $3 Domestics Small plates and Live Music 8-12 RAPHEAL HOTEL Happy Hour 5-Close Live Entertainment GRANFALLOON Smirfnoff Special O'DOWD'S LITTLE DUBLIN Free Cover & $5 Borulrish Vodka TOMFOOLERIES Friday & Saturday Happy Hour 9pm-close Dom Draw $2.50, Well $2.75 Call $4.00 Cuervo Marg $4.50 FIDEL'S CIGARS 10% Off $20 purchase of Cigars (The Only Cigar shop on The Kc Strip!) FIREFLY $2 Drafts $4 Wells GREEN ROOM BURGERS AND BEER Free Small Fries with Any Entr�e HARPO'S RESTAURANT BAR Food and Drink Specials. Half Price Burgers Wednesday and Sunday JOE'S PIZZA Buy the Slice 2 Slices For $5 JERUSALEM CAF� $5 off Hooka JERSEY DOG, HOT DOG CART 2 Jumbo Dogs $5 6:30pm-3am FridaySaturday $1 off any menu item KELLY'S WESTPORT INN $1 Off Cover MISSY B'S Free Cover RIOT ROOM $1 OFF any American Craft Beer with wrist band MURRAY'S ICE CREAM & COOKIES $3.75 Single Scoop TORRE'S PIZZERIA Any specialty Pizza $10 2 Slices For $4 WESTPORT CAFE AND BAR $5 Shot and a Beer WESPORT COFFEE HOUSE 15% OFF Any coffee drink with a wrist band WALDO BOBBY BAKER'S LOUNGE $2 Budweiser Longnecks KENNEDY'S $5 Bombs LEW'S GRILL & BAR $2.50 Budlight Pints, FREE SPINACH DIP w/any purchase QUINTON'S $3 Domestic Draws THE WELL BAR - Grill and Rooftop Free Spinach Dip Appetizer with Entree DOWNTOWN JOHN'S BIG DECK (Upper) $4 Bombs $3.75 Boulevards Bucket of Domestic Bottles(5) with 2 Topping Pizza for $20. ANTHONY'S (1701 GRAND) TBD THE BLUE LINE $2 Blue Line Beers, $3 wells & $2 Blue LIne Shots. HICKOK'S BAR AND GRILL $5 Mojito, $6 Black Margaritas, $3 draws, FREE Queso with 2 food purchases. MAKER'S MARK $5 Cocktails MC FADDEN'S SPORT'S $4 UV Vodka Drinks TENGO SED CANTINA $3 Eljimador Margaritas ANGELS ROCK BAR No Cover on Friday SHARK BAR $4 Malibu Cocktails Z STRIKE LANES No cover Friday & 2 for 1 Games 18TH AND VINE DANNY'S BIG EASY Get Your Wristbands Here! JUKE HOUSE Friday $1 Off Cocktails & $2 Domestic Beer BLUE ROOM $5 Off Cover with Wristband BROOKSIDE BROOKSIDER SPORTS BAR & GRILL $2.50 Corona bottles No Cover CHARLIE HOOPER'S BAR & GRILLE Fridays- $1 off Budweiser $1 off Boulevard Wheat MICHAEL FORBES GRILLE Reverse Happy Hour 9:30pm-1am $1.50 Off Budweiser $1 OFF Boulevard Wheat P&L DISTRICT BAR LOUIE $3.50 Beer Specials $2 Fresh Fruit Shot FRAN'S RESTAURANT $5.99 Premium Breakfast on Fridays, $4 Bacardi 360 Vodka after 10pm PBR SKY BAR $5 Jack Daniel PIZZA BAR $3 Boulevard Wheat Pints MOSAIC No Cover before 11pm DRUNKEN FISH Appetizers. Sushi rolls. Drinks: Zinn Martini, Asian Marry, and Madam Butterfly. THE DUBLINER $3.50 Boulevard Wheat on Fridays FREE cover with wrist band HOWL AT THE MOON 2 for 1 cover WESTPORT CALIFORNOS $5 OFF $12 purchase BEER KITCHEN Discounts with your Wristband! BUZZARD BEACH $1.25 Domestic Draws $2.50 Wells DARK HORSE $2 Wells $2 Domestic Draws DAVE'S STAGECOACH INN $3 Jameson Shots $1 Off Pinnacle Vodka (Gummy Bear, Cake, Whipcream, etc) ERNIE BIGG'S (PIANO BAR) 2 for 1 Cover $4 Sweet Tea Vodka MARTINI CORNER VELVET DOG $1 Off All Sky Drinks THE DROP $6 Specialty Martinis & Cocktails TOWER TAVERN $3.50 Wells $10 Pizza 7pm-12 SOL CANTINA $4 Trolley Margaritas $2.75 Pacifico MONACO No Cover Dj's Friday and Saturday nights PLAZA BLANC BURGERS + BOTTLES Reverse Happy Tacos, Calimari, and gret drink specials! FIGLIO, THE ITALIAN $5 OFF any purchase 7-10pm FRED P OTTS Buy one Burger get one Free pitch.com AUGUST 16-22, 2012 THE PITCH 33 S AVA G E L O V E PLUGS AND KISSES Dear Dan: I've been confused about my sexuality for two years. I'm a 22-year-old female. I liked guys when I was in school, but then, in perhaps the most stereotypical of fashions, I developed a HUGE crush on Tegan and Sara when I was nearly 20. I like the idea of being with women, but I have never had a major crush on anyone since. So I'm really confused over what my sexual orientation actually is. I know many hetero-identifying people experience same-sex crushes, but can someone's whole sexual orientation just change overnight? My confusion is compounded by the fact that I've never even held someone's hand, been kissed or done anything else. I really want to experience such things, have an awesome relationship, and generally just stop feeling like a complete loser. Any help appreciated! BY D A N S AVA G E Awfully Nervous Over Newness Dear ANON: "When I was young, I dated boys," said Tegan Quin, one-half of the popular indie duo that prompted you to question your sexuality. "I never thought about love or being `in love.' And I never thought about sexuality. I was lucky to have a group of friends much more interested in each other than dating. And so I was fairly untroubled about my status. Until I kissed a girl. Then I knew who I really was. I was gay." Oh, hey, I hope you don't mind that I shared your letter with Tegan and Sara. I gured you might appreciate getting some advice directly from your potentially life-altering crush. Like you, Tegan used to assume that she was straight. "I'd gone most of my teens crushing on guys like Jared Leto, thinking that must make me straight," Tegan says. "Even though secretly I was dreaming of make-outs with Claire Danes. I thought my crush on Jared Leto vetoed my secret girl crush on Claire Danes. Maybe that was society weighing down on me. Perhaps it was peer pressure keeping me inside the lines of heterosexuality. Or, likely, I just liked them both." Based on your letter, Tegan suspects that you might like both. "Sexuality is not hard lines," Tegan says. "It's not black and white. Not for all of us, anyway. Some people know their whole lives who they are. Some people don't. My advice: Go and kiss a girl, go and hold a boy's hand. Don't worry about who you are until you nd out what you like. Maybe you'll like both -- and yay if that's the way it turns out, because that means you have twice as many people to fall in love with." And while Tegan doesn't think a person's sexuality can change overnight, she believes -- she knows from personal experience -- that a person's awareness of their sexuality can change overnight. "You can have an awakening," Tegan says. "Like I did when I rst kissed a girl. A whole new world can absolutely be waiting for you if you end up feeling up to exploring it. Good luck!" 34 THE PITCH AUGUST 16-22, 2012 Tegan and Sara's newest album is Get Along, and they're about to embark on a tour of North America. For info, tour dates, music, merch and more, see teganandsara.com. Dear Dan: I'm a 20-something professional snowboarder. I have a problem that I don't really have anybody to talk to about. When I jerk it, I have to put a nger in my asshole to nish. Plain and simple, that's the only way I can come. I've tried to learn to come without the nger, but I can never reach climax. I can't even come in a girl's pussy without sneaking a nger in my back door. I go to great lengths to hide it -- push her head in a pillow, etc. -- because I don't want them to think I'm gay. (I have no problem with other people being gay, just FYI. It's just that you do not want snowboard groupies thinking you're gay. Girls talk, and then you never get laid again, and all of your bros nd out you're sticking things up your butt.) This letter is actually time-sensitive. I'm pretty distraught that last night one of my regular chicks saw me do it! Today she won't return my texts. I want to convince her that I was scratching an itch or something. I'm worried it might already be out there that I'm "gay." How do I learn to come without prostate stimulation? guys who need a poke in the prostate in order to come, but either haven't gured that out yet or know it but don't wanna risk it in front of their girlfriends because their girlfriends might think they were gay if they did that. But their girlfriends think they're gay anyway -- because they're not poking and not coming. So it looks like you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. Stick a nger in your butt and come, and your girlfriend -- excuse me, your groupiefriend -- might think you're "gay." Don't stick a nger in your butt and don't come, and your groupiefriend might think you're "gay." A few practical suggestions: Get a butt plug. It's a butt toy that your sphincter muscles hold in place -- picture a small lava lamp that ts in your ass -- and once you get it in, it won't slip out. Provided your groupiefriends aren't touching your asshole or looking directly at it, they won't even know it's there. And a butt plug might help you break the strong mental association you've made between nger-inhole and climaxing. A few dozen look-ma-nonger-in-hole orgasms, courtesy of a butt plug, might help you transition to look-ma-nothingin-my-hole orgasms. Get a girlfriend. I'm not a noted proponent of monogamous coupling -- go ahead and Google me -- so please don't dismiss this as standard-issue, advice-professional moralizing. But you might bene t from opening up to one person, someone you can trust with your secret. That will require an investment of time and emotional energy, but the payo could be huge. Imagine having sex with someone you didn't have to hide from, someone who you didn't have to worry about judging you because she understood. Get over yourself. You're a heterosexual guy who needs to be on the receiving end of a little heterosexual anal play during heterosexual sex in order to get o heterosexually. There are lots of straight guys like you out there. Your sexuality isn't the problem; your need for prostate stimulation isn't the problem. The problem is your shame and your desire to hide this aspect of your sexuality from your groupies and your bros. You may not be gay, but you do need to come out. DEAR READERS: David Rako died last week. He was a writer, a contributor to This American Life, and an all-around spectacular human being. His books -- Half Empty, Don't Get Too Comfortable and Fraud -- are terri c. If you haven't read David's books, please read them now. My heart goes out to David's family and to his countless friends. To get an idea of how many lives David touched, spend some time at rorevans.tumblr.com. Find the Savage Lovecast (my weekly podcast) every Tuesday at thestranger.com/savage. Butt-Using Manly Man Entirely Distressed Dear BUMMED: I get a dozen letters a week from girls whose boyfriends "can't come." These girls tell me that their boyfriends get hard and stay hard and seem to enjoy fucking them -- and fucking 'em and fucking 'em -- but no matter how long their boyfriends fuck 'em, their boyfriends never climax. Invariably, these girls ask me if their boyfriends are gay. Because, otherwise, they would come during straight sex, right? Your letter made me wonder how many of these girls are dating guys like you. That is, Have a question for Dan Savage? 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