Blogs

By JASON HARPER

Oh. My. Crunk.

I had no idea what I was getting into last night, rolling up outside this two-story-plus-patio-plus-huge-outdoor-tent venue on KCK. I came out for a hip-hop show featuring rappers from Block Life Entertainment who'd come by the office two days ago to invite me out. Well, I'm not even sure you could call what happened last night "a hip-hop show." It was more like a giant-ass binge with some rappers getting up on a stage toward the end of it. Holy shit, the place got DOWN.

Click on the photo for a truly epic slide show.

Moda Mansion, by the way, is on Kansas Avenue just East of the 7th Street Tfwy, past a McDonald's and a bank. The place has been open in various formats for years and was a salsa club before new owners brought in hip-hop a few months ago. There's a hip-hop throwdown every Thursday and, I think -- correct me if I'm wrong -- Saturday nights. Bear in mind, as you review my photographic evidence, this was a Thursday. I can't imagine what it's like on Saturday.

The performers included DJ Sun-Up Jones, a bunch of gorgeous dames, City Life, Block Life's Dennis "Wescrook" Westbrook and Dandrae "Cku Koo Bird" Jones and some dudes from Major Factor Records, including Rushin Roolet and Felix Mitchell the Billionaire. If I have any names wrong, forgive me. I know I'm leaving people out.

And for any white people who are intimidated by venues like this, let me tell you I felt totally at ease at Moda, even before I got drunk. And I'm definitely going back.

As promised yesterday, Jeanne Bojarski's publicity peeps have passed along the architectural rendering of the refurbished El Torreon, drawn up by Davison Architecture + Urban Design LLC. Feast your eyes, Kansas City.

And, by the way, what's with architectural firms always using a plus sign instead of an ampersand or the word "and"?

It seems that the press release posted here a couple of weeks ago about the proposed restoration and greenification of the El Torreon Ballroom was never intended to reach the media. That's good, because it was pretty bananas.

By contrast, the release sent out today by a PR company called Pepperdine PR is crisp and professional. They've even offered to send along an architectural rendering. This is looking serious -- and seriously awesome if it works out.

EL TORREON CULTURAL ARTS CENTER LLC 3101 Gillham Plaza, Kansas City, MO 64111 Release Date: Aug. 20, 2008 Contact: Susan Pepperdine, (913) 262-7414 or susan@pepperdinepr.com Also contact Pepperdine for electronic copies of the news release, bios and timeline.

Restoration of Historic Midtown Building Announced

In 1970s El Torreon Was Home of Legendary Cowtown Ballroom

(KANSAS CITY, MO.) ... El Torreon, the historic building at 31st and Gillham Plaza in midtown Kansas City, which in the 1970s rocked as the legendary Cowtown Ballroom, is on the verge of rocking again through a multimillion-dollar restoration effort announced today. Restoration will return the building to its former glory, turning the El Torreon once again into a venue for concerts, dances, roller-skating, weddings, reunions and other community and private events.

At a 10:30 a.m. press conference, Jeanne Bojarski of Kansas City announced that she has formed El Torreon Cultural Arts Center LLC, and has made a down payment toward purchasing the building from Nabil Haddad, president of Haddad Restaurant Group Inc. Haddad has applied for a permit to provide food, beverages and liquor for events at the El Torreon. He owns and operates the Plaza III and Figlio’s, and is known for preserving the traditions of another Kansas City institution, Winstead’s, since purchasing the restaurant chain in the early 1980s.

Bojarski is a marketing communications writer with experience in concert production, who also ran in 1992 in Missouri for the U.S. Senate on the Libertarian ticket. Her daughter, Alexandra Bojarski-Stauffer, will also have part ownership in the building along with other private investors.

In late July Bojarski signed with Davison Architecture + Urban Design LLC of Kansas City for architecture and with TranSystems for engineering services. She plans to sign the final ownership documents in January 2009.

More after the jump.

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The best thing you will do for yourself all day is to spend the half-hour, hour, half-day or however long it takes you to read the eight posts Abigail Henderson has made so far to her brand-new blog, Hope Is My Middle Name.

Abby is a local musican, most recently of the Gaslights, who was diagnosed a few weeks ago with stage III inflammatory breast cancer. She's also a fighter, a warrior, a GODDAMN BARBARIAN with whom cancer will regret ever having tangled. And she's a fantastic writer, the kind whose inspired, hilarious and poignant prose will change you in the moment and leave you changed indefinitely. ...

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Photo by Sarah Okun

If you closed your eyes on Friday night, the breeze and the sounds of Jack Johnson's ukulele almost made Capitol Federal Park at Sandstone feel like the beach. The surfer-boy-slash-singer-songwriter performed for about two hours at the outdoor amphitheater in Bonner Springs. Beach balls bobbed over the top of the crowd; so did a couple of people early in the set.

Looking as laid back as ever in a t-shirt and blue jeans, Johnson plunked through most of his feelgood favorites, including "Bubble Toes" and "Banana Pancakes," as well as a lot of feelgood-sounding songs that actually contain social commentary, like "Fall Line" and "The News."

Gorgeous weather aside, Sandstone seemed like a good fit for the environmentally conscious musician, who used solar energy to record his latest album, Sleep Through the Static. The folks behind the venue would have you believe it's an increasingly "green" facility. There are even signs with tips on how to be a more environmentally responsible concertgoer at Sandstone's entrance. But any positive impact of carpooling was reversed at the end of the show, when hundreds of cars idled, motionless, for upwards of an hour thanks to bottlenecking at the exit.

BUZZKILL!

In an awesome Sunday Lawrence Journal-World article, Pipeline Productions owner and Wakarusa mastermind Brett Mosiman claims that he may move his festival out of Kansas if he don't start gitting the kind of deal them cowboys git.

He's mad that the organizers of the Country Stampede festival, held at Tuttle Creek State Park near Manhattan, pay less for security and law enforcement personell than Mosiman does for his festival, which has been held at Clinton Lake State Park in Lawrence.

The bone:

The contract for the Wakarusa Festival requires Mosiman’s company to reimburse the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks for park rangers, game wardens and other department personnel who help with law enforcement and security at the event. For this year’s festival, that cost is estimated at $30,000.

But the contract for the Country Stampede does not require the department to be reimbursed. That’s despite the department spending “several thousand” dollars to have 20 to 25 department personnel at the four-day event, said Todd Lovin, park manager for Tuttle Creek State Park.

Mosiman cries bigotry. In a very Bob Dylan-like moment, he told the Journal-World

“You can say cowboys are cool and hippies drool, but not if you’re behind the state seal of Kansas,” Mosiman said. “It is profiling, it is discrimination, it is like saying the black kids can’t use the pool.”

Read the full article here.

Photo by Forester

In just a couple of weeks -- provided all the members can get their passports in time -- the Republic Tigers will make their international debut in Beirut, of all places, at the Big Bang Festival, August 22 through 24. Hm, that's a rather unfortunate name for a rock festival featuring American bands in a country with a history of terrorism. Not only is there the explosive implication, radical Muslims probably don't put much stock in the theory of the creation of the universe for which the festival is apparently named.

Tigers frontman Kenn Jankowski tells the Wayward Blog that he wanted to play the festival despite any such concerns because "I wanna go everywhere if possible, it's our first show out of the country, and it pays pretty well."

Let's hope the only bangs come from the drums of our proud Tigers. The lineup hasn't been announced, but we know that Mercury Rev is playing, along with German electro guy Apparat.

Our office received the following, ahem, ambitious new plan for the restoration of El Torreon today.

Here it is, in its entirety, with certain phrases highlighted by us. By the way, you will not believe it.

Mother and Daughter to Restore El Torreon into Cultural Arts Center

KANSAS CITY – July 21, 2008. Jeanne Bojarski and her daughter, Alexandra Jeanne Bojarski-Stauffer, today reached an agreement with Nabil Haddad to purchase the El Torreon Ballroom at 31st and Gillham Plaza.

The mother-daughter team seek to restore the 1927-vintage ballroom to its days of glory in a “green” way that will benefit generations to come, both culturally and in energy savings.

Jeanne Bojarski is a consulting corporate marketing writer for TranSystems, who in turn are designing and managing the restoration project in a design/build effort with Charles Beard and architect Dominique Davison. Alexandra Bojarski-Stauffer is studying architecture and business at Tulane University.

The restoration will not only be historically accurate, but also feature 21st century energy innovations such as solar panels, wind turbines and a garden on the roof, a de-humidification system to make the air inside easier to heat and cool as well as geothermal wells drilled in the pre-restoration parking lots to reduce energy costs even more. The restoration team aims at LEED Platinum certification.

Follow the jump for a continuation of the Christmas-letter-styled press release.

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By FLANNERY CASHILL

Attention all yodelers, cat jugglers, and Harlem Globetrotters: Kansas City's historic El Torreon is reopening, and in an effort to raise funds for building restoration, organizers are hosting a talent show. Interested parties should call (816) 561-3596 or (816) 359-9085 to register for their chance to compete. There is a $15 entrance fee for performers and a jackpot of $100 or more, depending on the number of participants. The all-ages show costs $2 at the door and begins at noon on Sunday, August 10th, giving competitors less than two weeks to master weight lifting and spoon bending.

By FLANNERY CASHILL

Those technophiles eager to announce the end of an analog era may want to consider the new trend in music consumption: motherfucking vinyl records. In many markets, vinyl outsells CDs, and turntables outsell guitars. This Saturday, Earwaxx Records in Gladstone (6408 North Oak Trafficway) opens its doors, and introduces a new generation to record store babes, record store douches, the thrill of discovery, and the shame of guilty pleasures. Owner Gary Wilkerson aims to avoid dusty, dollar-store records and keep the shelves stocked with new releases and reissues. “I’m all about trying to get stuff for the customers,” he tells us. Tomorrow’s grand opening will include live music, giveaways, specials and free hot dogs.

By JASON HARPER

Yesterday evening at Power and Light started out tame enough, with the fantastic ACB's playing before a crowd of large-calved adults in shorts, many of them sitting on the steps 40 feet from the stage, few of them realizing how talented the band they were watching really was.

Photos by Crystal Wiebe

Because even people who seek out corporate entertainment in the form of shopping malls and handjobs in the bathroom at Circuit City know that a band playing a free show on a stage awash with flickering logos and advertisements isn't likely to be all that great. They're wrong, of course, about the ACB's, who could fill a Sprint Center or two with their sharp guitar hooks and celestial harmonies. A couple of hipsters danced down front, bare, in the open, exposed, for a song or two, and two sorrority girls photographed the band's not unhandsome front man, Konnor Ervin, but other than that and polite applause, and though the crowd grew steadily, nothing really wild happened.

When Super Black Market took the stage, it became a different story.

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Since departing his post as Pitch spin cycle columnist, Chris Milbourn has taken giant steps toward getting his DJ and hip-hop 'zine and Web site, Demencha, straight off the ground.

Not only is a print 'zine available, Demencha.com offers regular downloads, including the latest from Lawrence hip-hop producer and MC Johnny Quest. Download it via Demencha here.

And join us in checking Milbourn's endeavors regularly to find out what's going on in the world of local underground beats.

By FLANNERY CASHILL

Who remembers Woodstock ’99? Well, okay, no one remembers anything about Woodstock ’99 except the orgy of violence that ensued after the portable toilets overflowed and vendors hacked $4 bottled waters. But that was the nineties, and this is the aughts: trash fires have lost their radical appeal, and eco-consciousness has changed outdoor concerts for the better. Capitol Federal Park at Sandstone, for one, launched the Green Initiatives Project in an attempt to make the venue “more environmentally friendly and socially responsible,” and recently courted Lawrence’s Local Burger as a vendor.

Now vegans won’t have to scrape the cheese off their pizza, conscientious concertgoers can eat local, and celiac sufferers can eat a hot dog in the park like every American should. Enjoy a guilt-free bison burger and perhaps relieve the shame of seeing 311 or O.A.R. live.

Many folks in Kansas City still aren't hip to Dri, but that hasn't stopped the Lawrence songbird from booking a West Coast tour leg with Conor Oberst and the Mystic Mountain Valley Band.

Now, this development will preclude Dri from playing our Pitch Music Showcase on August 7, but ... we understand.

Dri, along with her other band, Fourth of July, is up for Best New Act in the Pitch Music Awards.

Kenny Diamonds, host of Underground Heat, KPRS 103.3’s midnight show that features urban radio hits mixed with songs by local artists, is taking the show live starting tomorrow night, July 4, 2008.

This is good news because (a) up until now, the show was pre-recorded, so Diamonds just sort of tried to sound live, and (b) now people can call Diamonds while the show is on the air to request music and give feedback on the local songs he plays.

Diamonds’ Myspace page, describes it thus:

“The show is a mix of underground music from all over the world, ranging from unsigned, independent artists to national recording artists. It also features exclusive remixes, interviews, drops and freestyles from national and local artists, and a bangin’ Mega Mix from various DJs around the globe that closes out each show.”

We’re excited to call in with a request for this song.