KC Confidential

Let’s give credit where credit is due…

Nobody gets in business to fail or go broke – including now-former Kanrocksas promoter Bill Brandmeyer.

Brandmeyer went down hard last summer after failing ticket sales forced him to cancel what would have been his second huge summer spectacle at the Kansas Speedway. And while he was on the receiving end of some ultra harsh criticism from both music fans and the very industry insiders who encouraged him to absorb yet another multi-million dollar hit, I can tell you in no uncertain terms that Brandmeyer’s heart was in the right place.

Was he naive to think he could come out of nowhere and swack one out of the park?

Obviously. Continue reading →

Talk about the Top 40…

With Vampire Weekend, O.A.R., Pat Metheny, 311,  Ziggy Marley, The Rainmakers, Robert Randolph and 33 more acts – and still counting – this summer at Crossroads KC promises to be the biggest and brightest yet at the 8 year-old outdoor venue in downtown Kansas City.

“Yeah, there are way more bigger shows this year and there’s a reason for that – no Kanrocksas”  says promoter Brett Mosiman. “We’re barely into April and we already have 40 shows booked and we’ll probably have another 5 or 6 shows.”

Joss Stone

For example, yet to be announced are shows featuring acclaimed British soul singer Joss Stone (September 7th), Bruce Hornsby (July 26th) and the Under the Sun tour with Sugar Ray, Smash Mouth, Blues Traveler and Uncle Kracker. Continue reading →

Once upon a time there were only private clubs…

So when you wanted to go out to a nice restaurant in Kansas City – with rare exception – it wasn’t in the state of Kansas. Kansas City, Missouri was where the action was at when it came to credible dining options. Because in the 1970s Kansas was still sorting out its antiquated liquor laws and you had to “join” a “club” to be able to order liquor by the drink with your meal.

But as the 1980s unfolded a bold Johnson County barbecuer by the name of Hayward Spears bought up a bunch of land at College Boulevard and Antioch and moved his popular rib roost south from 95th Street into a gorgeous, new space with a scenic view of the city to the north. Oh and he got one of those new-fangled liquor licenses Kansas was starting to give out and – just like that – fine dining was born in Overland Park.

However unlikely though because Hayward’s was a mere barbecue joint. Continue reading →

Hard as it may be for many of us to admit, in Kansas City today country music is king…

I almost can’t believe I even wrote the above words.

Look, I grew up here in Kansas City and worked for many years as a merchandiser of grain – corn, wheat, milo and soybeans, to name four. I worked closely with farmers and grain elevators throughout the midwest and south. I even was trained in the inspection of grain by the USDA grain inspector in Cairo, Illinois. And I still buy country ham and moonshine on my yearly swings through Kentucky and Tennessee.

The flip side of all that: I ran and built up The Pitch during its most critical formative years and was a key player in promoting alternative rock bands like Green Day in Kansas City and Lawrence – long before anybody in radio here had the guts to roll the dice on an alt station like The Buzz.

So country music has always been something of an anathema to me. Continue reading →

This just in…

In barely one week superstar actor and comic Chris Tucker will headline Stanford & Sons comedy club at The Legends in Kansas City, Kansas.

“We just got him booked,” says Stanford’s main man Craig Glazer. “He’ll be at Stanford’s  April 17, 18 and 19, which is Easter weekend. He’ll be doing one show on Thursday and two each night on Friday and Saturday.”

In addition to Tucker’s more recent role in the Academy Award-winning movie Silver Linings Playbook with Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper, he’s best remembered “rom when he was in the Rush Hour movies with Jackie Chan,” Glazer says. “And he played Smokey in the Friday movies. At one point he was the highest paid actor in Hollywood.” Continue reading →

Time flies whether you’re having fun or not…

And so it is that more than a month ago a local jeweler rumored to be up you-know-what creek fled his nicely appointed Johnson County office in what is said to have been a late night move, for a space far less fashionable. And frankly, that’s accessing the new digs very generously.

Two weeks later I visited the jeweler’s former offices before checking out his new haunt. And since nobody was home, I took a peek through the mail slot in the front door where to my surprise I saw was a very small, very plain room, loaded to the gills with plastic and cardboard storage boxes filled with what appeared to be business records.

They were strewn and stacked about the room, filling the viewable space as if someone had brought them there in great haste and plopped them down willy-nilly. Continue reading →