KC Confidential

A moment of silence please for the party zone known as the Beaumont Club…

Although it closed late last year, the entertainment elves in Westport have been working quietly to revive the failed former country, dance and concert venue.

As recently as last week, hopes were high that a team of “investors” would be assembled to divide the space in two and conquer with the southern third a Stanford & Sons comedy club and the northern two thirds country with the odd live concert and a re-imagined  outdoor, beach party scene.

While that still could happen, those hopes have dimmed. Continue reading →

It’s like a bad dream that won’t go away…

It’s been months since Micah Riggs locked the doors for the last time at his business Coffee Wonk at  3535 Broadway in Midtown Kansas City. And it’s been years since he sold a now controlled substance known as K2 or synthetic marijuana.

Riggs stopped selling it the minute it became illegal in August of 2010.

Unfortunately however, he’s been up to his eyelashes in prosecutors and police ever since Coffee Wonk was robbed at gunpoint in September of 2010 and police were called to investigate. Continue reading →

At least porn stars know when to hang it up…

Check out these video snippets from the Rolling Stones opening night concert at the Staples Center in LA.

If you dare.

But be forewarned, it isn’t pretty. Continue reading →

Promoters Chris Fritz and Barry Fey mugging for the camera in 1984

Not only are the circumstances surrounding the death of iconic concert promoter Barry Fey a little weird, his final resting place is even up for grabs.

For starters Fey, who left his mark on Kansas City, first at Starlight and more importantly as the dude who helped launch Sandstone, is trapped in a controversial, post death limbo involving the concert venue he helped to immortalize, Colorado’s vaunted Red Rocks.

“Famed Colorado concert promoter Barry Fey long believed he’d be buried in the Morrison Cemetery, near his beloved Red Rocks Amphitheatre,” reads a story in the Denver Post. “But lost paperwork and a ruling by the historic cemetery’s management group makes it unlikely that his final wishes will be fulfilled. Continue reading →

In with a bang, out with a whimper…

I’m not sure how they pulled it off, but congratulations are in order to American Century.

Because for months the Kansas City-based mutual fund company navigated the stormy PR seas of having billions of dollars of its funds named after disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong‘s charity without anybody here laying so much as a glove on them. A charity that Sporting Kansas City finally found too hot to handle and that ended in a messy, high profile divorce with LIVESTRONG in January. Continue reading →

Glazer tried to pick this chick up but wasn’t Green enough

Forgive me for preaching a little but…

It’s too easy for us to forget that what we drive as well as how we drive has a lot to do with wars being fought and Americans dying, but it really does. Continue reading →

The new kid on the block is about to get pool schooled…

The formerly sleepy Woodside Health & Tennis has bankrolled a seven-figure remodel of its pool facilities and plans on reclaiming the hotties magnet crown it ceded to The Jones rooftop pool in the Power & Light District downtown four years ago.

“The pool is clearly built for one reason,” Woodside habitue Craig Glazer said of The Jones in 2009. “To meet hotties.”

That from a dude who a year or so earlier compared Woodside to the Playboy Mansion.

But Woodside’s been getting a little long in the tooth.

Until last fall when  the club embarked on a megabucks upgrade.

The latest? Continue reading →

In the world of rock promoters Barry Fey stood tall, ruthlessly tall…

The iconic Denver-based music man was one of a handful of legendary rock promoters that ranged from San Francisco’s Bill Graham to Kansas City’s Chris Fritz. Promoters who ushered in an era of live music concerts and entertainment that came out of nowhere in the mid to late 1960s and lives on to this day.

“He was the reason Denver became such an important music market,” Fritz says. “I mean, he launched music in Denver in a big way. He will be missed, that’s for sure.” Continue reading →

Here they go again…

Don’t look now but Power & Light District operator Cordish is back in the soup with the African American community. Not Kansas City’s mind you – at this exact moment anyway – but Louisville, Kentucky’s.

“Black leaders concerned over Osborne arrest at Fourth Street Live,” reads yesterday’s headline in Louisville’s Business First publication. Continue reading →

Close but no Blowing in the Wind…

About that triple bill of Bob Dylan, Wilco & My Morning Jacket at Sandstone – ain’t gonna happen, sources say.

The so-called Americanarama Festival of Music had been looking for a shed date here but the fest was pricey and there were concerns about the drawing power of 71 year-old Dylan as headliner. Continue reading →

Let’s get real…

Most people in life couldn’t care less about whether Bill Self’s basketball Jayhawks best Mizzou in basketball or vice versa.  It’s a game people and games are meant to be played then forgotten.

There are far bigger fish to fry in the game of life than hinging one’s hopes and aspirations on how a handful of out-of-towner athletes perform against other groups of out-of-towner athletes from competing colleges. Continue reading →