
'Attack' mode
The Noise FM releases debut album; joggers and weightlifters rejoice
It's difficult to imagine a local release in recent years that comes out of the gate stronger than The Noise FM's "Dream of the Attack." Beginning with the taut, magnetic riffs of "Simple Simon" and continuing through the gaping-mouth hooks of "Circles," the album strikes a perfect balance between musicianship and songcraft-two things that don't always come as a package.

The LAN of Oz
Rock Chalk LAN brings computers and carnage to the KU campus
A primer: LAN stands for "Local Area Network." BYOC means "Bring Your Own Computer." DotA is "Defense of the Ancients." And BBAMFIC:well, you probably don't want to know what BBAMFIC stands for.

Townie guide to... transplantation
Former Lawrence barista and KJHKer, current marketing associate in Chicago, enjoys free-styling, losing things, watching The Sopranos.

Birth of The Beats is Born, 64 years later
Thanks to Lawrence's James Grauerholz, the crime novel that launched the careers of Burroughs and Kerouac finally sees print
In August of 1944, a 19-year-old Columbia student named Lucien Carr killed 33-year-old David Kammerer, the man who had mentored him since he was a young, fatherless boy and had come to fawn over him to the point of obsession. Carr stabbed him with a Boy Scout knife during a fight and threw his body in the Hudson River. The first people he ran to were his friends Bill Burroughs and Jack Kerouac.
Whoop Dee Doo!
Nutty faux TV show merges diverse communities in the name of fun and dance
Flip on the TV anymore and much that is flashed back is grim: war and death, crashing economies and lost jobs, drowning polar bears-it's enough to bring anyone down. What if the sights that greeted you were instead things like a fun-loving giant box of French fries trying to cheer up a sullen werewolf? Or some dancing grannies and a gospel choir that's lovin' life so much it hurts? That's the stuff of Whoop Dee Doo, Kansas City's imaginary-but real!-television show.