Dance, dance revolution: KU Dance Marathon unites students, community to benefit Children’s Miracle Network
When staging a dance marathon, one would be wise to do some research. A 1974 dance marathon at the University of Virginia for the benefit of Multiple Sclerosis resulted in a misdemeanor charge and a $363 bill for a stolen lamp. Organizers later discovered that the Code of Virginia banned events of physical endurance such as marathon dances, citing safety concerns. Kansas University’s Dance Marathon — scheduled to take place April 10 at the Ambler Student Recreation Fitness Center — will take heed of such historical guffaws and treat participants to a non-illegal, non-rigorous slate of activities to benefit the Children’s Miracle Network.
You guys are really good at what you do! An etiquette guide for local bands in awkward situations
We asked more than a dozen local bands questions pertaining to band etiquette. The responses we received proved to be both insightful and hilarious...
Lost in the Cosmos: Lawrence rock-fusion act finesses the art of 'Mental Hygiene'
Lawrence drummer Luke Stone made it a custom to pick up two Britney Spears stickers from a vending machine every week. He put them on his practice pad at home, inspiring him to practice his rudiments...
Peace pipeline: KU’s Peace Corps week offers prospective volunteers a glimpse of adventure
The village of Mörön is approximately 6,250 miles from Lawrence in northern Mongolia. Its 40,000 inhabitants are served by an airport with two runways, one of which is paved with gravel.
Worth the wait: Five years after being signed to a big-time deal, Lawrence native Sarah Buxton releases a real country record
Sarah Buxton is squealing. It's the sort of high-pitched, tea-kettle squeal that girls make in diamond-ring commercials when they realize their best friend's hubby "went to Jared" ...
Sing sing sing: Kirsten Paludan juggles solo project with supporting role in Olympic Size and wedding singer 'day job'
Paludan has her finger on the pulse of modern pop music, but not because she's browsing the end racks at Wal-Mart...
Playing with purpose: Lawrence parents pursue unique therapy for their children
Six-year-old Max blows up balloons, draws pictures, topples blocks and makes molds with Play-Doh. Occasionally Max reveals his deepest, darkest feelings. Max is in therapy, but he hardly knows it..
Fair play: Competition de-emphasized at annual science event
Dave Nordlund has overseen the Douglas County Science Fair for three decades. To wit, he has some insider information that may come as a shock.
The fairer sex: Female fantasy-sports junkies stake their claim in a male-dominated game
After nine years of playing fantasy football, Gina Byrd has developed allegiances to her favorite players. Her league mates — all men — often tease her for being so predictable...
Ozark stomp: Ben Miller might just be the best juke joint vagabond in the Midwest
Ben Miller went down to the crossroads, but he didn't sell his soul.
Re-opened mic: After a run-in with the copyright police, Mudstomp Mondays picks up where Pub Sessions left off
The day the music died came earlier than expected at Dempsey's Pub. The death sentence was a letter from ASCAP...
Kinetik Energy: Lawrence’s The Kinetiks up the ante and the tempo on second album “Science Is Magic”
In the midst of putting on silver tights and a cape prior to a recent show, Rani Waugh had a revelation about her band. "I don't understand why we aren't taken seriously'" ...
Fleetwood Mac and Chocolate Cheese
On the eve of local tribute shows to Fleetwood Mac and Ween, we offer this handy guide
UPDATE: Everywhere (A Tribute to Fleetwood Mac) is CANCELLED. But "Don't Stop" thinking about the Ween Tribute!
Best Local Music of 2009
From indie-pop to hip-hop, the decade in local music came to an abundant end
Here's 10 albums from the Lawrence and Kansas City area that we truly, wholeheartedly enjoyed — and a nice long list of honorable mentions...
Building bonds: LHS alumni share unique perspectives on teaching in Lawrence schools
Teachers aren’t people. They sleep on cots in their offices, emerging at 8 a.m. with lesson plans and 20-ounce coffees. They don’t shop at the same places normal people do, and they surely don’t go to rock shows.
Seven years reappear: Former Lawrencian Freedy Johnston resurfaces with ‘Rain on the City’
In the song that made his career, Freedy Johnston sings the lyric “seven years disappear.” Nearly two decades later, Johnston knows that feeling all over again.
Night-shift parenting
On the shortest day of the year, we ask Lawrence parents how they cope with managing family from the third shift
Imagine that you clock in to work at 11 every night in a sleep-deprived state. Now imagine that your job is to administer postmortem care to the dead. “Finding dead people doesn’t bother me as much anymore,” says Reneé Mellenbruch, a 19-year-old single mom in Lawrence ...
Walk, Patrick, Walk: Author Patrick Dobson walks across the country and tells its story in 'Seldom Seen'
Surely it's happened to all of us. A breeze strikes just right. A smell stirs the senses. Suddenly, you want to quit your job and walk to Montana. That's what happened to Patrick Dobson on an otherwise uneventful spring day in May 1994...
Noise for Tots: The Noise FM plays Santa for Douglas County Toys for Tots
This weekend, brothers Austin and Alex Ward of the Lawrence band The Noise FM will spearhead a toy drive for Douglas County Toys for Tots. On Monday, they’ll go back to serving local youngsters in a different fashion: substitute teaching...
Pound by Pound: Danny Pound confronts his 'existential angst,' emerges with intimate second solo album
Three and a half years ago, the Danny Pound Band entered Black Lodge Studios with the goal of making a record in three days. Three and half years later, it's finally done...
(Not so) Hard Travelin’: Tyler Gregory lives the Woody Guthrie life, sans the poverty and strife
This bearded Lawrence busker brought in a collection of new recordings to share for this podcast, which also addresses the proposed ban on Mass. St. panhandling and Gregory’s experiences as a vagabond...
Still Hardcore After All These Years
Coalesce’s Sean Ingram is a father of four — but that doesn’t mean he won’t jump in a raging circle pit
Bazan on Bazan
David Bazan addresses personal and religious struggles on new album “Curse Your Branches”
Bazan isn’t one for keeping his skeletons in the closet. He’d much rather let them duke it out in his fabulously hummable songs, which are the reason we all give a damn anyways. Bazan’s new solo album “Curse Your Branches” is a well-rounded collection that sounds as assured and powerful as his best Pedro the Lion songs...
Headphone Trip
Sam Billen indulges his appetite for all things pop on second solo album “Headphones and Cellphones”
Clear and Present Danger Bob
Irreverent pop rock “has-beens” reunite for first shows in six years
The group’s long and heckled history dates back to about 1992, when bands like Paw and Stick were all the rage. Danger Bob were the kids who snuck in the backdoor of the Bottleneck with a six-pack of silly. Once they learned to play their instruments, all bets were off, and the foursome went on to make five highly regarded albums and make a lot of locals very, very happy (or at least very, very drunk).
Continental Drift
Kansas City songwriter Jim Button floats into uncharted waters with new project Continents
Life in the Fast Lane
Tommy Ferrari’s radtastic biker pop is futuristically motorlicious
Some say Tommy Ferrari is a traveler from the future sent back in time to teach a group of young men the prophecies of tomorrow. Others say he’s a dude with long hair and lots of tats who frequents local watering holes. Even more people say: “Who cares? Chug! Chug! Chug! Whoooo!”
Company Men
Adam Lee and the Dead Horse Sound Co. bring their big-buckin' roots music to Lawrence
Like many country music aficionados, Adam Lee came to the genre after a youth in punk rock.
MAW knows best
Local bluegrass ladies dispense old-time wisdom on debut album "Advice for the Young and Foolish"
Judging by their song content, you wouldn’t want to let the women of MAW anywhere near your kids, husbands, or liquor cabinet. The local old-timey quintet sings about drug abuse, adultery, murder, sticking their fingers in babies’ eyes, and other unsavory things on their long-in-the-works debut album “Advice for the Young and Foolish” ...
The Inside of Love
Katlyn Conroy explores the idea of home on her solo album "I Think I'll Stay Inside"
Next time you see Katlyn Conroy out and about and having fun, tell her to go home. That’s where she makes her best music, and it’s the reason she came up with a lovely new solo album called “I Think I’ll Stay Inside” ...
District N9ne
Kansas City's alpha rapper rethinks his drive for fame and fortune in the face of family turmoil
Hundreds of thousands of records sold. A $2.1 million office suite housing his massive merchandising operation. Adoring crowds from Amsterdam to L.A. Collaborations with Ice Cube and Three 6 Mafia. And yet Tech N9ne still doesn’t feel like he’s “arrived” ...
Arkestral Maneuvers in the Dark
The Ad Astra Arkestra re-envisions old songs with new friends, more drums
Steddy As He Goes
Kansas City rapper Steddy P shares his “Style Like Mind”
P’s new disc “Style Like Mind” is a slickly produced collection spanning 30 years of hip-hop styles. Yeah, Steddy is an MU grad, but go listen to the new album and we promise you’ll forgive him...
Saunagram: Drakkar Sauna interviews themselves about their new record "20009"
When we approached the local duo of Jeff Stolz and Wallace Cochran about a podcast regarding their new album “20009” (pronounced "two thousand-ousand nine"), they offered to cook one up themselves...
What to Do in Larry Tonight
Nail-biting new movies, John Nolan, Baby Birds, Mouth, The Last Waltz Ensemble, and The Dactyls...
Ripley’s Believe It or Not
Lawrence expatriate records 80-plus songs in a year, returns to town for a whole bunch of shows
Come Sail Away
The Sailor Sequence releases debut EP, makes plans to accomplish something before world comes to untimely end
Machine Head
Nathan Reusch kicks his local record label into high gear
The Kansas City-based label is planning 10 releases for 2009 – by far its busiest year to date.
Miss Allison
Songwriter brings her old-country charms to local stages
There’s something enviable about Allison Olassa’s folksy lifestyle. She plays a sort of timeless music that’s as free and loose as Gillian Welch, and she pays the bills by cleaning houses (with all-natural products, of course)...
Irie All the Time
The Irietions mellow out Lawrence with 4:20-friendly reggae
The Irietions stop by to share some new tunes and their thoughts on legalization, local reggae, and gettin' the hell outta Dodge (City).
Blue Genes
Brody Buster has the blues in his blood, but that doesn’t mean he has to play it
Most kids would kill for the kind of whirlwind notoriety Brody Buster experienced between the ages of 8 and 12. From Beale Street to Jay Leno to befriending B.B. King, Buster lived the dream before he was old enough to know it...
Then We Take Berlin
Alacartoona performs modern cabaret with the flair of post-WWI Germany
Alacartoona sings in boisterous voices and plays accordions and seduces their audiences with a combination of hard liquor and woozy gypsy waltzes. They get bitten, jeered, and stabbed at with dinner knives, but other than that their audiences generally seem to have a good time.
All In: Chuck Mead returns to Lawrence playing a 'Journeyman’s Wager' as a solo artist
After many years as a Lawrence townie, Chuck Mead jumped ship for Nashville. His hillbilly outfit BR-549 signed to Arista Records in 1995 and spent the next decade touring the world and becoming a minor superstar. Mead caught up with us via phone from the road. Included in the podcast are portions of tracks from the new album...
All Roads Lead Left
Left on Northwood releases debut album, avoids numerous debacles involving pain and litigation
Great Scott
Rusty Scott pulls record "out of his ass," polishes it up into quite a dandy
Scott’s down-home songs toe the line between folk, rock, and bluegrass, working their way into your subconscious with easygoing melodies and old-fashioned instrumentation...
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