KC Confidential

Can we talk?

A smattering of prickly-but-thoughtful takes on the error of our ways, courtesy 0f entertainment lawyer turned scribe Bob Lefsetz:

ALBUMS

Coldplay sells an anemic 384,000 copies and in a few weeks it’ll be over, like it never came out, even those who bought it will be done with it. Just like the Black Keys, who debuted at number one with 164,000 and then sold only 54,000 in week two. And they think they’re winning because they’re not on Spotify. No, they’re losing, because no one’s listening to their music.

The album was killed by the CD, wherein the compilation was too long, full of dreck and without a second side. The CD was unfathomable. And you could program your player to play just the tracks you wanted to hear.

The album was disrupted long ago. It’s only the jerks who make the music and those who sell it and the few consumers with loud voices who still care. The rest of the public is all about the single. And they’ll play more of your singles if you make good ones.

As for sitting at home playing the one album you bought over and over until you knew every lick… Yeah, you knew all the commercials when there were only three channels and you had no clicker, when there was no DVR.
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Happens to the best of ’em…

The latest on Stanford & Sons honcho Craig Glazer: He’s head over heels.

“Well, about six months ago my manager at Stanford’s David – he’s a player, early 30s – told me that there was a girl at a strip club not far from here called Whispers that had asked about me a lot and was really cute and that I should meet her. And I said, ‘David, I really don’t want to date another dancer because the last one was Black Barbie and that didn’t end well.’

“I mean, strippers are good in bed and they’re exciting, but they’re trouble and can date anyone they want to, including Chiefs players. And you’re like a dog chasing a car, what do you do with them once you catch them? You’re not going to get married. It never ends well. And just because you’re sleeping with them doesn’t mean anything.”

So much for prudent thinking. Continue reading →

It may seem like such a small detail…

Yet in the wide world of discouraging the kind of urban youth problems the Country Club Plaza is now embroiled in, every chess moves counts. And in the case of Westport – which doesn’t have to worry about teenagers flocking to Jerry Harrington’s art house cinema the Tivoli – it comes down to music.

That’s right, music.

In past years Kansas City’s original entertainment district has battled large groups of inner city kids in search of the late night good times afforded by stoking on hotties outside largely black dance clubs like America’s Pub,  Karma, Club 504 and the Harris House. That and the occasional urban shows at the Beaumont Club.

No mas. Continue reading →