The Slacker Morning Show

Jennifer Jo Cobb is a professional racecar driver, NASCAR team owner, public speaker, entrepreneur and a corporate spokesperson. Jennifer began racing at the grassroots level of NASCAR in Kansas City in 1991. She has recently accomplished several historical feats in NASCAR’s Camping World Truck Series incuding: highest finishing female driver in the overall points for a season (2010); highest finish by a female driver in the series (6th place, 2011); most starts by a female driver in the series (50+ 2012) and she holds the highest place finish in a race event by a woman in any NASCAR series at the famous Daytona International Speedway. Jennifer chats with longtime friend Slacker about upcoming race at Kansas Speedway!

Mick Jagger is one of the most recognisable and influential British musicians of the modern era. As lead singer and songwriter for The Rolling Stones, a prolific and much sought-after collaborator, a successful producer and a lauded solo artist in his own right, Mick has set and maintained the gold standard for popular performance and creativity for nearly five decades.

Michael Philip Jagger was born in 1943, in Dartford, Kent. A good student, Mick attended grammar school and then won a place at the prestigious London School of Economics. As has been well documented, he was a childhood friend of future Stones bandmate, guitarist and co-writer Keith Richards, with whom he lost touch during adolescence, before a chance meeting on the platform of the local railway station in 1960 brought them back together in their late teens. Discovering a shared passion for American rhythm and blues and rock’n’roll, they started hanging out, playing records and then making music. Mick chats with Slacker about the new album, tour and Kansas City concert!

Patty Stoetzer is a pillar of the KC restaurant industry. Her love of people is unmatched. Whenever anyone needs help, Patty is first in line to give. Everyone she meets is greeted with a hug and a "Whatcha know?". Patty knows no strangers.

Patty and her family need our help. Patty's husband suffered a heart attack and is losing his vision. He is unable to work and two days after her husband was last released from the hospital, her son was admitted and is now fighting for his life. Please spread the word and attend this event where we will celebrate Patty. We will have music, raffles, and delicious food from KC's favorite restaurants!

Kiss were always about more than the music. From the start, when they covered their faces in makeup, strapped on spiked platform boots and gave themselves nicknames like the Demon and Starchild, the concept behind Kiss mattered more than the music. That’s not to say they haven’t made some great records during their 40-year career; their 1975 ‘Alive!” album remains one of the best concert LPs ever released. But the band’s shrewd marketing campaigns over the years – which has included TV specials to candy to coffins and pretty much everything in between – has made them one of the most recognizable brand names on the planet. All of which makes the music almost secondary in Kiss’ worldview. But their mix of heavy-metal thunder and hard-rock hooks has guaranteed a spot among the most durable bands of the past four decades. Paul chats with Slacker.

Bill McGonigle, our founder, was especially committed to children and family. He had nine children and instilled in each one of them a commitment to making the world a better place by strengthening the family. He was very generous in his lifetime, helping many struggling families to provide food for themselves. In his spirit, McGonigle’s Market has chosen to support FosterAdopt Connect (formerly Midwest Foster Care and Adoption Association) in its goal to provide every child a “forever” home that is strong and financially sound.

FosterAdopt Connect

We have a yearly event where we sell our smoked baby back ribs for a great price and then donate approximately half the proceeds from the sale of each slab to the MFCAA. It happens every year, approximately the last Saturday in April, both to commemorate the stores founding on May 5, 1951 and the opening of the barbeque season. Last year, with the help of many, many generous Kansas Citians, we were able to donate over $30,000.00 to this fine organization which supports foster and adoptive homes for the areas most abandoned of children.

Back in 2010, Rob Riggle called fellow Shawnee Mission graduates Paul Rudd and Jason Sudeikis with an idea. "Let's host a poker tournament to raise money for Children's Mercy." Without hesitation, they each agreed and immediately called upon their family and friends to help pull it off.

With only nine weeks of planning, the Big Slick Celebrity Weekend was born. And friends like Will Ferrell, Director Adam McKay, Bobby Cannavale, George Wendt and SNL Alum Will Forte helped raise over $120,000. Since then, the guys and other celebrity guests have raised more than $3 million – mostly through sponsorships and proceeds from live auctions. Because the entire event is planned and supported by the volunteer efforts of the family, friends, and the help of Children's Mercy staff, Big Slick tries very hard to keep expenses to a minimum and dollars directly to the kids at a maximum.

But the benefits have not just been financial. Over the years, the attention that Big Slick has brought to Children's Mercy has helped with their recruiting efforts attracting top medical and research talent. Big Slick also helped to expose an even larger audience to the nationally recognized work being done at the Cancer Center.

In recent years, Rob, Paul and Jason invited Big Slick alumni and area natives Eric Stonestreet and David Koechner to join them as hosts. Together the five of them, along with their families and friends, are hard at work planning this year's event. Through patience, creativity and a whole lot of fun, Big Slick is once again, making an impact on the lives of children and their families in one of the community's most valuable assets.

Separated in age by a musical generation but bonded by a mutual love of classic cars and the blues, two time Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Stephen Stills and five-time Grammy nominated singer, guitarist and songwriter Kenny Wayne Shepherd draw fire from their extraordinary collective histories--and join forces with famed Chicago rock/blues keyboardist Barry Goldberg--to blaze a fresh trail for the historical American art form in the 21st Century.

Launching an exciting new chapter in each of their storied careers, the trio’s new band The Rides—which Stills dubs “the blues band of my dreams,” built to last beyond the concept of a one time all-star gathering—is further powered by the explosive rhythm section of bassist Kevin McCormick and Shepherd’s longtime drummer Chris Layton (also a veteran of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Double Trouble). Their 429 Records debut Can’t Get Enough, helmed by longtime Shepherd producer Jerry Harrison, is a fascinating historical sweep, featuring a hard hitting mix of Stills-Goldberg-Shepherd penned blues/rock originals, classic blues tunes by Muddy Waters (“Honey Bee”) and Elmore James (“Talk To Me Baby”) and blistering twists on Stills’ favorite Neil Young anthem “Rockin’ In The Free World” and the Iggy Pop & The Stooges’ early 70s classic “Search and Destroy.”

For each principal, the inexplicable, free flowing chemistry and collective energy they shared during that high octane week of mostly first and second takes recorded at EastWest Studios on Sunset Blvd. took their creative A-games to transcendent places. “Barry and I got rid of everything we have learned over the past 40 years about how to screw up a record,” says Stills, who launched his career with Buffalo Springfield in the mid 60s, penning the generation defining “For What It’s Worth” before cementing his legend with Crosby, Stills & Nash (and among many classic hits, “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” “Dark Star,” “Southern Cross” and “Love The One You’re With”) over the ensuing decades. “In the spirit of that simple, raw authentic 40s and 50s blues music the three of us love, we got in there and boom! A few takes and we were done. The songs have muscle, they don’t sound dated or contrived, they’re very natural and organic. It’s been the most magical experience of my life and I can’t wait to tour with these guys and start recording again!”

A "Toke" is a puff from a marijuana cigarette or pipe. Tom Shipley explained: "When we wrote 'One Toke Over the Line,' I think we were one toke over the line. I considered marijuana a sort of a sacrament... If you listen to the lyrics of that song, 'one toke' was just a metaphor. It's a song about excess. Too much of anything will probably kill you."

Brewer says of the song's origin: "We wrote that one night in the dressing room of the Cowtown Ballroom in Kansas City, Missouri. We were literally just entertaining ourselves. The next day we got together to do some picking and said, 'What was that we were messing with last night?' We remembered it, and in about an hour, we'd written 'One Toke Over the Line.' Just making ourselves laugh, really. We had no idea that it would ever even be considered as a single, because it was just another song to us. Actually Tom and I always thought that our ballads were our forte." On "4/20" Slacker chats with Michael Brewer.

The Midwest Innocence Project (MIP) is a not-for-profit corporation dedicated to the investigation, litigation and exoneration of wrongfully convicted men and women in our five-state region. Recent independent studies conservatively estimate that between 2% and 5% of all inmates in America were falsely convicted, with some estimates reaching up to 7%. This means that somewhere between 2,000 and 7,000 moms, dads, sons and daughters in Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, and Arkansas are locked behind bars this very moment for crimes they did not commit.

After a conviction, it takes roughly seven to ten years for an innocent person to be exonerated, and the process is very expensive. The MIP staff, along with our Board of Directors, Advisory Board, and volunteers, works diligently to give freedom back to those whom the legal system has failed. Thanks to our partnerships with law schools in the University of Missouri in Kansas City and Columbia and the University of Kansas, we also have a presence in the classroom to teach the next generation of lawyers and investigators how to identify and prevent these injustices.

The Midwest Innocence Project was founded a decade ago through the UMKC School of Law and is part of the National Innocence Network. We are based in Kansas City, Missouri.

Please also look us up on the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation Non-Profit Site. Jarrett Adams and Brian Banks, chat with Slacker.