(lively music begins) - Welcome back for another edition of Kansas city experience.

I'm Catherine Hoffman.

On deck this month we scouted local breweries for baseball theme beers and check the stats on a few of the top prospects.

- These are all great baseball beers.

I really, really enjoy this Crane Saison, the Tip Your Cap is right up my alley too.

However, you know, the baseball season, it starts off in cold, whether it ends in cold weather, you might want a dark lager.

- Investing in infrastructure has become a key focus on a federal level.

We take a look at how a local green team is using nature based solutions to infrastructure needs and advocating for environmental justice.

- What we're trying to do is build up these spaces by adding these native plants and trees in particular because their root systems go down so much deeper.

- [Catherine] We check in with the guys from Radke to discuss their music the experience of touring in a van and being featured in a new Dave Grohl documentary.

Joining us from Bristol, England, Yola shares a bridge out of studio performance of diamond studded shoes from her new album.

But we get started this month with a look back at the history of Kansas city's connection to Japanese internment camps during world war II.

- When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, our west coast became a potential combat zone.

Living in that zone where more than a hundred thousand persons of Japanese ancestry.

Military authorities there for determined that all of them, citizens and aliens alike would have to move.

(music plays) - [Dr Ellen] December 7th and December 8th, when the United States declared war on Japan, the Japanese American community became considered enemy aliens - It was simply because they looked like the enemy, they were treated like the enemy.

- [Dr Ellen] So regardless of weather people were US citizens or citizens of Japan, the government removed them from their homes, and their farms, and their businesses and their communities and ordered them into what were first euphemistically called assembly centers, temporary detention areas, while authorities worked to build what were thought of as more permanent concentration camps.

- I mean it was a time of great dispar too.

And they were, you know, when they were in these civic centers being processed given numbers, loaded on buses, I mean people were spitting at these buses as they were being take away to these assembly centers.

- Neither the army nor the war relocation authority relish the idea of taking men, women and children from their homes, their shops and their barns.

So the military and civilian agencies alike determined to do the job as a democracy should.

With real consideration for the people involved.

- [Jim] That camp was not, was not fun, a very small place.

Basically it was cots, they were given these large bags to fill with hay and to make your own mattresses.

The food was in a mess hall.

In my mind probably the worst would be they, the toilet facilities which were basically just a long row of holes.

- [Dr. Ellen] The idea here was to get people to move away from their former homes.

And so some of them were college students who found you know, colleges out side of the west coast willing to admit them and to resume their education.

- [Dr Timothy] Seventy-two colleges and universities across the United States had agreed to sign on with the federal government.

But we were one of the first.

President William Lindsey Young was visiting the west coast in the spring of 1942.

So, president Young had an opportunity while he was there not only to visit the Santa Nita camp, but to actually physically go into Japanese homes, and to talk to these, Issie and Nesie as they were literally packing their one maybe suitcase because that was all that they could take.

He came back to Park college and was very upset.

The reception on campus was very supportive and that will not be the similar acceptance off campus.

- The Mayor and the city council were not supportive of Park college receiving Nisei students.

We know at least two merchants that made announcements that they would refuse to serve any Japanese student who entered their establishment.

- [Jim] Growing up in, in the late forties we didn't experience the kind of attacks that are currently going on here in this country.

There was certainly a lot of verbal abuse and harassment if you will, but not like what's going on today.

- Hey, it's Cassie I'm back.

And I'm excited for today because we are trying some local baseball beers that are available right now [Baseball Music Plays] and full disclosure.

I love me some baseball.

(Baseball Theme Music Plays) What's a baseball beer?

You say, well, it's any beer that features America's past time and maybe tastes great with a game and maybe some peanuts some cracker jacks, some hot dogs or veggie dogs.

And that's how I'm going to be rating them which of these beers goes with all things baseball.

It's from Outfield beer company great baseball themed name there in Edwardsville, Kansas.

And this is the Monarch.

It's a Euro dark lager.

And from first look it's super nice and chocolatey dark color.

It smells like dark chocolate and maybe a little bit of coffee.

Very light bodied, I think because it is a lager but super dark multi flavors, like really, really roasted.

If you handed this to me at a coffee shop, I'd be like coffee?

No it's beer, right?

But very, very, very light bodied.

So don't let the color of a beer ever influence you on the body to it.

Cause this is a very light bodied easy drinking lager just has those really dark roasty notes going on to it.

This beer is an homage to our neighborly team The Monarchs but also our new professional baseball team formerly the T-bones now named The Monarchs.

You can get some of the outfield beer co-beers at their stadium.

I give this beer a line drive put a runner on base, baby delicious.

- Okay, second beer It's small ball saison from Crane.

Got a little blue here.

Can't help but think that's a little Royal's color on this label uniform.

Crane, closest brewery to the stadiums.

So, you know, pre-gaming it pre tailgate may go over to Crane, get yourself a one of these or one of their other delicious many delicious beers.

This is a crane commercial.

Okay.

So upon first look orangy in color it looks quite effervescent they use pertanamiesies yeast and you definitely get that smell.

Oh yeah.

It's like I said by the looks of it, it was very effervescent.

And as soon as it hit my tongue it was like covered in bubbles.

I love that feeling.

The flavor is definitely some of those tropical fruit notes but also very crisp and it has a nice dry hoppiness to it.

Yeah.

I would pick this any day over a $14 aluminum can of you know, what kind of beer.

it looks like this year could be the last of the 2018 batch.

Let's grab some while you can.

I give this beer a walk-off home run.

Okay, third beer that we're tasting today is Tip Your Cap baseball beer.

I really liked that the style of beer for this beer is just baseball beer and some of the proceeds from the sales of this beer go to the Negro league museum.

So that's pretty awesome.

Let's taste.

It's got great clarity.

I can see right through it.

Yeah.

Very crisp flavor.

I'm not really getting much in aroma town.

Maybe just a very light readiness like someone's baking bread, like four houses down.

Kind of like how LaCroix you're like, okay.

Lime flavor.

This beer is a little bit of a spicy hot presence a tiny bit of sweetness from some really pale malt I'm guessing.

And it's a very easy drinking beer.

It's really good.

You can drink a lot of it.

It's very refreshing ice cold at the stadium.

You will be happy that you got this.

And I mean, part of the proceeds going to the Negro league museum is pretty awesome too.

So good job Boulevard.

It's a good start to get back in the good graces of the city.

I give this beer of rally cap.

These are all great baseball beers.

I really, really enjoy this Crane saison.

The Tip Your Cap is right up my alley too.

It can be like 95 degrees and watching a game with like an ice cold one of these is so good.

However, you know, the baseball season, it starts off in cold weather.

It ends in cold weather.

You may want a dark lager with those roasty toasty notes to warm you up.

But I think I mean the winner for me, is this Saison.

(light music begins) - I joined the green team because I thought it would be really interesting to learn about the native plants in our area and how that could benefit everything around us not just the wildlife, but the people here.

- [Brenda] We are part of the groundwork USA network.

There's 20 trusts across the nation.

Our green team is essentially local youth ages 17 to 21.

Green team is going across all of our different neighborhoods and working with neighborhood associations and residents.

We are establishing some green revitalization projects in some vacant lots in each of these neighborhoods.

we're educating the residents about green infrastructure and using nature based solutions to battle stormwater runoff and these climate changes that are happening in these urban landscapes.

- [Gerardo] Basically We're just gonna be adding green infrastructure to help people get out of the house with physical and mental benefits.

Things like cleaning the air, cleaning the water.

Yeah.

It was like super exciting.

Cause I really wanted to be able to help the environment and do like, my part to help, you know.

- [David] climate change is gonna give us more like bizarre weathers.

I know, even though people were saying like we can prevent it, but they're not going into specifics of things that people, individual people can do, or like groups of people can do.

- [Salvador] this lot is just grass.

We need to make sure there's green infrastructure to help the environment.

But also at the same time, encourage people to come here for their physical and mental needs.

- When it rains, instead of just going onto the side of the road and going to sewers what this does, all that water is cleansed with with all the plants that are in that bio swale and then the remaining water is stored in the ground.

Simplify you basically using rainwater in a more efficient way than just letting it get on the side of the road and not being useful at all.

- There's so many impermeable surfaces, there's parking lots, there's sidewalks, there's concrete.

When we have these big storm, these big rain events that are dropping inches upon inches of water in short amount of times there's just nowhere for that water to go in these landscapes where there's not a lot of green space.

What we're trying to do is build up these spaces by adding these native plants and trees in particular because the root systems go down so much deeper than ornamental plants, decorative plants.

- Use all these cards and place them wherever you feel like you would want them because we want your community input, before we start building them on Saturday.

- The green team has actually created their own community engagement piece.

They call the green team tool kit.

It isn't just us going in and putting in a rain garden here planting some trees here, but we're really getting the feedback with residents.

So they're very involved.

- My question is are you going to clear a little bit on the other side of the fence like coming down hill, towards that alley?

- Northeast KCKs area that has experienced structural racism and discriminatory practices and policies like redlining oftentimes organizations come in and they kind of prescribed communities.

Well, this is what you need and this is what you should have.

And that's never going to be sustainable because it's not going to, it's not coming from the community members themselves.

All of our work comes from that community state of need.

And I think that's really how you start to dismantle structural racism and the ill effects of communities that have been preyed upon by environmental polluters.

- I really like finding new ways to develop the environment finding ways so that that we can help out especially in these urban areas where there's a lot of pollution and stuff like that.

Cause like we need to encourage people to get to either move here or just stay here.

Cause like down the street is there's a really great school.

I go there and I really want to see this nice neighborhood thrive in the future.

- Green team represent.

- And today art house has a foo fighters connection, right?

Foo fighters is music.

What's this got to do with film.

I'll tell you what it's got to do.

The band foo fighters got together and produced and Dave Gould directed a new documentary called what drives us - The attraction to doing this was the unknown you're free.

- What drive us documentary about what it was like and what it's still like to tour in a van and local legends, Radke are heavily featured.

And art house talked to all three members Isaiah D and Solomon.

And then lastly, Matt Radkey, the manager of the band who happens to be their father that also drives the van.

- All of the biggest bands in the world started out like this.

- You got to get in the van.

If you want to make it in this business.

Isaiah, Matt, D, Solomon, what was it like to meet Dave Grohl?

- What's the name of your band?

- Radke - And where are you from?

- We're from St. Joseph, Missouri.

- Really?

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- Well, It all happened.

We, we played some shows a couple of years ago with L seven and we kept in contact with Jennifer Finch from L seven.

And she, we were on the road and she sent me a text and said, are you guys on the road?

And we said, yeah, and she goes well I want to send you a press contact.

So I was like, okay.

So I get an email and it had a phone number to call.

And then I call up and then Dave Grohl's people, which is you know, we're at, McDonald's on the road, you know that's who we're calling press contacts.

So that was pretty surprising.

And we were on the west coast at the time.

So basically a week later we ended up at his studio.

- So how many miles, are you gonna put on this before you bring it back?

- Oh man, we're going to put probably we will probably put 6,000 on this, this trip.

- But we actually went to the 6 0 6 studio.

I think it's in, got to hang out with Dave Grohl for an afternoon.

So it was pretty amazing.

(Music begins) - We were homeschooled.

So there wasn't a lot to do besides listen to our dad's record collection and kind of hang out.

And we just got kind of bored.

We're like, all right we can just kind of hang out and play music together.

And we had plenty of time to do that.

And then pretty much get out of St. Joe.

Like the rock was able to get us out of our city, which was great, you know?

- Yeah, it was incredible, you know, just growing up, listening to his music and to have him like right there, you know like talking to us and, you know, really liking our music is it's wild.

You know, it's pretty crazy.

- Yeah its like being this living of those things, you never pictured happening but it was actually way more chill.

- Yeah.

- Than you had think and it almost hasn't fully sunk in that we've even did all of it yet - We grew up on that music and that whole scene and and we love rock music and we were kids and just that kind of fun vibe.

And we always wanted to recreate that kind of thing for you know, people like us and to be able to be accepted into that, you know, scene and be interviewed by one of our big influences was really great.

And it was a wild experience.

It really was because it just made us, it was another, one of the things that happened in in the career that made us feel like solid.

Like, yes, we're like a rock band.

- Your dad sort of like the tour manager slash roadie slash driver?

- Yes.

Yes.

And yeah, dad hooked us up with all the music we listened to takes us out on the road, you know takes care of us to this day.

It's kind of cool, like there's not much of a change from being at home so we can stay on the road for a really long time.

- Its just crazy, been doing this for nine years, - Yup - And we're still doing it.

- Your 20 year old kids are going to start a band.

You're going to quit your shitty Walmart job and be on the road touring with your favorite manager for the rest of your life that would be an amazing opportunity.

It's just crazy that it's actually happening.

(guitar begins playing) - You're doing it.

And you don't really think about it but when you do, it's like, wow this is just an amazing opportunity to do this.

You know, this gets to be your job and you get to spend it with your kids, you know, doing what they love and you love watching them and being with them.

And just to be able to do that as your career its just unreal.

- Yeah, we are just going to keep grinding and and hopefully, you know, some new doors open and we can do some bigger and better things.

Just keep pushing.

- There are a lot of bands who are doing it right now like giving other bands the opportunity to to get the exposure that they need.

And just, you know, to be discovered like, you know the foo fighters and they brought like giving us the opportunity to be in this documentary and stuff.

And you know, there's, you know bands that are like us that are doing stuff.

And it's cool that these bigger bands that are out there you know, playing these big venues are giving fans like us the opportunity to, you know, be seen on a bigger scale.

- Well, I hoped you enjoyed another edition of art house.

This one meant the world to me.

The foo fighters is my favorite band of all time.

And Radke is one of my favorite local bands.

But if you want to see more art house, all you gotta do is click subscribe.

Just go to flatland, casey.org/art house.

And you can check out all the amazing things that we do for the Kansas city film scene.

All you gotta do, is click subscribe, click, subscribe, subscribe, right there.

Just click it, click - One, two, one two three and, (Diamond Studded Shoes begins) ♪ Everybody saying that its gonna be all right, ♪ ♪ and I can't help but wonder if its gonna be on my dime.

♪ ♪ We are the powers throwing up against the tide, ♪ ♪ burning our reserves of courage ♪ ♪ working just to make it alright ♪ ♪ we know it isn't we know it isn't we know it isn't ♪ ♪ we aint gonna to turn out right.

♪ ♪ We know it isn't we know it isn't.

Oh Lord ♪ ♪ we know it isn't that's why we gots to fight.

♪ ♪ You and I are trying, but we don't get to decide ♪ ♪ when the man comes for our paychecks ♪ ♪ don't you tell me it'll be all right.

♪ ♪ We aren't the rich ones, some of us barely get by ♪ ♪ They buy diamond studded shoes with our taxes ♪ ♪ anything to keep us divided.

♪ ♪ You know it isn't, we know it isn't, we know it isn't ♪ ♪ We know it isn't.

it aint gonna turn out right.

♪ ♪ We know it isn't we know it isn't oh no ♪ ♪ we know it isn't, that's why we gots to fight.

♪ ♪ For the life and soul of the world we love ♪ ♪ Fight cause the promise is never gonna be enough ♪