Grand Ole Inca House
If the average Joe played a word-association game with the question “Nashville,” the most likely answers would involve ten-gallon hats and fifty-pound belt buckles. The last thing that comes to mind would be Mexican wrestling masks or instrumental surf music, but Los Straitjackets intend to single-handedly alter that preconception. “There’s a lot more to Nashville…
West Side Story
Move over, Wahoo. There’s another Chief coming to town, and we don’t mean Agent 86’s boss at CONTROL. Eddy “the Chief” Clearwater is a fifty-year veteran of the music business. Although regarded as a blues singer/guitarist, he has covered many bases over five decades. It’s that versatility and eclecticism that has always enabled him to…
Livewire
The Atomic Fireballs King Dapper Combo Odeon December 22 For your entertainment buck, there are few bargains better than a night of swing. Not only do you get a show on stage, but off as well. The Atomic Fireballs concert was filled with well-dressed, talented swing dancers–most of whom appeared to be in their late…
Makin’ the Scene
Crash Coffin is back making rock music the year–okay, one of the years–rock music has been declared dead by the coroner. The 50-year-old Berea native gave up trying to be a country singer. Three times he went to Nashville; three times he returned with the sound of slammed doors ringing in his ears. “It was…
1998 in music: The year that wasn’t
With reference to music, most of what was purported to have happened in 1998 did not, in fact, happen this year at all. Take the lamentable and oft-mentioned swing revival. That happened in 1993. ’93 being the year that Brian Setzer–who at this point should be declared the ne plus ultra of retro-fetish prognosticators–first toured…
Dissing Dick Clark
You could go out New Year’s Eve. And you could drink yourself silly until you’re puking like it’s 1999. Or you could stay in and rent a movie. And not some end-of-the-world pop flick starring Bruce Willis, either. Try something different–something smaller. Something better. Live on the edge–it’s New Year’s Eve. These recommendations may not…
We’ve got 1998’s best albums in stock, but they’re going fast.
The following list of favorite albums from 1998 is, to use a technical term, pretty damn big. Here’s how it came to be. Each year, I receive an average of between 2,000 and 3,000 CDs or cassettes, and I listen to each of them–for a while, anyway. (I use what I call the Three-Song Rule:…
Last Man Sitting
Psychedelic band Akidna Pillow has had its share of strange gigs on the patchouli circuit–and felt right at home. But it was clearly out of its element a few months ago, when it played an Akron wedding with a country theme. “Everybody liked it, but there weren’t too many people dancing,” acknowledges frontman Will Roth.…
Night & Day
Thursday December 31 Indians mascot Slider already looks like an inbred Muppet. Add a tutu to that equation when he makes an appearance in The Nutty Nutcracker, the Cleveland Ballet’s New Year’s Eve spoof of the holiday institution. The last time they did it, in 1994, TV weatherman Don Webster beat a path through the…
Eight Is Enough
Silver lining or slender thread? That question nags at me as I go over my best-of-the-year list. There were some terrific movies in 1998–eight, according to my count. But the average film keeps on getting worse. If movies remain as synthetic and incompetent as they are for the most part, audience derision may become a…
Tattling Tongue Jobs
Should old acquaintance be forgot? Hell, no. Mouth can’t let the year slide by without getting in our last licks on some of ’98’s most succulent stuff. In a lotta cases, it took a few months for the final course to be served. Now’s the time to finish the meal. (April 16) Yep, it’s Hustler…
Letters
No Excuses From Enuff Z’Nuff The lead singer [of Enuff Z’Nuff] is Donnie Vie and not Chip Z’Nuff [Livewire, December 17]. Chip is the bassist who tried to get Donnie off the stage. Chip is one of the mellowest people you could know. It should also be pointed out that Donnie was on cold medication,…
The Year of “Oh, Lord!”
Sign of the times: “DON’T IMPEACH THE PRESIDENT IF IT INTERRUPTS MY SOAPS!” So reads a T-shirt that the folks at Soap Opera Digest are distributing in response, they explain, “to the frustration we sensed from visitors to our [web]site and readers of the magazine, who tell us on an ongoing basis that they’re unhappy…
The Straight Dope
Why does a nuclear explosion form a mushroom-shaped cloud? If you would tell me why frantic and furious fusion and fission have a fondness for the fungus form, I would certainly appreciate it. –Paul Smith, Tampa, Florida Shame on you, Paul. You know I cringe at F-words. You don’t need an atom bomb to make…
For the People
“I am not interested in shocking the middle class, and I am not afraid of beauty,” wrote Oberlin College art professor and sculptor Athena Tacha in 1980. “Rendering art functional or beautiful does not need to entail an artistic compromise–it merely makes art less of an act of self-indulgence.” Tacha’s work should be familiar to…
The Eighth Annual Coveted Keefer Awards
In Rome, the vestal virgins bestowed the honorary laurel leaves. In Ireland, the leprechauns hand out the pot o’ gold. In Sweden, unclad blondes dish out the Nobel Prize. In Hollywood, has-beens hand out the Golden Globes. And in Cleveland, Scene still presents the yearly “Coveted Keefer Awards for Theatrical Brilliance.” The winners for 1998…
Chowing down at Ruthie and Moe’s
It’s breakfast time at Ruthie and Moe’s midtown diner, and the place is filling up with its usual cross section of humanity. Short, heavyset guys with white hair and Eastern European accents rub elbows with businesswomen clutching leather briefcases as they squeeze into vinyl booths. Meantime, at the counter, some of Cleveland’s finest men (and…
