The Lost Trailers
Stokes Nielson, founder of Georgia’s Lost Trailers, is unmistakably Southern. He tells stories in his songs, and if you’re not careful, he might call you “Sir.” The 28-year-old singer-songwriter is also a romantic. He’s calling from inside the international terminal at JFK Airport. Nielson’s headed to London to surprise his girlfriend with a marriage proposal,…
We Love New York
Cleveland’s supply of free government money is all but exhausted, so the Ratner family has taken its show on the road (“Gravy Train,” December 3). This month’s target: The ever-more-bountiful trough of New York City. Last month, Bruce Ratner, head of Forest City’s New York branch, announced plans to buy the New Jersey Nets and…
Wayne Hancock
If the fate of cowboy swing rested on singer-guitarist Wayne Hancock’s shoulders alone, there’d still be nothing to worry about for a good long while. Many artists embrace a musical style, but Wayne “The Train” seems to have internalized his. A nasal vocal twang, just this side of Hank Sr.’s, and a song-crafting style cast…
Air-to-Air Combat
Of all the dirty tricks in Cleveland-radio history, the Slade story is one of Mike Olszewski’s favorites. The Brit glam rockers were about to perform at a downtown “Party in the Park” in 1984, and rock station WGCL planned to film the show for a TV spot. But the station’s deep throats gave rival WMMS…
Heavy Petting
Any dude who throws a birthday party for his dog is a hard-core animal lover. And Derek Hess’s fondness for man’s best friend extends far beyond José, his Pomeranian. The esteemed Cleveland artist has long championed animal-relief causes; this week, he’s throwing a benefit for the Place-a-Pet Foundation, a nonprofit, no-kill animal shelter based in…
This Week’s Day-By-Day Picks
Thursday, January 29 It’s amazing just how contemporary Noël Coward is, exclaims Victoria Bussert, director of the Great Lakes Theater Festival’s production of the gay playwright’s Private Lives. “He really has fun with what is masculine and what is feminine. He doesn’t let society determine the male-female relationship.” The 1930 comedy is about a divorced…
Stiff Little Fingers
The Inflammable Material CD from Stiff Little Fingers still sounds good after 25 years. Whether the band does is a worthy question, however. Eleven albums (including three anthologies, suggesting a paucity of inspiration) into a career as Clash Lite, the band is gearing up for a weeklong U.S. tour. Appropriately enough, it will hit older…
Snaps for Thom
If we were to follow a whole Beatlesque analogy with Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’s Fab Five, then fashion fop Carson is take-charge leader John, groom-master Kyan is cute-one Paul, and culture-vulture Jai is oh-so-disposable Ringo. Which leaves foodie Ted and interior decorator Thom as the group’s go-to utility guys — like George. They’re…
Urge Overkill
Maybe time has finally caught up to Urge Overkill’s sense of humor. Just as the trio was hitting its cocksure stride in the ’90s, grungy imports from Seattle made its glammy shtick seem tragically unhip. Something about the crushed-velvet sweatsuits, gold medallions, and fluffed chest hair just didn’t jibe in the post-Nevermind world. By Y2K,…
Look Away
1/30-2/29 As a young man in the 1960s, John Henry Redwood (below) walked into a small Mississippi town and saw a sign of the times: No Niggers, No Jews, No Dogs. The marker made such an impression on the playwright that he wrote his last script, in 2001, about racism and anti-Semitism in the segregated…
It’s No. 1
Did you hear that a global water shortage has led the feds to ban private toilets? Hell, if they’re going to control how consenting adults make love, why shouldn’t they control our bathroom activities too? Ah, but no need to worry (yet), because this water crisis is happening in the fictional world of Urinetown, The…
Simple Plan
Many may sneer at the lightweight tuneage strummed by such gateway pop-punk bands as Good Charlotte and Simple Plan, but the emotional messages conveyed by these groups possess a certain gravitas for their young admirers. “We’ve had so many really touching letters from fans that told us how our music has helped them through some…
Easy Riding
1/30-2/1 Real-life motorcycle men aren’t like Raising Arizona’s Lone Biker of the Apocalypse, prowling around and tossing grenades at bunnies. In fact, most are downright friendly. Take Nick Nichols, who likes to be called “Mr. Motorcycle.” “We aren’t a bunch of bungee jumpers,” he says. “We are [professional] riders telling you everything you need or…
Private First Class
There’s hardly anything more amusing than watching other people squabble. Virtually every TV sitcom throws family members or friends into ridiculous situations, where tensions escalate and sparks fly. And on occasion, this trite formula can be elevated to something resembling high art, such as the manically inspired screw-ups on HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm. A similar…
Starsailor
While the Verve/Radiohead/Jeff Buckleyisms of Love Is Here, Starsailor’s 2002 debut, sent U.K. journos into convulsions of superlatives, the British quartet made only a tiny ripple stateside with its “poor-man’s-Coldplay” vibe. This anonymity won’t change with all the bland repetition found on the band’s second disc, Silence Is Easy. Anemic, folksy riffs alternate with ridiculously…
Dirty, Hairy
FRI 1/30 He’s a giant, furry visitor who drops in from time to time, seemingly just to satisfy his ravenous appetite. No, it’s not Uncle Al. It’s the Yeti, and on Friday, Summit County Metroparks is conducting a Search for the Abominable Snowman. First, “We’re gonna talk about some of the signs to look for,”…
Kung Fu’d
Two years ago, Harvey Weinstein, who runs Miramax Films with an iron fist that no doubt smells of cigarettes and meat, bought a Hong Kong-made movie called Hero for $20 million. That is an extraordinary amount of money for a foreign-language film made by a director, Zhang Yimou, relatively unknown in the United States; for…
The Flatlanders
With the release of the second album since the Flatlanders’ rebirth, the Texas trio is finally more a band than a legend. From the sounds of it, the group’s stint on the road after the release of Now Again, its 2002 comeback LP, merged Butch Hancock, Joe Ely, and Jimmie Dale Gilmore into a bona…
Cat Power
1/29-2/1 Imagine Hello Kitty as a foulmouthed, cigarette-smoking, tattoo-sporting hellion, and you’ve got a pretty good idea of what to expect from Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat in Space, a thin slice of animated pop showing this weekend at the Cinematheque. The convoluted story has something to do with Tamala — a supercute kitty who…
Casting About
Some laud Columbus-based chef-restaurateur Cameron Mitchell as a marketing genius. Others hold him directly responsible for eviscerating the Capital City’s independent restaurant scene. But no matter where one falls on the continuum, there’s no denying that area food fans have long anticipated the first foray of his corporate juggernaut into the Cleveland dining market. As…
Voodoo Child
Apparently Moby has become disenchanted with all the avant-garde, high-concept work he’s been doing for the past few years. So the Other White Vegan (better luck with your next congressional race, Dennis), inspired by a night spent raving till dawn in a Glasgow railway tunnel, took a break from his normal studio activity in order…
Stayin’ Alive
2/3-2/8 With all that booty-shaking going on, it’s easy to forget just how much of a downer Saturday Night Fever really is. Teen pregnancy, suicide, desperate kids going nowhere fast — that’s heavy stuff. And none of it’s lost on Tony Gonzalez, star of the touring production of Saturday Night Fever — The Musical, which…
House of Carbs
We’ve endured enough weight-loss fads to know one when we see it, and in our opinion, the Atkins Diet will ultimately go the way of low-fat Snackwells. Yet not a day goes by without a chef or restaurant contacting us to promote the newest low-carb offerings, including such abominations as pizzas without crusts or burgers…
Southern Culture on the Skids
All you need to know about Southern Culture on the Skids can be found at the band’s website (www.scots.com). Just click on “Recipes.” There you’ll find dishes like “White Trash (fill in the blank),” various baloney concoctions, and the pièce de résistance: Tang Sandwiches (Wonder bread, marshmallow fluff, and dry Tang). This is high-concept for…
Elmore or Less
Surf’s up. Palm trees sway invitingly in the breeze. The sparkling beaches are amply decorated with bikini babes and hard-body surfer dudes. Everybody has a nice cold drink with a wedge of fresh lime in it. Seen that way, The Big Bounce is as alluring a midwinter pitch for the glories of Hawaii as any…
Fresh Agony
For the first decade of its existence, hardcore was little more than one prolonged crotch-grab set to wax. Bands like Slapshot, Gorilla Biscuits, and Youth of Today brought all the machismo of Charlton Heston in combat boots, while their shows were more like rugby scrums than rock concerts. If chest hair could sing, it would…
Roy Ayers
One day, Roy Ayers — best known as the soul-jazz creator of the universal groove “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” — will get his due as one of the finest composers and artists of the postmodern era. Virgin Ubiquity brings that day ever closer, with 13 songs that sound so good, it’s hard to believe they…
College Bored
At times, there appears to be a good movie struggling to get out from within The Perfect Score. The heist genre has been in dire need of a fresh twist for quite some time, and substituting misfit high school students for the usual gang of ex-cons pulling one last job and SAT answers for the…
Marathon Woman
Despite the best efforts of hacks and shills to shackle her with the sobriquet, Sandra Collins is not the “Trance Goddess.” To those of discerning musical taste, such a title is no more flattering than, say, “Queen of Chlamydia.” Trance, much to the chagrin of critics and anyone averse to rhythmically staid and melodically saccharine…
Cletus Black
Cletus Black is one of the most distinctive singer-songwriters in the area and — given his knack for lyrics — one whose reach beyond the region is way overdue. Bloodlines to the Heart builds on the strengths of Black’s solid 2001 offering Black Ice, a disc abundant with hooks that established a variety of engaging…
Pop It, Lock It, Yo
Good day, friends and homies. I bring word of a project entitled You Got Served, which essays the task of appraising the current state of urban American street dancing and the dancers who dance it. The good news is that it’s dynamic, sincere, and spirited. The bad news — for the critic who may as…
Chill Beat
To some ears, Racermason’s languorous, seductive electronica sounds best on nights like tonight, in winter, when snow’s falling. Guitarist-keyboardist Derek Lashua disagrees. To the self-described audiophile, his music isn’t cold; it’s wet, thick, and sticky. “That whole drop-beat thing is so cool,” says Lashua in a Fairlawn coffee shop. “I think it has a heavy,…
Bizarros
“It wasn’t magic or divine intervention, just a bunch of silly kids having fun,” Bizarros frontman Nick Nicholis wails on the opening cut of the comeback album from the storied Akron punks. He’s recalling the glory days of scruffy Midwest rock and roll, that oft-mythologized time when the Dead Boys and Pere Ubu sweated up…
Painting by Numbers
So have you ever wondered what exactly goes into the painting of a portrait? You might have suspected there’s more to it than a painter saying something along the lines of “Hey baby, can I, uh, paint you?” and then someone else saying, “Yeah, sure, that’d be cool.” You might be right — there does,…
Pop Pathology
At first glance, Clay Aiken seems innocuous enough. Thin and boyish, the American Idol crooner looks like a cross between Thom Yorke and Opie Taylor. A native of North Carolina, he’s all Southern charm, forever donning a goofy grin like an infant who just passed gas. Aiken’s flaws are part of his appeal, with ears…
Color Scheme
Even while sitting in jail, Charles Bailey fancied himself stronger and smarter than just about everyone else. “I could have avoided all of this bullshit if I had just waivered [sic],” he wrote to his wife, Dionne, in January 2002. “I am showing you what I am made of, I am still here, if it…
Emo Rescue
The Cleveland power-pop quartet Brandtson has signed to The Militia Group, the Southern California booking agency and label that has issued albums by such emo notables as Rufio, A Beautiful Mistake, and Copeland. “They’ve been my favorite band for eons,” says label co-owner Chad Pearson. “Bands like Further Seems Forever and Dashboard Confessional are doing…
Schoolyard Fight
“No respect!” the ad from Hope Academies screams in giant black type. It claims that Cleveland teachers’ union president Rich DeColibus promotes “false, racial stereotypes!” And it wants to know if public school teachers share the union chief’s “disrespectful views of struggling African-American, Caucasian, and Hispanic families.” The ad, part of a high-risk battle for…
Skeleton Key
Formed in 1996, Skeleton Key made an immediate impression on the underground with its nonlinear approach to the art of noise. Its debut, an eponymous EP issued the same year, tossed every available dissonant clang and clatter into a sonic kitchen sink that was already overflowing with propulsive robopop and junkyard metal. A year later,…
Letters to the Editor
Landlord on Board Warm support for fire-chasers: In response to “Hot Property,” January 7: How ridiculous! I own properties in Akron and Cleveland. I have used Yanesh Brothers on several occasions. They were professional, courteous, and understanding. I dealt with Mr. Yanesh, his sons, and Mr. Kasalones, who all treated my family and me with…
