Tune In
From the very start, Music From the Inside Out poses a nearly unanswerable question: What is music? And for 90 minutes, members of the Philadelphia Orchestra struggle to respond. This provocative documentary was shot over three years and on three different continents. Yet by the end of it, no one really settles on one definitive…
The Balomai Brothers
“Everybody that’s involved in this type of thing is a fuckin’ asshole,” growls Balomai Brother Spike LeMay midway through his band’s second LP. He’s railing against the music industry, but of course, the Brothers are the biggest — and funniest — assholes of all. Indebted to everyone from Frank Zappa to the Stray Cats, the…
The Prisoner and the Millionaire
Eleven years in prison have taken their toll on Randy Collins. He has the look of a man who’d do anything for redemption. His bearlike head is muscular, his mustache coarse as broom bristles. And his brown eyes — they are as soulless as two well-circulated pennies. Prison isn’t easy for convicted child molesters. In…
Holy Corporate Tie-In!
After years of Disney on Ice productions that pretty much placed Pixar’s most recent hit movie — from Toy Story to Finding Nemo — on skates, the latest show glides away from formula. Disney Presents Pixar’s The Incredibles in a Magic Kingdom Adventure takes Mr. Incredible and his brood from 2004’s animation smash on a…
Make a Splash
Good thing the Cleveland Mid-America Boat Show runs more than a week; you’re gonna need that much time to see everything. In addition to all the boating accessories and fishing gear, there’s a nautical flea market and Twiggy the Water-Skiing Squirrel. Tue., Jan. 18, 12-9 p.m.; Fri., Jan. 13, 3-9 p.m.; Saturdays, 11 a.m.-9 p.m.;…
Peerless Pier W
Love it or loathe it, the old Pier W was an important part of the Cleveland dining scene for nearly 40 years, not least of all for its prime location atop a Lakewood cliff overlooking Lake Erie. After all, rolling vineyards, magnificent waterfalls, and tropical beaches are in short supply around here; what we do…
Us Against Them
A pox on both their houses: The First Punch item “Barefoot and pregnant” [December 28] reported that Ohio severely limits access to “reproductive health care,” which, as we all know, is code for abortion services. First Punch coyly noted at the end of the news item that Greyhound provides departures on a daily basis “to…
Hell of a Deal
If you’re a classical-music lover but can’t exactly hum Schumann’s Faust from memory, you’re not alone. Members of the Cleveland Orchestra — which performs Scenes From Goethe’s Faust tonight and Saturday — weren’t all that familiar with the work either. John Tessier, a Canadian lyric tenor who sings the role of Ariel, only recently learned…
Bet on Black
Over the years, moviegoers who double as sports fans have had ample opportunity to choose their favorite miracle — Shoeless Joe Jackson emerging from the tall corn, Rudy suiting up for Notre Dame, Rocky going the distance with Apollo Creed, the U.S. hockey team taking down the Russkies. As if all that were not supernatural…
Money Pit
Nine years after shelling out $29.7 million to build hundreds of new condos and apartments in Ohio City, the feds are peeved that the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority has basically done squat. No new homes have been built to replace the demolished Riverview Terrace on West 25th Street, and renovations at nearby Lakeview Terrace aren’t…
The Art of War
Lyz Bly, director of the B.K. Smith Gallery, says inspiration for the venue’s latest exhibit, War: What Is It Good For? , came from the nightly news. “We started hearing about Bush’s approval rating dropping and support for the war waning,” she says. “And I kept thinking that the art community needs to be more…
God Save the Queen
When a movie promises that a character played by Queen Latifah may well die during the course of the action, one might hope that the movie in question is Hostel, so that she could be beaten a few times and then dismembered — ideally, by someone who sat through The Cookout, Taxi, Bringing Down the…
Dead Like Me
I hate the Grateful Dead. I’ve always hated the Grateful Dead. On numerous occasions throughout my life, people have tried to get me to appreciate the band, with little success. The interminable solos, the dope-smoking-moron lyrics, the ridiculous ambient jams — I’d rather shove chopsticks up my pee hole than listen to them. And don’t…
Mesmerizing Performance
Comedian Rich Guzzi’s stage act started as a goof on TV psychic John Edward. At first, it was just a five-minute joke buried deep in his routine. “I would do an hour-and-a-half set, and audiences would always pick out this bit,” recalls Guzzi. “So, I added hypnosis to it. Next thing you know, my career…
Arts and Shafts
Human anatomy is amazing, but not always pretty. Look no further than artist M.K. Carroll’s “Knitted Womb,” one of 50 pieces on display in Assemble Gallery’s Alt-Fiber: Reclaiming Art/Craft. The V-shaped uterus doll comes complete with Fallopian tubes made of Peruvian wool — but it’s not completely accurate. “I’ve taken a few liberties with the…
Romeo in the Rough
Over the centuries, the legend of Tristram and Iseult has fueled the derring-do of King Arthur, aroused Richard Wagner’s operatic thunder, driven poets as diverse as Shakespeare, Tennyson, and Edwin Arlington Robinson to the heights of passion, and helped stock the backstreets of Manhattan with companies of leaping Jets and Sharks. It’s actually a complex…
The Aeroplane Flies High
The most influential indie-rock record of the past decade reverently declares I love you Jesus Christ, features the songs “Two-Headed Boy” (parts one and two) and “The King of Carrot Flowers” (part one, then parts two and three combined), uses semen as a lyrical motif, crushes heavily on Anne Frank, lists a zanzithophone player in…
Not for the Pabst Crowd
Bartender Ryan Corrigan counts on a trendy happy-hour clientele to belly up for Mojito Mondays. The pint-sized cocktail is a potent mix of rum, sugar, lime juice, and soda water, garnished with crushed mint leaves. “Mojitos are for the young and artsy,” he says. “It’s cool, because you can see the mint leaves floating in…
Pure Bull
What’s an unemployed former superspy to do? Faced with a midlife career change, suave Pierce Brosnan seems to have chosen wry self-mockery, reinventing himself as a scruffy, fallen James Bond surrogate, sometimes still furnished with a license to kill and a certain gift for cool, but far more likely now to stop shaving for three…
Takin’ Out the Trash
The only thing bigger than Bono’s ego is his bank account. And yet his band, U2, still insists on driving up concert-ticket prices. The cost of the average concert ticket jumped another 5 percent in 2005, thanks mainly to acts like U2 (average ticket price: $96.92) and fellow starving artists the Rolling Stones and Paul…
Father Knows Jest
Joe Hannum attributes his Jekyll and Hyde personality to his dual roles as Dad and stand-up comic. “I live a double life,” says Hannum, host of the monthly Comedy Six-Pack. “I’ll be at home washing sippy cups and thinking of new material. Or I’ll be in a smoky bar with all these drunks and thinking…
Terence Blanchard
Terence Blanchard, a trumpeter of unimpeachable virtuosity and pedigree, will bring a daring, modernist band to Nighttown next Wednesday and Thursday. Blanchard is touring behind Flow, his second Blue Note album; it will be his first appearance in Cleveland since January 2004, when he delivered a singularly uninspired Jazz on the Circle concert at the…
Obstructed View
It’s hard to know how many of the world’s problems would be instantly solved if relatives just stopped visiting each other. The news is replete with stories of in-laws, second cousins, and uncles twice removed who cause violent incidents when their clans get together. Indeed, if everyone just went home and stayed there, we might…
Sound Advice
Cleveland rock photographer Karen Novak has worked with the likes of Ringworm, Today Is the Day, and the JJ Paradise Players Club. She gives us the skinny on some must-have tunes. What have you been listening to lately? I tend to get a little obsessed with albums. So sometimes I may play them until they…
Green Scene
Francis Quinn & Friends attract a lofty stream of musicians at their Monday-night jam sessions of traditional Irish music. Celtic troubadours Gaelic Storm stopped in once, and the Riverdance orchestra sat in a couple times. Even Luke the Clown from the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus lugged his harp to Cleveland to play…
Camper Van Beethoven
Returning after a 15-year hiatus — during which leader David Lowery launched the far more successful Cracker (remember “Low”?) — Camper Van Beethoven melded the quirkiness of its earlier incarnation with Cracker’s pop sensibility and a newfound relevance on its 2004 comeback LP, New Roman Times. Though CVB’s offbeat music always harbored a political undercurrent,…
Big Bang
For most adults, the mere idea of working with kids in the juvenile justice system would trigger back sweats and twitchy eyelids. Heck, dealing with regular teenagers is intimidating enough; add a rap sheet to the mix, and the communication barrier looms even larger. So it’s a damn good thing that people like Myron J.…
Money Where Your Mouth Is
Band: One Under (www.oneunder.net) Hometown: Columbus Sounds like: “Driving percussion, tight melodic keys, and incredible rhythm and lead guitars, topped with deep lyrical content.” Fun fact: “We all have the same middle name.” Playing: Friday, January 13, at Wilbert’s Why you should see them: “Because we’re good, funky, and will make your hips move. Additionally,…
Material Boy
Dave Wayland looks like any other buttoned-down loan officer at the Lakeside Title Company in downtown Cleveland. But at the water cooler, co-workers clamor for the latest hair and fashion tips from his alter ego, Nadia Lexi. “I’m very open about being a female impersonator,” says the 30-year-old Wayland. “If you don’t like it, screw…
Joey Beltram and members of Goodmorning Valentine
Singer Joey Beltram solidified his reputation as one of Northeast Ohio’s better songwriters on Goodmorning Valentine’s sophomore album, Steady Your Hands. Drifting away from Jackson Browne-style lovelorn musing, the Valentines’ latest is lazy-days Americana, like the delicate pop put forth by the Dreadful Yawns and Belle and Sebastian. And a shake-your-thing indie-rock beat all but…
Capsule reviews of current area theater presentations.
Dark Room — The conventional image we have of playwrights and poets is of lonely souls slaving away in a poorly lit basement. Well, you’ve got the location and the illumination right, but everything else about the Dark Room project is much cheerier. Sponsored by the Cleveland Theater Collective, it’s a once-a-month workshop/cabaret for writers…
Last Word
“Machine Go Boom (for obvious reasons).” — Metal Bastard, a robot, Cleveland “Broke by Monday. Not only are they an anomaly in this area genre-wise, but their sound is also right up there with bands with a similar style, such as Pepper, Slightly Stoopid, and Longbeach. They’re bound to hit it big, and it would…
In Orbit
Headlining gigs at local clubs and at the Cleveland Music Festival over the past year hasn’t inflated the egos in local band Dave’s Planet. In fact, the four members’ everyday lives help keep them grounded. “We’re all down-to-earth,” says drummer Dave Vogrin. “But we take this just as seriously as our jobs.” The band returns…
Pimps N Ho’s Party
All G’s up for some big pimpin’ up in C-L-E: The first 10 hustlaz dressed in event-appropriate threads will be admitted free to Rockstar Cleveland’s Pimps N Ho’s Party, a players’ ball where Cleveland’s finest show what they’ve got, dressing to the nines to move and groove to hip-hop and top 40 dance tracks. Events…
Capsule reviews of current area art exhibitions.
NEW Group Show — Bella Dubby’s small exhibit of local works may be the young gallery’s finest to date. Kate Schneider’s large, socially conscious color photos are the most affecting: In particular, the moment she captures with “Prayer in Kosovo” — a crowd of tired, weatherbeaten old men huddled in public prayer, their palms cupped…
Jukebox Hero
We’ve seen men lose their lives for playing the wrong Styx tune at the wrong time. And frankly, they deserved it. When you’re out at a bar, sliding a buck into a jukebox comes with great responsibility. For a few minutes, you will have a direct effect on the mood of everyone in the room.…
Point of Action
Today’s first annual Scalpers Shoot-Out at Scalpers Bar and Grille offers soft-tip dart players a chance to compete for cash and prizes. And unlike other local dart tourneys — where pros squeeze out amateurs in the first couple rounds — today’s contest downplays strategies and welcomes novices. “We are targeting the lay darter,” says organizer…
Carl Craig
Carl Craig’s approach has, from the outset, been far-reaching. Holding it down in techno’s very birthplace, Detroit, the DJ and producer segues from house and hip-hop to techno and drum & bass with ecstatic/Ecstatic fury (his label name isn’t Planet-E for nothing). His latest mixdown, Fabric 25, puts Craig front and center, laughing and toasting…
A Bounteous Bunch
Sam Peckinpah’s Legendary Westerns Collection (Warner Bros.) At a mere $42 through most websites, this four-film boxed set ranks among the best ever compiled; not only does it contain the restored version of one of the greatest movies of all time (The Wild Bunch), but also three other brilliant westerns (The Ballad of Cable Hogue,…
Rachael Davis
Thirteen years ago a freckle-faced 12-year-old girl came onstage at open-mic night at McGuire’s Resort in Cadillac, Michigan, to accompany the master of ceremonies. The young lady was Cadillac native Rachael Davis, and her singing so impressed the MC, guitarist Brett Hartenbach, that Hartenbach became a mentor to the pre-teen chanteuse. They’ve been together ever…
Caught in a Jam
Columbus’ One Under plays a mix of funk, rock, and jazz that takes about a half-dozen detours before stopping somewhere in the middle of jam-band territory. Latin percussion also flows through the group’s music, which simultaneously sounds relaxed, warm, and familiar. This is all the more impressive in light of the fact that the band…
Suburban Kids With Biblical Names
The biggest debates in rock music are about the great mimics. The Strokes outlasted comparisons to the Velvets, Coldplay somehow became bigger than Radiohead, and you can’t even speak the word Nirvana without thinking of the Pixies. So it’s understandable that one of the most refreshing groups to surface in the past year, Suburban Kids…
The week’s best releases from the pop-culture universe.
MOVIE — The Matador: Pierce Brosnan shakes and stirs his image in this dark comedy about an aging hitman coming to terms with his impending AARP membership. Months after drunkenly meeting Greg Kinnear in a Mexican bar one night, Brosnan’s not-so-ruthless killer pays a mysterious visit to the suburban husband. Among other things, Brosnan tweaks…
The Syn
It might not have been Chris Squire’s band that rock royalty showed up for at London’s legendary Marquee Club in 1967. The Beatles, the Stones, Clapton, Page, and Townshend were there to check out some cat named Hendrix, who was debuting in the U.K. But Squire’s outfit, the Syn, did open the show, as it…
Beat It, Japanese Style
By the end of today’s Taiko Workshop for Beginners, Yukiko Ebara will have taught her students a dizzying display of leaps and spins to perform when they’re not relentlessly pounding on handmade drums. “You’ll learn basic drumming techniques with a very simple drill,” says Ebara, coordinator of the Oberlin-based Icho Daiko drum club. Taiko —…
Jack Endino
Though millions of people heard his influence on classic efforts by Nirvana, Mudhoney, Soundgarden, and others, recorded during his stint as de facto in-house producer for Sub Pop Records, relatively few music fans are aware of Jack Endino’s considerable skills as a guitarist and songwriter. With a still-busy schedule as an in-demand studio guru, Endino…
Enter the Dragon
There’s an oft-repeated urban legend about Dragon Quest’s popularity in Japan: So many gamers ditched school and work to play that the government decreed that future releases had to take place on weekends. In reality, there’s no such law, but as with most myths, the message rings true, even if the details don’t. Dragon Quest…
Enter Live Nation
The world’s largest music promoter and venue manager just got a little bigger. After four years of having its bookings handled by House of Blues Concerts, Scene Pavilion will now be scheduled by Live Nation, formerly Belkin Productions, a locally spawned promotions company that was bought by entertainment behemoth Clear Channel in 2001. “We’ve had…
Stella Good
The world’s Angriest Young Man steals Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, an American classic that opens tonight at the Cleveland Play House. While it may be Blanche DuBois’ tale that Williams aims to tell here, it’s clearly loutish brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski’s show. There are few characters in modern drama as stirring or as brutal.…
Morningwood
Once you get past the sophomoric band name (huh-huh, they said “wood”) and the junior-high-level double entendres — i.e., the tits references in “Take Off Your Clothes” — Morningwood is pretty darn irresistible. The N.Y.C. group’s oft-delayed full-length debut whirls in a hormone-charged haze of fizzy new-wave cheerleading chants, punkish dance beats, and vocalist Chantal…
Our top DVD picks for the week of January 10
According to Occam’s Razor (Elite Entertainment) Black Books: The First Complete Series (BBC/Warner) The Chumscrubber (DreamWorks) The Constant Gardener (Universal) Dead Poets Society: Special Edition (Touchstone) Ferris Bueller’s Day Off: Bueller . . . Bueller . . . Edition (Paramount) The Flash: The Complete Series (Warner Bros.) The Gambler (Time Life) Hawthorne Heights: This Is…
Clone Trouper
The bioethical drama A Number (opening tonight at the Cleveland Play House) has much potential to be controversial . . . if it weren’t so busy messing with our heads. “On the surface, it’s a cautionary tale about genetic cloning,” says director Sonya Robbins. “The topical ideas are used to get at universal anxieties.” Caryl…
Hard’n Phirm
Chris Hardwick and Mike Phirman constitute this L.A.-based, Tenacious D.-like duo, and Horses and Grasses is a heapin’ helpin’ of super-geeky and utterly engaging musical comedy. The difference between Jack Black’s gruesome metal twosome and this one is mostly genre — HNP prefers to skewer the absurdities inherent in soft-rock ballads, cheesy Latin pop, and…
Nabbing Daddy
Detective Eugene Jones thumbs through a cluttered stack of yellowing photographs, the products of a cheap point-and-click camera. He’s looked at them time and again, and nothing ever changes: The girls in the pictures are still young. And they’re still naked. Jones, a vice detective in Collinwood, has been searching for these girls almost a…
Dead Zone
Daniel Elihu Kramer found inspiration for Love Suicide (which he wrote and directs) in the most unlikely of bedfellows: an 18th-century Japanese play and an internet chat room for people thinking about ending it all. “I became fascinated with the challenge of putting together all these elements that have to deal with each other,” says…
Suspect
Amazingly, 1998-style hard rock is still selling. Disturbed and Staind have both notched No. 1 albums in recent months, and they can still put a few thousand butts in seats for live shows. So while it’s easy to knock Suspect singer Joe Stoner for, ahem, studying Disturbed frontman Dave Dramian’s work a little too closely,…
Gypsies, Tramps, & Thieves
Eileen Cleary was in a panic. It was a snowy Thanksgiving Day, and she had just locked herself out of her condo. She had food in the oven, and her family was waiting at her brother’s house. She flipped through the phone book to the first locksmith’s ad she saw. “Fast 15-minute response” and “no…
