Were You There? Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam played the Q last night. Did you go? Tell us what you thought.
What to Do Tonight: Grant Lee Phillips
Where the buffalo roamed … Grant Lee Phillips has been surfing the waves of cult stardom for a while now. He spent the ’90s fronting Grant Lee Buffalo, who opened for Pearl Jam and R.E.M. They broke up at the end of the decade, and Phillips started crafting solo albums — beginning with 2000’s Ladies…
What to Do Tonight: Converge
Rock music Ever since Converge hit their stride with 2001’s Jane Doe, the Massachusetts quartet has been cutting a swath of destruction encompassing the extreme metal and punk scenes. Last year’s Axe to Fall is the most recent and obvious example. Their albums may come less frequently these days, but with each one Converge continue…
Still Bill makes its Cleveland premiere tonight at CMA
Still Bill is a terrific new documentary about R&B star Bill Withers. It makes its Cleveland debut tonight at 7 at the Cleveland Museum of Art Lecture Hall. Here’s our review of the movie. Still Bill (U.S., 2009) This documentary about ’70s R&B star Bill Withers, who hasn’t made an album in 25 years, opens…
What to Do Tonight: The Most Serene Republic
Attack of the bearded big faces! Canadian indie-rockers the Most Serene Republic have never been conventional. Their first two records of sprawling progressive indie-pop were solid but forgettable. Last year’s … And the Ever Expanding Universe is better, but not much. On the album’s first four songs, the band repeats past sonic highlights. But they…
What to Do Tonight: Shelby Lynne
Talk about intimate … When Shelby Lynne takes the stage of the intimate Beachland Tavern tonight, she’s bringing an intimate collection of new tunes with her. The sultry Southern songstress — who wowed listeners with I Am Shelby Lynne, her 2000 declaration of independence from Nashville tropes — is touring behind Tears, Lies, and Alibis,…
Were You There? Kaki King
Kaki King played the Beachland Ballroom last night. Did you go? Tell us what you thought.
What to Do Tonight: Frightened Rabbit
Not as convenient as a pocket calendar Slow and steady might not be the expected career trajectory for a band called Frightened Rabbit, but that’s exactly the course charted by this Glasgow foursome. Formed in 2004 by brothers Scott and Grant Hutchison, the band self-released its debut album, Sing the Greys, in 2006. After a…
Complex Rates Top 25 Kobe/LeBron Rap Lyrics
Complex ranked their favorite rap lyrics that reference Kobe or LeBron and there’s a lot more than I remember, probably because I don’t listen to much rap. Anyway, as you might imagine, a lot of them are XXX-rated. Take a gander if you want, plenty of lines about Kobe cheating, Kobe’s jewelry purchasing habits, and…
238 Pounds of Pot (Value: $1.2 Million) Seized From Motor Home
This is what 238 pounds of pot and a cute police dog look like. Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers saw a motor home make some lane violations on the Ohio Turnpike last week and pulled it over. Nothing to see here. Normal traffic stop. Then the drug-sniffing dog started giving hints. Then the officers noticed…
Specious Cleveland Indians Blind Item
On one hand, if you can’t trust a ballplayer to tell the truth to a fan at a bar in the wee hours of the morning when asked a question, what can you trust in this world? On the other hand, what this ballplayer said last Friday night at a local watering establishment was a…
ESPN 850 WKNR News: Jeff Thomas Out, Kenny Roda Maybe Suspended
A couple of news notes from everyone’s favorite all-sports-talk AM station (and your only source for Munch, on the 50’s, Munch in the morning, Munch in the community, and all things Munch): The Lovely One, Jeff Thomas, who was on “The Really Big Show” with Rizzo every morning and who provided the sports updates, is…
Tribe Hits New Low With In-Game Giveaways: Whitesnake CD Edition
Things we know: The Indians are broke. The Tribe, playing on the same night as the Cavs, might as well not exist. The Indians are really taxing their mental capacities trying to come up with gimmicks, discounts, and assorted giveaways to get somebody, anybody, through the turnstiles and into a seat. How pathetic have things…
Kent State & May 4: Michael Roberts, Journalist, Recalls First-Hand Experience of Tragedy
On this 40th anniversary of the tragedy at Kent State, you’ll read plenty about what happened that day and how it’s still effecting Kent State students, survivors, families and graduates to this day. You might even read some of that stuff in this fine newspaper, like the cover story written by Rick Perloff this week.…
The Hi-Fi Is History
Hair today … Monday night was the last night for Cleveland’s Breakfast Club, the Lakewood rock club formerly — but basically still — known as the Hi-Fi Concert Club. Over decades, the stage at the storied venue had hosted artists including David Bowie, Cleveland crossover champs Victory Flag, and hair-metal has-beens like D’Molls. The club…
Kent State & May 4: 1970 Grads Get Diplomas 40 Years After the Fact
From the Huffington Post, news of seniors from the 1970 class that never got to walk to the state and grab their diplomas, who are now getting a chance to do just that. For some graduating seniors of the Class of 1970, there would be no joyful mortarboard tosses, posing for photos with proud parents,…
More on the ACLU’s Cuyahoga County Transition Lawsuit
The first legal challenge to Cuyahoga County’s transition to a charter government hit the docket last week when the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit against the architects of the transition. At issue is the leaders’ alleged failure to comply with Ohio’s open-records or “sunshine” laws. The lawsuit shatters the county record for Fastest Allegation…
This Just In: Cleveland Concert Announcements
The Black Keys: Still pretty, still awesome We have 31 new shows this week, including American Idol stars, Primus, Tim McGraw, and the Black Keys’ return to Cleveland. And Roger Waters tickets go on sale Monday. —D.X. Ferris POSTPONED: 25 Ta Life/Vacancy: Thu., May 13. New date TBA. Pirate’s Cove. ADDITIONAL TICKETS ON SALE: Drake:…
ESPN’s All Over LeBron’s Number Change Already
Hadn’t noticed until a Uni Watch reader pointed it out, but ESPN’s already Photoshopped Lebron in No. 6 and is using the visual for this year’s playoffs. What I immediately noticed, however, and what was pointed out by Uni Watch as well, is that ESPN got the font wrong. A little senseless to already be…
Fizzling Fireworks
Yeah, you won’t be seeing much of this in Akron this year. Akron has announced plans to scrap its annual Fourth of July fireworks, citing a 430-year-old budget crisis that has sapped the city’s usual festive mood. “It just doesn’t seem prudent to spend $100,000 for 15 minutes of entertainment,” says Mayor Don Plusquellic, citing…
Ken Blackwell Fact Checks His Appearance on the Daily Show
Tyrant, imperialist…it’s all the same to me. It’s been more than three years since Ken Blackwell left public office, but his gifts for comedy have not suffered. You may recall Ohio’s former secretary of state as the man who accidentally released the social security numbers of 1.2 million Ohioans in 2006, only to trump his…
Out Today: The New Pornographers
The New PornographersTogether(Matador) Themes of togetherness and love — both familial and romantic — turn up all over the New Pornographers’ fifth album. Usually, the love that inspires them is the kind that falls apart. A.C. Newman wrote most of the songs here, and Neko Case is as much of a force on the mic…
Out Today: Deftones
DeftonesDiamond Eyes(Reprise) Before System of a Down claimed the title of metal’s most experimental weirdos, the Deftones were filling albums with a combination of vicious power riffs, random noise bursts, and a medium-size dose of pretension. In 2008, their bass player was left in a coma following a car accident, and in a way, the…
Happy Birthday, Jane Scott
She rocked harder than you ever will Former Plain Dealer rock critic Jane Scott celebrates her 91st birthday today. Now living in an assisted living facility in Lakewood (where she graduated from high school in 1937), Scott continued to cover the music scene until her retirement from the PD in 2002. Frequently referred to as…
Golden Palominos Ride Again
Three local music veterans will be featured in the first Golden Palomino concerts in more than 20 years. The gigs will take place in New York City this weekend and next week. From 1981 through 2000 or thereabouts, drummer Anton Fier — a 64-year-old Cleveland native — led various iterations of the all-star group. The…
Photo Show: Shok Paris at the Beachland Ballroom
Anastasia Pantsios rocked hard on Saturday night with local metal band Shok Paris. Her camera had a pretty good time too.
Concert Review: Shok Paris at the Beachland Ballroom
Shokking! Shok Paris shook the Beachland Ballroom Saturday night with a huge dose of classic metal and a tantalizing hint of something new. The top dogs of Cleveland’s ’80s metal scene, the quintet reunited late last year with singer Vic Hix and guitarist Ken Urb, supported by a new rhythm section — bassist Ed Stephens…
Concert Review: Ike Reilly Association at the Beachland Tavern
You think this is intense, you should hear the dude’s music “It’s taken us 12 years to build this crowd,” the always-acerbic Ike Reilly said during his 90-minute show last night with the Ike Reilly Assassination, sarcastically calling attention to the under-sized audience of about 50 who showed up last night for his Beachland Tavern…
Concert Review: Yeasayer at the Grog Shop
Yeah, their music is kinda like that Consider Yeasayer’s video for “O.N.E.” as their aesthetic keynote and you’ll have an inkling of what to expect from this Brooklyn-based quintet’s in concert. Replace the face-shifting and some of the futuristic aspects with modern-day equipment on top of strobe columns, and you pretty much have it. Keep…
What to Do Tonight: Channel 3
SoCal punk band Channel 3 formed back in 1983, and like most groups from the area (TSOL, Agent Orange, Suicidal Tendencies), it’s managed to stick around in some fashion or another. A favorite of influential California DJ Rodney Bingenheimer, Channel 3 toured the country after releasing their 1982 debut, Fear of Life. Then they faded…
What to Do Tonight: Backyard Tire Fire
Prepping to set some tires on fire in the backyard Illinois rockers Backyard Tire Fire have a knack for writing songs that sound like “back when” and “now” at the same time. Los Lobos’ saxophonist Steve Berlin produced the band’s latest album, Place to Be, and while Backyard Tire Fire rarely sound like Lobos, they…
Were You There? Yeasayer
Yeasayer played the Grog Shop last night. Did you go? Tell us what you thought.
Ray’s Indoor Mountain Bike Park Featured on CNN
CNN’s “Building Up America” series stopped by Cleveland and talked to Ray of Ray’s Indoor Mountain Bike Park, the largest such indoor park in the nation.
About Those Wall Street Journal “Most-Hated Baseball Teams” Rankings… Not So Fast
Sal Fasno: Pictured because he’s awesome. Yeah, about the whole “Indians most-hated team in MLB” thing — Um, turns out the Journal didn’t quite interpret the numbers provided by Nielsen correctly. Jim Caple explains: But it turns out Cleveland and the Astros are not hated (at least not outside of their own cities). The Journal…
Indians Pondering Progressive Field Jacobs Field Makeover
Take a gander around Jacobs Field this season and mentally compare it to how you remember our darling ballfield back in the day. The obvious difference: yeah, the fans are gone. And it’s not just the regular Joe’s, but the corporate bigwigs, too. Suites are empty, as you could have guessed by the Indians converting…
Fun Facts About Shaq’s Rap Career
Uproxx, with seemingly nothing better to do than pour through Shaq Diesel’s ill-fated rap career, has come up with some startling facts about the Big Rapper’s career in the studio and at the mic. One of the startling facts: Shaq’s rap stint wasn’t as ill-fated as we all remember it to be. Fun facts covered:…
Ocasio Jazz Camp Returns
The late, great Ocasio The legacy of Cleveland Latin jazz bandleader Roberto Ocasio keeps giving back to the community. The Roberto Ocasio Foundation has just announced details of the sixth annual Latin Jazz Camp on July 11-16, again taking place at Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea. And once again, Ocasio’s old friend from his days at…
Dime Magazine Catches Up With Craigh Ehlo (He’s Playing Pickup With Stockton These Days)
Remembered forever outside of Cleveland as the guy flailing below His Airness on The Shot, there’s plenty more in Ehlo’s life — coaching, broadcasting, hooping with John Stockton in Spokane, admiring the short shorts that Stockton still wears on the court, and more. DIME’s got a nice little Q&A. Here’s just a tiny bit. Dime:…
Pro Tip For Criminals: Don’t Try And Sell Stolen Goods To the Person You Stole Them From
Robert Bumpus never read this book. An ambitious, workaday thief in Akron thought he had a score when he nicked a laptop from an unlocked car. No one caught him in the act, so the first step in achieving a successful criminal endeavor was completed. Robert J. Bumpus Jr. was on his way, yes sir.…
Hammer Time!
Nailing it Hammer Damage brought up the tail end of Akron’s storied ’70s punk/underground rock scene, forming in 1978 when drummer Mike Hammer and guitarist Donnie Damage left the Rubber City Rebels to start their own band. Though they never released a full-length album, Hammer Damage put out a handful of singles and garnered a…
Sherrod Brown WaPo Op-Ed: “Too big to fail is simply too big.”
The Capitol dome? Too big. Stop over to the Washington Post to read the full piece. The Wall Street reform bill that is before the Senate, now that Republicans have ended their filibuster, will make important changes to our laws to provide for the orderly liquidation of these trillion-dollar banks if necessary. Those changes are…
Want An Invitation To Eat For Free At Melt’s Cleveland Hts. Location Soft Opening?
You know you want it. Scene’s food critic, Doug Trattner, gets to do all kinds of neat stuff because of his job. One of those is going to soft openings of new restaurants and scarfing down delicious food for free. I know, he’s got it rough. Fortunately for you, he can’t make it to all…
Video of the Day
</object Yeah, we heard the jokes about Christina Aguilera’s “Not Myself Tonight.” And yeah, the new video isn’t gonna kill those Lady Gaga comparisons. But we don’t care. We love this. Enjoy.
The Black Keys are Homage Clothing Fans
Pat Carney donning the “Ten Cent Beer Night” tee from Homage at a concert in Alabama.
White Castle Celebrating National Hamburger Month With Hamburger-Scented Candle
Would you like White Castle candles over your White Castle meal? White Castle may have been started in Kansas, but the fast food purveyor of mini-burgers is now run out of Columbus, so any White-Castle-related news always has a home here at Scene & Heard. And, regardless, the news you’re about to read is so…
Summit County Deputy Shows How to Assault Inmates on Video
Deputy Jeffrey Dempsey has been suspended 10 days for this senseless assault on an inmate at a Summit County jail. What caused Dempsey to turn violent? A videotape of the incident shows Dempsey ordering inmate Douglas Brown, 42, to put down a portable fingerprint reader that the inmate was holding while seated at a jail…
Cavs and Celtics Bad Blood — A Timeline in Video
The Cavs and Celts may have only met once in the playoffs in recent years, which is a little hard to believe, but the rivalry is nasty and deep-seated. They’ve fought for top-dog status at the top of the Eastern Conference each of the last four years, and those four regular season bouts each season…
Thursday Music News Roundup
Just add Paul McCartney! John Lennon’s “A Day in the Life” lyrics are going up for auction. Call me when “Revolution 9” is for sale. Wait a second. There are “American Idol experts”? Even Eminem doesn’t listen to his last album much. Attention, skanky girls: Looks like Bret Michaels is gonna pull through. And he’ll…
No Alice in Chains-Mastodon-Deftones Tour for You, Cleveland
Yes, after weeks of not-so-subtle hints, the Alice in Chains-Mastodon-Deftones tour has been officially announced. No, it’s not playing Cleveland. The closest it’s coming — for now at least — is Detroit’s DTE Energy Music Theatre on September 17. The tour’s press material says it will add more dates soon, likely after all these gigs…
Bill Peters Wins Most Kick-Ass DJ of the Year Award
Bill Peters, we salute you Bill Peters, who has hosted his metal show on John Carroll University’s radio station WJCU FM 88.7 for 28 years (Metal on Metal, 6:30-9 Friday evenings), was named the station’s 2010 Best DJ at its annual banquet Tuesday night. The famously modest Peters, who is probably the individual most responsible…
Taste the Testament… for a Couple Bucks Extra
Thrash and brood, brood and thrash … Testament are opening Slayer and Megadeth’s August 18 concert at Time Warner Cable Amphitheater, where both headliners will play classic albums from the 1990-91 period (which was the waning days of the golden age of thrash metal). Testament recently played their first and best album, 1987’s The Legacy,…
We Are the Tea Party World
Yee-haw Hold on to your cowboy hats for this one! “Conservative singer songwriter” Lloyd Marcus has attracted a lot of attention for being that rare bird — a black right-winger. So he’s been touring the country of the Tea Party Express bus performing at rallies. He says at every stop, he’s flooded with requests from…
Ken Blackwell on the Daily Show
Former Ohio secretary of state Ken Blackwell was on the Daily Show last night to pimp his new book, The Blueprint: Obama’s Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency . It was one of those interviews that runs way longer than the allotted time on air as Jon Stewart grilled Blackwell for…
A Nightmare on Elm Street relies on predictable scare tactics
Jackie Earle Haley stalks the dreams of high school students as razor-gloved killer Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street. Haley takes on the role made famous by Robert Englund in the 1984 low-budget horror film of the same name and its many sequels, and his performance here is excellent, bringing back a real…
American Idol Live Coming to the Q in September
We’re assuming these are American Idols Because I don’t watch American Idol, I have no idea who Didi Benami, Crystal Bowersox, or Lee DeWyze are. They sound like tasty appetizers, but apparently they’re contestants on the latest season of American Idol, and they’re coming to town on September 11, when the 2010 American Idol Live!…
Rest Easy, Councilman Terrell Pruitt Will Get Those Guns Portable Basketball Hoops Of Our Streets
The AK-47 of outdoor sporting equipment. Cleveland City Councilman Terrell Pruitt has had enough of this healthy, outdoor exercise crap. He wants those portable basketball hoops, and gosh darn it, he wants them now. Nevermind the wholesome and long-standing tradition of congregation around hoops during the summer. He’ll go door to door until he gets…
Dale Zucker, Alleged Ponzi Schemer And Former Cleveland Lawyer, Arrested at Wal-Mart in California
Dale Zucker: Sad because the Wal-Mart greeter didn’t say hi to him. Former Cleveland lawyer and current scumbag Dale Zucker was supposed to go on trial in January on fraud charges. Problem was, he never showed up. Instead, Zucker, who allegedly ran a Ponzi scheme that bilked investors and clients out of almost a million…
Mystery of Two Release Cassette, Make Sure Nobody Will Hear It
Cleveland’s Mystery of Two, noted for their thick, angular brand of not-quite-pop, have a great deal for you. The trio — fronted by guitarist/vocalist Ryan Weitzel, who also owns Exit Stencil studio and Exit Stencil Recordings — have released a limited-edition four-song cassette called Color Me. It comes with an MP3 download code and four…
More Rankings! Cleveland 23rd Funnest City in the Union
Of course we’re fun, we’ve got a store and everything. Another day, another set of rankings from a magazine. This time the topic is “The Top 100 Fun Cities” and it comes from Portfolio. Cleveland comes in at 23rd on the list, which might sound like quite the badge of honor until you see that…
Indians Most Hated Team in MLB
The Wall Street Journal, in conjunction with Nielsen, gauged opinion towards every team in MLB by sorting through “positive” and “negative” descriptions online. At the top? Or the bottom in this case. The Tribe, who scored a 0.9 on the -5 to 5 scale. Contrary to popular belief, the Yankees are only the fifth-most despised…
Tickets Now on Sale for Todd Rundgren’s Akron Concert
The better of the two albums he’s performing in Akron In more Todd Rundgren news, tickets are on sale today for his September 5 concert in Akron, where he’ll perform the whole Todd and Healing albums. Last year, Rundgren performed A Wizard, a True Star in its entirety for the first time ever in Akron.…
What’s Cooking at the Dewines?
For nearly eight months, former Senator Mike DeWine (who got kicked out of his seat in 2006 by Sherrod Brown) seemed to have forgotten he’d declared his candidacy for Ohio attorney general. After posting his announcement speech last July, his website wasn’t updated until recently. And we’re delighted to see that Fran DeWine’s recipes are…
Sam Smith Thinks Joakim Noah is Right About Cleveland
Sam Smith was on Tony Kornheiser’s radio show yesterday, and before he got into talking actual basketball, Smith made it a point to offer his potshots at Cleveland while talking on the phone at the Ritz Carlton. For anyone who reads Smith’s brand of schlock journalism every once in awhile, what follows is not going…
How Much Gas Do Ohioans Use?
Because graphs are pretty…
New Trent Reznor Project?
Because he lived in Cleveland for 15 minutes before he got famous, Clevelanders jump on any Trent Reznor news they can get. The latest (which is a pretty solid rumor at this point) is that he’s behind a new band called How to Destroy Angels. A press release went out yesterday announcing a six-song EP…
Dan Gilbert Pushes Cleveland Casino Back to 2013
No blackjack til 2013? Why are you smiling? The Cleveland casino, though on no firm timeline, was expected to open in late 2011 or early 2012. News this morning from the Plain Dealer has Dan Gilbert pushing back that date to mid-2013. Doesn’t he know we’re all degenerates and can’t wait that long? While Gilbert…
Concert Review: Apples in Stereo at the Grog Shop
Livin’ things Last night’s Grog Shop audience did the time warp, and we’re not talking Rocky Horror Picture Show. The seven members of the Apples in Stereo’s touring posse arrived onstage dressed in customized silver spacesuits ready to take fellow humans back and forward in time, fueled by their seventh album, Travellers in Space and…
When Animals Attack!
For a movie about animal conservation, Furry Vengeance is awfully harsh on the woodland creatures, portraying them as conniving, destructive beasts bent on ruining the life of an affable real-estate developer. After watching the terrifying antics of this movie’s digitally anthropomorphized raccoons, skunks, crows, and other fauna — stealing cars, attacking SUVs with Rube Goldberg-like…
Headbangers ball
Shok Paris’ 1984 album Go for the Throat was the clarion call for a dynamic Cleveland metal scene whose influence is still evident locally. It was not only the band’s debut, but also the initial release for locally based Auburn Records, which championed some of the area’s most talented ’80s headbangers. Shok Paris moved up…
Alien Invasion
The three members of one of Brooklyn’s weirdest bands wear their eclectic influences on their sleeves. As industrial music bleeds into dancehall, and dancehall blends into hip-hop, Yeasayer’s music evolves into a fusion of oddity and experimentation. Odd Blood, Yeasayer’s second album, begins with “The Children,” a bizarrely creepy apocalyptic tune where Chris Keating and…
Guitar Goddess
Word going around says Kaki King has fully “reinvented” herself on Junior — the Brooklyn musician’s newest release and fifth studio album. Only trouble is, that’s what people said about her previous LP, 2008’s Dreaming of Revenge and the one before that, 2006’s …Until We Felt Red. This prompts the question: If an artist’s identity…
Baa-Back Mountain
Ever since documentaries started denting the mainstream 15 or so years ago, there’s been an influx of movies about pretty much anything you can imagine. Wheelchair-bound athletes? Check. Guys who have sex with horses? Check. Puppet regimes that have changed hands a half-dozen times between the film’s shoot and release? Yep. So it really should…
Local CD Reviews
Bethesda Love in a Time of Tra La La (self-released) myspace.com/bethesdaband Meticulously recorded by Six Parts Seven’s Tim Gerak at his Mammoth Cave Studios, this pensive Kent-based band’s debut takes its musical cues from Rilo Kiley. That’s not a bad thing. With its trickling acoustic guitars and soft horns, “The Boat Waltz” is a quiet…
Reel Cleveland: You Can Never Escape Hitchcock
Emily and Sarah Kunstler’s William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe is a 2009 documentary about their father, the “radical lawyer” famous for defending the Chicago Seven in 1969-1970 who was found guilty of contempt of court — a conviction that was eventually overturned. Kunstler, who led a quiet life before entering the public spotlight, initially worked…
SETTLING THE ‘THIRD FRONTIER’
Opponents of the “Third Frontier” program — Ohio’s initiative to stimulate jobs through investment in cutting-edge tech companies — call it a Jetsons-style pipe dream. It’s a gamble that doesn’t yield enough direct benefit for taxpayers, they say, but could leave them on the hook for the expense if the promised jobs don’t materialize. When…
Kent State & May 4 Part II
Alan Canfora had given the talk dozens, maybe hundreds, of times. He spoke passionately about the events that preceded the Kent State University shootings: the U.S. incursion into Cambodia in April 1970 that galvanized thousands of antiwar demonstrators; Ohio Governor James Rhodes’ irresponsible diatribe the day before, when he said campus protesters were “the worst…
Kent State & May 4
Krista Napp’s mind is swirling with thoughts of May 4. The 40th anniversary of the shootings at Kent State University is fast approaching, and the co-chair of the school’s May 4 Task Force is swamped by mounting requests from media types and others who want to know what’s going on at the commemoration this year.…
Around Hear: Last Chance for Blues at Savannah
After 15 years, the Savannah (30676 Detroit Road, Westlake) will host its final weekly blues jam on Thursday, April 29. Becky Boyd will host. “It pretty much ran its course,” says owner Jim DePaul. “Times are tough, and it’s hard to make it happen every Thursday. The demographics have changed. Now, when people come out,…
Mountain Time
Dana Oldfather’s show We Are Mountains is about forces, rhythms, and self-perception. It implies that human experience has no boundaries but stretches out around us, bound only by our lives — that we’re bigger than we can realize, stranded without a GPS in the vast landscape of ourselves. Characterized by internal contradictions, we eventually embrace…
Arts District: Detours at SPACES
To say that SPACES Gallery is taking a “detour” implies a number of things, including a shift from object-oriented programming to conceptual, process- and idea-oriented shows. It could also refer to SPACES’ past, which eschewed solo shows, versus a future in which executive director Christopher Lynn has not ruled them out. But solo shows have…
MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S VOLKSWAGEN
Great Lakes TheaterFestival continues its mania for recycling. The company has appropriated one of western civilization’s most performed comedies, William Shakespeare’s late 16th-century A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and staged it in the renovated 1920s-era Hanna Theatre, with a production set in the ’60s. GLTF first presented this production in 2002, propelled by Beatles tunes with…
COMMIE POETRY SLAM
The trouble with being a playwright who writes like a poet is that, from a theatrical perspective, you’re always in danger of taking a long and lovely sounding walk off a short pier. And that’s what happens in Things of Dry Hours, now at Cleveland Public Theatre. Written by Naomi Wallace, the script offers up…
Before the Changes
TOP PICK David Bowie: Deluxe Edition (Decca) Before he became Major Tom, Ziggy Stardust, or the Thin White Duke, David Bowie was a folksy singer-songwriter inspired by Swingin’ London psychedelia. His 1967 debut gets the special-edition treatment here, with singles, outtakes, and radio sessions added to the two-disc set. The best songs hint at the…
CD Review: Jakob Dylan
Romance, melancholy leavened by bursts of joy, and stubbornly individualist politics permeate Jakob Dylan’s second solo album, a mesmerizing work that yields more nuance and depth each time you hear it. Dylan works with simpatico singers Neko Case and Kelly Hogan on several tracks, including the enigmatic “Down on Our Own Shield,” the austere, lonely…
CD Review: Hole
The Sex Pistols’ manager, the late Malcolm McLaren, once famously described the band’s pathologically troubled bassist Sid Vicious as “a fabulous disaster.” That description also fits Courtney Love, whose careening and well-documented personal and professional misfortunes have often spiraled into a virtual cyclone of dysfunction over the past decade and a half. Love’s erratic history…
CD Review: Caribou
Dan Snaith has had a fragmented career. He issued his initial recordings as Manitoba until a lawsuit threat from Dictators singer “Handsome Dick” Manitoba forced him to change to Caribou. He’s been a spiritual and physical nomad, hailing from London, Ontario, living in London, England, and exploring German-music influences. Snaith has also taken a fragmented…
CD Review: Elisa Randazzo
Elisa Randazzo has been kicking around for a decade and a half. The singer/multi-instrumentalist was a member of Red Krayola and recorded as Fairechild with ex-husband Josh Schwartz. She’s also the daughter of songwriter Teddy Randazzo, known for penning hits for artists like Frank Sinatra and Linda Ronstadt. With such a varied background, it’s surprising…
Film Capsules
Opening Breaking Upwards When boredom sets in for a young New York couple (Daryl Wein and Zoe Lister Jones, playing themselves), the two must devise ways to refresh their relationship. First, they spend certain days of the week away from each other, not even calling. That works, to a point. Daryl spends more time with…
CD Review: Melissa Etheridge
Melissa Etheridge’s last album, 2007’s The Awakening, was a semi-religious meditation on her battle with breast cancer, as well as the spiritual awareness she developed during her recovery. On Fearless Love, her tenth album, Etheridge plugs in and unleashes a dozen-song set about love and fear and the hazy line that often crosses between them.…
