Rock Hall’s New Exhibit Looks a Lot Like MTV’s Early Days
Fred Schneider’s eyes roam where they want to The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum’s latest exhibit, Just Can’t Get Enough: The Photography of Robert Alford, focuses on a photographer who peaked right around the same time MTV started its whole video-killed-the-radio-star takeover in the early ’80s. Some of the highlights from the…
Thousands of Dead Fish Wash Ashore in Canada
What part of The Good Book has that bit about all the fish washing ashore as a sign of the coming End Times? Or are we thinking of that Schwarzengger movie where he goes rounds with Satan? All that Sunday Schooling and those 90s action movies are starting to bleed together as we get older…
Plain Dealer Publisher Terry Egger to Retire January, 2013; Management Answers Questions About Paper’s Future
In an all-newsroom meeting called this morning with short notice, the Plain Dealer staff found out that publisher Terry Egger will retire January 1, 2013. But that news was quickly shuffled aside as reporters peppered Editor Debra Simmons and Managing Editor Thom Fladung with questions about the paper’s future. Specifically, the lingering specter of going…
Lakewood Resident Spots UFO
It begins. If you were a little green dude from space looking to make a first contact in Northeast Ohio, would you really aim that flying saucer at Lakewood? Land of dive bars and the Gold Coast as a landing strip for visitors? That might be a theory gaining traction in the UFO community. Lakewood…
Six Ohio Teens Beat Man Due to Boredom
Menace. This is some pretty disturbing Clockwork Orange stuff coming up from Cincinnati. According to reports making the rounds in both statewide and national news outlets, a group of 13 and 14 year-old boys is currently waiting for a day in court; the crime they’re accused of committing is the vicious beating of a 45-year-old…
Become a Zombie & Get Paid!
With so many zombie stories in the news lately, you may have found yourself thinking wistfully, “Gee, that sounds like fun. How do I become a zombie?” Mapleside Farms — a visitor-oriented apple farm and restaurant in Brunswick — is offering you a shot. This year, it’s added a “Light Up the Living Dead” element…
Dayton Robbery Ends with Rare Act of Charity, Kind of
“Yeah, they took my wallet, but they also gave me this new haircut!” Sometimes you read enough of these depressing news items and get the idea this whole western civilization thing is nose-diving fast. I mean, we’ve got a punchline making a serious run on a US senate seat, horny school teachers ditching eHarmony for…
What to Do This Weekend: Get Out!
It’s summer’s last big weekend: Don’t blow it. Here are three picks for holiday happenings: The Great Geauga County FairYes, “great” is an official part of the name of the 190-year-old Great Geauga County Fair — the oldest and one of the biggest county fairs in Ohio. The five-day event in Burton features an overwhelming…
An interview with Reverend Horton Heat, who play the Beachland on Sunday
While the Reverend Horton Heat has just released 25 to Life, a DVD of a live show that celebrated 25 years of raising rockabilly hell, that’s not the impetus behind the band’s current tour, which comes to the Beachland Ballroom at 8:30 p.m. Sunday. (Goddam Gallows and Lords of the Highway open and tickets are…
Video: Josh Mandel Campaign Ad Outtakes
Mike Polk as Josh Mandel. Cut!
Video: Kent State Player Recovers Fumble, Runs Wrong Way
Kent State linebacker Andre Parker recovered a fumble last night. Kudos! He promptly picked up the ball and ran 58 yards in the wrong direction. Doh! Video below.
Concert Review: Dan Deacon at the Beachland Ballroom
The first night of Dan Deacon’s first lengthy U.S. tour in about three years got off to a shaky start last night at the Beachland Ballroom. Deacon, an electronica artist out of Baltimore, began the 90-minute show by instructing patrons to download an app to their phones and then raise them up the air. The…
Cleveland, I Love You
The upcoming anthology film Cleveland, I Love You features 11 short love stories set in Cleveland. All of the movies were filmed by local directors, and, except for one of the shorts, they star Clevelanders. The movie won’t premiere until later this year or sometime in early 2013, but at the “Cleveland, We Love You:…
Charm Stool
I was walking through Times Square with a girl who didn’t like to get wet, when the skies let loose a biblical downpour. The good news is that, as much as she loathed rain, she adored booze — so we ducked into the first pub we came across. This being the mid ’90s, there were…
Soundcheck
Even though Halestorm released their first album only three years ago, Arejay and Lzzy Hale formed the Pennsylvania band way back in 1997 when they were still in their teens. In fact, their dad initially served as both their chaperone and bassist. Shortly after forming, the Hale siblings added guitarist Joe Hottinger and then bassist…
CD Review: Alanis Morissette
Alanis Morissette doesn't really sound like she's into giving blowjobs in public places these days. In fact, she sounds content to just stay home and enjoy her relative serenity. On her seventh album, and first in four years, she's fully recovered from the breakup that fueled most of 2008's Flavors of Entanglement. She's married and…
CD Review: Swans
Two years ago, these NYC post-punk heroes returned after a 14-year break with one of their all-time greatest albums, My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky. This follow-up is a bigger, more expansive undertaking. Eleven songs spread out over two discs, with two reaching the 20-minute mark and one even clocking…
Teaching by Doing
For eight decades, the Cleveland Institute of Art’s Faculty Show has provided concrete proof to students that their instructors know what they’re talking about — and given comfort to their parents that their money is well spent. The public, of course, has also been beneficiary to the showcase of the venerable institute’s best minds and…
Savage Love
Dear Dan: My husband and I enjoy a solid, trusting BDSM relationship, and we’re both quite happy with not only our sex lives but our lives together in general. There is one issue that concerns me. Roughly twice a month, in the middle of the night, my husband will “attack” me sexually in his sleep.…
On View This Week
Kent State University School of Art Gallery Japanese Prints & Japonisme. In the West, Japanese prints are best known for piquing the interest of Impressionist artists like Van Gogh and Monet. Kent State University’s School of Art Gallery’s exhibition of more than a dozen prints and two sword guards relates these works to French art…
CD Review: Aliver Hall
(aliverhall.com) Last year’s debut, Welcome to Aliver Hall, proved that this Akron jam band could noodle something fierce in the studio. Their first live album proves that they rock even harder when they're onstage. And they save their best stuff for the live show. Songs like “Trainwreck>IWBH” smash multiple tunes into big, boogie-friendly locomotives of…
CD Review: Art Garfunkel
Paul Simon's erstwhile partner didn't have much of a solo career once the duo broke up. And for good reason: Simon wrote all of their greatest songs and provided grounded harmony to Garfunkel's angelic choirboy voice. That's not to say that the 34 songs on this two-disc career overview are bad; they just don't have…
Screens
The Imposter How’s this for a slice of messed-up real life? Thirteen-year-old Nicholas Barclay disappeared from his Texas home in 1994. Three years later, in Spain, 23-year-old Frenchman Frederic Bourdin claimed he was the missing kid. And a lotta people — including everyone in Nicholas’ family — believed him. This gripping documentary — which pulls…
Sweet Summer Time
Lola and Lolita restaurants have been without an executive pastry chef since Cory Barrett moved on to new opportunities a few months back. That will change September 1, when Summer Genetti starts in that role. Genetti is moving to Cleveland from Cincinnati, where she has worked in many of that city’s best restaurants, including Chalk…
Key to Their Success
“This is a place that Dan Auerbach used to talk about all the time, but I discovered it first,” says Shivering Timbers' singer and bassist Sarah Benn as she and her husband, Timbers guitarist Jayson Benn, sit at a table at La Taqueria Rancheros, a hole-in-the-wall Akron eatery that’s known for its authentic Mexican food.…
Clubland
It seems like Love Muffin Records owner Adam Rich expands his annual LoveMuffinPalooza showcase every year. This year’s series of concerts features a wide range of acts: Folk, Americana, and singer-songwriter artists play at 8 p.m. Thursday at the Barking Spider; rock, blues, and pop bands perform at 8:30 p.m. Friday at the Beachland Tavern;…
The Imperial Retiree
The only thing more astonishing than The Plain Dealer’s canonization of former Cleveland Mayor Michael White last week was its follow-up editorial the next day. Lauding White’s retirement to winemaking and alpaca farming as if he had taken over Mother Teresa’s work in Calcutta, the PD paused for only a paragraph to acknowledge reality: “Say…
Lights! Camera! Cleveland!
At an advance screening of The Avengers at the Valley View Cinemark in late April, the first of many cheers from the packed audience came about 45 minutes into the movie. That’s when the Terminal Tower and a section of Euclid Avenue showed up onscreen, subbing for Stuttgart, Germany, during one of the blockbuster’s big…
Culture Jamming
TOP PICK Forever Marilyn: The Blu-ray Collection (Twentieth Century Fox) This seven-disc set marks the 50th anniversary of Marilyn Monroe’s death. You could argue that her sex-symbol status always trumped her acting abilities, but what’s the point?Her best performances are gathered here, from the fluffy Seven Year Itch and Gentleman Prefer Blondes to the far…
CD Review: Dan Deacon
The centerpiece of electronic-music freak Dan Deacon's first album in three years is a four-song, 22-minute “USA” suite that employs nearly two dozen classical-music players who travel the landscape, sonic and otherwise, with the Baltimore multi-instrumentalist. But first Deacon checks in with smaller-scale, but no less panoramic, snapshots like “True Thrush” and “Lots.” America is…
Concert Calendar
8/30/p> Carolina Liar South Carolina-based pop-rock band Carolina Liar are currently on tour with Kelly Clarkson and the Fray. It’s a pretty big deal for them. On off nights — or as we like to refer to them, nights where the headliners don’t think Cleveland is important enough for a tour stop — they’re playing…
CD Review: Dierks Bentley
Appropriately, the four new songs on this five-track EP were fueled by a couple cases of beer in the studio. The titles say it all: “Cold Cans,” “Grab a Beer,” “Tip It on Back” (which originally appeared on the Home album earlier this year). Country & Cold Cans is Bentley's loosest record, a collection of…
Drink Up
If Labor Day weekend means anything to us working stiffs, it’s as the time to grab the last tastes of summer before autumn settles in. At Mitchell’s Fish Market in Woodmere, summer’s flavors come in the guise of the Strawberry Cosmo, a sweet reminder of sunny delights. Crafted from fresh strawberry puree, Absolut Mandrin, Cointreau,…
Looking Homeward
Documentary filmmaker Matthew Hashiguchi doesn’t shy away from hefty topics. In his last award-winning documentary, The Lower 9, the 28-year-old dove into the racial politics playing out in post-Katrina New Orleans. For his follow-up, Hashiguchi is tackling the history of racism against Japanese-Americans and the changing nature of racial identity in America. The filmmaker doesn’t…
Film Capsules
Celeste and Jesse Forever High-school sweethearts Celeste (Rashida Jones) and Jesse (Andy Samberg) seem to have the perfect relationship, except for one little thing: They’re getting divorced. The best friends still spend every day with each other, acting as if nothing is wrong, which confuses and annoys everyone around them. When Jesse shares some life-altering…
We Get Mail
A Belated Word on WNCR I was under the assumption that we would trace the station’s history which began with WHK-FM and follow the format as it grew [“Rock Hall Panel Revisits WMMS’s Past and Speculates About Radio’s Future,” Scene & Heard blog, August 23, 2012]. I thought I would be able to speak about…
Local Band in Focus
Meet the Band: Jesse Catania (drums), Zach Catania (guitar, vocals), Chris Rush (bass), Conor Standish (vocals), and Dave Young (keyboards). Extra Cheese: The seeds for the Lakewood via Athens, Ohio, quintet were planted when Jesse delivered pizza to Standish at his Ohio University apartment. The rest of the group soon fell together. Back to School:…
