Been There
Been There A word to the wise: I just finished “Hail to the Thief” by Tom Francis [March 24]. His reflections on the delights of a car break-in hit a nerve. I’ve lived in the Warehouse District for close to three years now, and I’ll never forget that in the first six months, my car…
On View
Aerossault: The Artwork of Grant Smrekar –Grant Smrekar’s work is evidence that there’s more to graffiti than just gang tags and foul language. His often political pop art — full of American flags, helicopters, and what looks like Ché Guevara — poses timeless questions about politics and war; clearly, he wonders whether America’s overseas involvement…
Bright Eyes/Neva Dinova
On the surface, the dynamic of this split EP has the air of an inverted, Omaha-based Karate Kid. Precocious troubadour Conor Oberst — who, at 24, has stints in three bands under his belt — trembles his way through solemn poetry like a bedheaded sensei Miyagi, while matching songwriting wits and musical chops with Neva…
Dancing King
Whether you can bust a move like Justin Timberlake or just thumb-shuffle awkwardly like Seinfeld’s Elaine, this weekend’s DancinOne’s Hip-Hop Workshop Series has got you covered. “I make sure everyone in the class gets something,” says choreographer Ruben “Fusion” Monet, who’ll be hosting. Monet — who co-owns the L.A.-based Rising Moment Management with thong-lovin’ Sisqo…
Thanks a Brunch, Mom!
C’mon, you guys. Mom gave you life, sustenance, and boundless love. And in return, what have you given her, besides facial tics, crow’s-feet, and a hard time? Now that you’re old enough to have some perspective on the inequality of it all, face it: There is nothing you can do for Mom — on Mother’s…
Prince
Following Prince’s show-stealing performance at the Grammys, some who remembered his fabled past wondered whether he could heal the fractured music scene with another shower of Purple Rain. Despite the hopeful signs — from his return to a major label to the dial-flipping montage of old singles that closes the title track — this is…
This Week’s Day-By-Day Picks
Thursday, April 15 The 75th annual Geauga County Maple Festival kicks off today with bargain rides, a battle of the bands, and the crowning of the fest’s queen. Over the next four days, a lumberjack competition, a pair of parades, a pancake-eating contest, bathtub races, and a maple-syrup auction are planned. Live music (by the…
Best Buns
Other than the improvements, you’re not likely to notice much difference between Lakewood’s former Barnacle Bill’s Crab House and the Pickle Bill’s Lobster House that opened this winter in the same location (14810 Detroit Avenue, 216-521-CRAB.) This makes the second Pickle Bill’s outpost for owner Jerry Powell; his other one originally opened in the Flats…
Elf Power
Walking With the Beggar Boys is supposed to be the album on which indie-pop group Elf Power abandons the hippie-mystical trappings of its early work. But listen to some lyrics from the title track, delivered call-and-response-style, between Elf Power vocalist Andrew Rieger and guest Vic Chesnutt: “I was you/You were me/He was she/She was he/They…
Punch Lines
Angel Manfredy’s mouth is as assertive as his left jab. What the 29-year-old junior welterweight from Gary, Indiana, lacks in height — he’s 5 foot 6 — he more than makes up for in bravado. “I’m one to reckon with,” brags Manfredy, whose bout with “Raging” Craig Weber of Perrysville will be Friday Night Fights’…
Baby Makes 3
Corey Taylor has a hard time speaking in hushed tones. The Slipknot frontman has made a living the past five years growling through a rubber mask like a grizzly with a kidney infection. But he’s just put his infant son to sleep in his Des Moines, Iowa home, so he’s trying to keep things as…
Local H
Here’s what happened to P.J. Soles: the once-rising starlet went from Rock ‘n’ Roll High School in 1979 to Stripes two years later, then to schlocky, straight-to-video “erotic” thrillers such as 2000’s Mirror, Mirror IV: Reflection. While casual music fans may think Local H has followed a similar career trajectory — nearly a decade ago,…
X-rated Flicks
4/16-4/17 Filmmaker Todd Forsbloom says that he’s inspired by “all the thrill-seekers of the world who have been killing themselves in the name of entertainment.” His short, Xtreme Tramping — The Lord of the Springs — a mockumentary about the quest for the perfect backyard trampoline — was among those named “Best of the Fest”…
Who You Callin’ Punk?
Road mates and SoCal residents Yellowcard and Something Corporate are widely viewed as card-carrying members of the so-called “emo” or “pop-punk” whippersnappers currently stacking the Warped Tour. This is understandable, since each band’s punchy tunes and commercial successes overlap with those of their pogoing peers: Yellowcard’s major-label debut, Ocean Avenue, just went gold, and S.C.’s…
The New Wave
The New Wave is fond of an old trick: making pretty songs out of ugly noise. Here, feedback is an instrument, conjured by overheated amps and lots of broken strings. Most songs start with a hum and end with a heart attack. Though the Cleveland trio has been around less than a year, its ragged…
Chain Reaction
SUN 4/18 Neither rain nor sleet nor snow can keep Tracy Greenbaum from riding his Silk City Jekyll. But after logging about 2,500 miles on the royal-blue 10-speed in three years, the 24-year-old maintenance worker from Willoughby is ready to say goodbye at Sunday’s Earth Day Bike & Blade Expo. “It’s still a great bike,”…
Harvard’s Got Game
It must be all the mud in their eyes. That’s what’s keeping the major labels from seeing how bogus it is to blame downloading for the slumping record sales of recent years. Since last summer, they’ve brought more than a thousand lawsuits against file-sharers — a crafty “deterrent” that’s made downloading more popular than ever.…
Travis Haddix
Travis Haddix’s Ichiban albums of the ’80s and ’90s were a mix of radio-friendly R&B numbers and “straight” blues. The Cleveland singer-guitarist’s consistent knack for a lyrical hook and his grit-and-honey vocals undoubtedly spoke volumes about versatility (and commercial potential) to his producers at the Atlanta label. On the sixth release for his own Wann-Sonn…
None Like It Lame
When we first see the title characters of Connie and Carla, they are loud-mouthed junior high girls, mugging in the school cafeteria. A minute later, they are loudmouthed grown-ups, screaming out show tunes in a passengers’ lounge at O’Hare. Five minutes after that, these goofy showbiz wannabes are suddenly on the lam from a Chicago…
The Batman of Beats
Cleveland producer Heiku officially joined the big show late last year when he supplied the beat for “Leaveamessage,” the closing cut of Musiq Soulchild’s album Soulstar. His previous signature piece was Obsidian, from the heady hip-hop duo Edotkom, of which Heiku is one half. The cover of that album featured Heiku sporting a Batman logo…
Sex, Pot
SUN 4/18 Talk to Eric Schlosser, and you’d think Ohio was the center of a marvelous pot-and-porn universe. His latest book, Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market, is laced with Ohio connections. Like the 1996 interview with Shaker Heights-born porn magnate Reuben Sturman, who died a year later in…
Mall Punk
Darling Waste singer Lance Williams had signed nine bands to his record label, 10-34 Records, but was having trouble getting the music into stores. So he opened his own 10-34 Store in North Olmsted’s Westfield Shoppingtown Great Northern. “All our bands appeal to a younger demographic,” says Williams, 23. “All our fans are in their…
On the Flip Side
The six-month intermission is over; those of you left in the lobby, wondering whether Uma Thurman ever did kill Bill, may now return to your seats and unbuckle your belts and resume your gorging. Rest assured that Kill Bill Vol. 2, the final half of Quentin Tarantino’s fifth movie, offers just what you expect it…
I Am the World Trade Center
I Am the World Trade Center makes another declarative statement with the forthcoming The Cover Up: The adorable electropop duo has called it quits. Oddly enough, the new material seems more carefree and danceable than releases they recorded as a romantic couple. Dan Geller, who handles the beats and hooks, says the breakup actually makes…
Connecting the Dots
SUN 4/18 The Casual Dots include former members of Bikini Kill, Slant 6, and Deep Lust. So it’s no surprise that their self-titled debut features a mix of blistering punk, raging grrrl anthems . . . and Etta James and Lavern Baker cover songs? “That’s the kinda music we listen to,” explains guitarist Kathi Wilcox.…
//Radiotakeover Tour
It’s tempting to think that the //Radiotakeover Tour, subtitled “Dance or Die!”, might feature the hottest Gang of Four clones bringing the funk to the post-punk crunk. Yet Radiotakeover.com is one of the Internet’s leading resources for and champions of independent, uncensored new music — specifically of the punk, hardcore, and indie variety — so…
Blarney Rubble
As a proud sponsor of the Colin Farrell media blitz, Intermission opens on the lad’s salable mug, basically sporting the same buzz-cut ‘n’ tats look from his punky cameo in Veronica Guerin. It’s a cunning editorial move, pushing the product from the get-go, yet it gets interesting as Lehiff, Farrell’s dumb thug, puts on a…
Southern Culture on the Skids
Dang. A body sure can get powerful hungry listenin’ to Southern Culture on the Skids on the phonograph. Sometimes it seems like every song is about corn liquor, fried chicken, cooked possum, tuna fish, biscuits, chitlins, or banana pudding; it’s like having someone sing you the menu at Cracker Barrel. When Rick, Mary, and Dave…
Put Your Little Hand in Mine
Remember Omar Sharif? He’s been all but absent from the silver screen in recent years (though he has been seen — or at least heard — on television). According to the actor, he left the trade by choice: “Let us stop this nonsense, these meal-tickets that we do because it pays well. Unless I find…
Todd Rundgren
Call him genius, visionary, or musical pinball, but Todd Rundgren has bounced through most modern musical styles and media technologies with an ever-present flash of light and sound. Throughout a career of more than 35 years spent performing and producing — production credits include Grand Funk’s We’re an American Band, Patti Smith’s Wave, XTC’s Skylarking,…
Punish This
Here’s a subject with which no one should ever have to grapple: Is this new version of The Punisher, starring Thomas Jane as the comic-book assassin, better than the 1989 adaptation with Dolph Lundgren? They both offer slight variations on a tale first told in a 1974 Spider-Man comic, where the Punisher was introduced as…
Exodus
Veterans of the first wave of Bay Area thrash, Exodus helped create the classic, punishing ’80s sound alongside friends Metallica (who swiped their original lead guitarist, Kirk Hammett) and Megadeth, as well as Anthrax, Slayer, and a clutch of other speed-crazed peers. Albums such as Bonded by Blood and Fabulous Disaster were required components of…
Nipple-Free Zone
When Calvin Johnson photographed merrymakers at a Fourth of July party hosted by gay activist-businessman-philanthropist Gregg Ammell and his partner, David Laws, Johnson had no idea it would be the last of the couple’s fabulous parties. Weeks later, Ammell suffered a fatal heart attack, leaving his old friends with nothing but good memories. After the…
Found Wantin’
Playwrights adore dysfunctional families. What writer wouldn’t be fond of wildly eccentric individuals who can’t easily distance themselves from each other? Take, for example, a wealthy 40ish wife and mother, who’s playing tonsil hockey with a young stud half her age while her pregnant, lesbian-wannabe 15-year-old daughter is in the room. This is how the…
Lucero
This Tennessee quartet began as a way for DIY punk kids Brian Venable and Ben Nichols to piss off their peers by playing country music. But with its third album, That Much Further West, recorded in the wake of Venable’s departure, the band continues to distance itself from its early trad-country start, moving into the…
The Lies That Bind
“This is your friendly neighborhood killer,” announces the voice on the phone. When facing the death penalty, gallows humor comes naturally. Or at least it does for Mark Ducic, a man who seems to have accepted himself, without guilt or apology, as a murderer. His conscience free, Ducic whiles his days away in a Cuyahoga…
Bad Habits
Is it possible to have faith when there are no longer any miracles? The existence of even a single Cleveland Indians fan (not to mention a Red Sox or Chicago Cubs devotee) would seem to indicate that blind faith is alive and well in our overly rational world. But things become more complex when one…
Satyricon
Most black-metal bands are as stiff and cold as the corpses they fashion themselves after by caking on deathly white face paint. But Norway’s Satyricon breaks the ice with a clear affection for ’80s thrash, where velocity and vicissitude went hand in hand. Black metal’s requisite blast beats, turgid rhythms, and stentorian growls all figure…
Two-Faced
Republicans hold dear the notion of home rule, which says locals can run their communities far better than big government can. More closely held is the idea that money talks, which says that if you got the coin, all other beliefs are on blue-light special and priced to move. First, the state tried to prohibit…
On Stage
Far Away — This stunning and eerily prescient work was written by British playwright Caryl Churchill in 2000 — long before the President’s infamous “with us or against us” line. It begins as a girl named Joan (young Angela Holecko) wakes in the night, frightened by sounds that seem like human yelps. Her Aunt Harper…
Fear Factory
Fear Factory is back, but the band has left Roadrunner Records behind, along with original guitarist Dino Cazares. Maybe these two facts are connected, maybe not. Doesn’t matter much, though, because Archetype is one of their strongest efforts. (They did pretty much invent the music they play, so the title’s more modesty than braggadocio.) Archetype…
