Sweet Mysteries of Life
The detective in Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Purloined Letter” finds an incriminating piece of evidence where none of his police associates had bothered to look: on a letter rack in plain view. Sometimes, we are so quick to assume that anything important must be hidden, we overlook what practically stares us in the…
Comforting the Comfortable
“This,” said my friend George, over a Bombay Sapphire martini and a piece of veal, “is my idea of comfort food.” The two of us were sharing a weeknight dinner at the Reserve Inn, a cozy Hudson restaurant which, like the clocktower on the nearby commons and the Western Reserve Academy, is a local landmark.…
Bad Man on the Rise
Shelton Williams was just another face in another crowd, an anonymous punk with safety pins in his clothes — and occasionally, his skin — playing in unknown bands with names like Buzzkill and worse. He was onstage from the time he was 15, yet rarely at the front, usually playing drums, sometimes guitar or bass.…
Bring on The Night
Mark Sandman once wrote a song titled “Do Not Go Quietly Unto Your Grave.” He didn’t. He went quite loudly, in fact. Victimized by a heart attack at 46 years old, he collapsed onstage, two songs into a set before a massive festival crowd in Rome. As the singer-bassist for Morphine, a Boston-based trio he…
Oasis/Travis
Sibling rivalry was in full effect at Akron’s E.J. Thomas Hall, but brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher and their band Oasis still managed to provide the enthused crowd with enough slicing guitar riffs and congenial melodies to make for a good show. Sure, there was plenty of English attitude and bad boy posturing, mostly compliments…
The Sound of Silents
When the Alloy Orchestra was traveling from Italy to Slovenia, a customs official looked at each musician’s box and asked what instrument it contained, to which the group members found themselves answering, “That one has a frying pan in it; that one has an accordion in it; that one has a bedpan and some truck…
Girls Against Boys
Just how cool are Girls Against Boys, the New York-based group that includes four good-looking guys — bassist Johnny Temple, singer-guitarist Scott McLeod, drummer Alexis Fleisig, and bassist Eli Janney? They’re cool enough to fill the Grog Shop on an Easter Sunday night (which happened to be Fleisig’s birthday) without a new record to tour…
Science Fare
Most of us just nod and smile when the doctor explains our ailments. Spouting multisyllable words of foreign origin, Doc could be saying a backache is caused by a stubbed toe — we just grab the prescription, sign the insurance forms, and bop over to the pharmacy. For some — both doctors and patients –…
Smashing Pumpkins
With the cloud of anticipation lifted, the Smashing Pumpkins stormed into Kent State’s MAC Center last Sunday night with unrivaled fury and proceeded to put on one of the best live shows so far this year in Northeastern Ohio. Yes, the same Pumpkins who stunk up the Lollapalooza and H.O.R.D.E. tours exceeded expectations with a…
Where the Stars Are
You’re just going to have to accept that Natalie Portman and Ashley Judd are far too glamorous for the roles they inhabit in Where the Heart Is. It’s an issue that probably won’t hurt the film’s reception: Remember Julia Roberts in Steel Magnolias? Your average moviegoer loves movie stars and wants to see a story…
Primal Scream
The first CD in three years from Glasgow’s former acid-house masters Primal Scream explores the interface of fascism and pop culture with drive, drones, and mantras. Xtrmntr is tough, exciting stuff, a mélange of influences and attitude that, like other Scream albums, is as original as it is unsettling. Like 1997’s terrific and underrated Vanishing…
Broad Band
Go get a few grains of salt to accompany these observations of tenable consistency and enduring potential: The movie industry is run by big kids; nifty sci-fi trickery may distract an audience from emotional shoals; cops and criminals are divided by a fine line; nostalgia and evil are cheaper by the pound; good dads are…
The Mighty Mighty Bosstones
Ten reasons why the Mighty Mighty Boss-tones are mighty mighty boring: 1. Any ska made after, say, 1983 just doesn’t matter. And most ska made by white kids, particularly American white kids, just misses the point. A few of the interracial bands from England’s 2-Tone revival of the late ’70s/early ’80s got it right: the…
The Last Word
Joe Gould’s Secret.In the rich mythology of The New Yorker, a periodical renowned for the quality of its writing and the quirks of its writers, no legend carries more weight than that of Joseph Mitchell. On the occasion of the magazine’s 75th anniversary, it is currently great sport among the literati to remember the bons…
Equal Interest
Despite familiar mannerisms from Myra Melford’s dense waves of piano keys, Leroy Jenkins’s thrashing violin, and Joseph Jarman’s occasionally aggressive horn outbursts, this eponymous debut from Equal Interest keeps a surprisingly meditative mood throughout. Difficult free music gestures are skillfully submerged in airy themes and folkish melodies, unison passages, and regular pulses. And even when…
The Wrath of Khan
East Is East. Despite the title East Is East, the big message of this flavorful domestic memoir is really that West is West. In the tug-of-war between East and West for a soul, East, the film suggests, may hold out for a while through a combination of nostalgia, pride, national resentment, and simple cultural vertigo,…
Ken Field
Ken Field is an adventurous sax and percussion man who stunned listeners in 1996 with the fabulously strange Subterranea, an album that featured multitracked sax pieces with rapid-fire percussion on everything from suitcases to juice cans. Although the work was experimental, it wasn’t silly. In fact, it managed to combine serious compositional work with a…
Sucker Bet
It’s too bad P.T. Barnum didn’t live long enough to pay a visit to the Convenient Food Mart on East 71st Street in the heart of Slavic Village, because he would have loved the place. People stand in lines eight deep just to throw their money away on a sucker bet that they have virtually…
Moe.
The L in the title of moe.’s latest stands for live. As in the forum to best hear these neo-hippie jammers. As in the only way an album of theirs is going to make much sense. As in an often trippy, sometimes excruciating, always-skillful double-disc set loaded with really long songs and plenty of improv…
Ann Dyer & No Good Time Fairies
Digitization has made reissues the backbone of the compact disc industry, lending new life to old material and, to some extent, getting the major labels off the creativity hook. It also has spawned homages (such as orchestral versions of songs by the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, and even the Sex Pistols) and tributes (to artists…
2000 Scene Music Awards
Its reputation as a rock and roll town notwithstanding, Cleveland has been hard-pressed to produce a bona fide rock star since Trent Reznor picked up stakes and headed down to the Dirty South. It didn’t help, either, that his one-time collaborator, Richard Patrick, took his industrial rock outfit Filter to Chicago, just as it was…
Dutch and Go
The bad guy lurks in the shadows, wearing a ridiculous foam rubber suit. What heinous deed has he committed? Raiding a futon factory? Escaping from a Michelin commercial? Either way, his padding is so thick, he can’t put his arms down. “Police K-9 unit!” shouts an officer. “Come out now or I’ll send in the…
Letters to the Editor
Another Disappointed CustomerFrank Kuznik’s “Terrible Burden” [April 20] left me wondering whether I was in the same courtroom as he, or whether he truly understood the larger dynamics of this trial and the issues at stake. Don’t get me wrong — Kuznik was one of the few local journalists to show sensitivity to the Sheppard…
