Review: The Best Show in Football: The 1946-1955 Cleveland Browns
Escape is a good thing. For Browns fans since, say, 1989, it may be the best of things. Which is why Dawg Pound diehards need reads like The Best Show in Football to numb the heartache lingering from “Red Right 88,” “The Drive,” and “The Fumble.” Sixty years ago, this team was unbeatable. In their…
Sammy searches for a metaphor in the snow
We Read America’s Worst Columnist, Sam Fulwood III, So You Don’t Have To Headline: Snow uncovers regional needs Date: April 10, 2007 Topic: After his 1,328th column on regionalism last week, you probably figured Sammy would return to his roots — perhaps a heart-warming tale of an NBA player who wears shoes from Value City.…
Elaine finally finds a buffet — at $95 a head in Chicago
I spent the Easter weekend in Chicago and used the trip to check out a few of the city’s myriad restaurants. The highpoint was Easter Brunch at Seasons, the opulent 7th floor restaurant inside the Four Seasons Hotel, on downtown’s Magnificent Mile. Yes, I am on record as despising buffets, both for their glorification of…
Money Where Your Mouth Is: Fascist Insect
Fascist Insect keep their identities carefully hidden, but here�??s how to recognize them: They�??ll be the ones using a sampler and guitar to knock your teeth down your throat. The Scene Music Department are busy downloading the new Nine Inch Nails album, so they hereby turn to podium over to a band you need to…
Obama, David Letterman, and Cleveland’s favorite elf
Senator Barack Obama appeared on Letterman last night, plugging his presidential bid, showing off his polished but likeable demeanor, and, most importantly, demonstrating a pretty decent knack for comedic timing — a must-have trai for whoever’s going to inherit this comically fucked up little nation of ours. What’s great about Obama is that his comedy…
This Just In… Concert Announcements
David Sanborn comes to Cain Park in August So many concerts, so little time: 51 new shows this week. Funny man Bob Saget. Funny woman Kathy Griffin. Dance commander ATB. All-star Zeppelin tribute Bustle in Your Hedgerow. Divas of Gospel. Singer-songwriter Kristin Hersh and friends. Egyptian-themed death metalers Nile. Funk-rock legends Fishbone. Hippie icon Arlo…
Culture Clash: Pretty Ricky meets Joshua Radin
Joshua Radin, who specializes in music to slit your wrist by, couldn’t compete with the subway bass of Pretty Ricky Through a twist of really poor planning, the House of Blues last night featured a duel between booty-licious base and soulful sob songs. Somehow, the venue managed to schedule R&B fave Pretty Ricky —at the…
Imus gives NY headline writers a chance to hit the long ball
Don Imus gets the “heave-ho” I’m grateful that Don Imus made an ass of himself on his radio show. Why? It’s given the New York tabloids a chance to flex their headline writing muscles. Imus is like a fastball down the middle for headline writers. A gift from the news gods. Rarely do they have…
Black Friday is metal night at Peabody’s
13 Faces Friday night is metal night at Peabodys’ Cleveland 100 festival, a weekend-long showcase of 150 bands from Northeast Ohio. The headliners are 13 Faces and Law of Destruction, two different metal groups that share a guitarist in John Comprix, a righteous shredder with hair that scrapes the floor when he headbangs. The neo-thrash/power-metal…
Mary Jo James understands the meaning of revenge
This article was incredibly nauseating but even more sad are the women who allow this to happen to themselves [“Big Game Hunters,” October 1, 2003]. I would chuckle if a female serial killer began to take these stupid fucks home and reduced them to bloody slabs of bacon with a 9MM pistol. Better yet, how…
Effeminate Seattle guy calls Cleveland a “bullshit town”
The Tribe’s doubleheader with Seattle has been canceled I was awoken yesterday by a text message from a friend in Seattle, who wanted to know if the Mariners and Indians were likely to get in their game. I took one look out my window, saw a snow drift the size of Maryland parked atop my…
Mikey G’s Entertainment Picks of the Week
Christina Aguilera is at the Wolstein Friday This week’s top arts and entertainment picks around town, from the guy who’s paid to pick them: Monday: It looks like Christmas out there, so it’s fitting that the Great Lakes Brewing Company is tapping the last two kegs of its popular Christmas Ale today. Apparently, today is…
Mr. Leather is coming to Cleveland
Bo Ladashevska The folks behind Cleveland Leather Awareness Weekend — or CLAW, as insiders call it — have scored a minor coup for their fetish fest April 27-29. Bo Ladashevska, International Mr. Leather 2006, will be in town for three days of uniform parties, fashion shows, and crawls to all of Cleveland’s leather bars. The…
The Sparx in the City program changes hands
Environmental artist Susie Frazier Mueller has turned over ownership of her Sparx in the City program to the Downtown Cleveland Alliance. Created five years ago, Sparx has been giving downtown streets a summertime jolt of energy with eclectic, open-air performances by stiltwalkers, beat-boxers, and Argentine tango dancers. It peaks in September with the Gallery Hop.…
Bruce Springsteen and Craig Finn together on stage
Two of our most favorite people in the world got together onstage last night in New York. Bruce Springsteen and Craig Finn — frontman for current World’s Greatest Band title-holders, the Hold Steady — performed Bruce’s classic “Rosalita” as part of a Springsteen tribute at Carnegie Hall. Thankfully, the YouTubers were there with concealed cameras.…
Mikey G’s Weekend Entertainment Picks
Calla plays the Grog Shop on Sunday This weekend’s top arts and entertainment picks around town, from the guy who’s paid to pick them: Friday: Today’s Sushi Happy Hour at Sunset Lounge features more than 15 delicacies — like shrimp, spicy-tuna, and eel-avocado rolls. Best of all, the club also offers cheap martinis to wash…
A tip for Lorain cops on Salvia
Alas, this is not what happens when you smoked Salvia, according to C-Notes’ resident medical expert Today’s Plain Dealer reported that cops in Lorain are trying to crack down on the psychedelic herb Salvia divinorum, a plant in the sage family that is dried and sold — so far legally — on the Internet and…
Professional in the City: This is why we’re screwed
A recent meeting at the House of Blues might have been called “Professionals in the City: A Discussion on Redevelopment,” but moderators treated attendees like college freshmen in a lecture hall. “Cleveland, please quiet down, give the guests your attention,” the moderator called out, approximately four dozen times, to little effect. The goal of the…
The farmer’s are coming!
It’s spring, dammit, snow and freezing temperatures notwithstanding! To reinforce that notion, mark your calendars for April 14 and the opening of the weekly North Union Farmer’s Market on Shaker Square. From 8 a.m. to noon, join farmers, friends, and other earthy types for the annual blessing, the sheep shearing, and a sampling of breakfast…
Angela Lisy: The hottest Euclid school board member
Angela Lisy has a secret admirer The subject line on the post on Craig’s List was deeply informative despite its succinctness. It beckoned like a siren call. In the Rants and Raves section of the online classified site, it stood out among the virtual wasteland of racist and homophobic assholes anonymously sniping at each other.…
A moment with Joe Montana
Football legend Joe Montana was in Cleveland on Wednesday to promote his new book on lowering blood pressure. The book was paid for by a large pharmaceutical company, so you might want to take it with a grain of low-sodium salt substitute. But there are some cool things about the book: * It’s free, available…
Joey McIntyre is all grown up
Eighteen years ago, Joey McIntyre’s fans would have ripped him to shreds if New Kids on the Block had played a venue the size of the Cambridge Room at the House of Blues. Nowadays, Joey is all grown up, and his mature voice proves it — along with the veteran showmanship he brought to the…
30 Seconds to Mars show, Part I
Though I have many interesting and shocking stories to share from the 30 Seconds to Mars show, I have narrowed it down to one personal favorite: A very inebriated and very bloody girl was brought to the office about three songs into the night. Getting answers from her was difficult to say the least. And…
30 Seconds to Mars show, Part II
30 Seconds to Mars I recently went to the 30 Seconds to Mars concert, and I loved it so I wanted to write an article about it and share it: A red flag is slowly lowered with the words “Provehito in altum” (“follow me into the deep”) written on it. Are you at some cult?…
This Just In… Concert Announcements
Ladytron This week, there are 28 major throwdowns to announce, from a hippie festival to the U.S. Air Guitar Championship. Other notables include a Ladytron DJ set, B-3 icon Brian Auger, Rage Against the Machine/Audioslave guitarist Tom Morello’s acoustic Nightwatchman project, and a radio-rock triple bill of Three Days Grace, Breaking Benjamin, and Puddle of…
Dave Eggers’ staggering genius come to Akron
If you’ve ever read Dave Eggers, author of such notable will-be-classics as A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and You Shall Know Our Velocity, you might think him little more than a nostalgic slacker — the archetype of a generation drowning in snarky self-reference. But what slacker builds a literary empire that includes a publishing…
Robert Banks’ internationally acclaimed garage sale
Robert Banks, the internationally acclaimed filmmaker who can’t afford toilet paper [“Broke Banks Mountain,” March 21], is trying to make some actual moola. On Friday, from 2-8 pm, and Sunday, from 12-6 pm, Banks will be selling costumes used by actors in his films. Vintage clothes and shoes will be on sale from $5- $45.…
Naked Bowling Slideshow!
Hungry for more pictures of naked people bowling? This week our cameras traveled to the Northcoast Naturists (that means they don’t wear any clothes) bi-monthly bowling league at Tallmadge Lanes. Click here for photos that were too hot — or too not, depending on how you look at it — for our printing press to…
Sammy’s take on regionalism is a nail-biter!
We Read America’s Worst Columnist, Sam Fulwood III, So You Don’t Have To Headline: Tough talk that’s worth repeating Date: April 3, 2007 Topic: Last Thursday PD reporter Joe Guillen covered a speech by Forest City honcho Sam Miller, during which the rich old codger touted “regionalism” as the only way to save Northeast Ohio.…
Greg Brinda is bumped again at WKNR
Greg Brinda is bumped again from a prime time slot For the second time in a month, the lineup at ESPN WKNR 850 has been shuffled — and for Greg Brinda, the bench just keeps getting shorter. The station pulled Brinda from his 6 p.m. weekday slot after meeting with a group of pizza-delivery drivers…
Free Food at Chipotle
Our favorite quick serve pit stop, Chipotle, is once again giving away free grub, this time in recognition of tax day, Monday, April 16. Just buy a burrito, taco, bol, or salad on Saturday April 14 or Sunday April 15; keep the receipt; fill out the cutesy 2006 BurritoEZ form, available at the eatery; and…
Rules of Engagement
When you hear and see the UK metal band DragonForce, you’re instantly converted or instantly convulsing with laughter — or sometimes, it’s a combination of both. The band’s video for “Through the Fire and Flames,” the first single off its third album, Inhuman Rampage, is one of the most preposterous things you’ll ever see –…
Amy Winehouse
Warning: This will hurt, but kindly access your memory banks and retrieve two commercials: “Seagram’s golden wine coooolers/They’re wet and they’re dry/My My My” and that heinous Chili’s bit — not the faux doo-wop tune, but the smoky blues number — “Chili’s . . . baby back riiiiiiibs . . .” Got ’em? Good –…
Here are the week’s best releases from the pop-culture universe:
TV — The Sopranos: It’s the beginning of the end of TV’s best show, as the first of nine final episodes premieres on Sunday. Tony’s still recovering from last year’s shooting, but his two families keep bringing him closer to the boiling point. Even this week’s weekend-getaway with wife Carmela isn’t exactly stress-free. Tony’s increasing…
More Than Words
In The Secret Life of Words, a deaf factory worker spends her vacation caring for a burn victim on an oil rig in the middle of the sea. Sarah Polley (terrific as a bus-crash survivor in The Sweet Hereafter and as a zombie killer in Dawn of the Dead) plays the caretaker, who reveals little…
Strictly 4 My J.O.G.G.A.Z.
Jogging and fucking. Those are the recommended uses for rapper Aesop Rock’s new opus, “All Day.” Commissioned for Nike+ — an apparently über-hip subdivision of the footwear and sportswear giant — the cut is part of the Original Run series. (Previous releases in the series, which is available on iTunes, include exclusive works by the…
Stax 50th Anniversary Celebration
Unless you want to spend megabucks on the Complete Stax-Volt Singles box set, released 15 years ago, this double-disc distillation should do just fine. Featuring many of the artists who defined soul music from the ’50s through the ’70s, this dose of history is nearly perfect. It’s difficult to come to grips with the importance…
Our top DVD picks for the week of April 3:
All That Jazz: Special Music Edition (Fox) The Axis of Evil Comedy Tour (Image) Back Stage (Strand) Bong Water (First Look) The Brady Bunch: The Complete Series (Paramount) Charlotte’s Web (Paramount) Copying Beethoven (MGM) Dancing With the Stars: Cardio Dance (Lions Gate) Entourage: Season Three, Part One (HBO) Jump In!: Freestyle Edition (Disney) Law &…
Going Once…
As many as 20 eligible men take the Beachland stage tonight at Gallery 222’s Bachelor Auction. But before the beefcake is served, bidders can chow down on food from Tommy’s, Fannie’s, and Muldoon’s. They can also enter drawings for a pampering session at John Robert’s Salon & Spa, dinner at Panini’s, and a massage at…
Cold Steel
The Starbucks on West Sixth is once again hawking its “City Mug collection.” Atop the register sits a floor model, emblazoned with an illustration of Cleveland’s skyline and the words “New American City.” For David Thomas, however, the New American City is anything but new. “Cleveland, to me, is just a ghost town,” he admits,…
Shining
Norway burns brightly in the ears of American listeners, thanks to two vibrant scenes there: the improv set and, well, all that black metal. Shining operates somewhere in the middle. Over four albums, the group has welded metal’s tough skeleton to fanciful jazz-rock (think Miles Davis’ electric era made squeaky-clean) and prog’s overblown virtuosity. The…
No Longer Trapped in the Closet
On her second album, What Are You?, Shaker Heights native Mara Levi outs a closeted girlfriend to her parents. “I thought I’d call and let you know/Your daughter is a big homo,” she sings in the appropriately titled “Homo Song.” The 30-year-old singer-songwriter now lives in Washington, D.C., but her local lesbian fan base has…
Rabbit Season
Your kids still have a chance to cozy up next to the Easter Bunny before his appearance tomorrow morning. At the Akron Zoo’s Breakfast With the Bunny, they can even sit down and break bread (or maybe a carrot) with him. The annual event also features an egg hunt and a photo op with the…
In the Building
Low in the Sky will release its third disc this summer, partnering with Columbus’ Abandon Building Records for worldwide distribution. The instrumental-rock group features Poets of Another Breed’s Joe Minadeo and Pat McNulty, in addition to producer and multi-instrumentalist Corey Farrow and other guests. Label partner Matt Yarrington discovered the group via MySpace and quickly…
Blake Miller
Many in the singer-songwriter world may dismiss Columbus’ Blake Miller: How can a 19-year-old kid write with any depth, right? But the naysayers will be spitting out their lattes after hearing Together With Cats, a beautiful collection of home recordings released on the local imprint Exit Stencil. “Sinners” is a hell of a gospel romp;…
This Is Going to Be Their Year
Today’s AP Tour at House of Blues features four new bands picked by Alternative Press as having a pretty good chance for a stellar 2007. We think two of the groups have a shot. As Tall as Lions gets all dreamy on its second, self-titled album. The scruffy New York indie-rockers sound like one of…
It’s Like Riverdance, Without the Dancing
Celtic Woman is on its way to kissing PBS goodbye. The pledge-week staple’s latest album, A New Journey, debuted at No. 4 in February. When’s the last time anybody bought a CD by one of those dreary doo-wop groups? It helps that the traditional Irish tunes and globe-trotting vocal showcases are performed by six comely…
João Donato Trio
While Antonio Carlos Jobim receives most of the glory as the chief mover behind bossa nova, there was another fellow on the Brazilian and American scenes: songwriter, pianist, and arranger João Donato. Perhaps Donato was too good for mass appeal; his rhythmically powerful style was so influenced by modern jazz that he was virtually unemployable…
Machine Go Boom
Too bad Tommy Stinson already burned the name: If there has ever been a band that deserved the moniker Bash & Pop, it’s these guys. Let’s start with the pop: There’s the lilting, Shins-like “800 lb. Gorilla,” as well as two indie-paeans to high-school humiliation — the horns-abetted “Oh My” and “M.I.A.,” which sounds like…
March of the Melonheads
Local filmmaker Brian Lawlor is holding screen tests today for Welcome to Cretonville: Legend of the Melonheads, a horror movie he plans to start shooting next weekend in Kirtland. “We’re going to go for the gut on this one,” he says. “It’s going to harken back to a classic slasher flick.” Welcome to Cretonville takes…
Sculpture Club
More than 20 artists contribute to the Sculpture Center’s On a Pedestal and off the Wall: The Third Annual Exhibition of Small Sculpture From the Region. Unlike past events (which kept things local), this year’s juried exhibit invited artists from Indiana, Pennsylvania, and other Ohio counties to participate. The 27 works include porcelain, glass, and…
Layne Garrett, with Mike Tamburo, Eric Carbonara, and Ryann Guitar Anderson
Similar to their patron saint, John Fahey, a fat slice of this generation’s underground guitarists takes half its cues from 20th-century classical (minimalism and electro-acoustic improvisation in particular), while the other half is taken from the folk styles of North Africa, India, and the Mississippi Delta. Many of these dudes discovered Fahey while serving time…
Roll With It
“I can see 14 television screens without even moving my head!” shouted a college-aged companion as we dug into our dinners at downtown’s 4th Street Bar & Grill. Unfortunately, over the cacophony — balls crashing, pins flying, bowlers squealing, diners laughing, and guitars wailing — she could have been yodeling in Farsi for all we…
Passion of the Beck
Despite bombing during its initial 1994 run, Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Passion managed to snag some Tony Awards. A decade later, the musical has become a favorite among tune-minded theaters. The Beck Center stages the first local production tonight, with Cain Park and Great Lakes Theater Festival’s Victoria Bussert directing. The story centers on…
The Melodians
The Melodians are best known for the haunting “Rivers of Babylon,” the biblically inspired Rasta lament found on the soundtrack to the 1972 cult film The Harder They Come. But in Jamaica, the Melodians reigned supreme alongside the Paragons and the Heptones as the ultimate purveyors of rocksteady, a soulfully lush music popular from 1966…
Table Talk
Table 45 hasn’t served its first meal, but already it gets our vote for most visually striking space in town. Restaurateur Zack Bruell’s sexpot of a salon — sleek, utterly spare, and impeccably appointed — will open on Good Friday inside the Cleveland Clinic’s InterContinental Hotel, where banners over Carnegie Avenue already herald its arrival.…
The Second Greatest Show on Earth
The Ontario-based Garden Bros. Circus has a lot in common with that other three-ring sibling troupe. It’s been around forever (well, since 1938), it boasts a few world records (for one thing, it’s the largest outdoor circus in North America), and it prefers to keep things in the family. “Dad got a cold one day,…
Teeth of the Hydra
Teeth of the Hydra frontman and guitarist Matt Miner describes his group as “’70s death metal.” Take “The Garden of Rotten Teeth” for example, off the Hydra’s ominous new disc Greenland. Clocking in at 11 minutes, it’s a slab of epic classic-rock that’s tuned so low, it scrapes the upper strata of Hades. The rest…
Hell on Reels
There exists some debate about audience familiarity with the term “grindhouse” and even a certain confusion about the origins of the word itself — whether it refers to the movies that made up a gilded age of exploitation cinema or to the all-night urban theaters in which they were regularly shown. It matters little, though,…
This Happy Hour Has Raw Fish
Jesus DeManuel, who used to run upscale restaurants in Florida, brings a splash of South Beach flavor to the Warehouse District at tonight’s Sushi Happy Hour. DeManuel launched the daily special a few weeks ago at Sunset Lounge, where three sushi chefs dish up a menu of more than 15 delicacies — like shrimp, spicy-tuna,…
Fuck the Facts
Fuck the Facts’ self-described “bastardized grindcore” evokes certain images of its creators: giant demons using their sinewy arms’ quick-twitch muscles to produce supra-human riffs and blast beats. The group’s singer, Mel Mongeon, blends feral gurgles and war-bird shrieks in a manner that’s not only androgynous, but also species-indeterminate. “I remember a promoter who was expecting…
BookScam
Lest we imagine that the publishing industry went to hell only after James Frey and J.T. Leroy clambered on board, here comes Lasse Hallström to remind us of a literary dustup emblematic of an earlier nadir for American mendacity. The Hoax parses the rise and fall of faker Clifford Irving — a writer who shot…
Have Joke — Will Travel
Eddie Brill is a busy, busy man. In addition to his stand-up gig, the N.Y.C. comedian warms up David Letterman’s TV audience, books comics for Letterman’s show, and is a “humor consultant” for Reader’s Digest. Plus, he teaches stand-up comedy workshops around the country and regularly tours overseas, where he’s noticed a few things. “We’ve…
Joshua Radin
The smallest venue Joshua Radin plays this spring is Cleveland — and he understands why: “Cleveland’s kind of a hardcore town.” The wispy folk-popper lived in Shaker Heights until attending Northwestern, where he roomed with Zach Braff while harnessing a love for moody singer-songwriters like Elliot Smith and Damien Rice. Now 32 and a mainstay…
Short Takes
Are We Done Yet? One year on (in movie time) from the action of 2005’s Are We There Yet?, sports-memorabilia salesman Nick Persons (Ice Cube) has sold his business, launched a magazine, and moved his newlywed bride (Nia Long) and two pouty, foul-tempered stepkids into his cramped Portland apartment. Whereupon the unexpected arrival of a…
Quick on Their Feet
For the past few weeks, Cleveland Public Theatre has handed over its stage to several of the area’s best dance troupes for its DanceWorks ’07 series. The new MegLouise Dance group performs an interactive piece called iNput tonight. While the premise — audience members shout out ideas for the ensemble to interpret — sounds an…
Noxagt
The Norwegian trio Noxagt hammer home good old thud-rock. Falling squarely in the same monkey barrel of art-school squall as labelmates Lightning Bolt, these kids rarely rev things above a trudge, evincing the last steps of some gargantuan Viking as he freezes to death in a mystical Norse forest. Spooky! Bassist Kjetil D. Brandsdal started…
Storm Tossed
No matter how many centuries pass, people continually have a hard time figuring out who’s in charge. Even President Bush, the leader of the world’s most powerful country, chafes against the restrictions imposed by congressional inquiries and media investigations. As he once sagely observed, “If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of…
Good Joke
John Mulrooney recalls the night he decided to become a stand-up comedian. It was like a revelation. Then he broke the news to his parents. “I said, ‘Mom, Dad — I found out what I’m going to do with the rest of my life,’” he says. “My father said, ‘I’m going to bed.’ My mother…
The Biggest Brother
It’s a warm Wednesday in March, a few days before St. Patrick’s Day, but the celebration in this West 58th cop bar is well underway. Plastic clovers dangle from the low-slung ceiling. Beers and shots are guzzled with professional determination. A few stray bagpipers must be right outside, because whenever the door swings open, a…
Pretty Ricky
If the idea of a southern quartet of brothers getting almost as nasty as they wanna be strikes you as novel, you need to hit the books and look up Jodeci. History seldom repeats itself as often — or as tactlessly — as it does in the world of pop music, and the horny siblings…
Where It’s Scat
As Sanjaya and some of the other lyric-challenged contestants on American Idol can attest, the words in songs can be a real obstacle when you’re concentrating on squeezing out the right notes. Maybe that’s why someone long ago invented scat singing, in which improvised nonsense words are used and nobody knows if you butcher a…
Homo Improvement
If the Brothers’ Keepers gay support group sometimes seems like an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show, participants at the weekly gatherings don’t seem to mind. Last month, everyone acted like they were on a talk show and talked about being homo in a predominantly hetero Cleveland. “I said that I loved being gay, and…
The Scum Always Rises
For Cleveland Catholics, it’s getting harder to take the words of top priests on faith. While a $17.5 million embezzlement scandal plays out in court, the fighting has reached the highest ranks of the diocese — and appears to be closing in on former Bishop Anthony Pilla and the diocese’s former chief accountant, Father John…
Guitar Hero
Thursday’s Lounge’s weekly Guitar Hero shred-fests are better than a lot of the local shows you’ve been to this month. Flipping between GH 1 and 2, Marilyn Manson disciples, college guys, longhairs, and rocker girls congregate, playing the addictive time killer on the bar’s seven-foot big screen, with the sound pumped through the club’s live-band…
Capsule reviews of current area art exhibitions.
NEW Part Mountain — Calvin Burton’s objective is to blur the line between drawing and painting — and to that end, he succeeds. Besotted by his native Nevada, the Virginia artist paints quasi-realistic landscapes involving mountains full of personal meaning seen from unusual perspectives. But he also tries to capture the spontaneity, looseness, and potential…
Basket Case
Need something to do with the kids while they’re on spring break this week? The James A. Garfield House helps out with a belated Easter Egg Roll today. The annual fave — which has been around since the 1870s! — includes hard-boiled eggs, spoons, and some very agile participants. “You have to crouch over to…
Oops, Sorry About That
For once, the cluelessness of Cleveland leaders was working to our benefit — at least for potheads. A Cincinnati law enacted last year made possessing even a joint punishable by up to 30 days in the slam. When the law was renewed last week, residents and some council members protested, claiming that jails were so…
Black Lips
A band signs to a major and proceeds to release a live album that recaps the best from its first two releases — which, by the way, are borderline obscurities? What would reek of (mis)calculation in other hands is a royal flush for the garage-psych act the Black Lips. The Atlanta outfit’s boozy, Nuggets-fueled rawk…
Capsule reviews of current area theater presentations.
Hay Fever — This is the first of Noel Coward’s oh-so-droll drawing-room larks set in the 1920s English countryside. The quartet of characters at the heart of the work is the Blisses: ex-actress diva Judith, her self-absorbed novelist hubby David, and their two grown children, Simon and Sorel, who are each eccentric in their own…
Band in the Mirror
On their first four albums, New York City indie-rockers Calla shaped their music around high-concept pitches: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly crossed with Blade Runner, Dr. John meets Björk. For the new Strength in Numbers, the band turned to its own back catalog. “Other artists say, ‘This is the direction we’re going to…
Pants Make the Thug
Race may be fate, but poverty is voluntary: As an American of African descent who grew up at East 82nd and Kinsman in a broken home with a working mom, and as someone who wound up residing in Cleveland Heights with a white wife and some honey-skinned stepkids from a previous interracial marriage, your article…
Home Opener Party
Five reasons to stop by Wilbert’s Food & Music before and after the Tribe’s home opener against the Mariners: 1) It’s just a bunt away from Jacobs Field. 2) The bar opens at 11 a.m. 3) The kitchen’s open late and serves cheap eats, including giant hot dogs and hot ham-and-cheese melts. 4) The BackUp…
The Big Valley
Twin Peaks: The Second Season (Paramount) So, here it is: perhaps the most infamous shark-jumping in TV history. The first season of David Lynch and Mark Frost’s comedy-horror-mystery-soap opera caused a cultural frenzy of “damn good coffee” quips and questions over who murdered prom queen/town doorknob Laura Palmer. It’s also maybe the single finest season…
Every Picture Tells a Story
In 1945, photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt snapped a shot of a sailor kissing a nurse in the middle of Times Square on VJ Day. You’ve probably seen it. The famous photo is among the 50 on display in Alfred Eisenstaedt: Father of Photojournalism, on view at Contessa Gallery. The historical black-and-white pics were taken for Life…
Frontal Obscurity
Near the end of summer 2000, I was waiting for the Locust outside a Mexican joint in San Diego. Gold Sound Laboratories had just released the group’s debut LP, a brash fusion of violent hardcore and arty synthesizers, and San Diego’s underground scene was one of the hippest in America — had been, in fact,…
Sapat
Back in the ’90s, the now-legendary Siltbreeze dropped a slew of seminal releases by such pioneers as the Dead C, Harry Pussy, and Columbus legends Vertical Slit. And now that the label is once again running full blast (after a 6-year hiatus), every freak on the planet wants to know which of the new titles…
For the Birds
A video game about birds flying biplanes makes as much sense as a game about fish captaining submarines, but there are far bigger gripes to be found in Wing Island for the Wii. “In a world ruled by birds,” explains the manual’s grim version of the future, Sparrow Wing Jr. runs an airplane-for-hire business. Though…
Leisure Suits
In this iPod age of new artists making or breaking out of the gate, singer-songwriter Mat Kearney’s slow climb to radio ubiquity can be viewed as some sort of old-school triumph. The Nashville-based Kearney’s major-label debut, Nothing Left to Lose, was released a year ago. Its title track, a Jack Johnson-like shot of laid-back folk,…
