Slack Is Back
Taking a break to use the restroom at the Euclid Tavern during one of his recent concerts, known as “devivals,” the Reverend Ivan Stang has a rock-star-style encounter with a long-haired fan. “Are you Ivan?” bubbles the excited fan. “Those SubGenius books changed my life! Did you write those?” “Sort of,” Stang says hesitantly. “They’re…
Arvo Pärt
One of this Estonian composer’s most austere recordings, Alina is an unusually beautiful, strikingly resonant meditation on sonics, meditation, improvisation, distillation, and emotion. Symmetrical, reflective, and refractive, it consists of five long pieces: “Spiegel im Spiegel,” done twice by Vladimir Spivakov on violin with Sergei Bezrodny on piano and once with Dietmar Schwalke on bass…
Save the Wheels
Gee, that’s a lot of bratwurst, thought RaeAnne Thomas, taking her place at the World’s Largest Grill. The links seemed to stretch to the horizon, bubbling into the burning sun. But she had come so far. She couldn’t turn back. So she dug in her heels, gripped the metal tongs, and set out to learn…
The Saul Glennon Trio
The Saul Glennon Trio, a group from Slavic Village, plays what it calls “baroque-style power pop” on its third album. What the “baroque” part of that tag actually translates to is anyone’s guess, but the group, which formed in 1994 and includes singer-guitarist Jack Rugan, drummer Jerry Rugan, and bassist Adam Z, possesses power-pop sensibilities…
The Edge
Surprise visit! Sly emissaries from Slavic Village Development took their lobbying campaign for St. Michael Hospital directly to Cleveland Clinic board members last week, hand-delivering petition packages to their mansions in Shaker Heights and Gates Mills. According to SVD staffer Bobbi Reichtell, the group had pleasant chats with a houseman for board President Al Lerner,…
Winter Music Conference
If the South by Southwest (SXSW) music conference, which took place in Austin, Texas, a few weeks ago, delivers “buzz bands,” the Winter Music Conference (WMC), a DJ and electronica festival that happens annually in South Beach Miami, usually around the same time as SXSW, delivers “buzz songs.” At WMC, which concluded on March 29,…
Letters
The Beating Goes OnIn response to “Punch Palace,” in the March 30 issue of Scene: My friend from Boston has a lawsuit against the Basement as well, which we have been pursuing against the club since August of 1998. Same events: My friend tried to break up a fight and was jumped by the bouncers,…
Empty Glass
She must have gotten tendinitis or carpal tunnel syndrome. That’s the first reaction one has upon seeing California artist Liza Lou’s labor-intensive creations. After all, fashioning a kitchen and backyard from 40 million glass beads calls for the kind of repetitive gruntwork that tends to exact a physical toll. “Kitchen” and “Backyard” are among the…
Music of Time
Anyone who makes you late to Ragtime should be given a good old-fashioned Bette Davis thrashing. If you miss the opening number, you’ve missed the fireworks that give sparkle and life to this musical Fourth of July celebration. A far-off piano plays a tinkling tune out of the past. A young boy kneels in front…
Side Dish
The Other Mojo Wasn’t Working Chef/restaurateur Michael Herschman has closed Mojo Risin’, the tiny bakery and carryout behind his trendy Tremont dining room (2221 Professor Street, 216-592-6656). While the gourmet carryout concept was inspired, the restaurant’s new general manager, Alia Haloua, admits business was not equally animated. Instead, the space will now be put to…
Liquid Assets
Okay, I’ll ‘fess up: There are any number of things that I would rather do — herd tarantulas, say, or play the back nine during a thunderstorm — than visit a Sunday brunch buffet. From bland steam-table food to careless service, brunch buffets just aren’t my cup of tea. Apparently, however, this prejudice is far…
Two Hearts Beat as One
Think of it as an ex-rock critic’s revenge on his peers. Long, sufferable titles that are the bane of music journalists everywhere, yet Ira Kaplan — erstwhile rock and roll scribe and singer-guitarist for Yo La Tengo — insists that his band’s last two albums, 1997’s I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One and…
A Raven in the Sun
Edgar Allan Poe left a lot of questions unanswered when he returned from a weeklong stint to God-knows-where and took a short swim in a Baltimore gutter. But John Astin, who plays the writer in the one-man show Edgar Allan Poe — Once Upon a Midnight in Tiffin Friday night, isn’t concerned about such things.…
New Life for JAM Bands
Matt Darriau started out as a jazz musician, but his interest waned before he even graduated from music school. He had already been collecting world folk albums as if they were baseball cards, his mind on lilting clarinets rather than keening saxophones. His folk music fanaticism only grew, and after several years and a move…
Casting the Die
Out at the city’s hottest disco club, you’re just hoping to meet that right someone and envelop yourself in the camp and excess of the 1970s. But there’s a problem: The disco virtuoso who was about to debut her newest showstopper has been flattened in her dressing room by an exploding disco ball. Not your…
Cover Girl
Singer-guitarist Chan (pronounced Shawn) Marshall, who records under the alias Cat Power, didn’t set out to become a rock star. In fact, it was by accident that she got her first gig at New York’s infamous CBGB’s. At the time, a friend of hers had booked her to play a small show in New York,…
Toys “R” Rated
We’ve come a long way from the days when 20th Century Fox gladly signed off on a deal to let George Lucas keep the merchandising rights to Star Wars because it didn’t think there’d be any money in it. In 1997, the Hasbro toy company paid Lucasfilm in excess of $600 million to continue its…
Tina Turner/Lionel Richie
For most of the ’90s Tina Turner chased past glories, but despite a well-received biopic and a handful of glossy albums, the comeback didn’t really happen. It was certainly not even close to the megastorm of fame that Private Dancer blew in during the mid-’80s. And the new decade doesn’t look so great, either. A…
Saving Grace
What’s your pick for the most ridiculous movie ever made? The Conqueror, starring John Wayne as Mongol emperor Ghengis Khan? How about The Manitou, in which the grizzled head of an Indian medicine man sprouts from Susan Strasberg’s neck? The musical remake of Lost Horizon surely deserves a couple of votes, and there’s no ignoring…
Red Hot Chili PeppersMuse
These days, the majority of those attending the Chili Peppers shows were still in elementary school when the definitive SoCal punk/funk/rap/alt outfit was just breaking out and wearing socks in unusual places. But you don’t need to know the Peppers’ entire catalog to get what they do. With high energy and rebellious spirit, the Chili…
Rappers’ Delight
Beats, please. Claudia Schiffer, Claudia Schiffer, makes a fellow want to lean in close and sniff her. Putting up a gender fight in Black and White, she turns her tail on any man who’d treat her right. Rianne Eisler-esque twaddle-spewing supermodel, into the arms of bad boys she’ll wantonly waddle. Calls herself Greta, doesn’t seem…
The Promise Ring
In the world of emo-core, nobody’s as cute as the Promise Ring. Packing the Grog Shop with giddy teens in thick-framed glasses, the founding fathers of the emo sound played a set of music that focused mainly on their latest Jade Tree release, Very Emergency, but didn’t deliver on that album’s promise. “Have you ever…
Louder Than Bombs
“You are here to heal, so start healing!” announces a plucky nurse (Linda Bassett) to a grumbling trio of wounded men convalescing under her care in a crowded London hospital room. Dramatically, the scene marks as good a place as any to focus on Jasmin Dizdar’s heartful, complex, and truly delightful debut feature, Beautiful People.…
No Doubt
Gwen Stefani is just a girl. She makes that very clear on Return of Saturn, No Doubt’s follow-up to its last album, 1995’s Tragic Kingdom. Whether musing about settling down in the “Simple Kind of Life” (“And all I needed was a simple man, so I could be a simple wife”), dealing with fame in…
Toxic Malaise
Six to eight times a month, large trucks from Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and other neighboring states lumber down East 49th Street in Cuyahoga Heights, past factories and small homes with manicured lawns. These rigs, specially fitted with large steel pans on their flatbeds, carry heavy equipment wrapped in pig blankets and plastic. Their destination…
Supergrass
For the past seven years, the British pop-punk trio Supergrass has made a comfortable career out of defying standard rock conventions at every turn. The band was composed of teenagers when it unleashed its first single, 1994’s “Caught by the Fuzz,” a track that garnered it a record contract and a couple of follow-up singles.…
