Ready for Russo’s
It’s hard to keep from swooning when David Russo describes the menu at his soon-to-open restaurant in Cuyahoga Falls. Freshly made ravioli . . . saucy étouffée . . . tagliatelle with mushrooms . . . Cajun jambalaya — the tantalizing lineup is split almost evenly between dishes Russo calls “country Italian and country Cajun…
Hitting the Bottles
There was a day when wine connoisseurs would just as soon have slit their wrists with Reidel shards as suffer through a bottle of Ohio’s amateurish, off-balance wine, made from undistinguished native Niagaras, Concords, and Catawbas. Happily, that day is nearly gone, thanks primarily to the introduction of European-style vinifera grapes — most notably, the…
Rays of Hope
Admit it: America’s summer festival scene sucks. Like so many other post-Nirvana truths, Lollapalooza’s original promise to bring diversity to the legions of musical outsiders has been discredited. Or, more likely, it has evolved into micromarketing and corporate shilling. There are two extremes: a bazillion bands playing for 15 barely deserved minutes on a multitude…
So Happy Together
Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and Butch Hancock were once known as the Flatlanders. But truth be told, they’ve hardly used the name since 1973, when their debut, Jimmie Dale and the Flatlanders, was released — exclusively on eight-track — to little acclaim and fewer sales. Aside from an Ely-Gilmore-Hancock appearance in the late ’80s…
Busting Moves
Plenty of music fans could use a stern reprimand — Eddie Money lovers, for one, and those half-wits on cell phones at every show. But for all the boneheaded concertgoers in need of reprobation, the law always seems to come down on the wrong people. And the RAVE Act isn’t likely to help matters. The…
Paper Tigers
A mutiny stirred. Or so the story went. Last year, Governor Bob Taft named Jo Ann Davidson the interim director of the woeful Department of Job and Family Services. The choice — Davidson was speaker of the House until being retired by term limits — was praised by Republicans and Democrats alike. Conservatives, however, were…
The Klezmatics
The Klezmatics are to the klezmer revival as the Pogues were to Riverdance. Namely, both groups have invigorated their respective ethnic traditions by exorcising them of schmaltz and kitsch — twin dybbukim that naturally haunt commercial folk revivals. The Pogues did it by injecting Irish music with the spirit of punk rock. The Klezmatics go…
Back in My Day
At the coffee shop, we were talking about Jim Traficant and the general decline of moral values. It’s a regular topic. U.S. Judge Lesley Wells recently sentenced Traficant to eight years in prison. This caused a lot of jabber on the 24/7 news networks. “What’s with the hoopla?” asked Harry. “Back in our day, they…
The Catheters
They’re young, they’re cute, and they play potent punkish rock that wears its easy-to-spot influences directly on its prep-school shirtsleeve. The group’s Handsome Boy Modeling School singer croons druggily through lo-fi distortion, making teenage girls and rock critics swoon. Nope, it’s not the Strokes; it’s the Catheters, Seattle’s alt-boy-band du jour. Most of today’s hipster…
The Artful Codger
Dolan’s another greedy old cheapskate: If Pete Kotz’s article about Larry Dolan [“Requiem for Larry,” July 17] was meant to elicit sympathy for Dolan, it failed miserably. I have more empathy for Art Modell than I do for that miserly scumbag. Dolan knew what it would take to maintain the excellence built by Dick Jacobs…
The Hot Snakes
Punk rock has taken many strange, often exhilarating forms since its gobbing and bleeding birth in the mid-’70s. One of the most impressive recent bends in its slippery definition has come by way of everything and anything associated with Rocket From the Crypt, the revolutionary punk collective from San Diego. Over the past decade, RFTC…
Fantasy Island
Long after the bars have closed, the party is still swinging on the docks. It’s the busiest weekend of the summer, and dozens of people are drinking, dancing, and trying to get their game on. Strains of rap and rock and pop throb from boat to boat and drift into the night. From the grassy…
Soulfly
The biggest knock on nü metal is that it lacks gravitas the way it lacks properly fitting pants. With callow, “nobody loves me” scab-picking pretty much the standard lyrical fodder of everyone from Fred Durst to Aaron Lewis, the subgenre has become a caricature of suburban angst, like Degrassi Junior High with Marshall stacks. But…
Cockroaches ‘n’ Cream
Gene White’s recipes are not for the squeamish. And you probably won’t see him on the Food Network anytime soon. That’s mainly because his signature dishes are chocolate chirp cookies and yellow mealworm cake. White will serve up his treats at the Cleveland Metroparks’ BugFest, a two-day celebration that also includes bug bingo, a bug…
Frank Black and the Catholics
When Tom Waits released Alice and Blood Money simultaneously a few months ago, the reasons for his putting the two records out separately were self-evident: They were two explicitly different projects, separated by tone and concept. Frank Black may feel that the same holds true for his current dual release of Black Letter Days and…
Root’s Rock
There are six people in Rusted Root. Six people with voices, opinions, and ideas. Michael Glabicki, the Pittsburgh group’s singer, songwriter, and guitarist, sometimes forgets this. He often thinks of the band as a vehicle for his voice, opinions, and ideas. He can be selfish. And thoughtless. This, he says, is a problem he’s overcoming.…
Murderdolls
“I want the whole world to hate me,” growls Murderdolls singer Wednesday 13 toward the end of his band’s debut. And at that point, after half an hour of scabrous ghoul punk as tawdry as Ed Wood’s undergarments, the whole world just might. But if 13 succeeds in his quest to be reviled, when it…
Say Cheese
Robert Evans wrote his autobiography in 1994 as much out of desperation as hubris. It cried out, “Damn it, look at me . . . please?” He’d produced one film during the previous 10 years — The Cotton Club, a colossal failure. It was to have been his crowning achievement — Evans’s debut as director…
Sleater-Kinney
By now, few outsiders will have converted to the signature warp and weft of Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein’s intertwined words and guitars. But that’s because these riot-grrrl grads hone the contrast between their brittle verses and soaring choruses more sharply here than ever — just one example of how Sleater-Kinney’s sixth album continues the…
Cruel Summer
Let’s all agree on one thing from the outset: The poster for Blue Crush is fantastic. It has a great color scheme; actresses Michelle Rodriguez (Resident Evil), Kate Bosworth (Remember the Titans), and Sanoe Lake (a professional model and surfer making her film debut) look as good as they’ve ever looked, grasping their long, hard…
No Blindfold
Given Cleveland’s affinity for heavy-handed metal and electronic acts, it’s a wonder why more bands who fuse grinding guitar and techno haven’t surfaced in the city’s musical morass. Leave it to No Blindfold, then, to take advantage of the situation by spiking undulating electronic atmospherics with globs of emotional excess — paranoia, emptiness, anger, oh…
Deaf and Dope
Read My Lips (Sur Mès Levres) puts forth the fascinating and heretofore unexamined theory that being deaf offers its own estimable rewards. It allows one the chance to tune out the world, to ignore everything and everyone. To the deaf, chaos can feel like soothing calm, and madness comes with its own mute button. Emmanuelle…
Joystick Cinema
Up to a certain point, Paul Marino’s story is a familiar one, especially to any single guy in his 20s who likes playing with his joystick. Four years ago, Marino and his pals would leave their offices on a Friday night and go to another friend’s workplace, where they’d play Quake, the enduring first-person shoot-’em-up…
Journeys
Have you ever caught cuddly Rover noshing on kitty poo? Ever fought off the blues by visualizing your own death? Ever been torn between two opposing cultures? The three women whose work is featured in Journeys use color-drenched paintings and mixed-media works to process life’s vicissitudes, from the trivial to the profound. Influenced by comics…
