Bird Droppings
Even today, British kids grow up listening to stories about life during the London Blitz and the hardships their parents and grandparents endured during the Second World War. American children, by comparison, would be hard-pressed to tell you what nations fought on which side. It’s one of the many weaknesses of our education system, but…
Long Strange Trips
Psychedelic noise-rock bands expand the limits of perception, and not only for the pharmacologically enhanced. These groups turn repetition — a source of endlessly annoying pop choruses — almost into a meditation. Much as initially unfunny jokes can derive humor from being prolonged (a gambit used in Austin Powers), psychedelic noise-rock patterns can metamorphose from…
Getting Past the Poster
Sex on the brain: Knowing the Trikilis family personally for a number of years, I feel I have an added insight into the family and some of the history that has taken place [“Touched By An Angel,” August 3]. One of the things that made the Farrah Fawcett poster such a success was the word…
Aw Nuts
Ain’t nothing in this world more tedious than highbrow erotica, which works itself into a lather and then wipes off the sweat before anyone notices how awfully and inappropriately worked up it got. Asylum, adapted by Closer’s Patrick Marber and Chrysanthy Balis from the novel by Patrick McGrath, is just that sort of chaste entity:…
Fashionably Loud
Dan Folino’s first piece of wardrobe advice concerns the burgundy pantyhose smothering his lean, sinewy arms. “These are just nylons,” he says, running his fingers up and down his skintight sleeves. “You cut the crotch out and cut the feet off, and they stay on pretty nice.” With the high cheekbones of a Backstreet Boy…
Oversight or Overpaid?
In 1995, when then-Mayor Mike White wanted to build a football stadium on the Lake Erie shore, Cleveland City Council was skeptical. Squeezing the truth from the White administration was tougher than poaching salmon from the Cuyahoga. Council sensed it was about to get snowed. So John Zayac, an engineer and developer who had served…
On Stage
Dark Room — The conventional image we have of playwrights and poets is of lonely souls slaving away in a poorly lit basement. Well, you’ve got the location and the illumination right, but everything else about the Dark Room project is much cheerier. Sponsored by the Cleveland Theater Collective, it’s a once-a-month workshop/cabaret for writers…
With Teeth
Molten-sludge power trio Teeth of the Hydra has signed a one-album deal with Tee Pee Records, the gritty N.Y.C. rock label with a catalog featuring the Brian Jonestown Massacre, High on Fire, and Cleveland’s Boulder and Red Giant. A familiar presence in the Akron underground, Hydra features drummer Jamie Stillman, currently a partner in the…
Now What?
Jeffrey Krotine is halfway through his hamburger when he notices the manager of the Edgewater Yacht Club walking through the dining room. Krotine’s wave catches the man’s eye; he stutter-steps to a momentary stop and waves back in awkward recognition. Then he disappears through a doorway, and Krotine turns back to his sandwich with a…
Fun With Dysfunction
More than a decade ago, the inestimable humor rag Spy Magazine ran a continuing feature in which it noted how the plot lines of various contemporary TV sitcoms were identical to those of earlier shows — often aired decades earlier — proving either plagiarism or a surprisingly coincidental comic inspiration. (This was one of the…
Chris Cain
Along with such players as Robben Ford, guitarist Chris Cain has bridged the gap between traditional blues and jazz fusion, creating a contemporary blues strain that both draws from the roots and delivers fresh, breezy grooves. Matching his dual guitar vocabulary with grown-up vocal and lyrical skills, Cain is one of the more singular figures…
Temper Tantrum
Akron Mayor-for-Life Don Plusquellic is an earthy, old-school pol who’s not exactly on a first-name basis with the Queen’s English, which may explain his popularity. But Plusquellic’s linguistic flair seems to have gotten the best of him. On a recent evening in the Rubber City, Plusquellic parked his car in a lot used by Main…
On View
Alicia Basinger: Shiver and Craze — This recent Cleveland Institute of Art graduate is the latest headliner in MOCA’s Emerging Artist Series, and she deserves the spotlight. A ceramist, Basinger makes clay seem like a brand-new medium by mixing it with previously unrelated elements. In “Timber,” her most physically impressive work, tall cylinders of wire…
Ume
In the ’90s, the phrase “sounds like Sonic Youth” was almost as ubiquitous as “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Shameless Nirvana rip-offs obscured their thievery by cutting out the middleman and claiming the Cobain-idolized Sonic Youth as an influence in interviews. With the demise of grunge, Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore yielded to Gang of Four…
New Tradition
Considering that Devo took its name from devolution — a degeneration or return to a primitive state — it should come as no surprise that frontman Mark Mothersbaugh’s visual art is firmly rooted in deconstruction. His latest art project (and don’t forget, Devo was an art project) manipulates antique photographs. In Beautiful Mutants, on view…
Steep Vue
If we could choose only one word to describe Vue, the new glamourpuss of a restaurant at First and Main in downtown Hudson, “big” — as in big space, big menu, big wine list, big ambitions, and, oh yes, big prices — would probably do the trick. From its soaring ceilings and sinuous art-glass light…
The Dead 60s
The 1960s might be dead in this Liverpool quartet’s world, but the late ’70s and early ’80s are alive and kicking on its self-titled debut, which evokes the sound of the Clash driving its train in vain into the Specials’ ghost town. Yet another stylish post-post-punk band, the Dead 60s still show a slight spin…
This Week’s Day-By-Day Picks
Thursday, August 18 Australian bluesman Dave Hole plays a mean slide guitar. His latest album, The Live One, crams as many riffs and runs as humanly possible into its dozen tracks. Metallica axeman Kirk Hammett pledges allegiance to the guitarist, and it’s easy to hear why. Unlike most modern blues players (who trade innovation for…
Tink Who?
Say you’re a Chinese-American businesswoman, running Cleveland’s premier Asian market. Your partner retires, you move the store down the street, and you give it a new name. It all sounds perfectly reasonable. Still, we can’t help chuckling over King Chung’s decision to change the name of her popular market from Tink Hall to Tink Holl…
Los Lobos
Los Lobos exploded out of the barrios of Los Angeles in 1983 with And a Time to Dance, a seven-song mini-album that meshed Mexican folk music, blues, rock, and R&B into a unique sound long before the terms “Americana” and “roots rock” were standard music lingo. In the early ’90s, albums like The Neighborhood and…
Fulks’ Song
With his latest album, Georgia Hard, part-time smartass and full-time troubadour Robbie Fulks finally makes peace with Nashville, a city he infamously brushed off a decade or so ago in “Fuck This Town.” Georgia Hard marks his return to smirk-free, hook-filled country music — recorded in Nashville, to boot. “That was the only place to…
Brad Paisley
If Brad Paisley’s albums can’t withstand the corrosive effects of Music Row’s candy factory, no Nashville insider’s can. Not only does this West Virginia native enamel them with as much raw inspiration and rigorous craft as any Nashville newcomer this decade, he regularly rinses the sugary coating off country’s contemporary conventions with fresh, self-deprecating wit.…
Big Noise From Springfield Tour
There’s a town named Springfield in damn near every state, but the one in Missouri makes the most ruckus. This is proven by the Big Noise From Springfield Tour, which refers to four local acts — the Morrells, the Domino Kings, the Bel Airs, and Brian Capps — that have hit the road together. In…
Street Sounds
FRI 8/19 During a lunch-hour concert on Star Plaza last month, Brad Yoder scanned the gathering in front of him. The Pittsburgh singer-songwriter felt right at home in downtown Cleveland. “I had children coming up listening,” he recalls. “Somebody took their picture with me. I sold a couple CDs. I love playing random, unexpected places,…
Hammerfall
Power metal exists in a weird timeless space all its own. The technology gets a little better, but the sound never changes — the crashing drums and chugging riffs are pretty much what they were back in 1982, when Judas Priest released the prototypical album of this ilk, Screaming for Vengeance. Hammerfall’s latest disc hews…
Pretty Girls Make Graves
This northwestern quintet plays jagged post-punk with a dash of goth verve (thanks to keyboards and singer Andrea Zollo), sounding like Siouxsie Sioux fronting Fugazi. Formed with ex-Murder City Devils bassist Derek Fudesco shortly after that act’s demise in 2001, the Pretty Girls have put out two full-lengths, progressing from West Coast indie label Lookout…
Pedal Power
8/20-8/21 Since Larry Bell is 6 foot 6 and 245 pounds, it comes as no surprise that he can muster the strength to bike the 150-mile, two-day Pedal to the Point ride between Cuyahoga County and Sandusky, which starts on Saturday. But jaws drop when people see what Bell’s pulling: an air-conditioned carriage containing a…
Silverstein
Rock bands often open albums with their most explosive songs, an approach that’s even more effective in an era of in-store listening stations and online song samples. Silverstein frontloads Discovering the Waterfront’s first track with aggressive riffs, propulsive drums, and throaty shouts, but after 20 seconds, a harmony-bolstered melody commandeers the song — without diluting…
Red Sparowes
Most bands prefer to tour with aesthetically similar peers. Hardcore bands tour with hardcore bands, death-metal bands with deathmetal bands, etc. This allows superficial differences to seem monumental and flatters genre loyalists into thinking their musical palette is broader than it is. But there are occasional surprises. A growing mini-genre in metal can be called…
Bat B-Boy
FRI 8/19 In the locker room after Indians games, first baseman Ben Broussard and outfielder Coco Crisp spit rhymes. Crisp freestyles the lyrics; Broussard backs him with some human beatboxing, which he learned from fourth-grade classmates back home in Texas. “I busted into the guys’ circle, and they laughed at me at first,” recalls Broussard.…
The New Pornographers
New Pornographers frontman A.C. Newman has complained that he doesn’t want his band’s third LP to get the typical Pornos blurbs, all that stuff about driving along some coastal freeway with the top down and the music turned up loud. But Newman and his bandmates can’t contain their musical glee, even when they’re trying hard…
Spottiswoode and His Enemies
The mission of Jonathan Spottiswoode’s current band is circumscribed by the name of his last one — the Zimmermans. If you were unaware that Zimmerman is Bob Dylan’s surname by birth, then you probably wouldn’t care for the New York outfit run by this floridly romantic Brit. But if you have a taste for the…
Motown Multitasker
SAT 8/20 Jazz flute player Alexander Zonjic’s a busy guy. In addition to making like Ian Anderson, the Detroit resident owns a supper club, hosts a morning radio program, and books festival concerts in the Motor City. “They’re all related to what I love doing,” he says. “But sometimes it is a bit overwhelming.” On…
ODB
Pieced together by an all-star team of producers (RZA, Raekwon, Mark Ronson) and bolstered by guest vocalists like Missy Elliott, Macy Gray, and fellow Wu-Tang alumni Ghostface and Method Man, A Son Unique feels more like a posthumous tribute to the late Russell Jones than an actual ODB album. Even so, Dirty’s boisterous, unmistakable bellow…
A.I.W. Wrestling
The rock-and-wrestling connection will never die. Sunday, World Wrestling Entertainment’s Summerslam pay-per-view will air at American Rockstar, the upstairs hideaway at Peabody’s. And if you’ve lost faith in the federation formerly known as the WWF, Peabody’s will host live wrestling downstairs, where local federation Absolute Intense Wrestling will present a star-studded affair that’ll be blingy…
Flight Risk
Red Eye may not seem to be your typical Wes Craven movie. It’s not really horror, there are no marketable monsters, and unlike Cursed, Scream 3, and other recent Craven offerings, it’s actually an enjoyable time at the movies. But heroine Lisa Reisert (Rachel McAdams) is very much in the mold of the traditional “Craven…
Burn Blue Sky
Every tune on Burn Blue Sky’s full-length debut sounds like it was penned on a bad day. This band is indebted to the misanthropes of Louisiana’s Acid Bath, a group skilled at tempering menace with melancholy. Similarly, Burn Blue Sky’s pitch-black boogie pairs southern-rock groove with death-metal growls and lyrics of betrayal and contempt. Frontman…
Chocolate Deluxe White Party
Every Thursday is a happening hip-hop night at the B-Side Liquor Lounge, but this one is special. The Chocolate Deluxe White Party has two rules: Wear white clothes, and come ready to party. Resident DJ Know1 will spin old-school classics and more, joined by Noface and Kwise.
Cherry on Top
Some art-house programmer would be wise to schedule a double bill of The Aristocrats, Paul Provenza’s talkumentary about the dirtiest joke ever told, and The 40-Year-Old Virgin, writer-director Judd Apatow’s near-brilliant movie about a grown-up geek who simply lost interest in trying to get laid. Both offer countless giddy variations on simple, archaic, and utterly…
Coffinberry
It’s been a long road for Coffinberry, but here it is, and it was worth the wait. If Cleveland produces a better indie-rock release this year, expect record companies to start camping out at the Beachland. The band created one of the city’s loudest buzzes in 2002 and 2003, before a lineup featuring current New…
Catching Air
Surfers, skateboarders, and desert racers have all had their moment at the movies recently. Now the motocross crowd gets its turn. Supercross, which provides a glimpse at what its makers call “the second-fastest-growing motorsport in the U.S., behind only NASCAR,” is anything but a dramatic masterpiece. But it features enough dirt-eating, bone-jolting, face-planting race action…
Business Casual
The MC’s name is Casual. His ambitions are anything but. It’s still a few hours before a concert in Tampa, and the Oakland rapper and label impresario is trying to make use of the downtime. He has a new album to promote, and he’s in the early stages of writing a book — part memoir,…
Grizzly Fate
“I always cannot understand why girls don’t wanna be with me for a long time,” says Timothy Treadwell, subject of the documentary Grizzly Man. “I have really a nice personality — I’m fun, I’m very very good in the . . . umm, well, you’re not supposed to say that when you’re a guy, but…
This Spud’s For You
Northeast Ohio has spawned its share of iconic rock groups, but the world has still never seen or heard anything quite like Devo. Local boys who studied art at Kent State, frontman Mark Mothersbaugh and bassist Jerry Casale formed Devo for a one-off performance in 1972 and turned the idea into a band the following…
