Free Wynonna
Wynonna is feeling vulnerable today. You can hear it in her voice and the things she says. She talks about no longer caring if she’s “thinner, richer, faster, cooler” — issues that burdened her for years. She talks about taking her good old time recording her new album. And she talks about how she’s learning…
Black Sabbath
Go ahead. Dump your copy of Reunion, the 1999 live double CD by the shambling version of Black Sabbath that toured a few years ago. This set, made up of recordings from the band’s 1970s glory years, not only stomps all over Reunion; it ought to leave most contemporary doom bands quivering in submission to…
‘Ho Down
Sometimes when a director shoots at a barn, the satisfaction comes in simply watching him hit it dead center. So it is with The Good Girl, wherein Miguel Arteta (Star Maps) targets Middle American ennui with wit, compassion, and no shortage of ornery malaise. Like Arteta’s second feature, Chuck & Buck, this one’s written by…
Bright Eyes
Bright Eyes (a.k.a. Connor Oberst) is as pure a love-it-or-hate-it proposition as you’ll find in the music world. Just by giving his new record such an exhaustive title, the waifish wunderkind paints a big fat target on his chest for the haters. Despite cursory nods toward concepthood, this disc is just a big old swim…
Reality Bytes
Andrew Niccol keeps making the same movie over and over again and dressing it in slightly different clothes: the sleek charcoal Hugo Boss grays of Gattaca, the crisp Crayola hues of The Truman Show, and now, the silk-and-satin Hollywood resplendence of Simone. Niccol, writer and director, is obsessed with a single notion: Where does reality…
Furnace St.
On Furnace St.’s third LP, frontman Adam Boose’s knuckles bleed almost as much as his heart. “You can only sit still for so long,” Boose sings on “Sunday Driver,” and true to his word, Boose comes out swinging here as never before. The song’s skittering electronics are buoyed by a ribald, funky bass interlude, making…
Art for the Home
Fake-wood entertainment centers and cheap torchères are serious affronts to tasteful interior design. But finding affordable, unique home furnishings is a Herculean challenge. One solution: Art for the Home, a show of one-of-a-kind furniture, lamps, sculpture, ceramics, and framed art at Asterisk Gallery. Owners Dave Mikolajczyk and Dana Depew, among the 10 artists represented, are…
Pussy Power
Twin threats have sent a shiver down the spines of Cleveland’s testosterone-spewing male population of late. First, there was the banning of booze at Browns tailgate parties, stripping men of their means of Sunday-morning worship. Then there’s the latest go-round of Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues, at the Ohio Theatre. The work is the theatrical…
Still Parked at Parker’s
We nearly spilled our carrot juice when we read in this month’s Northern Ohio Live that Parker Bosley, Cleveland’s top advocate for fresh, wholesome foods, had left his eponymously named restaurant in Ohio City and moved to Wooster. But when we reached the chef at Parker’s New American Bistro (2801 Bridge Avenue, 216-771-7130), we discovered…
Tiger Trap
Usually you figure the rock star doesn’t want to be asked about his guitar solos — that it’s old hat, something he’s had to pontificate on countless times in his career as a professional musician, each time getting closer and closer to slipping into that glazed autopilot mode familiar to anyone who’s ever talked to…
Water World
There’s an old adage in the restaurant business: “The better the view, the worse the food.” That is to say, spectacular or exclusive scenery is often compelling enough that diners will overlook meals of inferior quality in exchange for outstanding surroundings. Whether it’s considered descriptive or predictive, the phrase is a pretty cynical assessment of…
Indecent Exposure
We haven’t even been properly introduced to Gil Mantera yet, and already he’s shown us his family jewels. We’re at the Bug Jar, a hip rock club in Rochester, New York, that’s decorated with, among other things, a painting of Spider-Man flipping the bird. It’s Saturday night, and Mantera is working it. Sporting faux-fur-adorned moonboots,…
Squeeze Play
Ohio Savings Bank faces a multimillion-dollar lawsuit because John Clark wanted to be a pilot. The year was 1956. Standing in the kitchen, a five-year-old Clark announced his wish to fly airplanes when he grew up. “I remember my mom saying that you had to be good at math,” he says. “I’ll never forget her…
Too Cool to Be School
The sight of a tattooed twentysomething wielding spray paint on school grounds would normally send teachers running. But on a recent Wednesday afternoon at Cuyahoga Community College’s Eastern Campus, the tattooed twentysomething is the teacher, and the only things running are the eye-popping purples and blues on the mural that’s taking shape outside the campus…
Who Qualifies for the Suit?
Attorney Steve Weiss had this to say to Ohio Savings borrowers who wonder if they might be part of the suit: “They should be told that if their loan was executed between 1970 and 1996 and if they do not have a FHA or VA loan, it is very likely they are members of the…
Ashanti
You could call Ashanti a new breed of moll rat. The 21-year-old prodigy, picked for a potential track scholarship at Princeton, betrayed the promise of a good girl’s life to run with the thugs at Murder Inc., a hip-hop label that records street toughs like Ja Rule at a studio called the Crackhouse. Of course,…
Bad Faith
Nellie Sigler remembers the children. They used to play on the lush baseball field at Lafayette Elementary School late into the evening. “I would sit on my porch and it would be a joy,” says Sigler, who has 12 children and about 30 grandchildren. “I just wanted to still be able to watch . .…
Hey Mercedes
It’s not just the discount beer and fountains of fondue that Mike Shumaker has had to adjust to since his spring move to Milwaukee. “I’m not used to having fans,” laughs the former Clevelander, who fronted the underrated local band Sheilbound before skipping town to join fast-rising post-emo rockers Hey Mercedes. He’s joking, of course.…
Mystery Man
He was Cleveland’s most mysterious bushy-haired stranger since Sam Sheppard stumbled out to the beach. The day the Browns lured Butch Davis from the University of Miami, a Plain Dealer zoom lens captured the coach entering the team’s Berea headquarters. A figure in a raincoat trailed Davis by a step. The man behind the mustache…
Dieselboy
No, it’s not fair, but it’s true: American drum ‘n’ bass producers will never get the respect their British peers do, just as Brits making hip-hop will always be judged as lesser creators by the powers-that-be. It’s a sad truth based not on quality of output, but on country of origin. Because drum ‘n’ bass…
Split Decision
The comfortably crinkled hippies who dwell in Beulah Park speak of dazzling sunsets mingled with the voices of children playing. The former lakefront Bible camp on Cleveland’s east side, settled in 1890 by Buffalo Bill’s second cousin, still projects a prayerful tranquillity. “I’ve seen people come here, getting over a breakup,” says 10-year resident Louise…
All
Some punk rockers are hopelessly obsessed with girls. Some of them should remain so. Witness the Descendents — fondly remembered L.A. punks who wrote poppy, wimpy tunes about stupid chicks and the nerds who love ’em. If you’re looking to hunt down and kill everyone remotely responsible for emo, you could do worse. As frontman…
God Bless the Mailman
No mercy for drug-induced tirades: The story about Ray Dyer’s senseless beating of Nicholas Foradis [“Near-Death of a Mailman,” July 24] is reminiscent of my days in high school, where it was commonly known that black children would never face a white boy in combat alone. Unless a black child were assured of immediate victory,…
Aimee Mann
Sorry to say it, but Lost in Space, the new record from rehabilitated new-waver-turned-pure-pop-songstress Aimee Mann, isn’t the rock opera based on Nick at Nite fodder you were hoping for. Instead, it’s an album of snapshots-in-song, empathic character studies of the wretched and rejected, the losers and abusers, all of them addicted to the things…
Good Points
Sharp objects and beer usually aren’t recommended in tandem. But for the Cleveland Darter Club, it’s business as usual. And it’s a reason why Scott Madis, the group’s president, says he and his sport are frequently frowned upon. “It’s not high-profile,” he explains. “It has the stigma of being played in a bar.” The Cleveland…
DJ /rupture
Plenty of DJs claim to “take you on a journey” with their sets, but Jace Clayton, better known as DJ /rupture, is one of the few capable of actually drawing a map. Despite the disjuncture his name implies, /rupture’s eclectic mixes — ranging from militant hip-hop and raga to his own noise-filled drum ‘n’ bass…
