Cowboys and Martians
Not unlike Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich — who, with ridiculously expensive spectaculars like Independence Day and Godzilla, transformed B-movie nostalgia into crass adventures in budget-busting — John Carpenter has a thing for the fanciful yet almost lurid trappings of the Saturday afternoon sci-fi flick. Fortunately for us, the veteran director also knows better than…
Signals Crossed
The change was abrupt. One day, 92.3 FM was home to the “jammin’ oldies,” like silky-voiced R&B singers Marvin Gaye and Al Green. The next day, it was a haven for rap-metal screamers such as Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst and Korn’s Jonathan Davis. Changing formats in the constantly fluctuating world of commercial radio is commonplace.…
Madcap Noir
Woody Allen’s latest romp through old New York combines (among other things) a skirt-chasing insurance investigator with the charm of a rodent, a wisecracking Vassar grad who takes no guff, and a nightclub hypnotist in a sequined turban who doubles as a major jewel thief. The year is 1940. The soundtrack warbles with nostalgic Duke…
The Shins
Singer-guitarist James Mercer’s band, Flake, had been a mainstay of the Albuquerque scene for five years when he began to consider a more controlled and pop-driven alternative. Mercer titled the first song he wrote with this new pop mindset “The Shins,” and he began to envision a band by the same name that would feature…
White Dopes on Dope
Beware the filmmaker who looks through the camera’s lens and sees only himself on the other side, blowing kisses. He’s the fool who confuses “personal vision” with “jacking off,” and he’ll try every time to convince you there’s something meaningful and imaginative in the shallow and hackneyed. But how can he discern quality from crap,…
Robert Cray
To the general public, singer-guitarist Robert Cray is synonymous with the blues. But over the course of his 20-year career, he’s had to put up with flak from purists who think his music is too pop-oriented and conventional. You gotta think Cray doesn’t mind. He’s had every album since 1986’s Strong Persuader nominated for a…
The Bitch of Kitsch
Cuddly outsider #63178D, please step forward. Well, my goodness, look at you! You are so alternative, so fringe, so punk! So artsy and alienated! So utterly aimless and oozing with angst! Tell us, girl, what ought we to call you? Edwina Scissorhands? That’s one easily justified reaction a viewer may take away from Thora Birch’s…
Bill Janovitz
As the frontman and songwriter for Buffalo Tom, Bill Janovitz wrote catchy pop-rock songs for the college set. The band, which stuck together for 15 years, experienced mild success (it had a cameo on the now defunct TV show My So-Called Life), but is now indefinitely on hold. In the meantime, Janovitz has devoted himself…
Kosher Pickle
In its fight against housing discrimination, the Metropolitan Strategy Group usually takes on bigots and predators: apartment managers who treat white applicants better than black ones, lenders who jack up interest rates on the poor. Then there’s the lawsuit against the Jewish nursing home. In fall 1998, Carmela DiCicco tried to get her 95-year-old Catholic…
Quasi
The Sword of God, Quasi’s fifth album, contains the same tenderness and turbulence that audiences have come to expect from emocore’s pedigreed ex-lovers. Former husband and wife Sam Coomes (bassist for Elliott Smith) and Janet Weiss (drummer for Sleater-Kinney) previously played together in Motorgoat and formed Quasi in Portland, Oregon, in 1993 as an outlet…
Family Cries
One morning in late January, Cassandra Jackson found a greeting card in her mailbox. It came with a Bible verse and some words of inspiration, sent by Anita Armstrong, a social worker who had come to know Jackson by working with her son, Thomas, at his elementary school. Armstrong understood just how much Jackson needed…
Miles Davis
With Miles Davis working in overdrive, this great, previously unreleased double album captures two incendiary sets by one of the trumpet master’s more amazing groups: Wayne Shorter on sax, Chick Corea on keyboards, Dave Holland on acoustic bass, Jack DeJohnette on drums, and Airto Moreira on percussion. It’s the first official release by this astonishing…
Director’s Cut
Mayfield Heights Law Director Leonard Carr doesn’t want to talk about the Ohio Ethics Law or allegations that he is breaking it. Criticism of his billing practices is ridiculous, he says, his voice rising ever so slightly. Any complaints that residents have are pure politics. “The thing you have to understand is that this is…
Brian Jonestown Massacre
Whether it’s the band’s legendary feud with the Dandy Warhols or wrangling with its own numerous major and minor labels, trouble follows Anton Newcombe and the Brian Jonestown Massacre like hippies follow Phish. Having conceived BJM as the next generation of psychedelic glam popsters with a distinctly ’60s tone, Newcombe has also fashioned an atmosphere…
Blue Suede Surgery
Al Cohen never asked to be the keeper of half the free world’s Elvis kitsch. He’s a distinguished pediatric brain surgeon, for chrissake. But something about him must say gold lamé and rhinestones. Because, when grateful patients want to thank him, they don’t send flowers. They channel the King. “It’s like a satellite office of…
The Crystal Method
With the recent postponement of the Mekka Tour and the cancellation of the Las Vegas version of the U.K. Creamfields Festival, the electronic duo Crystal Method is relying heavily on its headlining tour to promote Tweekend, its latest album. To that end, beatsmiths Ken Jordan and Scott Kirkland have lined up a formidable 50-stop tour…
Building Blockheads
Greater Cleveland is economically falling behind the rest of the country; so say a proliferation of news stories and editorials. While the reasons cited are many — we’re undereducated, we’re uninventive; hell, we’re three million morons — one recurring motif stands out: Our politics aren’t conducive to a new age of commerce. Witness the cage…
Moviola
Moviola’s Rumors of the Faithful is, at best, a competent recording of light, poppy songs with no pretensions. At worst, it’s a recording stuck on a creative plateau. The album features ’60s pop with rustic sensibilities and a love for acoustic instruments. But this diverse palette never finds the right blend, resulting in a few…
End of the Road
Far too often, those who work in the music industry are so concerned with making a living they often forget they’re capable, at their best, of making history as well. They sacrifice art and artists in the name of commerce, then sleep soundly wrapped in bedspreads made of silk and greenbacks. Musicians, be they legendary…
Keeping Straight Men Safe
Gays and women can fend for themselves: Okay. I want every construction worker and weirdo in a car or on a street corner who has ever suggested that I have sex with them to be arrested. I want to be able to call the police whenever I feel uncomfortable or threatened because a guy has…
Sound and Fury
Noted philosopher Shirley Temple once advised Depression-era moviegoers: “You gotta eat your spinach, baby!” Attending one of producer-director Raymond Bobgan’s cerebral performance pieces more than fills the bill. It’s loaded with thought-provoking elements that are supposed to be good for theater audiences. Bobgan’s company, Wishhounds, used to be known as Theatre Labyrinth, yet a cactus…
Chain Reaction
National chain eateries get short shrift in this space — intentionally so. After all, we don’t want to be drawn into an argument over whether Ronald McDonald can beat up on the Burger King. Besides, we can’t imagine that there is anyone who isn’t already thoroughly familiar with the chains’ homogenized offerings: If you’ve seen…
The Boys Are Back
When Moxie producers Brad Friedlander and Craig Sumers finally brought down the curtain on their long-running Cleveland Heights restaurant, Lopez y Gonzales, in the spring of 1998, they knew that someday they would launch a revival. Now, that day is about to dawn: Look for Lopez, the duo’s newest endeavor, to open before the end…
Stunt Growth
Kevin Marino pops a wheelie, lifting the front end of his Honda sports bike so high, the back of the motorcycle drags along the pavement. His taillight and bits of plastic litter the concrete, but no matter. Damage is part of the game for Marino and fellow members of the Starboyz, Northeast Ohio’s resident motorcycle…
Evolving Doors
In 1971, Kevin Coyne was the lead singer for an English blues/folk outfit called Siren. The band had released a couple of marginally well-received albums on DJ John Peel’s Dandelion Records and had been picked up for distribution in the States by Elektra. That same year, singer/poet/shaman Jim Morrison, the incendiary frontman of the Doors,…
Row vs. Wade
Rowing is a venerable collegiate sport: a mix of endurance, teamwork, and Ivy League pageantry. But the average Joe Six-Pack has long been a wary bystander, dismissing it as an elitist pastime for rich jocks. But that pretentious aura is slowly fading, thanks to clubs like the Western Reserve Rowing Association. After a hard day…
Steal Cage
When local singer-guitarist Brian Straw decided to travel coast to coast earlier this year, he didn’t embark on a conventional tour. He booked shows at art galleries, coffeeshops, small clubs, and any place that would welcome a guy, his guitar, and an effects box. He played New York’s Knitting Factory, Washington, D.C.’s Black Cat, and…
The Living End
When Margaret Hall, a Lake Tahoe housewife played by Tilda Swinton, erroneously believes that her teenage son (Jonathan Tucker) has murdered his unsavory older lover (Josh Lucas), she snaps into high gear to cover up the “crime.” She thinks she’s controlled the situation, until a mysterious young man named Spera (Goran Visnjic) turns up, demanding…
