Changing of the Garden
Though she’s newly ordained, the Rev. Brenda Taylor-Rosario doesn’t feel ready to preach in church. Until God gives her a sign, she’s content to minister to the squash and cabbages in the field behind her house. Her vegetable flock seems to appreciate her sermons. “God is Goood! He is!” she shouts into the tall corn,…
Guided by Voices
After spending a decade writing and playing music in obscurity in his Dayton, Ohio basement, and then the next decade as indie-rock’s darling/last man standing, Guided by Voices’ singer Bob Pollard hasn’t slowed down one bit. Having gone through nearly 40 band members and written — hazarding a rough guess — around 3,000 songs, Pollard…
Better to Take Care of It Sewer than Later
Residents on Kinzel Road in Avon breathed a sigh of relief last week, after the burgeoning suburb’s city council nixed plans to install a sanitary sewer line that residents didn’t want. In May, the city told residents that they would each be assessed a fee of $148 per foot of property frontage. Resident Dan Berkheimer,…
Neil Young, with the Pretenders and Tegan and Sara
Neil Young has been called “The Godfather of Grunge,” but “The Godfather of Unpredictability” would suit him better. In the late ’70s, for example, Young released Rust Never Sleeps, a critical and commercial success, and then followed it up with Hawks & Doves, a collection of recording session outtakes. He’ll often be rumored to be…
The Bit Player
“I’m not the celebrity type,” says Vincent D’Onofrio, and he does not lie. His is a household name in very few neighborhoods; it appears in film credits buried just beneath those of actors more famous, or just luckier. Rare is the filmgoer who utters the words, “Dude, let’s go check out the new D’Onofrio movie.”…
Weezer
Weezer speaks for the socially inept, the romantically challenged, and that geeky guy who runs the comic book store in The Simpsons. The quartet rose to power on the strength of songs about unraveling sweaters, Kiss posters, Buddy Holly — songs with lyrics such as “In the garage/ I feel safe/ No one cares about…
Dick Weighs In
A penis owner’s challenge to challenging sexism: I read this story [“Feel Sorry for Men,” August 17] with great interest, because it just isn’t the kind of thing you see that often in popular media. Unfortunately, it seems like no matter from which direction someone writes about such a topic, it usually gets back to…
Blue-Collar Blues
Sheron Rupp’s evocative photographs of a working-class Montana family make one wonder about the health of the American dream. Sheron Rupp Photographs: In Montana With Beth, a new exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Art, is about hardworking people and the places they frequent, but more pointedly, it is also a sad testament to the…
Greener Pastures
Without having to pass over to that Masterpiece Theatre in the sky, Anglophiles of all forms can find bliss at a destination that offers Shavian debate, art-deco whimsy, and continental romance. A mere four- to five-hour drive from Cleveland, that theatrical Garden of Eden is also known as the Shaw Festival. Bookworms, theater buffs, and…
A Particular Place
You get the feeling that Jeff Uniatowski did a lot of thinking during the years he spent in other people’s kitchens. Like pondering how to blend elements of elegance and modernity into a friendly but unmistakably upscale environment. Or how to staff a restaurant so that no guest’s needs go unfulfilled. And mostly, you suspect,…
Polly Wants a Drink
We hate to be the one to say this, but it won’t be long before those cold winds start to blow across Lake Erie again, and what passes for summer hereabouts will be no more than a distant sigh. Before then, it behooves you to head over to the Thirsty Parrot (821 Bolivar Road, 216-685-3200),…
Giant Steps
It’s mid-morning, and guitarist Charlie Hunter sounds surprised as he picks up the phone and cuts off his answering machine, which beat him to the punch. “I didn’t even hear the phone ring; I’m going to have to fire my phone,” Hunter says with a laugh, speaking from his apartment in Brooklyn, New York. While…
What’s the Buzz?
Steam rises from the pavement on a balmy, rain-soaked evening at Stan Hywet Hall in Akron. Within minutes, a crowd of 120 serious and not-so-serious oenophiles are mingling amid a cocktail party atmosphere in the estate’s Carriage House. Waltzes by Strauss emanate from a boombox in the corner, and the room is hemmed in by…
Rock Whores
Burrowing deep into the heart of rock criticism’s darkness, it doesn’t take long for both Richard Meltzer and Nick Tosches to use the word “whore” when referring to their respective professions as rock journalists. Meltzer, never one to mince words, puts it right out front on the cover of his wonderfully annotated collection of absurdist…
Work Forces
Lost somewhere in the gears of corporate America are the workers — the cubicle commandos forced through a Kafkaesque existence far from the fabled American Dream of their parents. But for Dr. Diane Kasunic, it’s not some dark romance for sitcom and film fodder; it’s a real, Orwellian culture she has dubbed “The Corporate Cult,”…
Chris Knox
Any review of a Chris Knox disc is going to require more set-up time than a Russian novel. No self-respecting fan of New Zealand’s Flying Nun scene will need a Knox bio, but even after a career approaching three decades, he still needs more than a casual introduction. Knox set the standard for New Zealand…
Raging Waters
When John Waters is at his best, as he is in his latest, Cecil B. Demented, he can drive you in in a way few filmmakers have ever managed to do. But recognizing that fact can sometimes be difficult in today’s market-driven context. In fact, for the first half-hour or so of Cecil, I found…
Soundbites
In typical hip-hop fashion, the finals of the Hip-Hop at the Rock competition, held on August 18 on a makeshift stage set up outside of the Rock Hall, started an hour and a half late and ran a half-hour over. But if you ignored the shortcomings and glitches, the event offered a good showcase of…
Fight Club
Despite its late-summer release date — usually a sign of studio jitters — The Art of War is a mostly well-constructed action flick with a number of flashy, well-choreographed fight and chase scenes. Wesley Snipes stars as Neil Shaw, a supersecret operative of a supersecret “dirty tricks” agency, whose methods are more than a little…
Thievery Corporation
The Thievery Corporation is proof that giving artists control of their music can be a good thing. The group’s debonair songwriters/producers Eric Hilton and Rob Garza own their own Washington, D.C.-based club and label, called the Eighteenth Street Lounge and Eighteenth Street Lounge Music, respectively. Housed in a loft space above a mattress store, the…
Lust in the Dust
“Be cool, get chicks.” While that’s paraphrased and boiled down, it’s nonetheless the essential creed of Dex (Donal Logue), the corpulent connoisseur of carnality who lumbers through this debut feature from Jenniphr Goodman as if he’s Paul Bunyan and every woman in sight is a tree. Overweight and underemployed, Dex is a man with a…
Victoria Williams
Even before she was diagnosed with the multiple sclerosis that has ravaged her body, Victoria Williams was fragile. The disease, discovered about eight years ago, has only accentuated all this. Or maybe we just think it has. Her first post-MS album, 1994’s Loose — which came a year after the Sweet Relief project honored her…
Hard Landing
Big and brown, the International Exposition Center rests forlornly in a sea of asphalt parking spaces, between wooded fields and the fences of Cleveland Hopkins Airport. It’s more than one-fifth of a mile long and almost as wide. It’s not very pretty — it was built as a bomber plant in World War II, and…
St. Jayne
Evil Bitterness might be St. Jayne’s debut, but the guys in this garage rock group go way back. Singer Chris Yarmock, guitarist Gary Lupico, and bassist Russell Sherman Jr. played together over two decades ago in the punk band the Kneecappers. Lupico and Sherman then teamed up with drummer Jeff Benik to form California Speedbag…
On the Red Road
His name is Michael, but he’s known on the street as “Chief,” a nickname given to him by white men. He doesn’t take offense at the racial stereotype, preferring to see it as a way of connecting with his Native American heritage. Through that heritage, he is finding the means to stay sober. Michael is…
Buddy Greco
Buddy Greco’s fanbase is similar to that of Frank Sinatra or Tony Bennett, but he has a stronger jazz background than either of the singers. Born in Philadelphia in 1926, Greco played piano and led a trio there during the late ’40s. By the end of the ’40s, he joined Benny Goodman as a pianist…
