AC/DC
God bless AC/DC. The Australian band has been preaching the good word of rock and roll for more than 25 years now and hasn’t changed a thing (well, except for lead singers, when Bon Scott died two decades ago). Hell, the band’s new album — Stiff Upper Lip, which is something like its 13th studio…
More Is Less
When Cleveland artist David Batz died in 1994, at the age of 49, his completed works ran into the thousands. Granted, the graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and onetime pupil of glass wizard Dale Chihuly worked mostly in ceramic, a medium that lends itself to high-speed production. Still, Batz was one of…
World Series of Metal
In the past, the World Series of Metal, a two-day event that features both local and national acts, has emphasized the clichéd (specifically, rehashed power chords and incomprehensible singing), rather than the experimental (the texture-based metal of the Deftones or Papa Roach, for example). With Mushroomhead headlining on Friday night, this year’s festival should have…
Trucking Into Lakewood
Organizers of the highly successful Saturday morning North Union Farmers Market on Shaker Square have, for the second summer running, launched a Wednesday afternoon market on Arthur Avenue, just north of Detroit Avenue, at the Lakewood Municipal Park. Most of the dozen or so farmers who haul their goods to the West Side will be…
Kid Rock
As far as white rappers go, Detroit’s Kid Rock (Bob Ritchie) is as legit as they come. He toured with Boogie Down Productions in the late ’80s, and with Too Short and Ice Cube in the early ’90s. But as of about three years ago, he was playing in nearly empty dives (the old Peabody’s,…
Acoustic Alchemy
Doug Wood isn’t flashy, and he’s not out to change the world. Wood simply wants to spread the word of his acoustic guitar and press kindred spirits into service. “Sophie’s Song” and “Wait Up,” from his recently released I Am Kiroc CD, are being played on the Kent State University station WKSU (89.7 FM), and…
Old Hands
It’s a pleasure to say that Clint Eastwood reverses his recent downward slide –A Perfect World (1993), The Bridges of Madison County (1995), Absolute Power (1997), and True Crime (1999), each of which has seemed less satisfying than its predecessor — with Space Cowboys, his latest. It isn’t an especially profound film, but as both…
Return of the Kings
When the time comes for a new King’s X album, you have to greet the event with a mixture of delight and dread — delight because the band will finally release a new set of energetic and challenging songs, and dread because of the inevitable slew of King’s X side projects that generally accompany a…
Common Sense
Honestly now; have you of late found yourself enthralled by pleasing stimuli? Please, no nauseating responses like “After I get rolfed, my heart is more open to love.” Instead, think of the good, serendipitous stuff, the random intoxicants that bombard your subcutaneous organs. Just to warn you, your ganglia are unlikely to pulse with lascivious…
Morcheeba
Morcheeba’s first two albums — 1996’s Who Can You Trust? and 1998’s Big Calm — were trip-hop by the numbers, as the slinky beats, sulky vocals, and scratchy surface noise represented some of the clichés of the hip-hop-meets-electronica genre. But there was also a stinging professionalism to Morcheeba’s music that was lacking in its contemporaries’…
Art-Felt Evenings
Those folks lucky enough to have snagged a table lean back and gaze at the less fortunate, who are perched on the (gasp!) concrete steps of the courtyard at the Cleveland Museum of Art. As a blue-jacketed jazz quartet plays “It Had to Be You” at the far end of the sun-dappled space, outdoor chefs…
The Future Bible Heroes
Over the past few years, Stephin Merritt has recorded under an impossible number of band appellations, including Magnetic Fields (his best known configuration), the 6ths, the Gothic Archies, and the Future Bible Heroes — none of which could be considered inferior or lackluster. The dichotomy between Merritt’s last Magnetic Fields release and this latest entry…
Brake Dancing
For just under 11 seconds, conversation at the Thompson Drag Raceway in Thompson is pointless. The explosive force of two aggressively tuned engines splits the rural air — forget about rock and roll, forget about the announcer. Open exhaust and the absence of mufflers means 10.90 class racing is a loud weekend affair. The engines…
Robo-Slop
There are many, many productive paths a bright, ambitious young fellow can pursue in America. He can, for instance, start a mediocre rock band and try to make music for beer commercials. He can also design a website to advertise websites about websites. But it takes a special kind of guy — say, a guy…
The Story of One
The montage of images opens with a pristine Cleveland skyline glistening in the sunshine. In the next instant, as a low, audible rumble builds to a thunderous roar, a giant wave of fire rolls across the city, destroying everything in its path. Small pockets of humanity survive, only to become warring factions. Eventually, with time-lapse…
Tattooing the City
If you want someone to cover your back with a tattoo, Tony DeRigo can oblige. He specializes in big, custom tattoos, and he’s inked everything from Buddhist art to cartoonish alien abduction scenes onto people’s skin. Since opening Chronic Tattoo in Elyria in 1994, he’s tattooed thousands of people with designs large and small. Three-quarters…
Abandon Ship?
When the owners of the Steamship William G. Mather Museum were planning their rededication ceremony this spring, they asked local officeholders to issue proclamations commemorating the historic ore freighter’s 75th anniversary. The Harbor Heritage Society figured it was a small enough favor to ask, and the governor, local members of Congress, and the city council…
Dances With Chickens
Judges at the county fair aren’t required to use the term “sticky wicket” in a sentence. But they shore can, if they got a mind to. “That became a sticky wicket with some of the women,” says Donalene Poduska, cross-stitch and needlepoint judge, of the men-only sewing contest. “They thought the men were getting a…
The Talking Penis
I am Vlad the Impaler, Joe Eszterhas’ penis. You know Joe, right? Bigfoot-looking son of a bitch, like Jerry Garcia after he swallowed Brian Wilson on an Acapulco Gold high? The guy who wrote Basic Instinct and Showgirls and Flashdance and a whole lotta crap for which he was paid inexplicable millions? My pal’s the…
Kevin Mahogany
There’s far more instrumental than vocal music on this collection from silken-voiced Kevin Mahogany. But the Kansas City singer is certainly one of the guiding spirits on this memorable live recording (culled from a performance before a wildly appreciative audience in Cologne in early 1995), which also features Charles McPherson, a dynamic, Sonny Stitt-inspired tenorman…
Suicidal Tendencies
Talk about suicidal tendencies. The last remaining volunteers at the Free Clinic’s Together Hotline resigned Thursday, then held a memorial service for the 30-year-old crisis-intervention service, says volunteer River Smith. Bearing a coffin with a telephone inside, about 20 people, led by Rev. James Sutter, marched out of the building and mourned under the watchful…
Wallace Coleman
In a city in which harmonica players hold a lofty position among blues fans, Wallace Coleman is one of the best of the bunch. Coleman has faithfully reproduced the sounds of harp heroes such as Little Walter Jacobs and Sonny Boy Williamson and, in that respect, has brought a little piece of Chicago to Cleveland.…
Another Crack Comeback
One mother’s way to keep kids in school: Thank you for writing such a touching story [“One Slim HOPE,” July 27]. As a former crack addict and alcoholic (clean six years), I can relate to the pain, guilt, and shame Ms. Womack felt. Although I did not turn to prostitution to support my habit, I…
Ray Condo and His Ricochets
From the mid-’80s to the mid-’90s, Ottawa-based saxophonist-guitarist Ray Condo was the animated frontman for a country/rockabilly aggregation known as the Hardrock Goners. In 1995, Condo merged with a similarly themed band, Jimmy Roy’s Five Star Hillbillies, to form Ray Condo and His Ricochets, a new outfit devoted to the preservation of western swing, jazz,…
It’s Hit and Miss at Battuto
It was a dark and stormy Friday night at Battuto, one of Little Italy’s newer, more ambitious restaurants. Outside, the weather wasn’t very good, either. Perhaps it was the evening’s thunderstorms that had driven an unexpected number of guests into the little shoebox of a dining room, or maybe the restaurant was simply shorthanded. For…
