Plane Crazy
From the comfort of the cockpit, Michael Mancuso can picture the stunned looks on the faces in the crowd below as he pilots his Klein Tools Extra 300. In the 23-foot plane, he executes stunts he’s rehearsed for two years with aerobatic partner Matt Chapman. There’s the “mirror pass,” in which Mancuso flies in parallel…
Rock of Ages
Pat Hanych is in no mood to celebrate. Though Pat’s in the Flats — the club she’s helped run for more than 50 years under a variety of names — will be celebrating its 60th anniversary this weekend, Hanych first has to deal with the aftermath of yet another burglary attempt. “They broke all the…
Robert Cherry & the Brilliance Module CD-release party
Robert Cherry knows how you feel. According to his biography, he enjoys drinking in “endearing shitholes,” and he “lives in Cleveland, Ohio, by the shores of Great Lake Erie, under heavy cloud cover.” See? You already have something in common. Cherry copes with the help of an extraordinary support system: For this show, a CD-release…
Cleveland Shuffle
9/1-9/4 This week’s inaugural Ingenuity Festival of Art and Technology marks Cleveland’s bid for hipness. And with more than 1,000 artists performing and exhibiting at the four-day event (which takes place at more than 20 venues), the city will be on the cusp of coolness over Labor Day weekend. Concerts, stage productions, and art exhibits…
Erase the Breakup
Cleveland’s Erase the Grey released an EP on Universal Records in 2002 and broke up the following year, splintering into bands including Shenoah, Rikets, Iris, and Burning Vegas. Now Erase the Grey has reformed. “We’ve been talking about it for a while,” says singer-lyricist Jonny Sayre. “People kept saying they missed the band. Finally, we…
Corey Harris
Corey Harris is a charter member of the small school of young, neotraditional African American bluesmen who emerged during the mid-’90s. Whether a concerted movement or not, this pack of anachronists, which also included Alvin Youngblood Hart and Keb Mo’, appeared hell-bent on establishing a blues revival of their own that would reclaim their legacy…
Out to Punch
SAT 9/3 With his legendary showboating, boxing promoter Don King guarantees a blood-soaked slugfest when he returns to his hometown for Championship Boxing on Saturday. “We’re in the hurt business,” says King. Two bouts top the five-fight card, including a match between former heavyweight champ Owen “What the Heck” Beck of Jamaica and Cleveland native…
Ted Nugent
Q: Motor City Madman, I’m a fellow hunter, and I’ve been a fan of yours since you started the Amboy Dukes back in ’67. How do you keep rockin’ so hard almost 40 years later? — Hank A: Whoooooo-WHEEE, Hank! Thanks for the support, and keep up the fight to protect our God-given American way…
OK Go
This is where OK Go singer-guitarist Damian Kulash proves he’s as good as his degree in semiotics from Brown University. Taking almost three years between albums, he honed these selections until even the ballads rocked with big beats and catchy choruses, and then he flew his band to Sweden to record with Franz Ferdinand producer…
You Laughin’ at Me?
THU 9/1 To get his fellow funnymen out of their stand-up rut, Joe Hannum is pitting them against each other at a Ninja Comedy Death Match on Thursday. The competition starts with 10 comedians drawing topics from a champagne bucket; then each goes onstage for a three-minute routine. While nobody knows what subject he’ll pick,…
The Bassholes
Just when you think Don Howland will call it a night, he comes shuffling back with another Bassholes disc. And each one gets more accomplished — “accomplished” being a relative term to a man with as much dirt beneath his fingernails as Howland. In the late ’80s, Howland was a twentysomething renaissance man, gobbling up…
A Wilhelm Scream
A Wilhelm Scream may win the award for best song titles this year. Here are the top three: “The Kids Can Eat a Bag of Dicks,” a quick post-hardcore tune with a nice bass solo and an emo breakdown (no, that’s not a joke); “Me vs. Morrissey in the Pretentiousness Contest (The Ladder Match),” Ruiner’s…
Attack of the Horns
9/3-9/4 Only John Williams knows the music of Star Wars better than Erich Kunzel. Williams wrote it, after all. But Kunzel, director of the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, is a close second, having performed and recorded most of the six films’ scores. So there’s no one better to present this weekend’s Star Wars Spectacular. “John’s music…
Bear vs. Shark
This Michigan quintet sounds like the orphaned children of several genres, mixing supple post-punk, a distortion-drenched wall of guitar riffing, and indie rock melodicism in a gumbo of dynamics and aggression. There are echoes of emo in the band’s ’90s alt-rock influences; some tracks stumble forward, limping with obvious pain and vulnerability, but the sound…
Little Brother
If hip-hop is dead, somebody forgot to tell Little Brother. The North Carolina-based affiliates of the Justus League crew have gone from regional up-and-comers to nationally recognized stars, aided by the well-deserved critical acclaim for their 2003 ABB records debut, The Listening, and producer 9th Wonder’s work on Jay-Z’s Black Album. They probably won’t repeat…
Low Yield
At the opening of The Constant Gardener, Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles’ adaptation of the novel by John le Carré, we hear a conversation before we see it. The screen remains black, still running credits, as a man and a woman negotiate a departure. Slowly, the scene dawns, revealing the couple on an airstrip, in shadow.…
Michael McDonald
Along with Daryl Hall, Michael McDonald is the prime exponent of blue-eyed soul. He’s got a voice so beautifully husky that it carries the weakest material. He sings with passion, he has taste, and he can hire the very best sidemen. McDonald’s chart-toppers with the Doobie Brothers dominate his new greatest-hits set, The Ultimate Collection,…
Turbonegro
Near-deified stalwarts of the European rock scene since the mid-’90s, Norway’s Turbonegro has had a tougher go of it in the States. Besides the fact that expert glam metal is completely excluded from U.S. airwaves, Turbo’s particular brand of leather-clad, NAMBLA-positive mock rock is often lost on prudish American rock fans. But Party Animals sees…
Assault ‘N’ Prepper
Remember Nick Cannon? For a while there, he seemed to be the next big young heartthrob, right after starring in the marching-band movie Drumline and the remake of the ’80s comedy Love Don’t Cost a Thing. When Dave Chappelle joked that his son was leaving him for Nick Cannon, people got it. But now, almost…
CKY
Apparently, no one told CKY that it’s dangerous to hate on your boss. Or maybe someone did, and CKY just doesn’t give a damn. Either way, that’s just what the Pennsylvania band does. In its audacious, straightforward rock-and-roll style, the instigators in CKY make a point of telling everyone how much they hate the music…
Spittin Image
Original hip-hop mixtapes are usually a hustle, a half-assed excuse to throw together an unpolished album. But if the excellent Re-Introduction mix is the sound of Spittin Image just getting warmed up, its next disc could put it in the underground vanguard. Now a trio, Spittin Image has been joined by co-producer M. Tilla (Blitz),…
Follow the Music
Thomas Seyr, the central figure in director Jacques Audiard’s kinetically charged new film The Beat That My Heart Skipped, is a young Frenchman torn between a life of crime and a career as a concert pianist. It’s hardly your usual dilemma — and hardly the usual French film, come to think of it. A rare…
The Spin Doctors
Ten reasons why the Spin Doctors — one of the 1990s’ definitive bands from the decade’s alternative boom — are unjustly maligned: 1) Unlike fellow two-hit wonder Better Than Ezra, the jammin’ pop hippies contributed nothing to the rise of pop emo. 2) This headline from The Onion, the humorous newspaper that’s fictitious, but essentially…
Various Artists
International stars Anthony B., Luciano, and Mikey General helped spearhead today’s conscious reggae revival, while locals Sparticus, Sunshade, and Willpower are three Cleveland-based Jamaican expats. Good Times Bad Times presents these artists (and six others) side by side, over a single sizzlin’ hot riddim track. Redundant to the uninitiated, the one-rhythm album is distinctive to…
Bad Education
Before there was School of Rock, the 2003 movie in which Jack Black awakened a class of subdued elementary schoolkids with lessons in America’s loudest subject, there was rock school. Students of the Paul Green School of Rock Music in Philadelphia have been worshiping at rock’s altar — and learning how to play the hell…
Of Montreal
Of Montreal, of course, isn’t of Montreal at all. This will probably be a good thing, once the Arcade Fire-driven Montreal-mania reaches its zenith and the backlash begins. For now, the band sounds quite comfy in its Athens, Georgia home, as evidenced by its latest, The Sunlandic Twins. The brainchild of loose Elephant 6 affiliate…
Coffee Clash
Even with all that’s happened, Angela Caruso still savors her daily cup of coffee. Waking early one morning in August, Angela pads into the kitchen of her small Broadview Heights condominium. Still blinking the sleep from her heavy-lidded brown eyes, she brews a pot of dark roast. “Coffee beans from Kenya tend to have a…
Monster in Hiding
Crónicas’ biggest claim to fame ought to be that it was Ecuador’s submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, but what most people tend to notice is that it stars John Leguizamo. Mixed messages ensue: “Oscar submission” makes one think of quality, while John Leguizamo’s name inspires visions of horror — House of Buggin’,…
Breakestra
In the not-so-distant future, when every dusty old soul LP, however obscure, has been mined for every last wah-wah lick and snippet of funky drumming, Breakestra will — hopefully — still be around to combat the sample shortage. A Los Angeles-based band intent on recreating vintage-sounding jams from the ’60s and ’70s, Breakestra is the…
Lederhosed
Back in 1989, when the first President Bush watched the Berlin Wall topple, Germany’s love of America was rivaled only by its passion for David Hasselhoff. By the time George W. Bush visited Berlin 13 years later, protesters blocked his path, denouncing America’s war on terror. Germany, one of our staunchest allies for 50 years,…
On Stage
The Merry Wives of Windsor — There are plenty of folks who wouldn’t want to touch the complicated language of Shakespeare with a 10-meter pole. But now and then, a production of one of his works displays so much spirited action and so many irrepressible sight gags that the words cease to be an obstacle.…
Blitz
Not only is Blitz Northeast Ohio’s most politically charged rhymer; for an up-and-comer, he’s pretty well connected. His forthcoming Double Consciousness LP sparks with appearances by Talib Kweli, M.1 of Dead Prez, Wordsworth, and Jean Grae. And for this show, he’ll provide a preview of fiery tracks such as “Emmet (S)Till” and “Black Market.”
Waiting for Justice
It was early on a November morning when Nancy left Hank’s bar on the East Side. As she headed up 93rd Street, she passed a young man with a fade haircut. He said hi; she said hi back. Suddenly, the man was behind her, holding a knife to her throat. He dragged her behind a…
On View
NEW Markus Pierson: Know Limit — Painter-sculptor-writer Markus Pierson is known for his coyotes — fun-loving, well-dressed, elongated, Joe Camel-like creatures inspired by the Joni Mitchell song “Coyote,” which serve as ongoing allegories for humanity. They inhabit a dark, Tim Burton-like world, riding motorcycles and sipping martinis. Pierson often attaches texts with poetic observations about…
White Lies
The words scream out in huge type, “Love BIG numbers? When it comes to academic achievement, we sure do.” In a series of full-page ads in The Plain Dealer, White Hat Management tries to convince parents to enroll their kids in its Hope Academies and Life Skills Centers. “Our numbers are good because our students…
Safe Mex
Don’t drop by Mateo’s California Mexican Restaurant scouting for tofu burritos and whole-wheat tortillas topped with brown rice and alfalfa sprouts. Despite the Cal-Mex claim in its name, this homey Akron eatery veers only slightly off the path beaten by most other local Mexican restaurants, serving a large assortment of mostly familiar Tex-Mex standards. But…
He Did It
He Did It Krotine’s story doesn’t hang together: I read your article about Krotine [“Now What?” August 17]. I think you did a great job of showing how bizarre his behavior has been since Ramona’s death. I grew up with Ramona — what a great girl. She deserves to have someone stick up for her.…
Wild, Wild West
Sophomore albums are made to be trashed — especially when they follow hugely successful debuts. And there may be no artist in pop-music history who would seem to so richly deserve such a trashing as Kanye West. To call his behavior over the last year “insufferable” fails to do it justice; to list examples of…
Smells Like Team Spirit
Jeff Haynes, one of the directors of Bleeding Orange & Brown: A Cleveland Tradition, wants to be clear: He sympathizes with Browns fans. He’s one of them. Which is why he didn’t feel bad when he set out to poke fun at guys in the Dawg Pound who bare their painted chests in the middle…
Shifting Direction
Mash-ups, the beat-blending hybrids that fuse seemingly incongruous songs, remain resistant to corporate co-opting. Jay-Z and Linkin Park released the stilted collaboration Collision Course last November, the only offspring of MTV’s short-lived Ultimate Mash-Up, but that calculated collection lacked the unwitting-bedfellows novelty of the movement’s best work. A superior Jay-Z-related project, Danger Mouse’s unendorsed Jigga-plus-Beatles…
This Week’s Day-By-Day Picks
Thursday, September 1 The Great Geauga County Fair has every right to thump its chest and insert a great in its title. You would, too, if you’d been around since 1823. In addition to rides, games, and every type of food you can put on a stick, Ohio’s oldest fair features more than 1,500 exhibitors,…
Go Ahead, Tear Us Apart
As CBS recently informed us, “All reality is not created equal.” Apparently, reality involving celebrities is far, far more entertaining; reality that exploits the vast archive of pop music for its schemes is best of all. Numerous TV shows of the latter type have turned up this summer, and though none of them qualifies as…
