Across the Board
Thirteen pro skateboarders roll into Canton today for the coast-to-coast Badass vs. Dumbass Tour. During the five-hour show, boarders like Brandon Beibel, Mike Carroll, and Rick Howard will bust some wicked kickflips and ollies, skate alongside fans, and sign autographs. “All the kids have been calling us every day for three months to ask about…
Fiona Apple
We’ve had the opportunity to watch Fiona Apple grow up before our eyes. She was just a teen in ’96 when she released her platinum debut, Tidal, and was still precocious enough to release a follow-up with an unwieldy 90-word title three years later. Last year’s Extraordinary Machine isn’t so much a departure from When…
Who Killed Marilyn?
Scene readers voted Cleveland’s Who Killed Marilyn? new band of the year. In light of the group’s full-length debut, the train wreck of a band would do well to have its street team and fans write the next record. Singer Chris Marinin gave Escape the Scene a fatal final mix. The slapdash post-punk doesn’t stand…
Loose Cannon
Paul Schweikert popped the disc into his computer, not sure what to expect. He looked again at the unsigned letter that had arrived with it in the mail. “I have always supported you and your police, but this guy you have working for you is sick,” it read. “If I got this off the internet…
The Big Picture
Playhouse Square kicks off its summertime Cinema at the Square series tonight with a screening of Sabrina, the 1954 romantic comedy starring Audrey Hepburn. Through the end of the month, 11 classic movies (plus shorts and cartoons) unspool on the ginormous Palace Theatre screen, which is the largest non-IMAX one in the state. Highlights over…
Gorilla Biscuits
It’s been a while since we’ve seen a sea of Converse All Stars and jersey shirts converge at Peabody’s with feet-in-the-air mosh pits, but expect nothing less when the seminal straight-edge “kids” of Gorilla Biscuits walk onstage. Two decades ago, Start Today lit a fire under the hardcore scene and bands are still trying to…
Smoke and Fire
Saying this spot looked dull would be putting it mildly. “Dead” or “deserted” was more like it, as a girlfriend and I surveyed the empty sidewalk in front of Strongsville’s Brew Kettle Taproom & Smokehouse. “You were kidding when you said you heard this place was good, right?” she asked. But I never had the…
Slippery When Wet
Sometimes it takes a natural disaster like the flooding in Lake County to bring out the best in people. Unfortunately, it also tends to bring out people like Larry Bede. Bede, who manages Perry Auto Center, decided to lend his tow trucks to help stranded motorists after raging flood waters overtook much of the county.…
All the Rage
The opening scene of the Spanish domestic-abuse drama Take My Eyes lets you know that you’re in for one hell of an emotional ride. Battered wife Pilar leaves the apartment she shares with her perpetually angry husband Antonio in the middle of the night, their young son in tow. She moves in with her sister…
Rollins Band
Henry Rollins has changed. The guy who wrote a book titled Solipsist and whose favorite lyric was “I” has gotten political, blasting the Bush administration regularly on spoken-word tours. He’s done several USO tours too, visiting combat zones and stateside hospital wards. “I don’t know if [Condoleeza Rice] visits those kids at the hospitals, but…
Cold Comforts
It’s not the heat, it’s the slaving over a hot stove that hurts during August’s dog days. Yet our wallet is too thin to head for some ritzy salon each time the mercury climbs. The solution? A short trip to a casual joint where we can chill out, chow down, and then head home with…
Up In Smoke
Larry Buck’s elderly mom and dad answered the door to find two cops standing on their front step. “Is Larry here?” asked Lake County Narcotics Lieutenant Ed Ebert. Their house was as likely a place to find Buck as any. A local carpet-cleaner who also served on the Madison Village City Council, Larry lived next…
Nature of the Feast
The totally awesome Feast of the Assumption celebrates its 108th anniversary in Little Italy this week. The summertime fave (which starts today) features casino games, live music, and tons of tasty Italian food — from ravioli and cavatelli to cannoli and tiramisu. Plus, there’s plenty of Holy Rosary’s famous fried dough! Aug. 12-15, 12-11:30 p.m.;…
Toby Keith
September 11 turned Toby Keith from harmless Nashville beefcake into an ill-tempered redneck promising tailgate justice. That transformation also made Keith one of mainstream country’s biggest stars — note the title of his latest disc, White Trash With Money. The success seems to have cooled his more hotheaded inclinations: In the only politically minded tune…
One Day in September
World Trade Center is about the attacks on, and the collapse of, the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. But 45 minutes in, a viewer might easily forget that the movie is set during that nightmarish day. There is little talk of terrorism and scant suggestion that a mighty nation suddenly felt vulnerable and besieged.…
Odd Man Out
Killer was nobody’s pal: I was in the National Guard with that guy [“Gone in 50 Seconds,” August 2]. What a freaking weirdo he was. We’d be all playing Xbox, and he’d come into the room and just stand there, not talking. Always so concerned with his hair, which he put about a bottle of…
Ship Shape
Singing on cruise ships for 13 years would make anyone pine for home. Go ahead and ask Gerry Keating at his weekly gig at the Waterbury Coach House tonight. While he can regale you with tales of sailing from Singapore to South America, the 55-year-old jazzman is quite happy to be back on land. “When…
Chris Scruggs
Crack open a can of Chris Scruggs rockabilly brew, and you’re liable to get knocked on your ass. As the grandson of fabled banjo picker Earl Scruggs, son of country queen Gail Davies, and one-time frontman for Tennessee twang-rockers BR549, Scruggs has refined his recipe of honky-tonk boogie blues, using both fire and sweet water.…
Baby Steps
Snort a few lines of Fame, screen Save the Last Dance a couple of times, and channel what you’ve learned through the badass pose of a second-rate Eminem, and you get Step Up, a dance romance with the originality of a paint-by-numbers set. First-time director Anne “Mama” Fletcher, the choreographer who gave Catwoman her slink…
Lessons in Fighting
Never underestimate the cunning of people fueled by nicotine. Just as the nonprofit SmokeFreeOhio submitted 185,000 signatures to the Secretary of State in order to get a statewide smoking ban on the November ballot, a competing nonprofit, Smoke Less Ohio, filed a complaint with Franklin County Court, accusing its competitor of election fraud. While SmokeFreeOhio…
La Vida Loca
Gotta dance: It’s Latino Heritage Day! Don’t expect to sit still for long at today’s Latino Heritage Day celebration at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The raucous rhythms and sizzling salsa are sure to have you on your feet and moving in no time. At the center of the fiesta is a dance…
Grateful to Be Alive
When jam-band fave Widespread Panic went to the Bahamas last year to record its new CD, Earth to America, the trip had absolutely nothing to do with the climate, says singer-guitarist John Bell. The real draw was in Nassau: the Compass Point Studios of producer Terry Manning, who’s worked with Led Zeppelin, Al Green, and…
Tom Waits
Stateside gigs from Tom Waits are only slightly less rare than total solar eclipses: In the past 19 years, he’s played as many shows. The anticipation is so great that when he appeared at a recent show in North Carolina, the crowd erupted enthusiastically. As he launched into the syncopated cacophony of “Singapore,” few in…
Hallelujah Man
If you can’t think of a crisis in your life that’s tied to a Leonard Cohen song, then Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man, Canadian director Lian Lunson’s velvety, exuberantly hagiographic film of a 2005 Sydney tribute concert to the Prince of Pain, may not be the movie for you. If you can, the experience will…
Sam Tackles Immigration
Headline: Father seeks time to say good-bye Date: August, 8, 2006 Topic: Whenever Sam wants to get deep with the human condition, he busts out his “Serious Sam” headshot — the stern, unsmiling look that says, “I’m about to lay down some rent-raising poetry on the tragedy that is the human animal.” In this case,…
Original Twangsters
The list of alt-country pioneers is a long one. It stretches from Dylan-loving ’60s folk-rockers the Byrds to mega-selling ’70s hedonists the Eagles and beyond. Tonight’s concert at Cain Park includes four acts that belong in that class: Poco, Pure Prairie League, Chris Hillman, and New Riders of the Purple Sage. Their family trees include…
Rainer Maria
Rainer Maria surfed in on the first wave of emo in ’95, alongside its Wisconsin peers, the Promise Ring, and now the band is one of the last pioneers still standing. The trio’s members distinguished themselves from their peers by being one of the few groups to use dueling boy/girl vocals, and their first four…
One-Way View
On a strictly experiential level, Deborah Scranton’s The War Tapes is remarkable, tactile, and eye-opening; as a piece of sociopolitical culture, with context and ramifications of its own, it’s a worthless ration of war propaganda — ethnocentric, redneck, and enabling. A journalist given clearance for embedment with the New Hampshire National Guard, Scranton instead handed…
Back in the Saddle
Forty years after guitar rock got really loud and 20 years after mullets freely roamed the landscape, Cleveland is still a classic-rock town, and the James Gang might be Northeast Ohio’s greatest contribution to the music that defines it. School chums Jim Fox and Ronnie Silverman formed the band (originally a quintet) in 1966, but…
Drum Solo
It’s not often that a drummer releases a solo album. Sure, Don Henley and Phil Collins have had several chart-topping records by themselves, but they also led their respective bands. Most drummers (like bass players) are there to shut up and lay down the backbeat. On his self-titled debut solo CD, Jayhawks drummer Tim O’Reagan…
Nitty Gritty Fourth Anniversary
Ohio has long lamented the brain drain; is the next cultural crisis a funk drain? Columbus DJ Titonton Duvanté — Titonton for short — is about to leave for the slightly larger dance scene of New York City, but he’ll stop in Cleveland for his final Ohio appearance before succumbing to Brooklyn’s call. As a…
Partial Comb-Over
Back in 1968, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and other draft-age chicken hawks were learning the ineffable pleasures of ducking the battlefield, while other young folk went off to war. Now, in complete control of the government and with their very own quagmire to feed, our swaggering leaders are more or less free to pursue…
Girls of Summer
The Warped Tour, like its summer-festival counterparts Ozzfest and Sounds of the Underground, has long been predominantly the musical playground of male fans. In recent years, however, the music/extreme-sports extravaganza has attracted increasing numbers of female fans. Today at the festival grounds, spectators will notice almost equal numbers of male and female attendees, the latter…
Flame Off!
Today’s Great Lakes Burning River Fest has an ecological message at its center, but you’re liable to miss it amid all the food, beer, and music. “Many of the songs carry an environmental message,” says organizer Rebecca Bendlak. Carlos Jones, the Whiskey Island Ramblers, and Joe Rohan are among the performers who pay tribute to…
Gilbert Gottfried
Granted, Gilbert Gottfried comes off as a bit obnoxious when he stops by the Howard Stern show. And even as the voice of the parrot in Aladdin. But he’s very subdued when he performs his stand-up act. Sometimes. OK, never. But he’s frickin’ funny. Assuming you can handle the whole obnoxious thing. And for goodness…
Capsule reviews of current area theater presentations.
Ain¹t We Got Fun! — Writer-director Michael McFaden has come up with a fetching idea, weaving a storyline around vintage, gay-themed songs from pre- and post-Depression-era America. But what should be a sprightly romp instead shudders to an exhausted halt a full two and a half hours after the opening number. The central plot involves…
Buzz Bin
The menu at today’s BugFest features food you won’t find at any other summertime bash. Chef Gene White’s specialties include mealworm cake and bug salsa. Don’t worry about icky bacteria, though. “We learn how to properly prepare them,” says Cleveland Metroparks spokesman Bob Rotatori. If creepy-crawly cuisine makes your stomach turn, there are plenty of…
Adult Music
Bill Gruber wants you to lend him your ears. The programming and music director at WAPS-FM 91.3 “the Summit” in Akron is a self-professed “lyrics person,” interested in intellectual music and musicians who can write. Those preferences drive the station’s adult-alternative musical philosophy. “We’re a part of [that] genre of radio formats which aren’t getting…
Rick Ross
With his shades, grizzly-bear flow, and 300-pound girth, Miami MC Rick Ross has become one of the most imposing figures in the hip-hop industry — and that’s before his first major-label release even hit the streets. If you thought 50 Cent was brash as a rookie, this coke-dealer-turned-MC has set the new gold standard, bullying…
Loose Offspring
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Leo Tolstoy kicked off Anna Karenina with those telling words more than a century ago. Ironically, however, it can also be observed that unsuccessful plays about unhappy families are all alike: They tend to exaggerate the tragic quirkiness of each character,…
Wild Card
Most of the illusions of Rick Smith Jr. are standard Magic 101 fare: pulling cards out of his mouth, plucking coins from spectators’ ears, and turning slips of paper into $100 bills. But the Lyndhurst magician’s most awe-inspiring stunt is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records: In March 2002, Smith threw a playing…
Quantity, Not Quality
There’ll be a new Ryan Adams record out shortly — there always is. When it drops, we’ll endure the same fawning declamations about Adams’ amazingly prolific output — as if this were incontrovertible proof of his genius. It’s not entirely his fault. If you surround yourself with sycophants, you start to believe their bullshit. “In…
Comets on Fire
In 2004, the California quintet Comets on Fire released Blue Cathedral, its third and best album to date and the first featuring Six Organs of Admittance frontman Ben Chasny. It was a psychedelic swarm of ideas, a topography of high notions sketching a DayGlo time trip through sheets of spiraling guitar, washes of electronics and…
Capsule reviews of current area art exhibitions.
NEW Brick by Brick — To the pudgy, pointy-nosed subjects of the magnificent paintings by Cuban-born Clevelander Augusto Bordelois, appearance means everything. Like many Americans, they’re either wracked with insecurity or oblivious to their faults. Bordelois imagines them in outrageously ornate clothing that either masks or flaunts their deficiencies, thereby transforming them into universal and…
Electric Boogaloo
The dance floor at Mercury Lounge thumps tonight with DJ Robb Mengay’s Top 40, indie-rock, and import techno mixes. “Rock music has evolved into an electronic sound that’s happening for a moment right now,” says Mengay, who singles out DJs MSTRKRFT, Justice, and Simian for pioneering the latest “cool new sound.” For eight years, the…
Hammer Drops on Fans
Two weeks ago, Akron was the epicenter of a wormhole that sucked patrons of the Lime Spider into the past — and a head-on collision with Hammer Damage. During two nights of reunion concerts (for the second year of what is intended as an annual tradition), the Akron five-piece went back 25 years using its…
Slayer
Christ Illusion improves mightily on its predecessor, 2001’s clunky God Hates Us All, the low point of a 24-year run. The band’s ninth studio album is comparable to Seasons in the Abyss, but its relentless frenzy lacks the subtleties that made Reign in Blood and Seasons in the Abyss high-water marks. Even with the return…
Ant Wussy
In 2004, Jason Hall, the head of Warner Bros.’ new videogame division, did something remarkable: He promised to end bad movie tie-ins. By then, gamers had become well acquainted with the suckiness of movie-based games. Ever since Atari’s E.T. — a game so bad, tons of unsold copies were buried in the desert — publishers…
Life’s a Beach
Today’s Mid-Summer Beach Party features just about everything you’d expect from a shindig inspired by a Frankie and Annette movie. Diversions include a balloon stomp, a limbo challenge, and a “shake-n-bake” competition, in which contestants cover themselves with as much sand as possible. Plus, a KISS-FM DJ broadcasts live for the first three hours. Fri.,…
Desert Isle Discs
Beaten Awake singer-guitarist Ryan Brannon picks his five favorite albums. 1. Sebadoh, III “I’ve bought this record maybe five times on different formats. I still love it.” 2. Unwound, Repetition “Really any — or every — Unwound record would do. Never wrote a bad song or recorded a bad album.” 3. Led Zepplin, Coda “If…
The Sadies
The Sadies are known as much for their choice of tourmates as for their blend of traditional country, rockabilly, and ’60s California rock. For In Concert, Volume One, the band members invited their many musical friends to join them for two nights at Lee’s Palace in Toronto. The result is a two-disc, 41-track set that…
Whodunnit High
Brick (Universal) Rian Johnson’s feature debut as writer-director will wind up as one of the year’s best films. A film noir set in a modern-day high school, it’s Sam Spade roaming Ridgemont High; kids get doped up and knocked up and even rubbed out while speaking pulp-novel slang, but the gimmick never distracts. No doubt…
The Brave and the Bald
Chris Hegedus sums up his comedy act as 70 percent truth and 30 percent exaggeration. “I’m just sarcastic, whiny, cocky, and self-conscious, all at the same time,” says the 28-year-old Hegedus. “If you see me in a bar, that’s how I am. If you see me at home, that’s how I am.” Until last year,…
Punk Pariah
MxPx has never really fit in. Though its energetic pop-punk draws on the same influences as many of its West Coast brethren, it has always seemed between crowds. Neither as successful as Blink-182 nor as credible as Bad Religion, MxPx has been a victim of prejudice in a scene that supposedly prides itself on open-mindedness.…
Live in New York City
Even if you love the Wu-Tang Clan, it’s disappointing that the quality control varies so widely among the solo projects of its members — and live hip-hop recordings are often the last refuge of corner-cutting scoundrels anyway. So the first pleasant surprise about Ghostface’s new DVD is that it’s a professional affair. Shot with multiple…
Our top DVD picks for the week of August 8.
Adam and Steve (TLA) Back Woods (Terror Vision) Beautiful People: The Complete Series (Sony) Clone (Image) Damon Wayans’ Last Stand (Fox) Frat Boy Collection (Fox) Gilles’ Wife (Koch Lorber) Ghost in a Teeny Bikini (Image) Grounded for Life: Season 3 (Anchor Bay) The Hidden Blade (Tartan) Inside Man (Universal) Jayne Mansfield Collection (Fox) Laguna Beach:…
In With Flynt
The grand opening of the new Hustler Club is August 17, and local exhibitionists are invited to take their clothes off at an audition for Hustler Honeys. But candidates are advised to check their attitudes at the door, says spokesman Steve Karel. “The Honeys are not aloof or standoffish.” Founded by naked-lady enthusiast and Hustler…
Warped Cleveland
The Warped Tour arrived just in time to rescue Madison East from indefinite hiatus. Once a steady presence around Cleveland, the Wickliffe emo sextet hadn’t played live since spring. Days after the band submitted songs for Ernie Ball’s annual Battle of the Bands contest, half the group quit. When they discovered they’d won one of…
Jason Farnham
At his best (e.g., “The Magician’s Life”) Canton’s Jason Farnham plays the kind of gorgeous pop that explodes onto radio fully formed. His discography includes a New Age instrumental piano CD, and even in rock mode, he’s a keyboard guy. “Morning Coffee,” like all the songs, bubbles over an unplugged foundation, with enough electronic flourishes…
The week’s best releases from the pop-culture universe.
CD — Mistake Mistake Mistake Mistake: This solo album by the Postal Service’s Jimmy Tamborello is credited to James Figurine, but anyone familiar with the work of his other band will instantly recognize the surprisingly warm and melodic blips and beeps. Pals like Jenny Lewis and the Kings of Convenience’s Erlend Oye drop by to…
The Eyes Have It
We’ve met plenty of sighted people who can’t keep their thumbs out of the frame, so we were pleasantly surprised by the quality of photos on display at Shooting Blind: Photographs by the Visually Impaired. Many of the photographers are just partially blind, which gives the photos a strikingly dreamlike character. Wednesdays-Saturdays, 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m.;…
Strhess Tour
Visual artists don’t usually get rock tours named after them. But Derek Hess has delivered unique and instantly recognizable cover art for so many metal and hardcore bands over the past few years that calling in favors to build a killer lineup is a snap. Shadows Fall has just broken into the so-called big time,…
20goto10
It’s been more than a year since Northeast Ohio heard from Racermason, so the organic-electronic sensation can be declared legally dead. Jonesin’ fans can get their fix from 20goto10. This Akron quartet uses analog synths to spin sensual full-band electronica. With two more gigs a month, it could spark an industrial revival. Despite its gothic…
Revenge of the Brokenhearted
Tammy Hampshire has been divorced for six years. In that time, the Avon Lake resident has busied herself raising two children and running a successful business. But now that her kids are grown and out of the house, she has only her dog for company. So in January, Hampshire — who asked to be identified…
