Broken and Battered
Fair warning: Enough time has passed that it’s OK to discuss the ending of writer-director M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable. Those who have not yet seen the film and intend to might want to keep on moving. Or perhaps not: To reveal the ending, all 180 or so seconds of it, is not to spoil the…
Ripsquad
While Ripsquad rappers Speed (Robert Hill) and Furious (Jayson Floyd) have been working together for six years, they have released only one single prior to this, their full-length debut. But that single, 1998’s “Ice Water/Ultimate Dialect,” established the duo as one of Cleveland’s best-kept hip-hop secrets. Not concerned with rapping about jewelry and cars, Ripsquad…
A Wish Bone to Pick
Going to bat for a bruised club owner: This is in regard to a letter written by Tessa Mayse, a self-proclaimed “club junkie” [“Barbu’s C**l,” December 7]. Tony DellaVella is a stand-up owner who operates Wish. I believe many people have been treated with appreciation and respect at the club. They have been operating successfully…
Bible Belting
Toe-tapping and soul-stirring have gone hand in hand since long before David appointed the Levites to play instruments in deference to God. This weekend, Ohio Music Revival 2000 aims to rekindle what the revival’s founder, Kimberly Tyus, considers correct worship through song. “When we look at biblical history, any time music is being played, it…
The Shooting Gallery
Pioneers of Landscape Photography, now on view at the Cleveland Museum of Art, opens the museum’s new first-floor space devoted to the permanent photography collection. It’s an auspicious debut. The artworks here are both historically important and artistically compelling. While these 19 artists struggled with the technical problems posed by a new medium, they persevered…
Icing Wounds
“The word ‘damn-near-in-shambles’ is an inaccurate statement. It was in shambles.” That’s Hank Kassigkeit on the phone, talking about his recent purchase of what may have been Cleveland’s worst-run business. Two months ago, the unknown tycoon, who specializes in buying “distressed companies,” took the reins of the Cleveland Lumberjacks. The acquisition should have come with…
If You’re So Famous…
I should have known I was in trouble when my 15 minutes of fame began on the toilet. It was 4:30 on a Saturday afternoon, and I had spent the day with my three kids and the car radio tuned to Radio Disney. It was not the best way to keep up on current events.…
Mel Sells Out
What Women Want could be the first movie to win a Clio Award for Advertisement of the Year. No fewer than two dozen products receive prominent placement in the film, from Federal Express to Foster’s Lager to Cutty Sark to L’eggs pantyhose to U.S. Airways. After a while, you begin to wonder if Paramount Pictures…
Christmas Jiving
Those who are hard to please claim that Sam, the Talking Yuletide Bass with his Christmas wiggle (batteries not included), doesn’t ring their holiday bell. Others, who depend on sugarplum fairies to get into the holiday spirit, are drowning their sorrows in spiked eggnog, because The Nutcracker has departed for a warmer climate. Yet the…
Llama-Vision
It takes nothing away from The Emperor’s New Groove, Disney’s delightful new animated feature, to say that watching the producers pitch the film to a bunch of stony faced executives might have been even more entertaining than watching the film. Reportedly, the story was originally a variation on The Prince and the Pauper, with a…
Urban Eclectic
Dim and stylish Treva takes up prime corner real estate in the heart of downtown Akron, just a short throw from Canal Park and in the midst of a small but burgeoning crop of clubs and bars. Through its floor-to-ceiling windows, you can drink in a newly glistening urban landscape, edged in neon and tweaked…
Private Defective
Murphy and Pryor. Skywalker and Kenobi. Amos and Zeppelin. Regardless of the creative universe, the maverick apprentice tends to stride off into territory beyond the edges of the master’s map. So it is with Alan Rudolph, whose career blossomed after serving as assistant director to Robert Altman on Nashville in 1975 and sharing writing credit…
A Warehouse of Talent
The menu at Sushi Rock (1276 West Sixth Street, 216-623-1212), the modish restaurant and sushi bar that opened in the Warehouse District less than a year ago, is getting a complete overhaul. Out is the busy fusion-style fare designed by former Exec Chef Gregg Korney. In is a comforting collection of contemporary Mediterranean dishes developed…
The Average Inmate
The Lake Erie Correctional Facility is a campus of gray, one-story buildings in Conneaut. Shimmering rings of barbed wire surround what might be mistaken for a tidy corporate farm operation. A Christmas tree and purple paint warm the prison’s reception area. Visitors wait for incarcerated loved ones in a sunlit room with vending machines and…
Soundbites
Sitting at the Phoenix Coffeehouse on Detroit Avenue in Lakewood with an early afternoon cup of coffee, Drumplay’s James Onysko gets recognized by just about everyone who walks by. “This is Drumplay Central,” he says proudly, nodding when one patron tells him “Drumplay rocks” in passing. “This is my coffee shop. You get a great…
White’s Unlikely Win
Brook Park Mayor Tom Coyne stood outside the judge’s office, hands in his pockets. “I’m waiting to have a baby,” he said, admitting his nervousness with a charming Irish smile. A court worker handed him the judge’s decision. As TV camera lights shined on his face, Coyne turned to the last page. At first, he…
Back With a Bullet
Corrosion of Conformity singer-guitarist Pepper Keenan takes a compliment on the band’s latest effort, America’s Volume Dealer, and then admits the group hasn’t got much in the way of competition these days. “Well,” he says mildly yet defiantly, “Nobody else is rockin’.” Founded in 1982 in Raleigh, North Carolina, by guitarist Woody Weatherman, drummer Reed…
Over the Rhine
Named for one of Cincinnati’s poorest and most historic Germanic neighborhoods, Over the Rhine is one of the more distinctive bands to rise from the Queen City scene. Comparisons to the Innocence Mission, Cowboy Junkies, and 10,000 Maniacs are understandable but not always accurate, and the fact that the band was heard by Bob Dylan…
Johnny Dowd
A middle-aged furniture mover who has claimed the fringe-blues as his means for exorcising murderous demons, singer-guitarist Johnny Dowd has come in to rock and roll late in life. Maybe, as it sometimes sounds, he’s read too much Jim Thompson or Raymond Chandler. It’s more likely that he’s just a man using the medium that…
Medeski, Martin & Wood
A decade passes and the latter-day, jazz-goes-to-college experiment that is Medeski, Martin & Wood rolls on. When the three musicians met back in New York in 1992, they committed themselves to the idea that, if they played music that might appeal to people like their friends and then took that music to those people, they…
Mustard Plug
Grand Rapids flyboys Mustard Plug survived the great late-’90s commercial ska explosion, and all they got was a lousy touring van and a small but devoted following. Frantic guitar upstrokes, ’50s crooner sensibilities, a dash of punk vitriol, and a reggae-influenced rhythm section remain intact, and the music has retained a certain purity. No pop-punk…
‘Brook Shields
On October 26, two Ohio Liquor Enforcement agents, posing as husband and wife, arrived for a clambake at the Hillbrook Club. They submitted their tickets — $60 each — and ordered cabernet. A barmaid poured the wine. At 8:06 p.m. they left, with a sample of the wine. They returned with a search warrant and…
Plastilina Mosh; Titan
If rock and roll were a movie, Plastilina Mosh and Titan would make a perfect double bill. Both bands are Mexican, multilingual, kinda goofy, and totally infectious. If Mosh’s cleverly cool exercise in amphetamine lounge uses disco beats to sand down its grungier impulses, Titan’s more overtly frenetic CD suggests it’s not yet ready to…
Delicate Flowers
Fish are never happy. “The old folks are always eating their own kids or else trying to keep other fishes from doing it,” wrote William G. O’Brien, a chemist from Akron who loved the gilled world. That was 1920. Such insight into the emotional well-being of a guppy raises the question: Did O’Brien have too…
Alice in Chains
Alice in Chains emerged from Seattle in the late ’80s and has since melded its own brand of screeching hard rock into a blend of mournful dirges and grinding alternative riffs. The group’s second live disc, aptly named Live, represents a departure from the soulful, melancholy ballads found on its MTV Unplugged album. Instead, the…
The Edge
Pagers long ago replaced dogs as a drug dealer’s best friend. That doesn’t mean it’s wise to bring one’s best friend to court. Take the case of the woman who recently faced Judge Kenneth Callahan to account for her most recent sins — riding in a stolen car and possession of an unregistered gun. Callahan…
Rage Against the Machine
Coming from the mouth of Zack de la Rocha, even a song as sardonically sly as Devo’s “Beautiful World” sounds like a subversive call-to-arms. The smirking irony of Devo’s robotic homage to domestic tranquility becomes, in the hands of de la Rocha and his Rage Against the Machine bandmates, a seemingly unassuming ballad, with equal…
