Business Is Booing
While the Browns’ on-field product may violate certain consumer-protection statutes, the off-field product continues to fly off shelves. The NFL reports that, from April through November, Browns merchandise sales on nflshop.com were up 67 percent from the previous season — an increase that ranks in the top five among NFL teams. This, of course, begs…
Killing With Kindness
The name War Games and Other Entertainments may evoke the images seen on television news, where depictions of world events seem to share the video-game ethos of conquer and destroy. But the title actually refers to the current exhibition at the Dead Horse Gallery in Lakewood. Highlighting the work of printmaker Mary Owen Rosenthal, along…
John Mayall
If the spirit of this set is any indicator, John Mayall may be headed for a career in the Robert Lockwood Jr. longevity range. A celebration of Mayall’s 70th birthday with his Bluesbreakers, as well as a couple of famous former members (Eric Clapton and Mick Taylor), a British “trad” jazz legend (trombonist Chris Barber),…
This Week’s Day-By-Day Picks
Thursday, December 25 Assuming you want to get away from family, and assuming you’ve already seen the monumental and magnificent The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, there’s another great movie opening today. Cold Mountain, English Patient director Anthony Minghella’s take on Charles Frazier’s best-selling novel, stars Nicole Kidman as a gal…
The Fixe is In
The hardest part of dining at downtown’s One Walnut is deciding among the luxurious options on the new prix fixe (fixed price) menu. Will it be the lobster nachos, say, or the roasted foie gras mousse? The caramelized sea scallops, or the popcorn-crusted black grouper? The artisanal cheese plate, or the pumpkin crème brûlée? Not…
Jaylib
Teaming up rappers with other rappers is a fairly common thing, but producers collaborating with other producers doesn’t happen every day. J-Dilla (Slum Village, A Tribe Called Quest, Common) and Madlib (Quasimoto, Yesterday’s New Quintet, Dudley Perkins) have two distinctly different approaches, but their new collaboration could be just the pimp-slap hip-hop needs to get…
Meet the Geek
As a kid, Brian K. Vaughan would hop on his bike and pedal 10 miles to the comic-book store every Wednesday afternoon to pore over the latest issues of Hellblazer and Swamp Thing. Good thing he did. Those days in the shop’s aisles planted a seed in the mind of the self-proclaimed nerd: He eventually…
Rhythm and Bruise
“Noooooooo!!!!” Dirtbombs frontman Mick Collins hasn’t even heard the whole question, but he’s heard enough: the words “Detroit,” “garage rock,” and “scene” in close enough proximity to each other to trigger this scream. “God, noooooooo!!!” Except, out of the mouth of the Dirtbombs’ big-voiced, barrel-chested singer, it’s more like a cross between a primal moan…
Various Artists
Getting electronica producers to remix film scores seems as good an idea as asking them to airbrush abstract paintings. And when you mess with a guy like Italian composer Ennio Morricone, whose many achievements include inventing the spaghetti-Western soundtrack style, you’re almost bound to come up with nothing really good, much bad, and some ugly.…
Garage Opener
Steven Van Zandt feels your pain. He, too, longs for three chords hammered out on electric guitars, drums that sound like trash cans, and singers who slur every other word. Van Zandt wants rock and roll back on the radio, but he knows it ain’t gonna happen. He knows the Britneys and the 50 Cents…
Sting’s Nose Hair
Sting’s nose hair. Like a shining beacon in the night, like a hypnotic siren song lulling you into sweet submission, like the amber waves of grain that line this country’s glorious heartland, Sting’s nose hair reaches out to you, pulls you in, envelops you. “Welcome home,” the tufts whisper. “Submit yourself to the soul-destroying tyranny…
Kassaba
Kassaba is an improvisational group that straddles jazz and world-beat styles in complex compositions featuring instrumental gymnastics. There’s no doubt they’re smart and ambitious; whether they connect emotionally is another question. On Zones, Greg Slawson and Candice Lee play piano, Eric Hosemann mans the bass, and Mark Boich handles saxophone. Percussion is credited to “Kassaba,”…
Raging Bill
12/29-1/4 Ask Bill Burr about comedy, and he’ll steer the conversation to sports. Not that the New York-based comic doesn’t want to talk shop; he’s simply too wrapped up in football, basketball, and baseball to relate on many other levels. He’s been to the Jake and the Gund, but he has yet to take in…
Kemistry Lessons
Nearly everything about Motown crooner Kem is smooth, from his airy soul balladry to his glistening dome. Articulate, thoughtful, and not given to street slang, he clearly is a guy who comes from the right side of the tracks. So how did he wind up sleeping on the streets of his native Detroit, homeless and…
The Balomai Brothers
Brook Park’s Balomai Brothers play the kind of music that tempts the casual listener to dismiss it as the result of waaay too many drugs, but it’s far too tight — they’re more likely just weirdo savants. Millions of Women Can’t Be Wrong! is a hyperactive lounge act presented by Spike LeMay and Szars Painis,…
Team Spirit
SAT 12/27 Ohio’s two delegates to the 10th annual Rock-N-Roll Shootout are aiming for a Buckeye blowout, but their out-of-state opponents have other agendas. Here’s a preview of the basketball doubleheader, happening Saturday at Gund Arena: Kent State Golden Flashes vs. St. Bonaventure Bonnies — As the defending MAC East champs, the Flashes are on…
Rookie Roundup ’04
If we could grip a Louisville Slugger the way we grip a Budweiser, we’d be the Tribe’s next third baseman. Last year at this time, we went three for four in our annual “bands to watch” roundup. Among the highlighted artists were popsters Kiddo and the brusque indie-rock combo Roué, both of which went on…
Court Jesters
SAT 12/27 When the Harlem Globetrotters square off against the New York Nationals Saturday at Gund Arena, the ambassadors of basketball will bring their A-game — as in all-new. “When you come to a Harlem Globetrotters game, you want to see the best,” says Eathan O’Bryant, a ‘Trotters guard for the last nine seasons. “You…
Molten Tracks
Warrant famously isn’t what it used to be, but the band’s guitarist will enter 2004 with plenty of momentum. Veteran area rocker Billy Morris has opened Lava Room Recording Studios (at 1305 West 80th Street; 216-334-1172), a tastefully lavish studio that’s dotted with lava lamps, natch. “What makes us different from every other studio in…
Free at Last
12/26-12/31 The Free Holiday Film Series is a primo way to pass time between Christmas and New Year’s. It pays tribute to five directors and actors who stopped passing time in 2003. Movies start at 1:30 p.m. at the Museum of Art, 11150 East Boulevard. The lineup: Olympia, Part I: Festival of the Nations (Friday)…
I-Tal
The ’80s were an exciting time to be a reggae fan in Cleveland. Not only did we boast a number of internationally recognized touring bands; they, in turn, were well supported by a dedicated following. You could have asked anyone in town about reggae, and they’d be as quick to mention I-Tal as Bob Marley.…
Anne E. Get Your Guitar
SAT 12/27 Even with her busy music schedule — she’s recording a new CD and performing gigs from New York to Chicago — folk-rocker Anne E. DeChant finds time to host Round at the Winchester, a weekly songwriters’ showcase in Lakewood. It’s attracted the likes of R.E.M. cohort Don Dixon and Rosavelt’s Chris Allen, who…
Sponge
Beanpole frontman Vinnie Dombrowski flaunted a vaguely southern drawl, and his band knew how to crunch out a rock radio chorus like the savviest bar & grill veterans. Yet we don’t generally include Sponge in the grody rogue’s gallery of post-Vedder, late-’90s grunge puke, à la Collective Soul or Candlebox. On the driving “Plowed,” the…
House of Pain
For those who pay no mind to Oprah, the dispute at the heart of House of Sand and Fog concerns the occupancy of a rundown little bungalow just inland from the northern California coast. It’s not much of a place, really. And to get a glimpse of the Pacific, you’d have to climb up to…
Abdullah
When Abdullah added Keelhaul growler/ bassist Aaron Dallison and Boulder frontman Jaime Walters to its lineup — after recruiting crack bassist Ed Stephens last year — it became more than a local metal supergroup: It became a functioning band for the first time. Originally launched as a two-piece, Abdullah is beginning to reap the benefits…
Forget It
Seems a little early for a remake of Minority Report, but when your movie’s all about seeing and forgetting the future, who’s gonna remember Paycheck anyway? Like Steven Spielberg’s film of long-ago 2002, in which Tom Cruise sees the future and goes on the run to change it, John Woo’s latest Hollywood offering, in which…
Michelle Shocked, at the Kucinich for President fund-raiser
The Arkansas Traveler is coming to help the New Hampshire traveler. Dennis Kucinich is likely to be crisscrossing the Granite State, searching for a big upset in the upcoming primary, when Michelle Shocked comes to Kucinich’s home city to scare up some financial support for her favorite populist candidate. Shocked will be at the Beachland…
A Towering Achievement
Anthony Minghella’s magnificent film version of the Civil War epic Cold Mountain has much more going for it than Hollywood grandeur. Beyond its striking set pieces and gruesome battle scenes populated with thousands of extras, in addition to its movie-star glamour — Jude Law and Nicole Kidman are like beautiful pieces of china about to…
Brandtson
Timing is crucial to musical success. Just ask Jimmy Eat World, who unceremoniously parted ways with Capitol Records at the turn of the century, when the sweet-nothing platitudes of Backstreet Boys made little girls’ hearts pound, only to find platinum riches with DreamWorks just a few short years later, once those same tweens had their…
Heavy, Man
It has become a subject of much discussion and debate among film fetishists this year: For which movie will Sean Penn win the Academy Award, Mystic River or 21 Grams? Perhaps this seems like so much jockeying for blurbs on a movie poster or newspaper advertisement — Sean Penn’s up a River . . .…
Marilyn Manson
Having years ago exhausted his ability to shock, Marilyn Manson must now search for new ways to terrify the masses. This dilemma — brilliantly parodied by The Onion, which sent Manson door-to-door, trying to frighten unimpressed suburbanites — has already depleted Manson’s minor contributions to music’s cutting edge. In fact, the Antichrist Superstar’s most interesting…
Un-Easy Riders
In the post-Easy Rider days of 1978, you’d have thought that anyone with an Italian leather jacket and a bike could score with the ladies. You’d have been wrong. Rodney Davenport and Milton Finley — aka PD, short for “Pimp or Die” — were fixtures on the burgeoning biker scene with their Kawasaki 650s. The…
Petering Out
“All children, except one, grow up . . .” So begins J. M. Barrie’s classic children’s tale about the boy who defiantly refuses to grow up and the girl who is torn between remaining a child with him or accepting the inevitable passage into adulthood. Adapted from Barrie’s own 1904 stage play, the 1911 novel…
The Black Keys
Anyone who bothered to watch PBS’s recent series on the blues couldn’t help but come to the unhappy conclusion that a once-vital musical style had been strangled by its overweening fans. The series’ directors showed their devotion by preserving the old stuff in pristine curatorial amber, holding it up for appreciation in the way one…
The 4th Annual Art Modell Awards
Every year during this festive holiday season, we at Scene like to gather around the fireplace, with brandy snifters in hand, trading jaunty quips and reflecting upon all that we are grateful for. Then we bitch about the boss, who’s too cheap to buy us smoking jackets. But most of all, we like to extend…
The Man with No Brains
Steve Martin is a humor writer for The New Yorker — perhaps you’ve read some of his pieces, among them, “Changes in the Memory After Fifty” (in which he writes, “Men should be wary if the doctor, while examining their prostate, suddenly says, ‘I’m sorry, but do I know you?'”) and “The Hundred Greatest Books…
Underworld
As arbiters of dark electronica for the more-than-casual-clubbing crowd, Underworld — vocalist Karl Hyde, guitarist Rick Smith, and, until 2000, DJ Darren Emerson — doesn’t attack the dance floor as much as it stealthily creeps onto it with a menacing crawl. The proof is in its slithering, two-disc singles platter, which unfolds like a long,…
Letters to the Editor
Riding That Train Honor and handouts don’t mix: I thank Scene for reminding us of the shameless history of the Forest City/Ratner/Miller coven of corruption and cronyism [“Gravy Train,” December 3]. Their methods are startlingly simple: They make outrageously large contributions to their favorite politicians, who then return the favor with accommodations. In the old…
Rémy, Hero
Evidently, the French-Canadian writer-director Denys Arcand has a tremendous capacity for dividing the art-movie/film-fest crowd into enemy camps. Arcand’s fans see him as a vibrant wit with a supple mind, capable of juggling many ideas at once and spicing his quirky analyses of contemporary society with playful asides and dead-on satire. Detractors generally see him…
David Banner
If you were going to carve a Mount Rushmore featuring hip-hop producers, you could pick your four faces without breaking a sweat. After you chiseled in the profiles of both Neptunes, Timbaland, and either Kayne West or Just Blaze, serious arguments would be minimal. If David Banner registered a protest, however, you’d have to listen…
