Christmas Is Served
Lose the Harry and David catalog, the Santa potholders, and the six-pack of Natty Lite topped with a stick-on bow. We know what the gourmets on your holiday gift list really want this year, and we’ve found it at prices that range from naughty to very nice. Best of all, everything draws heavily on Northeast…
Whiskey Daredevils
Scene readers voted the Whiskey Daredevils (pictured) Cleveland’s best new band of the year, and they were right on the money. Two of the area’s other top raucous, country-fried rock bands will join the Daredevils at the Grog for an evening of bass-slappin’, hell-raisin’, and whiskey-swillin’. Anyone caught not having a good time will be…
Sweat Along With Russell
Cinderella Man (Universal) Back in the Great Depression, boxing matches only cost a nickel, and the ring was uphill both ways. That’s the central message of this well-made if sappy bio of 1930s boxer Jim Braddock. Ron Howard’s direction and a stellar cast save the film from its one-dimensional characters and retread plot; Russell Crowe…
Now on Tap
Everyone knows that operating a restaurant can be a pain in the ass. But opening one? That’s no picnic either. Just ask restaurateur Raj Singh (owner of Spy Bar, The Wine Room, and three Café Tandoor locations) and Executive Chef Mark Wilson. Their newest project, Willowick’s Brass Tap Bar & Grille (30829 Euclid Avenue, 440-944-4462)…
System of a Down
One of the most original bands ever to gain a bankable following is beginning to sound a little too comfortable in its own self-invented genre. Not that any other band has duplicated the formula: metalcore mosh with auctioneer-gone-mad vocals, followed by incantational harmonies and exotic-stringed acoustic breaks. And few other bands with such Zappalike contempt…
Near Perfect
In less than a decade, first-person shooters like Doom and Halo have grown from a niche genre to a cottage industry. Whether it’s our love for their immersiveness, competition, or just old-fashioned bloodlust, the popularity of FPS games shows no sign of waning. They’ve become so much of a draw, in fact, that people will…
‘Bout Time
Talking on the phone from her hotel room in Paris, Bettye Lavette is having fun, and she’s having it her way. And why shouldn’t she? The veteran soul singer is riding high on the buzz generated by her new CD, I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise, earning favorable reviews in such high-profile publications as…
Talib Kweli
The album title is a common hip-hop stage expression (usually meaning “coming up next”) that Kweli turns into a striking life motto with a homonym so obvious, it’s a wonder no rapper has ever mined it before. And that sums up the strengths and weaknesses of a halfway-there return by this founding father of hip-hop’s…
Our top DVD picks for the week of December 6.
Dirty Love (First Look) Dragonball Movie Boxed Set (Funimation) Everybody Loves Raymond: The Complete Fifth Season (Warner Bros.) Fun With Dick and Jane (1977) (Columbia/Tristar) The Future of Food (Cinema Libre) Gilbert Gottfried: Dirty Jokes (Image) God Save the Queen: Punk Rock Anthology (Music Video Dist.) Hellbound (Warner Bros.) He-Man & She-Ra: A Christmas Special…
The Passion of the Bono
Go ahead — roll your eyes at Bono’s persistent messianic complex. But maybe the guy’s got good reason to think he’s bigger than Jesus. Don’t forget, Jesus has had 2000 years to firm up his reputation, while the U2 singer has only been alive since 1960. And — sorry, Pat Robertson — isn’t it about…
The Darkness
‘Ello, this is vocalist Justin Hawkins from the Darkness, here to talk about our amazing, fantastic, unbelievable second album, One Way Ticket to Hell . . . and Back. [Pause] Wot? You think the album is way more over-the-top than Permission to Land? You’d call it grossly self-indulgent, plodding in many places, and lyrically ridiculous?…
The week’s best releases from the pop-culture universe.
BOOK — 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die: This gargantuan volume is the perfect tip sheet for cinephiles, and includes everything from 1902’s A Trip to the Moon to last year’s Million Dollar Baby. Its balanced diet of indisputable classics (The Godfather), cult flicks (Eraserhead), and obscurities (The Ear) oughta keep you and…
Critical Fatwa
All hail Big Poppa! Not only was the Notorious B.I.G. a master storyteller and MC, but he also has never humped a corpse. That may seem faint praise for such a legend. However, his lack of necrophilia sets Biggie apart from his friends and family, who have turned his moldy bones into the town bicycle.…
Anthony Hamilton
Anthony Hamilton once seemed one of those talented performers destined to be perpetually shafted by the music biz, with a couple of unreleased albums to prove it. But a couple of years ago, a funny thing happened: Folks suddenly took a shine to Hamilton’s subtle southern soul, making his last LP, Coming From Where I’m…
On Pills & Needles
They weren’t typical drug deals, nor were they typical doctor visits. But someone was getting money, and someone was getting high. Kevin Houser heard about Jorge Martinez from other addicts, who described him as a doctor who offered “easy access to pills.” He had begun using painkillers for a back injury, and by the time…
Money Where Your Mouth Is
Band: The Slack-Jawed Yokels (theslackjawedyokels.com) Hometown: Granger Sounds like: “Put us in a centrifuge and out will spin particles of Nashville Pussy, a strange compound with two molecules of Reverend Horton Heat and one of Hank III, and some of our own mystery residue that gunks it all together nicely.” Fun fact: “Jimbo [Hissem, bass…
The Reverend Horton Heat
Reverend Horton Heat and company are past their reinvention days. (Remember 1994’s Al Jourgensen product, the industrial-fried Liquor in the Front?) At this point, Heat’s a standard-bearer, bringing his rockabilly roadshow to town yearly with the predictable assuredness of the summer sun — or the winter blahs, depending on your threshold for this kind of…
Cue the Laugh Track
Last week, Cleveland State’s Center for Election Integrity invited Ohio Congressman Bob Ney (R-Scotland) to discuss voter fraud, disenfranchisement, and what Washington is doing to shore up the country’s electoral process. For a group with Integrity in its title, Ney was an obvious choice. He’s at the center of Ohio’s latest bribery scandal. Political consultant…
Sound Advice
Keelhaul is one of Cleveland’s most inventive and pummeling metal bands. Now, drummer Will Scharf talks turkey. What have you been listening to lately? Bill collectors. People telling me I suck. My angry cats telling me they’re hungry. My beer-starved belly after a dry shift at work. The sound of my boiler not working because…
Colin Dussault’s Blues Project
Colin Dussault has long been great at tweaking blues conventions without subverting them. Nothing’s changed on Watch This!; he’s just a little smoother, as is his band. For an institution of this stature, the Project’s members are a humble crew: They open the disc by celebrating not themselves, but Robert Lockwood Jr., long the city’s…
You Are All Witnesses
Sprawled on the floor of the Brooklyn YMCA, admiring the form of my smooth, hairless quadriceps, I could see that I was the best player in the gym. By far. This was no surprise. I’ve dominated every playground I’ve encountered. In my backyard, in the low shadow of my adjustable hoop, I routinely dunk over…
Last Word
“I would have to say Tall Pines. They just keep getting better and better. They’ve had a solid lineup now for six months or so that’s starting to jell really well. That’s my two cents, don’t spend it all in one place.” — Michael D., singer (Boatzz), Cleveland “The Slack-Jawed Yokels for sure — considering…
Torrio
Cleveland rapper Torrio possesses a solid flow and a nimble, slightly sheepish voice that deftly bends around the beat. Too bad he often squanders his mojo by sticking so closely to the gangsta script, bragging about watching Scarface 52 times and talking up the size of his schlong. When it comes to wiener talk, dude,…
Critical Thesauricide
Big words do not an expert make: My wife and I have been ardent theatergoers for many years. We’re season subscribers and have donated to several theaters, including Kalliope. I think Christine Howey’s critique of Opal [“Washed Up,” November 30] — even giving her the benefit of the doubt that she’s even a “critic” –…
Gettin’ Ugly
We’re not saying Huey Lewis was a bad-looking guy. With his thick hair, dimpled chin, and kicking checkered sports coats, the guy had the relaxed air of a cool sitcom dad. But you gotta admit, Lewis was a pretty unlikely sex symbol when he first hit it big in the early ’80s. With his wrinkled…
Have a Drink on Mom
Sammy Quick calls on Mom once a week to pick up the tab at Pic-Nic’s Ladies’ Night. Every Thursday, Spa Connections of Berea ponies up $400, so that every woman can down her first four drinks for free. “Back in the day, it was legal to give free drinks to the women,” says Quick. “Then…
Blood for Oil
Warner Bros. put $50 million into Syriana and allowed writer-director Stephen Gaghan as much time and travel as necessary to research and write his story. They’d be well advised to pony up a few extra bucks to provide filmgoers with a flowchart that connects the scattered dots that make up this movie about the high…
Cleveland’s Screaming Again
A handful of classic Cleveland punk bands will reunite for the first time in more than 20 years on Saturday, December 10, at the Beachland Ballroom (15711 Waterloo Road). The Guns, the Offbeats, the Plague, Zero Defex, and the Agitated will headline a multimedia celebration of the city’s underground scene from the late 1970s through…
Room and Board
Kirt Tompkins points to the back of his bar to show where the action happens. “You wouldn’t believe how many people play Shuffleboard,” he says. “That table gets a workout when it’s busy in here.” Tompkins installed the electronic tabletop game in 2000 and billed it as the first of its kind west of downtown…
Jesus Saves
The funniest bit from the summer’s raunch smorgasbord The Aristocrats was hearing Sarah Silverman tell the infamously profane family-act joke at the center of Paul Provenza’s documentary. Where Robin Williams, Drew Carey, George Carlin, and a hundred other funny folks were serving up naughty variations in various shades of blue, Silverman was bringing it all…
Gwen Stefani
Plenty of reviewers ripped on 2004’s Love, Angel, Music, Baby, No Doubt — er, Gwen Stefani’s solo debut, because it was superficial. “An exercise in showy artifice,” sniffed a Los Angeles Times critic. “Pure fluff,” added a Drawer B scribe. But even though both statements are defensible, they miss the point by acres. All too…
Lion in Winter
If you’re a fan of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books, all you need to know is this: Disney has done right by The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It’s impossible to imagine it done much better, in fact. If you’re not a fan, perhaps you’re among those who know of the…
Wheatus
If Wheatus had emerged as a new band within the past few years — and not had the misfortune of arriving at the tail end of the 1990s alt-rock boom — it’d likely be right up there in the new-wave-perpetuators stratosphere with bands such as Fountains of Wayne. Instead, the coed sextet suffers the ignominious…
Holiday Joy
You’d think it’d take a triple-dog-dare for someone to mount a theatrical version of a movie that’s virtually faultless. The classic flick A Christmas Story, featuring the often tongue-in-cheek narration of author Jean Shepherd along with pitch-perfect performances in every role, is so beautifully rendered that a stage redo could only pale in comparison. And…
Deadboy & the Elephantmen
Dax Riggs has one of those lived-in voices that occasionally makes him sound several decades older than he actually is. The thirtysomething Louisiana native first gained notoriety as the frontman for soot-black cult-metal favorite Acid Bath, where Riggs’ weathered, world-weary voice added some welcome soul to the band’s acidic thrash — it was one of…
Beast Unleashed
There are few musical theater pleasures that can equal seeing a supremely talented cast under the guidance of a director who knows how to stage a production, from the grand sweep of crowd scenes to the tiny sparks hidden in smaller moments. Happily, this is all on display in an enthralling evening: Disney’s Beauty and…
The Spunks
The hot-rod rock-and-roll stalwarts at Gearhead Records have been indulging in two habits of late: snatching up Japanese bands (Gito Gito Hustler, Electric Eel Shock) and laying down big air mattresses for aging stuntmen who may be taking their last leap (Wildhearts, Lords of Altamont). With the Brooklyn-based Spunks, the label overdoses on both. With…
Capsule reviews of current area theater presentations.
Bravo, Caruso! — In the galaxy of larger-than-life performers, opera icon Enrico Caruso was a blazing star. He was the man who brought macho chops to the previously effete position of the tenor and paved the way for Luciano, Placido, et al. This slight play by William Luce, now in performance at Ensemble Theatre, captures…
The Rocket Summer
The Rocket Summer Bryce “The Rocket Summer” Avary knows the importance of being earnest. Hello, Good Friend, the staggeringly sincere release from the 22-year-old piano-plinking pop crooner, charms gleeful teens for whom angst is, like, so 2002. Here’s how the Rocket Summer compares with his emotive, abstract-monikered peers. Act: The Rocket Summer Look: The Hello,…
Capsule reviews of current area art exhibitions.
NEW Wish List — Gender roles and consumerism are the issues at hand in this tiny display of prints by New Yorker Julia Jacquette. The former receives the stronger treatment: Jacquette studies women’s deeply embedded reverence for weddings through a set of lithographic close-ups of an ornate beaded gown, white flowers, and a decorated cake.…
Birdy
The second annual Birdy party is another vivacious affair from Nicole Giglio, who orchestrated Spy’s famous Kitty-Kat Masquerade Balls. Taking place at the Warehouse District’s Tramp, Birdy is a little taste of Cirque du Soleil and a big helping of eye candy on the side. A former Cirque performer, Nefti will perform dizzying, gravity-defying feats…
