Sights Set on Parallax
Back in the days of my lean and hungry youth, when the mortgage was bigger than the month’s paycheck and the children were not yet domesticated, hubby and I would save our pennies all year long for one night on the town, to celebrate our anniversary. We chose the spot for our annual blowout by…
The Legendary Shack-Shakers
While the Legendary Shack-Shakers’ cranky crockabilly no doubt stems from a family tree decorated with chipped banjos and toothless great-uncles playing washboards, the packaging here is largely a put-on. It’s kind of like a Jerry Lewis conjured from southern gothic lore, or a European’s idea of a hillbilly. But bands like this one and their…
Bells Will Be Swinging
THU 12/9 It’s hard to get in the holiday mood when it’s 70-plus degrees outside. But that’s how the retro-hip guys in Big Bad Voodoo Daddy spent their summer vacations — recording songs for the new Everything You Want for Christmas CD. “It was total golf weather every single day,” says leader Scotty Morris. “But…
Punch Drunks
Alex Perekrest points to a crimson gash on his forehead, an inch-long parting of the flesh that’s coagulated into a small mound of dried blood. “We got into a fistfight at the end of one of our shows the other day,” says his bandmate, Red Giant guitarist Damien Perry. Grinning sheepishly, he eyes the wound,…
The Verve
Clad head to toe in denim, with shaggy shoulder-length hair and wide-eyed, thousand-yard stares, members of the Verve, from Wigan, England, were the antithesis of the early ’90s Britpop scene, crashing a party centered around trendy London fashionistas like Suede and Blur. Early material, such as the sprawling eight-minute space-rock epic “Gravity Grave” and the…
G.I. John
12/14-12/19 Without giving away the ending, Ramona DuBarry says that Miss Saigon is definitely not “date material.” “I saw a pamphlet [about the show] that said, ‘Friday night! Date night! Buy one [ticket], get one free!’ and I’m like thinking, I don’t know if I would want to go on a date to that,” says…
Shear Joy
Judging from last month’s elections, not many in America are ready to make Will and Grace as welcome in their neighborhoods as Ozzie and Harriet. The passage of legislation to tighten the definition of marriage suggests that being out of the closet in America may be acceptable only as long as said homosexuals are abstractly…
Solo Flyer
Solo Flyer frontman Matt Jauch sings with a stutter, a deliberate hiccup that makes him sound as if he cut his vocals while cruising Cleveland streets looking for potholes. Girls either take him ho-ho-home or they tear him ap-a-a-art. It’s an amusing enough conceit, which, in a way, helps to define his band: Solo Flyer…
Faker’s Dozen
If you’ve already decided to see Ocean’s Twelve, it’s probably best not to read much about it. Unlike its predecessor, a remake that clung to a hoary heist formula, the sequel contains ample pleasures, most of which amuse as the result of surprises both great and small. There’s no one big twist for critics to…
Prodigal Hijos
Texas music history swarms with stories of Texans who went to Nashville dreaming of fame and fortune. The most celebrated stories hinge on spectacular failure, followed by a return to Texas, some regrouping back on home turf, and eventual triumph. The most famous of these tales come from the Outlaw movement. Willie and Waylon failed…
Mo Rage
From AC/DC to Winger, you can tell a lot about a band by how (and how often) a singer pronounces the word “fire.” As Mo Rage’s Fix of Rage opens, Tony Webster says it as soon as he gets the chance, belching it out as “FI-YAH,” equal accent on both syllables, 1986-style. That’s right, Cleveland:…
Dorkula
They walk among us. They resemble people, approximate our words and actions, and present themselves more or less as human. And yet they are more — a different species, with their own dark legends, their own clandestine meeting places. They are dorks, and they are going to be pretty OK with Blade: Trinity. Returning for…
Ovaries to the Wall
Few women want to get with a man who knows all the words to Cannibal Corpse’s “I Cum Blood.” It’s a fact: Heavy metal — and the men who love it — just doesn’t score with the ladies much. That’s why metal bands love to lash out at women, most notably by reducing them in…
Satyricon
Black-metal bands are good at a lot of things — burning churches, scaring Grandma, frowning — but rocking out has never been one of them. Now don’t get us wrong; such scene forebears as Emperor, Immortal, and Bathory have dropped some gripping, essential, extreme releases, but the genre has always been defined by a very…
Gatlin Goes Under
After a distinguished run as one of Cleveland’s top-drawing bands, Gatlin is breaking up. From 1995 to 2004, the group morphed from metal to modern rock, recorded three albums and an EP, sold out a handful of shows at the 900-capacity Odeon, and attracted moderate major-label interest before throwing in the towel. “I think the…
Hollywood Slim CD release party
Though Hollywood Slim has been a fixture on the Cleveland blues scene for more than 20 years, The Dark End of the Street will be its first CD in recent memory. Singer-songwriter Will Cheshier best explains why the band is worth your time: “If you like your blues uptown, your jazz low-down, and an all-around…
The Pharcyde
In the early ’90s, the Pharcyde was the Cali counterpart of De La Soul, spreading inventive, Daisy Age-style silliness across the West Coast — and later, throughout the country, on the successful albums Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde (which featured the classic chill-out single “Passin’ Me By”) and Labcabincalifornia. Those efforts and a spot on…
Let Them Eat Cake
It’s the 75th birthday of Shaker Square, and new owner Peter Rubin is throwing a party. He’s made the most of the stained, dilapidated space vacated by Joseph-Beth Booksellers in July: Long rectangular tables are dressed with white paper tablecloths and heaped high with food. On one sits a grandiose sheet cake made to serve…
Todd Snider
“I just wanted to be a folk singer,” says 37-year-old Todd Snider from his hotel room somewhere in Texas, the state that welcomed the Oregon native with open arms before he moved on to Memphis and, finally, central Tennessee. While the title of Snider’s seventh and latest album, East Nashville Skyline, pays obvious homage to…
They’re Queer, but Not Here
Last week, Issue 1 took effect. It’s Ohio’s new constitutional declaration that “Homos Really Freak Us Out.” But this may be one case where the incompetence of Columbus works in our favor. It seems the amendment will accomplish almost nothing — except make us poorer. According to an analysis by the ACLU, it won’t prohibit…
Hamell on Trial
A brutally frank songwriter from Syracuse, New York, Ed Hamell is a narrative-based guitar slinger who works exclusively from a jet-black palette. In one song, for example, he imagined the late Matthew Shepard, slain cross-dresser Tina Brandon, and punk martyr Brian Deneke all looking down from the great beyond, sharing a heavenly cup of joe…
Butch Whacked
I saw my first live Browns game about a decade ago. At the time, ticket prices were roaring beyond the reach of working people, and stadiums once filled with decent Americans, like the kind you’d find at a VFW fish fry, were beginning to look like conventions for the U.S. golf-shoe industry. Even hockey –…
Ghost in The Machinist
It’s the biopic of the year: Christian Bale is cadaverous industrial-rocker Trent Reznor, prone to temper tantrums, brooding, inhabiting colorless environments, and keeping your parents awake all night as he fronts the heavy band known as Nine Inch Nails. Oh, wait . . . that’s not quite right. Christian Bale, in fact, is cadaverous industrial…
Darkest Hour
The folks at Victory Records aren’t turning their backs on the thick-necked hardcore lunks who made them, but they are extending a hand to the more metallic bands currently ruling mosh pits nationwide, and Darkest Hour — like Atreyu — offers a glimpse into the label’s future. Darkest Hour’s latest album, Hidden Hands of a…
Lord of the Strings
On stage before a crowd of 80,000: This is the view from the top of rock and roll. Glenn Schwartz was there — a few days before New Year’s Eve 1969, at the Miami Pop Festival. With his guitar and his band, Pacific Gas and Electric, Glenn blew that crowd away. This Euclid boy was…
Brothers in Arms
Already a monster hit in its native South Korea, Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War has finally come to America, and chances are that everyone of Korean descent is already lining up to buy tickets. You should join them: Tae Guk Gi is not only one of the best films of the year; it…
Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Christmas is a time of celebration, family, and theatrical rock! The Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s fifth production, The Lost Christmas Eve, has all the riff-based carols of the band’s previous fare, but this year, it seems a little forced. Maybe finding new ways to sing about snow has become trying, or maybe topping the classic Christmas Eve/Sarajevo…
Standard Oil’s SOP
Standard Oil’s SOP The shade of Ida Tarbell salutes you: Michael D. Roberts’ critique on Cleveland [“A Century of Bumbling,” November 24] was primarily a puff piece, glorifying the pro-corporate and -government agenda, blaming public entities for not going along with sufficient enthusiasm. As if the Bush ideology of subsidizing wealth were lacking cheerleaders. Obviously,…
Burning River
If you had to live with only one of the five senses, which would you select? It’s a difficult question, but it would be hard to argue that the ability to hear (and thus speak) is the single sense that continually connects us to each other and to our environment. Imagine navigating an ordinary day…
The Ike Reilly Assassination
The notion of authenticity is crucial to the effectiveness of singer-songwriters. Just ask Libertyville, Illinois native Ike Reilly, a grizzled artist as fringe-dwelling as the characters in his tunes. After honing his skills in a variety of never-were bands in the late ’80s/early ’90s, the father of four gave up music and became a hotel…
Oz and Them
At first, Dan Gable brushed off rumors that Pink Floyd deliberately synchronized its classic Dark Side of the Moon to The Wizard of Oz. For one thing, Roger Waters, David Gilmour, and crew probably didn’t have the technology back then to pull off the stunt. But Gable’s Pink Floyd tribute band, Any Colour You Like,…
It’s a Zubble-Wump
On the face of it, the idea of turning the enchanting stories of Dr. Seuss into a musical seems a “can’t-miss” project. The charmingly rhythmic tales written by Theodor Seuss Geisel, buoyed by a raft of surprising, language-distorting rhymes, would seem to be a natural. However, Seussical! The Musical falls well short of earning its…
The Kissers
They should take it as a compliment. The Kissers, frequently billed as an Irish band, are really from Madison, Wisconsin. An honest mistake, perhaps, as Ireland and the Badger State have much in common — one big city, one sort-of big city, desolate countryside in the western half, a love of football (the Packers or…
This Week’s Day-By-Day Picks
Thursday, December 9 “Everything in creation has rhythm,” says Matthew Kelly. We’re not really sure what he’s talking about (our cats, for example, can’t dance at all), but we like the thought behind his self-help tome, The Rhythm of Life: Living Every Day With Passion and Purpose. “It’s about knowing the way things energize us…
On Stage
A Christmas Carol — This beloved ghost tale of Ebenezer Scrooge and his mystical road trip from cheapskate to effusive lover of humanity is a familiar annual production, though here it seems more contemporary than ever: Victorian England’s laissez-faire approach to the indigent and Scrooge’s own take (“Prisons and workhouses should suffice for the idle…
Ludacris/Chingy
In a genre where tough-guy bluster is the norm, the power of good humor can’t be underestimated. The joy that animated the first hip-hop hits is often ignored, but it improves these two albums, making a poor effort from Chingy, St. Louis’s overnight success, listenable and transforming a fair outing from southern superstar Ludacris into…
Strike Up the Bland
It’s quite a gamble to center a 90-minute show on a regional singer-songwriter who hasn’t had a hit record in more than 20 years. But comedy troupe Last Call Cleveland is hoping that the city still has much love for heartland-rocker-turned-radio-DJ Michael Stanley. It’s keeping its collective fingers crossed that Michael Stanley Superstar: The Unauthorized…
On View
NEW George C. Rousch II: Contemporary Abstracts — Akron-based painter George C. Rousch II plays the part of the wandering loner in this show of recent work. On a sign at the door, he confesses that “mental driftwood” inspires his blurry abstracts. If that’s true, the driftwood comes from a modern-art history course, because the…
Lindsay Lohan
If anyone but the barely legal Lindsay Lohan had recorded Speak, people would regard the album as a credible hybrid of panting electro-throb, rocker-chick ‘tude, and top-40 ear candy. But because of her Disney-heavy acting résumé and habitual tabloid appearances, many will consider the disc nothing more than a lame cash-in, hastily thrown off to…
Psychobilly Freak
WED 12/15 In a 12-year career that’s included almost as many albums, Reverend Horton Heat has rarely strayed from the punk-fueled rockabilly that’s become his band’s trademark sound. “Psychobilly Freakout,” “Big Red Rocket of Love,” and “Wiggle Stick” pretty much explain it all. But right in the middle of the proud Texan’s latest CD, Revival,…
Open Haus
The conversation had turned to casual eats — the kind of pit stops reserved for weeknights when the home cook feels duller than a butter knife or Saturday evenings when the wallet is growing thin. “Those are the nights when you need to have a favorite chain restaurant tucked in your back pocket,” declared a…
Rue
Get crushed by — or with — Rue. The Northeast Ohio rock demolitionists humbly (and accurately) describe themselves as “reckless and relentless, loud and severe.” After making a name on the stoner-rock circuit by opening for Bongzilla and Weedeater, Rue has expanded, following the release of an untitled split CD with the equally punishing Aldebaran.…
Declaration of Ward
SUN 12/12 Last May, local boxer Vonda Ward was primed to take down Ann Wolfe. Mere moments into the first round, however, Ward was out cold. “After the loss, I took two months off and didn’t leave the house,” says the 6-foot-5, 195-pound former basketball star. “I basically hibernated. I was so depressed and so…
