Back to the Basement
Now in its fifth year, the annual “High School Rock Off” (Note: From this point on, the “Rock Off” will be called the “Jerk Off,” a phrase that more accurately describes the solipsistic nature of the event) gives budding young musicians from regional high schools a chance to compete against each other for prizes. At…
Warmer Climbs
In a time when the corporate ladder is the only climbing most city slickers manage, our instinctual urge to climb is being squashed. Luckily, Peninsula hotspot Kendall Cliffs is helping locals live on the edge — or at least try to scale it. Designed by the climbing supply company Nicros, the 7,000-square-foot facility is “the…
Everlast
Shortly after leaving rap/rock hybridists House of Pain in 1996, rapper/songwriter Everlast (Erik Schrody) found some inner peace and ended up a believer in the Islamic faith. That spiritual journey became fairly evident when the rapper, who had turned out a pumped-up smorgasbord of testosterone on House of Pain’s Same as It Ever Was, released…
Downtown Sound
Over the last year, local club owners have brought in some of the finest jazz improvisers playing in New York City’s downtown scene, including Tim Berne, Chris Speed, and the Other Quartet. On Wednesday, guitarist Brad Shepik can be added to that list, after he and his quartet play at the Happy Dog Saloon. In…
SnoCore Rock and Icicle Ball
Rock stars don’t tour in January, and they certainly don’t come to Ohio during the middle of winter. But Primus bassist Les Claypool ain’t your typical rock star, and the flurry of artists he brings with him on the two-pronged SnoCore tour don’t have the clout (or the cash) to hibernate quite yet. SnoCore encompasses…
Italian Dressing-Down
Watching this film is like watching a donkey being beaten for 90 minutes, so egregiously is the titular character treated and so powerless does she appear against her offenders. That the abuse is treated in a comedic fashion for a good part of the film makes it even more unacceptable. Perhaps it’s simply a matter…
Vertical Horizon
Betcha didn’t know that, before faceless alt-poppers Vertical Horizon scored a number-one radio hit last summer with “Everything You Want,” it had been around for almost a decade and released two studio albums and one live disc. We had no fucking clue. Hitching onto the wagon headed straight into obscurity led by former tourmates Third…
Religious Wrong
If you’re a fundamentalist Christian of the sort who gets more divine inspiration from TV than anywhere else, you already know about the phenomenon that is Left Behind. A series of pulp thriller novels (eight and counting) following a group of Antichrist-fighting folks who remain on earth following the evaporation into heaven of the faithful…
Steve Earle
Transcendental Blues, the title of Steve Earle’s latest record, could well serve as a description of his entire body of work. Even though Earle’s fan base — shitkickers, hillbillies, and rednecks — is as working-class as they come, his music is as sublime and poetic as anything by, say, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, or Bob…
The Unlikely Tree-Hugger
Bart Wolstein: Real-estate mogul, sports fan, environmentalist? It may seem an improbable label for the Moreland Hills developer, who once bid for the Browns expansion franchise. After all, here in the cradle of industry, defiling Mother Nature is almost synonymous with development. Yet Wolstein is nonetheless assuming the green mantle in his fight to build…
Richard Lloyd
Television was a very cool band — cool in the way that its music was sort of the heady nonpunk stuff that still resonates some 25 years later. And if you were one of the few thousand folks who actually bought Marquee Moon back in ’77, you have yourself a real claim to prescience. Of…
Running With the Gap Gang
One Friday night in March, a suspicious though not unexpected group of three men and three women strutted into the Gap store at the Westlake Promenade, attitude crackling off them like static electricity. Some headed to the counter, where they commanded the clerks’ attention, fussing and unloading clothes from fat shopping bags already brimming with…
Frank Black and the Catholics
Despite the dissolution of the Pixies 10 years ago, former frontman Frank Black (a.k.a. Black Francis) is still creating albums with his own brand of surf-punk sounds and indie rock. Dog in the Sand features Black teamed up with his Catholic cohorts for a third time, and PJ Harvey pianist (and former Pere Ubu keyboardist)…
Curry Duty
The ambiance was noteworthy. Equal parts labor temple, living room, and dive. But the cuisine was a call to action. Fashioned from the finest vegetarian leftovers gathered from nearby dumpsters and grocers, it gave the guests an altruistic flush. Inspired, they spoke of anarchy, workers’ rights, and tofu being the other white meat. They wanted…
Charles Mingus
Of the two new Charles Mingus reissues, the Uptown collection of his recordings from the ’40s is the keeper, at least in archival terms. The Rhino record is an astute précis of Mingus’s work for the label that gave him his first high profile, but West Coast 1945-49 collects the great jazz bassist-composer’s earliest recordings,…
Drag King
Eddie Izzard knows precisely why he wanted to become a performer, be it an actor or stand-up comedian or, for that matter, a street performer entertaining passers-by for spare change. When he was 6 years old, Izzard was living in South Wales with his parents and older brother. Before that, the family had lived in…
The Doom Patrol
It’s almost a curse to be an industrial rock band from Cleveland. The comparisons to native sons such as Nine Inch Nails and Filter are inevitable, and the Doom Patrol — former Mr. Harker’s Sideshow singer Theo Johnson and multi-instrumentalist David Eden — will likely get pigeonholed with those acts. But only one song on…
Fluorescent Fence Offensive
When Mary Kay Bernardi decided to paint fluorescent hearts and other shapes on her fence, it was a rather bold move for fashionable Bay Village, where the West Side elite prefer their public art a bit more subdued. Bernardi calls her work “Pennsylvania Dutch.” Her neighbors, Ron and Carol Salim, call it “graffiti.” The city…
CUP and Saucers
Cleveland Ufology Project became a joke: I was struck by the cover of the latest issue [“Unidentified,” January 11]. It was a good article in that your views were not listed; just the interviewees’ were. You did not pooh-pooh the topic. There are enough off-the-wall people in the UFO field to do that on their…
Secondhand Rose
Gypsy suffers when done wholesale. To thrive, it demands grandeur, integrity to period, and above all, a 14-carat star as Mama Rose to light up Tin Pan Alley’s answer to Medea. The Great Lakes Theater Festival, while honoring its pledge to tackle works that have made American theater great, has in this case had to…
The Wizardry of OZ
As crisp as Dorothy’s pinafore. As irresistible as a field of poppies. And as bewitching as the lovely Glinda. This is OZ, Chef Donna Chriszt’s newest culinary landscape in the heart of old Tremont. Chriszt, she of the firm handshake and dazzling smile, opened OZ in October, following attention-getting runs at the now-defunct Jeso and…
Fish in Hot Water
Ever wonder what happened to orange roughy? The mild (some would say bland) white fish that was the darling of restaurant goers in the 1970s and ’80s hasn’t just fallen out of favor; it’s been overfished to the point that it is virtually unavailable at any price. In the past few years — coincidental with…
Motown Moldies
The various Motown artists about to descend upon the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum aim to celebrate a classic style of American pop, and they’re sure to stress their African American heritage. The Velvelettes, the Contours, and the Miracles (February 7); Mary Wilson (February 15); and the Four Tops (February 27) are…
New Forms
Several years ago, DJ/producer Quentin Allen played in Rare Species, a hip-hop group that he says was “kinda like the Roots.” It featured two rappers, a saxophonist, and other musicians on an array of instruments. In 1995, it released one maxi-single (“What Can You Do With the Rhyme?”) on the Toledo-based label Sin Klub Entertainment…
