Master Card
If you already own the LeBron bobblehead and poster the Cavs gave away this season, then you’ll probably want to get to the Q tonight to complete your collection with the LeBron James Upper Deck Collectible Card Set giveaway. The three cards — which aren’t available anywhere else — include King James in various jerseys…
Lil’ Ed & the Blues Imperials
Yeah, the blues is “My baby’s gone away.” And the blues is “I got no money.” And sometimes it’s even “My baby left with all my money.” But there’s a whole ‘nother way of dealing with hard luck and trouble, and Lil’ Ed Williams & the Blues Imperials are masters of turning the blues into…
Funky Fresh
January has earned its reputation as the month in which studios unload all their cheapie horror flicks, but February is the month when we invariably get yet another middle-of-the-road black-urban-professional romantic comedy. (It’s both Black History and Valentine’s month, hence the logic.) In that regard, Something New is anything but new; but it departs from…
Out of the Box
New York horror rockers Hate in the Box should hang a “Help Wanted” sign at their concerts. But while the foursome continue to look for a new guitarist, they will introduce a temporary stand-in at tonight’s show at the Phantasy. “Will it be the Tooth Fairy? Freddy Krueger? A giant robot? The Easter Bunny?” teases…
Love and Hate
Aric Jackson didn’t know a thing about the man who’d just called him a “nigger.” Didn’t know he was a Cleveland cop. Didn’t know he’d been accused of handing out white-supremacist literature in this very bar. All Jackson knew was that he was in for the fight of his life, because his girlfriend was white.…
CKY
CKY will play the Super Bowl halftime show — not the one in Detroit, but the midgame break at Peabody’s, the downtown rock club that’s hosted many an appearance by professional-skating/Viva La Bam/Jackass personalities. Skate rock once had a distinct sound rooted in West Coast punk; it’s now applicable to any music associated with skating.…
Mild Wilde
A Good Woman, Mike Barker’s adaptation of the Oscar Wilde play Lady Windermere’s Fan, has been gathering dust for some time. It played the Toronto Film Festival in the fall of 2004 before opening in 2005 in every country in the world except this one. Such dawdling doesn’t bode well for its contents, which bear…
Pryor Commitment
Before comedian Richard Pryor died last December, he bluntly told his daughter, Rain, about the ups and downs of show business. “My dad’s theory was, ‘This is what you want to do. This is what I want you to do. You’re definitely talented. If you’re going to do it, you’re going to do it just…
Luck of the Perv
Most people spend their 37th birthdays slugging beers and wondering where time went. But Michael Gonzalez, praise the Lord, is not most people. He’s the former Rhodes High art teacher accused of having an ongoing affair with his freshman student [“Head of the Crass,” December 14]. When the girl’s dad found out, he called the…
O.A.R.
There may be no more divisive band on the touring circuit than O.A.R., a group of former Ohio State frat boys who are also one of rock music’s most successful grassroots stories. Ardent fans argue that O.A.R. is Dave Matthews’ next of kin, playing sensitive, saxophone-laced rock that fits both on commercial radio and at…
Color It Funny
Pain can be funny, especially when it happens to other people. This lesson, inexplicably, is reinforced by the enduring existence of America’s Funniest Home Videos and MTV’s Jackass franchise. So it makes sense that pain, in all its aspects, can form the core of a satirical revue. In The Colored Museum, a wittily biting play…
Here’s to Ben
Woo-hoo! Today’s Groundhog Day! And if Brecksville Ben — the “will-he-or-won’t-he-show?” star of Cleveland Metroparks’ Groundhog Day Drop-In — has anything to say about it, we could be breaking out the shorts any day now. Today’s program includes craft-making and a trail hike in search of a groundhog and, more important, his shadow. (The Metroparks…
Soul Kitchen
Michael Ruhlman leans back in a chair in his Cleveland Heights kitchen, a Marlboro Light in one hand and a glass of Laphroaig in the other. For once, the lanky 43-year-old author and chef seems at ease. He’s just wooed a first-time visitor with an indulgent homemade meal, and he is obviously relishing the break…
A Flock of Seagulls
Mike Score’s flap-in-the-face hairdo launched a thousand punchlines, but over 20 years later, you still can’t go too long without hearing a Flock of Seagulls song, so who’s laughing now, funny man? The Flock broke up briefly in the late ’80s, but it’s been recording new music since the ’90s. The current lineup reunites most…
Capsule reviews of current area theater presentations.
Dark Room — The conventional image we have of playwrights and poets is of lonely souls slaving away in a poorly lit basement. Well, you’ve got the location and the illumination right, but everything else about the Dark Room project is much cheerier. Sponsored by the Cleveland Theater Collective, it’s a once-a-month workshop/cabaret for writers…
Rise and Shine
Joe Booth’s Family Outing: A Dance Play, which makes its premiere tonight as part of Cleveland Public Theatre’s Big [Box] series, started out as a fairly banal conversation between Booth and his father. “Then he tells me he’s had recent success with Viagra,” recalls Booth. “So I told him if he ever wanted to know…
The Art of Whoring
Here’s how it works: Whore A gets caught taking money from Whore B. Fearing blowback, the remaining skanks of the alphabet scurry for cover. They are shocked — Holy Christ! We can’t believe it! — that one among them would breach the sanctity of whoring. But let’s remind ourselves, they will say: These are just…
Super Bowl Party
Granted, chances are that you’re not happy about the AFC’s representative in Super Bowl XL. But still, it’s the Super Bowl. The downtown McCarthy’s Ale House has what you need to wash down any lingering resentment you have toward you-know-who: One price includes all you can eat and drink. For food, that’s an assortment of…
Capsule reviews of current area art exhibitions.
NEW Life Studies — Instead of mere paper, Hudson artist Peggy Kwong-Gordon creates her cohesive, spiritually grounded drawings on manila fiber, vellum, and pressed wool — natural and intrinsically beautiful substances that symbolize her Chinese heritage and Taoist philosophy. By way of subject, take your pick as to what’s the most honest. Maybe it’s the…
The Wedding Crasher
Comedian Jim Florentine likes to piss people off. He’s a regular on Comedy Central’s prank-phone-call show Crank Yankers. He released a DVD of hidden-camera stunts, Meet the Creeps. And he appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live tanked, after loading up on the green room’s open bar. And while employed as a DJ, he’d “ruin weddings on…
What Price Victory?
Capitalism discounts its defenders: Excellent article [“Discarded Heroes,” January 18]! The abject neglect shown to many of our returning veterans does not surprise me. As the promise of capitalism declines further and increasingly treats human beings as dollar objects and alienates them, we will see more of this. Our system is run by the wealthy…
Belle & Sebastian
Stuart Murdoch might hook more fans with this pastiche of bouncy pop-gone-by if Belle & Sebastian’s reputation didn’t precede him. When his Glasgow band broke big in the late ’90s, Murdoch specialized in a timid, resentment-tinged melancholy that reflected both the hypersensitivity of aimless, romantic college grads and the alienation of underemployed Scottish youth (call…
Like Star Trek With Worms
Dune: Extended Edition (Universal) On paper it sounds insane: A mammoth sci-fi epic directed by David Lynch, based on an intensely weird Frank Herbert novel about ecology and giant worms. What resulted was a flop that has yet to be remedied by multiple edits through the years. This disc includes Lynch’s original Dune, as well…
Unmentionable
The Play House stages an unsexy play about lingerie. It’s no mere coincidence that Intimate Apparel, about a black seamstress, will be performed on the Cleveland Play House stage throughout Black History Month. “That was part of the deal,” laughs artistic director Michael Bloom. The play — a co-production with the Actor’s Theatre of Louisville…
Punch-Drunk Love
If Aimee Mann contemplated the potential for disaster while recording her fifth solo album, The Forgotten Arm, she must have channeled her inner bantamweight, bounced off the ropes, and kept on swinging. Though she had a few songs written before her vision was clear, she knocked out a concept album — that pretentious (and frequently…
Various Artists
Singer Billy Corgan is alt-rock’s Barry Bonds, a star whose outspoken awareness of his own singular gifts make him unpopular and somewhat undervalued. Last year, with Bonds nursing injuries, the San Francisco Giants trotted out younger replacements who couldn’t come close to matching his performance. Similarly, with the Smashing Pumpkins on hiatus, Killer’s new-school acts…
Tae Kwon Ho
Every fighting game needs a hook to stand out: Mortal Kombat has gore, Soul Calibur has weapons, Def Jam has hip-hop stars. And Dead or Alive? It has boobies. The DOA series — developed by Tecmo — made its name with a cast of fighters who look like pinups and fight like Bruce Lee. Think…
Welcome to the Dollhouse
New York Doll is one of the most poignant documentaries you’ll see all year. It profiles New York Dolls bassist Arthur “Killer” Kane, a quiet, stoic man who used to dab on tons of mascara before showtime. The proto-punk band imploded in the mid-’70s — hard-drug use eventually led to three members’ deaths — and…
Back From the Attic
Rock bands, as anyone who’s been in one for more than a week will tell you, can be as contentious as an episode of Hardball. Boston’s arena-rock quartet Damone is no exception, having divorced both its label and its main songwriter, Dave Pino, under circumstances ugly enough to be kept semiprivate. Among the reconstituted quartet,…
Prefuse 73
Inspired by the suspicion with which airport employees treat him, Security Screenings finds Prefuse 73 (aka Guillermo Scott Herren) honing his jagged dynamics and Cubist derangements of hip-hop’s blueprint to a military crispness. Similarly, his hyperkinetic drum programming keeps you perpetually alert, as it rarely settles into predictable patterns. Which is why Prefuse remains an…
Our top DVD picks for the week of January 31.
Benny Hill: Complete and Unadulterated — The Hill’s Angels Years, Set Four (A&E) Billy Graham Presents: Gift Set (Fox) Bubble (Magnolia) Captains Courageous (1937) (Warner Bros.) Drake & Josh Go Hollywood (Paramount) Extreme Comedy Collection (Team America: World Police, Beavis and Butt-head Do America, and Jackass: The Movie) (Paramount) Four Weddings and a Funeral: Deluxe…
Going Dutch
The 63rd annual Cleveland Home & Garden Show, starting today, comes with the colorful theme “Holland in Bloom: A Dutch Masterpiece.” Why Holland, you ask? Because tulips are way popular in the Netherlands, where their bulbs were once used as currency. Crazy! One of the 30 thematic gardens on display includes a canal, two windmills,…
Eight-Bit Symphonies
Bach. Beethoven. Brahms. Mozart. Mario. The five pillars of classical music. And while those first four dudes had a good run, it’s that last guy who enraptures us now: a Japanese-born yet ostensibly Italian plumber in a bright red jumpsuit, who in the mid-’80s warp-zoned his way into 60 million homes worldwide, hipping the youth…
In Flames
These Swedes must have gotten testosterone injections as part of their contract with Ferret, their new label, because their latest single, “Take This Life,” is the most ferocious thing they’ve done in a while. The album’s not a monochromatic thrashfest, though; Come Clarity shows remarkable range. The title track is a mopey but still crunching…
Here are the week’s best releases from the pop-culture universe:
CD — Rabbit Fur Coat: After Rilo Kiley’s shimmering 2004 More Adventurous CD, we’d follow singer Jenny Lewis into the bowels of hell. Mercifully, Lewis’ debut solo album is a heavenly slice of what she does best: a frothy blend of indie-pop, girl-group harmonies, and boiling torch and twang. Added bonus: a cover of the…
Seeing Red
Sight and sound have a mysterious bond. Though each one can stand alone, the two senses often yield something powerful when combined — especially in the theater. Red {an Orchestra} will explore this artistic alchemy tonight at Image Sound Image, a performance incorporating music, film, and digital art. The program includes the suite from the…
Critical Fatwa
All hail “Are You Gonna Go My Way.” That slice of ’70s-meets-’90s mass-market rock was a nice break from the sour-faced caterwauling of the “alternative” years. But Lenny Kravitz has far outstayed his welcome, and now he has debased himself for Absolut vodka. For his slapping on the assless chaps and walking the street, we…
Elbow
As their hilariously humdrum band name implies, the Manchester-based emo-prog journeymen in Elbow are big shots in the Thomas E. Yorke School of Serious, Sober British Guitar Rock. The sense of style and humor that’s driven current U.K. acts like Franz Ferdinand and Kaiser Chiefs to success at home and abroad is not for singer…
Once Upon a Time
The Cleveland Cinematheque begins a month-long salute to director Sergio Leone tonight with a screening of A Fistful of Dollars. The first chapter of Leone’s Spaghetti Western trilogy isn’t the most famous — that honor belongs to the filmmaker’s best movie, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly — but it is a crucial part…
Sound Advice
Katherine Isenhart is marketing and promotions coordinator at the Beachland, one of the city’s busiest clubs. What have you been listening to lately? Alt-country/Americana, garage, and punk — including Rhett Miller’s new release, The Believers, and the Black Keys. Is listening to music ever a chore? I need to listen to music all the time.…
Trendy
Trendy has everything it takes to break out of Cleveland, land a prime spot on the Warped Tour, and go on to popular acclaim, critical derision, and the big sales that ensue when all the right people hate a band for all the right reasons. All three members are photogenic. They’re backed by professional handlers.…
Liquid Dinner and a Movie
When Johnny Malloy’s was looking to expand its franchise into the old Centrum Theatre, there was one stipulation: The movie screen had to stay. “With this historic location, they wanted to keep it as close to its original setup as possible,” says manager Mike Burger. So along with the usual Malloy trappings — an endless…
Money Where Your Mouth Is
Band: The Same Things (www.thesamethings.com; www.myspace.com/thesamethings) Hometown: Akron/Canton Sounds Like: “A mash-up of Squeeze and the Dream Syndicate, or Yo La Tengo covering Elvis Costello . . .Well, almost that good.” Fun Fact: “It’s not very fun — our bass player almost cut his ring finger off a few weeks ago. It should be back…
Jay-Kool
A Cleveland hip-hop long-timer (his group Catch 22 — not to be confused with the New Jersey ska-punkers — was signed to Profile in the early ’90s), Jay-Kool brings a veteran’s savvy to his latest effort. His lyrical focus on “good music, girls, street lyrics, and fun” engenders few original thoughts, but his polish and…
Bizarre Love Quadrangle
The most disappointing thing about 2004’s big-screen version of Patrick Marber’s Closer (even more disappointing than Natalie Portman playing a stripper who didn’t get naked) was its lack of intimacy. The Bang and the Clatter Theatre Company’s staging of the complicated love story at least feels appropriately, well, close. Thursdays-Sundays, 8 p.m.; Sun., Feb. 5,…
Last Word
“I first stick in a Cardona CD to wake me up! Than I’ll swap back and forth from Rover to WMMS. I enjoy both stations, because you can get different outlooks or perspectives on issues, morals, hot topics, ticket giveaways, and radio call-ins. If the shows both stink, I will force myself to listen to…
Rock and a Hard Place
Sexy, theatrical, sometimes satisfying, and sometimes so-so, Sushi Rock East, in Beachwood’s La Place, could well be the multiple-personality darling of the region’s restaurant scene. In this, of course, the five-month-old hot spot is merely following in the footsteps of her big sister, Sushi Rock, which by now is practically a cornerstone of downtown’s Warehouse…
Bugging Out
Joe Keiper has practiced enough “Forensic Entomology in Cleveland” to run circles around the folks on CSI. Since 2000, he’s helped the Cuyahoga County Coroner’s Office solve 24 murders, suicides, and accidents by analyzing blowflies and their eggs found on decomposing bodies. “Any coroner worth their weight in salt will tell you about the degree…
Paper Chase
With its own home undergoing a renovation, the Cleveland Museum of Art is sending some significant new exhibits to the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland. The first collaboration in the CMA@MOCA series, Drawn, Exposed, and Impressed: Recent Works on Paper From the Cleveland Museum of Art, features 17 drawings, photographs, and prints — by Chuck…
Board in Cleveland
Lava Room Recording has added a recording-mixing console that could help make Cleveland a destination for big-name recording artists and producers. The West Side studio purchased an SSL 4056 G+ board as part of a quarter-million-dollar studio upgrade, according to Chief Engineer Mike Brown. According to literature from the Solid State Logic company, 74.5 percent…
High Class
There’s still no such thing as a free lunch, but you can score a good one — and pretty cheap — at the International Culinary Arts and Sciences Institute (ICASI) in Chesterland. The recently opened school (an offshoot of the popular Loretta Paganini School of Cooking) is giving its advanced students a taste of the…
Will the Real John Morgan Please Stand Up?
If you’re not quite sure which John Morgan will be performing at the Improv over the next several nights, you’re not alone. It’s certainly not the former cast member of the Royal Canadian Air Farce; he died two years ago. And it’s not the topical Florida comedian who’s found success impersonating George W. Bush. Yep,…
In Prog We Trust
Byron Nemeth of the Byron Nemeth Group offers this tip to those who’ve never heard the five bands jamming at tonight’s Cleveland Progressive Rock Fusion Fest 2: “Have an open mind to sitting down and enjoying music that has a lot of elements, expands the mind, and takes you to the next level,” he says.…
Martina McBride
When Martina McBride got her first national exposure, opening for Garth Brooks in the early ’90s, the comely Kansas farm girl got by mostly on sympathy points. Though she unleashed a surprisingly powerful voice from her petite frame, she was still just a mild side dish overpowered by the juicy, corn-bred taste of Brooks’ grade-A…
The Nude Bomb
The studied British theatricality and sharp wit of Mrs. Henderson Presents are likely to make it a favorite among nostalgiaphiles, theater buffs, and the tea-and-crumpets set. Sailing along on the strength of another showy performance by Judi Dench, Stephen Frears’ period frolic is this year’s Being Julia, adorned with the same kind of high-toned baubles…
Handle With Care
Laith Rashid has started a running challenge for Panini’s Mug Night: If you can bring in any container with a handle, the club will fill it with domestic draft beer for $2. “I’ve been telling people, If you brought in a trash can, I would love to see that,” jokes Rashid, one of the bar’s…
Rap Attacks
The opening words on Minneapolis rapper P.O.S.’ just-released second album, Audition, pretty much tell you what he’s all about. “First of all, fuck Bush,” he spits over a stuttering barrage of break beats, guitars, and drums. And for the next 45 minutes, he rips through a series of mostly political rhymes. P.O.S. — which stands…
The Honorary Title
The Honorary Title rates critical comparisons to Elvis Costello, while its tourmate Koufax conjures Joe Jackson. But despite musical and lyrical similarities to these early ’80s stalwarts, these groups don’t draw aging hipsters. Instead, they’re introducing piano pop to MySpace-logged teenagers, most of whom haven’t heard anything like it beyond their big brothers’ Ben Folds…
Ride the Legend
Anthony Hopkins lends style points to any movie in which he appears. The thing may be a dog, but the actor who brought the gruesome psychopath Hannibal Lecter to life and got deep inside a repressed English butler always gives us something fascinating to behold. The depth and gravity of his work remain even when…
