Their Last Battle
In his 21 years in the Lorain County prosecutor’s office, Jonathan Rosenbaum always seemed to be fighting matters of life and death. The nemesis of murderers, thugs, and corrupt politicians, Rosenbaum called it as he saw it, even if he saw only black and white when everyone else saw shades of gray. Often righteously angry,…
Tanya Donelly
No one would have blamed Tanya Donelly if she’d chosen to paraphrase her career and cash in on her indie cred for her sophomore solo album, Beautysleep. In many ways, its predecessor, Lovesongs for Underdogs, did just that, as Donelly handily referenced her potent contributions to Throwing Muses, the Breeders, and the oft-praised Belly. In…
The Comforter
For most of William Boyd Sr.’s 87 years, death has been a frequent caller, arriving just before dawn on the coldest day in February or right in the middle of a big Sunday dinner. His earliest memory is of his undertaker father turning the family’s front room into a makeshift funeral chapel by folding up…
Blood Red Throne
The Scandinavian metal scene continues to evolve, even as the rest of the world continues not to notice — outside of a minuscule underground web of fanatics who treasure their own obscurity above almost all else. The latest entry in the harder-than-you sweepstakes is Blood Red Throne, a group that incorporates some really wonderful riffage…
Lemming Parade
Joe Zion and James Glending are seriously screwed. Their job is to lure conventions to Cleveland. Shocking as it may be, the Rust Belt isn’t top-of-mind for most people planning four-day vacations that involve blowing off seminars, sneaking away for golf, and pounding enough liquor to become a walking toxicology study. Admit it: When’s the…
MF Doom
One of the underground’s brightest stars, MC/producer MF Doom entered the game over a decade ago, as Zev Luv X of the pioneering New York crew KMD. After recording two albums with KMD, he was forced by industry shadiness and personal tragedy into seclusion, reemerging as Doom a few years ago. He came back strong…
The Devil Next Door
Don’t make victims out of murderers: I have an idea for Wendy Sauder [Letters, January 24, which discussed “Lepers of Chester Township,” January 3]: Let these murdering scumbag animals live next to you. Have you forgotten about the little girl who is dead? Shot in the head after she was already down? How do you…
Tony Lang Band
Where to Begin couldn’t have arrived at a better time. Chock-full of 15 radio-ready selections that run the gamut from toe-tapping to head-banging, the Tony Lang Band’s second effort safely dodges the sophomore slump and presents the next phase in the band’s evolution. Not that Lang’s material ever wanted for maturity. Usually spun from the…
No Hurry
The impatient might want to skip Stutter. Stutter, the quietly revealing show at Shaheen Modern and Contemporary Art, because these works, by four New Yorkers and one Ohioan, don’t yield instant MTV gratification. First glances disclose pale canvases, soundless video of a man waving, a photo of a wreck, and what look like spots on…
Vanity Rare
At last, the rampant selfishness that rules the theater has been taken out of the administrative offices and placed on the stage where it belongs. Giddy whiffs of chaos are emanating from the main-stage premiere of Murphy Guyer’s The Infinite Regress of Human Vanity, which, in spite of its impossible title, is undoubtedly the most…
Net Loss
Maybe this won’t seem like such a big deal to you, since you don’t watch The Education of Max Bickford–which is on CBS Sunday nights. Or maybe you’re one of the 9 million who do, in which case, well, sorry about that. But stay tuned nonetheless, because this small tale will illuminate everything wrong with…
Edible Art
Chef Michael Herschman doesn’t do comfort food. “If that’s the kind of thing you want,” says the owner of Mojo (2221 Professor Street, 216-595-6656), “go home to your mother for Sunday dinner.” On the other hand, what he does do is create beautiful pieces of culinary art — smart, innovative dishes most of us would…
Solo Lopez
It was way back in 1979 that restaurateurs Brad Friedlander and Craig Sumers opened Lopez y Gonzales on the corner of Washington Boulevard and Lee Road, and their timing couldn’t have been better. Hip Cleveland Heights was the place to be. Northeast Ohioans were just discovering life beyond Brown Derby. And Mexican food seemed fetchingly…
Just for Kicks
Seeing that only six teams make up the Major Indoor Soccer League, we’re wondering just how star-packed the MISL All-Star Game, taking place at Gund Arena on Sunday, February 17, really is. After all, this is a sport struggling for survival, with teams pretty much playing each other weekly. It’s also a bit ironic that…
Rigs to Riches
Patterson Hood is more than just a little under the weather. The vocalist, guitarist, and primary songwriter for the Drive-By Truckers has just been diagnosed with walking pneumonia, and he punctuates nearly every sentence with a deep, racking cough. A month of traveling in a van together means that the rest of the Truckers are…
Controlling Types
Cars careen around the track, jockeying for position and trying to break free from the pack. Suddenly, a car hits the wall. The crash is followed by laughter and good-natured taunts. With radio-controlled racing, it’s fast-paced action minus explosions, injuries, and all those annoying corporate endorsements plastered on cars. Who needs NASCAR when there are…
Blonde Faith
Second acts in rock and roll: Are they misplaced sentimental journeys, uneasily handled unfinished business, or cynical cash-ins? L.A.’s Concrete Blonde offers a muddled answer to this line of questioning. The band formed in 1987 and enjoyed an early ’90s chart run that culminated in the Top 20 hit “Joey,” a heart-stopping pop gem similar…
Arabian Nightmare
It would be easy and tempting to hail Kandahar as a masterpiece without even seeing it: It’s a foreign film, it takes on social issues, it’s directed by Iranian master Mohsen Makhmalbaf, it speaks to the causes of our war on terror and first hit U.S. shores just as the city of Kandahar fell to…
Showcase Showdown
Cleveland’s first stab at a music fest was made with a butter knife. Undercurrents, which began in 1989, grew steadily until the mid-’90s, allegedly got Pittsburgh’s Rusted Root signed, and slowly began to fall apart. Last year, Undercurrents was limited to two clubs and 25 bands and is now often referred to as “Blundercurrents.” “I…
Hart of Glass
Hart’s War, like most mediocre films, is little more than a movie about the movies. Set in a POW camp during the final months of World War II, it owes much of its existence to far superior films, chief among them La Grande Illusion, Stalag 17, and The Great Escape; the enormous shadow those three…
The Breeders
Three words: Guns. N’. Roses. Think of the Breeders as the hip, poppy, feminine counterpart to Axl and his rotating pie rack of guileless yahoos. Both have gone the same route: Instant fame. Myriad lineup changes. Drug problems. General malaise. Cult idolatry. And an album of new material drooling fans have waited damn near a…
A Closing Iris
After a long absence from American screens, British stage director Richard Eyre, best known for his agreeably nasty The Ploughman’s Lunch in 1982, makes his return with an alternately depressing and uplifting drama about Dame Iris Murdoch’s descent into Alzheimer’s disease and the heroic efforts of her husband, John Bayley, to care for her, despite…
The Kinsey Report
Can contemporary blues be fresh, modern, and eclectic without sounding like Robert Cray or some teenage Caucasian? Absolutely, if it’s the Kinsey Report. The sons of legendary Gary, Indiana blues guitarist Lester “Big Daddy” Kinsey — Donald (guitar), Kenneth (bass), Ralph (drums) — have been forging blast-furnace urban blues for almost 18 years. The trio,…
Snoozie Q.
Following his dazzling change-of-pace performance in Training Day, Denzel Washington returns to more familiar turf in another of his trademark roles as One of the Best Human Beings in the World in John Q. The opening scenes establish quickly (and a bit heavy-handedly) that John Q. Archibald is the finest possible incarnation of the American…
Fu Manchu
When someone stole Scott Hill’s favorite fuzz pedal during a show in Boston, Fu Manchu knew change was coming. The band’s trademark sound — nod-your-head riffs played on guitars soupy with thick fuzz — was in jeopardy. Little did the thieving knucklehead know he was altering the course of Fu Manchu for the better. Hill…
The Good, the Bad & the Irritating
Ohio is run by southerners. The governor and the Senate president are from Cincinnati, a suburb of Kentucky. The House speaker wakes at 4:30 a.m. to feed the sheep and llamas on his Perry County farm. Sad but true, the motherlands of Bob Taft, Richard Finan, and Larry Householder are closer to Huntington, West Virginia,…
Howie Smith
Howie Smith is the boldest saxophonist in Cleveland — the dependable Ernie Krivda, the expressive technicians of the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra, and New York émigrés Joe Lovano and Josh Smith included. The reason why this off-stream musician occupies so singular a position is that he’s coordinator of jazz studies at Cleveland State, giving him both…
