Ladies’ Night
SAT 2/21 Saturday is girls’ night out at Grays Armory, where the 29th Womyn’s Variety Show will feature more than 15 bands, singers, poets, dancers, and comedians. “It’s a chance for women to get together and feel like they’re in a safe environment,” says organizer Marsha Sindelar. “They can perform whatever they want to perform,…
Murder, He Wrote
O’Shea “Ice Cube” Jackson 5010 11th Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90043 Dear O’Shea, I’m sorry, Mr. Jackson. You were for real. I don’t mean to make you or your daughter cry. I apologize a trillion times. But you’ve fallen off. And today is not a good day. I saw the lights of the Goodyear Blimp,…
Rocket From the Tombs
What a cool move it was for the Clash not to reunite. Not just for the admirable gumption it took to turn down loads of cash, but also for allowing their legend to live in opaque memory banks, where the myth can expand exponentially. Lord knows, cash never weighed into Rocket From the Tombs’ decision…
Track Stars
SUN 2/22 Those footprints circling your house: Do they belong to a lost deer? A hungry wolf? A lunatic stalker, armed with a 15-inch kitchen knife and duct tape? The Cleveland Metroparks’ School of the Wilds: Tracking program can help you tell the difference between Bambi and Bluto. The first part takes place indoors, where…
Get Your Idols Here
Chris Mitchell smiles a lot for a bastard. Actually, the thirtysomething Akron singer conceals it well, behind that neighborly grin and the kind of fresh-scrubbed good looks normally reserved for Noxzema commercials. He’s more Backstreet Boy than badass, with close-cropped hair and a youthfulness that suggests he still gets carded for beer. But as a…
Slow Stride
FRI 2/20 What’s the difference between box turtles and other shell-sporting reptiles? Get the answer from real live specimens at 7 p.m. Friday at the North Chagrin Nature Center, off SOM Center Road in Mayfield Village. The program is for kids eight and older. Admission is free; call 440-473-3370. — Michael Gallucci Slave Stories Oberlin…
Headbanger Heist
When Kris Dann left the Cleveland hard-rock group N-Factor to start a new band last fall, he took his collection of customized guitars with him. Now the gear has disappeared from Dann’s Akron rehearsal space, the result of an apparent theft. A band that shares the space left the building at 9 p.m. Saturday, February…
Pride and Prejudice
SUN 2/22 Bring up Big Mama’s name, and black drag queens statewide still bow their heads in honor of the founder of Mr. and Miss Black Gay Ohio. James McDowell, as his mama called him, created the contest 27 years ago out of sympathy for the black female impersonators who were consistently shut out of…
Chris Knight
“Just because a song I wrote has a gun in it, they think I’m trying to be Steve Earle,” Chris Knight will tell you. “That’s bullshit. I’ve been this way since I was five years old. I’ve lived in the country all my life.” That’s certainly reflected in Knight’s songs and the people who populate…
Home Plate
FRI 2/20 Those aren’t seismic waves emanating from Abbasso Underground Lounge Friday; they’re the sonic pulses of Electrasoul, the Pittsburgh-based DJ collective at the center of the techno showcase Plate Tectonics. Happening the third Friday of every month, the series is the brainchild of Abbasso DJs Damon Havill and Jamie Tyler (who will also spin…
The Mr. T Experience
There’s nothing sadder than the sight of an aging punk hacking out his hits onstage, leather jacket and mohawk wilting under the weight of too many run-throughs of his three-chord thunderbombs. Thankfully, Mr. T Experience majordomo Dr. Frank, a degree-carrying expert in the fields of Pop-Punk Evolution and Growing Old Gracefully, determinedly avoids this cliché.…
Ropes a Dope
It’s clear by now that Meg Ryan, the bubbling sweetheart of half a dozen romantic comedies, means to bring new substance and seriousness to the latest phase of her career. Witness the lonely New York English teacher she played in last year’s brainy slasher flick, In the Cut: In no previous performance had Ryan called…
Centro-Matic
Listening to Centro-Matic, one inevitably encounters the apparition of a younger Bob Pollard, hovering over the laconic lo-fi fuzz that envelops Will Johnson’s music. Since his 1996 debut, Redo the Stacks, Johnson has proved to be a consummate popsmith, essaying shambling, bittersweet ballads and percolating, slow-burn power pop with equal skill. Understated in its grace,…
Hack Work
Seldom over the course of an illustrious career has Gene Hackman garnered sustained laughter in films billed as comedies. While he’s wonderful at playing virtuous or wicked, paternal or pissed-off, he’s never quite comfortable in the role of comedian; he may be an actor of uncommon range, able to communicate anger and empathy within a…
DJ Colette
Beck may have laid claim to the expression “two turntables and a microphone,” but Chicago DJ Colette Marino brought the words to life. If female DJs are no longer the gimmick they once were, female DJs who sing while they spin are still a matter of debate. Thankfully, the actions of 28-year-old Colette have gone…
A Spoonful of Sugarman
So this grown man walks into another teen girl movie. He is not stunned to learn that it concerns clothes, fun, clothes, peer pressure, and clothes. The world outside can be ugly as hell, though, so he commences with the cynicism on low. This particular teen girl movie is not about bopping through Europe, the…
Toots Thielemans and Kenny Werner
Harmonica great Jean “Toots” Thielemans and jazz pianist Kenny Werner are soul mates. Though three decades separate them — Thielemans is in his early 80s, Werner in his early 50s — they share a sensibility that makes their music both soothing and stimulating. Thielemans has been performing for more than a half-century. His associates include…
Caine Unable
“Michael Caine is a revelation!” declares the Jeffrey Lyons quote appearing on ads for The Statement. Lyons is right, but not in the way you might expect. Indeed, Caine’s performance here is revelatory — who knew he could be this boring? Insufferable, yes — Oscar aside, his mangled “American” accent in The Cider House Rules…
Little Steven’s Underground Garage Live
E Street Band guitarist and Sopranos regular Little Steven Van Zandt has taken on another bandanna, that of garage-rock savior. While palling around with Telstar Records (Greenhornes, Swingin’ Neckbreakers) honcho Todd Abramson and being privy to the constant club action in New York City, he noticed that there’s still a vast number of snotty, three-chord…
The Ticket
January 6, 1:30 p.m. As a TV cameraman sets up his shot, Sheldon Starke makes his case. Yesterday, his client, Elecia Battle, offered a reward for the return of an errant lottery ticket. Today, someone else has turned in said ticket. Starke is arguing that it was lost and is still the property of Mrs.…
Pillow Talk
On the one hand, we have TV contestants on Fear Factor nuzzling hordes of rats or spiders. On the other hand, we have CBS flashing a quick peek at Janet Jackson’s starboard mammary gland during the Super Bowl. And why? Because it’s harder than ever to make a connection with a population that has grown…
Chris Whitley
Chris Whitley’s 1991 debut, Living With the Law, unleashed a torrent of critical praise and inspired a number of new interpretations of the term “bluesman.” While the Texas-born singer-songwriter-guitarist is not likely to convince a purist that he fits the mold, a number of scribes have declared that his work somehow redefines the genre. What’s…
Dollars and Sense
Dollars and Sense Cause for HOPE: In response to Chris Maag’s article “Schoolyard Fight” [January 28], I find it sad that politics play a part in all areas of Cleveland life. As a parent of a HOPE Academy student, I believe the attacks of Rich DeColibus are unfair and motivated by something less than an…
Starry Twilight
We’ve all seen self-portraits by the tragic genius Vincent van Gogh — the gaunt and haunted visage, the tortured blue eyes peering out from behind a scraggly red beard. The artist exquisitely captures the pain of the mental demons that eventually drove him to suicide at age 37. But we never see the spirit and…
Fall Out Boy
For a while, the metaphorical road to success was a smooth one for Fall Out Boy, the highly acclaimed emo-pop-punk four-piece from suburban Chicago. The band’s demo tape started a bidding war. Its first album, Take This to Your Grave, was released by the Florida indie Fueled by Ramen, but paid for by Island Records.…
Almost Famous
About two years ago, Mike Shea, the CEO of Alternative Press, attended a Human Rights Campaign dinner at the Renaissance Hotel. It was a swank function, bustling with politicians and dignitaries, so Shea put aside his jeans and T-shirt and dressed in a business suit. At a charity auction before the dinner, a friend introduced…
Fab Film
Albert Maysles, with brother David, made two different films about two different rock-and-roll bands five years apart, but to this day he can’t think of one without immediately thinking of the other. The first he was shooting 40 years ago this very day, more or less: The Beatles were on United States soil from February…
Chromeo
Servicing a talk box with Bambi Woods-like smoothness, the Canadian duo Chromeo stars Vice magazine’s rap editor Dave 1 (he’s A-Trak’s older sibling) as a Casanova MC wannabe and his gold-grilled associate, Pee Thug, who chimes in with enough synths to power a Third World country. Two years ago, the duo slid across the border…
Golden Boy
Academy Award-winner Stephen Schwartz sympathizes with the bad guys. In his latest Broadway production, Wicked, the composer and lyricist retells The Wizard of Oz from the Wicked Witch’s point of view. “We tend to paint such a black-and-white picture of the world,” he says. “Things are more complex than that.” Schwartz will speak about his…
Winter Treats
Freshly roasted Venezuelan coffee may be the specialty of the house at Akron’s Angel Falls Coffee Company (792 West Market Street, on Highland Square; 330-376-5282), but it’s the hot chocolate that knocks our woolly wintertime socks off. Each made-to-order 16-ounce mug ($3.25) runneth over with the sweet, creamy goodness of top-shelf Venezuela Chocolates el Rey,…
Lambchop
From the first surges of “Being Tyler,” a cinematic instrumental with the dramatic piano and orchestral vibe of an early 1980s prime-time soap opera, Nashville chamber-poppers Lambchop revel in velvet-swathed swankiness. The reformed alt-country collective stretches this urbanity over its seventh and eighth discs, Aw, Cmon and No, You Cmon, a matching set that perpetuates…
We Was Robbed!
Ohio finishes at the bottom of so many quality-of-life lists, we should lease a time-share condo there. But if there’s one thing we’ve always taken pride in, it’s our gift for public corruption. Now it seems even that is in question. When Corporate Crime Reporter recently announced its list of the country’s most corrupt states,…
A Place for Us
From a critical standpoint, fine dining is ultimately all about the food. Ambiance is important, yes, and gracious service de rigueur; but when we draw the final demarcation between an excellent restaurant and one that’s merely average, the food alone is the sine qua non. But here’s the thing: Scratch the surface of even the…
10,000 Maniacs
At age 14, nothing stirred us the way 10,000 Maniacs did — the righteousness of their songs, the style and alto of Natalie Merchant, were like a cool senior girl in funky tights and vintage clothes. Listening to their two-CD boxed set, all we can say is: What were we thinking? Songs about child abuse,…
This Week’s Day-By-Day Picks
Thursday, February 19 Author Stephen Unwin sure has picked a mind-aching subject for his latest book: proving the likelihood of God by plugging numbers into mathematical formulas. But The Probability of God: A Simple Calculation That Proves the Ultimate Truth turns out to be a witty and thoroughly readable account of one of life’s big…
They Love the ’80s
The cultural amnesia inherent in today’s ’80s revival should amuse anyone who survived the Reagan years. Jelly bracelets, off-the-shoulder shirts, and scads of hot pink clog contemporary clothing stores, conveniently neglecting the era’s fashion faux pas — stirrup pants, XXL shirts, and Day-Glo patterns. Asymmetrical haircuts today lack the heavenward hair spray or poof factor…
Telefon Tel Aviv
With Map of What Is Effortless, Telefon Tel Aviv marks a radical departure from the opaque ambiance of its 2001 debut, Fahrenheit Fair Enough, toward a rich brew of soul and IDM electronics. Much of it, in fact, features the Loyola University Chamber Orchestra, which lends the proceedings a regal, tortured air similar to the…
A Monkey Among Men
When Tommy Lucia pulls his 40-foot mobile home into the McDonald’s parking lot, it’s not the size of the vehicle that catches customers off guard; it’s the seven-pound primate going ape shit in the window. That’s Whiplash, the 17-year-old “Cowboy Monkey” who’s become a featured attraction of the World’s Toughest Rodeo, which rolls into Gund…
Devil on the Harp
Before Robert Lockwood Jr. was rediscovered by the outside world in the 1970s, the guitar legend was revered by hardcore blues lovers primarily for his splendid work behind Chicago’s premier harmonica players. His partiality to jazz harmonies and arrangements made for the savvy, skillful accompaniment that adorns the classic recordings of Sonny Boy Williamson II…
Lost in America
The best recommendation for the debut CD by this quirky Cleveland trio is that you need not listen too closely to the lyrics to enjoy it. Perhaps guitarist and songwriter Tim White doesn’t want to hear talk like that. He has a right to be proud of such sly ditties as “Beep,” “Please Stop Touching…
