Killing in the Name of . . .
Why do people engaged in warfare always believe that God endorses their cause and not their opponent’s? The Civil War drama Gods and Generals is filled with so much religious righteousness — endless Bible readings, urgent recitation of prayer, and ardent supplications to the Lord, to say nothing of the heavenly choir that intermittently bursts…
Jeff Samuel
Sitting around at a Christmas party in Little Italy almost three years ago, native Clevelander and seasoned techno DJ Jeff Samuel offered a few words of wisdom: “It’s all about the D.” Samuel wasn’t talking sports strategy, but rather the central position that Detroit — the birthplace of techno — still holds in the genre’s…
Gale Farce
Right-wing pundits will be coming out of the woodwork to holler about this one. Bad enough, they’ll say, that The Life of David Gale attacks the death penalty; it also features a caricature governor of Texas with big ears and a familiar, scripture-quoting smirk. There’s a character who notes that 73 percent of all serial…
Larry Coryell Trio
Spanning more genres than most guitarists his age, Larry Coryell was there when jazz-rock fusion made its first appearance. Although largely unacknowledged, Gary Burton’s mid-’60s work for RCA found Coryell playing with an edgy rock-inflected tone that was just as responsible for a new era in jazz as Miles Davis’s commonly cited fusion classics In…
Advanced Degrees
Here are three reasons (with more to come) why you should absolutely, definitely see Six Degrees of Separation at Kennedy’s Down Under: 1. It’s funnier than the movie. 2. It’s more imaginative than the movie. 3. It’s not a movie. On occasion, the right words, actors, and director all come together to create magic in…
The Candysnatchers
What can be said about the Candysnatchers that hasn’t already been barked by the roughneck goons and suspiciously scabbed hags that populate their audience? Yep, they’re assholes. They consistently show up late, if at all. They treat their instruments worse than their ex-girlfriends, mangling them and any human face within 10 feet of the stage.…
What the Puck?
Where the heck is the Reduced Shakespeare Company when you need them? They’re the ingenious comedy trio that hilariously performs all 37 of Shakespeare’s plays in the fiendishly efficient time of 97 minutes. That’s a good 30 minutes less than it takes Beck Center players to deflate just one of old Will’s products, the sprightly…
Simian
Surfing in from across the Atlantic on a wave of hype that’s been swelling since the release of the band’s second album, We Are Your Friends, U.K. darlings Simian traffic in pretty much the same kind of willfully “eclectic” pop that landed the Beta Band and Badly Drawn Boy on American shores. English music press…
Revisionist Herstory
Feminist art has image problems, and not without reason. Its ’70s incarnations often employed shock tactics to protest sexism: One artist pulled a paper scroll from her vagina, then read its text to her audience; another showed huge photos of herself in crotchless pants, wielding a machine gun. Annie Sprinkle even played doctor with a…
Ministry
Not long ago, the onetime industrial behemoth Ministry was all but written off the books: too cerebral for the short attention spans of nü-metal kids, and officially uncool for the industrial-goth club crowd, who were contented by computer-generated mopefests. And Ministry didn’t help its cause with the sludgy, directionless mess that was 1999’s Dark Side…
Jimmy’s Wrath
On February 2, The Plain Dealer published a story vaguely critical of the local Democratic Party’s operations. The gist: While the party still wins elections, it’s an organizational mess. Last week, Chairman Jimmy Dimora sent a letter to precinct committee members, labor leaders, and elected officials blasting The PD’s story as “unwarranted,” “uncalled for,” “vicious,”…
Natural Disaster
Tony Grisoni can always tell when his old friend Terry Gilliam, the visionary who sees too far for his own good, is in pain: He laughs. The worse the pain, the harder the laughter. If that is the case, then the Terry Gilliam seen throughout Lost in La Mancha, Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe’s painfully…
Savoy Brown
Other than John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, no band in the British blues universe has matched the staying power of Savoy Brown. Formed in the mid-’60s by guitarist Kim Simmonds, the group enjoyed its peak of popularity in the early ’70s, a bigger draw in the States than back home. Like Mayall’s band, only the leader has…
Fox 8 Goes to War
“Good evening and welcome to this Fox 8 pre-war special. I’m Wilma Smith.” “And I’m Tim Taylor. With the United States perhaps only hours away from a war with Iraq, Fox 8 is on the ground in Baghdad to bring you the latest developments. We lead off our tag-team coverage with Todd Meany reporting live.…
Menu Mischief
Chef-restaurateur Maureen “Moe” Schneider loves food. That much is clear from the menus she creates for her eponymous Cuyahoga Falls restaurant — lengthy listings of ambitious delights, heavy on big-gun ingredients like foie gras, black truffles, lobster, and goat cheese. With all that ammo, it’s no wonder that Schneider and her culinary team, including executive…
50 Cent
Get Rich or Die Tryin’, the first official full-length from rapper 50 Cent, is a debut that burns like an entry wound — which is no surprise, coming from a man who claims to have been shot nine times. But for all the spent rounds, death, and suffering (and Get Rich has plenty), the album…
Taming of the Shrew
Tracy Collins wasn’t a shrinking violet. As payroll clerk for the City of Highland Heights for 23 years, Collins had seniority — and the confidence that goes with it. “People in a position for a long time, right or wrong, they tend to be more outspoken,” says David McDowell, a former city finance director. “Tracy…
Vintage Style
Leave the Hives T-shirt in the closet: When you visit 806, Tremont’s new wine and martini bar, elegance and style will be the order of the day. Just nine months ago, this now-ravishing Victorian beauty was a dingy former cobbler’s shop; when it opens on Friday, guests will find a space filled with extraordinary arts…
Loose Fur / Minus 5
These tapes will not self-destruct, but, audiophiles, your mission — should you choose to accept it — is to listen to the self-titled Loose Fur debut and the new album from the Minus 5 and not for one moment forget that neither, technically, is a Wilco record (though both are spearheaded by Jeff Tweedy). Not…
Clinical Depression
The funeral was over, so the old hands drifted off to mourn among themselves. One after another, they arrived at the small house in Euclid, with husbands and wives and children in tow — to remember, to celebrate the woman who’d changed everything for them. Thirty years before, Jeanne Sonville took a simple idea –…
Geeks for God
It’s a bit past nine on a frosty Wednesday night, and it’s time for a miracle. Jesus turned the water into wine, but Uncle Scratch’s Gospel Revival can do Him one better. “Brother Ant’s gonna turn Mudslides into urine,” Uncle Scratch drummer Brother Ed proclaims, as his partner staggers toward the john of the Capsule…
Kiddo
The first full-length album from Kiddo should be enough to establish this bunch on a national level. Easily fulfilling the potential the band hinted at on its superb four-song sampler from late last year, Kiddo is a collection of near-perfect pop that helps make February feel like July. Featuring vocals that alternate between guitarist Christian…
A Commitment to Ignorance
Ohio Senate President Doug White uses phrases like “Jew them down.” Governor Bob Taft blows $700,000 to insert his mug in a state tourism ad. House leaders say they can balance the budget with $35 million in food-stamp money. Forgive them for being jackasses. It is, after all, an Ohio tradition to ride to prominence…
Wonder Boy
On his debut album, Faces Down, newly minted Norwegian pop sensation Sondre Lerche comes off like a G-rated Serge Gainsbourg. Or a sweet-natured Beck. And sometimes like a Thom Yorke with a somewhat healthier sense of self-esteem. He’s a songwriter who acknowledges the bleak and ugly in life, but goes unscarred by it, making music…
Starberry
Starberry’s homemade debut feels like a thrift-store sweater: tattered, well-worn, and missing a few buttons, but all the more endearing for its ragged charm. Recorded in the basement of Jennifer and Pat Casa’s house and mixed in their kitchen, Starberry is low in fidelity and high in energy — mostly, it’s full-on power pop. Frontwoman…
Letters to the Editor
Bracelin’s just doing his job: Wow, you guys really told Jason Bracelin [Letters, January 22, in response to “Clash of the Titans,” December 4]. How dare a critic state his opinion? Oh wait, I forgot. That’s his job. If a critic isn’t honest about what he thinks, how can you trust anything he writes? It’s…
Love Bird
Chris Robinson has titled his first solo record New Earth Mud. Mmm. Evocative, yet disappointing. We much prefer its far-superior working title, As You Listen to This, I’m Having Sex With Kate Hudson. With the blues-hawking Black Crowes on indefinite hiatus, the supermodel-thin frontman has ditched the Robert Plant sex-bomb shtick and perhaps permanently evicted…
Street Dreams
Nothing really happens in 42nd Street. There’s plenty of dancing and singing in Mark Bramble and Michael Stewart’s tribute to 1930s musicals, but there’s little actual plot. And no one really seems to mind. “It’s like getting hit by a train,” admits Robert Spring, who plays Billy Lawlor in the Tony-winning revival at the Palace…
It’s Not the Size . . .
For fans of local music, last year’s Cleveland Music Fest was loaded with promise: A $10 ticket earned concertgoers the chance to see more than 250 area bands perform in nine venues around town. But by most accounts, the good intentions didn’t yield a good fest. Shows frequently started late, concert lineups often changed, some…
This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks
Thursday, February 20 “I never wanted to be a flight attendant,” admits Elliott Hester, whose Plane Insanity: A Flight Attendant’s Tales of Sex, Rage, and Queasiness at 30,000 Feet chronicles his 16 years as (you guessed it) a flight attendant. As “an in-flight bartender/referee/therapist,” Hester’s pretty much seen it all: folks freaking out, puking on…
Abdullah Reloads
Abdullah’s Graveyard Poetry just earned a glowing review in Metal Maniacs, a mag as cherished among headbangers as Maxim is among frat boys, and the band is already retooling its lineup again, recruiting Boulder screamer-bassist Jamie Walters to take over on drums for the departed Jim Simonian. The addition of Walters, who played bass on…
American Beauties
So what do 50 or so of the country’s greatest art treasures do when the Smithsonian kicks them out during renovations? The same thing we did when we were booted from the house: road trip! Which means that local art lovers can cancel their excursions to D.C. (unless you really like the aesthetics of dropcloths…
Ted Leo & the Pharmacists
Ted Leo swivels his hips like a young Elvis P. and sneers like a younger Elvis C. on his latest album, Hearts of Oak, pounding the pulpit and sounding the alarm. Flipping through a history book while rocketing into the future, Leo still can’t quite escape what’s going on right freaking now. Such as: There’s…
Force of Will
Someone’s got to say it, so let’s start here: We’ve underestimated Will Ferrell. Honestly, it wasn’t that hard to do. His Saturday Night Live stint was never hugely impressive, as he’d often fall back on the same shtick of yelling his lines with detailed enunciation in a passive-aggressive tone that made him sound like he…
The Paybacks
Think that all Detroit’s new rock underground has to offer is the White Stripes? Think again. After making their recorded debut with three tracks on the Jack White-curated Sympathetic Sounds of Detroit compilation in 2001, the Paybacks issued their full-length bow, Knock Loud, in 2002 on Get Hip and promptly turned the trash-rock cognoscenti on…
Blue Crossbreed
Dark Blue, according to its credits, is based upon a story by Los Angeles-born author James Ellroy, who pens grisly and guilt-ridden pulp-noir haiku that spreads across hundreds of pages. Its screenplay was penned by cop-caper fetishist David Ayer, and director Ron Shelton insists he rewrote both men’s words with their approval. But you do…
Tim Easton
Tim Easton revels in great songcraft and compassion on Break Your Mother’s Heart, his third solo LP. Such easy-listening, hard-thinking music may remind you of early Eagles and Jackson Browne, but Easton has his own dark, stylish vision. Born in Lewiston, New York, Easton grew up in Akron and became noted for his work with…
