What to Do Tonight: Carolina Chocolate Drops
While there’s certainly a novelty to watching a group of black musicians play string music, there’s actually a long but forgotten string tradition among black musicians. The Carolina Chocolate Drops are keeping that tradition alive, even if the group’s singer and multi-instrumentalist Dom Flemons doesn’t consider them musical missionaries. “We don’t have a responsibility in…
What to Do Tonight: Free Energy
Before embarking on their new tour, Free Energy frontman Paul Sprangers had a lot of spunky ideas for the set. He wanted the celebratory vibe of his band’s music to coincide with equally colorful stunts — like throwing confetti at midnight, exploding T-shirt canisters and levitating drummer Nick Shuminsky mid-performance. Even if these concepts won’t…
What to Do Tonight: Roky Erickson
As lead singer and guitarist for the 13th Floor Elevators, Roky Erickson helped pioneer psych-rock in the ’60s. The Elevators scored a minor hit with “You’re Gonna Miss Me” and released four albums before breaking up in 1969. After that, drug problems, mental-health issues and run-ins with the law took their toll on Erickson, who…
What to Do Tonight: Stacy Earle and Mark Stuart
Married country musicians are part of the scene. It goes all the way back to pioneers A.P. & Sara Carter, up through Johnny and June, George and Tammy, and all the way to Tim and Faith. Stacey Earle and Mark Stuart aren’t Nashville’s best-known power couple, but they may be the hardest-working. According to Stuart,…
What to Do Tonight: Boys From County Hell
For more than 10 years, the Boys From the County Hell have played marathon shows on St. Patrick’s Day, often starting before 10 a.m. and concluding when the bars close. Over the decade, the Pogues tribute band has teamed up with Spider Stacy (an orginal Pogue) for a series of shows, played a gig in…
What to Do Tonight: Assembly of Dust
When Reid Genauer walked away from the folksy-jammy Strangefolk in 2000 after forming the Vermont band a decade earlier, he was ostensibly leaving to concentrate on family and to return to school. While pursuing these activities, Genauer soon felt music’s gravitational pull again and called on a handful of friends to help record a solo…
What to Do Tonight: Flogging Molly
There are very few bands that are as rousing in concert as Flogging Molly. While the Pogues may have invented Celtic-punk, the Los Angeles septet has perfected a sound that reaches its apotheosis in its rafter-shaking performances. Irish frontman Dave King draws upon his heritage and squalid, difficult Dublin upbringing in his anthems of hope…
What to Do Tonight: Pere Ubu
Over the past several years, Pere Ubu singer David Thomas has gotten even more cantankerous. At a local concert a few years ago, he threw a tantrum when the sound wasn’t to his liking. Then again, we’re talking about a guy who adapted the alias Crocus Behemoth at one point. But Thomas’ high standards should…
What to Do Tonight: Howie Day
Howie Day’s career has been fascinating and problematic. A musical prodigy (he could play commercial jingles by ear on the piano when he was six), Day was gigging around Maine by the time he entered high school. He opened for Ziggy Marley when he was 17, touring so much his senior year that he barely…
FAKE OP-ED SOUNDS PRETTY ACCURATE TO US
Color us not so surprised. It took The Onion to capture to the essence House Minority Leader John Boehner’s approach to politics. The congressman from Ohio’s 8th district has blurred the line between reality and parody for a long time. In a mock (?) editorial titled “My Constituents Care Way More About Political Gamesmanship Than…
Derivative screenplay sinks Brooklyn’s Finest
Screenwriter Michael C. Martin’s success story is the kind that makes entertainment writers salivate and less successful screenwriters gnash their envious teeth. The film student and former subway worker wrote the script for this cop movie while recovering from a car wreck. He entered it in a contest, and it was picked up by an…
Smashing Pumpkins Release Third Song From Free Album
X marks the lame rocker For those of you who still care about Smashing Pumpkins, Billy Corgan just posted the third free download from Teargarden by Kaleidyscope, the 44-song album he’s releasing one freakin’ song at a time online. The new song, “A Stitch in Time,” is considerable better than the other two Teargarden songs.…
OK Go Make Another Video That’s Better Than Their Music
If only OK Go spent as much time on their music as they do their videos … People first started paying attention to this group a couple years back when they hopped on treadmills to promote one of their lame songs. They’re at it again in the new video for “This Too Shall Pass,” which…
ORCHESTRAS AND AGING CITIES
Cleveland is not Berlin, of course, but big old cities around the world do have a lot in common—like major arts institutions, deteriorating finances, diverse neighborhoods, and vacant old industrial infrastructure. In a recent interview with Richard Morrison for the Times of London, the eminent British conductor Simon Rattle, lately principal conductor of the Berlin…
ACTIVISTS CALL ON KUCINICH TO COMPROMISE
Over the weekend, I got a couple of invitations to join a Facebook advocacy page. Normally, I consider these something of a pain in the ass — I really don’t want to clog up my already overloaded news feed with things like “Can this dung beetle get more fans than Glenn Beck?” But these were…
TRAM IN VAIN? BEN FRANKLIN’S LATEST INVENTION
We’re suckers for big, outrageous, wildly impractical-sounding ideas for transforming Cleveland. After all, the standard repertoire of projects (stadiums, an arena, new hotels, turning Tower City into a shopping mall) hasn’t done much to turn around Cleveland’s economy or reputation. So why not look at projects like the Rockometer or the one that arrived in…
This Just In: Concert Announcements
Boys Like Girls, and some boys look like girls SOLD OUT Passion Pit/Mayer Hawthorne & the Country: Tue., March 30, 7 p.m., SOLD OUT. House of Blues. THIS JUST IN:Bryan Adams: Tue., April 20, 7:30 p.m. Canton Palace Theatre. Bamboozle Roadshow, featuring Boys Like Girls, All Tiem Low, Third Eye Blind, Good Charlotte, and others:…
Blue Arrow Hosts Free Concert Tonight
Caledonia Mission’s ride is here Blue Arrow Records is inviting you to fight your cabin fever by coming down to a free, in-store concert tonight featuring two bands. The Caledonia Mission comprise brother multi-instrumentalists Angelo and Anthony LaMarca, who claim both Youngstown and Brooklyn as home base and have a sparse, delicate, dreamy sound that…
Rock Hall Screens Roky Erickson Doc for Free
Roky salutes you If you’re going to hear Austin psych-garage legend Roky Erickson at the Beachland on Saturday — which is part of the club’s 10th-anniversary celebration — the Rock Hall is offering an opportunity to gain some context on his performance. At 7 p.m. tomorrow in its 4th-floor Foster Theater, it will screen the…
Reviews of the Cinematheque’s weekend films
The Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque is showing several great movies this weekend. Here are our reviews of just a few of them. Anti-Christ (Denmark/Germany/France/Sweden/Italy/Poland, 2009) Danish enfant terrible Lars von Trier’s Cannes-awarded cause celebre deals with a couple (Willem Dafoe and a risk-taking Charlotte Gainsbourg) who express grief over the accidental death of their…
WILL BUS ROUTE APP UPDATE FOR RTA SERVICE CUTS?
A new free smartphone application can help you find out when your bus is arriving. The RouteShout app find bus stops, routes, and arrival times in over 25 cities, including Cleveland. It’s available for iPhones, Androids and text-enabled phones. The Cleveland program is based on data from the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority. Users can…
3/10: Making Trouble at Maltz Museum
You could probably come up with the names of a dozen Jewish comedians in less than a minute. It’s no secret that Jews have gravitated toward making people laugh for reasons that could keep an army of psychiatrists and sociologists busy. Add gender, and you have a complicated mix of issues. (Funny ladies still evoke…
3/10: Carolina Chocolate Drops at Beachland
While there’s certainly novelty to a group of black musicians play string music, there’s actually a long but forgotten string tradition among black musicians. The Carolina Chocolate Drops are keeping that tradition alive, even if the group’s singer and multi-instrumentalist Dom Flemons doesn’t consider them musical missionaries. “We don’t have a responsibility in that sort…
3/8: Mac McClelland at B-Side
Mac McClelland has done some daring things as a Mother Jones writer and editor, including posing as a call girl and embedding herself in dumpster-diving culture. In 2006, she went to Thailand as a volunteer and found that the people she was living with were associated with a U.S.-designated terrorist organization fomenting revolution against the…
3/8: Free Energy at the Beachland
Before embarking on a new tour, Free Energy frontman Paul Sprangers had a lot of spunky ideas for the set. He wanted the celebratory vibe of his band’s music to coincide with equally colorful stunts — like throwing confetti at midnight, exploding T-shirt canisters and levitating drummer Nick Shuminsky mid-performance. Even if these concepts don’t…
3/7: Cleveland Orchestra’s Musically Speaking
Best known for roles on Days of Our Lives and Star Trek: The Next Generation, John de Lancie was born into a musical family — his father was an oboist with the Philadelphia Symphony. He applies that knowledge as host of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s concert series for children. The Cleveland Orchestra recruits him for…
3/6-7: The Song Is You! at Tri-C
For decades, local radio host Bill Rudman has made it his one-man mission to evangelize classic 20th-century pop and musical theater through vehicles like his syndicated radio show Footlight Parade and educational cabaret series The Song Is You! The latter’s Open a New Window: The Songs of Jerry Herman plays this weekend. In it, Rudman…
3/6: Jesus Christ Superstar at State Theatre
Ted Neeley has spent plenty of time honing his classic-rock musical chops in Broadway and touring productions of Hair, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Tommy. So you can expect a well-seasoned Messiah in Jesus Christ Superstar, which comes to PlayhouseSquare for a pair of shows today. Besides veteran Neeley, the cast is very…
3/6: Stacey Earle and Mark Stuart at Kent Stage
Married country musicians are part of the scene. It goes all the way back to pioneers A.P. & Sara Carter, up through Johnny and June, George and Tammy, all the way to Tim and Faith. Stacey Earle and Mark Stuart aren’t Nashville’s best-known power couple, but they may be the hardest working. According to Stuart,…
3/6: Boys From the County Hell at HOB
For more than 10 years, the Boys From the County Hell have played marathon shows on St. Patrick’s Day, often starting before 10 a.m. and concluding when the bars close. Over the decade, the Pogues tribute band has teamed up with Spider Stacy (an orginal Pogue) for a series of shows, played a gig in…
3/6: Assembly of Dust at Wilbert’s
When Reid Genauer walked away from the folksy-jammy Strangefolk in 2000 after forming the Vermont band a decade earlier, he was leaving to concentrate on family and return to school. While pursuing these activities, Genauer soon felt music’s gravitational pull again and called on a handful of friends to help record a solo album he…
3/6: Roky Erickson at the Beachland
As lead singer and guitarist for the 13th Floor Elevators, Roky Erickson helped pioneer psych-rock in the ’60s. The Elevators scored a minor hit with “You’re Gonna Miss Me” and released four albums before breaking up in 1969. After that, drug problems, mental-health issues and run-ins with the law took their toll on Erickson, who…
3/5: Voltimand and Cornelius are Dead Too
Oddy Festival impresario Matt Greenfield teams up with the Cleveland Shakespeare Festival this month for a production that riffs on a riff. In his 1966 play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Tom Stoppard takes two minor characters from Hamlet on an absurdist backstage battle of wits. Greenfield takes things a bit further, guiding a pair…
3/5: Emerging Artist Series at Sculpture Center
By the time electricity gets to our coffeemakers and computers, the dirty part is gone. The moist and gaseous “blackdamp” is left behind in the mines, and the mountains — with their tops removed and dumped into streams — are hundreds of miles away. Sculptor Willard Tucker’s exhibit Blackdamp shows electric ugliness in another way,…
3/5: Pere Ubu at the Beachland
Over the past several years, Pere Ubu singer David Thomas has gotten even more cantankerous. At a local concert a few years ago, he threw a tantrum when the sound wasn’t to his liking. Then again, we’re talking about a guy who adapted the alias Crocus Behemoth at one point. But Thomas’ high standards should…
3/5: Flogging Molly and Frank Turner at HOB
There are very few bands that are as rousing in concert as Flogging Molly. While the Pogues may have invented Celtic-punk, the Los Angeles septet has perfected a sound that reaches its apotheosis in its rafter-shaking performances. Irish frontman Dave King draws upon his heritage and squalid, difficult Dublin upbringing in his anthems of hope…
3/5: Escape on the Underground Railroad
Hale Farm and Village (2686 Oak Hill Rd., Bath) doesn’t open for the season fulltime until June. But tonight and tomorrow, it will host educational tours called A Fugitive’s Path: Escape on the Underground Railroad. Guests will assume the roles of slaves escaping north to freedom in 1859 through the so-called “railroad” (a network of…
3/4: State of the City at City Club
The state of our city is shaky. Cleveland is rumored to have suffered the largest population loss in its history over the past decade. The poverty level has increased. Endless acres are empty; thousands of homes are boarded up, stripped or falling into ruin. We’re on School Turnaround Plan No. 4,593, while kids continue to…
3/4: Howie Day at House of Blues
Howie Day’s career has been fascinating and problematic. A musical prodigy (he could play commercial jingles by ear on the piano when he was six), Day was gigging around Maine by the time he entered high school. He opened for Ziggy Marley when he was 17, touring so much his senior year that he barely…
LeBron Billboard Update and Premiering the Cavs “Goosie” T-Shirt
By now, you’ve probably clicked over to LeBron2010.com at one point or another and seen the billboard campaign. As it stands right now, Glen Infante, proprietor of LeBron 2010 and I Love the Hype, has raised about $2242 towards the effort to erect a billboard somewhere in Cleveland. I caught up with Glen recently to…
Byron Nemeth Finds a Singer
Byron Nemeth Group: now with singer! For several years, one of Cleveland’s top guitarists, Byron Nemeth, has been searching for a vocalist to join his instrumental progressive rock quartet the Byron Nemeth Band in order to broaden its audience. The search is over: Ray Richter is the band’s newest member. To introduce him to fans,…
Adam Richman From Man vs. Food Still Calls it “The Jake”
Courtesy of Melt’s Facebook page (passed along by a Uni Watch reader), here’s Man Vs. Food eating all-star Adam Richman wearing No Mas’ “I Still Call It The Jake” t-shirt. Richman was wearing the “I Still Call It Joe Robbie” version while he was in Miami during Super Bowl week, and has been spotted wearing…
Good Luck Finding Reasonably Priced Tickets for Cavs Snuggie Game
If secondary market ticket pricing is any indication, lots and lots of people really, really want the Cavs Snuggie that will be given out at Friday’s game against the Pistons. A weekend affair against lowly Detroit is suddenly commanding dollars normally reserved for marquee match-ups or playoff games, and all for a piece of novelty…
A Q&A with The Hand of Fatima director Augusta Palmer
Rock scribe Robert Palmer covered music for Rolling Stone and The New York Times and wrote Deep Blues, a cultural history of the blues. His filmmaking daughter Augusta Palmer provides an overview of the late critic’s career in The Hand of Fatima, a documentary which has its local premiere at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 3…
Concert Review: Avett Brothers at House of Blues
Avett Brothers: We and love and them When the Avett Brothers walked onstage at a sold-out House of Blues last night, they looked like a band that earned the honor. After spending the past five years nonstop touring with their brand of low-key alt-country and high-speed bluegrass, the North Carolina group (banjo player Scott Avett,…
The Crazies remake is still relevant
Although The Crazies is a remake of a 1973 George Romero movie, it didn’t need to update the original premise much to remain relevant. With the imagery of hurricane Katrina still fresh in the American consciousness and the threat of the H1N1 virus constantly in the news, the horrors this movie deals with are all…
Band #5 — Milk Throat
I singled this band out as one to keep an eye on in this earlier post, so I thought it’d be nice to check up on them in rehearsal. Good move. Guitarist Jason Schafer, currently of The All-Comers and late of National Suicide Day and Lives of the Saints (in which he played with this…
DENNIS, YOU’RE NOT HELPING
We like Dennis Kucinich. We believe his heart is in the right place and his goals are sound. But sometimes he leaves us scratching our heads. Tuesday, following the announcement that foreclosure prevention money would be distributed to five hard-hit states not including Ohio, Kucinich drafted a letter to President Obama complaining about the oversight…
TRANSITION TRIES TO STAY ON MESSAGE
With the Cuyahoga County government transition process picking up pace, the Plain Dealer’s Henry Gomez reports today that three communications firms remain in the running to the promote transition work and handle media calls. Gomez raises some intriguing points in his article. First, he notes how transition executive committee members — other than Cuyahoga County…
Isle of Eyelids
That’s now Band 13’s name, Isle of Eyelids. Though it’s nice to have the matter of the band name settled, there’s some sad news as well. Our drummer, Matt, has callings in Chicago and has to leave Cleveland before the Lottery League Big Show on April 10. Per League rules, if a band member quits…
Michael Stanley Adds Co-Chairman to Résumé
Stanley, striking up a pose before striking up the band You know all those giant guitars that double as art that you see around the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? Sure you do. It’s hard to miss the freakin’ things. A similar group to the one behind those is launching a new set of…
Eric Robertson Tribute Shows This Weekend
Robertson Until his death from cancer in December 2007 at the age of 56, singer-songwriter Eric Robertson was a longtime fixture in the Mentor music scene, best known for his long-running band the Secret. The Secret’s first lineup, from 1980-1985, included former Raspberries Wally Bryson on guitar and Dave Smalley on bass, and attempted, in…
Thursday Music News Roundup
Tom Petty, ready for action Tom Petty is bringing the Drive-By Truckers on tour with him. Hopefully his asshole fans won’t treat the Truckers the same way they treated the Replacements when they opened for Petty in ’89. American Idol Kris Allen goes to Haiti. Millions of hungry Haitians ask, “Who the fuck is Kris…
Carlos Jones Spreads Java Vibe
Good caffeine vibrations Carlos Jones has long been spreading positive vibrations around the greater Cleveland area and beyond — first during his 14-year stint with First Light (who broke up in 1998), and currently with his own P.L.U.S. Band. Now, in addition to his sunny, feel-good reggae music, Jones will be offering fans Carlos Jones…
Tom Petty & Heartbreakers to Play Blossom in July
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers will play Blossom on July 20. The Drive-By Truckers open. Live Nation hasn’t officially announced the show yet. Stay tuned here or livenation.com for ticket prices and an on-sale date. If you’re a Petty fan with a jones for new music, to tide yourself over until summer, you should check…
Lakewood Wrestling, Lake Erie Surfing, Iverson Doc, and Racing Coming to the Cleveland International Film Festival
The best ten days in Cleveland cinema is almost upon us. The Cleveland International Film Festival takes over Tower City March 18-28 and there’s plenty of celluloid sporting goodness on the docket. (All summaries courtesy of ClevelandFilm.org. Also head over there for full schedules and trailers.) Pinned At two different Lakewood, Ohio high schools, two…
Kid Cudi on HBO Recap
Cudi makes it in America Cleveland rapper Kid Cudi has a small role on HBO’s new sitcom, How to Make It in America. It’s about a small group of twentysomething friends trying to hustle their way into the garment industry — in between romantic dinners, brushes with mobbed-up relatives* and all-night parties in cool apartments.…
Thursday Ticket Giveaway: Free Energy
Free Energy, somewhere in there We have a pair of tickets to Free Energy’s concert at the Beachland Tavern on March 8. For a chance at winning a pair, send your name, phone number and e-mail address to freetickets@clevescene.com. Be sure to put “Free Energy Tickets” in the subject line. We’ll pick a random winner…
3/3: Christopher Atzinger at Trinity Cathedral
Composer Judith Lang Zaimont’s early works were written mostly for piano, which isn’t a surprise, since it was her instrument at Juilliard. But over the past 30 years, she’s written for just about every kind of ensemble (opera, orchestra, chamber, wind, choral), winning top prizes along the way. In recent years, her piano compositions have…
3/3: Attack Attack! at Peabody’s
Don’t confuse Columbus metalcore quintet Attack Attack! with the U.K. punk-pop band that boasts an additional exclamation point (Attack! Attack!) and a somewhat less derivative sound. The local version explores synth-addled screamo, balancing the off-kilter trill and bleep of keyboards against thudding breakdowns. The band’s 2008 debut, Someday Came Suddenly, revisits several tracks from the…
3/2: Xanadu opens at Palace Theatre
Douglas Carter Beane’s book for Broadway’s über-schlocky Xanadu traces its roots to Greek mythology. The story has something to do with Olympian gods and their connection to the world’s first roller-disco, but who cares about that? This send-up of the 1980 Olivia Newton-John movie is all about the music, the hair and the shorts. Elizabeth…
3/2: New Found Glory at House of Blues
These Florida pop-punks were pop-punk before anyone decided to lazily name the genre. A dozen years into their career, New Found Glory still come off like a bunch of pouty teens on their most recent album, Not Without a Fight. And singer Jordan Pundik still can’t catch a break with girls: They avoid him like…
3/1: Eclectica at Nighttown
Eclectica is a funky, groove-heavy trio featuring Bela Fleck and the Flecktones drummer Roy “Futureman” Wooten, Tracy Silverman (hailed by BBC as “the greatest living exponent of the electric violin”) and Nashville bassist Steve Forrest. True to their moniker, they blend a variety of musical genres in their electric — and somewhat warped — music.…
2/28: King Hedley II at East Cleveland Theatre
Playwright August Wilson cataloged African-American life in the U.S. during the 20th century through a series of 10 plays (nine set in his native Pittsburgh), each representing a different decade. His Pulitzer and Tony-winning King Hedley II, set in 1985, depicts the increasingly desperate measures urban residents take to survive as the landscape crumbles around…
2/28: Cosi Fan Tutte opens at Severance Hall
Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte is a social and psychosexual mess, as a man goads two younger friends to test their girlfriends’ fidelity through a series of disguises and lies. Cynical Alfonso wagers that if the girls believe their boys have gone off to war, the ladies won’t last a day before landing in bed with…
2/27: Orchid Mania opens at Botanical Garden
One of the true signs of spring is the frenzy of activity by orchid fanciers, as societies across the area mount their annual shows. The Cleveland Botanical Garden (11030 East Blvd., 216.721.1600) kicks off the season with its month-long flower orgy Orchid Mania 2010, which opens today and runs through March 28. The Garden’s lobby…
2/27: Jumpback Ball at PlayhouseSquare
PlayhouseSquare Partners is a young-professionals group that supports PlayhouseSquare theaters and activities. And do they know how to party! Their annual Jumpback Ball, now in its 19th year, always features a colorful theme that unifies the activities and gives partygoers an opportunity to unleash their imaginations when it comes to dress (they refer to it…
2/27-28: Aspen Santa Fe Ballet at Ohio Theatre
Twyla Tharp’s Sue’s Leg became one of the choreographer’s best-known works after it was included in Dance in America, a 1976 Emmy-winning Great Performances outing. It’s the last installment of Tharp’s works to include music from the 1930s — in this case, Fats Waller songs. Sue’s Leg is part of the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet’s…
2/26: Wussy at the Beachland
The musical partnership between Chuck Cleaver and Lisa Walker has grown stronger over the three terrific albums their band Wussy has released. Their most recent, an eponymously titled record that came out last year, stands as their most complete album. It’s the apex of Cleaver and Walker’s individual formidable songwriting talents, which have been culled…
2/26: The Wonder Years at Pirates Cove
Philadelphia brings a few things to mind: cheesesteak, the Liberty Bell, Ben Franklin and, maybe most importantly, Rocky Balboa. The image of Sylvester Stallone climbing the steps of Philadelphia’s art museum, while “Gonna Fly Now” blares in the background, will always be linked to the City of Brotherly Love. What does the Italian Stallion have…
2/26: Jim Norton at House of Blues
The politically incorrect Jim Norton is a jack of all comedic trades. The 41-year-old wisecracking entertainer is an actor (Lucky Louie, Spider-Man), a best-selling author (Happy Endings: The Tales of a Meaty-Breasted Zilch) and a radio personality (Opie and Anthony’s XM satellite show). And he’s a stand-up comic who doesn’t give a shit about being…
2/26-28: Hum at Cleveland Public Theatre
Wes Roj says he was recruited by his friend and fellow Hawken School alumni Sebastian Orr to direct Orr’s Hum after it was accepted into Cleveland Public Theatre’s Big [BOX] series. The play tells four seemingly disparate stories that have common circumstances — all of which are tied together by the end of the piece.…
2/26: Emma opens at Cleveland Play House
Both the big and little screens have feasted on Jane Austen’s 1815 novel Emma, steadily cranking out adaptations over the years. This weekend, the Cleveland Play House unveils a new version for the stage, adapted by artistic director Michael Bloom. The production stars Sarah Nealis as the smart, pretty and meddling titular matchmaker opposite Mark…
2/25-28: Lakeland Jazz Festival
The annual Lakeland Jazz Festival returns for its 38th installment this weekend under a “Journeys in Jazz” banner, touting two headliners any fest would be proud to spotlight. Warren native and trumpeter Sean Jones plays at 8 p.m. Friday with his quartet, and drummer T.S. Monk (son of legendary pianist Thelonious Monk) takes the stage…
The Czar Writes Things
Former Cavs head coach and current broadcaster Mike Fratello has a blog and he likes to write things. He also likes to post pictures, like the one posted here, which he titled, “Mike’s Sideline Move of the Week.” Vicious. Love it. Check it out. Follow me on Twitter: @vincethepolack.
The Routine
You’ve probably seen this floating around (I saw it over at Ball Don’t Lie), but it’s worth posting here. LeBron’s pre-game handshake rituals. Like, all 974 of them. After you watch the video, get the scoop on the rest of LeBron’s extensive game-day routine with this New York Times article. Follow me on Twitter: @vincethepolack.
THE SHERIFF SHOT ME: TEA PARTY HERO RICHARD MACK
The New York Times recently took a stab at explaining the tea party movement to those of us not bleeding out the ears with rage over the past year of Democratic leadership. It’s an interesting read, if not entirely satisfying: the writer, David Barstow, concedes: “The ebbs and flows of the Tea Party ferment are…
Ticket Giveaway: Scene’s 2010 Music Awards Concert at Beachland Ballroom
Want to come see the 2010 Scene Music Awards showcase concert tomorrow night (Thursday) at 8 p.m. at the Beachland Ballroom? We have three free sets of tickets to give away. Email freetickets@clevescene.com and we’ll pick three random winners by 5pm today. Winners’ names will be on the list at the door. Want to see…
Philly Soul History Goes Up in Flames
Gamble and Huff in the place where magic happened This isn’t the way it was supposed to end. In a terribly unfitting finale to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum’s month-long Black History Month tribute to the Philly soul sound of producers and songwriters Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff’s legendary Philadelphia International…
Cop Out successfully blends action and comedy
Former indie director Kevin Smith (Clerks, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back) didn’t write the screenplay for Cop Out, the cop-buddy action comedy starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan as hapless NYPD cops; it was written by Robb and Mark Cullen. But you would never know it: the movie is landscaped with Smith’s brand of…
Morning Laugh
“Shine” by Final Placement from sharity world on Vimeo. This truly awful video/song by a Christian-rock band called Final Placement has been making the rounds over the past couple days. If you haven’t seen it yet, do yourself a favor and watch. It’ll definitely kickstart your morning. —Michael Gallucci (follow me on Twitter @mgallucci)
CD Review: Johnny Cash
You could make the case that Johnny Cash’s American series, which began so strongly in 1994 with American Recordings, had diminishing returns as the Man in Black’s health deteriorated. But despite Cash’s shaky vocal performances, all the albums have a power that belies the singer’s health and age. Producer Rick Rubin seems to understand Cash…
Western Lies
When Sweden’s Lukas Moodysson burst onto the art-house scene a decade or so ago, he seemed like one of the brightest new lights in contemporary cinema. Films like Show Me Love, Together and Lila 4-Ever were deeply humanistic, yet rigorously unsentimental evocations of life as we know/live it. Moodysson stumbled with 2005’s ghastly, well-nigh unwatchable…
The 2010 Cleveland Scene Music Awards
Government stimulus plans notwithstanding, we’re still recovering from the economic meltdown, and it didn’t make sense to put on an extravagant Music Awards this year (though the Beachland Ballroom is hosting a winner’s showcase on February 25). So to announce the winners for this, Scene’s 11th annual Music Awards, we took over Inner Sanctum —…
Seoul Power
Considering that most of South Korean auteur Hong Sang-soo’s films (Turning Gate, Woman on the Beach and the deliciously titled Woman Is the Future of Man) have been so informed by French New Wave directors like Eric Rohmer, François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard, it’s only fitting that his 2008 film Night and Day was actually…
WHAT CONDITION YOUR TRANSITION IS IN
Early criticism of the Cuyahoga County transitional team created suspicion that a hidden hand was moving pieces for political advantage. That’s not quite true. It turns out there are several hands, some of them belonging to members of the political coalition behind the ballot initiative Issue 6 that mandated a reorganization of county government. They…
Reel Cleveland: Screening the Scissormen
Don’t be surprised to see a camera crew in tow when the Scissormen play the Beachland Tavern (15711 Waterloo Rd., 216.383.1124, beachlandballroom.com) at 9 p.m. Saturday, February 27. Music documentary filmmaker Robert Mugge is making a movie about the Nashville band and is following the group on tour. “The film is about an independent blues…
The Journey Men
Last year was transitional for North Carolina’s Avett Brothers. Until then, Scott and Seth Avett and bassist Bob Crawford were primarily known as a rock-inflected bluegrass outfit with a fanatical cult following. They’d spent the years since their 2000 debut earning their fans the old-fashioned way: through nonstop touring. The Avetts also self-recorded a series…
Film Capsules
Opening Brighton Rock (Britain, 1947) Adapted from a Graham Greene novel, this 1947 British gangster film was quite a shocker in its day (Mutilated bodies! Gangland warfare! Double-crossing snitches!). It’s still a solid piece of filmmaking by director John Boulting, even if some of the onscreen violence seems a bit tame by modern standards. After…
From Deep in the Q …
Despite having the best record in the Eastern Conference, the Cavs have problems. The Wine and Gold’s trademark defense has disappeared in recent weeks, injuries to Mo Williams and Delonte West have caused stress in the backcourt, the trade of Zydrunas Ilgauskas, and the insertion of Antawn Jamison into the lineup have caused some (hopefully)…
Short Takes: Innocence Lost
The White Ribbon Winner of the Palme d’Or at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, the latest — and most accessible — work to date by Austrian writer-director Michael Haneke (Caché, The Piano Teacher) is a mesmerizing fable about the (possible) roots of Nazism. Set in pre-WWI Germany, the film is narrated by a schoolteacher (Christian…
BACK TO THE GARTNER
The Cleveland Museum of Art’s Viva and Gala series is that rare program that gives a sense of how big the world is. Performances cross political and stylistic boundaries, with ensembles big and small, both acoustic and electrified. Programmers Massoud Saidpour and Tom Welsh keep it anchored with the big umbrella known as “world music,”…
Arts District: Looking forward to Summer Solstice
Tom Welsh and cohorts at the Cleveland Museum of Art were out strolling the grounds despite the rain on Monday, beginning plans for the 2010 edition of the Summer Solstice party there. Last year, the event drew 4,000 people through a neon-pink gate built from thousands of pool noodles for nine hours of performances, as…
NOT A KNOCKOUT
The Great White Hope, which opened on Broadway in 1968, is a stylistically dated fictionalized epic about Jack Johnson. Called Jack Jefferson in the play, Johnson was the first black man to win a heavyweight boxing championship and to enrage Caucasian sensibilities by openly wooing white women. Writing about the much-improved 1970 film version of…
Wicked!
TOP PICK Wilson Pickett: Funky Midnight Mover — The Atlantic Studio Recordings (1962-1978) (Rhino Handmade) Pickett is one of R&B’s all-time greats. This six-CD box includes everything he recorded for Atlantic Records during his peak. All of the hits are here — “In the Midnight Hour,” “Mustang Sally,” “Land of 1000 Dances” — but so…
CD Review: Will Kimbrough
Will Kimbrough has a reputation as a songwriter’s songwriter. That’s tended to overshadow his equally impressive work as a performer. Kimbrough’s early work with Will and the Bushmen and the Bis-Quits gave way to an acclaimed but obscure solo career and a ton of supplemental session and production work for Todd Snider, Kate Campbell, Rodney…
BURGER MEISTER
It would be very easy to discount B Spot, Michael Symon’s east-side burger bar, as a gimmicky payday for an overextended celebrity chef. After all, how difficult is it to slap the Symon brand on the broadside of a burger while laughing all the way to the bank? But as even the casual observer of…
CD Review: The Superions
The B-52s are very much alive and kicking. But when time allows, Fred Schneider also has a side project called the Superions. It’s basically Schneider doing nutty narrative spoken-word routines on top of samples and synths. Kitschy subjects include outer-space seductresses, supermarket shoplifting and tropical hedonism. A full-length Superions album and a Halloween tie-in release…
The Tying of Plot 118
Fallow urban terrain, like Cleveland’s Plot 118 north of Euclid Avenue, is sometimes called “drive-by” space — a place commuters speed past on their way to somewhere else. But such places are too numerous to ignore. According to a recent article in Urban Affairs Review, vacant lots make up about 15 percent of most large…
CD Review: Electric President
Though the members of Electric President hail from Florida, the duo is just releasing music on an American label for the first time. They’ve been together since 2003, and their previous discs and seven-inches came out on German imprint Moor Music. On The Violent Blue, the group continues melding electronica, pop and folk, but it…
Cole Mates
Like many married couples approaching their 60th birthdays, Fred and Toody Cole began thinking about their retirement plans back in 2006. They removed themselves from the grind of their 20-year positions and, having already sold off some of their real estate and business concerns, settled down to relax a bit. What isn’t typical is that…
CD Review: Quasi
Three and out is the weird career pattern for Oregon’s Quasi. Their first three records — their career peak — were on the now-defunct Up Records. They shifted to Touch & Go for the next round of three. That triumvirate got progressively darker, finally plumbing the depths with the nearly unlistenable When the Going Gets…
Around Hear: Ultrasound Music Closing
Ultrasound Going Silent: Another landmark record store is closing its doors. After 15 years, Ultrasound Music (36495 Vine St., Willoughby,) will liquidate its metal-heavy stock and shutter its storefront in March. It’s the same old story: As digital music grows, CD sales are plummeting. “It’s time,” says owner Gary Pfleuger. “I’d sit around for a…
CD Review: Shout Out Louds
The title of Shout Out Louds’ third album doesn’t conjure up a lot of great images, particularly since the band members’ full-time gig is probably being in the band. And if being in a band has gotten to the point of being work, shouldn’t the Shout Out Louds give it up? It’d be a shame…
Bites: Last Chance at Cleveland Restaurant Week
It’s not too late to take advantage of Downtown Cleveland Restaurant Week, when some 45 independent shops are offering $30 three-course meals. It runs through Saturday, February 27. Been wanting to try Verve, Crop Bistro or the Chocolate Bar? Now’s your chance. Check out the complete list of participating restos at cleveland.com/restaurantweek, where you can…
CD Review: Juliana Hatfield
For some people, Juliana Hatfield will forever be the girlish-voiced ingénue who graced the cover of Spin and the Reality Bites soundtrack. Crippling depression stalled her career, and it took several years for her to regain her musical footing. Her past three albums have been quite good, veering between streamlined pop-rock in the mold of…
Local CD Reviews
Fan the Hammer (self-released) fanthehammer.com When he’s not playing with local honky-tonk sensations the Tabloid Twangers, singer-guitarist John McAlea kicks it with Fan the Hammer, a four-piece that just issued the AAA radio-oriented We Don’t Need Forever All We Need Is Now. While neither McAlea nor guitarist Jana McAlea has a particularly strong voice, the…
CD Review: Økapi
The sample-happy DJ label Illegal Art is no stranger to funny business. The label launched in 1998 with Deconstructing Beck, produced using low-fi, unapproved Beck samples. Today, Girl Talk — the Pittsburgh-based mash-up king who probably holds the record for using the most illegal samples — is the label’s breadwinner. The label’s newest wisecracker is…
Don’t Call it a Comeback
By the dawn of the ’70s, the baby boomers were turning 18 and hitting the bars. That spawned a wave of splashy, near-professional cover bands that filled rock clubs virtually every night. Many of these bands became local stars — making good money, buying topnotch gear and attracting groupies. One of these was East Wind,…
