Local Foodie News
Grotto Wine Bar isn't the only new neighbor at Shaker Square. In early January, Darna Fine Moroccan Cuisine (13114 Shaker Sq., 216.862.2910) opened in the spot long occupied by Luchita's. The restaurant is owned and operated by Said Ouaddaadaa, the man behind both Bodega (1854 Coventry Rd., 216.932.3060) and Uptowne Grille (11312 Euclid Ave., 216.229.9711).…
From Russia, With Love
French director Bertrand Normand, a devotee of the ballet, made the documentary for French television, focusing on female dancers of the Mariinsky (formerly Kirov) Ballet of St. Petersburg. Normand's view, like that of Mariinsky Theatre director Makhar Vasiev, is that "the ballet is first and foremost the art of the ballerina." Russia, according to the…
A Pluckin’ Good Time
A string of good luck has surrounded ukulele phenom Jake Shimabukuro ever since he floored Conan O'Brien with his lightning-quick finger work on O'Brien's late-night talk show last year. For starters, he scored a couple trophies for his 2007 CD, My Life, at Hawaii's version of the Grammy Awards. Then he dueted with Yo-Yo Ma…
Local Reviews
Dominick Farinacci Lovers, Tales & Dances (Koch) dominickfarinacci.com As the title of Cleveland native Dominick Farinacci's U.S. debut suggests, Lovers, Tales & Dances is a highly romantic, moonlit record. It features Farinacci's clear, forceful trumpet and flugelhorn within a star-studded small group, occasionally backed by lush strings. The record's first half is strong, beginning with…
Culture Jamming: F.E.A.R. Factor
TOP PICK F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin (Warner Bros. Interactive) Ambiance is everything in this spooky videogame shooter (for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360) about a girl with deadly psychic skills. Watch out for the vengeful poltergeists lurking in the abandoned subways, hospitals and labs. And be sure to take advantage of the special power…
The 2009 Cleveland Scene Music Awards
Given the state of the economy, it didn't make sense to put on an extravagant Music Awards this year. So for this, Scene's 10th annual Music Awards, we took over Sunday night's Inner Sanctum – 92.3 FM's local music show – to announce the Music Awards winners. Inner Sanctum host Pat the Producer, Live Nation's…
Are You Ready For The Country?
Nashville has a reputation for turning out crap. And rightfully so: Toby Keith's good-ol'-boy flag-wavers and Rascal Flatts' power ballads are enough to drive anyone to drinking. Plus, Music City recently gave Jessica Simpson and Hootie & the Blowfish's Darius Rucker new careers (and No. 1 albums). But not all country music sucks. And we're…
Tes One, Two, Three
Leon Bedore – a.k.a. Tes One – started painting graffiti around Tampa Bay in 1992, and like most illegal painters, he used mostly spray paint. Tis technique has evolved, and these days his works have moved from train tracks and abandoned corners of the Sunshine State into art galleries and, at least while his portrait…
Brent Smith
Jacksonville-based hard rockers Shinedown have gone through numerous lineup changes in its eight years together. Yet singer Brent Smith, who spoke via phone from his Orlando home, maintains the band hasn’t suffered from it, boasting that it’s “the most honest band in existence on earth today.” Just back from its first European headlining tour that…
A Graphic Artist
Although widely considered to be Japan's greatest living filmmaker, Nagisa Oshima is unknown to most contemporary North American arthouse habitués. The fact that Oshima has directed only one film – 2000's surreal gay samurai flick Taboo – in the past 23 years is partially responsible for this. But the lack of quality prints of some…
Not So Screamo
Part of the second-generation of East Coast emocore bands like Taking Back Sunday, Glassjaw and Boy Sets Fire, Thursday's chewy melodies and frontman Geoff Rickly's sonorous croon always gave them musical traction many of their more hardcore peers lacked. They were among the first to sign with a major label and survived for two albums…
Capsule Reviews
OPENING Ballast (US, 2008) – When a poor black man commits suicide, his ex-wife (Tarra Riggs), son (JimMyron Ross) and twin brother (Micheal J. Smith Sr.) all have different ways of dealing with the tragedy. His twin withdraws, while his ex becomes enraged and fights to get the house and small storefront he owned put…
Right Angular
A three-sided enclosure of narrow, unpainted boards abuts the gallery wall, a DIY sketch in three dimensions. Still stapled to the end of one board, a black-and-white skew number and bar-code tag echoes the overall color scheme of Christian Wulffen's installation at MOCA Cleveland's Ginn Gallery. It's also provocatively informal. The fence itself is propped…
Small Plates, Big Ambitions
Until fairly recently, the term "wine bar" was reserved for establishments that placed drink in higher regard than food. Visitors to these casual haunts expected to find a great selection of wines by the glass and bottle. What they didn't demand was first-rate food. Historically, folks went to a wine bar for sips and nibbles,…
Local Dirt
When Cuyahoga County Commissioner Tim Hagan backed a the plan to build the MedMart at the old convention center site, essentially turning his back on Forest City's Sam Miller and the Ratners, who donate generously to his campaigns, it was a power shift of epic proportions. Even Fred "The Fixer" Nance was out of the…
U2 Leads This Week’s New Releases
U2 No Line on the Horizon (Interscope) The guys in U2 are the planet's last Big Rock Stars. They're multimillion-selling giants among faceless Frays and overreaching Coldplays. They pack stadiums with a huge repertoire of great songs that spans three decades. And they still make event albums that purport to be about something. Ever since…
Fine, I’ll Do It Myself
IT ISN'T EASY being on Cleveland City Council if you're maneuvering outside Council President Martin Sweeney's tenuous East Side majority. It's a little like being an elephant in the lion cage or a Democrat in Columbus. For some, it means having to work harder just to have your voice heard, only to be ignored in…
A Study In Contrasts
"Well, I think obviously I had more say." This is Dan Auerbach's assessment of the difference between his new solo album and the music he's recorded as the singer-guitarist half of the Black Keys. Released February 10, Keep It Hid represents no deliberate move on his part to distance himself from the sound of the…
Around Hear
Destructor bassist Dave Iannicca was murdered New Year's Eve 1987. Members of his family and band have organized a petition to deny parole to his killer, who was sentenced to life in prison but becomes eligible for release in May. The petition, online at petitiononline.com/iannicca, has more than 2,400 signatures so far. Letters can also…
Surviving The Sandscape
A young Iraqi dies mysteriously on a construction site guarded by U.S. soldiers while a young black soldier stands under a single light talking to his mama, praying for her help. "It's night," he tells her, "and I'm covered in blood and I'm thinking, 'What the fuck am I doing here?'" That mystery – as…
Gardens Variety
Grey Gardens is a hothouse musical extravaganza inspired by a 1975 film documentary of the same name. It chronicles the Whatever-Happened-to-Baby-Jane relationship of Jackie Kennedy's aunt, Edith Bouvier, and Bouvier's daughter "Little Edie." If flamboyant purveyors of musical theater weren't eternally obsessed with massive, self-loving female gargoyles (see Hello, Dolly!), and if it weren't for…
Local Art News
We've been hearing the story of homeless violinist Nathaniel Ayers' relationship with journalist Steve Lopez since Lopez's book The Soloist came out almost a year ago. Lopez met Ayers by chance when he heard him playing a beat-up, two-stringed instrument in Los Angeles. Lopez arranged for a musical instrument locker and other services in the…
Synecdoche, New York
The love-it-or-hate-it movie of the year, Synecdoche, New York will definitely separate Charlie Kaufman-come-latelys from the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind/Being John Malkovich scenarist’s hardcore fans. After only one viewing, it’s not easy to comprehend the film. But that’s a normal reaction to any film as meta, multi-layered and crazily ambitious as this homegrown…
The Class
As much about French social attitudes as it is about the country’s education system, Laurent Cantet’s film looks at the multicultural dimensions of one public high-school teacher’s class. French instructor François Marin (François Bégaudeau, who also wrote the screenplay and the book upon which the film is based) teaches class of mostly poor students from…
Fanboys
Eric (Sam Huntington), Hutch (Dan Fogler), Linus (Chris Marquette) and Windows (Jay Baruchel) are four friends who grew up together worshipping the George Lucas epic Star Wars. They can recall trivia about the series that only the most hardcore fans know. In fact, they’ve remained such geeks that only Eric has gotten a real job…
Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience
A gimmicky, for-fans-only concert flick starring Disney Channel tweener sensations Kevin, Nick and Joe Jonas. Footage of Anaheim and Madison Square Garden arena shows are interwoven with the boys’ (strictly G-rated) offstage antics for the chaste delectation of 12-year-old girls everywhere. The brothers themselves — albeit reasonably talented and likable enough — come across as…
Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li
Based on the popular, long-running video game, this movie has the element of surprise on its side in that it’s not nearly as terrible as you’d expect. Chun-Li (Kristin Kreuk) sets out to rescue her father and take down bad guy M. Bison (Neal McDonough). But before Chun-Li gets to the big boss, she’ll have…
Short Cuts
You're not the only one who thinks Tokyo Police Club's debut album, Elephant Shell, is too short. Keyboardist Graham Wright has heard that complaint about a zillion times since the record came out last April. And he agrees with you – it is a brief album, clocking in at less than half an hour. But…
In-tensions
Artists refer to the "happy accident," the mistake that adds a kind of beauty that intention could not have conceived. What happened to Maureen Fleming is quite a bit more significant. She was two years old and living in Japan, where her parents were stationed a decade after World War II. Fleming's mother was driving…
Foul Trouble
The All-City Drum Line is filling the just-renovated Artemus Ward School in Cleveland City Council President Marty Sweeney's West Park ward with a pep-rally vibe. The ribbon is cut in the gym, everybody half-cheers and the students file back to class, as Sweeney, pulling at his tie, settles into a cafetorium table with a worried…
Love In The Pink
Goddamit! I found Playhouse-Square's latest long-running endeavor, I Love You Because, to be almost as cute as it thinks it is. Not only does this worry me, but I find it to be a mystery worthy of the brain of Sherlock Holmes. Composer Joshua Salzman and librettist-lyricist Ryan Cunningham have created that brand of musical…
A Classic Case
Obscure and underrated, Sam Roberts' honest, earthy, classic rock 'n' roll features some of the finest balladry in music today. His debut, The Inhuman Condition, was the best-selling independent record release of all time in his native Canada. We Were Born in a Flame from 2003 is one of the best records of this decade,…
A Comedy Of Errors
Madea Goes to Jail would've benefited from being a straight-up comedy. The film makes use of an obvious gimmick, as writer-director Tyler Perry dresses in drag to portray the loud-mouthed old woman who doesn't take no for an answer. And while a man in women's clothes always guarantees a laugh, there's also something about the…
Reel Cleveland
The Cedar Lee Theatre (2163 Lee Rd.) is again showing the short films nominated for this year's Academy Awards. Divided into two programs – one featuring live-action shorts and the other animated shorts – the films represent a cross-section of international shorts of varying lengths. The subject matter also runs the gamut. Highlights from the…
Capsule Reviews
OPENING Blithe Spirit (Britain, 1945) – A novelist is haunted by his dead ex-wife in this David Lean film with an Oscar-winning script by Noel Coward. Cleveland Museum of Art Lecture Hall. At 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 4. La Verite (France/Italy, 1960) – Brigitte Bardot stars as a woman on trial for the murder of…
History Repeats
Yeah. Where is the outrage? It's taken years to get Washington to act with authority on the foreclosure crisis, and it's hard to tell whether President Obama's new plan will go far enough to save the day. But maybe things wouldn't have sunk to these depths if people were revolting like they were back when…
Lamb Of God, Living Things, And Others Get Graded
Lamb of God Wrath (Epic) Lamb of God's third album, 2003's As the Palaces Burn, was both a powerful antiwar statement and one of the 21st century's most crushing metal releases. The follow-up, 2004's Ashes of the Wake, was kind of a holding action, offering more of the same lyrical themes, crushing riffs and intricate…
The Tall-tale Heart
With a big grin, crazed eyes and cowboy hat, the Whiskey Daredevils' Greg Miller looks like a guy you'd see behind the wheel of an 18-wheeler with the band's name painted in flames on the sides. He's an irreverent sort who sings songs like "Skunk Weed," "Planet of the Apes" and "Uncle Sam." "Jimmy Rogers"…
Flying Man!
In preparation for the NBA's first official slam-dunk contest in 1984, Larry Nance, then a Phoenix Sun, pondered a possible dunk from the free-throw line. Everyone told him it was too easy, too weak to bring against Dr. J and Dominique Wilkins at the All-Star Game in Denver. "I could dunk from the free-throw line…
Around Hear, Cleveland Rock Edition
Cleveland Rock, Because Cleveland Rocks: Cleveland expatriate Ray Benich has written an anthem for his sorely missed hometown. The bassist for late-'60s/early '70s psychedelic rock band Damnation of Adam Blessing wrote the song, "Cleveland Ohio (Hard Earned Love)," hoping it would catch on not just with listeners, but also with other musicians. "I would like…
Back And Black
The Black Poetic Society's founders – Douglas "Sage" Hoston, Q-Nice, Daniel Gray-Kontar, Ebani Edwards and Kwanza Brewer – formed the group when they were students at Cleveland State University because where they didn't have a place they felt comfortable reading. Poetry readings were flourishing at the time, but mostly at coffee shops and bookstores dominated…
Local Arts News
Artist, former Free Times art critic and activist Frank Green collected a lot of great work by local artists and is planning to sell it because he could use the money. His collection includes works by a who's who of Cleveland contemporary artists: Reverend Albert Wagner, Douglas Max Utter, Terry Durst, Dan Tranberg, George Kocar,…
Being Here
Cleveland-based conceptual artist Mike Jones was looking for responses to his video/performance work "Transmitting Providence" (2009), on view as part of the show Flash Forward at SPACES Gallery. He got some: "God lives in Lake Erie," wrote a transcendentally minded visitor, using a green marker provided by the artist. Other remarks are less visionary: "I…
An Inconvenient Truth
Climaxing at a shiva whose guest list is as multicultural as the wedding reception in Rachel Getting Married, Amos Gitai's One Day You'll Understand is a small, tough, infinitely tender film about coming to grips with the past, even if the past isn't your own personal history. A partial return to form for Israeli director…
Get Out! Birds Of A Feather
The bartenders at the Room on Lorain will wear nothing but feathers when Rock Star Rehab fashion designer Faith Gobidas showcases her latest line of bra-and-skirt outfits, while Waterband plays an acoustic show. Her prized creation is the "Exotic Chicks of a Feather" number made from a collection of rooster-tail feathers. "I'm just giving everybody…
Local Reviews
MiAPOLLO The Southern Gentleman (self-released) myspace.com/miapollomusic Like a ballistic missile, MiAPOLLO's The Southern Gentlemen goes into orbit before delivering its warhead. The band has all boosters on go: Dual guitars spark the jet fuel, spacey bass undulates on re-entry and explosive drums burst upon impact. Meanwhile, singer-bassist Brandon Wirtz sneers, "Going back to Ohio, well,…
Culture Jamming: Rump Shakers
TOP PICK Beastie Boys: Paul's Boutique: 20th Anniversary Edition (Capitol) One of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time, and one of the best uses ever of the studio as playground, celebrates 20 years with a remastered CD. Nothing new here, but every old-school TV, funk and soul sample rings out with needle-on-the-record clarity. Get…
