Why You Should See CellBound
Cellbound: Heck-bent 4 leather Money Where Your Mouth Is: Scene’s music writers are at the bar, slow dancing to “Tears in Heaven.” In their stead, a band tells you why you should come see them. No middle-man. Band: CellBound Hometown: Akron/Cleveland Sounds like: “Lacuna Coil meets Pantera. Add some Black Sabbath and Testament, and you…
Megan Slankard Speaks for Herself
Singer-songwriter Megan Slankard: Come see what’s behind the flowers. Money Where Your Mouth Is: Scene music writers are busy debating exactly at which point Radiohead sold out, so instead a band will make its own case. Artist: Megan Slankard Hometown: “San Francisco-ish.” Sounds like: “Lovely folk-rock acoustic lovin’ with some contradictorily back-stabbing lyrics.” Fun fact:…
Dimora Improved Race Relations
I served as Executive Director of the Bedford Heights Civic Coalition from 1976 to 1983. The purpose of this coalition was to promote peaceful integration and racial harmony among residents. During this era black residents were greeted with bricks thrown through picture windows, eggs thrown on the sides of their homes and multiple other egregious…
Biased comments on the Cleveland Orchestra
I have been a longtime supporter and patron of the Cleveland Orchestra [“Sour Notes,” February 14]. The Preucils and many other orchestra members are clients of my floral business. As an owner of a creative business, I know firsthand that dissent and rumor are often a problem with employees who are putting their artistry out…
MAC Tourney Party Guide
The Mighty, Mighty Zips are preparing to party at the Cavs practice court. C-Notes loves the Mid-American Conference Tournament like the 144 sons we never had. These four days of logic-bending roundball bliss, ending with an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, are the last refuge for those of us smothered by Buckeye Nation. Credit…
This Just In… Concert Announcements
As heard in Grey�??s Anatomy, the Fray will play Tower City Amphitheater in June. This week, 44 hot new shows for you: Funny man Lewis Black. Piano-rock with the Fray. Smart alt-rap from El-P. Crossover folk from the Indigo Girls. A killer triple-headliner featuring Mastodon, Against Me, and Cursive. Rowdy country from Neal McCoy. Jazz…
The Plot to Save Rock
Could a secret Jimmy Page riff save us from James Blunt? This just in, from the World’s Greatest Newspaper, The Onion: Music legends have devised a plan to save rock music. No, we’re not talking about the Rock Hall—even old potheads know that Lake Erie isn’t the place to launch a revolution. We’re talking about…
Ray Austin’s Title Fight
Your best chance to see a Cleveland sports championship may be this Saturday, when local heavyweight Ray “The Rainman” Austin fights for the IBF Heavyweight Title in Mannheim, Germany. Austin is a former felon from Cleveland’s east side. He grew up street fighting and pushing crack, but eventually took his penchant for beating on people…
Planning St. Patrick’s Day
We could present Cleveland Scene’s comprehensive St. Patrick’s Day listings right here, but we update them so often, it would be out of date by the time you get back from your next smoke break. So click here for a complete, updated list of Northeast Ohio’s St. Pat’s Day events. — D.X. Ferris
Mike G’s Picks of the Week
Chimaira is holding its CD release party tonight. This week’s top arts and entertainment picks around town, from the guy who’s paid to pick them: Monday: Local metal band Chimaira is holding a CD release party at Peabody’s tonight. Its new album, Resurrection, comes out tomorrow. But you can hear it for two hours straight…
Jump-Roping Jews
Don’t be fooled: Golem can party Who says Jewish Clevelanders can’t party? Our report on the dismal local dating scene [“Cupid’s Crisis,” December 13, 2006] bemoaned the fact that the city’s organized Jewish events are either romance killers — ice skating at the community center, anyone? — or magnets for the Napoleon Dynamite set. Boy,…
Cop Story Not All it Seems to Be
I’d like to comment on “Caught on Tape” [February 21]. Ms. Stevens has been taping this cop since April of 2006. Now why would anyone be taping phone converstations for 8 months and state that they are so afraid of this person and this person is harassing them. If someone was harassing me, I wouldn’t…
Ode to The Edge and the Ghost of Doris Palmer
The soap opera over the gay bar, The Edge (11213 Detroit Ave.), has apparently aired its last episode. A few insiders think the ghost of Doris Palmer helped pull the plug. Last weekend, the club abruptly closed with no warning to its slowly declining number of regulars. But we hear a pair of new owners…
Leftovers
New lunch hours… Beginning March 5, Brecksville’s 2182 Bistro & Wine Bar (http://www.2182Bistroandwinebar.com) will begin serving lunch, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday through Friday. According to co-owner and host Brian Klopp, plans are also in the works for securing a small outdoor dining space. And finally, Klopp reminds us that the $10 corking fee…
Insults as a Sales Technique
Apparently the spam industry is tiring of usual tactics of fraud and deception. Its latest trick: insulting you into buying junk. Here’s one example of spam making the rounds that’s attempting to sell a miracle weight loss pill: Why? You stupid fat fuck. Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately? What a joke.…
Kevin Smith is Sold Out
Tonight’s Q&A/lecture with filmmaker-actor Kevin Smith at Akron’s E.J. Thomas Hall is sold out. Word is that aftermarket tickets are going for like $50. Smith puts on a heckuva show, but that’s still a pretty steep markup. If you dragged your feet to get tickets, and now you’re bummin’, soothe your regrets with a free…
My Chemical Romance Photo Gallery
On Monday evening, the Black Parade of My Chemical Romance transformed the Wolstein Center into a dark emo/goth dream. Vocalist Gerard Way even opened the set lying in a hospital stretcher. Along with openers Rise Against, MCR will be on the road supporting its latest record well into May. See the latest photo gallery from…
Bob Ney’s Soulful Farewell
As noted by Daily Kos this morning, former Congressman Bob Ney (R-Cell Block 16) is off to prison, but not without a soulful goodbye to his golf buddies. His farewell email, obtained by the Newark Advocate, apparently ends with a quote from Garth Brook’s “The Dance.” Personally, I would have gone with that hip-hop classic…
Reuniting Cigs with their Native Land
The fight to put cigs back where they belong: in the bar In a desperate attempt to reunite cigs with their native land — i.e. the bar — Jason Rehs has started an online petition to push for a less restrictive smoking ban in Ohio. Rehs is asking that smoking to be reinstated at bars,…
Another Cop Charged for Death Threats
It appears that Solon sergeant Andrew Kolcinko isn’t the only local cop who’s been threatening to kill his significant other. While Kolcinko awaits his trial in Garfield Heights for threatening to kill his ex-girlfriend, an Akron cop awaits his own date in court for doing the same. In January, Leslie Jones allegedly chased his wife…
Terry McCauliffe cancels Joseph-Beth appearance
This just in: Democratic bigshot Terry McCauliffe canceled his appearance at Joseph-Beth Friday night. You can still read our interview with him. You just won’t be able to laugh at McCauliffe in person for asking singer-songwriter Paul Simon about his “dad,” the late Senator Paul Simon — who was in no way whatsoever related to…
Ohio EPA: Slightly Less Evil
Chris Korleski: No longer an agent of evil? Maybe we were wrong about Chris Korleski, the new head of the Ohio EPA. After our story ran about the agency’s continued refusal to speak to Scene’s reporters, the EPA’s new spokesperson called to “extend an olive branch between the two of us and try to start…
Kevin McCarthy & Beautiful Loser
Kevin McCarthy is from �??Frisco, but don�??t hold that against him Money Where Your Mouth Is: Scene’s music writers are busy scraping off their black nail polish after Monday’s emo-riffic My Chemical Romance concert, so they hereby surrender the podium to let a band speak for itself. Band: Kevin McCarthy & Beautiful Loser Hometown: “Bi-coastal:…
Free Lovedrug EP
If you haven’t heard them yet, know that Canton’s Lovedrug rules. They’re good guys, and the music’s midway between Bends-era Radiohead and non-sucky emo. Check out this week’s Scene for a review of their new disc, Everything Starts Where It Ends. You can see the band at their CD release party this Saturday, March 2…
Death and Flex
Charles Fleck A friendly anonymous tipster left a vague message for me last night: Someone died at Flex, they reported excitedly. Why don’t you check it out? Flex, of course, is developer Charles Fleck’s multimillion-dollar gay fun house just east of downtown, which we first told you about last May. It’s had a somewhat rocky…
New Nine Inch Nails Concert DVD
Nine Inch Nails, Cleveland’s biggest rock export in recent memory, has a new live DVD, and a new studio album will be here before you know it. In stores today, the Beside You In Time DVD captures a full show from 2006’s With Teeth tour, plus bonus clips and promo videos from the album. Concert…
Behold the ‘Wickedness and Corruption’
I am a Cleveland resident and a college student. I enjoyed your story on “Black On Black Crime” [February 21]. Your powerful article has empowered me to write to my congresswoman, the national NACCP, and the Urban League to inform them of this crime against people who want to work. I am outraged at the…
Good Eating: A Peasant’s Luxury
You know that feeling you get, when you cruise the designer department at Sak’s as if you could actually afford something? That’s how I was feeling this morning, paging through the current issue of Gourmet, past the ads for Jags, Viking ranges, and West Coast spas. As a Midwestern wage slave, there’s no way I’m…
The Good East German
We Americans complain of Big Brother’s unblinking eye in this post-Patriot Act, corporate e-mail era — as well we should. But as The Lives of Others makes plain, things could be worse. Set in East Berlin, circa 1984, when 1 in 100 citizens of the German Democratic Republic was a government informant, this aptly chilly…
That ’70s Sound
“Just standing in front of an amp, as though you’re being bathed in fuzzy volume, is quite a nice feeling,” says bassist and organist Chris Ross of Australia’s latest gift to heaviosity, the stoner-rock trio Wolfmother. It makes him laugh to hear such seeming nonsense leave his mouth, but he’s not kidding — unlike, say,…
Bunalim
We’ve all heard time and again how the magic of ’60s music suddenly caused American kids to grow their hair down to the backs of their knees. Kids ’round the globe, however, don’t always get their due in this scenario. Way off in Turkey, the underground rock scene was inspired by both the thick guitar…
The Killing Fields
When he was 12, Ishmael Beah was a scared kid running from rebels in his Sierra Leone homeland. A year later, he was a gun-toting warrior, reluctantly recruited to kill insurgents by the government’s army. In A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, Beah, now 26, recounts his time in the killing fields.…
Eraserheadtrip
There’s not too much to say in the specific about the latest effort by America’s foremost abstract-expressionist filmmaker — except that it is David Lynch’s most experimental endeavor in the 30 years since Eraserhead, that it will do nothing to draw new fans to the director’s work, and that, after two viewings, I cannot wait…
Whacking the Religious Wrong
Punk rock was born for rebellion — faithful progeny of its hip-swerving rock and roll father. And you can count the Thermals among the revolutionary offspring. Like the movie Children of Men, their new album revolves around an epic escape from an authoritarian religious regime. “They’ll give us what we’re asking for/Cuz God is with…
Hella
Hella completely flips the script with its latest, expanding from a throttling experimental duo working in waves of skronky feedback and oceanic percussion to a more traditional rock quintet. The move is surprisingly effective. Butcher-turned-singer Aaron Ross’ high-pitched vocals recall Rush’s Geddy Lee, while the combination of the music’s herky-jerky pulse with impressive, free-wheeling guitar…
Short, Not Sweet
The short, dreamlike films made by Stephen and Timothy Quay are best appreciated as moving pieces of surreal art. Don’t even try to wrap your brain around the disjointed and stylized images found in their creepy animated fairy tales for adults. The Cinematheque’s two-part Tales From the Brothers Quay program gathers a dozen wordless films…
Labeled for Life
One of life’s many unanswerable questions is this: What would you have done? What would you have done if you had been alive in France during the Nazi occupation of World War II? Would you have joined the resistance, risked your life and the lives of your family? Would you have collaborated with the occupiers…
Chemically Romanced
It’s a dreary-ass Monday evening when the Wolstein Center goes pitch black — and yes, that’s a medical-issue stretcher onstage, with an IV pack dangling from a chrome pole. Just like the band’s elaborately structured brand of Queemo (that’s Queen + emo), My Chemical Romance’s latest tour is the product of singer Gerard Way’s attention…
MV & EE With the Bummer Road
It has been suggested elsewhere that Green Blues fails because MV & EE smoked too much grass before recording these seven listlessly rambling jams. But here’s the real issue: multi-instrumentalists Matt Valentine and Erika Elder are white-bread, Vermont folkies sporting designer hippie threads, trying to bust get-down rock and roll improv with more than a…
California Sweet
Los Angeles’ Broken West likes its power-pop the way Summerteeth-era Wilco liked it — with a dash of sonic mindfuck thrown into the mix. On its debut album, I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On, the band’s sunny-day melodies and hook-swollen songs fight the urge to drift too far from their base. But the occasional…
Sleazy Does It
It’s probably a good thing that the friendly folks at the Bang and the Clatter Theatre offer a free bottle of imported beer or a glass of wine upon arrival. And it’s an even better idea that, before the curtain goes up, co-founder Sean McConaha and helpers come out with more bottles for anyone desiring…
Witch Gets Prosthetic
Cleveland hellions Skeletonwitch have signed a multi-album deal with Los Angeles metal label Prosthetic Records. Prosthetic has issued records from metal standouts Lamb of God and Himsa. Its current roster includes underground favorites Cannae, the Esoteric, and Kylesa. “We signed Skeletonwitch because we just really liked the sound the band had going,” says Prosthetic’s Bob…
Lovedrug
Major labels are worse decision-makers than the Bush administration, but Columbia looks dumber than most for dropping Lovedrug just before the release of its sophomore album. Everything Starts Where It Ends is the type of mass-appeal rock record that major labels used to kill for. From the opener “Happy Apple Poison,” Lovedrug blasts off with…
It’s Basketball Time
The Mid-American Conference Basketball Tournaments tip off at the Q beginning this afternoon, with opening-round action in the women’s bracket. For the first time, all conference tournament games will be played in Cleveland, after years of having initial rounds played on the top seeds’ home courts. Eight women’s teams square off today; eight men’s teams…
Capsule reviews of current area theater presentations.
The Music of Jacques Brel — Cleveland has a notable history with this Belgian musician, since Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris played more than 500 performances at Playhouse Square and had a role in preventing those grand theaters from becoming parking garages. Brel himself was a composer and lyricist of…
Rod Stewart
Many aging rock writers and old heads claim Rod Stewart was rocking just as hard as the Stones in the early ’70s. It’s a defensive posture that usually pops up after some whippersnapper has dismissed Stewart as a leathery old pop crooner pandering to Botoxed housewives. Apparently, we young folk don’t understand the power of…
Chimaira
Chimaira’s Resurrection doesn’t take but two seconds to put a boot to your throat. And only half a minute later, the Cleveland sextet has seized a leading role in the new wave of American thrash. Since 1998, the band has delivered increasingly strong albums, leading up to 2005’s self-titled LP. Unimpressed, the band’s former label,…
Home Maid
In the Cleveland Play House’s The Clean House, a sassy live-in maid cracks wise. In Portuguese. And there’s not much her harried employer can do about it, so she sends her to a psychiatrist. Sarah Ruhl’s play piles on plenty of jokes… and dust, since nothing seems to get cleaned in the comedy. Saturdays, 4…
Capsule reviews of current area art exhibitions.
Bodily Landscape — It’s hard to say exactly what Virginia artist Tai Hwa Goh is trying to express with this wan, highly conceptual installation, but it might have something to do with identity. Not that it isn’t beautiful in its way. Four columns of translucent Korean paper hang from the ceiling a few feet apart,…
The Box Tops
Memphis has long been a city that stews together a wide set of varied influences: southern soul, rockabilly, R&B, country, blues, and pop. And the Box Tops — who stumbled into a perennial hit while barely out of high school with 1967’s “The Letter” — proudly wore their soul on their sleeves. In what must…
Add It Up
Fit, tanned, and sharply turned out, the foursome sliding into the table next to ours could have stepped right off the pages of a Wine Country brochure. “We thought you looked more interesting than those other people,” joked one of the men, gesturing with a bottle of Napa Valley cab in the direction of his…
Purpole Reign
Sesame Street Live’s latest stage production, Super Grover! Ready for Action, puts the spotlight on our favorite easily exasperated purple monster. In this music-filled show, Grover loses his ability to leap large puddles in a single bound. Friends like Elmo, Zoe, and Rocco (a pet rock) help him get it back. Along the way, everybody…
Weed Killer
Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny (New Line) You probably already know where you stand on Tenacious D, the pudgy hard rock comedy duo that made Jack Black famous. And if you haven’t heard of them, this isn’t the place to start: Their DVD of short films and music videos is much better. But…
Gomez
In 1998, Gomez recorded its debut, Bring It On, in a bleak, bone-chilling garage in Southport, England. The charming and often beautifully lo-fi collection of noisy roots-rock (akin to early Beck) started a label bidding war, eventually leading to the distinguished Mercury Music Prize (beating out icons Massive Attack and the Verve). But the band…
Cupcake Chic
Joining mashed potatoes, short ribs, and mac ‘n’ cheese, cupcakes are the latest comfort food to go glam, with “boutique” bakeries springing up from coast to coast. The trend arrived in Hudson earlier this month with the opening of Main Street Cupcakes (238 North Main Street, 330-342-0833), a serene little coffeehouse and bakeshop in the…
Hungary Hearts
Even native Hungarians will notice something different at tonight’s performance by the traditional Hungarian State Folk Ensemble. “It’s another take on the folklore,” says Mària Ferencz, the group’s managing director. Unlike many ethnic performance groups, the 30 dancers and eight musicians in the ensemble strive for continuity in their work. Rather than present a string…
Virtually Perfect
For the aging videogamer, nothing’s as sorely missed as the corner arcade. Unlike the family-friendly Dance Dance Revolution discos you see today, classic arcades were seedy little dives tucked into strip malls — dark caves thick with the musty bouquet of cheap carpet and adolescent stench. They were also thick with competition. These were the…
Bruce Robison
It’s not easy for a 6-foot-7-inch singer to get overlooked, but such is the case for Bruce Robison. While the tall Texas troubadour has been releasing albums for over a decade, he’s best known as a hit songwriter for Tim McGraw, the Dixie Chicks, and George Strait. Or as the Robison brother not married to…
Smoke Signals
At today’s Clearing the Smoke: The Truth About Tobacco program, stop-smoking expert Jim Joyner lays out the deadly facts about nicotine. It’s a tactic designed to scare the crap out of folks who still haven’t kicked cigs. “Most people don’t think of smokers as addicts,” says Julie Fogel of the Alcohol & Drug Addiction Services…
A Purr-fect Couple
When Rita Mae Brown isn’t penning best sellers like the coming-of-age lesbian novel Rubyfruit Jungle, the Virginian is writing books with her cat, Sneaky Pie. The pair just published Puss ’n Cahoots, the latest whodunit in a series that stars talking felines and other animals. “I communicate with them better than people,” says Brown. The…
Our top DVD picks for the week of February 27:
Bratz: Fashion Pixiez (Lions Gate) Conversations With God (Fox) Cool It Carol (Image) Deep Red (Blue Underground) Dreamland (Image) Filmation’s Ghostbusters (Brentwood) George Carlin: Life Is Worth Losing (MPI) Journey to the End of the Night (First Look) Little Einsteins: The Legend of the Golden Pyramid (Disney) Hawaii, Oslo (Film Movement) The Heart of the…
Mary Weiss
The Shangri-Las: They’re like nostalgia juice shot into the auditory canal for anyone who remembers the ’60s. Teen girls sounding innocent, yet yearning for bad boys, with just a bit of Queens accent bleeding through their sweet voices: “I met him at the can-dee-sto-wah . . .” Mary Weiss, the Shang with the straight blond…
Irish Eyes Are Bleary
House of Blues celebrates St. Patrick’s Day a couple of weeks early tonight, when Dublin hell-raisers Flogging Molly bring their Green 17 Tour to town. Like the Pogues before them, the Irish punks in Molly combine traditional instruments (fiddles, tin whistles, and accordions) with slurred sing-alongs. On its latest DVD and CD, Whiskey on a…
Rock Me, Amadeus
When the Bulgarian State Opera rolls into Playhouse Square tonight with its production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, don’t expect to see some newfangled take on the classic. “Our company doesn’t like to make it more modern,” says tour manager Marya Glur. “It’s a classical production.” Still, the 1786 comedy about a day in…
Here are the week’s best releases from the pop-culture universe:
DVD — Bob Dylan: Don’t Look Back — 65 Tour Deluxe Edition: One of the best rock movies ever made gets supersized in this terrific two-disc upgrade. D.A. Pennebaker’s 1967 chronicle of Dylan’s British tour portrayed the singer as a cranky, confrontational smartass. It also cemented his rep as one of music’s true originals. Best…
Stinking Lizaveta
Though it might not have the name recognition of fellow hard-riffing instrumental outfits Don Caballero and the Fucking Champs, the Philadelphia power trio Stinking Lizaveta has deservedly earned a rabid cult following with its dynamic mix of metallic bombast and jazzy interplay. For over 13 years, the brothers Papadopoulos (Yanni on guitar and Alexi on…
Brew Withe a View
After taking nearly a year off from hosting Talkies’ popular Movie Night, owner Chris Keller is back in business, serving up vintage flicks and steaming cups of coffee. Tonight, she unspools 1938’s Sex Madness — a sexploitation fave featuring lesbians, STDs, and extramarital romps in the sack. The film-and-coffee bar has been around since 2000,…
The Trial of One Short-Sighted Black Woman vs. Mammy Louise and Safreeta Mae
In The Trial of One Short-Sighted Black Woman vs. Mammy Louise and Safreeta Mae, a modern-day lawsuit is filed against a pair of age-old black stereotypes. Tony Sias, director of Karamu House’s production, calls it a contemporary satire. “The play is about images,” he says. “But I don’t want these characters viewed as caricatures. I’m…
Mired University
If you spend much time listening to your car radio or glancing at buses, the slogan is likely lodged in your head: “Myers University: My life, my Myers.” It’s equally likely you’ve thought to yourself, What the hell is Myers University? For 150 years, this has been a valid question. The school has changed names…
k-os
“If you can’t dance to this, it doesn’t matter,” raps k-os on his latest disc, Atlantis: Hymns for Disco. However, it does matter. In fact, that very idea has put the Canadian rapper (and winner of several Junos) at a musical crossroads. His latest is a mash of different styles and sounds, from acoustic numbers…
Who You Gonna Call?
At today’s Ghosthunting 101 outing in Aurora, participants will learn why abandoned houses are so popular with the undead. Then they’ll take a field trip to one of the eerie abodes. There won’t be any Proton Packs or Ecto-Traps on hand, but budding ghostbusters will get to test electromagnetic-field meters and dowsing rods. The four-hour…
School of Hard Rocks
A dozen young students rush into the newly opened School of Rock in Rocky River. They lug instruments twice the size of their bodies, glaring at parents who deign to follow them inside. “Mohhhom, this is my rehearsal — not yours,” one boy reminds his AC/DC-shirt- wearing mother. Another mom lingers at the door. “I…
ISWHAT?!
Hip-hop has flourished for nearly 30 years, yet many music snobs continue to discredit the genre, pointing to its use of samples and reliance on machines as a lack of true musicianship. While the validity of those points is endlessly debated, there’s plenty of rap groups that do use live instrumentation; Cincinnati’s ISWHAT?! has been…
Picture Perfect
The first time Annemarie Grassi saw the 58 photos that make up the new Girl Culture exhibit, she cried. Themes of body image and peer pressure especially hit home for Grassi, a member of the Junior League of Cleveland, which brings the display to town. “You remember being that kid who didn’t have the perfect…
Public Enemy No. 1
You’ll be glad to know that lawyer Fred Nance is officially the most powerful suit in town. So says Inside Business magazine, which ranked him at the top of its “Power 100” list this month. True, Nance is an influential guy. As managing partner at Squire, Sanders & Dempsey and head of the business group…
Kage and Ryan Seibel
The tide’s turning. For the first time in years, the nightlife traffic from Cleveland to Akron doesn’t totally dwarf the flow from Akron to Cleveland. One of the social commuters is DJ Ryan Seibel, who braves the voyage from Cleveland Heights every Friday to spin danceable rock at Thursday’s Lounge, where Fridays are actually less…
Sister Act
Even after singing together for more than 40 years, the Roches still sound marvelously in tune. On Moonswept, their first album since 1995, sisters Maggie, Terre, and Suzzy blend and weave their voices on a set of original folk songs stuffed with pop smarts. On their gorgeous, self-titled 1979 debut, the Roches sang about boyfriends…
Killer Instinct
When the editorial-cartoonist-turned-amateur-sleuth Robert Graysmith published Zodiac, his sprawling, meticulously researched account of the eponymous San Francisco serial killer, he wrote that the tale was “the most frightening story I know,” and it was easy to understand why. Graysmith was writing in 1985, some 16 years after the Zodiac’s last confirmed attack and 7 since…
The Devil Wears Wal-Mart
The Devil’s envoy arrived in Cleveland last week swaddled in magnanimity. He shared a podium with Mayor Frank Jackson to announce that his company, Wal-Mart, would be forgoing $10 million in tax abatements at its new Steelyard Commons store. Leaders cooed, headlines gushed, and other Steelyard companies jumped on for the ride. Finally, it seemed,…
Gerald Levert
He had millions of adoring fans, but our very own Gerald Levert was never truly appreciated. That’s a sad thing to say about a singer who recently died at age 40, but Levert’s final album is a profoundly sad document — and not just because his heartbroken father, O’Jays vocalist Eddie Levert, provides the introduction.…
Hit the Road
Sweet Wednesday’s Dave Falk and Lisa Housman double as tour guides on their debut CD, Wherever You Go, a musical travelogue about America. The Massachusetts duo — who play rootsy folk-rock on guitars, mandolin, and harmonica — bring their road trip to the Barking Spider tonight. @cal body 1:Things start off on “Pacific Shores,” before…
It’s a Groaner
It may be hard out there for a pimp, but it ain’t that hard to make a movie whose marketing hinges on the lurid spectacle of Samuel L. Jackson pulling a half-naked Christina Ricci around on a chain. This sort of cheap trick is what they used to call exploitation — or, more to the…
Letters to the Editor
Music to Our EarsWatch your back (biting): How can you publish an article [“Sour Notes,” February 14] with virtually no sources that will go on record? I am appalled by this article and your lack of responsible journalism. This amounts to libel. Would you accept an article of this nature written about you? I have…
Last Stone Cast
Former Fast Chester bassist Jon Epstein (pictured right) is tired of virtuoso shred-rock — now he just wants to rock, period. His new band, Last Stone Cast, will make its Cleveland debut this weekend at the Hi-Fi. The band will open for ZO2, which features Trans-Siberian Orchestra bassist David Z. Stone’s lineup of Epstein, Scott…
Just the Tax, Ma’am
Comedian Brian Regan has some advice for when you file your tax return next month. “I heard that you could get an automatic extension when you send it in, if you write across the envelope, taxpayer abroad,” he quips. “That’s awfully sexist, isn’t it? I mean, I know they’re not good at math, but still…”…
Pigs in Slop
Wild Hogs — in which John Travolta, William H. Macy, Tim Allen, and Martin Lawrence play emasculated suburbanites taking a cross-country motorcycle trip to rediscover their masculinity — doesn’t even sound like a real movie when you describe it to people. They give you that yer-shittin’-me stare, as though it were even possible to make…
The Race Is On
The cover art for The Village Voice’s 2006 year-end music critics’ poll — that thing called Pazz & Jop — shows the two top artists in fairly unflattering positions. Bob Dylan, in caricature — hook-nosed and hunched on a motor scooter — sneers over his shoulder at TV on the Radio’s guitarist and singer Kyp…
Bloc Party
From an album whose singles intro’d pretty much every MTV and VH1 show, Bloc Party has officially matured out of the vague-means-accessible indie-dance-punk of Silent Alarm and into a brilliant discussion of urban-kid confusion on A Weekend in the City. Kele Okereke bravely waves his flag of schoolboy crush in “I Still Remember,” tackles weekend…
Party All the Time
Terry McAuliffe has dedicated half his life to the Democratic Party. He just turned 50, yet he’s spent the past quarter-century organizing fund-raisers, offering tips to presidential hopefuls, and heading the Democratic National Committee. In What a Party! My Life Among Democrats: Presidents, Candidates, Donors, Activists, Alligators, and Other Wild Animals, McAuliffe relates stories starring…
