“Just Watch Me”
You’d think being part of the local Levert dynasty–the one headed by papa Eddie, leader of the unstoppable O’Jays–Gerald Levert would have had an easy time breaking into the music biz. But ask him about his father’s encouragement, and his ties and pulls within the industry, and Gerald Levert shrugs off any sort of nepotism.…
Transformer Man
Annoyance, disgust, loss of irrecoverable time and IQ points–you can experience many things at the movies, in these days of the Farrelly brothers and Adam Sandler, but transcendence is rarely one of them. To rise above the moronic morass, one must look further, for few filmmakers are more elusive than Robert Bresson, the French auteur…
Makin’ the Scene
Hillbilly Idol is beating the winter blahs with a big fat wooden stick. The band is slated to play two prestigious showcases in Southern climates: February 13 Hillbilly Idol will perform at the Nashville Extravaganza Showcase; March 19, it’s off to Austin for the South by Southwest Music and Media Conference. “What we do there,…
Still Burning Rubber
Hot rod king Ed “Big Daddy” Roth is ready to talk about what’s wrong with the world. But first he has to yell at his dog. “Hey dawg, leave that kitty alone!” he hollers across his workshop. Explains Big Daddy, who has more on his mind than nitro-burning funny cars: “That dog puts the cats’…
Rhapsody in Green
George Gershwin, composer of Rhapsody In Blue, the opera Porgy and Bess, and (with his older brother, lyricist Ira Gershwin) a multitude of classic American popular songs, died from a misdiagnosed brain tumor on July 11, 1937, at the tragically early age of 38. (Ira wrote well into the ’60s and lived until 1983.) Though…
Night & Day
Thursday February 4 Love, prison, and who’s prettier–Sarah Vaughan or Lena Horne?–are all heatedly discussed in Jitney, August Wilson’s 1979 play centered around the conversations of six cab drivers. But these guys have bigger worries than their next hot date. “Urban renewal,” a.k.a. “Negro removal,” is coming to their neighborhood–and the old warehouse that houses…
He’s the Boss
Poverty often breeds enlightenment. For the five guys in Remy Zero, their experience at the sleazy Villa Elaine Hotel in Hollywood provided the necessary stalled-career slingshot. While the band bio lists Alabama as home, don’t be fooled: Remy Zero broke out of Sunset Strip. With gigs at the high-profile Viper Room and Roxy, and friends…
Sermon on the Mount
In the 1993 hit Groundhog Day, Bill Murray played a smart-ass Today show wannabe weatherman who grew into a human being. Murray added a core of warmth and romance to his comic arsenal without losing his zinging wit and crack-up irony, and he’s kept that progress going, even in piddling vehicles such as The Man…
Keeping It Real
Two decades ago there was one thing you could count on from punks: the whiff of Aqua Net No. 5–concrete in a can–forming a cloud around liberty spikes and Mohawks. Or for particularly stubborn hair, a mixture of Elmer’s, prized for its water solubility, and hairspray. It’s been a long time since such tactics have…
Through the Past Starkly
The new Mel Gibson vehicle, Payback, is arguably the first major-studio release this year to have even a modicum of aesthetic ambition. For his directorial debut, Brian Helgeland–who won an Oscar for his screenplay for 1997’s L.A. Confidential (co-written with director Curtis Hanson)–has chosen to adapt The Hunter, the first of twenty or so novels…
Gas Pains
It’s good to hear our reps down in Columbo making noise again. Last week, State Rep Bryan Williams of Akron unveiled a bill to alter our fave misguided program, E-Check. Hmm, wasn’t he the Repub who beat Dem incumbent Karen Doty in ’96 by ripping her support of E-Check? Yep, Williams said kill that car…
The Straight Dope
If you sleep too much, you don’t feel refreshed; instead you feel sluggish, groggy, and generally disposed to more sleep. What is the scientific reason behind this? –Mimi Thomas, via AOL Glad you restricted me to the scientific reason, Mimi. Otherwise I’d fill the whole column with tawdry rumors, and God knows you don’t want…
Letters
Yannapoulos Is a Loose Cannon Kudos to your paper for the insightful inclusion of an art section and for allowing criticism rather than the simple reporting that has become the norm in most daily and weekly papers. Criticism, positive or negative, can be a strong service to the artist, the public, and the presenting institution.…
Hip Check
An Indian philosopher once remarked that, while people in the West knew how to fly in the air like birds and swim in the sea like fish, they had not yet learned how to walk on the ground with their own two feet. The current exhibits at the Cleveland State University Art Gallery showcase both…
Smiles of a Pessimist
For those who cheerfully choose to forgo the mundane, there is the Great Lakes Theatre Festival production of A Little Night Music. This is a musical for champions of delicacy–those who prefer silk to polyester, who note the difference between Godiva and Hershey’s. Just like some exotic passion flower, A Little Night Music comes from…
Down in the Valley
Ensemble Theatre’s Valley Song was written by Athol Fugard, the South African playwright noted for his parables about the evils of apartheid. Now that it’s over, he is much like a retired Civil War general playing with tin soldiers, writing plays of fine-toothed introspection that play like sensitive magazine short stories. Valley Song is his…
Sweet and Sour Grapes
Wouldn’t you expect that a restaurant touting an impressive Californian wine list would be a stickler for proper wine service? I sure would. So I was more than a little surprised when, during a recent visit to the Napa Valley Grille, my $9 serving of 1994 Andretti Cabernet Sauvignon arrived trapped inside a tiny white-wine…
Herbie’s World
Most of the improvisational performers who’ve risen to icon status during the jazz century have done so in part because their brilliant music was paired with a melodramatic personal life. Early death is a big plus in this regard: Such tragedies allow observers and critics to speculate about the great recordings the artist in question…
Playback
DMX Flesh of My Flesh Blood of My Blood (Def Jam) Buried beneath the gunshots and the tall tales of gunplay that ride the surface of DMX’s sophomore outing, Flesh of My Flesh Blood of My Blood, is a complex and difficult album that hides under its battle scars, futilely attempting to protect the even…
Livewire
Hadden Sayers Band Wilbert’s Bar & Grille January 28 Playing guitar-centric, sometimes bluesy rock, Texan Hadden Sayers has developed somewhat of a Southern-fried guitar slinger image. Nevertheless, the strength of his better music comes from a songwriter’s bent and a canny pop sensibility. Rather than play out for long stretches at a time, Sayers kept…
