Sour Hours
It all begins with the word. “I believe I may have a first sentence,” murmurs Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman — yes, really) to her husband, Leonard (Stephen Dillane), commencing labor on her fourth novel, Mrs. Dalloway. The year is 1921, but skillfully intercut segments illustrate that the book’s heady emotional content will ripple dramatically –…
David Padilla
He may be from Manhattan’s Upper West Side, but few DJs have become more synonymous with Miami than David Padilla. His seasoned sound has been the driving force behind not only his lengthy South Beach residency runs, but also the ReMix Party, a roving bash that regularly attracts more than 2,000 hardcore fans for one…
Male Fraud
Paul Morse (Jason Lee) has this terrible problem. He’s all set to marry the take-charge, raven-haired beauty Karen (Selma Blair), but late in the game finds himself also falling for her free-spirited blond cousin, Becky (Julia Stiles). Gee, what’s a guy to do? It’s always nice to see a movie premise that average, ordinary moviegoers…
Nas
Nas runs, it seems, on two themes — loss and the reclamation of former glory. With God’s Son, the Queens rapper, plagued for years by a lack of focus, makes those themes indistinguishable, finally meeting the challenge of Illmatic, his 1994 masterpiece — and albatross, as he struggled through mediocrity. Conceptually, the new album is…
In the Ghetto
There have been other films dealing with the Jewish ghettos during the Nazi occupation of Poland — some very good — but The Pianist, the latest feature from Roman Polanski, may be the best. Of course, it starts out with a huge advantage: The 69-year-old Polanski is probably the only working filmmaker to have personally…
Rondellus
All you really need to know about Rondellus’s Sabbatum: A Medieval Tribute to Black Sabbath is that the disc doesn’t contain “Sweet Leaf,” the song that boasts Sabbath’s most monstrous riff. Think that’s an oversight akin to sacrilege for any Sabbath tribute? Read on, there’s more. Sabbatum’s promising, wicked-awesome premise is Sab songs, unplugged, 14th-century…
It All Adds Up
For those of us who had trouble getting beyond the multiplication tables, it’s a bit difficult to comprehend how mathematics can be a seductively intricate and creative profession. After all, the answers are in the back of the book, aren’t they? Well, apparently not. It’s a fiendish business, this theoretical number-crunching. That fact serves as…
Paul Weller
Hailed as a demigod in his native Britain, former Jam/Style Council frontman Paul Weller can hardly get arrested on our shores — his last studio album, 2000’s rather dour Heliocentric, didn’t even merit a U.S. release. Hopefully all that will change with the release of Weller’s latest solo effort, Illumination, which debuted at No. 1…
No Moss
Two performers playing 15 characters, and one of those actors is the guy who played Balki Bartokomous, the “don’t be ridiculous” character from the late-’80s sitcom Perfect Strangers. If the wild applause Bronson Pinchot received for merely stepping onto the stage is any indicator, the Balki factor is reason enough for some to see Stones…
John Coltrane/Charles Lloyd
Those who’ve quit spending large chunks of their disposable income on all the repackagings of John Coltrane’s recorded works might want to slow down the next time they flip past Legacy, the new four-CD set from Verve. Two things make this overview stand out. First and foremost, Legacy is unique in drawing from Coltrane’s entire…
Troubled Waters
At first glance, wealthy little Hudson looks like the town that has everything: a prosperous populace, a charming village green, and a two-block “downtown” stocked with cozy shoppes peddling everything from handmade Christmas collars for Miss Kitty to yoga mats for Mom and Sis. There’s an above-average bakery, a recently remodeled Acme, and a well-respected…
Quickening
Quickening’s Ones and Zeroes deserves a listen — and now. What initially seems like another run-of-the-mill pop-punk affair quickly jells into a catchy distillation of all things post-grunge: Blink’s springy guitars, Sum 41’s pogo-inducing song structures, emo’s soft/hard dynamics, indie rock’s earnestness, and on occasion, modern rock’s bombastic choruses. In the right hands, this disc…
In Hot Water
After being introduced to the glory of tea while getting ready for an Asian business trip, Clevelander Becky Corbett walked away from a corporate career in international trade and launched her own business, procuring and packaging exotic teas and providing them to fellow Northeast Ohio teapotheads. After almost three years and a stint at the…
Delay
Delay strives to be textbook punk, but the Cleveland trio comes closer to being dictionary punk, as in the “inexperienced youngster” definition of the word found in Webster’s New World. The good book goes on to define “punk rock” as “a form of simple rock music, often with coarse lyrics, typically performed in a hostile,…
Sound the Horns
Valhalla Ice is without his broadsword and horned helmet; still, he seldom slips out of character on this January night at Peabody’s. “Can I get a Skull Splitter?” the Norse Law frontman asks the bartender. Ice favors drinks as violent as his lyrics, but he’s disappointed to learn his brew isn’t available here. As the…
No Laughing Matter
Even though the band has been making music for more than a decade, people still wonder whether the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion is for real. No matter how hard the band rocks, the same questions linger: Are they making fun of the blues? Are they making fun of punk? Are they making fun of us?…
Big Wheel
A few weeks ago, the St. Vincent-St. Mary High School boys basketball team played a game in Los Angeles that ESPN2 carried live. A New York Times writer caught up with SVSM star LeBron James the day before the game. The Chosen One wore a crucifix and earrings encrusted with diamonds. “They only cost 25…
Imperfectly Clear
“How many clicks does it take to put a 20 percent dent in CD sales?” Clear Channel asks in one of its new radio spots. “How many clicks does it take before 99 percent of all music on the web is illegal? How many clicks before an entire generation stops buying music at all?” Clear…
No Way Out
Connie Nardi had the Upper Deck bar buzzing the night of August 14, 1988. As customers in the Mantua pub gawked and hollered, the lithe brunette danced barefoot on the bar, swiveling to the strains of classic rock. At one point, a young man named Troy Busta joined her, and the two bumped hips for…
Setting Standards
Great jazz artists have always set themselves apart in two areas: They display a highly developed degree of instrumental prowess, coupled with an unmistakably individual voice. Far more elusive, however, is that proverbial needle in the haystack: the jazz player who not only speaks with élan, but also composes his own distinctive material. One of…
Meat Loaf Rocks?
More reasons why the Rock Hall’s here: While I may agree with Andrew Putz and David Martin on some of their choices in “Rating Season” [December 11], I must say they missed the mark on “overrated rock and roll.” I suppose the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History could have been written differently, but what it actually…
Playing Possum
While we’re sure it pales in comparison to topping our prestigious year-end local best-of list a couple of weeks back, the Black Keys have recently signed a deal with the blues badasses at Fat Possum Records. Black Keys singer-guitarist Dan Auerbach once traveled to Mississippi for tutelage from blues great T-Model Ford — one of…
Good Priest Hunting
The priest was shipped out of Cleveland without fanfare. One minute he was facing allegations that he’d raped a young male parishioner. The next, he was gone. There may have been other stops along the way, but this much is certain: After fielding the accusation, the Cleveland diocese sent Father Joseph Lang to Connecticut’s Institute…
Lucy Kaplansky
To begin with a small caveat: The next time any contemporary folkie writes a song about how you fell asleep in the passenger seat on our all-night drive across the desert and I looked at you in the dashboard light and felt us growing further apart, I swear to God violence will follow. Swift, terrible…
Lifestyles of the Rich and Homeless
It’s just past noon, and Bob Molchan is at the bar, sipping his first Budweiser. He’s ordered the liquid lunch. This is a man who lived for more than 20 years under a bridge, where West 3rd Street crosses over the railroad tracks just south of Browns Stadium. He has always kept a modest appetite.…
Popa Chubby
A bluesman named Horowitz sounds as unlikely as a wrestler named Goldberg. While Ted Horowitz’s stage name, Popa Chubby, may dispense with one preconception, the Bronx-born and -bred guitarist-vocalist-songwriter challenges a number of other musical assumptions as well. Though he’s a city boy, a typical Chubby track is as likely to be grounded in traditional…
Ruffing It
Before Lassie and Balto warmed our hearts, primitive dogs roamed the Earth. They were not fierce wolves plucked from the wild by humans; they were small, scrappy mongrels that scavenged through trash and domesticated themselves. Or so claims Ray Coppinger, co-author of the aptly titled Dogs. Not one to let convention or scientific hypotheses get…
Freekbass
None other than funk forebear Bootsy Collins christened Cincinnati bassist Chris Sherman with the name that defines not only his band and his style, but his very persona: Freekbass. After meeting Gary “Mudbone” Cooper, a former member of Bootsy Collins’s Rubber Band, Sherman was invited to contribute his manic bass style to a track for…
Poster Chile
Given all the high-minded groups — the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibit Service, Smithsonian’s Anacostia Museum and Center for African American History and Culture, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — behind it, Close Up in Black: African American Film Posters would have every right to suffer from a critical case of stiffness.…
Trapt
The precedent for Trapt’s recent success was set a year and a half ago by a diminutive black rapper who sometimes dresses as a leprechaun. Houston’s Lil’ Flip would see his 2000 debut, The Leprechaun, sell more than 250,000 copies, thanks largely to the help of Clevelanders. It was here that Flip first hit outside…
