Anchors Gone Wild
TV news loves sex scandals, but the general goal is to make sure the tawdry action doesn’t involve your own staff. Not so in Youngstown last week. Catherine Bosley, a 10-year news anchor at WKBN, resigned from her job after photos of her baring all at a Florida wet T-shirt contest became must-see TV on…
Slash, Burn, Repeat
Visit the website of the Milwaukee rock band Hey Mercedes, and one obsession of guitarist-vocalist Michael Shumaker becomes abundantly clear: The Cleveland native really, really likes AC/DC. In his biographical information on the band’s weblog, he awards most-favored status to the late vocalist Bon Scott, the fist-pumping number “Let There Be Rock,” and Highway to…
Haywire
Cathy Jo Petti and Dennis Petti made a good move by ditching folk music in favor of rockabilly. Not that the siblings might not have been a fine folk-singing duo, but there’s a glut of those in Cleveland — and a dearth of roots rockers. So with friend Rick Santon, an upright-bass player, the Pettis…
Dump Him in the Bin
Dump Him in the Bin Lynching’s too good for Lynch: The article “Thrill Kill” [December 10] shocked and saddened me. I am sorry for Mr. Mishne, who had to find his own daughter’s body, and for JoLynn, whose life was ended while her killer’s goes on without remorse. It is obvious that we, as a…
Defying Logic
“Echo and the Bunnymen! Echo and the Bunnymen!” Stills drummer Dave Hamelin, who’s been yawning uncontrollably for the past 15 minutes, is suddenly shouting into the phone. It’s as though he’s been awakened from a pleasant afternoon nap by the sound of air-raid sirens. Call it the anxiety-of-influence effect: Ever since releasing its debut EP,…
Kitchen Knife Conspiracy
Produced by Today Is the Day singer-guitarist Steve Austin, Kitchen Knife Conspiracy’s Worst Case in Stereo would make a hell of an EP. But since the band’s third CD is a full-length, skip directly to “Porn II Kill,” turn up the bass, and join the guilty parties, as the Conspiracy’s tender homage to the thrash…
Gay Rights and Wrongs
It doesn’t take a pair of homos to tell you that gay is in. But Billy Thomas and Paul Trenkamp have seen enough Queer Eye for the Straight Guy to know what’s hot and what’s not for homosexuals and metrosexuals alike. Think of Thomas as Akron’s version of Carson, Queer Eye’s fashion maven; Trenkamp is…
Limbo Rap
If you spent last year waiting patiently for the new album from your favorite urban artist — and you’re still waiting — you’re not alone. As the music industry battles file-sharing, stiffer competition from within and without for the entertainment dollar, and (theoretically, at least) a less-gullible listenership, it’s become common for albums to have…
This Week’s Day-By-Day Picks
Thursday, January 22 Happy 31st birthday, Roe vs. Wade! The Freedom of Choice Cleveland Coalition is celebrating three decades of safe and legal abortions by hosting “Roe vs. Wade: Exploring the Past, Present, and Future,” a look at the landmark case’s history and what’s in store. The battle’s far from over, says the group’s Molly…
In Bloom
Few musicians fit in with the workingmen who belly up at the Parkview, the West Side bar where the only thing bigger than the shoulders are the beer tabs. But sitting in a booth with his back to the wall, a leg up on the seat and a Budweiser in hand, Tim Tobias looks right…
Punk’d!
The Mutilators — the rock band at the center of the play Loud Americans: A Punk Saga — live up to their name, shredding every single song and always being on the verge of imploding. But their persistence, in hopes that their big break lurks just around the corner, echoes the story of every single…
Kids Will Be Kiddo
Side projects are occupying Kiddo these days, but the fun-pop trio vows there’s no end in sight. Singer-guitarist Christian Doble is also doubling as Killing Jeffrey, an indie-rock project that plays a January 28 show at the Beachland Tavern, opening for Swell and the Dreadful Yawns. “It’s a lot like the same idea of Kiddo,”…
The Brunch Bunch
SUN 1/25 Bernie Kimble livens up a plate of pancakes with more than just Aunt Jemima. Once a week, the program director of soft-jazz radio station WNWV-FM 107.3 hosts Sunday Brunch With the Wave. For two hours, Kimble and a rotating lineup of other WNWV jocks introduce live performances by a variety of local jazz…
April March
Subversion, thy name is April March. Hired by wholesome Archie Comics as a cartoon animator in the early 1980s, March (née Elinor Blake), a French-culture addict, quickly moved into the wackier climes of Pee-wee’s Playhouse and gross-out toonland of The Ren & Stimpy Show, with a stop in between, to animate Madonna during her “Who’s…
The After-Party
1/22-1/28 Whether you’re in the mood to do a victory dance or drink away the agony of defeat, several bars near Gund Arena offer respite for Cavalier fans. And since Cleveland hosts Sacramento on Thursday, Philadelphia on Saturday, Orlando on Monday, and Miami on Wednesday this week, there’s time to hit them all. Are We…
Music of Ohio
Rich Seng started managing rock bands while he was still in high school. When the Toledo native went off to college at Miami University in the mid-’90s, he tried to book one of his favorite hometown bands, the Spragues, at various clubs in Oxford. Finding no takers, Seng hit upon an idea: He’d make a…
Farce of July
FRI 1/23 What in the world are they smoking over at the Cleveland Metroparks these days? At Friday’s pretend-it’s-summer party, they’ll be lighting up marshmallows by a campfire. “We want you to get out of your house, even though it’s winter,” explains naturalist Kevin Metcalf, the genius behind July Marshmallow Roast! at North Chagrin Nature…
David Allan Coe
David Allan Coe, unlike some of his peers, didn’t have to manufacture outlaw cred to qualify for the outlaw-country movement of the 1970s. Coe essentially grew up incarcerated, first tangling with the system at age nine and then spending the next 20 years, more or less, behind bars. When he emerged, he had taught himself…
Tickled Ivories
1/22-1/26 Marino Formenti pulls out all the stops. Really. Known for his onstage antics, the Italian pianist climbs under his Steinway to remove the foot-pedal stops, so that the instrument’s tones segue into the next piece without interruption. He performs pieces that require the rigging of keyboard strings with bits of rubber and plastic to…
The Demolition Doll Rods
It’s easy to dismiss Detroit’s Demolition Doll Rods as a novelty act. Fumbling like the Cramps played by porn-flick extras on cough syrup, they hit the stage wearing next to nothing, besides sequined undies stained in all the wrong places. The ex-stripper guitarist cranks out fuzzed-up power chords, while the drummer — all huge eyes…
Perfect Storm
FRI 1/23 When C. Kelly Robinson sits down to write a book, he has one mission in mind: to shatter the myth that African-American men are a bunch of womanizing, out-of-work thugs. His latest romance, The Perfect Blend, focuses on three couples, whose problems range from out-of-wedlock babies to the looming loss of a job.…
Rickie Lee Jones
For a time in the late ’90s, when Rickie Lee Jones was touring behind her trip-hop album Ghostyhead, the Chicago-born singer-songwriter refused to play anything from her lengthy back catalog. You almost sympathize with Jones’s urge to abandon her legacy, because its remarkable moments have been neglected by a record-buying public (no surprise there; Jones’s…
Dude, Where’s My Temporal Orientation?
There is a recent generation of American men who came of age too late for free love and wanton property-grabbing, and too early for post-grunge emotional wankery and info-age immediacy. Stuck on their iceberg, isolated by oceans from anything real — like the original punk movement or Australia’s cinematic new wave — they loitered in…
Tommy Castro
Somewhere, there must be a teenage guitar novice who’s going to be inspired to play the blues after getting hooked on a Tommy Castro CD. That’s what happened to Castro after hearing B.B. King’s 1971 masterpiece, Live at Cook County Jail. Twenty-two years after that album’s release, the Tommy Castro Band began building its reputation…
Legally Bland
Win a Date With Tad Hamilton! opens with a movie within the movie. It’s the 1940s, and a hunky, square-jawed soldier (played by Tad Hamilton, who’s played by Josh Duhamel) stops his car along the side of a damp road; a woman, dressed in virginal nursing whites, gets out of her car and moves toward…
Kanye West
This has been touted as the year’s most-anticipated release — less because of what Kanye West has achieved as half of Roc-A-Fella’s hitmaking house production team, and more because of what he represents: The long-awaited bridge between hip-hop’s over- and underground, he’s a guy who admits that he wants to sport both “a Benz and…
Hets in Heat
Apparently, heterosexual wedlock is teetering on the brink of extinction, what with Congress musing about a constitutional amendment banning legalized gay unions and President Bush urging that $1.5 billion be spent on supporting male-female marriage. Against all odds, however, and even without the benevolent hand of the federal government, guys and gals continue to hook…
Various Artists
Never met a tribute album worthy of the name. They’re doomed — if not outright damned — endeavors that make you wonder whether the artists involved ever listened to, learned from, or felt the musicians to whom they’re paying homage. The Clash has already suffered such an insult — Burning London, it was called, with…
The Lemon Merchant
The rusty, wine-colored Intrepid needed a lot of work — fog lights, locks, a new tire and rim. The hood was held down by a piece of wire, and the vehicle reeked. The previous owner left spoiled meat in the trunk, explained Avi Stern, owner of Driver’s Auto Mart in Slavic Village. He’d have it…
Captivating Chaos
Life is like a pinball game. You’re launched through a narrow chute and bounce from one bumper to another (family dynamics, personal identity, relationships, jobs), earning pointless points and trying to convince yourself you’re doing well. There are some narrow escapes when you tap the flipper buttons (life changes), rocketing yourself off in unexpected directions…
Stereolab
After nine studio albums, the Anglo-French unit Stereolab has become very comfortable in its sound, sinking into a beanbag chair of Laetitia Sadier’s “ba-da-ba’s,” Farfisa organ drones, wonderfully serpentine bass lines, and krautrock-bossa nova-waltz rhythms. One would think that Margerine Eclipse, the first album released since singer-keyboardist Mary Hansen’s death in 2002, ought to reflect…
The Color of Money
When Ruby Davis won her racial-bias lawsuit against Cuyahoga County’s juvenile court in November 2002, it was more a moral victory than a financial blow to the county. Davis was hired in 1999 as the medical-services supervisor at the Juvenile Detention Center. Her mandate was to put the medical department’s house in order — no…
Danger: Dinner Ahead
These are dark days for omnivores, what with killer scallions, brain-wasting beef, and the news that we’ve been munching on the remains of cattle too ill to make it to the slaughterhouse on their own four legs. Not that these revelations should come as any surprise: If the history of human meddling in the natural…
Air
Since the outer-space lounge-lizard glow of Moon Safari, their 1998 debut, became the soundtrack du jour for denizens of overpriced martini bars, Parisian cool cats JB Dunckel and Nicolas Godin have taken great pains to avoid repeating themselves on subsequent discs. While the creepy, robotic, after-hours coldness of 2001’s 10,000 Hz Legend was an unfortunate…
Tale of Two Thieves
As the celebrated criminologist Robert Zimmerman once remarked, steal a little, they’ll throw you in jail; steal a lot, they’ll make you a king. Or something like that. His thesis proved correct last week with the fall of two executives. Thomas Gaylord, vice president of the University of Akron, was accused by the state inspector…
XO Marks the Spot
Long after the tastes of lobster and steak have faded, and the aromas of truffle oil and pancetta have become but distant memories, what we’ll remember about XO, Zdenko Zovkic’s new addition to the Warehouse District dining scene, is likely to be this: the sheer radiance of candlelight and Christmas lights, washing across snowy white…
Sun Ra
It was always easy to dismiss Sun Ra as an anomaly on the jazz scene, a mischievous prankster who dressed up as an outer-space pharaoh to sell records and fill shows. Often overlooked is the fact that the man could play the piano like a demon. It’s obvious on his recordings with the Arkestra, where…
