Props to PBR
The cream soda of beers: Many thanks for your PBR article [“Cool in a Can,” December 25]. I’m writing from Kansas City, where my husband and I, both in our mid-20s, are huge supporters of the Pabst legend. We get it in bottles at our neighborhood bar and have all of the bars that serve…
Vance Gilbert
Now that John Mayer has made the merging of jazz, folk, and rock way cool in the eyes of the MTV audience, maybe there’s a place for Vance Gilbert. Sure, Gilbert doesn’t have Mayer’s boyish good looks. Gilbert is older, he’s black, and he has hair that must have inspired his song “Twice Struck by…
Grave Situation
Joseph T. Hannibal has spent an unusual amount of time in cemeteries — a morbid hobby once reserved for Anne Rice devotees and Cure fans. In fact, he has made gravestones the focus of years-long scientific research. “I picked a few cemeteries and decided to study the heck out of them,” says Hannibal, who employs…
Seiji
Emerging from England in the late ’90s, the broken-beat genre is marked by intricately convoluted rhythms that slither among drum ‘n’ bass, house, nu-jazz, and neo-soul templates like greased eels. West Londoner Paul Dolby (a.k.a. Seiji) is a key figure of the movement, which is gradually gaining American fans. Though he’s only 26, Dolby has…
Celtic Country
There’s a tribute to Derek Bell in the Chieftains’ current stage show. After the Irish band’s longtime harpist died, following surgery in October, the remaining quartet never questioned whether the show would go on. It just would. So while the tour to promote Down the Old Plank Road: The Nashville Sessions is dedicated to Bell,…
Hopesfall
It’s probably just coincidence, but it seems appropriate that Hopesfall is playing at the Grog Shop a mere week after Centaur, a new group fronted by ex-Hum singer-guitarist Matt Talbott. Talbott engineered and produced Hopesfall’s latest effort, The Satellite Years, released on Trustkill Records, and his influence on the album plays out in more than…
Blowin’ Smoke
First off, make no mistake: Biker Boyz is not, and has no intentions of being, The Fast and the Furious on two wheels, which will be considered a serious shame by the 10- to 12-year-old demographic who were hoping to chug a little more Diesel fuel till the official sequel’s release this summer. F&F had…
Twiztid
The war of words (and guns and courts) between the Insane Clown Posse camp and Eminem makes the Jay-Z/Nas feud seem downright cordial. Usually tongue-in-cheek as hell, ICP and company get dead serious right quick when stepped to. Slim Shady has infamously devoted fans, but followers of the other Detroit white-rap phenomenon — Juggalos, they…
Dead Again
Let’s start with two raves and a beef. Final Destination 2 is a tight, rockin’ popcorn flick packed with nasty kicks. It’s also a rare beast, a second horror-franchise installment that matches and in some ways supersedes the original. The gripe, however, is that the producers of the first film, cowed by lackluster test-marketing, reshot…
Art of Noise Tour 2003
In the pantheon of really heavy stuff, the Art of Noise Tour 2003 is right up there with Platonic theory, the films of Krzysztof Kieslowski, and Delta Burke. A five-band bill that should have local chiropractors wringing their hands in anticipation, the Art of Noise Tour intermingles death, grind, thrash, and touches of industrial into…
Miller Time
Each of the beautifully made vignettes that compose Rebecca Miller’s Personal Velocity glimpses a young woman caught at a crossroads, facing an important decision and about to experience one of those rare dilations of vision that can change an entire life. Now, this is a common ploy in what has come to be crudely known…
Christian Howes Trio
Talk about your child prodigies. Columbus native Christian Howes had his first violin lessons at the age of five and was sufficiently accomplished at 16 to perform the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra. And that’s only part of the story, because Howes, who speaks eloquently for the violin’s place within a jazz…
Cole Slaw
Some would have it that, if you’re going to produce the classic American musical Anything Goes, you need to start with a female lead singer with lungs powerful enough to suck-start a Ford Explorer. That’s because the keystone role of nightclub chanteuse Reno Sweeney was originated some 70 years ago on Broadway by Ethel Merman,…
Erasure
James Taylor’s stab at “Everyday” was underwhelmingly twee; Andy Bell makes the Buddy Holly tune full-blown gay, which is precisely the point, since few singers are so loud or proud about their sexuality as the Erasure singer (emoter, really). Seventeen years after Wonderland, Erasure still sounds like a band stuck in the synthesized, synthetic, synful…
No Question About It
How many Catholics does it take to change a light bulb? Two. One to change the bulb and a priest to hear him confess and give the old bulb last rites. Ha ha. That’s Reader’s Digest-style Catholic humor, something a senile bingo emcee might use for segue material. If you want the actual funny Catholic…
Benzino
There’s cheeky, and then there’s just don’t give a damn. Boston rapper Benzino, co-owner of hip-hop magazine The Source, represents the latter. A former member of the undistinguished groups Almighty RSO and Made Men, Benzino is a hip-hop Zelig. He unabashedly, and foolishly, switches styles to suit his guests. He takes on the guise of…
Your New Friends?
Last October, Sue Vertue found herself in a Los Angeles soundstage watching the filming of a pilot for a would-be NBC sitcom. The storyline of this particular episode dealt, more or less, with the horrific (and, of course, capital-H hilarious!) fallout that comes when a man’s girlfriend finds his porn stash–in this case, a bit…
Moe
The fellows in Moe say they don’t like their quintet being known as a jam band. Yeah, and I don’t like being the fat guy with the bald spot. A jam band is what Moe is, and as with most jam bands, the studio recordings normally don’t measure up to the coltish energy of one…
Petal Pushers
In September, when most of summer’s gardens were fading into fall, that place just off University Circle that used to be That Place on Bellflower was setting down new roots. Now, in the dead of winter, the colorfully renovated, rechristened Flower has grown into a budding beauty. Flower’s cultivation is the work of new co-owners…
Tiga
I might just as well admit it up front: I’ve never been able to take electro very seriously. It was probably the absurd lampooning that the style received from Mike Myers’s “Sprockets” segments on Saturday Night Live that did it. But it hasn’t been any easier to swallow the genre’s current revival, instigated by the…
Souper Chef
Soft-spoken Matthew Moore is no Soup Nazi, although the wonderful broths and bisques he creates at his Souper Market (2528 Lorain Avenue, 216-737-7687) are delicious enough to justify a certain amount of arrogance. The Dayton native, whose past experience paired him with some of the area’s best chefs (including Michael Tsonton at the now-defunct Tutto…
Kinski
Since the demise of grunge a few years back, both the city of Seattle and the Sub Pop label have struggled to shake off the stigma of a dead scene and forge a new musical identity. While the national media might not have been paying so much attention during the post-Nirvana years, the Emerald City…
Shots Fired
Punk rock was supposed to die before it got old. Its first mantra was “no future,” as voiced by the blur of yellow hair and teeth that was the Sex Pistols’ Johnny Rotten. “We’re the flowers in the dustbin/We’re the poison in your human machine,” Rotten sneered on the Pistols’ classic call to arms, “God…
Various Artists
When Pride of Ohio frontman Nick Wolf bellows, “We might be scum of the earth, but we’re still the pride of Ohio,” early on this gritty, great comp, he could be speaking for just about any of the two dozen bruisers that compose the disc. Put out by the folks at Clepunk.com — the best…
Tried and True
Though it’ll never be considered classic rock, the wild, uninhibited sounds of East L.A.’s Los Lobos are most certainly classic: rock and roll, blues-rock, and vernacular, acoustic Mexican music played like no other. They’ve been doing it for nearly 30 years now, and though they’re not confident in today’s record business, their product grows ever…
Filament 38
Aside from bad jokes about burning rivers and Zydrunas Ilgauskas’s foot problems, few things have proved as enduring in Cleveland as its industrial scene. Though the genre has severely fallen off in most cities, here it has remained as strong as ever, and the debut from Filament 38 is further testament to the continuing vitality…
The Loneliest Man in Cleveland
If the NBA’s 29 general managers were a fraternity, this would be their credo: “Nobody has it as bad as I do.” Or so jokes Portland GM Bob Whitsitt, who’s able to laugh about silk-tie martyrdom more easily than most. His team buys free agents the way everyone else buys gum, and makes the playoffs…
Happy Daze
It’s a bright, blustery December day in Santa Monica, and Devendra Banhart is sitting on the steps of the California Heritage Museum, a rustic building that houses historical artifacts from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Surrounded by million-dollar beachfront condos, hip coffee joints, and a Gap outlet, the museum doesn’t exactly fit into…
Stripped Poker
If this is a casino, it might be the ugliest one on earth: The walls are bare, the chandeliers look plastic, and the floor is naked concrete. On most days, it serves as a West Side fraternal hall. But no one is complaining about the accommodations. On this Friday night, roughly 200 people fill folding…
Rap Rivalry
When the Steelers booted the Browns from the playoffs a few weeks back, we got drunk. David Velo Stewart, on the other hand, got inspired. “Right after the Browns lost to the Steelers, that was one of those moments where it was like ‘Oh man, another time where Cleveland is trying to make it to…
Hall Monitor
Ever wonder what Plain Dealer reporters do in their free time, besides making fun of the preening politicians, corporate bores, and narcissistic jocks they’re forced to write about? They sit around and make fun of the preening, corporate, and narcissistic editors they used to work for. Take the latest source of newsroom snickering, which arrived…
Art Rock
In an effort to make his workload as punishing as the music he prefers, Cleveland artist/gallery owner Derek Hess is launching his own label, Strhess Records. Joining Hess in the venture are video director Darren Doane and Hess’s manager/co-head of the 1300 Gallery, Marty Geramita. Initially the new label will focus on releasing a series…
