The Bronx/Lifetime
Because their guitars sometimes hit speedy and brutal like vintage Motörhead, the Bronx gets lumped in with the throwback metal scene, which includes Priestess, the Sword, High on Fire, and Early Man. Most often, though, the powerhouse Los Angeles foursome unleashes a churning combination of hardcore punk and metal that’s reminiscent of mid-’90s dynamo Quicksand…
Man In Black: Live in Denmark 1971 (Sony/Legacy)
By the time America departed the turbulent ’60s, Johnny Cash was on top of the world. In ’68 he played Folsom Prison, and a year later he was given his own network television show (notable for Bob Dylan’s appearance on the premier episode). Live in Denmark 1971 moves Cash’s TV show to Europe, with a…
Mary Lee’s Corvette
Mary Lee Korte wrote the Amy Grant hit “Everywhere I Go” back in ’85, but first gained attention with her sterling 2002 release of Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks, recorded live in its entirety at N.Y.C. institution Arlene’s Grocery. Korte followed it up with 700 Miles, which expanded her pop and folk palette with bright…
Dude, Where’s My Lunch?
The weather usually sucks, gas costs have soared, and good luck finding a cheap parking space near your favorite downtown eatery. Given the hassles in going out to lunch, you’d think that restaurateurs would be falling all over themselves to find ways to deliver to downtown’s ravenous workers. Fat chance. It took more than a…
A Worker Scorned…
Molly Fiedler, a sun-streaked brunette with a Valley-girl lilt, has a gift for mooching free stuff. That’s why the bubbly 28-year-old headed to the Cleveland Rib Fest on May 27, the one day it cost nothing to get in. Fiedler collected complimentary items and wooed cooks into giving her free food. “Can I get just…
Rob Zombie
Sure, Ozzy Osbourne once broke bread with the president, but it’s likely no metal maven embodies the American Dream more than Rob Zombie. Not only can the shock rocker claim seven gold and platinum discs (the most ever by a Geffen artist), he’s done pretty well with his movie and comic-book offerings too. Yep, Zombie…
Eat & Run
Don’t wait till you’re hungry — Would-be lunchers who wait till noon to call in their order will probably be out of luck. At Tomaydo Tomahhdo, deliveries are scheduled by time slots; once a slot fills, orders may no longer be accepted. To avoid being shut out, customers are encouraged to call up to 24…
Closing Gay Bars
When we last checked in with investigative reporter Linda Harvey, director of Mission: America — a Columbus club for hating homos — she was assembling her life’s greatest work (First Punch, April 26). Harvey, famous for such riveting essays as “When Tolerance Creates Violence” and “Fairy Tales Don’t Come True, Part II,” was conducting covert…
Ted Nugent
Even when the Motor City Madman, Ted Nugent, is as dried up as the beef jerky he peddles, fans will still have the utmost respect for the Nuge, thanks to one simple criterion: “Stranglehold.” Rarely has a solo debut opened with such an unequivocal scorcher as Uncle Ted’s did in 1975, with this wonderful, broiling…
Special Deliveries
Tomaydo Tomahhdo (1413 East Ninth Street, 216-771-7100, www.tomaydo.com) Online orders: No Credit cards accepted: Yes Minimum order: $25 Delivery charge: 10 percent of food and beverage total, with a maximum of $15 Elapsed time: We called at 10 a.m. to request 11:30 delivery. Our order arrived, hot and fresh, at 11:35. Notes: Tom Tom offers…
Revolting Developments
Examining the Rysar business model: Cleveland is lucky to have you [“Man With a Past,” June 28]. Thank you for putting up with Mr. Lurie’s very unprofessional verbal abuse to get the truth out: political contributions, felons on the payroll, a lack of customer satisfaction and follow-through, ridiculous subsidy for an unworthy product, and unfinished…
DJ Flight
The U.K.’s Top of the Pops may be headed for the big sleep, but its reigning drum & bass queen, DJ Flight, continues to shake systems around the globe. One of the first ladies of the Gold Grillz’s Metalheadz label, she has been putting needle to plate for seven years, has production credits, and hosts…
Cleveland’s Rocks
So you know how Parker Posey nearly always plays sarcastic, uptight smokers? In The Oh in Ohio, she finally stretches a bit: Here, she’s a sarcastic, uptight career woman . . . who doesn’t smoke! Also, she wears her hair down, whereas it’s usually pulled back into some kind of tightly wound style more synonymous…
Be Afraid
John Bradbury wasn’t surprised when Ohio University revealed that hackers had breached its computers, stealing the personal information of more than 100,000 people. Colleges, after all, offer thieving at its easiest. It wasn’t long ago that Bradbury was summoned to a Big Ten school, where French hackers had commandeered student, staff, and payroll records. They’d…
Puffy AmiYumi
What do Japanese pop darlings Puffy AmiYumi have in common with the Beatles and the Jackson Five? All three bands were morphed into TV cartoons. Puffy, superstars in their native land, are best known in America for their kooky Cartoon Network show Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi. But their terrific new disc, Splurge, might shift stateside…
Truly, Madly, Darkly
Slipped into the summer movie season like acid in your happy meal, Richard Linklater’s A Scanner Darkly is a blockbuster of counterprogramming. No matter that the dude from The Matrix is its star — or would be, if he weren’t half-hidden under a thick swath of digital paint. Linklater’s return to Waking Life’s surreally pulsing…
Punk Perennials
As roadshows go, Manchester’s Buzzcocks are a semi-perennial pleasure. This very month they’re celebrating their 30th anniversary. (First gig: July 20, 1976, supporting the Sex Pistols at Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall.) They’re lauded as buzzsaw-punk pioneers of the first rank while also garnering admiration as a melodic pop group of the highest order. With…
Trey Anastasio
Normally, you wouldn’t find me within a mile of Phish or any of its members. The wheedling, folk-rock wankery, with its airy, high-pitched leads and unending jams (entertaining only if you’ve taken enough drugs), sends me fleeing in the other direction. I’ve caught Anastasio here and there, including the Dave Matthews/Trey Anastasio collaboration at Bonnaroo…
Freeloader
Owen Wilson has moved up in the world: He’s gone from crashing weddings to crashing entire marriages. In the listless farce You, Me and Dupree, his eponymous ne’er-do-well shows up on the doorstep of his childhood friend Carl (Matt Dillon), having lost his job and been evicted from his apartment after taking time off to…
Getting Organs-ized
When Ben Chasny of Six Organs of Admittance entered the studio to make a new record with producer Tim Green last year, he had a plan: He would build an epic, 48-minute drone for his friends and ask some of them to play on it. The idea of a drone album was certainly nothing new.…
1988
Working hand in hand with quantum physicists, the Scene music department has determined that each passing day actually takes us further away from Guns N’ Roses’ long-delayed Chinese Democracy album. So what’s a Guns fan to do? Check out 1988, a Scene Music Awards nominee for cover/tribute band of the year, which is renowned for…
All-Day Suckers
Perhaps no one can pinpoint the exact moment vaudeville died, but there’s a moment early in Strangers With Candy where you’d swear you had just witnessed the death of visual comedy. En route to her first day of high school, a tarty middle-aged jailbird — this is not a Disney Channel joint — tosses a…
Scene Cleveland Music Awards 2006
A city’s music scene is about more than which artists get radio play. We’re fortunate to have a wealth of talented artists representing the region across the entire spectrum of genres. We’ve got money players at every position and a deep bench to boot. But the scene is also lucky to have you, the fans,…
Muse
Muse might once have deserved its reputation as Radiohead’s paranoid little brother, but the British band’s fourth album should finally retire that tired analogy. Like all good fourth albums, Black Holes answers the fundamental question so many groups avoid: Why keep doing this? The reason is Muse’s mainstream ambitions, more akin to U2 than to…
Wilder at Heart
Sometimes you are fortunate enough to encounter a familiar old classic that has been given such a new and startling spin that you’re compelled to think, “So that’s what it’s all about!” Pick up The Barbra Streisand Album and cue up “Cry Me a River.” It’s a shopworn tune that has been mouthed by countless…
Sound/Stage
SOUND Machine Go Boom, “The Kazoo Star” (machinegoboom.com) This loping indie-pop gem echoes Art Brut’s “We Formed a Band,” as the Cleveland quintet daydreams of kazoo-scored stardom and TRL. Loud, lurching drums blast the song through a shimmery guitar haze suffused with off-kilter, early ’90s lo-fi charm — like Sebadoh kidnapped by the Swirlies. Machine…
Percee P
After more than 25 years of moving through hip-hop’s shadows, Percee P has finally released his full-length solo debut, Perseverance. Produced entirely by sound-scientist Madlib, the disc boasts verses by Aesop Rock, Jurassic 5’s Chali 2na, and Jedi Mind Tricks’ Vinnie Paz. If his aerobic freestyles aren’t enough to get you out to the show,…
Laughing at Love
Once summer hits and we’re not afraid to go outdoors anymore, there’s an irrepressible urge for things that are natural. We opt for the lemonade without high-fructose corn syrup, sirloin without hormone injections, and a cool evening breeze produced by nature and not Freon. In the realm of theater, it’s hard to beat the all-natural…
Sound Advice
Jason Vieaux heads the Guitar Department at the Cleveland Institute of Music. He has released numerous records. How did you end up at CIM? I received my bachelor’s there in 1995 studying with John Holmquist, and he brought me onto the guitar department faculty shortly after. In 2001, I began heading the department. What’s the…
Sonic Youth
Where can you find an acknowledged “supreme alt-rock influence” — on a major label, no less — that’s continued working for nearly three decades and still somehow wins props from the under-30 indie crowd? Rather Ripped impresses immediately with its hooks — some sharply wedged in the band’s expert deconstructions — songwriting that harks back…
Capsule reviews of current area theater presentations.
Ain¹t We Got Fun! — Writer-director Michael McFaden has come up with a fetching idea, weaving a storyline around vintage, gay-themed songs from pre- and post-Depression-era America. But what should be a sprightly romp instead shudders to an exhausted halt a full two and a half hours after the opening number. The central plot involves…
The Prog Problem
Why are there no prog-rock bands in the Rock Hall? As you may already know, the Hall is the creation and clubhouse of a bunch of nerdy geriatrics who wouldn’t know rock if you beat them comatose with a Les Paul. So it’s unsurprising that these self-appointed “historians” and “experts” have determined that Jackson Browne,…
The Evening Episode
Sacramento’s the Evening Episode copped the name of its debut from physicist Robert Oppenheimer and its sound from musical alchemists like Portishead, Stereolab, and Four Tet, among others. The result is brainy, cut-and-paste rock that blends the organic and electronic so assuredly that it often sounds like the group’s been at it for years (it…
Capsule reviews of current area art exhibitions.
NEW The Dressmaker and the Tailor — Cleveland artist Brenda Stumpf logged countless hours creating this 10-piece series of abstract collages, but the intriguing, mysterious end product looks decades old. Ambiguity is the driving force: Stumpf contrasts textures, shapes, and colors in ways that are playful but also enigmatic. The most active ingredients are old,…
Flip Sides
Side A: Everything you need to know about “Buttons” is in the first three seconds: a wash of gong, a quip of Snoop, some Middle Eastern synth, and a bassy thump. Even before the digitally airbrushed choir of sluts starts begging to be disrobed, the tune has all the ingredients of a brilliantly innocuous, deliriously…
Ladyhawk
Jagjaguwar harbors a number of slanted and disenchanted gruff-ups like Ladyhawk, though the facial hair seems to be the main connection to the label’s roster, as this debut exudes more immediate hooks than most of the group’s labelmates. Longtime Ohio indie rock followers might lament that “Man, Greenhorn was better than this,” since Ladyhawk doles…
Here are the week’s best releases from the pop-culture universe:
CD — Wire reissues: Punk’s most minimalist and nonlinear band released three influential albums at the end of the ’70s: Pink Flag, Chairs Missing, and 154. For years, muddy sound quality had all but obliterated the thrill of the original records. These remastered reissues restore their blistering luster and add historical liner notes and period…
Elvis Lives
Of all the artists to emerge from ’70s punk and new wave, Elvis Costello stands out for the richness and adventurousness of his catalog. Not all of his many collaborations and genre excursions were successes, but you can’t accuse him of resting on his laurels. With a talent for wordplay and an appreciation for the…
American Rockstar
American Rockstar’s third release plays like highlights from a week of shows at Peabody’s, distilled into one 45-minute disc. The Cleveland trio (live, it’s a quartet) shifts as seamlessly as possible from deep-growl vocals and double-bass barrages to “Whoa-oh-oh-OH-oh” choruses and riffs that practically gleam. The squeaky-clean mix captures a band that locks together with…
Engines Running Hot
Grand Prix (Warner Bros.) John Frankenheimer, as underrated as he was brilliant, made a racing picture in 1966 that’s yet to be topped 40 years later. James Garner suffered through the director’s churlish demands (which Frankenheimer reveals and owns up to, in archival footage on one of the documentaries here) to provide the cool heart…
House of Live Nation
Concert promotions giant Live Nation has announced plans to purchase House of Blues, a move that would combine the top two promoters in the country and put an end to their Cleveland turf war. Spun off from Clear Channel in late 2005, Live Nation is the local corporate incarnation of the long-running Belkin empire. Its…
Keane
Keane’s first album, Hopes and Fears, was thoroughly engaging, thanks in large part to Tom Chaplin’s ethereal vocals, those Tim Rice-Oxley piano hooks, and the balladry of “Everybody’s Changing,” “Bend and Break,” and “Somewhere Only We Know.” It did big box office. Got a lot of press. U2 comparisons. Chris Martin analogies. “Timing is everything.”…
Turning Japanese
From Pokémon to Dragon Ball Z, Japanese pop culture has captured the imagination of American kids. The latest import craze is Naruto. Anyone hip to Harry Potter will find the story familiar: A bunch of otherwise ordinary kids, including titular hero Naruto Uzumaki, study ninjitsu (rather than wizardry) in a secret training camp called the…
Tom Jones/Etta James
That’s Sir Tom Jones to you and me. More than four decades into his campy, hits-laden, testosterone-drenched career, Jones has more ladies’ undergarments chucked at him than your average Victoria’s Secret cashier, even if that concert ritual has become as tired as the rice- and toast-throwing that accompanies The Rocky Horror Picture Show. At 66,…
Godot.
Fans of the Six Parts Seven and Low in the Sky should check out Godot.’s The Sins of Youth EP. The three core members of Kent’s post-art-rock collective spent their formative years studying film, assorted schools of deconstruction, and visual art. The time wasn’t wasted. The group’s live shows are borderless multimedia exchanges between free-form…
Our top DVD picks for the week of July 11.
Basic Instinct 2 (Sony) Bill Maher: New Rules (HBO) Bridezillas: The Complete 1st and 2nd Seasons (Weinstein) Care Bears: Hearts at Sea (Family Home Ent.) Dennis Miller: All In (HBO) Dolla Morte (Grimoire) The Dudesons Movie (Rhino) The Ellen Show: The Complete Series (Sony) ER: The Complete Fifth Season (Warner Bros.) Grilled (New Line) My…
