Champs & Chumps
Bob Dolgan has his own list of local athletes he considers heroes, scamps, and good guys, and the veteran Plain Dealer sportswriter can rattle them off with little hesitation. But in his new book — Heroes, Scamps, and Good Guys: 101 Colorful Characters From Cleveland Sports History — Dolgan takes a more objective look at…
Brothers in Rock
The phrase “minor lacerations” rolls splendidly off Christian Datsun’s tongue, with an audible smirk and a hint of Crocodile Dundee charm. Christian, guitarist extraordinaire for big-shot New Zealand garage rockers the Datsuns, is describing his band’s penchant for self-injury. “There’s only been a few sprained ankles and bruises, and things like that,” he says. “A…
Style Points
FRI 7/18 A tank top and droopy shorts won’t get you a follow-up interview. But the Cleveland Rockers — a notable exception to the rule — will show the rest of us how to look the part of qualified job applicants with their Dress for Success Fashion Show and silent auction. Nine players will model…
Storming the Sidestage
Lollapalooza and Ozzfest hit town just two days apart this week, which gives Clevelanders the chance to get up close and personal with more big-name rockers than Wynona Ryder. But for all the platinum acts coming to Blossom, it’s the lesser-knowns on both tours that will provide many of the fireworks. The pages that follow…
Got Game?
7/19-7/20 Midsummer basketball on sneaker-melting pavement ain’t everyone’s idea of a good time. But that won’t stop hordes of three-player teams from lacing up at the Nautica parking lot for this weekend’s NBA Hoop-It-Up competition. The annual amateur tournament crowns regional winners who are shipped off to the national finals, which take place during the…
Devil’s Last Dance
One of Cleveland’s most affable rockers, singer-guitarist Danny Frye, died last weekend at the age of 30. His passing was the result of heart failure, brought on by complications from diabetes. With a personality as outsized as his 6-foot-3 frame, Frye was known for fronting popular locals Danny Frye & the Devildolls and Bop Dead.…
Keep a-Rollin’
7/21-7/27 Danielle DelFerraro no longer drives soap-box race cars, but the All-American Soap Box Derby is still in her blood. “It’s always a thrill to go down the hill,” says DelFerraro, the race’s only two-time world champion and a volunteer in the derby’s Akron headquarters. “You’re going pretty fast, the wind’s in your face, and…
Modest Mouse
Certain albums appear to forecast the cultural mood. Modest Mouse’s major-label debut, The Moon and Antarctica, was one of those. Released in 2000, when the world still seemed pretty OK, it foretold a terrifying, feral existential breakdown — something like Radiohead’s “Karma Police,” but with the piano balladry jettisoned in favor of math-rock tempo changes…
Hit the Decks
TUE 7/22 When three of America’s most successful drum & bass DJs formed Planet of the Drums, their goal was to raise the style’s popularity to rival that of house or trance music. For the past two years, the Kru — made up of Dieselboy, Dara, and AK1200 — has kept ramming away at a…
The Bassholes/Clone Defects
Well, the usefulness of the “Hey, they were doing the two-piece raw-blues thing years ago” argument has been sapped. As the White Stripes and Black Keys become gray memories, the Bassholes can snuggle back into cult bardom and continue to release their bizarre blend of backwoods blues, gothic tales, potty humor, punk sneer, and basement…
Boys Gone Wild
There’s something to be said for a movie that’s honest enough to transcribe dialogue that must have come from the director’s mouth and make it part of the script. “Everybody start shooting at somebody!” yells Detective Mike Lowery (Will Smith) at one point. Earlier, he gives the command to “Drive that ambulance into the building!”…
Train
If the fashion at Contempo Casuals corresponds to the disposable fluff of teen pop, and skate-punk style resides in Hot Topic’s faux-goth lair, then the snappy business garb sold at Banana Republic is the aural equivalent of easy-going rockers Train. Reliable, not flashy, the San Francisco quartet caters to a slightly upscale crowd, eschewing fads…
Flying Bland
More like Hollywood fluff than Gallic farce or sophistication, the French romantic comedy Jet Lag stars Juliette Binoche and Jean Reno as mismatched lovers who meet when circumstances — bad weather, computer glitches, a strike by air traffic controllers — ground them both at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. Both actors play against type…
Marcia Ball
Over the past three decades, Marcia Ball has become a bona-fide dual threat. Uncontested queen of New Orleans piano that she is, Ball has also evolved into an engaging vocalist. She’s among the finest present-day practitioners of the rollicking brand of boogie popularized by Professor Longhair, joining Bonnie Raitt as a white gal who has…
Easy Being Blue
TUE 7/22 Say you’re one of the world’s foremost performance-art troupes and one of the most visually striking ensembles to hit a stage in the past decade. What’s the next step? For Blue Man Group, it’s an audio project called The Complex, a percussion-heavy document of an oft-neglected aspect of the company. “The music has…
The Locust
Compared to Man Is the Bastard — the former reigning kings of noisecore — the Locust might seem merely cute. They use Moog instead of perverse homemade electronics, come on as art punks rather than fringe metalheads, and have no discernible politics beyond the possibility of some tortured postmodern meshugoss. But there’s something really scary…
Bum Deal
So much for those crackpot theories about flighty teenagers and their short attention spans. For four long years now, the bland pop star Mandy Moore has stuck in the brainpan of white adolescent America like a wad of bubblegum, and there’s no sign that she will loosen her grip anytime soon. The new Moore vehicle…
G.B.H.
Most old punks making the rounds of the club circuit are running on fumes or nostalgia. But not British hardcore titans G.B.H., who are supporting a surprisingly strong new album, Ha Ha — their latest effort in a Ramones-like run. Since forming in 1979, G.B.H. has never broken up; a single switch behind the drum…
Weapons of Math Confusion
Pitching for a new convention center on WCPN last week, Greater Cleveland Growth Association CEO Dennis Eckart said that travel and tourism support 65,000 jobs in the area. His assertion is redolent of claims made more than a decade ago, when Gateway backers promised the creation of all those jobs. In other words, it’s bullshit.…
Giggly Sex
First of all, calm down. Sure, the show is called Sex a.k.a. Wieners and Boobs, but the final count of actual sightings on stage are Wieners: 1 (purple plastic), Boobs: 0. This is understandable in a show where everything is ironic and nothing real is ever exposed — including characters, feelings, dicks, racks, you name…
The Mars Volta
As far out as its moniker, the Mars Volta says Yes to nearly every prog-rock pretension. Guitars replicate Santana’s fretboard acrobatics one moment, whale calls the next. Congas, marimbas, and ominous electronics add color and claustrophobia to the band’s dense, impenetrable sound. Frontman Cedric Bixler Zavala’s opaque lyrics are as puzzling as a Rubik’s Cube,…
Spitboxing
Rachod Green had all the trappings of the rap game. Baggy clothes hanging off his tall, thickset body. Bling-bling in his ear and around his neck. Cool name — “Gifts,” an acronym for “Got it from the streets.” He’d even mastered the perpetual scowl. What he didn’t have was a record — not one you…
Mighty Night
Do you know a teenager who’d rather watch a Matlock marathon than a Shakespearean play? An adult who’d prefer an appointment with Dr. Jellyfinger, the clumsy proctologist? Well, you’d best hijack those folks and sit them down in front of Twelfth Night, now being presented by the Cleveland Shakespeare Festival. This exceptional production offers all…
Cheap Trick
As long as Cheap Trick keeps tricking, the assumption is that they’ll put out records mainly as a way to garner label support for their endless touring. More than three good tunes per record now qualifies as a success, which makes Special One a smash. The opener, “Scent of a Woman,” is a classic rocker…
The $640,000 Question
The Morant family home is simple: Centered in the rougher St. Clair neighborhood, it’s green and white, with siding in need of a little care. On the front lawn, a touch-football dispute rages between kids, while music blares from the house next door. Inside, it’s warm, welcoming, even Cosby-like — sans the expensive sweaters. The…
Roman Holiday
Your basement rec room is probably bigger than Valerio’s, Valerio Iorio’s eponymous operation on the western edge of Little Italy. Chances are it’s more comfy, too: better lit, better ventilated, and assuredly less crowded. On the other hand, it’s doubtful that you employ a staff of tall, slender waiters, garbed in dark dress trousers, white…
Spymob
It’s a given that Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo, a.k.a. the Neptunes, a.k.a. N.E.R.D., are one dynamic producing duo — just listen to the slippery, sweaty funk and roll they splashed all over hits by Nelly, Britney Spears, and ‘N Sync, among others. But based on their discovery of Spymob, the backing band that played…
Going Anti-Postal
Pink envelopes were his prey. Last August, a federal grand jury charged Kenneth Fortunato, a Newton Falls postal employee, with five counts of theft of mail. In each instance, Fortunato was alleged to have stolen a greeting card. Later found guilty on one count, Fortunato was ordered to reimburse $707 to 19 card senders whose…
A Room of Their Own
They’re packing up the crêpe pan and the chopsticks over at Market 25 (1948 West 25th Street), as both La Crêperie and Kimo’s Sushi Shop prepare to move out of the international bazaar — and in with each other — when their leases expire at the end of July. Owners of the two little carryouts…
Various Artists
Okay, no surprise here: The rush-released American Idol Season 2, one of the worst albums in recent memory, debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 albums chart in May. There’s plenty to scoff at here, from the laughably heart-stricken rendition of Journey’s “Open Arms” by Corey Clark to an awkward take on Al Green’s…
Letters to the Editor
The Doctor Isn’t In Doubting Thomas: I just finished reading Sarah Fenske’s article about Thomas Kirby [“Silencing Dr. Kirby,” July 2]. In May 1995, my husband had a double lung transplant at the Cleveland Clinic. My husband was 47 years old and had been living with primary pulmonary hypertension for more than two years while…
Jane Says
Even legends get stuck in traffic. Just ask Jane’s Addiction stickman Stephen Perkins, who is snailing his way across a crowded Los Angeles freeway, trying to get to band practice on time. Rehearsals are going well, according to Perkins, who’s excited to be prepping for the revitalized Lollapalooza, back after a six-year hiatus. Moreover, he’s…
Fu Manchu
Fu Manchu has always been the Jeff Spicoli of the stoner-rock scene. The troupe sings about vans (vehicles, not sneakers), skating, and first-generation video games, and generally celebrates a Californian mythos that’s rooted in the 1970s of the movie Over the Edge, rather than the show-biz dreams of Roth-era Van Halen. The band’s songs are…
Monsters Ink
When 18-year-old Mary Shelley penned her tale about an ambitious doctor who abused the power of science, medical ethicists around the world knew she had written a watershed story. Nearly 200 years later, the controversy behind cloning, human genomes, and genetic stem-cell research is tackled in Frankenstein: Penetrating the Secrets of Nature, an art exhibit…
Slave New World
Audioslave has prompted a torrent of ink during its brief lifespan. This is understandable, given the severe shortage of intriguing, built-to-last rock stars on the current scene, and the fact this band’s got pedigree to spare: Guitarist Tom Morello, bassist Tim Commerford, and drummer Brad Wilk hail from Rage Against the Machine, and vocalist Chris…
Forever Untouched
Forever Untouched plays abrasive grindcore like a mecha-metal Terminator, executing four-minute epics of blast percussion, caustic riffs, and old-school licks. The North Olmsted quintet meticulously self-produced “The Decay of the Divine” at Thanatos (that’s Greek for “death”) Studios in their hometown, and while the music alone resoundingly announces their presence, the lyric sheet should gives…
This Week’s Day-By-Day Picks
Thursday, July 17 Michael Winslow has made a career of funny noises. He discharged a series of whoops, swishes, and kablooms as Sergeant Larvell Jones in seven (!) Police Academy movies. He provided sound effects in Gremlins. He even played Jimi Hendrix (and his guitar) on an episode of The Drew Carey Show. These days,…
Disturbed & Disturbeder
Behind every successful rock star today stand a couple of lousy parents who couldn’t care less. From Eminem’s pill-popping momma to Good Charlotte’s absentee dad to Staind frontman Aaron Lewis’s neglectful hippie progenitors, dysfunctional couples with the poorest of parenting skills have inadvertently given a whole generation of rockers and their fans a Billboard chart…
Burning River Band
All your basic jam-band ingredients are here: songs grounded in country and folk, cheerful vocals, plentiful good vibes, and even more plentiful instrumental choruses. This is a genre with clearly defined expectations, and the Burning River Band delivers the goods on all fronts. Occasional member Dave Mayfield fuses mandolin and banjo with the usual lineup…
