Warped Tour Week, Part III: Throwin’ Down With Throwdown
On a Warped Tour bill full of pale, fragile emo kids, Throwdown stick out like a sore thumb attached to a swollen, bloody fist. The Orange County bruisers are about to unleash a new disc, Venom & Tears, that sounds like Gatling guns firing during a Pantera concert. Frontman Dave Peters says he’s glad to…
Ohio smoking ban kills bars, says guy who loves bars
It’s been nine months since the statewide smoking ban passed, but some bar owners have yet to get over it. Count Johnny Tedeschi, owner of Johnny Rotten’s in Middleburg Heights, as leader of the resistance movement. In the window in front of his bar, Tedeschi keeps a running tally of all the clubs closed since…
Great Lakes Chef Battling Cancer
Alinea Chef Grant Achatz In May, groundbreaking Chicago chef Grant Achatz (Alinea) beat out our own Michael Symon for the James Beard Foundation’s title of Best Chef in the Great Lakes. Now, sadly, the nationally acclaimed culinarian is fighting a real-life battle. Achatz, 33, announced last week on foodie forum eGullet that he has been…
A Sad, Sad Day for Akron’s Music Scene
Where will acts like Guided By Voices — not to mention drunks like C-Notes — take refuge when the Spider shuts its doors? The Lime Spider announced last week that it would close its doors in September . It’s difficult to measure the degree to which this news sucks. For six years, the club has…
Cavs, Ticketmaster Battle Over Scalping Rights
In a battle for first place in the Who Can Gouge Their Customers More Division, the Cleveland Cavaliers yesterday sued Ticketmaster — traded on the New York Stock Exchange as ANTI-CHRIST — alleging “anti-competitive and monopolistic practices.” At issue is the Cavs’ Flash Seat program — aka “scalping operation” — which allows ticketholders to resell…
This Just In: Concert Announcements
Ryan Adams and the Cardinals rock the Lakewood Civic on Oct. 27. The hits keep comin’: 40 new shows this week. Former Mushroomhead frontman J. Mann and dancer Roxxy reunited with the masked assault-metal squad for an old-school show. Alt-country troubador Ryan Adams (not the “Summer of ’69” guy). Hank Williams III with a heavy…
Warped Tour Week, Part II: Online Exclusive — No Almost.
The Almost — Underoath singer Aaron Gillespie’s solo project-turned-full-on band — was scheduled to play the Warped Tour Thursday, August 2. Underoath is still on the bill, but the Almost won’t be playing. If you’re keeping track, that’s the second time the group has bailed on Cleveland: They canceled an Agora show this spring at…
Portage County: Home of the Bigfoot?
Portage County’s never exactly been a hotspot for tourism. The county seat, Ravenna, was once where the Army made World War II’s best TNT. To this day the plant’s contaminated, but still standing, wisely, while the feds try to clean it up. But the Bigfoot Field Research Organization says Portage County is first in Ohio…
SI calls Quinn Holdout “Dumbest in History”
Brady Quinn to Browns: “Chuckie Frye comes cheap. Beefcake like this don’t.” C-Notes thinks Sports Illustrated’s Peter King is the best writer pro football’s ever had, though we’re not crazy about his indulgent tendency to grade training-camp food. Still, for the record, he dug our chow. “If only the Browns played as well as they…
Mikey G’s Picks of the Week
Paramore gets their brood on at the Warped Tour, Thursday. This week’s top arts and entertainment picks around town, from the guy who’s paid to pick them: Monday: The Cleveland Botanical Garden’s A Taste of Tuscany loads up on Italian flavors with a smorgasbord of special exhibits, displays, and programs. The showpiece is a horticultural…
Slayer, Manson set lists: C-notes has ’em!
(Above: Slayer performs the Grammy-winning single “Eyes of the Insane” on the Jimmy Kimmel show. For Cleveland, expect a different production and a way bigger pit.) Slayer and Marilyn Manson play Time-Warner Amphitheater at Tower City Tuesday, July 31. Bleeding Through opens the show at 7 p.m. Slayer and Manson will co-headline. Both will play…
Warped Tour Week, Part I*: Money Where Your Mouth Is
*In which one of 97^ bands playing one of the Vans Warped Tour’s 36^ stages explains why you should find them on the schedule.) ^Exaggerated figures. But trust us: it’s damn big. Band: The High Court Web: MySpace.com/thehighcourt Hometown: Mt Holly, NJ Sounds like: “80’s style riffage, complete with guitar solos. Powerful vocals with a…
Gates Mills Actress Stars in new Spike TV Series
In a cramped living room in Gates Mills, about 30 of Laurel Johnson’s family and friends gathered around the screen to watch the premier of the new Spike TV’s show The Kill Point, a series about a group of U.S. soldiers who decide to pull off a huge bank heist. Johnson, a bubbly, blonde Brandeis…
To PD Editor: The Newspapers Have Blown Medical Mart Coverage
Plain Dealer Editor Susan Goldberg, The Plain Dealer has editorially endorsed and again slanted its news coverage for the Cuyahoga County sales tax increase for a medical mart and convention center. The most recent example is the July 28 Saturday Plain Dealer article titled “Petitions for vote on sales tax.” Of course you could not…
Train kills kangaroo; Zoo crosses fingers for naked PETA demonstration
A heroic zoo-keeper tried to save the kangaroo, but it died in Borat’s arms, which was weird. Tuesday was a dark day at the Metropark Zoo. A 1-year-old red kangaroo, just chillin’ on some train tracks, was rammed by the Boomerang Express, a 65-foot train that hauls people around the Australian Adventure section, which is…
Mike Polensek’s Poetry Goes International
Future Poet Laureate Mike Polensek Councilman Mike Polensek’s letter to a “crack dealing piece of trash” has become an international sensation. He made it on FOXNews.com, The Smoking Gun , and even the Greater Boston Nepali Community site. And yesterday, he was on the BBC radio show “World Have Your Say,” which gave listeners from…
Not Particularly Inventive Insults for a Guy in Kentucky
Thanks for you for in-depth review from an idiot’s perspective [Nightwatch, July 18]. I also once was moody and got the blues. I didn’t like being blue, dumb ass. The show was exactly what this old rocker expected from a band performing for an audience who grew up with them. Do you have any idea…
There’s No Evidence that Lincoln was into Cockfighting
I realize it’s hard to get solid facts when talking to cockfighters, but I thought I’d point out to you they love to claim our founding fathers were cockfighters [“Chicken Wars,” July 4]. None of this has been established. You stated that Lincoln kept fighting cocks. This has never even been alleged in my 18…
How to Keep People in West Park, by Reader X
How to keep people in West Park: 1. We need our Catholic Schools. City workers also need help paying for them. Word has it the state’s voucher program no longer offers assistance to families above a certain income level, yet thousands and thousands of dollars go unawarded every year. Check it out. Until 2 or…
Battuto bites the dust
After almost eight years as one of Little Italy’s smartest, most contemporary ristorantes, Battuto will close for business following dinner on Saturday, August 4. While well-loved for its fresh pastas and ethereal panna cotta, Battuto’s business nonetheless had fallen off over the past year, says co-owner Giovanna Daverio, and there was no longer any margin…
Don’t Bag on the Moody Blues
Thanks for the Moodies mention. Actually, they did have a very successful “third act.” Pairing with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra for a concert aired by PBS in 1992 launched a whole new awareness and a new set of fans, myself included. After that, they did several tours with orchestras all over the U.S. It was…
Hold Back the Welfare, and You’ll Fix Cleveland’s Drop-Out Problem
Since it would appear that parents who never graduated high school are now having problems convincing their kids to graduate, maybe it is time for the state to step in. How about this: You don’t graduate high school, you never EVER receive a DIME in public assistance. If you are currently on public assistance, you…
Cuyahoga GOP split over 2008, wonder if they “should maybe get a black guy too?”
Warning: Several cute animals and one Dennis Kucinich (not pictured) were injured in the making of this press release. And by injured, we mean killed. Hot off the presses, a release from the Republican Party of Cuyahoga County, which was kind enough to wash off the baby lamb’s blood before sending this along: Cleveland –…
Friends don’t let friends get fat, unless they do
According to the New England Journal of Medicine, these women really need some new friends. Turns out that all those sausage-laden pizzas from Geraci’s and greasy Grovewood Tavern fries aren’t what are making Clevelanders fat. It’s their choice of friends. According to a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine and reported…
While the yuppies go green, Lake Erie goes bye-bye
Is going green the new black? If you happened to catch the front-page story in today’s Plain Dealer and actually found yourself caring about the warming and shrinking of Lake Erie, you probably asked yourself what you could do to stop nature’s eminent death. Buy a hybrid, maybe? Replace all those light bulbs with fancy…
Mikey G lays down his weekend picks
Dandi Wind’s senior class picture. We think. This weekend’s top arts and entertainment picks around town, from the guy who’s paid to pick them: Friday: The British music press recently heralded neu-rave as the sound of summer. Dandi Wind , a Vancouver-based singer with a clipped goth accent and a bank of synths backing her,…
Cleveland Foodies Unite: Local chefs cook it up for a cause
The patch of Tremont surrounding Lucky’s Café will take on a street-fair vibe this Sunday, July 29, complete with live music, a children’s art show, and gourmet grub, as chef-owner Heather Haviland and 14 of her closest colleagues – including chefs Matt Harlan (Lolita), Rocco Whalen (Fahrenheit), Karen Small (Flying Fig), Doug Katz (Fire), and…
Cop to Spy Bar owner: “Stop feeding the pigeons”; Pesky birds to blame for bar’s troubles?
West Sixth patrons: Be on the look out for this bird. His is considered armed and dangerous. The Plain Dealer reports today that a Cleveland police sergeant was caught on tape busting out some pretty old-school strong-arm tactics on the owner of Spy Bar, the West Sixth night club blamed in the July 4th murder…
Shocking Revelation: Ann Coulter is a Closet Dyke!
When someone is very homophobic, sometimes the reason is that he/she wishes to hide a same-sex preference. And the most outspoken are the most closeted conservatives. Take actor Rock Hudson and Roy Cohn (chief counsel to Sen. Joseph McCarthy) as examples. It’s about time to expose another of these individuals, one who feels at ease…
On Rodney King, Race, and Mutual Quest of Black and White
It is beautifully ironic that a white man from Parma can say racism is a “cancer” and call Rodney King a “crazed gorilla,” all in a matter of two paragraphs [Letters, July 18]. The real threat to race relations isn’t the racist who says “I’m a racist!” It’s the one that is racist and doesn’t…
Action Rock Novak muscles his way to … the Lake Erie Shore?
Seriously, dude, where are the face-painted deviants? Two slide shows in one day! Action Rock Photographer Walter Novak cannot be stopped. This time, our death-defying man on the scene boozed and bruised his way to the sweaty, blood-soaked mosh-pit of … the Lake Erie shore? At sunset? What the hell? Has our hero of Rock…
Action Rock Slideshow: The Police Rock The Q
Weren’t able to make it to the Police show? Couldn’t adequately see Sting’s bulge from the cheap seats? As usual, we’ve got you covered. Action Rock Photographer Walter Novak took his sharp elbows and Hubble-sized lens to places no crazy Czech photog has gone before, and he has the pictures to prove it in his…
Thriller: The Filipino Prison Remix!
Sometimes you come across something so incredible on the Internet that it requires no words to describe it. They can only detract from its pure, unfettered awesomeness. Here’s one of those things. It’s the Chuck Norris of video clips. Hopefully the Ohio Department of Corrections watches this, too. They are waaaaay behind on the whole…
Wish You Were Here: Pink Floyd tribute bandleader previews its big Cleveland show
Wish You Were Here plays the Plain Dealer Pavilion at Nautica Saturday, July 28. Culled from members of various Cleveland classic rock bands, the Pink Floyd tribute has become the city’s top-drawing group. Wish sold out the Odeon more than 30 times, and it’s played the Nautica stage and Blossom the last two summers, mounting…
Rumors, Recaps, and Wretched Writing
Breaking news: Stephon Marbury is a punk. (We read the local sports pages so you don’t have to.) Trade Brady! An “insider” suggests to the Beacon-Journal that the Browns should “let Quinn go back in the draft, or trade him next year.” Apparently the Beacon has recruited a local crackhead to serve as its insider.…
Scene Music Fest: Seriously, what else would you do on a Thursday night?
Thirty-six bands and DJs on seven stages in five venues on one night and on one city block — it’s all yours, and for less than the cost of a Miller Lite at the Jake. Click here for more information, look for our special pull-out guide into today’s Scene, and look for me on Thursday.…
Beyond the Garden
When Garden State hit the big screen in 2004, many didn’t believe television actor Zach Braff’s directorial debut stood a commercial chance. But he proved them wrong. More folks, however, agreed that the movie’s soundtrack was something remarkable — maybe better than the movie itself. A perfect mix of dream pop and acoustic ballads, featuring…
Rocky Votolato
Since going solo several years back, ex-Waxwing frontman Rocky Votolato has migrated from stereotypical lo-fi folk to alt-country. The Brag & Cuss finds Votolato venturing further in that direction. Employing organist Rick Steff (Lucero, Chan Marshall), Votolato has added more dusty harmonica and banjo ballads to his sound. The guy is a decent songwriter, but…
Mechanical Bull
Examining the roots of Transformers: The Game is deep stuff: It’s a video game based on a movie based on a cartoon based on a toy. But unlike most laughably forced movie tie-in games (Da Vinci Code for the PS2, anyone?), there’s good sense in creating one devoted to giant robots beating the holy hell…
Step Right This Way
The big top comes to Massillon today for the annual ArtSyrcus festival. But don’t expect a parade of clowns, elephants, and dancing poodles. Instead, the cavalcade of entertainers at the circus-themed bash includes belly dancers, acrobats . . . and painters. “We’ve got an eclectic mix of professional and amateur artists,” says Bili Kribbs, who…
Yankee Pub Rocker
Ted Leo is often compared to Joe Strummer, the Jam, and Billy Bragg. He shares with the Jam a stripped-down power-trio lineup, occasionally augmented with keyboards and second guitar. Like Bragg, he often writes righteous, left-of-center lyrics. And so did Strummer, with whom Leo shares a penchant for Jamaican music. What’s most interesting — to…
White/Lichens
A collaboration between Lichens and White/Light reads like a great idea on paper. Lichens — former 90 Day Men bassist Robert Lowe — specializes in vocal drones colored with guitar and percussion. White/Light’s twin-guitar doom — a menacing fusion of VU, Earth, and Kevin Drumm — should give Lowe’s bubbly atmospherics ground to float over…
Here are the week’s best releases from the pop-culture universe:
MOVIE — The Simpsons Movie: Homer unleashes a batch of nuclear waste into the local river, which prompts a parade of Springfield residents to exile our favorite cartoon family. The long-running series’ first feature pretty much plays like a 90-minute version of the TV show, but the super-size characters — Apu, Comic Book Guy, they’re…
Bear Essentials
Shawn Mishak teams up with seven other local painters, sculptors, and videographers to capture a playful side of the wild kingdom in Aminals, now on view at Doubting Thomas Gallery. “I wanted to do a show that wasn’t a realist show,” says Mishak, who curates the 30-piece exhibit. “I didn’t want a bird-sitting-in-a-branch kind of…
The Devil in Mr. Jones
The days have begun to blur together. Forced retirement can do that. Gone are the business meetings, conference calls, and power lunches — the routines that make a man feel important. Now there are only housekeeping and court dates to differentiate the days. Washing dishes. Folding clothes. Driving a daughter to a dentist’s appointment. Suits…
Silver Daggers
Silver Daggers started as an arty duo beholden to keyboard freaks from the late ’70s, like the Screamers and Nervous Gender. While adding members, however, the Daggers transformed their sound, but retained their idols’ frizzy energy. The band today is genuinely frenetic, although their style is a bit by-the-book Ex or early Rough Trade, a…
Pride in the Name of Fun
Black, Gay and Proud organizers predict at least 1,500 African American queers will celebrate the fest’s 10th anniversary over the next six days. The revelry starts at 6:30 tonight with a jazz and poetry mixer at A Better Place (815 Superior Avenue; $5). It’s followed by tomorrow’s awards ceremony, taking place at 6:30 p.m. at…
Looking for the Purr-fect Beat
Lounge Kitty, who sings kitschy versions of pop hits in a bouffant wig, is prepping her five-month-old daughter for a life onstage. “Most people want their kids to excel in academics — we just want her to rock out,” says Kitty. “We tell her ‘Don’t you dare be a cheerleader. Mommy and Daddy will be…
Surrender!
There exist few bands all rock fans embrace. But Cheap Trick has to be one of them. Not even Bob Dylan, the world’s no. 1 rock deity, attracts burly metalheads, classic-rock dudes, and indie brats to his concerts. This, Cheap Trick has done since the late ’70s, when it was marketed as new wave but…
Montag
Antoine Bédard (aka Montag) has spent the last five years sculpting minimal electronica. But Going Places finds the Canadian producer working at the opposite end of the spectrum. He has crafted an album of electro-pop that’s so rich and syrupy, it drowns the senses. Over a sea of fairly cheesy beats, Bédard merges lush melodies…
Bug Off!
Brooklyn’s the Ladybug Transistor is another one of those multi-member bands with a revolving lineup. Gary Olson has been the only constant since the group’s debut CD, Marlborough Farms, a dozen years ago. On the recently released Can’t Wait Another Day, he’s joined by a couple of new full-time Ladybugs as well as members of…
Looking for the Purr-fest Beat
Lounge Kitty, who sings kitschy versions of pop hits in a bouffant wig, is prepping her five-month-old daughter for a life onstage. “Most people want their kids to excel in academics — we just want her to rock out,” says Kitty. “We tell her ‘Don’t you dare be a cheerleader. Mommy and Daddy will be…
Streaming Weasel
Search the iPod of any pop-punk fan over 12, and you’ll find the names Screeching Weasel and the Riverdales. Search their closets, and you’ll find where many of those sound files came from: dusty compact discs that have sat untouched since the download era began. Ben Weasel knows this, and he sees no point in…
Nunslaughter
After 20 years of blood-soaked blasphemy, you’d think God would have hurled a lightning bolt at Nunslaughter by now, especially after dropping releases like Tasting the Blood of Your Savior. But here the death-metal band is, unrepentant and ready to thrash Christ one more time. Hex is roughly the band’s 666th release. The group manages…
Rhapsody in Brew
Blossom Festival Band conductor Loras John Schissel doesn’t get many opportunities to blow some jazz. “[I’m a] tuba player,” he sighs. Which is why he welcomes tonight’s Blossom Festival Orchestra program, Celebrating George and Ira Gershwin: An American in Paris. The songwriting siblings (George composed the tunes; Ira penned the words) bridged the gap between…
Naked Truth
Despite his somewhat randy nickname, stand-up comedian Kevin “Naked” McPeek doesn’t really work in the nude. He just likes saying “naked.” A lot. It all started about a decade ago, when he was telling a joke onstage about seat belts. He got to a part where he says, “I was sitting there . . .”…
Fest in Peace
After two years of qualified success, the CMJ Rock Hall Festival is history. In its place, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is helping stage the inaugural Tri-C MusicFest Cleveland. The free outdoor event will take place Friday, July 27 and Saturday, July 28 at Cuyahoga Community College’s downtown campus (on Lakeside…
Kirkendahl Voyd
Kirkendahl Voyd describes its new album as “Salt-N-Pepa meets Link Wray and Prodigy.” That description sounds awful, but trust me: It doesn’t begin to prepare you. Having garnered radio play on Dr. Demento and The Hour of Slack, the Cleveland trio knows its freak-out music. Unfortunately, with cheesy techno, excessive rock guitar, aimless genre-hopping, and…
Mighty Wind
The British music press recently heralded neu-rave as the sound of summer. Dandi Wind, a Vancouver-based singer with a clipped goth accent and a bank of synths backing her, quickly became the nascent movement’s poster girl. Little surprise, since the siren-squealing sounds on her new album, Concrete Igloo, burrow into your skull with all the…
Artsy-Fartsy Party
At today’s Waterloo Arts Festival, the Collinwood neighborhood shows off its vibrant arts community — which includes everyone from painters to poets. “The event is totally grassroots,” says director Sarah Gyorki. Dancers, performance artists, and live bands entertain on a stage in the middle of the action, while local merchants set up shop, selling ceramics,…
The Richie Furay Band
Editor’s note: Nightwatch concludes its two-part spotlight on forgotten heroes of hippie country. Saddle up for a ride with Richie Furay. The legacy of cult-hero Gram Parsons dominates the conventional history of country rock. There exists this myth: Parsons single-handedly taught the Eagles — and by extension the world — the desert-dry joys of weepy…
Dine Like It’s 1989
Bold as buccaneers, the gulls squat on the fence posts overlooking the vast patio at Cyrus Waterfront Restaurant, on the West Bank of the Flats, and calculate the risks of swooping in and plundering our crab cake. But alas, a freighter the size of a warehouse looms into sight, hauled around the river’s bend by…
In the Heat of the Night
At tonight’s Nature at Night event at North Chagrin Reservation, you’ll get to do a bunch of things at the Cleveland Metroparks you won’t get a chance to during daylight hours. There’s a campfire (complete with songs, stories, and marshmallows), telescopes, and programs that shine flashlights on nocturnal critters. Also, experts will lead visitors on…
Pig Destroyer
Phantom Limb, Pig Destroyer’s fourth disc, sounds like the others: scary as all hell. In terms of killer jams, perfect recordings, and grotesque cover art, no metal band today can run with these sick bastards from West Virginia. 2001’s Prowler in the Yard came with a letter written by a guy sitting in his car,…
Growing Pains
In academia, it’s “publish or perish.” In the restaurant biz, it’s “grow or dry up.” So chef-restaurateur Michael Symon (Lola, Lolita) hasn’t been using his downtime to unwind since he resigned from N.Y.C.’s Parea late last month. Instead, he and his partners (wife Liz Symon and colleague Doug Petkovic) are busy plotting their next moves.…
Scene Music Festival 2007
Welcome to the first-annual Scene Music Festival. That’s right: We 86’d our annual music awards. Forget popularity contests. Cleveland ain’t L.A., and Scene isn’t the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences — or your high-school prom committee, for that matter. So why fake it? Let’s just celebrate local music our own way: with lots…
Kumar Sanu and Alga Yagnik
Indian singer Kumar Sanu began his career as a backing musician, but when he was pushed into singing during a concert in 1979, he realized that people dug his voice. He hasn’t looked back since. These days his voice is heard in an uncountable number of Bollywood movies, because actors there routinely lip-synch. He’s so…
No D’oh! Necessary
The less that is said about the plot of the long-fabled, finally-arrived The Simpsons Movie, the better. I know this instinctively, as I’m a member of that particular segment of geekdom most psyched and apprehensive about its unveiling. I’m talking about the people who ask, “Does it suck?,” then prayerfully add, “Please don’t suck.” You…
Trunk Show
The Cleveland Metroparks Zoo celebrates 100 years of housing elephants at today’s Elephantennial. Director Steve Taylor promises lots of action — despite the stars’ fondness for standing around and doing nothing. “They can look like big gray rocks,” he admits. The zoo’s three elephants — Jo, Moshi, and Martika — will each receive a ketchup-slathered…
Rob Swift
Rob Swift has immersed himself in DJ culture since he was a young boy growing up in New York. He learned the basics from watching his brother scratch on their dad’s turntables. In the ’90s, Swift joined the now legendary X-Ecutioners, a turntablist crew who gained a reputation for their mind-boggling techniques. In 2005, he…
Charge of the Light Brigade
In the observation room of the spacecraft Icarus II, passengers sit on a bench in front of a large, rectangular screen displaying a view of what lies ahead. A seething orb of gas and flame burns in the void. Icarus II is en route to the sun. It’s the year 2057. Approximately five billion years…
All the Ladies in the House
Quotes II All American Bar & Grill’s Ladies’ Night was recently named one of the top ten in the country by Marlboro’s Unlimited Magazine. It’s easy to see why. The Parma club features lots of drink specials, hot mixes by DJ Greg Mac, and contests for gals sporting the hottest bodies and downing the most…
The Very Knees
There’s a two-headed punk-rock band that jams and records inside a mobile home down in the Flats. Nicknamed “the Mill” because of its blast furnace-like temperatures, it could be Cleveland’s only practice space on wheels. The trailer’s tight quarters bring this pair’s musical chemistry closer. And even with AC, the duo’s aluminum river refuge turns…
Great Shakes
At most Shakespeare plays these days, patrons sit placidly, drowsily listening to the largely incomprehensible droning onstage. If they could be plopped down in an audience in Shakespeare’s time, they would be shocked. By all accounts, it was often a rough-and-tumble assemblage, with much of the audience standing, bellied up to the stage as they…
Crashin’ Byrne
In the past year, comedian Steve Byrne snagged the TBS/MySpace Stand Up or Sit Down Comedy Competition title, starred in NBC’s reality show The Real Wedding Crashers, and still found time to work on his stand-up act. Lately, he’s been honing his military jokes for all the troops in his audience. “I was in the…
Days of the New
In 1997, Travis Meeks and his band Days of the New became grunge superstars, filling a modern rock void after Alice in Chains failed to release a new record. Scoring several hits, Days of the New opened for Metallica on one of the summer’s hottest tours. After the tour, Meeks did a strange thing: The…
Saved by the Songs
It’s always tragic when a young person dies, since the aching wound of their unlived life forever echoes in the minds of friends and family. And that network of mourners is multiplied exponentially when the toes-up individual happens to be a celebrity. So you’d think that a play about an iconic singer who died in…
Happy Feet
When hopeless romantic Charity Hope Valentine ends up in a lake after an ex steals her purse, she doesn’t get even. She busts loose with some jazz hands and sticks up for the guy in Neil Simon’s Sweet Charity, now playing at Porthouse Theatre. “A woman needing a man — that’s so old-fashioned,” says director…
Marilyn Manson/Slayer
After a four-year absence, Marilyn Manson returned with the single “Heart-Shaped Glasses,” the video of which shows the pale, lanky dude porking his barely legal girlfriend in a rain of blood. It’s the kind of sensational, headline-hungry imagery that has always prevented critics from taking Manson seriously as a musician. But he deserves to be.…
Capsule reviews of current area theater presentations.
Jekyll and Hyde — The ultimate story of split identities, Jekyll and Hyde (the musical) features a collection of similar-sounding musical numbers linked by less connective tissue than an anatomy-class skeleton. But the folks at the Beck Center manage to make J&H an entertaining excursion into the schizoid mind. Dr. Henry Jekyll is absorbed in…
Hops to It
The biggest beer gut and the most cultured palate go hand in hand at today’s Blues & Brews event. More than 50 breweries from around the world bring their best ales, lagers, and stouts to the third-annual Stan Hywet tasting. “You can see how beer can go beyond pizza and the sports page,” says organizer…
Black and White Affair
Anatomy’s first Black and White Affair is also a test run for next year’s first-annual Northeast Ohio Fashion & Hair Awards. Black and white attire is mandatory. And in addition to light food and cool music (premixed electronic and light industrial), the night will feature contests for stylists, designers, and models. That’s right: It’s a…
Capsule reviews of current area art exhibitions.
Aminals — As art exhibits go, this one’s pretty wild — or at least undomesticated. Pretension and polish are nowhere to be found in this offbeat, animal-themed collection of works by local artists, organized by Clevelander Shawn Mishak. Depth too is scarce, but at least there’s an intellectual path through the zoo: that we humans…
Win, Lose, and Draw
The protagonist of Peter Kuper’s graphic novel Stop Forgetting to Remember: The Autobiography of Walter Kurtz is “self-centered, pompous, and very whiny,” laughs the author. “I’m self-centered, pompous, and only a little bit whiny. There’s a difference.” While parts of the book reach back to Kuper’s high and horny teen years, much of it centers…
McCloud of Suspicion
New questions have arisen in the police investigation of the shooting of teenage robber Brandon McCloud — namely questions like “What the hell?” and “Are you friggin’ serious?” McCloud, you may recall, devoted himself to a promising career in the Ripping Off Pizza Delivery Guys industry, a major growth sector on Cleveland’s East Side. In…
Happy-hour cookouts
Kick off the weekend at B-Side Liquor Lounge’s enclosed tiki-style patio, where there’s not much of a view, but there’s plenty of sunlight. And free hot dogs. And burgers. And veggie burgers. And barbecue. And cheap pitchers. And a chill mix of gentle-beat down-tempo tunes and reggae. As St. Bob said: Don’t worry about a…
Our top DVD picks scheduled for release this week:
Avant-Garde 2: Experimental Cinema 1928-1954 (Kino) Cashback (Magnolia) The Contract (First Look) Crazy Legs Conti: Zen and the Art of Competitive Eating (Blue Underground) Five Dedicated to Ozu (Kino) The Host (Magnolia) Live Free or Die (THINKfilm) The Long Weekend (Lionsgate) The Monster Squad: Two-Disc 20th Anniversary Edition (Lionsgate) The Number 23 (New Line) Perfume:…
An Exhibit You Can’t Refuse
The Cleveland Botanical Garden’s A Taste of Tuscany loads up on Italian flavors with a smorgasbord of special exhibits, displays, and programs. The showpiece is a horticultural show featuring fountains, statues, and lots of exotic plants. A photo exhibit, Giardini di Toscana, includes 50 color pics of Italian gardens and villas. And the venue’s café…
In a Hough
Neighborhood burned; resident flaming: I am a fairly aggressive booster for my neighborhood, but I see no journalistic merit in your recent article [“West Park Story,” July 11], which seems negative for the sake of negativity. What goal is served by propagandizing for the decline of the only good neighborhood in Cleveland is a mystery…
Kelly Rowland
The genesis of Kelly Rowland’s sophomore album is a sad commentary on the aesthetic currently choking R&B. The singer and member of Destiny’s Child allegedly recorded an earlier version of the disc, a meditation on the end of a serious relationship, then thought better of releasing it. Rowland later suggested that the recordings were too…
Chow Time Again
Hard Boiled: Two-Disc Ultimate Edition (Weinstein) The Criterion version of John Woo’s masterpiece, about two cops (the overworked Chow Yun-Fat and the undercover Tony Leung) gunning for the Hong Kong Triads, is still the “ultimate” collection. It has a better commentary track (with Woo and Pulp Fiction co-writer Roger Avary, among others) and better extras…
Ready, Vette, Go!
At today’s fifth-annual Corvettes@Corsa car show, fans of the sleek machine swap stories, talk shop, and show off their sweet rides. Gene Stenger of Orange will even be there with his white ’54 Vette, which is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest one-owner automobile on the planet. “It’s awesome how much…
