Jul 31 – Aug 6, 2013

Jul 31 - Aug 6, 2013 / Vol. 44 / No. 32

Dave Hill jams with Phil Anselmo at House of Blues

A few weeks ago, Dave Hill, a Cleveland musician/writer/comedian who’s now based out of New York, and former Pantera frontman Phil Anselmo filmed a webisode series for Adult Swim at Anselmo’s sprawling home/compound located just outside of New Orleans. Dubbed Metal Grasshopper, the show revolves around the premise that Anselmo will educated Hill in the…

The @PlainDealer Twitter Handle Now Belongs to Scene

If you were browsing around Twitter looking for the Northeast Ohio Media Group’s string of news coming from PD staffers and members of the new NEOMG, you’d find news from any number of handles, some of which might be less intuitive and brand-friendly than a media outlet might hope. There’s @NEOMG_News, the Metro desk’s feed…

Ariel Castro’s House Is Gone

SCREENSHOT VIA WOIO There’s not much more to say, now that this final chapter of evil is coming to a close: Ariel Castro’s home at 2207 Seymour Avenue is gone. As for what will replace the structure at the site, mum’s the word for now. In sort of an interesting twist to the morning’s events,…

Backstage Pass: Phil Anselmo talks about his new solo project

Famous as the lead singer of Pantera and Superjoint Ritual, singer Phil Anselmo released his solo debut, Walk Through Exits Only, earlier this year. On it, the veteran screamer sounds as surly and pissed off as ever. We caught up with the very affable Anselmo backstage at House of Blues to talk about the album…

Highlights from former pitcher John Rocker’s Reddit AMA

Former Indians pitcher John Rocker went on Reddit today to answer questions submitted but the site’s members and plug his radio gigs and a booking website. He’s still a little nuts. The 38-year-old, who pitched for Cleveland in 2001, is likely most famous for comments he made to Sports Illustrated in 1999 while pitching for…

Ohio Man Dies in Horse and Buggy Crash

WEWS Channel 5 reports that a man driving an Amish buggy was struck in a traffic accident on US 42 this morning. Jacob Swartzentruber, 66, of Polk, Ohio, was life-flighted to Metro and pronounced dead at 1:40 p.m. State Highway troopers are currently investigating the accident. The striking driver, one Robert Kanuch, of Nova, Ohio,…

There’s a Browns Hearse For Sale on Craigslist

It’s a Sunday afternoon feeling we’re all too familiar with – that desire to just let our lifeless bodies be carted off to the grave in a Browns-themed hearse. God willing, you can make this happen now. An ad for a 1983 Cadillac Fleetwood Hearse showed up on the ol’ Craigslist today. Here at Scene…

Police Shut Down Seymour Avenue For Tomorrow’s Demolition of Castro House

ERIC SANDY/SCENE 2207 Seymour Avenue Police have closed Seymour Avenue to traffic, citing preparations for tomorrow’s demolition of Ariel Castro’s house. Electricity to the home was cut on Monday. Getting rid of that hellhole has always been the plan, given the stunningly heinous crimes that went on in there. Awesomely, the bill for the demo…

The Brains Behind The Opportunity Corridor Didn’t Even Buy The Domain Name

The oft-maligned Opportunity Corridor promises a reinvigorated sense of white privilege in town, planting a supposed cherry on top of the forced abandonment leveled against some of Cleveland’s poorest neighborhoods. Opportunity! It’s an opportunity lots of wealthy people are really enjoying. But all that hand-wringing and mustache-twirling takes up so much time that they totally…

Our 10 Favorite Bars in Cleveland

There is something about certain bars that keeps you coming back. It could be the atmosphere, the drinks, the bartenders or, more likely, some harmonious combination of all three that leaves you feeling a little more at ease, a little more happy. Cleveland is littered with fine options, whether you’re in search of a dive…

The Killers put on electrifying show at Jacobs Pavilion

Minutes before the Killers took the stage last night at Jacobs Pavilion at Nautica, an anxious crowd roared as a roadie revealed Brandon Flowers’ signature lightening bolt microphone stand from beneath a bright red tarp. And the Killers didn’t waste any time engaging the crowd by opening with their 2004 hit “Mr. Brightside”. A simple…

Concert Review: Beach Boys at Jacobs Pavilion

Sunday night, the Beach Boys brought the sandy surf of California to Jacobs Pavilion at Nautica. Complete with two of the original members — Mike Love and Bruce Johnston — the band performed hits like “Catch A Wave,” “Surf City,” “Surfin Safari,” “Wendy,” “Why Do Fools Fall In Love” and “When I Grow Up To…

27 Awesomely Eerie Photos of the Mansfield Reformatory

The Mansfield Reformatory officially closed its doors in 1990 after housing over 155,000 men in its century and a half lifetime as an Ohio State prison. But after hanging up its hat as a penitentiary, the prison’s glory days were far from over, and the reformatory shot to stardom in the 1994 Hollywood hit The…

A Lollapalloza recap and slideshow

Lollapalooza, the three-day music festival that took place over the weekend at Chicago’s Grant Park, offered an excellent opportunity to see a number of good bands that have bypassed Cleveland on their current tours. The National, Vampire Weekend and Queens of the Stone Age all have excellent new albums out and have been touring in…

Sammy’s Employee: ‘We Are All Out of a Job’

Sammy’s, a Cleveland dining and catering tradition that dates back decades, will cease to exist from here on out. This morning, employees were called into a meeting and told that Sammy’s and all of its venues is closing. “They met us this morning and we are all out of a job,” says Sammy’s executive chef…

A Few Tickets Remain for Symon-Hosted Autism Speaks Gala

There still are a few tickets available for this weekend’s Autism Speaks 2013 Chef Gala, hosted by Michael Symon and featuring some of Cleveland’s biggest culinary stars. To be held at the Tri-C Hospitality Management Center (180 Euclid Ave.) from 7 to 10 p.m. on Saturday, August 10, the fundraiser benefits the Northeast Ohio Chapter…

‘Gimme Shelter’ on a Cleveland street piano

Barb Polomsky outside of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame The “Crazy Pianist” Barb Polomsky just uploaded this on Youtube, and it’s awesome. Polomsky goes to town on a Cleveland street piano, performing the classic “Gimme Shelter” by the Rolling Stones outside of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (currently hosting a Stones…

First Day Without Plain Dealer Home Delivery Sucks

It’s a historic day in Cleveland: That’s right, today marks the Plain Dealer’s transition to its 3-day-a-week home delivery “model” — an event that was heralded with enthusiasm by exactly no one! Faithful news consumers will now have to wait until Wednesday for a paper at their doorsteps. Though this is a huge bummer for…

Machine Gun Kelly reflects on the first-ever EST Festival

The first ever EST Fest kicked off this weekend at Nelson Ledges and a stoned and intoxicated crowd that was surprisingly tame and well behaved showed up for the gig. However, the first year of every festival is always plagued with some problems. Bathrooms ran out of hand sanitizer and toilet paper and when Machine…

Vote in Round 2 of Scene’s Cleveland Beer and Cocktail Bracket

We’re into the second round of the great Cleveland Beer Bracket, if you didn’t notice. We seeded 64 Cleveland brews in four conferences to begin with. The first round of voting wrapped up Friday afternoon, leaving us with 32 of the finest brews in Northeast Ohio still alive in the battle. We’re also into the…

The Cleveland DUI Checkpoint Facebook Page is Pretty Popular

If you’re looking for a one-stop shop for alerts about DUI checkpoints being run in and around Cleveland, join over 15,000 of your closest friends over at the Cleveland DUI Checkpoint Facebook Page, which has amassed that healthy total of followers in just about two weeks. Save the outrage about the page and general alerts…

The Top 10 Lobster Lover Dishes in Cleveland

Lobster lovers unite! This week for Q104 our dining critic @jasonthefoodguy compiled a list of stellar lobster dishes that you can get right here in the greater Cleveland area. Think pierogies, pizza, and mac & cheese, all loaded with fresh, succulent lobster. If these dishes don’t make your mouth water, we don’t know what will.

The Faux Rise and Very Real Fall of Akron’s Own Anthony Davian

FLICKR CREATIVE COMMONS The Southern Investigative Reporting Foundation (SIRF) snagged a good one when a reporter looked into the past and present of Anthony Davian – head of Davian Capital Advisors, based out of Akron. Thick with tales from all sides of the matter, the story details how a young hedge fund manager dragged investors…

Ariel Castro Spews Bullshit During Public Statement

Well, the formal sentencing for monster Ariel Castro is wrapping up downtown. Throughout the morning, prosecutors offered detailed glimpses into the captivity of Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight. Later, statements from the victims were made, including an actual appearance from Knight in the courtroom. The hearing ended with Castro uttering words – mostly…

Watch some old-school Cleveland indoor soccer

Do you have two hours free and yearn for the days of non-ironic mustaches and soccer played on astro-turf-covered hockey rinks? I knew you did. This morning, Youtube user eddiebear60 uploaded the full broadcast of Major Indoor Soccer League’s 1990-91 final game between the Cleveland Crunch and San Diego Shockers. The Cleveland Crunch drop game…

Steps Taken Toward Extradition of Murdered Airman’s Wife

Karl and Claudia Hoerig The Brazilian government revoked the official citizenship of Claudia Hoerig yesterday, paving the way for her extradition to the U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, a Youngstown Democrat, announced the news and explained that Hoerig is expected to someday stand trial for the 2007 murder of U.S. Air Force Reserve Major Karl Hoerig,…

Plain Dealer Staff Gathers at Market Garden Following Newsroom Massacre

Yesterday, more than 50 newsroom employees were laid off from The Plain Dealer, cutting the total staff by one-third. As the day rolled onward and employees posted their fates to social media accounts, talk turned into more of a tally of those left in the newsroom and those looking toward a different future. Among the…

Weird Al concert at Cain Park was quite the spectacle

Weird Al knows how to put on a show. During a two-hour concert last night before a capacity crowd at Cain Park, the satirist did a bit of everything. He changed into a countless number of different outfits and played funny, home-made videos in which he took clips of celebrity interviews and inserted his own…

First Look: Vino Veritas Winery Wine Bar

Anthony Nunes has been dreaming about opening an Italian-themed wine bar since he was in high school. Don’t believe him? Next to his name in the 1986 North High School yearbook reads the following passage: “Future plans: own an Italian restaurant.” But that dream would have to wait 20-plus years while Nunes pursued a career…

Mahall’s 20 Lanes

About a century ago, big bands filled out the stage at Mahall’s, a thriving local business that anchored the east side of Madison Avenue. Once the dance hall was converted into space for 10 more bowling lanes, it might have been difficult to imagine Mahall’s returning to status as the place for live music in…

The Barking Spider

Martin Juredine, the longtime owner of the Barking Spider Tavern, elected to stick to selling only beer and wine at this rustic eastside institution for a couple reasons. For starters, “whiskey drinkers,” as he called them, tended to get a whole lot rowdier than their beer- and wine-sipping counterparts. But mainly it was because whiskey…

Marcy Kaptur Wants to Talk About the NSA, Later

Last week, House representatives down in D.C. voted on an amendment to the Department of Defense appropriations bill. It was a big deal, because the so-called Amash Amendment would have greatly curtailed the National Security Agency’s telephone-surveillance program. Apart from the headline-stealing news that the vote brought some conservatives and liberals into accord for a…

The Brewer’s Daughter

In 1978, a copy of the Washington Post landed on the front steps of Renee DeLuca’s childhood home in D.C. as it did every weekend. In it was an article about Jack McAuliffe, the father of modern craft brewing. But it wouldn’t be until 2000—22 years later—that DeLuca would discover that the man featured in…

The Harbor Inn

The Flats have undergone expansion, boom, bust and rebirth. One place that’s been there for it all: The Harbor Inn, the oldest continuously operating bar in Cleveland. Tucked into a less-trodden corner of the West Bank, the Harbor Inn has been serving Cleveland’s thirsty since 1895. Current owner, and fabulous all-around man, Wally Pisorn bought…

The Shittiest Little Bank In Ohio

Katie Barnett came home from a two-week vacation last month to find that a local bank had foreclosed on her house in McArthur, Ohio, and repossessed all of her stuff. The problem is that they got the wrong house, and they got the wrong stuff. A couple of geniuses from First National Bank of Wellston,…

Brothers Lounge

For more than 50 years, Brothers Lounge has been a westside mainstay for kick-ass drinks and top-tier blues. In the past, it was a quaint hole in the wall tucked into the corner of Cleveland. With a full-on renovation about a decade ago, the bar took on a new life and established itself as the…

Savage Love: Vanilla

Dear Dan — I am a 28-year-old gay man living in a major East Coast city. I recently connected with a guy on a vanilla dating website, and we are quickly developing a real interest in each other. After talking online for a bit, we exchanged numbers. Our first conversation was through text messages for…

Your Crazy Bar Stories

A few months ago as we were prepping for this bar guide, we asked you for some of your craziest bar stories. The responses were… interesting. At least the ones that were written with any semblance of grammar and spelling. Culled from the pack of inebriated tales of woe told, ostensibly, while inebriated are…

Jerman’s Cafe

Susie Myers and her husband George have helped run Jerman’s Cafe, a former speakeasy located on East St. Clair Avenue, for the past 25 years. Meyer’s mother Mitzi, who passed away seven years ago, gave the place its legacy as a friendly, no-frills joint with a good selection of domestic and imported beers. The bar…

Film Spotlight: A Hijacking

While A Hijacking, a thriller about a group of Somalian pirates who want millions of dollars in order to release a Danish cargo ship, isn’t based on a true story, it certainly could have been. It mirrors reality so closely that it could practically pass a documentary. The film thrives on the tension that emerges…

LeeAnn Marhevsky

Age: 29 Bar: Frank’s Place on Market (Akron) Favorite Cocktail To Make: Negroni: It’s the perfect combination of bitter, sweet and botanical. Favorite Cocktail To Drink: Moscow Mule Favorite Beer To Drink: 3 Floyd’s Zombie Dust. It’s a mind-blowing beer. Most Popular Beer You Serve: Pabst Blue Ribbon Favorite Bar in Cleveland/Akron: Annabel’s, Akron Favorite…

Smedley’s Bar & Grill

A former Marine, Sean Mettler has owned this biker friendly, working-class bar at Kamms Corners for the past 13 years. The club has live music every Tuesday through Saturday. You might have a Lynyrd Skynyrd cover band and you might catch the Jack Fords, one of Cleveland’s coolest alt-country acts. “I only book the best…

Also on Stage

On The Line None Too Fragile Theatre If you’d like to experience ensemble acting that’s tighter than Beyonce’s bustier, in service of a show that explores blue-collar friendships under stress, then you absolutely have to see On The Line, now at None Too Fragile Theater. This script by Joe Roland is a tight-cornering roller coaster…

A Beginner’s Guide to Setting Up a Home Bar

We’ve all done it. In a few hours, guests will begin arriving for a little get-together at the casa and it’s time for a booze run. So it’s off to the local liquor store to round up some hooch. We grab a bottle of this, a bottle of that, and head out the door, giving…

Katz Club

There are other cocktail lounges in Cleveland, and a good many of them are fine places to spend an evening. But we’ve yet to stumble across one as intoxicating as the Katz Club. Long abused, and occupied by a sad series of doomed ventures, the elegantly decorated Mountain View dining car has been given a…

Exit Strategy: Phil Anselmo Cranks up the Volume on his Solo Debut

“Dude, you ready for this?” asks Phil Anselmo as he answers the phone. Given that Anselmo has played in some of the heaviest and most extreme metal bands in the world (like Pantera and Down), the question is a loaded one. So, no, actually, we’re probably not ready. “I’m stuck in my bathroom because this…

Welcome to Scene’s Bar Guide 2013

Some cursory Internet research, which is the best kind of Internet research, would quickly tell you that Cleveland has been booze-addled from almost the very first day it existed. Historian William Ganson Rose wrote that two brothers, David and Gilman Bryant, set up a shop at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River in 1800 making…

Talkin’ With Terry

Vince Grzegorek: We’ve been covering the Plain Dealer restructuring and layoff situation for a while now, and while we’ve heard a fair amount of opinions and talk coming from some departments at the paper, the sports department has been pretty quiet. Is that maybe because you folks are insulated? Between the advertising revenue and pageviews…

Dana Oldfather Talks Painting and Critiquing Others’ Paintings

It’s been a busy year for painter Dana Oldfather, and it’s going to get busier. This spring, Oldfather had her first solo museum show at the Butler Institute of American Art in Canton. Her exhibit Tap, Crack, Bellow allowed her to translate her abstract paintings onto mural-sized canvases, immersing viewers in a world where queues…

Get To Know Your Local Brewer

You’ve had their beers, now get to know the folks making the mad science of zymurgy happen and how they got to do what they do. Matt Cole Fat Head’s Brewery Brewmaster/Partner Years at Brewery: 4 Previous experience: Baltimore Brewing, Great Lakes Brewing, Rocky River Brewing Brewhouse capacity per batch: 10 barrels at the brewpub,…

Dan Deagan Opens a Second Joint- This Time, a Wine Bar

Almost three years in, Deagan’s Kitchen and Bar shows no signs of letting up. The Lakewood gastropub is consistently ranked by its diners as one of the best places to eat and drink on the west side of town. In fact, many of those customers actually are Eastsiders, who almost weekly ask owner Dan Deagan,…

Local Distillers Make a Comeback Despite Legal Hurdles

I think you’ve got something really special here,” says Edwin Vargas, who is holding a small cordial glass filled with a straw-colored liquid. One minute prior, that liquid was deep inside a wooden barrel, where it has been sitting quietly for the past 12 months. It will be a full year or more until that…

The Pumpkin of Ohio City

Let’s, for the time being, ignore the larger sociological issues surrounding Ohio City and its rapid transformation from diverse, urban community to white-collar funzone complete with bridge-and-tunnel tourists and curbside valet, and focus strictly on Town Hall, a restaurant that epitomizes that evolution, and perhaps accelerated it, but is in no way solely responsible for…

Regional Beat: Machine Gun Kelly

Black Flag (self-released) One of this summer’s best concerts should have been Summer Jam, a concert featuring Kid Cudi, Machine Gun Kelly and King Chip at Jacobs Pavilion at Nautica. But all three of them dropped the show, and the coinciding concert at House of Blues where the untalented, over-hyped, one-hit wonder Ace Hood headlined.…

Your Crazy Bar Stories

A few months ago as we were prepping for this bar guide, we asked you for some of your craziest bar stories. The responses were… interesting. At least the ones that were written with any semblance of grammar and spelling. Culled from the pack of inebriated tales of woe told, ostensibly, while inebriated, is…

Review of the Week: Shadow Dancer

More is unspoken than spoken in Shadow Dancer, an elegantly overcast film about an IRA mole in 1990s Belfast, directed by James Marsh, the documentary savant who delighted and thrilled us with Man on Wire and Project Nim. The film opens with what might be mistaken for a scene of domestic tranquility in 1970s Northern…

The Never-Ending Pain of the Boy Scouts’ ‘Perversion Files’

A former Scoutmaster confesses to decades of molestations that happened as the Scouts looked the other way; a victim explains the trauma endured at the hands of another troop leader. Lee Dalton was 26 years old and a recent Kent State graduate in 1966 when he left his leadership position with local Boy Scout Troop…

The Cleveland Craft Beer Report

The more beer the merrier — that we know. And lucky for us, the number of Cleveland breweries is on the rise. The good folks behind Tremont Tap House have announced plans to open The Butcher and the Brewer on East Fourth Street by next spring. It will take over the space previously occupied by…

McNamara’s

What shall we say about McNamara’s, the gilded Irish dive bar on Lake Road and West 86th Street, on the raspy fringes of both the Cudell and Edgewater neighborhoods? Shall we call it the city’s Best Blue-Collar Bar, as Scene did a few year’s back in our annual Best Of Cleveland issue? Shall we admire…

Sachsenheim Hall

The beer comes in boots, folks. Need we say more? If that doesn’t convince you, maybe the food deals will. For perfect clarity, the food deals are B-A-N-A-N-A-S. Extravagant tacos are only a buck on Taco Tuesdays. And when we say extravagant, we mean things like “Chipotle Chicken & Bacon & Five Pepper Sausage” and…

Culture Jamming

TOP PICK Tech N9ne Something Else (Strange Music) Big K.R.I.T., CeeLo Green, B.o.B., Game, Kendrick Lamar, Mayday!, T-Pain, System of a Down’s Serj Tankian and Wiz Khalifa all make guest appearances on the latest album by Tech N9ne, one of hip-hop biggest stars who’s still truly independent. Songs such “Fortune Force Field” and “I’m Not…


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