Prince of Zydeco
The day C.J. Chenier can’t whip his audience into a foot-stompin’, hand-jivin’ zydeco frenzy is the day he folds up his accordion and heads back home to southeast Texas. At 47, Chenier has spent most of his adult life touring with his Red Hot Louisiana Band and their “happy-feet music.” But if they’re having an…
Listen Locally
Podcast: The Metal Show (www.themetalshow.com/blog/) What to expect: Old-school and new metal, plus band interviews and plenty of biting commentary from hosts Matt “the Warlock” Wardlaw and Chris Akin. Why you should listen: “The reason to listen is simple: Train wrecks are interesting and hard to look away from. We try to crash at least…
Brazen Rogues
Simultaneously name-checking cheap beer and Apocalypse Now, the Brazen Rogues’ PBR Streetgang has the same rough charm as the band’s 2003 debut. It’s a little overdue, but if you make a record a year when you’re writing songs about everyday life in blue-collar Cleveland, you’ll wind up penning tunes about changing your socks. Biding their…
World Party
SAT 7/9 At last summer’s International Children’s Games, the Brothel Brothers were sure their repertoire of reggae, ska, and calypso would awe Cleveland’s adolescent visitors. So they found a spot on the sidewalk and started to jam. “We thought this would endear us to the young athletes,” says accordion player David Badagnani. “When we saw…
No Spin Zone
Cleveland’s used to taking crap for its big hair, its inexplicable love of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and its insistence that the pierogi constitutes its own food group. But we have to draw the line when our city’s bands get dissed. The latest issue of Spin magazine counts down the 100 best albums of the past…
The Dreadful Yawns
In the past, Dreadful Yawns discs were not something you’d want to spin while operating heavy machinery. The Yawn’s pretty, pastoral indie folk was so calming and meditative, it was like one prolonged daydream. But on their self-titled second full-length, the Yawns brighten their sound with kaleidoscopic tunes that never settle into a single mood.…
Course of Action
7/7-7/11 Scott Nathanson had a vision — and it involved Frisbees and chain-link fence. The course director for Sims Park Disc Golf was introduced to the sport a couple of years ago. “The next thing I know,” he recalls, “I was standing in front of city council, trying to get the park turned into a…
Toby Keith
Those of you who hate Big Toby’s right-wing orthodoxy are making a mistake if you reject his music too. Sure, he’s got a reactionary streak an acre wide, but so do Merle Haggard and plenty of other country artists worth hearing. Dismissing him because he’s not the Dixie Chicks’ ideological cousin is like expecting Lauryn…
Scream Team
SUN 7/10 In the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it burg of Bolivar, outside Canton, the police department’s telephone lines light up whenever the Nightmare Society snaps photos of its members dressed as vampires and zombies. “Last month, there had been six calls about the dead walking around my house,” laughs Staci Swain, the horror club’s president. “The police asked…
Audio Eagle Takes Flight
Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney has formed a new record label, Audio Eagle, partnering with Jamie Stillman, former guitarist of Kent’s Party of Helicopters and owner of Donut Friends Records. The label already has a September release date set for the third album by Youngstown new-wave subversives Gil Mantera’s Party Dream, which will be distributed…
Comic Relief
Movies based on comic books have become dime-a-dozen events — appropriate, since the cover price of these titles was 10 cents when they debuted decades ago. It wasn’t so long ago that Warner Bros. teased the release of Richard Donner’s Superman by insisting, “You’ll believe a man can fly”; now, you’ll not only believe a…
Angie Stone
In the course of an R&B career heading toward its third full decade, Angie Stone has showcased her powerful voice in nearly every venue you can think of, from tiny clubs to arenas to a run on Broadway (she did a stint as Matron “Mama” Morton in Chicago). This summer, she’s returning to the clubs…
Under the Bridge
SAT 7/9 Patrick Sweany (pictured) doesn’t usually perform alfresco. But the blues guitarist braves the outdoors at Saturday’s Bridjazz — a dinner and dance beneath Massillon’s Lincoln Way Bridge — to play tunes from his latest CD, Henryfordbedroom. “He rides around the country in a Ford and sleeps in it,” says organizer Dan Bates. “But…
W.A.S.P.
Back in the ’80s, W.A.S.P. singer Blackie Lawless’ crotch was such a big deal that congress and the PMRC had to step in and do something about it. Twenty years later, “Animal Fuck Like a Beast” holds up pretty well — assuming you’re in the mood for the most gratuitously offensive song in the history…
Skin Crawls
Gregg Araki likes to shock. That’s no secret to anyone following the director’s career, but a cartoonish layer of unreality has usually kept the sexual pairings and graphic violence somewhat at a distance. There’s a little of that in Mysterious Skin, but mostly it stays grounded in the real world. Araki seems to have finally…
The Wallflowers
Besides playing sessions with artists as diverse as Johnny Cash, Everclear, Foo Fighters, Melissa Etheridge, and El Vez (aka “the Mexican Elvis”), keyboardist Rami Jaffee is also the only original member of the Wallflowers who’s not the son of a world-famous music icon. And though the Los Angeles native has played long-term Boy Wonder to…
Mighty Aphrodite
Eros is not a single film, but three, each roughly half an hour, joined in a common goal. The first segment was made by Wong Kar Wai (In the Mood for Love) and the second by Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Erin Brockovich). The final piece was directed by the legendary Michelangelo Antonioni, who is still filming…
Tracy Bonham
“Mother, mother, I’m dirty, I’m starving. Seriously. Send $! Love, Tracy.” Well, things aren’t quite that grim for Tracy Bonham, whose breakthrough hit saw a college student censoring her parental correspondence to remove all hints of despair and debauchery. The Burdens of Being Upright, the disc that spawned the hit “Mother, Mother,” also contained the…
Bicycle Tired
Writing and performing original comedy is so difficult, it’s understandable why comedians and sketch groups tend to rely on the familiar “A” material they know will keep the chuckles rolling. Henny Youngman kept getting applause with his “Take my wife . . . please!” bit, but eventually he became as tedious as Carrot Top or…
The Stone Coyotes
The Stone Coyotes’ Barbara Keith remembers when her family band was in perfect sync with the White Stripes. “One of the times we played at the Beachland — more than a couple times ago, because they were still un-huge — they were in the ballroom, and we were in the tavern,” says the singer-guitarist in…
Inside Job
The houses on Willowdale Drive all look the same, distinguished only by differing shades of white, gray, and tan. It’s a neighborhood of porch swings, basketball hoops, and American flags. Only one yard appears messy enough to be lived in — and the neighbors are probably uptight about it. Jack Buffin gave the people of…
On Stage
Baby — This energetic comic musical deals with the ways three very different couples handle their personal journeys, once they determine there’s a bun in the oven. The play, which had a respectable run on Broadway in the early 1980s, features a bundle of charming songs with music by David Shire and lyrics by Richard…
Pete Yorn
In retrospect, Pete Yorn’s two-CD live set from last year might’ve been a bit premature. Though the hunky New Jersey-born singer-songwriter’s 2001 debut, Musicforthemorningafter, built a sizable buzz on the back of a handful of modest radio hits (not to mention his good looks or his brother Rick’s status as a high-powered Hollywood superagent), Yorn…
All in the Family
Last year, Summit County spent $2 million more than it will bring in this year, instigating much talk of belt-tightening. Civilian staffers in the Sheriff’s Department have had their weekly hours cut from 32 to 24. In April, raises for all nonunion employees were held to a modest 2 percent. Even in the engineer’s office,…
On View
NEW Sculpture Garden — The small sculpture garden at Atmosphere’s new Tremont digs is filled with engaging sights. Alex Stoll’s burnt-steel dragonflies and squirrels hover over shrubbery like busy real-life creatures. A large insect with brightly colored metal bars for legs oversees the garden’s back half. Near the front, Lothar Jobczyk’s “Garden Spirits” — sandstone…
Acid Wolf, Etc.: Recent Drawings by Jake Kelly
If you’ve been to a club show in Cleveland, you’ve probably seen illustrator Jake Kelly’s work. The scene veteran self-published the Crosston comic book, and has created art for labels including Polyvinyl, Morpheus, and Cleveland’s Exit Stencil. His hallucinatory drawings have appeared in rock bibles such as Punk Planet and Maximumrockandroll, and he regularly makes…
Where’s Rick James, Bitch?
Somewhere in the void of southwestern Ohio, beyond roadside veggie stands and backyard orchards, is a head shop called Import House. Black-light posters hang in display cases next to a shelf of fluorescent bongs. A meaty woman in a sleeveless shirt stands behind the counter, following customers with eyes that testify to the miles she’s…
Fat’s Where It’s At
It’s not easy being a downtown restaurant, what with having to convince the region’s far-flung inhabitants to haul their asses back into town at the end of a long day, only to have to scout out reasonably priced parking before anteing up for dinner. So a spot like Cleveland’s Fat Fish Blue — which has…
Missy Elliott
After a decade of innovation that electrified urban music, Missy Elliott and Timbaland have mostly gone their separate ways on The Cookbook. Save for a couple of tracks, Missy made this disappointing album on her own. Of course, it’s a letdown only by comparison with her five previous groundbreaking efforts. There are still enough singles…
Toxic Eden
Toxic Eden A timely tale: My husband and I have been house-hunting for over a year. On Thursday, I looked at a beautiful house in Avon Lake [“Cancer in Paradise,” June 22]. The owner casually mentioned that she was moving because her husband was ill. Later that day, I bought a Cleveland Magazine to read…
A New Fire Man
For Scott Popovic, XO no longer marks the spot: The well-seasoned chef, a native of North Olmsted, left the Warehouse District steakhouse in May and is now chef de cuisine at Shaker Square’s Fire Food and Drink, where he began last week. The move reunites Popovic with his old friend and mentor, Doug Katz, Fire’s…
Royksopp
Royksopp’s debut disc, Melody A.M. , produced mood-setting mix-tape fodder and soundtracked any room at a rave that came with a couch. The Understanding starts in the same vein, with parochial piano and a gentle percussive pulse, but then it turns the beat around, disco-style. Like party-planning professionals, Royksopp created a checklist of celebration essentials.…
Bad Science
It’s embarrassing enough that Akron was dubbed Ohio’s “meth capital” by the Beacon Journal. Akronites, already tired of defending their turf, will now have to suffer jokes about hillbillies and Sudafed. But the worst part is that it isn’t even true. For more than a decade, papers throughout the country have been dubbing their cities…
Meet Mi Octopi
Sim Ross sips a beer with his collar up and his guard down. He smiles a lot, as if to make up for lost time. The singer’s last band, popular Cleveland punks the Signoffs, had a street-tough image and a cocksure strut that didn’t lend itself to wide grins. He’s drinking at Lakewood’s Capsule, a…
Fountains of Wayne
Summer wouldn’t be summer without Fountains of Wayne. Sure, hot dogs would be just as carcinogenic, steering wheels would still sear flesh, and young lovers would still get VD. But the season wouldn’t be quite so special without the finely observed details and lacerating hooks of these New Jersey songsters. Famous for 2003’s infectious ode…
Unnatural History
Neil Zurcher claims he’s no historian — just a history buff. However, one can’t help but be impressed by his scholarship after reading Strange Tales From Ohio, a collection of mostly forgotten curiosities from the past. “It’s a history book for people who don’t like history,” says Zurcher, the host of WJW-TV Channel 8’s One…
Let It Blow
Perhaps the most enduring legacy of Blowfly’s long, hilarious, and underrated career is this: Had he never lived, there’d be a hell of a lot fewer Parental Advisory warnings on albums today. From his 1962 oddity “Odd Balls,” a proto-rap song about “gay hippies,” to his current, politically themed album Fahrenheit 69 — on which…
Laura Cantrell
As the proprietress of Radio Thrift Shop on WFMU on the East Coast and an accomplished singer in her own right, Laura Cantrell is a champion of old-time country music — and she makes it sound lovelier than ever on her Matador debut, Humming by the Flowered Vine. Cantrell’s precise, crystal-clear vocals are perfectly suited…
This Week’s Day-By-Day Picks
Thursday, July 7 While we usually prefer to be aurally assaulted by six channels of super surround sound when we watch movies, there are times we make exceptions. Like tonight’s free outdoor screening of Spider-Man 2, which launches the season’s Movies Under the Stars program downtown (it’s part of the Meet Me on the Mall…
Rise of the Pod People
The Shenida Weave No-Lye Mixshow sounds like nothing on mainstream radio. Weave, the over-the-top persona of a “queer Georgia boy” in San Francisco, spins hot dance mixes from Gwen Stefani to Kaskade, and between cuts, he recounts everything from drunken escapades to news from Europe. “The euro is a very wonderful thing. It allows you…
Bane
When inserted into the right kind of CD player, Bane’s The Note will make the readout say “Bane JAM.” But by the time it comes up, you’ll have figured that out already. The Boston hardcore quintet formed in 1994 as a side project of former Converge members Aaron Dalbec and Damon Bellorado (both since departed).…
