Chi Chi’s Burritos
Chi Chi LaRue, one of the country’s most prolific gay-porn filmmakers, is zigzagging the country seeking models and dancers to appear in safe-sex videos that will play in gay clubs around the world. “I have always been a safe-sex advocate,” says LaRue, whose Live & Raw model search stops at Akron’s Interbelt Nite Club this…
Richard Thompson
In a perfect world, as opposed to a Bizarro world in which rock critics are American idols, the release of a Richard Thompson album would be Big News, cause for celebration; instead, once more, it’s a joyous whisper among cultists and the converted. Granted, he’s an acquired taste, like absinthe and snails, but he’s also…
Reduced-Salt Dogs
To prepare for reviewing Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, I did the obvious research: I watched Yellowbeard again. Yes, yes, indeed — can’t do without Fairbanks as The Black Pirate and Flynn as Captain Blood. But when appraising a new comedic pirate adventure, it’s important to consider how far we’ve…
Wolfpac
Wolfpac seemed ready to take over the new world of rap-metal crossover when its album Evil Is . . . dropped — in 1996. It’s been expanded, remixed, and reissued a few times (most recently on Megaforce Records), and the boys have been touring off and on ever since. They haven’t been prolific, but if…
Minor League
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen — or LXG, as Fox refers to it, as though it’s the latest Lexus all-terrain vehicle — would have you think it’s the summer action movie with a brain; certainly, its literary allusions would have you believe it has visited more libraries than video-rental outlets. But the movie can’t take…
KRS-One
The three-decade career of KRS-One has included stints as a hardcore hip-hop architect, a political firebrand, and a religious rhymesmith. He became one of hip-hop’s most notorious MCs as half of Boogie Down Productions. The fiercely political band’s 1987 debut, Criminal Minded, broke open hardcore hip-hop, with KRS-One’s angry, raga-inflected rhymes and ghetto-life commentary laid…
Spirit of ’76
7/11-8/10 1776 is the appropriate bookend to Beck Center’s season, says director Scott Spence. “We opened the season with Parade,” he explains. “And while it represents a different era of Americana and deals with some of the seamier sides of America, 1776 seems like a nice piece of Americana to put at the end of…
Ashanti
We were going to start by bitching about how three of the first five tracks on Ashanti’s bloated, boring new LP are skits and intros, but then we realized that the filler was less annoying than the actual songs. “I don’t want to be this woman the second time around,” she whines on “Rain on…
Mama Dearest
Picture a mother who doesn’t allow her two small daughters to attend school, forces them to continually travel and work while living in piss-in-the-sink flophouses, makes them share a crowded bedroom with a succession of older boys, and then claims parental success when one of the girls becomes a stripper. These days, that tale of…
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
A glance around one recent hippie-dippie outdoor fest shows there are still some unfortunate souls who think Dr. Seuss headgear is zany. Some things that are funny at first become excruciatingly annoying later. Like Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, a concept band that, from its inception six years ago, barely rated a chuckle: An…
Bounty Hunter
A rent-to-own is a dangerous place to spoil oneself, Ron Young discovered. By last fall, Young had stocked his East Side apartment with furniture and electronics from the Rent-Way at Glenville Town Center. First he brought home a television set and a DVD player. The Rent-Way truck delivered a sectional couch next, then a bedroom…
Still Smilin’?
Stan Lee, for better or worse the most recognizable face in the history of the comic book, insists he has no love for rehashing his past. He claims to take no great joy from talking about long-ago yesterdays spent in smoky rooms co-creating the likes of the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, X-Men…
Josh Wink
With Profound Sounds v2, Philadelphia-based DJ-producer Josh Wink marks a rare achievement in mix CDs. He chose 16 selections from artists such as David Alvarado, Swayzak, and Dave Clarke, and then created a special, exclusive edit of each song on his computer, adding bits of original production and rearranging the sounds to his liking. The…
It Ain’t So
Lakewood City Hall has used sky-is-falling rhetoric to justify the seizure of primo land for its West End development. Even those on the fence have bought into the idea that the city suffers an “eroding tax base, aging housing stock, and outmigration of residents,” as a Plain Dealer editorial put it. This, unfortunately, is a…
Mmm, Mmm, Good
Sometimes a few slip-ups in the kitchen can almost seem like a good thing — particularly when they help shine a light on gracious service. Take our recent Saturday night visit to M Bistro, Peter Diamantis and George Voutsiotis’s well-dressed, 220-seat Westlake dining room, which used to be Mosaica. It began with the tale of…
Earl Scruggs, Doc Watson, and Ricky Skaggs
The three artists billed on this live CD have 208 years between them. Bluegrass fans will be familiar with most of the songs (“A Soldier’s Joy,” “Banks of the Ohio,” etc.). No doubt these fellows have recorded all of them — maybe several times. So how does this album grab you and refuse to let…
Proficiency Test
Teacher: “There are some great kids, with good parents, and they find a way — but you can’t really even teach the right way, because every class has three or four kids that are out of control. You tell them to do something or just tell them to sit down, and they say ‘Fuck you,…
X Spots the Mark
In 1976, hippies dominated fashion, forcing kids in places like L.A. and San Francisco to peg their jeans, rip their shirts, and spike their hair as a big middle finger to all that peace-and-love bullshit. Sweltering under the California sun, these kids were angry, grasping for something new and fresh — anything that didn’t stink…
Broken Social Scene
Indie rock’s next great hype monstrosity has arrived in the unassuming person of You Forgot It in People, the greatest record ever made by an over-intellectual, 10-member Canadian pop collective. People’s noisy tunes are coherent and sweet enough for guy-with-a-guitar open-mic readings, but here they’re gussied up with expensive guitar pedals, hallucinogenic vocal effects, and…
Go for the Gold
The scene: Bob Taft leans over the rail of a Cincinnati riverboat, looking like a middle school science teacher who has trouble controlling his class. He’s pretending to be awed by the natural wonders before him, which largely consist of abandoned buildings and water the hue of inexpensive hot chocolate. Children, color-coordinated for multicultural variety,…
The Song Remains Insane
As every author and filmmaker knows, the best dramatic tension comes from pitting opposing forces against one another. West Side Story culminated in a Sharks vs. Jets rumble. The Who-inspired film Quadrophenia illuminated England’s eternal mods vs. rockers debate. Heck, even the Bible featured a holy-rolling, plague-filled conflict between the Israelites and the Egyptians. On…
Caveman
On its first album, the substandard metal duo Caveman grunts out Neanderthal vocals in interchangeable songs such as “Death of the Mammoth” and “Me Fire Make Cold Go Away.” Displaying remarkable dexterity for primitive men, singer-guitarist Gulk and drummer Krug are amusing — for about half a song. The disc quickly falls short of genre…
Letters to the Editor
Look Who’s Talking A pox on both their houses: Kevin Hoffman neglected to complete the Bill Maher quote [“Laughing Through the Apocalypse,” March 5], so I will do it for him: “We have been the cowards, lobbing Cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That’s cowardly.” I’ve noticed this omission in the comments of others who…
Plucky Seven
The New Pornographers are a band. Not a shocking revelation, by any means, but it’s a fact that Carl Newman, the Canadian septet’s founder and primary songwriter, nevertheless feels compelled to reinforce. They’re a band, simple as that. But apparently, something about the joined talents of trade-off vocalists Newman, Dan Bejar, and Neko Case (not…
Centrifuge
Centrifuge’s sophomore album indulges in stoned jam metal that moves slower than most senior citizens. The Youngstown trio revels in devolved doom, harking back to the very beginning of heavy metal, when slow and low was the tempo of Blue Cheer and Black Sabbath. Lumbering bass and hulking riffs are the basis of this band’s…
Dead Reckonings
Five cemeteries around Cleveland are about to come alive in an unscary way, when the Charenton Theater Company presents a well-known classic among the headstones. Spoon River Anthology (premiering Friday at Riverside Cemetery) is a collection of free-verse monologues written by Edgar Lee Masters, based on the epitaphs he had observed at local boneyards in…
The Local Spin
For years now, you’ve been more likely to hear Axl Rose sing in tune than to catch a Cleveland band in rotation on a major radio station. With the increased centralization of the radio industry in the hands of a trio of major broadcasting companies, overhead has jumped — at the same time as playlists…
This Week’s Day-By-Day Picks
Thursday, July 10 Kenny Chesney may be the headliner at tonight’s country music hoedown at Blossom, but be sure to get there early for openers Keith Urban and Deana Carter. Not only are they better-looking than the big-hat-wearing Chesney, but both take a decidedly more traditional approach to their music. While Australian Urban’s Golden Road…
Killer Publicity
Chimaira and Mushroomhead, two of Cleveland’s best-known bands, will be featured on the soundtrack to Freddy Vs. Jason, the horror-franchise merger that comes to theaters later this summer. The album, due to hit stores August 5, will feature the new Mushroomhead cut “Sun Doesn’t Rise” and Chimaira’s “Army of Me” (a B-side from the band’s…
Lords of the Ring
JT Lightning prays for bloody free-for-all brawls. Ten years ago, the 5-foot-10, 240-pound wrestler founded the Cleveland All-Pro Training Center, a proving ground for big-time grapplers on the rise. Cleveland All-Pro Wrestling, a sporadically scheduled series of swingfests, emerged at the same time. This week’s Rage in a Cage showcase commemorates the group’s 10th anniversary…
The Horrors
In a few years, it’ll look as if In the Red Records saved “garage rock” from being buried by the gimmicky catch-all phrase it’s become. In addition to exposing the most inventive noisemakers of the vaunted Detroit scene (Dirtbombs, Clone Defects, Piranhas), the label has plucked other torchbearers of the raw, bored-teen garage legacy from…
Biker Boy
7/11-7/13 Dave Mirra has been jumping curbs and flying over dirt ramps since he was five years old. Today, at 19, he is one of the most decorated stunt-bike riders who will compete this weekend at the Vans Triple Crown Right Guard BMX Championships (right). A master of ramp riding and vertical slopes, Mirra’s known…
The Gossip
In its less inventive moments, the Gossip comes off as a studiously rough-around-the-edges version of Sleater-Kinney, the trio’s Olympia, Washington soul sisters and Kill Rock Stars labelmates. That sounds like damning with faint praise, but it’s not: Like Sleater-Kinney, when the Gossip plays live, its audience partakes of an all-you-can-eat buffet of adrenaline and Ramones-inspired…
Dog and Pony Show
7/10-7/13 The Hunter Jumper Classic is about more than just hunting and jumping. The weekend event features equestrian competitions, dog agility trials, horse and dog relay races, and a fashion show — with people, not horses, modeling upscale women’s clothing. But the crowning event of the show is the Grand Prix set for Sunday at…
The Roc the Mic Tour
Half the fun of this hot-selling hip-hop extravaganza is the unpredictable guest list. Besides the rotating lineups behind co-headliners Jay-Z and 50 Cent — and possible posse appearances from other Roc-A-Fella and Aftermath artists — you never know who might wander onstage. (At the opener in Hartford, it was Jigga’s squeeze, Beyoncé Knowles.) But the…
Climate Control
TUE 7/15 The sign on the wall reads, “We don’t own the environment. We just take care of it for our grandchildren.” That’s the message the Cleveland Botanical Gardens wants to instill with visitors at the new Eleanor Armstrong Smith Glasshouse, which opens Tuesday. The $37 million conservatory features 18,000 square feet of flora from…
Mae
In some circles, Mae already has two strikes against it: a Jesus-centric label (Tooth & Nail) and a first-class emo pedigree born of road trips with the likes of Piebald, Copeland, and the Starting Line. Yet the cuddly keyboards and doe-eyed riffs on the Norfolk, Virginia quintet’s 2003 debut album, Destination: Beautiful deserve a better…
