Letters to the Editor
God Is Our Cream and SugarBravo, Scene! Once again you have printed an eyecatcher. Your article “Holy Lite,” by Lydialyle Gibson [May 18], has really shed a new light with me. It feels like my pride with the Catholic religion has been torn at the seams. I couldn’t agree more with Brian Upton’s courageous effort…
Thomas Brinkmann
Thomas BrinkmannYou never know quite what to expect from Cologne, Germany’s Thomas Brinkmann. While it’s safe to describe him as a techno artist, some qualifications have to be made. His music generally belongs to the German brand of techno — a minimal, stripped-down set of beats and raw samples from movies and other sources that…
Stalker Fiction
For a moment or two, David Lowery — front man for the band Cracker, and before that, beloved college-radio revolutionary sweethearts Camper Van Beethoven — found himself enjoying the book. He laughed in the right places, winced in the appropriate spots and thought, for a moment, the book wasn’t half bad. And there’s no reason…
Bad Religion, opening for Blink 182
Bad ReligionOnly a few years ago, Bad Religion would have been the headlining act on this bill, which features the disposable San Diego-based pop-punk band Blink 182 as the main attraction. And given that Bad Religion’s back catalog still sells well enough to line the pockets of former guitarist Brett Gurewitz (now the head of…
Impressionism Rehashed
Impressionism is like the Energizer Bunny. It keeps going and going. The movement originated in France in the mid-19th century, but the principles upon which it was based continue to intrigue artists. A thought-provoking exhibit now on view at Opus Gallery, called Russian and Soviet Impressionism From Private Collections, demonstrates that you don’t have to…
Shivaree Timbres
Shivaree. Friday, June 2, at the Symposium
Greeks Bearing Gifts
David Hansen didn’t have to get a cameo on The Drew Carey Show to prove himself a local success story. Just try to get into a Saturday night performance of his company, Bad Epitaph’s, production of Lysistrata — it’s standing room only. Crowds of all ages, from their first purple-dye job to varicose veins, are…
In Sotto Voce
The gray-and-black-clad servers began their well-orchestrated dance a few minutes before 8 p.m. “Fifteen minutes, 15 minutes,” they announced softly, as they padded from table to table. “You have about 15 minutes to curtain.” And in the ensuing quarter-hour, as the Cleveland Orchestra’s Saturday night patrons left to take their seats in the recital hall,…
Side dish
The free burritos, barbacoas, fajitas, and tacos were flying out of the newest Chipotle Mexican Grill last week when the quick-service restaurant — the fourth in Northeast Ohio — marked its grand opening in the Rockside Corners Shopping Center (6901 Rockside Road) in Independence. Like other locations of the Denver-based chain, the new Chipotle eschews…
Down on the Clowns
Detroit acid rapper Esham Smith gets all the respect in the world from his peers, yet he’s still hawking discs out of his trunk while other Motor City hip-hop acts are filling arenas. Kid Rock, Eminem, and the Insane Clown Posse — all from the Detroit area — cite Smith’s unique piercing vocal style as…
Come Pere and Contrast
Could the same Pere Ubu that played Pirate’s Cove, Peabody’s DownUnder, and the Agora over the past 25 years be returning to town? No way. It’s been years since there was a stable Ubu — if, indeed, there ever was one. Pere Ubu formed in Cleveland in the mid-’70s, and, you could say, inconstancy has…
Belle and Sebastian
Everything the new Woodstock generation’s rape rock is — macho, hateful, and ugly — Belle and Sebastian isn’t. The Scottish group is sensitive, delicate, and fey. The Korn kids would loathe Belle and Sebastian. And it’s not just because the Glasgow collective, led by Stuart Murdoch, makes the frailest folk rock this side of Nick…
One to Grow On — and On
No one ever told Ian Cooke that he couldn’t grow Tradescantia Zwanenburg Blue — “Sweet Kate” to green-thumbed insiders — on American soil. But the mere fact that it had never been done made the rare perennial a tempting horticultural challenge to the award-winning English garden designer. “If you tell a gardener he can’t grow…
BT
If you didn’t already consider BT a pop artist, Movement in Still Life will convince you otherwise. Having made a name for himself along with Paul Oakenfold, Sasha, and Paul van Dyke as a major luminary in the progressive/epic house style of dance music throughout the ’90s, BT (Brian Transeau) takes advantage of the current…
A Legend Points Toward Retirement
People tilling fields with horsedrawn plows may seem alien to city slickers, but it’s not the strangest thing that will be happening this weekend in Holmes County. “I’m going to do a demonstration on a bed of nails,” explains Vernon “Komar” Craig, a manager at Alpine Alpa Restaurant, which will be hosting a “collectors’ extravaganza”…
Joe Lovano
This excellent CD by Cleveland-born tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano (it also features Cleveland composer/arrangers Tadd Dameron and Willie Smith) could have been a rather corny revival session if it weren’t for Lovano’s strong leadership. Lovano, who is among the great contemporary tenor players, initially met Dameron and Smith through his father, Tony Lovano, a tenor…
Sex Pistols
Thirty years ago, a cultural sex change allegedly took place in America. It was dubbed the Sexual Revolution. To read about it at the time was to learn about hippies, dope, utopian communes, and a whole variety of sexual experimentation. The media’s portrait was of godless young commie/anarchists out of touch with what later became…
Qwasi Qwa
Qwasi Qwa performs on June 2 at the Grog Shop
The Swing Dance
They could be lifted right out of a Reagan campaign commercial, from their Sun Belt addresses to their kidney-shaped swimming pools. They’re suburban Republicans, with country-western accents, department-store wardrobes, permed hair, and earnest manners — normal and red-blooded in every way. Except for one thing: These retired real-estate ladies and cops and aerospace engineers get…
Soundbites
While the hippies went down to Hookahville for Memorial Day weekend, the Goths have the annual Gravediggers’ Exhibit to look forward to. Held at least once a year since 1996, the Gravediggers’ Exhibit is a Goth-themed festival that includes live music, vendors, and art exhibits. For the first time, this year’s event will take place…
A Question of Style
It’s a little past 7 on a cool Thursday morning, and East 105th Street is gradually stirring to life. Children make their way to school while their parents wait for rumbling RTA buses to take them to work. Most of the storefronts are still closed, including the B&B Restaurant, a nondescript greasy spoon just south…
Cracker
CrackerCracker singer-guitarist David Lowery might have the worst luck in the world. His first band, Camper Van Beethoven, was a leader of the ’80s alternative rock scene, but shortly after signing with a major label, imploded before getting the credit it deserved. With Cracker, he’s had a handful of hits (“Low,” “Euro-Trash Girl,” and “Teen…
Empty Promise
Wandering an empty, unlit hallway at St. Luke’s Medical Center, John Anoliefo, director of the Buckeye Area Development Corporation, gives an angry sigh. “You should have seen this place when there were 2,000 people working here,” he says, passing bronze plaques of the hospital’s former benefactors and trustees. “People were coming in and out all…
Split Lip Rayfield, with Myshkin and the Tumbleweeds
Split Lip RayfieldIf Hank Williams had lived long enough to tour with the Clash and jam with Bela Fleck, the collaboration would begin to approach Split Lip Rayfield, one of Bloodshot Records’ most original and creative bands. Just consider the cast of characters in the band: Guitarist Kirk Rundstrom still works with the equally acclaimed…
The Edge
Paper tigers! Subpoenas for the City Council hearings on the civil service exam fiasco are being drawn up and will likely be served by the end of this week. Who gets to spill their guts? “Just about everybody in the administration,” says a council insider, though whether the mayor will be called is still under…
Juliana Hatfield, with Rosavelt
Juliana HatfieldIf Alanis and Tori are the darlings of the alt-rock movement, singer-guitarist Juliana Hatfield is the bastard stepsister who never made it to the ball. Hatfield, who got her start with Boston’s Blake Babies, survived the mid-’90s after experiencing a slight taste of the mainstream when she was idolizing her bitch of a sister…
