Barry’s Sweet Racket
At the cleaning-supply company he co-owns, Lyndhurst Mayor Barry Jacobson sports a poster of Winnie the Pooh, pictures of a smiling family, and, he explains, the ethics of the used-automobile trade. “You have to understand how the business works,” says Jacobson, whose company, Envirochemical Inc., sells items such as soap and paper towels to government…
Greek Out
You need not leave the house to know what’s playing in movie theaters in coming weeks. You’ve already seen these films, with titles consisting of letters followed by numbers. There’s no surprise in the dark, just the bumping into of familiar faces, legally blond or largely green, and furious franchises going full throttle till the…
Death in Vegas
A former cog in the Defunkt Big Band machine, Death in Vegas has gradually morphed into a sophisticated psych-rock band that quite fancies Ravi Shankar, mate. The group’s conceptualists — Richard Fearless and Tim Holmes — now seem mostly uninterested in moving your bum; they’d rather soundtrack a journey to the center of your mind.…
Whiskey Shot
By the time Dan Moore gets the floor at the Bourbon Street Grille, the crowd has already sat through 13 speakers. They’re supposed to be outside, feting the Cuyahoga for the RiverDay 2003 celebration, but the skies interfere, with torrents of rain. The bar must suffice. The crowd gets history lessons and lectures on the…
The Secret’s Out
It’s tempting to trot out the tired old “hidden gem” adage to describe Brennan’s Colony. Who, after all, would expect to discover sophisticated fare such as pan-seared grouper, blue-cheese spaetzel, or crab-crusted salmon lurking behind the facade of a bland-looking pub in Cleveland Heights? And even assuming that a diner isn’t stunned to find such…
Type O Negative
Type O Negative can embrace only about three emotions: misery, anger, or some combination of the two. So it’s no surprise to encounter more morose melodrama, haunted-house synthesizers, Sabbathian sludge, and the phantom-like baritone of vocalist/bassist/beefcake brooder Peter Steele. Songs like “IYDKMIGTHTKY (Gimme That)” and “A Dish Better Served Coldly” are distinctive Type O negativity,…
Letters to the Editor
Plusquellic’s a bully with a big rubber stamp: David W. Martin did a fine job of capturing the essence of Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic [“Mayor for Life,” May 21]. Plusquellic is vain, egotistical, profane, and pompous. He’s also a man who has spent a great deal of time (and tax dollars) in an attempt to…
In Good Hands
Chef Andy Strizak knows he has big shoes to fill in the kitchen at Parker’s New American Bistro (2801 Bridge Avenue, 216-771-7130). But if anyone can carry on Parker Bosley’s tradition of lovingly prepared natural foods, it’s the 25-year-old Strizak. The chef, a 1998 graduate of the culinary arts program at Johnson & Wales University,…
Gold Chains
San Francisco resident Topher Lafata has the same bright idea lots of other former indie rockers are riding these days: Ditch the electric guitars, mopey breakup songs, and human drummers, and feed all that pent-up postgrad angst into the computer instead, sharpening a horny, corny electro-rap that addresses the confused twentysomething condition in a vocabulary…
Big Easy Basics
It took a few years and an old friend to bring the Iguanas back around to making their best music. After earning an Americana tag and a reputation for fiery live shows in the early ’90s, the New Orleans-based band devolved into stifled recordmaking. With its five members in a rut, the band’s albums made…
Dream Evil
Metal fests in America can be as torturous as the anguished wails of the genre’s best belters. Anyone who’s suffered through the miserable Milwaukee Metal Fest, with its putrid sound system and ridiculous lack of organization, or the overstuffed New England Hardcore and Metal Festival, which crams 50-plus bands into two days, knows we’re short…
Stacey Earle and Mark Stuart
Stacey Earle is Steve Earle’s younger sister; she has toured with him and performed on his albums, but her career is on an entirely different arc. Steve is dark, dangerous, and slightly crazed; Stacey is bright, friendly, and almost giddy. This is especially evident on Never Gonna Let You Go, her second album with husband-songwriting…
This Week’s Day-By-Day Picks
Thursday, June 12 Case Western Reserve’s Thursdays in the Park has all the elements in place, from a right-before-the-weekend day and a sweet location to lots of good music and plenty of vendors selling food and drinks. The entertainment lineup jumps genres freely, so over the next few weeks there will be something here for…
Bad Rap
In “The Driveby,” one of several side-splitting skits on storied hip-hop producer Prince Paul’s clever new concept album Politics of the Business, Paul finds himself confronted on the street by a hyper, exasperated fan. “I did the worm, man. I used to break-dance, man. I fuckin’ popped, locked, and rocked, man. What I got to…
Lords of the Highway/The Capgun Cowboys
When it comes to rockabilly, the only thing bigger than the hair is the hyperbole. And so it comes as no surprise that the cover of the latest album from the Lords of the Highway boasts of “3 deadly sinners and an obscene display of rock-n-roll abandon,” while the very title of the Capgun Cowboys’…
Collect ‘Em All
Frank Derrig’s on a rock and roll trip, and he’s sending back postcards from his journey. Derrig is the brains behind Rock-n-Roll With a Twist, a series of 12 colorfully illustrated postcards that recount bizarre and funny moments in Cleveland rock history. The cards are available free in music clubs and dozens of other venues…
Sourpuss
Evan Dando may be on the wagon, but he’s still off his nut. This information isn’t intended to malign the ex-Lemonheads frontman, but rather to assuage any suspicions held by fans of his old band that kicking his many habits has killed Dando’s creative buzz. Everyone likes their rock stars a little crazy, right? Not…
Asphalt Jumble
SAT 6/14 The Clifton Arts & Musicfest marks the one day of the year when Clifton Boulevard isn’t a leadfoot’s drag strip. Since 1986, the heavily traveled street has been shut down for the the daylong fest, which draws upwards of 40,000 spectators, who browse and shop for original paintings, ceramics, and textiles from 125…
All Keyed Up
Patrick Carney eats his dinner standing up. Munching asparagus backstage at Columbus’s PromoWest Pavilion, the Black Keys drummer has no time to sit down. His is the harried, sleep-deprived look of a soldier in the thick of combat. Just a day ago, Carney was in Atlanta, laying down tracks for a new EP well into…
Balls and Aeros
6/13 – 6/15 The Akron Aeros’ Canal Park ranks among the best in the minors. Akron also is blessedly unencumbered by political correctness: There’s no batboy; there’s a “batman,” who entertains the crowd by frantically twirling a bat between his legs and dancing between innings. Here’s what to know: Design quirk: The park’s designers had…
The Wailers
Originally, the Wailers were an early ’60s vocal trio from Jamaica’s ska days. Led by the teenage Bob Marley, the singers befriended current bassist Aston “Familyman” Barrett in 1967, when the threesome began recording for groundbreaking lunatic producer Lee “Scratch” Perry. Familyman and his younger brother, Carley, then made up the notoriously funky rhythm section…
Budding Artists
6/12 – 6/20 Teen art has come a long way from portraits of Stevie Nicks and landscapes of unicorn-populated fields. Lakewood Middle School Art Exhibit features an array of colorful abstracts, mobiles, and pop art. Four teachers from two Lakewood middle schools — Emerson and Harding — recruited their students for the exhibition, which features…
Had a Blast
“Did I miss anything?” Rocket From the Tombs bassist Craig Bell asked the Beachland crowd, early in the band’s reunion show last week. As Bell took the mic, it seemed as if no one in the band had missed a thing, though it’s been nearly 30 years since they’ve performed together in their hometown. One…
Father’s Daze
SUN 6/15 From Model T’s to T-Birds, more than 350 vintage vehicles turn the lawn of Stan Hywet into an eye-popping parking lot at the 46th annual Antique Classic & Collector Car Show. The theme this year, One Hundred Years of the Ford, commemorates the car company that originated mass production of the automobile. Among…
The Fleshtones
So much for the garage-revival-revival. Or maybe we need more hyphens, considering that, before the White Stripes, the Makers debuted in ’94, Billy Childish came on the scene in the late ’80s, and N.Y.C.’s Fleshtones formed — along with the earth’s crust — way back in 1976. After all these revolutions of the pop-culture wheel,…
Shoes Optional
MON 6/16 Bill Morris and his band like to brag about the wave of young people catching on to the music of their parents. The frontman for Eddie & the Edsels teams up with his two brothers and fiancée for a ’50s-style sock hop every Monday night at the Savannah Bar & Grille, where multigenerational…
Melissa Ferrick
Boston-based songwriter Melissa Ferrick showcased her skills at this year’s Folk Alliance Conference in Nashville, but folk is only one way to describe what she does. Ferrick appeared in “Women in Rock” features in the early ’90s, alongside Melissa Etheridge and Liz Phair. She had a couple of great records (Massive Blur and Willing to…
Hollywood Babble-On
Having seemingly exhausted all permutations of the sports-comedy formula (Bull Durham, White Men Can’t Jump, et al.), Ron Shelton has now moved on to another obsession: the Los Angeles Police Department. Earlier this year, we got the uncharacteristically somber Dark Blue, a “what if” tale of the alternately corrupt and beleaguered force, circa 1992. It…
Überzone
Some say that Timothy Wiles is a scholar/ practitioner of hip-hop from California. Others say that he built his own time machine. Both statements are true. Wiles’s second full-length as Überzone, 2001’s Faith in the Future, is omnivorous hip-pop — scratchy, samply, burbling with electronics, embracing all sounds funky from the past 20 years or…
Brain Freeze
There is a new movie out. It is called Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd. It is a prequel to the 1994 movie by Peter and Bobby Farrelly called Dumb and Dumber. In that movie, Harry was played by Jeff Daniels. Lloyd was played by Jim Carrey. Parts of it were funny, and people…
Electric Frankenstein
Sal Canzonieri, rhythm guitarist for Electric Frankenstein, is a super-nice guy who has worked his butt off to bring “true rock and roll” to the masses. He is also a serious conspiracy theorist, who truly believes that major labels, corporate media outlets, smarmy indie rock ‘zines, and probably some Sasquatch created in a Masonic hideout…
The Sweet Life
Russ Pry, chairman of the Summit County Democratic Party, doesn’t get a stipend for meals, a lease for his car, or even a salary. Jim Trakas, chairman of the Cuyahoga County Republicans, gets a flat $30,000 a year. Alex Arshinkoff has a much better deal. According to the Summit County GOP’s finance reports, Arshinkoff earns…
A Horrible Mind
Director David Cronenberg has led his loyal fans down some pretty spooky corridors, including the telepathic netherworld of Scanners, the violent sibling rivalry of twin gynecologists in love with the same woman (Dead Ringers), and the drug-haunted imagination of William S. Burroughs (Naked Lunch). So it comes as no surprise that, with Spider, he now…
Greenskeepers
It wasn’t until he was knocked unconscious on a skateboarding trip to San Francisco that James Curd relinquished his hopes of becoming a pro ‘boarder, but maybe that was for the best. After that, the Chicagoan turned his focus to DJing. By the time he was 20, Curd was spinning alongside such Windy City heavies…
The Godfather In the Closet
It was past 2 a.m. when the kid left the bar and headed for home. Back from college for Christmas, he’d met up with his high school buddies at Annabell’s, a neighborhood watering hole in Akron. Frustrated for reasons that no longer seem important, the 21-year-old Kent State student had been too annoyed to wait…
Child’s Play
The fourth-grade playwright, sitting grammar-school upright in the front row, squirmed in delight as, onstage, Mom explained to her son Jake that there was nothing to eat for breakfast. The girl bounced delightedly in her seat, as she heard her words gushing out in a guttural German accent from Jake’s sadistic schoolteacher. And when the…
Mogwai
Don’t be fooled by the cheery album title — the cheeky Scots in Mogwai are being snarky by saddling their fourth record with a mirthful name. In fact, if the world were to end tomorrow, the nuclear wasteland instrumentals on Happy Music would be the ideal soundtrack for the apocalypse. Vaporous synths, cinema-worthy strings, and…
Bad Medicine
According to a budget leaked to The New York Times, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America — the industry’s trade association — plans to spend $15.8 million to fight “a union-driven, get-out-the-vote ballot initiative in Ohio” that seeks to cut drug prices by up to 50 percent for the 2.2 million Ohioans without prescription…
Orange Julius
It’s almost summer, it’s warm outside, and we’re all broke. This is clearly the time to yank a lawn chair off the front porch some evening and go see free outdoor theater featuring conniving malcontents, political intrigue, and multiple murders. Happily, this is all made possible by the Cleveland Shakespeare Festival and its production of…
The Rollins Band
Henry Rollins, Black Flag’s fourth and final singer, steadfastly refused to revisit his former band’s classic punk material until three extremely controversial murder convictions convinced him to reconsider. Last year, he adopted the cause of the West Memphis Three, the Arkansas teenagers found guilty of three gruesome deaths, largely on the evidence that their status…
