Dr. Doom
In the pitch-black comedy The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, a 62-year-old man spends an entire night being shuttled from one Romanian hospital to another. After experiencing stomach and head pains — exacerbated by all the alcohol he consumes — the titular character calls for an ambulance. Hours later, it finally arrives, but not before he…
Monday, Monday
The Pee Wee precedent: I feel I should speak in defense of Carl Monday [First Punch, June 7]. Mike Cooper did not have to do the interview. He was stupid enough to do it after Carl Monday caught him. Let’s face it: Mike Cooper is a disgusting pervert! There were children within feet of him!…
Wayne Hancock
Wayne Hancock is a man out of time. Had he been born 40 years earlier, he might have been Central Casting’s replacement for the great Hank Williams when he met his maker in 1953. Hancock, with his twangy lonesome croon and his old-school honky-tonk ways, conjures Williams’ ghost better than Hank’s own kin can. But…
High Marks
Classics, Ohio’s only restaurant to earn a Five-Diamond rating from AAA, recently launched its first new menu since chef de cuisine Guillaume Brard departed last winter. As soon as I could track down a man with an appetite and a decent suit, I was on the phone making reservations. I couldn’t wait to see what…
Mile-High Club
Stewardesses finally get some respect in Air Hostess — Honoring Flight Attendants Past & Present, now on view at the International Women’s Air & Space Museum. The exhibit takes a look at the gals who, for the past 75 years, have made air travel a little more pleasant by handing out small bags of pretzels,…
Second Punch: Boehner’s Luck
House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-We Can’t Believe You Made a Guy from Ohio Your Leader) rose to power in the wake of Tom DeLay’s indictment for myriad crimes involving lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his Indian casino clients. Yet Boehner’s most recent financial disclosure form raises questions about his own relationship with tribal casinos. According…
Roger McGuinn
Although a contemporary and friend of Dylan and the Stones, Roger McGuinn doesn’t have their stature, despite being almost as influential. His chiming 12-string Rickenbacker is indelibly imprinted upon rock’s psyche, influencing an array of artists, including Big Star, Tom Petty, R.E.M., the Smiths, and the Wedding Present. His band, the Byrds, created folk-rock and…
Pause & Effect
Click may be the first Adam Sandler movie in which the high concept isn’t dependent upon the star. Sandler comedies tend to take his standard character — the petulant man-child with anger-management issues — and place him in different wacky situations: elementary school (Billy Madison), the golf course (Happy Gilmore), the ’80s (The Wedding Singer),…
Mad Love
Love of Everything mastermind Bobby Burg writes songs that aren’t quite what they seem. They have titles like “Too Much Happy Wet Hair” and “Horses Are Brave,” which sound as if they might be cheery kids’ tunes. He even plays spare, sing-song melodies on toy pianos. But his new CD, Superior Mold and Die, is…
Readers go ballistic over our totally special Tom Meyer investigation!
Shame on you! Anyone with half a brain can conclude that this entire story is fictional, and you don’t have a single piece of legit evidence to support your claims! I have a white door, and my best friend is black! Being of Mr. Meyer’s status, he probably values his family’s privacy, and chooses to…
Rhett Miller & the Believers
Paul Westerberg is often held up as the gold standard of indie songwriting for the smart, rebellious melancholia he wedded to the Replacements’ ragged rock, but a far better exemplar is Old 97s frontman Rhett Miller. But in spite of the canny wit of his Delillo-inspired “World Inside the World” and the literate, rumbling rave-up…
Deep Doo-doo
About three-quarters of the way through Waist Deep, the hero of the piece — an indestructible ex-convict who calls himself O2 (2 Fast 2 Furious star Tyrese Gibson) — peers out through the swirling smoke and the bloody mayhem of an urban killing ground and experiences a revelation. “Somethin’ ain’t right,” he observes. It’s just…
Wastin’ Away Again
Parrotheads will flock to Slim & Chubby’s tonight for Islands, Beaches, Boats, and Buffett, a tribute to the Margaritaville man himself. You can count Danny Kiley of Brunswick Hills among the faithful planning to waste away to Jimmy Buffett songs played by the Happy Mon Band. “It’s Parrotheads getting together to enjoy the music,” he…
We read America’s worst columnist so you don’t have to.
The great master discovers that ‘young people’ like the internet! Headline: ‘Citizen journalists’ in media’s future? By Sam Fulwood III Date: June 15, 2006 Topic: It’s a time-honored columnist’s trick: Whenever you don’t want to write, simply run a series of letters you’ve received in response to a previous “effort.” (It’s called recycling, people. Remember,…
The Boredoms
If Japan’s Boredoms were photographers, Polaroids would be the foremost medium of this psychedelic/Krautrock-informed noise-core collective. Those lo-fi squares allow for highly tactile manipulation, and the smudging of a Polaroid emulsion is akin to the way the Boredoms can “jam” chimerically. Some Boredoms’ meanderings suggest what happens when you’ve left a camera’s aperture open way…
In the Face of Evil
We all want to believe that in even the most dangerous or frightening of situations, we would have the courage to stand up for our convictions — that we would not name names, that we would not betray our friends or our ideals. Thank God, most of us will never have the chance to find…
Kid Lit
When the 28th annual outing of the Marilyn Bianchi Kids’ Playwriting Festival hits Cain Park this weekend, there’ll be a 20-minute intermission before the plays of the high school winners are performed. That’s so parents can remove the little ones, who just sat through performances of winning entries by elementary and junior high students. You…
Future Industry
Industrial music emerged in the mid-’70s thanks to Industrial Records’ Genesis P-Orridge and his band, Throbbing Gristle, who marketed gratuitous amounts of confrontation in an attempt to keep the movement from being co-opted, almost inevitably commercializing the anti-commercial (much as punk did). Over the past 30 years, industrial and its cousin, goth, have crossbred into…
Popa Chubby
Blues has always been a regional affair. The Beale Street scene in Memphis was home base for B.B. King. The bad-ass bars of Chicago’s South and West sides spawned their own potent and influential varieties. The rule continues in the melting pot of New York City, where a singer-guitarist with the birth name of Ted…
Palfrey Sum
It seldom fails. Every year, just in time for the Oscar deadline, we get a movie that doesn’t necessarily have a remarkable plot or director, but does feature an aging master (or mistress) thespian from the U.K., who one might assume is an automatic shoo-in for an award nomination, ensuring eternal recognition for the movie…
On the Right Track
If there’s one part of the Grand Prix of Cleveland racetrack that Charles Zwolsman dreads this year, it’s the hairpin corner on the first turn. “I remember going out the first time and thinking, Shit, I don’t even see the corner. You think you have so much space. Then it gets so tight in the…
Where There’s a Will
Think of Kiss Me, Kate as a meeting of two brilliant artists born four centuries apart. Written by Cole Porter, a master of 20th-century show tunes, Kate tells the story of a divorced acting couple who stage a production of The Taming of the Shrew. “It’s a classic battle of the sexes,” says Carol Dunne,…
Group Cex
It’s spelled C-E-X, but it’s pronounced sex, as suggested by the title of the group’s new disc, Actual Fucking. Before leader Rjyan (pronounced “Ryan”) Kidwell established Cex as a group activity, it was something he did alone in his bedroom, staring at a computer. At the dawn of the 21st century, as a wiry teenage…
The Parlour Boys
The Parlour Boys would have made a fine marquee act at last week’s CMJ/Rock Hall Music Festival. The Kentucky-based indie-rock band will play Cleveland not once but twice this week, and it’s all for the best — without all the tourists in town, the parking situation will be that much better. Visit MySpace.com/parlourboys music for…
Offshore Bet
Now that summer has arrived, it’s time to settle back and relax with an icy margarita, maybe ruminate on the melting polar caps, and pursue brands of entertainment that will tax not one single overheated brain cell. Thanks go to Porthouse Theatre for a show that’s as light as the lint from a gnat’s navel.…
Bug Juice
Hawk bartender Rock Hopson celebrates Masturbating Mosquito Monday with his tropical-flavored drink tonight. It’s made with Malibu rum, vodka, Midori, pineapple juice, and a splash of ruby-colored grenadine that sinks to the bottom. To him, the dark-green tint of the mix makes the concoction — with its, um, pulsating colors — look like a mosquito…
Hump Day
Three months ago, Hamilton’s owner Marc Hewlett fretted over his gay bar’s dismal turnout on Wednesdays. Then he took up DJ Rob Black’s offer to start Midweek Mayhem, where the jock could spin uptempo house music. “There’s really nothing that goes on too much on Wednesdays,” says Hewlett. “We decided to have a night where…
Airbag
The very notion of an industrial-rock audience in 2006 smacks of those societies that put on Renaissance fairs and Civil War reenactments. Like the middle-aged fools who open their wallets every time the members of Mötley Crüe tool through town with their hands out, Cleveland has a strong contingent of pierced-and-inked rivetheads trying to relive…
Obie Trice
The nine gunshot wounds and subsequent bragging rights at Shady still belong to 50 Cent, but Obie Trice now carries in his skull a bullet (from a violent encounter last New Year’s Eve) and a memory (of his late labelmate Proof). Unlike the larger-than-life 50, Obie sounds genuinely scarred by his experiences: Most of his…
Hot and Bothersome
It’s probably a rule that successful people must be possessed of both arrogance and insecurity. And how those opposing qualities are balanced determines the success of their ventures; suffice it to say that when only one of those qualities is in evidence — say, arrogance without insecurity (e.g., our President) or insecurity without arrogance (e.g.,…
Second to None
Every Second sounds like Britpop meets heavy metal, seasoned with a dash of emo. “It’s the Beatles meet Iron Maiden meets Saves the Day,” says frontman James Mars. “But the overall effect is much deeper and fuller.” The trio of 24-year-olds formed last year, after Mars graduated from Baldwin-Wallace College. Today, the Middleburgh Heights native…
Hello, Yellow Brick Road!
The award-hogging Broadway musical Wicked tells how a pair of childhood friends became the feuding witches of The Wizard of Oz. Stephen Schwartz’s play (based on Gregory Maguire’s novel) looks at the formative years of green-skinned Elphaba, who would become the Wicked Witch of the West, and her more popular sister, Glinda the Good Witch.…
Rock School
Act like a prick, and they’ll respect your independence. Trent Reznor didn’t become successful and then become an asshole. Narcissism and sharp elbows are the means to success, not the by-product. You have to push to get to the front of the line. If you can’t figure that out, there’s a reason you’re in back.…
10% Animal
Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney will break out his dusty six-string for the live debut of 10% Animal, his new project that’s at least 80 percent rock. Says Carney, who plays lead guitar in this group, “It’s noise, but real songs. Pop noise. It’s a noisy indie-rock. I missed playing guitar.” Since the band’s impressive…
Capsule reviews of current area theater presentations.
Grease — When Grease first opened on Broadway in 1972, everyone had a pretty fresh memory of the hoods in their own schools a decade or so earlier, who were incessantly combing their lubed locks and readjusting their upturned collars, when they weren’t filching hubcaps. But the further we get from that era, the more…
Melting pot
What’s a nice emo band like Dropping Daylight doing at today’s patchouli-drenched Feeling Better Than Everfine Festival? “A lot of the guys in my group do that sort of, um, thing,” laughs Cleveland drummer Allen Maier, the Minneapolis band’s latest addition. “It won’t be hard for us to get along.” In a lineup that includes…
Color Us Impressed
Karen St. John-Vincent’s photography is soaked in primary colors. Yellows, blues, and particularly reds dominate the pieces on display in 1300 Gallery’s On the Verge . . . Whether positioning a textured white dress against a crimson background or dropping in on a pool game, St. John-Vincent’s work buzzes with life. On the Tuesdays-Saturdays, 12-4…
Desert Isle Discs
Ultimate Donny is the singer-guitarist for Gil Mantera’s Party Dream. 1. Kraftwerk, Computer World. “Kraftwerk clearly demonstrates their technological and musical wizardry here. I’ve been enjoying having my mind blown by this record from my dad’s collection since I was a kid.” 2. Public Enemy, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back.…
The Hacker
Surprisingly, the electroclash kingpin — of Miss Kittin & the Hacker fame — is only now releasing his second mix album. On it, the Hacker, née Michel Amato, connects the past and present of electro, techno, EBM, and industrial. Unfortunately, the first couple of tracks drag, and by the time “Liaisons Dangereuses” is out of…
Capsule reviews of current area art exhibitions.
NEW On the Flip Side — Cleveland Institute of Art professor Sarah Kabot wields a sharp knife with exceptional precision, yet it’s her quirky perspective that leaves an even deeper impression. These works on — and in some cases of — paper coach viewers to see the physical world as a compromise between positive and…
Car Wars
There’s no denying the thrill of watching cars smash into each other at tonight’s Compact Demolition Derby at Painesville Speedway. “The spectacle of violence lights fans up,” says Jason Bateman, the speedway’s general manager. Drivers supply their own junkers while the speedway provides the rules (yes, drivers must follow guidelines as they turn their rides…
In Da Mix
The belly dancer balances a sword on her head, while thumping rhythms echo behind her. Eyes wander from the dancer to the stylish patrons to the foreign flicks on the wide-screen. Club Roma simmers with energy and an eclectic flavor. Created by promoters Franco Bucci and Avon Ver Duyn, Club Roma, a Euro-styled Sunday-night dance…
Field Mob
If lowest-common-denominator crunk has caused you to write off the ascendant hip-hop South, then you probably missed the first two albums from Georgia’s Field Mob. Defiantly country and consistently inventive, the duo was unafraid to flaunt its down-home roots and vulnerability. Smoke and Shawn Jay are well aware they’ve been unjustly slept on, however, and…
Vampires of Moscow
Night Watch (Fox Searchlight) Every once in a while, Hollywood needs somebody else to steal a genre and totally reimagine it; it keeps old ideas young, like celluloid Botox. Well, Hollywood’s gonna need one big needle to absorb Night Watch, an insane, insanely cool Russian action/horror/sci-fi brew that’s like nothing you’ve seen. Set in modern-day…
Ticket to Ride
Folks can learn what it was like to jump boxcars at today’s free Train Day. The Hobo Trail recreates the lives of homeless migrants during the Depression. Other attractions include model trains, crafts, train rides, and Rare Blend and Third Boxcar, singing about working on the railroad all the live-long day. Sat., June 24, 10…
The week’s best releases from the pop-culture universe.
CD — Sinner: Joan Jett’s best album in years plays with gender (covers of Sweet’s “AC/DC” and the Replacements’ “Androgynous”), leather (“Fetish”), and politics (“Riddles”). In more than 25 years, the proto-riot-grrrl icon hasn’t change a lick, riff, or sneer. Jett’s still the toughest female rocker out there, despite many challengers (including Le Tigre’s Kathleen…
Bonnaroo Bliss
The sun bakes the sprawling, 700-acre farm in Manchester, Tennessee, that Bonnaroo temporarily calls home. Ten childhood friends from Hudson arrive together, despite a map mix-up that sent them to Waffle Houses on two different highways. The seven boys and three girls are all in their early 20s; several attend Ohio State. Three are siblings:…
Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint
After Katrina washed legendary songwriter-producer-pianist Allen Toussaint out of his New Orleans home and into New York, he and Elvis Costello decided to cut a record. Their combined bands — Costello’s Imposters and Toussaint’s horn section and guitarist — laid down 13 tracks last October, fresh from the storm. Toussaint brings out Costello’s funky side…
Shark Bites
Not long ago, videogames were about collecting coins and rescuing the princess. Now you’re more likely to gun her down in a drive-by. Or eat her alive. Welcome to JAWS Unleashed. You’re a pitiless great white, hungry for human flesh. Unfortunately, this absurd and aimless chompfest can’t decide whether the titular shark is a killing…
Separated at Birth
In Kim Edwards’ award-winning novel The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, sorrow, deception, and hope collide over the span of a quarter-century. A woman gives birth to twins in 1964, but after realizing that the girl has Down syndrome, her doctor husband gives the baby to a nurse, telling his wife that the infant died. The nurse…
Our top DVD picks for the week of June 20.
Adventures of Superman: The Complete First Four Seasons (Warner Bros.) The Art of Erotic Dancing (BFS) Austin City Limits 2005 Music Festival (Image) Charlie Chan: Volume One (Fox) The Cult of the Suicide Bomber (The Disinformation Company) Eight Below (Disney) Equinox: The Criterion Collection (Criterion) A Fine Madness (Warner Bros.) A Flea Market Documentary (PBS)…
Cleveland Rocked
Cleveland’s second CMJ/Rock Hall Music Festival was a step in the right direction for an event still in its infancy. The second annual fest kicked off Wednesday with a keynote address (and later a DJ set) by Perry Farrell, former singer of Jane’s Addiction, founder of Lollapalooza, and die-hard proponent of organic-electronic musical hybrids. The…
Black Helicopter
It’s none too surprising that Boston’s Black Helicopter, which evokes several different types of prime ’90s guitar squall, would meet Thurston Moore’s qualifications for release on his Ecstatic Peace label. Thankfully, the band is far from being a Sonic Youth clone; instead, these Green Magnet School alumni evoke more of the muscular, heavy-lidded swirl of…
Here Comes the Sun
Taking its title and premise from the mythical tale about a young man who flew too close to the sun, Convergence-Continuum’s Icarus updates an ancient lesson for modern audiences. In Edwin Sanchez’s play, a woman and her brother, who’s confined to a wheelchair, hang out at an abandoned beach house. The boy’s dream is to…
Thy Neighbor’s Wife
Mark Canfora was horsing around with the kids when he realized his wife was missing. It wasn’t that Mark minded watching the kids, but Dena had disappeared more than 20 minutes before. She said she was going to warm up in the hot-water pool. They were visiting Splash Lagoon, an Erie, Pennsylvania waterpark, on their…
Steven Seagal
Is there no end to this guy’s talent? Steven Seagal — the man, the legend — is coming to Cleveland not to break a few bad guys’ bones, but to break off a few hot blues-guitar licks. The 55-year-old aikido master and action-film superstar is an accomplished blues guitarist who fell in love with the…
The Black Diamonds
The Black Diamonds’ two-song debut demo was so solid that it seemed to set up the Perry quintet for inevitable disappointment — plenty of bands can muster a flash of inspiration. Considering that the bandmates were high school seniors until about 20 minutes ago, was there any way they could keep up that kind of…
Laugh Warriors
Jeff Blanchard relinquishes his title as Cleveland’s funniest comic at tonight’s Ninja Comedy Death Match 2. He’ll also turn in the ceremonial samurai robe he won last year. “Hopefully, he hasn’t stretched it out or gotten wing sauce or other foreign substances on it,” says organizer Joe Hannum. The second annual competition pits 10 contenders…
Viva… Cleveland?
Sometime next Wednesday, around the time that America tunes into Lost, NBA Commissioner David Stern will announce that a young Brazilian no one’s ever heard of is officially rich. You won’t hear about it, unless you happen to be watching ESPN. And you won’t care, unless you happen to root for the team that picks…
Wanda Jackson
In the ’50s, every girl in America wanted to be Elvis Presley’s girl — the line of seniors crying into their handkerchiefs at Graceland proves that — but few got close enough to love him tender; Wanda Jackson was one of the lucky ones. Breaking onto the Decca label while still in high school, she…
Ray Cash
For four magic minutes on his major-label debut, Cleveland rapper Ray Cash transcends hip-hop’s undying territorial disputes. Like much of the disc, “Bumpin’ My Music” sports a familiar Georgia bounce, but the song is an homage to urban stars from various places and times. By giving love to BDP, UGK, and the late Rick James,…
Apollo Landing
Nashville’s Apollo Up! sounds nothing like the shit-kickers and alt-twangers who usually come from Music City. In fact, on its second album, Chariots of Fire, the trio doesn’t even sound like it’s from this side of the Atlantic. On songs like “Walking the Plank” and “Cut Up,” which are every bit as tough as their…
Death by Negligence
When Clarence Fry murdered girlfriend Tamela Hardison last year, the most horrifying thing wasn’t that her 2-year-old and 6-year-old grandchildren witnessed the crime. It was that the murder easily could have been prevented. Before Fry brutally stabbed Hardison on July 31, 2005, he’d appeared before Akron Municipal Court Judge Annalisa Williams three times in less…
Mr. Lif and Cage
A former drug thug and mental patient, Cage realized that he had a knack for turning past aggressions into rap introspection while spending 18 months at Stony Lodge Psychiatric Hospital in New York. His first full-length album, 2002’s Movies for the Blind and its chilling A Clockwork Orange homage “Agent Orange,” cemented the rapper’s rep…
GG Allin & the Murder Junkies
The late G.G. Allin’s limited oeuvre is best appreciated if you watch his unhinged performances. While tracks such as “I’m Going to Rape You” and “Suck My Ass It Smells” amplify Allin’s confrontational aesthetic, the vocals here are mostly a mumbled blur. The music is undistinguished three-chord bash in the vein of Johnny Thunders and…
Word Up
The words come first. That’s been J. Scott Franklin’s policy for writing songs ever since he read Texas poet Ai’s “Conversation,” in which one character sums up his life as a “chain of words that will one day snap.” “That has stayed with me as truth,” says Franklin. “A person’s existence isn’t signified by their…
Hookers & Heart Attacks
With Cleveland among the finalists for the next Republican National Convention, a look ahead at the high adventure awaiting us when 10,000 guys in cowboy hats come to town: Terrorist Scare at Tower City Police cordoned off Tower City for three hours yesterday after reports of a terrorist threat. According to authorities, merchants became alarmed…
The Constantines
The Constantines are one of Canada’s best musical exports, ranking up there with the Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene for sheer energy and invention. Their smoldering working-class rock anthems for the indie set are like a cross between the Clash, Mission of Burma, the Jesus & Mary Chain, and TV on the Radio. Their…
Crooks in the River
‘Twas a dark and stormy night — honestly! — at Piatto Novo, veteran chef Roger Thomas’ new spot overlooking the river in Cuyahoga Falls, yet the view from the windowside table couldn’t have been more spectacular. Javelins of lightning ripped through the black cotton-ball sky above, while the mighty Cuyahoga lashed its stony banks below,…
