Toy story
Nick Park speaks so softly that the tape recorder barely registers him at all. His is a whisper of a voice, the sound of a man who has spent years in isolation talking to no one but himself. Transcribing an interview with him is like trying to decipher a man’s private thoughts. Perhaps that is…
Her Own Woman
Lee Krasner lived long enough to see her stock rise substantially in the art world. By the time she was 70, her position as one of America’s major post-World War II artists was secure. It wasn’t always so, and this had less to do with the quality of her work than with what she represented.…
Ball, Bats, and Beelzebub
The greatest joy of Cain Park’s Damn Yankees is the way it puts community spirit back into community theater. By evening’s end, audiences are beaming as if they just won a free pizza after a rousing round of putt-putt. The production is overflowing with burgeoning young talent, as if the director wanted to make every…
Call of the Wild
Even a 90-minute wait wasn’t enough to discourage the hungry horde of diners at Chagrin Falls’s new Timberfire restaurant on a recent Saturday evening. Rather than setting out to find some faster victuals elsewhere, members of the friendly crowd — mostly family groups dressed in their Land’s End catalog casual best (think cashmere crewnecks and…
Side Dish
A Restaurateur Goes by the Book Cleveland entrepreneur Dennis Althar is looking for one good chef to take over the recently renovated, circa-1904 Carnegie Library on East 55th and Broadway. Althar, who lives and works within a short stroll of the 10-sided brick and stone building, has spent several years and wheelbarrows full of money…
Raising the Dead
History is full of ghosts. This weekend, Ohio Chautauqua 2000 in Peninsula will attempt to show — through historical interpreters, music, workshops, and hikes — that some ghosts appear in haunted places, while others just fill the pages of history books. “[The Chautauqua] brings history back to life,” says Hank Fincken, who is leading this…
Prague Rock
In the midst of his sixth tour of the United States, Uz Jsme Doma singer-guitarist Miroslav (Mirek) Wanek says he has finally realized why the Prague band, which has visited the U.S. to tour at least once a year since 1995, makes such a deliberate effort to drive a rental van from one seedy bar…
Blow by Blow
The glass-blower as tradesman all but disappeared in the 19th century. Today the craft is preserved mostly in the hands of esoteric artists with private studios. “Glory holes,” through which artisans pull molten glass from a furnace, are few and far between. “Glass-blowing is an unusual art form — not that many people do it,”…
Imploding Sales
Lou Barlow is the Charlie Brown of indie rock. Like the bald-headed little kid with no kite-flying, football-kicking, or baseball-game-winning fortune, but loads of determination, Barlow applies himself 100 percent to any number of projects at once. The onetime Dinosaur Jr. member leads two bands, the touring behemoth Sebadoh and the studio-oriented Folk Implosion. And…
Coop D’état
About nine years ago, in a humble Redondo Beach nightclub, urbane British folk singer Billy Bragg reappraised 20th-century politics — as is often his Socialist wont — by means of an intriguing correlation. Might it be, he postulated, that contemporaries Leon Trotsky and Harlan Sanders were not merely striking doppelgängers but, in fact, the same…
B.B. King/Eric Clapton
Riding With the King is a loose and limber jam session that sounds as though it could have been concocted in either B.B. King or Eric Clapton’s basement over a long weekend. With none of the high gloss or loungy veneer that has marred both great guitarists’ work from time to time, Clapton and King…
Good Cop, Bad Cop
In the new Jim Carrey farce Me, Myself & Irene, the rubber-faced comedian plays a meek Rhode Island state trooper named Charlie, whose aggressions are so pent-up that they finally have to break out in the form of a second personality called “Hank.” Where Charlie silently endures potty-mouthed curses from little girls skipping rope, Hank…
Nina Gordon
Visions of Heart, right around the time Ann Wilson was putting on the pounds, go through one’s mind while listening to former Veruca Salt co-founder Nina Gordon’s debut album Tonight and the Rest of My Life. Yet these dreams aren’t rock and roll ones; they’re slow-chewing pop nuggets with ready-made radio hooks and plenty of…
By His Own Creed
Holy moly! Yet another version of Hamlet? Will they never stop? Ah well, at least Michael Almereyda’s new adaptation is one of those really different takes on the venerable play. While the last two widely seen versions — the 1990 Mel Gibson/Franco Zeffirelli film and the four-hour-plus 1996 Kenneth Branagh/Kenneth Branagh version — were relatively…
Andrew Hill
Pianist/composer Andrew Hill, who cut his first album in 1965 and came to the fore in the mid-’60s with a series of Blue Note albums, on which the likes of Eric Dolphy, John Gilmore, Kenny Dorham, and Joe Henderson appeared, is still going strong and evolving. Hill’s writing and playing draws from Duke Ellington, Thelonious…
Demi’s Monde
“Industrial-strength boredom” is a vicious term to unload on anybody — friend, foe, or former actress. Considering the lingering discomfort it inspires, one must beware of its impact, even around a seemingly invulnerable producer returning to the screen to melt our hearts in yet another variation on the emotional doppelgänger narrative à la Sliding Double…
The Nightwalkers
At one point or another, almost everyone covers a blues song. It’s a rite of passage that even the Stones and Zeppelin passed through. But playing original music is just as important as covering the classics, and the Nightwalkers, who have been working on the local blues circle since 1996, haven’t figured that out yet.…
Food Fight
Every spring, Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jane Campbell throws herself a birthday party that doubles as a political fund-raiser. Never too fancy, the affairs typically are held at a local restaurant or bar, decorated with a few signs and balloons. Guests trade political contributions for warm pasta, finger sandwiches, and the chance to schmooze a commissioner.…
Nash Kato
Nearly a decade and a half ago, Chicago’s Urge Overkill followed suit and then broke rank with the prevailing alternative attitude by blatantly pursuing stardom. Leaving behind the busy noise pop that was the fashion at Touch and Go Records in order to give homage to ballsy ’70s rock, Urge Overkill had the necessary components,…
A Mother and Child Reunion
By the time he was nine years old, he was terrorizing his own family. He’d call his mother a bitch or threaten her with a butcher knife. His six-year-old sister soaked up punches and bites, taunts and threats. He once stomped her face as she lay on the floor watching television. At school, he assaulted…
Soundbites
While it’s not technically a rave, Dono: The Roots of Rhythm, a show that will pair filmmakers with DJs and dancers, appears as if it will be just as entertaining as an all-night DJ show. The event, which will take place on June 23 at the Cleveland Public Theatre (6415 Detroit Avenue), will feature an…
Toupee or Not Toupee
Underage porn star Traci Lords and loud old guy Jimmy the Greek hailed from there, too. But Steubenville, Ohio’s real hometown hero is crooner Dean Martin. Every year, the city rolls out the red linoleum for the Dean Martin Festival, a one-day tribute to the professional singer-in-the-shower. On June 16, dedicated fans from as far…
Sergio Vega
The Ray Martin Sessions, Sergio Vega’s five-song, 15-minute solo EP, bears little resemblance to his previous projects. Vega was a part of the New York hardcore scene with the band Absolution until hooking up with guitarist Walter Schriefels to form the brutally succinct Quicksand in 1990. The well-received quartet lasted for five years, a couple…
Edge
Thank ODOT for another scourge on the landscape: Blubber-butts. For a long time now, we Clevelanders have blamed our weather, our beer, and our ethnic eatin’ for our gelatinous physiques. But a new study shows that our own streets may be responsible for packing the ugly pounds onto our sturdy midwestern frames. According to the…
Steely Dan
Steely Dan (guitarist Walter Becker and singer-keyboardist Donald Fagen) should have the kinks worked out by the time they hit Blossom on June 28. The two are working the first Dan album in 20 years and are likely to be as polished onstage as on record. Two Against Nature, their new disc, is as suave…
Letters to the Editor
Forbes’s Fleeting Memory?Jacqueline Marino’s article [“Dealer’s Choice,” June 15] was one of the best, most objective and fair appraisals of what George Forbes represents in the Cleveland community that I have ever read. And yes! George is still one of the biggest liars I ever met, when he told Scene that he doesn’t recall ever…
Mojo Nixon & the Toadliquors, with Lords of the Highway
An old political button adorned with that notorious other Nixon’s mug once read: “Nixon — Now more than ever.” It only stands to reason that, in a presidential election year, which also happens to mark a millennium (the new one for some, the end of one for purists) and brings us a new Don Henley…
