Breath of Fresh Air
FRI 6/24 First of all, Aqualung (the pseudonym of British singer-songwriter Matt Hales) has nothing to do with the flute-lovin’ prog-rock band Jethro Tull. “I wasn’t even aware of it,” says Hales, speaking of Tull’s 1971 album, Aqualung. “The band doesn’t have the same profile in the U.K. as it does here.” Stateside listeners should…
Aspiring Rockstars
Cleveland’s American Rockstar has signed a one-album deal with Bandaloop Records, the Columbus-based label with a roster including Akron’s Roger Hoover and the Whiskeyhounds and 13 Faces, the Cleveland metalcore band that has sold more than 5,000 copies for the company. “I was impressed with their latest CD, so we started talking,” says Bandaloop owner…
Cursed
Bewitched may go down as the first movie about a fictional failed actor that creates a real-life failed actor. This hackneyed, hapless, and utterly useless remake of an overrated 1960s sitcom is excruciating to sit through for a dozen reasons. But nothing is more intolerable than the sight of Will Ferrell being hung out to…
Gov’t Mule
No group in the jam-band genre polarizes fans the way Gov’t Mule does. Depending on whom you ask, it’s either the best southern rock band of all time or the living embodiment of everything that’s wrong with pointless noodling. But there’s one thing everyone can agree on: Warren Haynes, the band’s frontman, is one of…
Dance, Dance, Revolution
Forget Mad Hot Ballroom. The real dance documentary hit of the summer is more likely to be Rize. After all, which do you think the kids are going to find more appealing: formal steps that require suits, partners, and schoolteachers; or shaking the booty and slamming into fellow dancers while sporting war paint or clown…
KISS-FM Birthday Bomb
If you want a look at the new face of Latin crossover, Frankie Bautista is your guy. The Tijuana native and former member of the Grammy-nominated Kumbia Kings went solo a couple of years ago with a collection of R&B ballads that sold respectably stateside. But the follow-up, The One, leverages that modest success into…
Car Trouble
Anyone who would insist that movie reviewing is not a real job (‘Sup, Mom?) hasn’t been forced to sit through screenings of Bewitched and Herbie: Fully Loaded in the span of five days — and by forced, I mean either you see both movies, write 800 words about each, or else you don’t collect your…
Bettie Serveert
This Dutch group first piqued American interest back in the early ’90s with its punch-drunk debut, Palomine, and a couple of almost-as-good follow-ups. At the time, shaggy-haired indie-rock guys couldn’t believe their luck: Here was a band that offered the unhinged guitar squall they needed to feel secure and also had a good-looking blond frontwoman,…
Mind Gamey
Matthew Parkhill’s Dot the I is the kind of tricked-up mental exercise that may intrigue the most impressionable film school students and a philosophy major here and there. But anyone who’s gotten through sophomore year without declaring Parkhill the next great thinker of the Western Hemisphere is more likely to find it a pretentious load…
Ohio Deathfest 2005
Prepare for one extended Maalox moment at the Phantasy Theater this weekend, when the Ohio Deathfest returns after a three-year hiatus. It’ll take a strong constitution and an even stronger stomach to make it through Gorgasm’s “Charred Vaginal Effluence” or Goratory’s “Total Eclipse of the Fart,” but for extreme-metal blood fiends, the Deathfest is as…
Cancer in Paradise
Zipping around the shaded streets of Avon Lake, Megan Graff seems more private investigator than stay-at-home mother of two. There is kid-clutter in her dusty Chevy Blazer, but more noticeable are the heaviness of her foot, the urgency in her voice, and the legal pad at her side, scribbled with the names of people fighting…
Smells Like Clean Spirit
For younger viewers, it may be necessary to explain that the new movie Short Cut to Nirvana does not offer pointers on how to obtain a cheap copy of the new CD boxed set by Kurt Cobain’s old grunge-rock band. That, you’ll have to figure out yourself. Doing so may prove more enlightening than watching…
Los Lonely Boys
Just when the Texas blues-rock sound, as exemplified by Stevie Ray Vaughan, felt like a dull old saw, along come three young Mexican Americans to sharpen its teeth. The brothers Garza — Henry (guitar), Jojo (bass), and Ringo (drums, natch) — have been playing since their youth, first backing their father and then stepping out…
The Future Is in Plastic
As Jason Kelley walks out his kitchen door, his wife, Amy, says, “Have fun,” with enough sarcasm to fill a swimming pool. She’s seen this before, her husband heading out to throw fastballs, sinkers, and sliders until his arm goes numb. Amy knew what she was getting into when they met at Bowling Green State…
Simmer, Not Sizzle
Sometimes it takes a stranger to enter your life at an opportune moment to give you a new perspective or bring your values into sharper focus. That’s what happens in The Spitfire Grill, when a female ex-con named Percy decides to trek out to the bump-on-a-rock town of Gilead, Wisconsin, to find a little contentment…
Hate Eternal
Some death-metalers are artists, trying to move the music forward or off in some weird direction — think Gorguts or Meshuggah. Others are craftsmen, attempting to make the best record they can within the established parameters of the genre, while respecting its traditions of speed, heaviness, and technical intricacy. Hate Eternal reigns in the latter…
Family Values . . .
Back in March, after a wrenching day of testimony by victims of priest sex abuse, the Ohio Senate unanimously passed a bill that would allow anyone who was victimized after 1970 the right to sue (“The Sin That Keeps on Giving,” April 27). Current law bars people over age 20 from suing. But apparently Mr.…
Do the ‘Do
In the early 1960s, nearly every teenager would rush home from school to ogle the biggest high school clique of all — the kids known as “the Regulars” on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand. Each afternoon at four, TVs around the country lit up with the images of normal kids from Philadelphia who looked good and…
Dov Davidoff
What do they mean when they say Dov Davidoff, who makes an appearance now and then on Chappelle’s Show, is a New York-style comic? They mean that, when presented with questions about the pros and cons of the late-night lifestyle of a traveling comedian, he gives answers like this: “You can get some decent tail.…
I Want My IRS
The money’s gone and my wife is crying. She waited a year for this $2,800. It was supposed to pay for new living-room furniture to replace the hand-me-downs and garage sale stuff that had been battered to death by time and kids. Now, months after the money was to arrive, the old couch still glares…
On Stage
A Chorus Line — This elegant metaphor for the human journey takes place in a stark theatrical version of a Skinner box — an empty black space with mirrors on the back wall, where rewards and punishments are doled out by the frequently disembodied voice of the choreographer. He’s the reigning deity in this claustrophobic…
Two of a Kind
For a freewheeling musical style, jazz begets the world’s driest writing style when it comes to critics covering the genre. It’s commonplace — nay, expected — to chat up young lions like Two of a Kind trumpeters Donald Malloy (left) and Curtis Taylor by spelling out, at length, whom they studied with, where they ate,…
Jumping to Conclusions
Jumping to Conclusions Bad tone and bad taste: I was disturbed by the tone of your article [“Suicide Bridge,” June 8]. You sensationalized the grisly aspects of these persons’ deaths, showing disrespect for the deceased and their families. The point of the story was not apparent, aside from renewing their families’ agony. Reporting the number…
On View
NEW Affected — “Loss” might make an even better title for these installations by Jamie Davis, a University of Massachusetts art student, since three of the four pieces convey with telling directness the impact that chemotherapy can have on the body. The impression they leave is wide and mostly gender-neutral, if a touch maudlin. There…
Annie
Liz Phair releases a pop record with lyrics as forthright as any she’s ever written and music that defines teen pop at its most rocking and irresistible, and the critics squeal in horror, like little sexist pigs to the slaughter. This Norwegian lightweight plays Abba redux for the electroclash age, and they squeal with delight,…
First Lady of Latex
Betsey Kaufman’s nickname came from an unlikely place. As the head of Mansfield’s Planned Parenthood chapter in the mid-’80s, she was told that she was the only executive in Richland County who imported anything from Taiwan. Her frequent purchase: all the condoms she and her staff passed out to clients. “So the Taiwanese fellas named…
Ground Beef
MapQuest is garbage. We’re not even sure that this is the right road, and there’s no visible house number, only a steep driveway in the spot where the number (and building) should be. Down the driveway, the front door to the house is open, but it’s a warm day, and folks don’t need to be…
Bruce Dickinson
In a distant hamlet where the sun rarely shines, a cruel, infernal beast has driven the villagers into their straw shacks for fear of their lives. They rarely venture out, for the creature can swoop down and make a meal of them at any time, as easily as if they were helpless lambs. Only one…
This Week’s Day-By-Day Picks
Thursday, June 23 The title of Massillon Museum’s summer exhibition, Breaking With Tradition: Ohio Women Painters, 1870-1950, pretty much says it all. Still, it doesn’t reveal the scope of the 65-plus paintings by 15 artists. While most of the works are done in watercolors and oils, the subjects — self-portraits, docked boats, and country homes…
Money Players
Livin’ large is the way to go — particularly when it’s done on The Company’s dime. Those are the times we can be up to our jowls in foie gras, filets, and roasted figs with mascarpone, and give nary a thought to the lonely wails of the dead presidents hiding in the shadows of our…
The Dirtbombs
Mick Collins hails from Detroit, but lives in a parallel universe — one in which a vinyl-collecting goofball can actually make records that are as fun, ripping, and powerful as those of his jukebox heroes. This stuffed collection of singles is the document that proves it. Disc one is all originals, spanning power-pop, Euro-punk, and…
Crash Course
The back turn at last year’s Champ Car Grand Prix of Cleveland kept throwing A.J. Allmendinger for a curve. Every time the 23-year-old rookie approached the bend, he’d slow down to keep his No. 10 ride right side up. On the one lap he didn’t, he spun out and drifted from third place to near…
The Black Godfather
“Andre Williams makes Little Richard look like Pat Boone.” — Lux Interior,of the Cramps “Andre Williams? If he’s still around, he’s probably doing time.” — Keith Richards Nobody in the last 50 years has worn more hats — pimped-out Stetsons all — than Andre Williams, aka the Black Godfather, Mr. Rhythm, and the Father of…
The Boredoms
During five years of relative post-millennial silence, the Boredoms changed their name to Vooredoms, swapped their guitarist and bassist for two more drummers, and attached themselves to sunny psychedelia like a rabid Rottweiler. Celebrating their 18th year of experimental surrealism, lead Bore Yamataka Eye presents a pair of unedited, trance-inducing marathon jams that clock in…
Auto Focus
6/23-6/26 General Motors doesn’t mind if you look at the competition. At Auto Show in Motion, the carmaker even hands out keys, the better to compare its 2006 models with those of its rivals. On several courses (including one on gravel), prospective buyers can measure the latest Saabs, Saturns, and Buicks against competing models by…
Take Me Out . . .
You need look no further than a John Hughes movie (or your own adolescence) to realize that jocks and rockers don’t really mix. But occasionally the seemingly disparate paths of pro athletes and musicians do cross, from jocks trying to be rockers (Jack McDowell, Scott Radinsky) to rockers honoring jocks (Yo La Tengo, Koufax). But…
Stereolab
With nine proper albums and countless EPs, singles, tour-only seven-inches, and compilations, Stereolab has long been a collector’s wet dream. (Mon dieu! Check out the gatefold edition of Emperor Tomato Ketchup with the gold-sparkle vinyl!) Casual fans, however, have been left with an incomplete picture of the band’s oft-changing style. While Elektra Records has diligently…
Just Passing Through
THU 6/23 Think of the Cleveland Disc Association’s Ultimate league as football without the bone-crunching tackles. “It’s technically a no-contact sport,” says co-commissioner Rima Viliamas. The summer league meets weekly and is made up of 20 coed teams, each consisting of 15 to 20 players. During games, seven players from each side try to move…
Greatest Rock Cover-ups
Ultimately leading to thousands of failed drug tests over the following three decades, the release of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon was as much a watershed moment for stoners as the advent of pizza delivery. And now it’s become even more reefer-friendly, thanks to the Easy Star All-Stars and their reggae take on…
Whiskey Daredevils
Greatest Hits is actually the Whiskey Daredevils’ debut, though the band’s lineup has long been a fixture in Cleveland. Most members of the group were in the Cowslingers, before guitarist Bobby Latina dropped out and formed the Jack Fords. He was replaced in the newly rechristened lineup by former Hayshaker Jones six-string slinger Dave Bowling…
Singled Out
THU 6/23 Hillary Kanter says there’s one reason why, as her book declares, Dating Sucks! “It’s the Weak Selection Theory,” says the fortysomething Nashville-based author and songwriter (whose songs have been covered by Tim McGraw, Kenny Rogers, and Dolly Parton). “There are very, very, very, very few good available men, because all of the good…
Candye Kane
Shame being one of the blues’ essential hangups, you’d think an omnisexual, sex-positive feminist wouldn’t do much for the genre. But on White Trash Girl, Candye Kane’s seventh album, the former stripper and X-rated actress finally liberates the old 12-bar prude. While half the album consists of smartly selected covers — including Leiber and Stoller’s…
Bazooka Proof
“I need to knock me down some doors,” Bazooka Proof frontman Czech D announces on The Lavaroom Recordings. We second that, as this is one of the area’s more overlooked bands. With D singing in a forceful croon, Bazooka Proof sweats out harmony-laden hard rock with gang vocal choruses and guitars crunchier than broken glass.…
