Charlie’s Angles
For the Indians fan who regards manager Charlie Manuel as just an amiable hitting coach, if not an ignorant woodsman, a game last season provided a winter’s worth of arguments. On September 28, the Indians trailed Minnesota by one run in the 10th inning. With one out and Kenny Lofton on first base, Manuel tapped…
Noise Gate
“Industrial rock” and “lo-fi” do not marry well as concepts — it takes lotsa cash and lotsa high-tech artillery to grow Nine Inch Nails. So cut the local duo-since-turned-quartet Noise Gate some slack on Figment of My Intoxication, a 10-track DIY affair whipping up atmospheric keyboards, gnarly metal guitars, drum-machine trench warfare, and angst-ridden glam-rock…
The Great Escape
At this moment, Baz Luhrmann, control freak and self-proclaimed ringleader of conspirators “who conspire to something greater than ourselves,” is not in control at all. The cameraman trailing behind him, like a faithful puppy awaiting treats, does not work for the director; rather, he is in the employ of the British Broadcasting Corporation, and he…
He Begs to Differ
Mother Hough’s favorite son tells his side of the story This letter is written in response to Laura Putre’s article about Councilwoman Fannie Lewis [“Hangin’ With Mother Hough,” March 29]. Putre wrote a number of erroneous statements about me, and because of their potential to do damage, I am requesting that these false statements be…
Women in Adversity
We’ve spent so much time ruminating about squabbles in the Middle East, escalating gas prices, and whether Pearl Harbor is as big a bomb as the ones dropped by the Japanese that we’ve had little time to ponder the lives and hard times of those brave women who served in Vietnam. That’s where Shirley Lauro’s…
Going to Seed
These are great times to be a health-conscious gourmet in Cleveland. Even the most militant food nazis among us admit that they don’t have to settle for gummy brown rice, raw carrots, and a handful of kibble when they go out looking for a wholesome restaurant meal. On the other hand, thanks in large part…
Happy Campers
Toasting marshmallows over an open fire . . . basking in the golden glow of dozens of antler-bedecked chandeliers: Yes, it’s the long-awaited Ken Stewart’s Lodge, a top-notch restaurant disguised as a fanciful homage to the rustic life. The Bath dining room (1911 North Cleveland-Massillon Road; 330-666-8881) opened less than three short weeks ago, but…
Industrial Exodus
The industrial rock movement of the late ’80s was, for the most part, a distinctly territorial happening that echoed from the American Midwest, particularly Chicago. Its blue-collar sensibility waged a noisy war between intellect and brute power. The resulting chaos was the sound of a post-adolescent generation that found itself caught between the new technologies…
A Country Carnival
Because it’s so dangerous and requires lots of preparation, the flamethrower is only worth two pops a night. And the mechanical bull may leave you toothless. But when the Brooks & Dunn Neon Circus and Wild West Show leaves town, you’ll know you’ve been countrified. “We’ve always played our guitars a little too loud, but…
A Tired Act
When the owner of the Crypt, an Akron club that’s now defunct, gave over the reins to the Rubber City Rebels some 25 years ago, he had little notion of how much the club would change. Home to numerous disco and cover bands, the Crypt became a place where regional punk acts could hone their…
Flight Schooled
Flying a kite is a childishly simple activity: Get up a full head of steam with the kite trailing behind you, and eventually it will catch a breeze and become airborne. Or you could just stand still and let the wind come to you. “Kids learn the wrong way to fly kites,” explains Harry Gregory,…
The Blake Babies
After becoming what was perhaps the final and definitive college alternative rock band with 1990’s Sunburn, the Blake Babies took their best record and their erudite style and simply quit. In retrospect, it was probably a sensible decision, considering the grunge avalanche that was impending, but the band’s demise seemed to determine the end of…
Winds of Change
In 1971 a traffic accident changed the life of jazz trumpeter R. Carlos Nakai. The wreck damaged his mouth and left him unable to play the instrument at the level he’d worked so hard to attain. But he didn’t call it quits. Instead, the trumpeter of Navajo-Ute heritage looked to his roots and turned the…
Nebula
Let the first half of this decade be remembered as a time when rock’s ability to manufacture nostalgia broke down. The trouble is everywhere these days: on hip-hop albums, where rap artists sample samples to close the gap between last week and 1965, and on That ’70’s Show, where cast members dress as if they’re…
Old Ghosts
When he was in his 30s, Ivan Reitman made comedies like a young man. His early movies, among them Stripes and Meatballs and Ghostbusters, were messy, cocky, charming, daffy, and restless; they did anything for a laugh, even if that meant dousing John Candy in mud or Bill Murray in green ghost-slime. Those films sprinted…
The Pinehurst Kids
Singer-guitarist Joe Davis and his fellow Pinehurst Kids (guitarist Devin Morrow, bassist Caleb Gates, and drummer Rob Duncan) imagine a world in which the Replacements never broke up, but wound up absorbing influences as disparate as the Pixies and Sunny Day Real Estate and Jane’s Addiction. The Idaho quartet, whose hometown provides the Kids with…
Dairy Tale
It’s always dangerous, when describing a film, to label it as “whimsical.” For one thing, it’s often hard to get a bead on what exactly that means. Then, once you get some idea, you realize that it generally means either a) a movie that’s trying to be funny but isn’t, b) a movie filled with…
Deana Carter
Nashville’s Deana Carter burst onto the country music scene in 1996 with her debut album, Did I Shave My Legs for This? While that wasn’t all she wrote, it’s been damn near all we’ve heard from her. Until now. Carter is currently on a 20-city acoustic tour that ends in Cleveland with a show at…
Rich Man With a Cause
Burton Morgan — entrepreneur, author, and big thinker — made his first million around age 50. Though now retired from business, he’s not the retiring sort. He maintains a high profile in well-to-do Hudson, freely doling out criticism of city leaders and generally making a nuisance of himself. He is not just another disgruntled citizen,…
Radiohead
Word was, after last year’s gizmo-heavy and hype-fueled Kid A, that the next Radiohead album would be a return to more melodic mainstream music. But Amnesiac, recorded during the Kid A sessions, is just as fucked-up as its predecessor. And we mean that in a good way. Kid A, released a mere eight months ago,…
Starved for Attention
President Bush blew into town two weeks ago, glad-handing the disenfranchised for a grand total of 13 minutes. That’s hardly enough time for even the bare-minimum baby-kissing and soup-ladling. On the nightly news, he was seen at St. Augustine’s hunger center in Tremont, seated beside a dimpled African American grandmother. On her careworn, crinkled face,…
Rufus Wainwright
The road is often difficult for the sons and daughters of rock’s royalty, as they blaze their own trails and pursue their own audiences in the wake of their famous parents’ legacies. For Rufus Wainwright, the prospects were twice as foreboding, as both parents (folkie Loudon Wainwright III and Canadian chanteuse Kate McGarrigle) could claim…
The Dealer’s Girlfriend
The paramedics arrived first, then police. Inside the house, they found a young woman with disheveled hair and a ring through her lip. Upstairs, a small, thin man lay dead in the bathtub. The woman’s name was Amanda Slagter. Her boyfriend, Kevin Wilson, had taken a couple of pills the night before, she told police…
The Go-Go’s
If it weren’t for Belinda Carlisle and Jane Wiedlin, who knows if the world would’ve been infiltrated by so many all-girl bands. It was over 20 years ago that Carlisle and Wiedlin, the founding members of the Go-Go’s, created a trash-punk, all-girl band of their very own that would rock out and play loud, just…
