Up in Smoke
It might as well be an episode out of his new film: Over coffee and cigarettes, one man talks about his fascination with fungi, while another nods, listens, and offers the occasional and obligatory Uh-hunh, wow, hmm, that’s crazy, man. “I’m really into fungi — not just edible ones, but just the whole idea of…
Juliana Hatfield
Juliana Hatfield seemingly has everything going for her. She has an interesting girly voice and a cooler-than-thou attitude, and she carries plenty of indie cred, courtesy of her stint in the on-again/off-again Blake Babies. Still, on every one of her solo albums, she’s managed to disappoint. Her latest, In Exile Deo, is no exception. At…
A Good Buzz
The first time through, you might dismiss Coffee and Cigarettes as a filmmaker’s recess, playtime before the serious business of making a real feature. Jim Jarmusch never intended this new movie, a collection of 11 shorts made over the last two decades, to be a movie at all. It began as a one-shot in 1986,…
Secret Machines
Trend-watching in rock is a lot like watching Wimbledon: Microfashions whip back and forth just fast enough to observe, and for the past six years or so, the championship match has been played between pop and sprawl. After a few seasons of dart-sharp post-punk taking prog in straight sets, the tide may have turned; Secret…
Fitting the Bill
So let’s get this straight: You’re a much-loved comedian who just did a low-budget, multi-award-winning film with an acclaimed up-and-coming director. In recent years, thanks in part to your work with the younger, edgier filmmaking set, you’re starting to be taken seriously as an actor. You even managed to score an Oscar nomination, something few…
Burning Spear
Burning Spear has never taken credit for inventing roots-reggae music. Yet today he’s considered the archetype for that subgenre, which saw its heyday in the mid- to late ’70s. In fact, it was Burning Spear, along with Bob Marley’s Wailers, who received reggae’s first commercial push in the U.S. Marley became the spokesperson of the…
Frogs Gone Loco
It’s a sign that a nation may be losing its collective mind when it grants a nutty hack like Quentin Tarantino an exalted title like Officer of Arts and Letters, but there’s France for ya. Whether Gallic pop culture is rousingly progressive or embarrassingly adolescent is anyone’s call, but few other countries, regardless of their…
No Doubt/Blink-182
Few people could have predicted that the gawky ska fiends in No Doubt would have transcended their skanking roots and emerged as polished magazine pinups, carrying the torch of such fellow SoCal new-wave faves as Oingo Boingo and the Go-Go’s. Yet the ultramagnetic sheen of Gwen Stefani’s pouting vocals and art-school-nerd-next-door persona, coupled with her…
Weirdest Movie in the World
Ah, the peculiar genius that is Guy Maddin. Who else but the morose Canadian director, born and raised in one of the coldest cities in the world, would marry silent film, 1930s movie musicals, Prohibition, family melodrama, critique of capitalist zeal, and monster-movie gore in a surreal montage about sorrow that is, at times, hilarious?…
The Wildhearts
With their 1993 debut, Earth vs. the Wildhearts, this English crew became big-selling, hotel-trashing bad boys, getting kicked off tours, breaking up and getting back together, and generally being the kind of paparazzi targets the English press salivates over as the rest of the world yawns. While sustaining that following in the U.K., they’ve only…
Art Attacked
John Matthews graduates from a Cleveland public high school this week, packing a loaded résumé and an almost full ride to a pricey art school. As a photography “major” at the Cleveland School of the Arts, he shadowed Plain Dealer photogs and won national awards for pictures of downtown’s gritty landscape. He interned at the…
The Passion for Christ
Beware the exclamation point. When found at the end of a title, it almost inevitably signals a level of self-hype rarely justified by the content of whatever it hopes to name. In the case of the movie Saved! — an amusing, if facile comedy about a good Christian girl gone wrong — the emphatic punctuation…
Glenn Tilbrook
Despite his appearing to be the proper Brit (after all, he’s half of the pair that holds the world record for Most Comparisons to Lennon and McCartney), humor — even bathroom humor — is well within the range of former Squeeze frontman Glenn Tilbrook. So perhaps it’s fitting that he’s calling from a Massachusetts roadside…
Pretender to the Throne
Sitting in a City Hall office, dressed impeccably in a black pinstriped suit and a collarless button-down shirt, O. Mays is describing how he, an East Cleveland city councilman, came to be cruising a crime-ridden East Side street in the wee hours of the morning. “I was looking for a particular address,” Mays says, his…
Wilted Blossoms
The unique potency of female bonding has been celebrated for eons, from Lysistrata to Thelma and Louise, and for good reason. When chicks get together and pool their resources, grrrl power can become a formidable force. But even more telling is the everyday occurrence of women sharing the joys and sorrows of their daily lives.…
Devendra Banhart
When Devendra Banhart shows up dressed like Tiny Tim’s Christmas tree with a beat-up guitar case in tow, it might seem like a clichéd acid-folk gag. His boho biography — currently spreading across smarty music mags in an Exxon-Valdez-style ink spill — might seem just as staid: the couch-surfing former art student turned adventuring troubadour…
What They Said
What They Said Stick specifically to the general: The May 19 First Punch item headed “Fingerhut’s Fable” does not accurately reflect the statement regarding the tuition differential at Ohio and out-of-state universities that we made in a press release Scene received. The statement made in the press release, which Senator Fingerhut makes in virtually every…
On Stage
I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change — The promotional material dubs this musical revue “Seinfeld set to music.” But in reality, it’s more like The Bachelor set to a metronome, with predictable book and lyrics by Joe DiPetro and a mechanically repetitive musical score by Jimmy Roberts. Just pick your courtship cliché, and there’s…
The Reverend Horton Heat
The Reverend attempted to retool his rockabilly with big industrial-rock touches on 1998’s Space Heater, and he hopped on the swing trend with 1996’s It’s Martini Time. Neither album broadened his appeal much beyond a rabid cult following that worries more about his next T-shirt design than his next CD. Thus, on his last few…
Strange Brewhaha
When union jobs are on the line, Teamsters launch into action mode. That’s what happened when members of Local 348 in Akron faced termination from an area beer distributor. The local fought back with protest banners in stores and bars, radio ads, and picket lines at Akron events. The rallying cry: Labor jobs are being…
On View
Carmen Ruiz-Davila: Everywhere and Here — Sex is the key to decoding Carmen Ruiz-Davila’s large-scale, theatrical installations. What at first appears cryptic and cartoonish becomes crystal clear with the help of the backstory posted on the wall next to each piece. The flamboyant “Juana la Loca (Juana the Crazy)” features a black-and-white-tiled floor and giant…
Keane
With Coldplay mired in the studio or busy with dirty nappies, courtesy of Chris Martin’s fruitful little bundle of joy, what’s a fan of weepy, piano-heavy Britrock to do in the meantime? Why, listen to the Irish trio Keane, whose debut recently staved off Morrissey to remain the U.K.’s No. 1 album. In addition to…
Wasted Away Again
Early in their marriage, Dan and Pat Kaley were devoted to the music of Dan Fogelberg, Paul Simon, and all the other guitar-strumming troubadours they heard on the radio. Then, six years ago, they became something their teenage daughter never dreamed of: Parrotheads. “It was a logical progression — that Jimmy Buffett just fit in…
Fare Deal
Say what you will about Cleveland’s dining scene, it’s got legs; and just about as fast as one place closes, another one springs up to take its place. Consider Sal & Angelo’s, for instance, the former Hyde Park Group restaurant (at 1825 Coventry Road in Cleveland Heights) that shut its doors at the end of…
George Michael
Patience is George Michael’s best album since the mega-selling Faith made him a superstar in the late 1980s. Alternating uptempo tracks (like “Amazing,” the memorably hooked leadoff single) with more contemplative numbers, it showcases a candid, thoughtful artist who no longer hides from his homosexuality. Eight years since his last album, six years since the…
This Week’s Day-By-Day Picks
Thursday, June 10 Porthouse Theatre kicks off its 2004 season tonight with Godspell, Stephen Schwartz’s 33-year-old musical about peace, love, and understanding. Schwartz — recently nominated for a bunch of Tonys for Wicked — threw together contemporary rock-opera conventions (longhairs get all anxious over the state of the world), biblical imagery (the book of Matthew…
Comfort Station
The intersection of Superior Avenue and East 78th Street is not a happenin’ place. There are no boutiques, no galleries, and not the slightest whiff of incipient hipness. In fact, the only sites that will meet the eyes of urban explorers are an empty lot, a check-cashing joint, the East High School campus, and an…
Johnny Winter
There’s a bittersweet air about the new Johnny Winter album, his first studio effort in eight years. It’s the title. Sad, really, that Winter has to either A) remind us that he’s a fabulous blues guitarist — the first, and perhaps the best, white American player the genre has produced — or B) introduce himself…
Get Down Tonight
Disco may have slipped into a coma for a while, but it never really died. “Clubs flourish even today,” says Harry Wayne Casey, the booty-shaking “KC” of KC & the Sunshine Band. “Go to South Beach. Go to any city in the country. There’s a discotheque and a disco ball. How do you say it…
Spreading the Jams
When word of an MC5 reunion came down earlier this year, a gasp of disbelief rose up from the punk subculture — at least here in America. Europeans go apeshit for these graying get-togethers. Euro radio actually plays classic American punk, so cats like the MC5, Stooges, and Ramones are big-deal stars over there, even…
Brandy
While Aaliyah died tragically young and became an R&B legend, another former teen dream with similarly modest vocal gifts — Brandy — remains on Earth, where her work must still be judged on its own merits. But hip-hop super-producer Timbaland helped Aaliyah emerge on her final album as a woman and an artistic force to…
Message and the Music
6/14-6/19 Their event is rooted in the infamous 1969 incident when the Cuyahoga River caught fire, but Burning River Fest 2004’s organizers have more pressing concerns. “One-fifth of the world’s fresh water is right here in our own backyard,” explains Pat Conway, who maintains that it’s our responsibility to keep it healthy. “This is a…
Huge in Europe
During Dan Curtin’s formative years, he spent a lot of time peering through a telescope. He was living in Cleveland at the time, and whenever the sky opened up, he’d race to a nearby field, focus on an area of night, and wonder what it was like there. This was ideal preparation for an aspiring…
Bel Auburn
Cathedrals, the full-length debut from Ashland’s ambitious indie-rock troupe Bel Auburn, is as ornate and exquisitely crafted as its titular buildings. Consisting of 10 songs and 10 vignettes, the latter of which all contain a pronounced spiritual bent, this is a collection of stained-glass pop and literature that’s unabashedly sweeping in scope. “It’s not the…
On Deck: Polyester
FRI 6/11 It’s not that 1975 was a particularly magical time in Indians history: The Tribe lumbered through its seventh straight losing season en route to a fourth-place finish in the AL East. But by any measure, it was a landmark year for Wahoo fashion, and those deliciously red sans-a-belt unis make a glorious return…
Gray Metal Guns
Any band that can sing a song called “Heavy Metal Breakdown” with a straight face has balls that could double as paperweights. And so it was for Grave Digger, four swarthy Euros with not a sleeve among them, whose set on the opening night of the Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles Six Pack Weekend II…
Blue Lunch
The hep cats of Blue Lunch have always been a diverse outfit, tapping their love of classic R&B and doo-wop in addition to “straight” blues. The band’s celebrating two decades of music with the release of its fourth CD, a collection that comes hard with predictably rock-solid playing and a distinctive stylistic mix. The iron…
Matron of the Arts
SAT 6/12 As the “founding mother” of the Clifton Arts & Musicfest, Carol Johnson swears that you don’t have to go broke buying a nice piece of art. “I figure someone can go home with an original that doesn’t cost them any more than $10 or $15,” she says. As money changes hands between buyers…
Steal These Albums
Hip-hop wasn’t always about Pimp My Ride shenanigans and paint-by-numbers hit singles. Back in the day, some rappers had shit to say about racism, police harassment, and growing up dead broke in the ghetto. This list of our Top 10 Most Radical Hip-Hop Discs Ever includes some of the most incendiary music ever put to…
Young Punks
THU 6/10 Pop-punks the F-Ups hail from Rochester, Minnesota, where “things are really cliquey,” says singer and guitarist Travis Allen. “If you’re not part of something, you better stay away. It’s sort of like school.” That’s something Allen is very familiar with: He and his bandmates only recently graduated from high school. Youth, claims the…
38 Special
The Agora concert club celebrates its 38th anniversary this weekend with a performance that includes legendary Cleveland bands from the Agora’s early years. The Saturday, June 12 show will feature sets by Rainbow Canyon, Joey & the Continentals, Fayrewether, and Wild Horses, in addition to an 18-piece horn ensemble composed of well-known Cleveland musicians. “The…
