Unhappy Meal
An Akron man with AIDS believes Ronald McDonald is waiting for him to die to avoid paying him a $5 million verdict for McDiscrimination. Russell Rich considered himself the golden boy of the Golden Arches. He worked 20 years for the chain, starting at age 13, and won a host of awards for being an…
Tim McGraw and the Dancehall Doctors
Backyard bard Tim McGraw (real name Sam) is getting major airplay from his newest cheesy love tune, “She’s My Kind of Rain.” But don’t hold that against him. He’s married to Faith Hill. Can you blame him for bein’ whupped? Well, maybe — if you remember McGraw in his pre-Faith era. Back then, he was…
Angel in Cleveland
“Angels in America is the American drama about AIDS,” says Earl Pike, executive director of the AIDS Taskforce. “It’s almost mythical in proportion.” The two-part, seven-hour 1980s epic by writer Tony Kushner is hailed by many as the most important play of its era, and has won more awards than we could possibly list. Says…
Invasion Planete
Before electroclash’s moment in the media sun, hardly anyone gave a shit about electro. But four years into a revival that shows no signs of subsiding, the hybrid of techno and hip-hop — with the minimalist palette and a whole universe of emotions in the memory bank of the Roland 808 drum machine — keeps…
This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks
Thursday, March 27 In a galaxy not so far, far away, a franchise is still thriving. The latest Star Wars novel, Troy Denning’s Star Wars: Tatooine Ghost, is set just after the events of Return of the Jedi. Which means Han Solo, wife Princess Leia, Chewbacca, and gay robot C-3PO are all aboard for an…
The Datsuns
The snail’s pace with which the mainstream catches up to trends seems to be afflicting even the trendsetters. It’s still never a surprise to see a U.S. major label dole out millions to a grunge band, or to come across the term “Sweden” on every other page in Rolling Stone. But that bastion of two-steps-ahead,…
Rolling Stoned
Movies have always been rapt with drugs. From Reefer Madness to The Man With the Golden Arm to Requiem for a Dream, the silver screen has found beauty, sadness, and most of all art in the upward and downward spirals of drug addiction. “There are multiple ways of looking at the situation in films,” explains…
Mike Smith
Hearty singer Mike Smith shouted that he was “Glad All Over” and happily collected “Bits and Pieces” as lead singer of the Dave Clark Five, one of the loudest, catchiest, and most polished groups of the first British Invasion. Now the low-profile throat fronts Mike Smith’s Rock Engine, a quintet he assembled three years ago,…
Soft Core
In the hit Armageddon, our planet — big mother, source of life and self — is threatened by Ben Affleck and other calamitous horrors, with the movie commanding attention through fear. The converse now arrives in The Core, wherein the mama herself goes terminally nasty on the inside due to the careless meddling of her…
The Electric Six
Touted by the U.K. press as the newest, nextest, nowest big thing to come out of Detroit Rock City since Jack and Meg White, Electric Six will either own up to its hype or die by the buzz saw. E6 (like so many other faux-fresh outfits out of Motown) has been around for several years,…
Max Factors
Hitler as artist . . . Hitler as artist . . . Damn. So much for the ol’ “summarize plot, tease overpaid actors, pontificate wildly” formula. Reviewing Max — about the wonder years of Der Führer (Noah Taylor) and his eponymous, fictional Jewish benefactor Max Rothman (John Cusack) — looks to be something of a…
Bettie Serveert
Sure, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Just don’t tell that to Bettie Serveert. A decade since their debut, Palomine, the members of Bettie Serveert must be taking compliments with a grimly forced smile. Seriously — what a pisser! You release a record of focused, elegant indie pop, charged with the winsome yet biting…
Head Master
The prospect of a new Chris Rock movie, especially for those who enjoy his stand-up, can be a scary thing. We want to like him. A movie anywhere near as funny as his HBO series and specials would be a wondrous thing to see. But every time we get our hopes up, he goes and…
Vivian Green
Vivian Green has a soft voice, but it’s known to crescendo boisterously. It wouldn’t be surprising to see grown men weeping at the sound of it, or women gritting their teeth with envy. Her songs can wrap around you like a cozy blanket, then wring the inhibitions right out of you. The few who’ve already…
Basic Straining
It’s hard to believe they were originally going to release Basic before bombs started falling over Baghdad. Now, in the shadow of smoke rising from the rubble in Iraq, it’s even more unfathomable that Sony Pictures would unleash this stink bomb on the moviegoing public, which undoubtedly will turn up its nose at a movie…
The White Stripes
Barring some major misstep — like releasing an album of gamelan-styled Monkees covers — the White Stripes’ follow-up to White Blood Cells was the pre-ordained album of the year, whichever year it happened to come out. So now that Elephant is here, it seems oddly purposeless to quibble with this good, probably great record, which…
War on War Songs
War, as it turns out, is good for absolutely nothing when it comes to anti-war songs. At the risk of sounding like Bill O’Reilly (who, no doubt, listens only to Wagner), it’s time to protest the protesters, most of whom are blowin’, all right, just not in the wind. The road to hell is paved…
Emperor
Emperor was far more successful than its black metal contemporaries for one very good reason: It was simply more musically accomplished than Mayhem, Darkthrone, and the others. The group’s elaborate arrangements expanded on the black metal formula without sacrificing power. Emperor still fell prey to the genre’s most glaring sonic flaws, of course, like the…
Home Hip Home
Okay, diners, let’s review: You’re in a stylish Warehouse District restaurant. The lights are turned low, the house music is turned high. Your black-garbed waiter appears with a bottle of Moët & Chandon and skillfully fills two slender flutes — one for you, one for your honey — with shimmering effervescence. You raise your glass…
The All-American Rejects / American Hi-Fi
Looking for crisp, tuneful pop-punk action that doubles as a statement of your support for the ol’ stars and bars? Look no further than the self-titled major-label debut by the All-American Rejects, a band of Oklahoma-based music nerds with heads full of alt-rock guitar fuzz, second-string Weezer choruses, and enough clumsy puppy-love poesy to supply…
Singh for Your Supper
After a series of setbacks that would have sunk a lesser restaurateur, Kuldeep Singh has surfaced again, with a new Northern Indian restaurant in Brook Park. It’s been a bumpy ride: Three years ago, the owner of the former, most excellent Clay Oven gave up his original location in Fairview Park to a city renewal…
Original Soundtrack
The Slaughter Rule is a coming-of-age picture about a teenage football player (Ryan Gosling) in icy Montana and his relationship with a borderline case of a coach. Hence, this desolate soundtrack of roots rock works as the perfect symbiotic score, a marriage of movie and music that pulls country away from its usual trappings and…
The Jaded Edge
Share a couple of pizzas with the members of Jaded Era, and you get the feeling that Dawson’s Creek has overflowed its banks. The four striking 20-year-olds chose to meet in the party room at Rocco’s, a family pizzeria in the band’s hometown of Cuyahoga Falls where drinks are served in paper cups and the…
Sofa King Killer
With stoner metal, monotony is as much a part of the proceedings as heavy eyelids and Cheetos. But the genre gets enlivened on the new four-song EP from Akron’s Sofa King Killer, which peppers its sound with a taste of acoustic blues and melodic riff rock. The opener, “Die Like an Astronaut,” sticks true to…
Morbid Angels
Onstage, Cephalic Carnage’s Zac spends most of his time swinging his head and his guitar, sweating, screaming, and abusing listeners with the brutal bombast that issues from his instrument. But today, sitting in his publicist’s office almost 2,000 miles from his Denver home, there is little evidence of that raving performance persona. Zac is friendly…
Snub
Today’s hip-hop is a battle between the belly and the heart: MCs must choose either the kind of mainstream thug posturing that can feed their family or the righteous rap that radio steers clear of. This struggle is at the root of Snub’s rough, refreshing debut. “There’s a bunch of niggas tellin’ me to rhyme…
Where Does This Baby Belong?
Two weeks past her due date last September, Valerie Malone finally felt the early pangs of childbirth. She called the baby’s father, Tom Michaels, to tell him the news. Then she grabbed an overnight bag and drove from her Aurora home to the Bedford Medical Center. Curiosity greets a pregnant woman who walks into a…
How Swede It Is
These are good times for Sweden. The country has successfully avoided getting its hands oily in this whole WWIII business, and its indigenous rock bands have made like mini-MacArthurs, capturing most of the world’s rock magazine territory. You couldn’t fling a meatball at a Barnes & Noble mag rack without hitting some splashy story on…
Welcome to the Confederacy
Whenever he talks about higher education — which is often — University of Akron President Luis Proenza likes to tell a story that neatly sums up the sorry state of Ohio’s system. Twenty years ago, Proenza was working as an administrator at the University of Georgia when he began advising the governor, Joe Frank Harris,…
Space Jams
Cleveland DJ Ian Mariano is known for his diversity behind the decks: He has a gift for drifting from techno to house to trance with ease and agility. It’s little surprise, then, that Mariano’s new label, N Space Records, will be defined just as much by variety. “The whole idea about the label is good,…
Letters to the Editor
Why an arts tax wouldn’t work: While I’m grateful to Pete Kotz for fighting the convention center boondoggle, I don’t share his enthusiasm for the arts tax boondoggle [“Pointy-Head Welfare,” March 5]. The same suits who want the convention center are also in charge of most area arts organizations. Those who have now will get;…
What’s Wrong With Rock
We were fine until we saw that new Ja Rule video. Then we snapped. It happened when Mr. Rule donned that gauche sweater and Dockers, while Ashanti was gettin’ all ghetto, with leather and curls, in the duo’s clip for “Mesmerize.” It’s one of the lamest role reversals this side of Bringing Down the House,…
