Dead Meadow
With its sweetleaf-green cover art and drowsy dirges, Feathers, Dead Meadow’s recent release, looks and plays like a stoner soundtrack. However, the Black Sabbath-style riffs lack menace, and the lyrics, though anachronistically ornate and occasionally obtuse, seldom delve into vintage psychedelia’s philosophical profundities. Feathers demands the creation of a new category: Pothead-roommate rock. Like the…
Kill Bill
David Zamos doesn’t look as if he could single-handedly humiliate the world’s largest software maker. The well-built 21-year-old sips a jumbo cup of Starbucks coffee in the University of Akron’s student union. He’s looking dapper in pin-striped slacks, a navy pea coat, and a necklace of wooden beads that hugs his wide neck. Thanks to…
On View
Drawn With Light: Pioneering French Photography — Digital cameras are ubiquitous as cell phones, but in the 19th century, capturing an image on film was an advanced and highly technological art. This exhibit of 19th-century French photography lauds the accomplishments of those who were on its cutting edge. Eugène Atget’s photos exude the joy he…
Tarbox Ramblers
Relatively travel-free until now, the Tarbox Ramblers have recently become road warriors, getting out the word on their 2004 release A Fix Back East. But during a recent snowy afternoon in Boston, frontman Michael Tarbox is in his living room, fending off neighborhood kids who approach his front door armed with shovels, offering to dig…
D’oh! Damned Spot!
“Is this a dagger I see before me . . . or a pizza? Mmm . . . pizza . . .,” drools Homer Simpson as Macbeth in MacHomer, Rick Miller’s one-man, many-voices show that casts 60 Simpsons characters in an abridged production of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. “In his time, Shakespeare was pop culture,” notes…
Changing Perspective
At Zach Bruell’s Parallax, the most arresting appetizer won’t be found on the expansive menu. It floats through the air like the wake of a moth: lazy and languorous, a cloud of fragrance trailing off the beautifully composed plates that servers carry proudly through the dining room. Inhale those aromas deeply and your mouth reflexively…
Crooked Fingers
During his tenure fronting North Carolina’s Archers of Loaf, Eric Bachmann made sure his group never sank too deeply into the guitar-band monotony so many indie acts are all too happy to propagate. By the Archers’ last album, 1998’s White Trash Heroes, he’d twisted their post-Superchunk blare into dark, noisy avant-rock knots. After such potency,…
This Week’s Day-By-Day Picks
Thursday, March 31 Insects are freaky. Not Lil’ Kim freaky, but heebie-jeebies-causing freaky. We definitely wouldn’t want to be locked in a room with a bunch of them (actually, we wouldn’t want to be locked in a room with Lil’ Kim either). Still, the Botanical Garden’s educational Bugged Out! program offers several reasons for us…
Coming Into Vue
Add Vue Restaurant and Lounge to the growing culinary corridor running through affluent northern Summit County. The snazzy upscale outpost, due to open Monday, April 11, takes up prime corner footage in downtown Hudson’s new First & Main development, overlooking the city’s stunning new library on one side and a pretty little green on the…
Aesop Rock
Aesop Rock’s legendary Greek namesake wrote fables with morals like “A man is known by the company he keeps.” And Aesop the MC (a.k.a. New Yorker Ian Bavitz) has borne out that bit of ancient wisdom: Since 2001’s acclaimed Labor Days, he’s been a mainstay of Def Jux, the underground hip-hop powerhouse whose prevailing aesthetic…
Live From Planet Funk
It’s tricky to talk about the music of Galactic. Is the New Orleans quintet a funk band? A rock group? A jazz combo? And now that its longtime singer, Theryl “Houseman” DeClouet, is gone, Galactic is an instrumental outfit, which makes classifying its sound all the more difficult. “I call it future funk,” laughs bassist…
Keepin’ It Mean
The Kills treat feedback as foreplay. When Jamie “Hotel” Hince points his guitar at Alison “VV” Mosshart, she writhes and convulses orgasmically. When Mosshart fixes her fire-starting gaze on him, he paws at his instrument as if by passion possessed. Steam rises from the duo’s stage show, though the perspiration starts out as cold sweat.…
Cracker/Camper Van Beethoven
Dig through David Lowery’s body of work with Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker, and you’ll hear recurring references to poppies and Cleveland, which Cracker named a live album after in 2002. The punk-folk Camper Van Beethoven helped establish college rock as a genre in the mid-’80s with the alt-novelty hit “Take the Skinheads Bowling,” and…
Second Chance
4/1-4/24 In Split Second, opening Friday at Karamu, a black cop chases a white car thief down a Manhattan street on a scorching Fourth of July night. Cornered, the perp tries to talk his way out of the heated situation. To put it more bluntly, “He tries to get all black with him,” says director…
Bob Weir and Ratdog
When the Dead’s guitarist Bob Weir canceled tour dates last year, citing “exhaustion” as the reason, fans of both his old band and his current group, Ratdog, were concerned, especially since “exhaustion” can sometimes be slang for overdoing it on the rock-related partying. It would be great to report that Weir’s back and better than…
Boogity, Boogity, Boogity!
SUN 4/3 At House of Cues’ NASCAR Sundays, the bartenders move like they’re part of a pit crew. Now that football season is over, the racing league is moving its sport into the mainstream at 200-plus miles per hour — partly due to its new, more dramatic Nextel Cup format (which includes a two-part season,…
Steve Vai
While it stands to reason that outfits such as Whitesnake and David Lee Roth’s band would require the services of a guitar monster like Steve Vai, it might not be so obvious why, when he debuted in the late ’70s, it was with the likes of Frank Zappa. What attraction did Zappa — a monster…
Feeling Alaska
4/5-4/6 Neil Jackson is always asked why he named his band Built Like Alaska. “Alaska is still a state we’re in,” he explains. “It’s a place of loving without reciprocation. This isn’t our band name. It is what we are or have become.” We have no idea what he’s talking about. We do know, however,…
U.K. Karaoke Night
Karaoke night is never like this. Forget all those American Idol-ready retreads of forgotten warhorses and lighter-than-air adult-contemporary favorites. At the Capsule’s U.K. Karaoke night, the sing-along menu includes tunes made famous by Pulp, Blur, the Stone Roses, Elastica, and Joy Division. See how you stack up against Jarvis, Damon, Manny, Justine, and Ian.
Queen of the Stoned Age
WED 4/6 The first time we heard Wanda Jackson’s “Let’s Have a Party,” the frantic 1960 rockabilly record was unlike anything we’d ever experienced. The feral growling emanating from the speakers didn’t sound human. The record was dirty, raw . . . and scared the crap out of us. “I’m sorry,” laughs Jackson, 67. “My…
Roots of Orchis
San Diego’s Roots of Orchis plays experimental music, but it’s a listenable kind of experimental. Influenced by hip-hop, indie rock, and dub reggae, their infectious grooves are built around big beats, hooky samples, and melodic exchanges between two bassists.
Color Bind
If nothing else, Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City, co-directed with Frank Miller (and Quentin Tarantino, for a few seconds), will be remembered as the most faithful comic-book adaptation ever put on film (or high-definition video, anyway). Rodriguez uses Miller’s hyper-noir serial, published over a 10-year period, as storyboards for the movie — his first in seven…
Bad Council
When Don Karcher’s wife, Cindy, was diagnosed with lymphoma in March 2002, he was worried but hopeful. Doctors said it was one of the most curable forms of cancer. She underwent surgery to have a lymph node removed, then endured radiation treatment to eradicate any stray cancer cells. But her renewed health came at a…
Beanie Sigel
Time was, jail — or just the threat of it — might at least spur some growth in an artist. In today’s hip-hop world, however, the “prison album” (recorded before or even during one’s hitch in the stony lonesome) has become so common that no one expects anything but the same lunkheaded and violent musings…
Cut and Paste
A spin-off of a sequel, Beauty Shop plays like most Hollywood comedies these days — as tepid sitcom, benign product, and cynical afterthought. If last year’s Barbershop 2: Back in Business was little more than a dilapidated retread of the charmingly lightweight 2002 hit Barbershop, this incarnation should never have opened its doors. It’s almost…
It Stinks
It Stinks Evolution sure is taking its time: With morbid fascination akin to rubbernecking at a car wreck, I read through “One Night at Verba’s” [March 16]. By the mercy of evolution, the degenerate subspecies “jocko homo erectus” is spiraling toward extinction. Surely the thousand pounds of males attending the gang bang emitted the requisite…
Garbage
Perhaps a near-miss breakup is exactly what Garbage needed. Bleed Like Me plays like a distillation of the group’s strengths: The riffs arrive skillet-fried and huge, and the ballads burn with a soulfulness that sounds like the best Motown covers the Runaways never did. “Bad Boyfriend” has a mudslide density to the guitar slabs that…
Mad About It
The Upside of Anger belongs to Joan Allen, who plays Terry Wolfmeyer, a wife abandoned by her husband and left to pick up the pieces and collect them in a giant bottle of vodka. Terry’s is the cold, composed visage of a woman struggling to keep it together; through her pale, glowing skin you can…
Basic Math
The Plain Dealer recently ran a front-page story touting Cuyahoga Valley National Park as the third-most-visited park in the country — above Yellowstone and Yosemite. The National Park Service claims 3.3 million people visited the park last year. Naah, we weren’t buying either. A quick call to Mary Pat Dooley in the park’s public-affairs office…
Hot Hot Heat
Hot Hot Heat has bet its cred by making this major-label debut so endlessly catchy. Sure, catchiness has been a calling card of this Victoria, British Columbia quartet since 2002’s Knock Knock Knock, a Sub Pop EP that marked the addition of guitarist Dante DeCaro and the abandonment of synth-noise experimentation for straightforward indie rock.…
Woody and Woody . . .
Does the world really need a new film from Woody Allen every single year? Yes, he is one of America’s great auteurs. Yes, he’s responsible for some very fine movies, many of them comedies (Annie Hall), several of them tragedies (Crimes and Misdemeanors, Another Woman), and some hovering in that bittersweet territory between the two…
Family Business
Just about 50 years ago, the seeds of rock and roll were sown by teenage revolution. Except in Saddle River, New Jersey. At least, not in the home of jazz icon Bucky Pizzarelli. By age 17, the self-taught future master of the rare and elusive seven-string guitar had played with Vaughn Monroe. After a stint…
Corrosion of Conformity
If Ronnie Van Zant had replaced Ozzy Osbourne in Black Sabbath sometime around 1974, the result would probably have sounded a lot like the latest disc from North Carolina’s Corrosion of Conformity. In the Arms of God is a fierce, impressive comeback effort from these guys, and after five years away, it better be. Surprisingly,…
Rose in Bloom
When the great playwright Arthur Miller died in February, many admirers took stock again of Willy Loman, his most enduring creation. A delusional idealist who finds himself failed and felled by the American Dream, the tragic hero of Death of a Salesman has for half a century been the most discomfiting Everyman in our native…
Hold Me Closer, Tony Danza
Everyone has done it: We’ve rocked out in front of our family and friends, sung our little hearts out, emoted with eyes closed. And then, when we opened them, we’ve seen a roomful or carload of people laughing their asses off because we got the words wrong. Totally whiffed on ’em. Made complete and utter…
A Porno Holocaust
Variety is the new monotony. A Porno Holocaust’s debut, Love Songs From the Bum Kennel, bounces from one genre to the next every 30 seconds, dotting its generally generic riffs with sirens, zany samples, and bursts of hyperspeed drumming. Fantômas, it ain’t. Former Kung Fu Grip singer Mark Fletcher sings like Scott Stapp with a…
Fire Water
For those of us who sweated enormous damp circles under our pits before chemistry tests in high school, our day has finally come: Science is on the run! The evidence is everywhere, from schools refusing to teach evolution to Fox News interviewing psychic John Edward regarding the mental state of brain-damaged Terri Schiavo. (Edward’s self-assured…
Axe Men
It’s hard to watch Jon Hill get evicted from his Tremont home — and even harder to turn away. The thirtysomething head of Cleveland’s Hill Instruments, which has made custom guitars and basses for such big names as Slayer’s Tom Araya and Godsmack bassist Robbie Merrill, pleads with his landlord over the phone. “I’m gonna…
Queens of the Stone Age
Queens of the Stone Age’s Lullabies to Paralyze begins sweetly enough, as longtime contributor Mark Lanegan lends his smoky baritone to “This Lullaby,” a delicate acoustic ballad that’s a slyly misleading precursor to the melodic fury that lead singer Josh Homme unleashes over the next hour. And while the absence of founding bassist Nick Oliveri,…
Beast of Times
Since there are many versions of Beauty and the Beast floating around — from the animated Disney movie to Broadway touring companies to other assorted productions — here’s hoping that someone eventually has the onions to do one in which the Beast doesn’t change back into a razor-cut handsome prince at the end. Let’s face…
She Loves Rock & Roll
Rock icon Joan Jett has signed Cleveland’s Vacancies to her Blackheart Records, a longstanding indie label with major distribution, whose catalog includes Jett, the Eyeliners, the Chemical Brothers, and Big Daddy Kane. “The Vacancies are an incredible live band,” says Jett. “They have great songs with excellent lyrics that apply to people’s everyday lives.” The…
Rick Kallister’s Progressive Jam Experiment
Musical freedom often works better in theory than in practice. Once boundaries and restrictions are removed, what then? Rick Kallister’s Progressive Jam Experiment is still trying to figure out the answer to that question, as it meanders about aimlessly on its latest. Space Is the Place comes off as quintessential stoner-jam fare. When a riff…
On Stage
Menopause the Musical — Everybody enjoys musicals dealing with energetic young people on the brink of conquering the world. But what about the people in the audience: the nearsighted, overweight, and wrinkled denizens of middle age, who rarely see their own physiological mysteries put into song? For them, there is Menopause the Musical, a hoot…
