Trial and Error
It was shaping up to be another great mystery in the never-ending Marilyn Sheppard murder case. A few weeks ago, lawyers preparing Sam Reese Sheppard’s appeal came to a jolting discovery: Key exhibits in the case had disappeared. Following last year’s trial, in which Sam Reese failed to win a declaration of innocence for his…
Midnight Syndicate
When Midnight Syndicate’s Edward Douglas made a straight-to-video film called The Dead Matter five years ago, he discovered that he liked creating the music for the soundtrack more than the actual filming. As a result, he joined up with Gavin Goszka to form Midnight Syndicate, which released its first, self-titled album in 1997. That album,…
Good Cop, Bad Cop
One can only imagine the pitch meeting at which comedian-turned-film actor Denis Leary told ABC programming execs he wanted to write and star in a show about a pill-popping, Scotch-swilling, chain-smoking, adulterous New York City cop who utters obscenities as casually as he exhales. It’ll be a 30-minute show, Leary probably told them, shot with…
East Cleveland’s Woes in 3 D
The decline and fall of inner-ring civilization East Cleveland is afflicted with the 3 D’s: Disinvestment, Decay, and Demolition [“Welcome to East Cleveland,” February 8]. For whatever reason, wealthier residents leave, and buildings fall to neglect and eventually have to be demolished. Sure, over a 40- to 50-year period, enough buildings are demolished to free…
Pop Goes the Pimpernel
Composer Frank Wildhorn’s The Scarlet Pimpernel is camping in more ways than one at the Palace. This mega-musical demonstrates that, in today’s commercial theater, if a show is rife with swish and swashbuckle, pumps up the emotions to the same fever pitch as the amplification, and has trimmings just this side of Radio City Music…
The Play’s (Still) the Thing
Almost from the day it opened in 1998, Playhouse Square’s restaurant in the former lobby of the Ohio Theatre has been trying to find its niche. A name change, from Ciao Cucina to the present exclamatory Ciao!, and culinary rewrites (from Italian to “regional American with an Asian twist” to contemporary American) have been part…
Heat and Eat
Perhaps best known for its racetrack and its protracted legal battle to block a controversial adult bookstore, Northfield Village seems an unlikely spot for a gourmet food boutique, but that’s what it has in Cis Medina’s spicy little Chili Emporium (10416 Northfield Road, 330-468-2445). The tiny store, across from Northfield Plaza, carries more than 220…
Lone-Star Legend
Blues guitarist Long John Hunter met a number of celebrities when he held down a residency at the Lobby Bar in Juarez, Mexico, between 1957 and 1970. Bonanza’s Dan Blocker, Western star John Ireland, and Texas singer-guitarist Bobby “I Fought the Law” Fuller all frequented the joint during his tenure there. But there was one…
Mad at Dad
Dream Brother: The Lives & Music of Jeff & Tim Buckley is the story of two parallel lives linked, among other things, by their common musical talents and the tragedy of their early deaths. Tim Buckley was a ’60s cult singer who died of a drug overdose in 1975 at the age of 28, while…
Skipping to Lou
Sitting in the loft space of a commercial building in the Flats that numerous local musicians and artists call home, Lou Vogel is assessing a performance that’s gone awry. Vogel, who plays keyboards with Quazi Modo (and occasionally sits in with local acts such as Cobra Verde, the Hurricanes, the Tellers, and the Chargers), has…
Fiddler on the Move
The fiddle is the instrument of hayseeds and hoedowns, and the violin is the backbone of symphony orchestras — but they’re the same instrument. For John Crozman, one of the five creators of Barrage, that was the problem. “The only thing that’s different is the way they’re played,” he says. “And that’s the whole premise…
Kid Rock
Visually, the Kid Rock live experience might actually be worth seeing — maybe he’ll bring along a giant phallus, like the Beastie Boys used to. There’ll be pyrotechnics. There’ll be suggestively gyrating “topless dancers.” There’ll be a moving tribute to Joe C., his beloved diminutive sidekick, who recently passed away. And perhaps this garish spectacle…
Making Waves
What music will you be listening to when our nation’s military thugs kick in the door? It’s a question that WRUW DJ A.P. Magee — not his real name; the initials stand for “American Patriot” — has given a lot of thought. Magee is the mind and voice behind Domestic Terrorism, a two-hour program that…
764-HERO
It’s been a densely packed five years for Seattle’s John Atkins and Polly Johnson. Atkins ditched Hush Harbor, and Johnson bailed on Bell Jar in 1995, joining forces to form the mopey alt-guitar/drums duo 764-HERO, named after Washington’s hotline for carpool-lane outlaws. After a handful of 7-inch EPs, a 12-inch EP, and its well-received (with…
Killing Time
Director John Herzfeld’s last feature, the droll and underrated 1996 2 Days in the Valley, was a more than adequate counterbalance to the catastrophe of his first feature, Two of a Kind, a 1983 John Travolta vehicle that, together with Moment by Moment, put its star on the fast track from superstardom to obscurity. Now…
Outkast
Now that they’ve taken the mothership for a few spins around the universe, Andre 3000 and Big Boi of Outkast are ready to bring it back to earth, where they will begin their next step in world domination. They’ve already conquered the hip-hop nation, recently jump-starting it into the 21st century. They also saved rap…
Split Levels
Hollywood appears to be developing a healthy sense of humor about Valentine’s Day, which, from this cynic’s perspective, is a good thing. In the new millennium, rather than dole out romantic trifles like Return to Me as per the usual plan, we’ve seen Valentine (bitter ex-nerd cuts beautiful people to bits), Hannibal (sadistic brain-eater as…
Jeff Beck
There are other explosive guitar records — Chris Spedding’s Hurt and Marc Bonilla’s EE Ticket come to mind — but nobody has amassed such a body of work as Jeff Beck. When he’s on, which is most of the time, Beck is awesome. And when he channels his customized white Fender Stratocaster through his Marshall…
Blood Sport
The 20th century is replete with examples of unconscionable crimes carried out in the name of some quasipolitical, military, or religious cause — acts of such misguided judgment and mindless brutality that they seem to cross an invisible threshold of decency, morality, and understanding. The My Lai massacre of 1968, in which American GIs gunned…
Monster Magnet
These woeful miscreants basically birthed the genre of “stoner rock.” Long before bands like Nebula began restokin’ the bong, Monster Mag was proclaiming itself “dopes to infinity.” The “stoner” term is a misnomer, however. When they didn’t call it “stoner rock,” they called it “heavy metal,” and before that, they just called it rock and…
Torture Town
In some circles, there’s a fine line between pleasure and pain. Take a recent night at Tyr, the new goth and industrial club in Lakewood. In one corner, Mistress Madison, a local dominatrix, whips a man’s naked back before pouring hot wax on him. In another, a woman with platinum blond hair and a leopard-print…
Le Tigre
Kathleen Hanna has been kicking around indieville for a decade now, first with proto-grrrl group Bikini Kill and currently with the lo-fi, found-sound noisemaking trio Le Tigre. She’s a tough gal, not one to just let popular opinion — or modern technology — get in the way of her raging idealism. “Where are my friends?”…
Slouching Toward Mediocrity
They speak as if someone is terminally ill, employing words like “sad,” “devastating,” “a tragedy.” Forget, for a moment, that they’re merely talking about a newspaper. This is The Beacon Journal, not just any paper. And those doing the talking are employees past and present who believe that Wall Street and the paper’s parent company…
Bill Frisell
Anyone who’s followed Bill Frisell through his last few albums will not be surprised by the guitarist’s latest recording. Though he has certainly left a sizable imprint on the contemporary jazz guitar genre, Frisell has become increasingly devoted to his own sonic worldview, making music with a variable allegiance to jazz, but thoroughly steeped in…
