5-27: Poetry Back in the Woods
Cuyahoga County commissioner Peter Lawson Jones seems to get busier and busier as a performer, and it’s not only on the political stage. He’s starred in productions at Karamu House, staged The Family Line (which he wrote) and has had his works read at the Beck Center for the Arts and East Cleveland Community Theatre.…
5-25: Bret Michaels
What better way to celebrate Memorial Day than with Bret Michaels, an American icon who holds that distinction based solely on his ability to keep that distinctly American genre known as hair metal alive? He’s doing so with both Poison (who still tour, despite their irrelevancy) and his VH1 reality show Rock of Love, where…
5-24: Music at the Movies
Conductor Richard Kaufman has made movie music his specialty. He won a Grammy in 1993 for his album Symphonic Hollywood, featuring the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra. He’s led a program called Music at the Movies with the Chicago Symphony for five years. And he’s the principal pops conductor for no less than three ensembles — the…
5-24: Keane
This British trio hit it big five years ago with Hopes and Fears and “Somewhere Only We Know,” a piano ballad that splits the difference between Coldplay and one of those disposable groups you hear on Grey’s Anatomy every week. For their latest album, Perfect Symmetry, Keane reach back to the early and mid ’80s…
5-24: Her Space Holiday
Marc Bianchi had been quietly exploring the galaxy of electronic music with his flagship project Her Space Holiday from his little home studios. But after eight albums of quirky computer-pop, the bedroom DJ found himself lost in space. “After the release of [2005’s] The Past Presents the Future, I was becoming more and more overwhelmed…
5-23: Trawick, Grand, Porcelli at Pentagon Gallery
Leonard Trawick has long been a force in Cleveland’s poetry scene. A professor at Cleveland State University from 1968 to 1998, Trawick is also a founder of the Poets League of Greater Cleveland (now called the Lit) and the main editor of CSU Poetry Center’s book series. He shows another side of his creative output…
Medicine for Melancholy has its Cleveland premiere tonight
For the past month, the Cleveland Museum of Art has hosted a program called “Friday Night First Runs.” It features local premieres of movies that have previously bypassed Cleveland during their theatrical runs. Tonight at 7, it’s offering a screening of 2008’s Medicine for Melancholy, a film about a couple who fall in love one…
5-23: Third Eye Blind at the Rib Cook-off
Third Eye Blind’s Stephan Jenkins, Brad Hargreaves and Tony Fredinaelli have apparently put aside their differences. After a long absence, they’re touring again this summer, supporting a digital three-track EP, Red Star, released last November, and a single, “Non-Dairy Creamer,” which snagged some airplay earlier this year. In concert, you’ll hear some songs from a…
5-23: Sightings
The NYC-based trio Sightings makes rock music that comes off like a cross between construction-site noise pollution and the sound of one museum-sized machine ingesting another, scrap by rusted scrap. What’s astounding is how singer-guitarist Mark Morgan, bassist Richard Hoffman and drummer Jon Lockie consistently (from 2002’s Michigan Haters to 2007’s Through the Panama) present…
5-23: Shawn Phillips
This 12-string guitar hero launched his career in the mid-’60s, playing on records by globe-trotting folkies like Donovan. Now 66, Phillips lives in South Africa and continues to play from his wide-ranging catalog, which includes jazz, classical and folk tunes. In 2006, he collaborated on a nine-movement ballet, Events in the Life of a Prince;…
Capsule reviews of two films opening at the Cedar Lee
So while the re-tooled Terminator flick with Christan Bale takes on the Night at the Museum sequel this weekend, the Cedar Lee Theatre is opening two art flicks. Valentino is a well-done documentary about the Italian designer that takes you behind-the-scenes of his life, and Shall We Kiss is a cute French comedy that’ll remind…
5-23: Hookahville
Think of Hookahville as Ohio’s own little Bonnaroo. The fest doesn’t draw nearly as many people or feature a genre-spanning lineup, but if jam bands are your thing, it’s a destination festival worth checking out. This year, Hookahville moves to Frontier Ranch (8836 York Rd., Pataskala), east of Columbus, and includes a little bit of…
5-23: Cleveland Orchestra
Composer Oliver Knussen comes to town often, and he usually conducts one of his own pieces. Tonight it’s 2006’s “Requiem: Songs for Sue,” a short work that pays tribute to his late wife and includes words by Emily Dickinson and W.H. Auden. Soprano Elizabeth Keusch sings. The “Composers of Our Time” program also includes Julian…
5-23: Legends of Hip-Hop
MC Lyte, one of the original queens of hip-hop, launched her career in 1986, when she was just 15 years old. Almost a quarter century later, she still performs and is part of the Legends of Hip-Hop II show that comes to town tonight. Lyte — who, back in the day, rhymed about lying boyfriends…
5-23: Asylum Street Spankers
This Austin troupe allegedly came together after way too many drinks in a Texas hotel a decade and a half ago. Asylum Street Spankers’ acoustic, vaudeville-like tunes take swipes at just about everything and everybody in sight — from “The Scrotum Song” to “Stick Magnetic Ribbons on Your SUV,” which blames the ongoing war in…
Let’s try this again: The Mugridge obituary controversy
Like funerals, obituaries are not for the dead, but for the survivors. I was reminded of this by the reaction to our report on the recent passing of musician and Grog Shop co-founder Matt Mugridge. Since that report appeared in the May 13 issue, we’ve received dozens of e-mails, phone calls and comments on our…
Cobra Verde Get Bloody
Cleveland indie-rockers Cobra Verde join such heavy-hitters and seminal artists as the Flying Burrito Brothers, Dr. John, Allen Toussaint, Lee Dorsey, Lucinda Williams, Ryan Adams and John Doe of X on the just-released soundtrack album for True Blood, the HBO series about vampires in a small Louisiana town. Cobra Verde’s contribution is an hushed, ominous…
LET’S TRY THIS AGAIN: THE MUGRIDGE OBIT CONTROVERSY
Like funerals, obituaries are not for the dead, but for the survivors. I was reminded of this by the reaction to our report on the recent passing of musician and Grog Shop co-founder Matt Mugridge. Since that report appeared in the May 13 issue, we’ve received dozens of e-mails, phone calls and comments on our…
WMJI Changes Name, Still Plays Music Your Mom Likes
Oldies station WMJI 105.7-FM, is changing its name to CAVS 105.7 during the Eastern Conference Finals series. Apparently the station’s “Majic” tag bears more than a little resemblance to a certain NBA team from Orlando. What does this mean for listeners? Absolutely nothing. Playlists will still consist of songs by the Eagles, the Beach Boys…
5-22: Southern Culture on the Skids/Los Straitjackets
It’s an Americana kitsch party when Southern Culture on the Skids (pictured) and Los Straitjackets pull their doublewide into town tonight. The two veteran groups draw upon a wide range of roots music: rockabilly, country, surf, garage-rock and Tex-Mex — and do so with a heavy slathering of humor. Los Straitjackets perform while wearing colorful…
Concert Review: Unplugged and Unwigged at the Ohio Theatre, 5/19
Thirty years on, Spinal Tap is the joke that never gets old. The metal mockers made their inauspicious debut on an ABC program called The TV Show in 1978. That led to the 1984 mockumentary This is Spinal Tap, a film that’s led to countless imitations. Reunions haven’t been out of the question over the…
ACCEPTABLE CARBON EMISSIONS: TALKING ABOUT THE GREEN ECONOMY
It’s weird: It is the best and worst of times — if you’re an urban planner, union organizer, comedian, county commissioner, Democrat or even, yes, an employed journalist. To all these people and more, what’s actually happening — economically and class-wise, anyway — is the worst of times they’ve seen in their lives, followed by…
5-22: Cleveland Pops Orchestra
James Getty has portrayed Abraham Lincoln since 1978, his career arguably reaching its zenith in 1991, when he starred as the 16th president in a made-for-TV movie about two mostly submerged Civil War-era warships. Getty joins the Cleveland Pops Orchestra tonight for its annual salute to the armed forces. It also happens to be the…
5-21: Tortured Soul at the Grog Shop
When you hear the words “house music,” you probably picture a DJ huddled over a couple of turntables. But you’ll see no such thing with dedicated masters of the genre Tortured Soul. The Brooklyn trio performs its tunes the old-fashioned way: with drums, bass and some vintage keyboards. The organic approach has opened up the…
5-21: Dinosaurs!
One of our all-time favorite summertime attractions returns to the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo today. The 18 robotic prehistoric creatures that make up Dinosaurs! may not eat, breathe and poop like all the other critters that live at the zoo, but they certainly look real. There are a few new dinos this year (including something nicknamed…
5-22: Art Fur Animals at the Galleria
Sculptor Kristen Cliffel talked herself into a crucial part of today’s Art Fur Animals benefit. Last year, she told a coordinator that the ceramic dogs that area artists were supposed to customize for auction were so detailed, they didn’t leave much room for artists’ imaginations. Cliffel was told, “Why don’t you do it?” So she…
Meet David Amstutz, “ribber”
David Amstutz of Jack on the Bone, out of Massillon, spent years in the restaurant business before making the switch to a combination of catering and, as he puts it, “getting serious” about the rib circuit. He participates in roughly 12 cookoff events each year, offering up his smoked slabs at locations around Ohio and…
ED FITZGERALD WANTS YOU TO KNOW THAT HE HAS POWERFUL FRIENDS
Recently I got a flyer in the mail for a fundraiser for Lakewood Mayor Ed FitzGerald, which is interesting, because I live on the other side of town. He’s asking for some pretty small change as far as these events go: $35-$100. But the flyer was impressive: an 8.5-by-11, full-color, four-page glossy affair with two…
Cleveland Sports on the Cover of SI Gallery
With the Cavs taking the cover of this week’s SI, I thought it’d be fun to give you a little gallery of all the times Cleveland professional sports have landed on the venerable front of the venerable sports magazine. A little depressing. OK, a lot depressing. But also kind of fun. Enjoy the photos after…
Cavs to Hit the Cover of SI’s Next Issue
With a story by Cleveland-native Joe Posnanski. Can’t wait.
This Just In: Concert Announcements
This week, 39 new shows, including John Legend, Sugar Ray and CKY. All Time Low/We the Kings/Cartel/Days Difference: Thu., July 16. 6 p.m., $19.99. House of Blues. Ashers: Thu., June 25. 7 p.m., $8 ADV/$10 DOS. Pirate’s Cove. Marcia Ball/Bill Kirchen + Too Much Fun: Fri., June 5. 8 p.m., $25. Beachland Ballroom. Between the…
Photo Show: Rock on the Range, 5/16-5/17
Johnny Angell rocked on the range last weekend. He also brought his camera.
REMEMBER THE FLATS?
Used to be, back before ex-mayor Mike White had his goons harassing bars out of business on the East Bank of the Flats in the ’90s to make way for The Future, Cleveland’s riverfront entertainment district had the highest bar-to-drunk density from New York to Chicago. But then three high-profile drowning deaths went down in…
Road Trip Concert Review: Rock on the Range in Columbus, 5/16-5/17
Three stages, 38 bands, two days. All that’s missing was some hard liquor at this past weekend’s Rock on the Range hard-rock fest at Columbus’ Crew Stadium. With a lineup made up of rock veterans Buckcherry, the Used, Hoobastank, Chevelle, Alice in Chains and Mötley Crüe (as well as heavyweights Static X, All That Remains,…
Goodyear Reaps the Benefits of Tribe’s New Spring Training Facility
By most accounts, the Tribe built quite the facility out in Goodyear, Arizona, to serve as their new spring training headquarters. The only complaints seemed to be that a) Goodyear itself is still growing, and thus looks like just about any other suburban area filled with chain restaurants, and b) That it didn’t allow fans…
Z Does a Q&A With the Telegraph
Zydrunas Ilgauskas did a lengthy question and answer session with the Telegraph, and the topics included Manchester United, playing with LeBron, describing Cleveland (he compares us to Newcastle), why basketball means so much to his native European country, and his favorite Lithuanian dish. Read the whole thing, but here’s my favorite part: Why is Lithuania,…
Concert Review: Atmosphere at the Beachland, 5/18
The Beachland set the scene last night for some of the world’s finest indie-rap. Attracted to Gods warmed up the audience. If the Black Keys were even more blues-driven and Tom Waits was their singer, you’d have this Minneapolis duo. It was obvious that the crowd was digging on Brother Ali. He packed rhymes that…
Free “Paul’s Boutique” Audiobook
The 33 1/3 book series is one of my all-time favorites. Writers take one classic album and dissect it in book length. Everybody from the Byrds to Led Zeppelin to My Bloody Valentine to Slayer have been written about. One of the series’ all-time best volumes, Dan LeRoy’s deconstruction of the Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique,…
Bid on the LeBron Mural from the Vitamin Water Kobe/LeBron Debate Commercial
No doubt you’ve been following the LeBron/Kobe Vitamin Water debate. Of course you have. Anyway, juuuust in case you weren’t, here’s something mighty interesting, and probably mighty expensive. Kobe and LeBron are also squaring off for charity. Each player’s charity is on the receiving end of eBay bids on the two murals featured during the…
Review of Eminem’s New CD
Several weeks ago I posted the video for Eminem’s new single, “We Made You.” I didn’t like it too much, because it basically takes shots at celebrities who haven’t really mattered in five years. Plus, it kinda sounds like all those lazy singles put out before his hiatus. Now that I’ve heard all of Relapse,…
Failed Mascot Experiments: The Baseball Bug (1980-1981)
Slider isn’t the best mascot in baseball, but he’s certainly not the worst. Which is more than Indians fans could say back in 1980 when “The Baseball Bug” was the fuzzy image of the team. Poking through the Cleveland Memory Project, I came upon these photos, and through a rudimentary Google search, I found a…
American Scary DVD has plenty of Cleveland references
Like many Northeast Ohioans, I grew up watching horror hosts. Ghoulardi was a bit before my time, but I had Hoolihan and Big Chuck (later Big Chuck & Lil’ John), Superhost and the Ghoul warping my mind with schlocky movies and cheesy comedy sketches. Half the time, the movies would suck, and I’d just be…
THE WIND AT THEIR BACKS
Four generations and 80 years ago, Myron Kaplan’s grandmother founded Pearl Road Auto Parts in a grimy little box-trailer in the middle of a small pile of dead cars. It was likely the first good example of a recycling business in town. Now sitting on a veritable auto cemetery along I-480 at Pearl Road in…
Too much exposition in Spike Lee’s Kobe: Doin’ Work
Spike Lee might have launched a series with his fine-but-flawed documentary, Kobe: Doin’ Work, which comes out on DVD tomorrow. Last year, Lee had total access to the soon-to-be-MVP basketball star during a game against the San Antonio Spurs and set up some 30 cameras to videotape a guy he calls “one of the most…
It’s LeBron vs. Roethlisberger, Cleveland vs. Pittsburgh
It’s time for the 3rd annual Spike’s Guys [sic] Choice Awards and among that plentiful topics readers/watchers are being asked to decide on (including Hottest Twins, Deadliest Warrior, Hottest “Mila,” Sickest Rhymes, Hottest Girl on the Planet, etc.) is Most Unstoppable Jock. The choices: LeBron James or Ben Roethlisberger. Is this even a freaking contest?…
Cavs Practice, Where Amazing Happens
LeBron just won’t stop with the trick shots.
Dobama Opens the Second of its Cleveland Plays
Sarah Morton puts it kindly when she says her challenge in writing Dream/Home was to “find a way to get into the nuts and bolts” of the foreclosure crisis without “becoming a lecture on the economy or the lending industry.” In other words, she wanted to turn socio-economic calamity into a play. So she decided…
SPACES Finds a Compass
Given its name, SPACES could hardly pick a more appropriate show than Internal Compasses, curated by Jeff Chiplis, Jeanne Grossetti and Vlada Vukadinovic. Press materials describe the artists in the show as “visual thinkers who map, code and catalogue experiences and information, then systematically arrange the material evidence according to personal internal strategies.” Images from…
Richfield Coliseum — The Palace on the Prairie
Love or hate Quicken Loans Arena as a place to watch a game, we can all at the very least agree that no one’s in a rush to purchase any apparel with The Q’s image on it. It’s not old or beloved or very unique in any way. And most of us old enough to…
Wild Thing Fitted
If you didn’t get a chance to pick up the “Wild Thing” tee from Pennant Race Gear before they sold out, here’s a chance to make up for it. They’ve just released the new “Wild Thing” fitted hat, featuring the same smiling Chief Wahoo that’s been given the Rick Vaughn treatment. Supplies are limited to,…
The Rockers Are Back… Sorta
I know lots of Clevelanders were sad when the Rockers ceased playing. I was. I remember going to a game on pom-pom day. That was special. Well, they’re back. Kind of. I’m not even completely sure what the proper name is. The press release calls them the Cleveland Lady Rockers and the league’s website (that…
Simmons/Gladwell on LeBron and Definitions of Success
If you haven’t read the epic Bill Simmons/Malcolm Gladwell email conversation, do so. It’s fascinating stuff, even if, at times some of the theories espoused are maddening, far-fetched, and ill-conceived. There’s also a lot of brilliant discussion and thought-provoking ideas. Among the many topics they tackle is LeBron James. Namely, what drives him, is he…
Reminder: Senior PGA Championship at Canterbury This Week
For the first time since 1996, Cleveland is home to a major golf tournament as the Senior PGA Championship pulls into Canterbury May 19-24. Grab your tickets if you’ve got nothing to do next weekend.
BOWLING FOR … LETTERS?
Bowling has one thing in common with any profile of a population: statistics. Consider a brief portrait of literacy in Cleveland: According to Seeds of Literacy (which got its numbers from the Center for Urban Poverty and Social Change at the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, Case Western Reserve University), 69 percent of Cleveland…
May 29: Seeds of Literacy Bowl-a-Thon
Bowling has one thing in common with any profile of a population: statistics. Consider a brief portrait of literacy in Cleveland: According to Seeds of Literacy (which got its numbers from the Center for Urban Poverty and Social Change at the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, Case Western Reserve University), 69 percent of Cleveland…
Brothers Lounge battle update
Brothers Lounge’s Battle of the Unsigned Bands has been going strong for the past six weeks. Every Thursday, three bands compete in front of a panel of three judges; one band wins and advances to the semi-finals. Last night, the first of two semi-finals took place. The three bands competing came from all over the…
FRIDAY MONKEY BLOGGING: SLIPPERY WHEN WET
From monkey blogging co-conspirator Tom O’Konowitz of the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo’s PR department: Who knew monkeys could swim? Allen’s swamp monkeys [ed.: sounds like a Zydeco band] are very strong swimmers. At Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, the animal keepers encourage the swamp monkeys to practice their natural swimming ability frequently. They’ll fill a big tub with…
Up, Up and Away!
Earlier this week, some folks from Disney’s Pixar Studios came through town with a replica of the balloon from their new movie, Up, scheduled to open on May 29. The idea was that they’d take a few lucky members of the media up in the air to help promote the film. The original plan was…
SAM, WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT IF WE SAID WE MISSED YOU?
Scene had a lot of fun at Sam Fulwood’s expense back in the day, but even we can’t kick the guy now. Since the Plain Dealer gave columnist/reporter Fullwood the axe, the land of Fullwood has been empty. Media-news site Poynter Online has spotlighted Fullwood’s latest work, a piece for blog TheRoot.com about how he…
English Surgeon shows tonight at CMA
For the past month, the Cleveland Museum of Art has hosted a program called “Friday Night First Runs.” It features local premieres of movies that have previously bypassed Cleveland during their theatrical runs. Tonight at 7, it’s offering a screening of 2007’s The English Surgeon, a documentary about the humanitarian work of Henry Marsh. Here’s…
Capsule reviews of two new movies opening at Cedar Lee today
So, yeah, the Da Vinci Code sequel, Angels and Demons, is going to do bang-up business at the box office this weekend. I’ve seen it and it’s a snooze. Tom Hanks rushing around trying to save the Vatican from destruction as one insane plot twist gives way to another. Yawn. I’ll take National Treasure over…
May 21-24: St. Anselm Church Festival
Cleveland’s own Recess rocks the Saint Anselm Church festival, Memorial Day weekend:
Concert review: Taking Back Sunday
It’s been three years since Taking Back Sunday released a record. If last night’s show is any indication of what’s on the band’s new album, it was worth the wait. Fellow Long Island natives Envy on the Coast and Christian band Anberlin came along for the tour. Watching Envy on the Coast was like watching…
Concert Review: Napalm Death at Peabody’s, 5/14
If you were to look up grindcore in a music dictionary, it would say “Napalm Death.” Hailing from Birmingham, England, and formed in 1981, they basically invented the genre. Last night, the founding fathers of brutal metal played Peabody’s in support of their most recent album, Time Waits for No Slave. Napalm Death wasted no…
HERE’S WHERE YOUR MONEY WON’T BE GOING
As every state waits anxiously for its chip off the old $800 billion in federal stimulus rock, Ohio is hard at work trying to figure out how to keep the lights on. With just $5 billion in federal relief expected for fiscal woes in the all nation’s most hard-hit regions — and tax collections dipping…
Tito Puente’s Biographer Talks About New Reissue
Joe Conzo met Latin percussionist Tito Puente at a performance at New York’s Palladium in 1959. After that, the two kept running into each other and eventually became such good friends that Conzo ended up as his de facto archivist. He’ll soon publish a biography about the music legend. “I tell everybody it was destiny,”…
Just a Friendly Disclaimer if You Ever Think of Doing Three Innings and Lunch
Lunch and three innings. It has a certain ring to it, and we have to admit, this marketing by the Tribe to the downtown worker who wants to catch part of a day game during his/her lunch break is quite brilliant and quite enticing. Turns out, it doesn’t always work perfectly though. We got this…
One-Man History of the Blues Coming to Town
Spencer Bohren will be coming to town on June 10 with his “Down the Dirt Road Blues” show, in which the New Orleans musician deconstructs a blues song era by era. Part history lesson, part concert, Bohren takes one blues song, “Down the Dirt Road Blues,” and plays it 10 different ways, as he charts…
Capsule reviews of what’s at the Cinematheque this weekend
The Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque is showing several great movies this weekend. We reviewed a few of them in this week’s paper. In case you missed them, here they are again: Harvard Beats Yale 29-29 (US, 2008) You don’t have to be a football enthusiast to enjoy Kevin Rafferty’s (The Atomic Cafe) terrifically entertaining…
Be There — The games will be on TV, but the revolution will not be televised
Beg, borrow or steal. Scan eBay, Craigslist and StubHub. Bribe a friend, ditch the significant other for a night, lay a guilt trip on a wealthy relative. Dig into the vacation fund, take the bus for a week, pack your lunch. Basically, do anything and everything short of not paying the mortgage to get to…
WIGGLE ROOM FOR ME, NOT FOR THEE
Next time some conservative whines about the left’s moral relativism, show them this: Gary Bauer, a former Republican presidential candidate affiliated with several Christian right groups over the years, said the discussion should not come down to “Would Jesus torture?” “There are a lot of things Jesus wouldn’t do because he’s the son of God,”…
Thursday Ticket Giveaway: Young Love
We got two pairs of tickets to Young Love’s concert at the Grog Shop on Thursday, June 4. All you have to do is send your name, phone number and e-mail address to freetickets@clevescene.com. We’ll be picking a random winner at noon on Tuesday, June 2.
Concert Review: Vast at the Agora, 5/13
For a Wednesday night, Vast drew quite a crowd at the Agora. That’s quite a feat, considering the band doesn’t get much publicity these days. After being dropped by a major label several years back, frontman Jon Crosby created his own label, 2blossoms, just so he could release Vast’s albums. Without much push, the group…
UTILITY COMPANIES RULE THE WORLD
The push and pull on the Waxman-Markey climate bill threatens not just to weaken an important piece of legislation, but to hand utility companies a license to gouge us all. Blogger Kevin Drum: If moderates were demanding free [carbon] permits because they wanted to keep electric prices in their states low for a few years…
Deal of the Day
Amazon is selling Heartless Bastards’ new album, The Mountain, for a mere $1.99 today. You can get a download of the full album here. That averages out to 18 cents a song! What a bargain, considering The Mountain is the Cincinnati band’s best album and one of 2009’s solid listens. —Michael Gallucci
MEET THE AUTHORS
We parked next to each other right in front of the motel room. There were no other cars in the lot. A blustery cold wind blew the snow all around. I huddled next to him and watched his hands as he fumbled with the key. It got stuck for a minute and I stamped my…
Stream the New Wilco Album
One of the best bands in America, Wilco, is streaming its new album here. The album is called Wilco (The Album). There’s a song called “Wilco (The Song).” We’ll have Wilco (The Review) in Scene sometime around the June 30 release date. —Michael Gallucci
Mixing It Up
The mixtape used to be the best place to hear good street-level hip-hop. Radio only plays about 30 artists, and the clubs can be a hassle with all the bad attitude and strutting. But since the RIAA raided Atlanta mixtape DJs Don Cannon and DJ Drama two years ago for copyright infringement, a pall has…
BE THERE
Beg, borrow or steal. Scan eBay, Craigslist and StubHub. Bribe a friend, ditch the significant other for a night, lay a guilt trip on a wealthy relative. Dig into the vacation fund, take the bus for a week, pack your lunch. Basically, do anything and everything short of not paying the mortgage to get to…
CD Review: Steve Earle
Steve Earle’s debt to cult singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt is immeasurable. Van Zandt championed Earle during his struggling-artist years, and Earle even named one of his sons after the troubled troubadour (who drank and drugged himself to death when he was 52). In a way, Earle’s entire career has been a tribute to Van Zandt…
Reel Cleveland: Cedar Lee Gets Erotic
The sexual double entendres are endless in the press release we got for the Good Vibrations’ IXFF: The Second Coming Tour that comes to the Cedar Lee Theatre (2163 Lee Rd., 216.321.5411, clevelandcinemas.com) at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 20. Culled from the last three Independent Erotic Film Festivals, which take place every year in San…
CD Review: Tim Easton
Once upon a decade and a half ago, Tim Easton was making a big noise out of Columbus with the Haynes Boys, his ass-kicking Americana outfit. When that good thing came to a natural end, Easton launched his lauded solo career with 1998’s excellent Special 20, followed by a succession of equally impressive albums and…
Opening
Opening Beauty in Trouble This comedy-drama by Czech director Jan Hrebejk was made in 2001 and first released in 2006. Written by Petr Jachovský and inspired by a Robert Graves poem, the film tells the story of Anna Geislerová (lovely redheaded Marcela Cmolíková) who lives a frustrating life with her two children and husband Jarda…
CD Review: Isis
Often labeled avant-metal, this Los Angeles fivesome really does defy definitions. Following 2006’s In the Absence of Truth, the band’s fifth album, Wavering Radiant, perpetuates Isis’ explorative sonic landscapes, many of them instrumental. Guitarist Aaron Turner’s voice is brought in as a mere accent, sometimes offering hoarse screams and melodic vocal lines. The seven-minute “20…
The Goldblum Standard
Paul Schrader’s Adam Resurrected is a true conundrum. A self-indulgent mess that’s virtually unwatchable at times, it also features a genuinely spectacular performance by Jeff Goldblum that demands to be seen. Released late last year in an attempt to generate some awards-season traction, it finally plays in the Cleveland area this weekend. Based on Yoram…
CD Review: Big Business
On album No. 3, Big Business continue on their quest to blow out speakers, puncture drum heads, piss off your parents, cultivate new forms of head-banging and bulldoze the bullshit that passes for hard rock these days. This time they’ve enlisted six-string mercenary Toshi Kasai to join them on their quest. Don’t worry. Kasai’s guitar…
Expansion Team
Double-Edge Dance artistic director Kora Radella says improvisation is an integral element in her company. “It’s composition in the moment,” she says, “an art form in itself.” She brings plenty of improvised dances to XspanD, this week’s installment of Cleveland Public Theatre’s DanceWorks series. A piece by Kirstie Simson will be completely improvised, and Radella…
CD Review: Crocodiles
Like fuzzy new-school noise-rockers No Age and Times New Viking, the San Diego-based Crocodiles wield distortion pedals like paint brushes. On its debut album Summer of Hate, the duo turns its fragmented but surprisingly tuneful punk songs into a snappy, scruffy art project with guitars. Elegiac opener “Screaming Chrome”‘s 48 seconds of droning serenity soon…
Around Hear: A Very Bluesy Birthday
Colin Dussault’s Blues Project celebrates its 20 birthday Saturday, May 16, at the Savannah (30676 Detroit Ave., Westlake). A group of Cleveland blues all-stars will join the band for a three-hour show, including guitarist Austin “Walkin’ Cane” Charanghat (who will also play an opening set), singer Mary Bridget Davies, saxophonist Norm Tischler, drummer Jeff Harmon…
Playing With a Full Deck
A “deck” is the part of the skateboard you stand on or leap up from in the course of apparently impossible maneuvers — like the midair spin called (of all things) “the impossible.” Skating is sport, art form, lifestyle and obsession rolled into one defiant package, melding with pop subcultures and even flipping into alternative…
CD Review: Peaches
Peaches was once such an incendiary, shock-inducing artist, she was a role model for performers like Le Tigre, M.I.A., Amanda Blank and Santigold. So how does she deal with being a veteran rather than the sultry new face on the scene? Basically by keeping the beats hot, the lyrics wry and the hooks more infectious…
AVUNCULAR RACONTEUR
“Amazing to be answering these questions, ending up as your own anthropological specimen.” So says Seamus Heaney — winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize for literature; prolific author of poetry, commentary, criticism and drama; avuncular raconteur; Irish poet and civil servant — in Dennis O’Driscoll’s recent Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney, (Farrar, Straus and…
CD Review: Akron/Family
Freak-folk campfire shenanigans. There — it’s out of the way. Now let’s move on, because Akron/Family are so much more than the Devendra Banhart-meets-Animal Collective comparisons they often get. This band is just as capable of making Beach Boys bungalow rock as country-fried stoner jams and textured indie spasms. Set ‘Em Wild, Set’ Em Free…
CUT FROM RAW MATERIAL
There were certain risks inherent in how Chris Seibert and Ray Bobgan went about creating Cut to Pieces, which opens this week at Cleveland Public Theatre. They started with some writings by Seibert and the idea of making a theater piece in which video plays a role in defining the characters. But they had no…
CD Review: Eminem
It’s been five years since Eminem’s last album. In hip-hop terms, we might as well be talking about an entire generation. There are certainly parts of Relapse, his fifth CD, where it seems like he was in a coma for the past half-decade. That may not be too far from the truth, since the record’s…
GORE FEST
Ever wonder what happens if you jam a high-revving chainsaw straight into a zombie’s jugular? Well … Up to three geysers of demon blood shoot out in graceful arcs and splatter anyone within 20 feet. And in a small theater, that means some front-row customers are going home with plasma on their Dockers. Of…
OUR TOWN
Sarah Morton puts it kindly when she says her challenge in writing Dream/Home was to “find a way to get into the nuts and bolts” of the foreclosure crisis without “becoming a lecture on the economy or the lending industry.” In other words, she wanted to turn socio-economic calamity into a play. So she decided…
ORIENT EXPRESS
Who would have thought that provincial Westlake would trump the cultural diversity of Cleveland’s Asiatown? Not even in that bustling ethnic enclave can diners score such a range of culinary treats. From Japanese sushi and Chinese dim sum to Thai beef salad and Vietnamese pho, it’s all available in Crocker Park. More specifically, it’s all…
Arts News: SPACES Finds a Compass
Given its name, SPACES could hardly pick a more appropriate show than Internal Compasses, curated by Jeff Chiplis, Jeanne Grossetti and Vlada Vukadinovic. Press materials describe the artists in the show as “visual thinkers who map, code and catalogue experiences and information, then systematically arrange the material evidence according to personal internal strategies.” Images from…
Bites: Snatching up the old Krazy Mac’s spot
It was only a matter of time before someone snatched up the old Snicker’s/Krazy Mac’s spot at the corner of West 58th and Detroit. First-time restaurateur Rosita Kutkut will open La Boca — Spanish for “the mouth” — in early June. She took over the space soon after Krazy Mac’s closed in late November. Chef…
FRANKENSTEEL MEETS THE WOLF-MANDY
Not since Frankenstein met the Wolf Man have two performers been so harmoniously in sync as Patti Lupone and Mandy Patinkin. Both came to the forefront in 1979, he as a troubador Che, playing devil’s advocate to her Dior-draped Lady Hitler in Evita. They’re both distinctively voiced gargoyles, too eccentric in style and appearance to…
The Vatican Drag
Despite a prose style distinguished by its stunning ineptitude, Dan Brown is one of the world’s top-selling authors. Consider the opening sentence of his crypto-religious thriller The Da Vinci Code: “Renowned curator Jacques Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum’s Grand Gallery.” Of course it’s important to know that the curator is “renowned”…
A BEAUTIFUL, EXUBERANT MESS
Friedlander Through May 31 Cleveland Museum of Art 11150 East Blvd. Clevelandart.org 216.421.7340 Free Lee Friedlander’s Factory Valleys Through May 31 Akron Art Museum 1 S. High St., Akron Akronartmuseum.org 330.376.9185 $7 Photographer Lee Friedlander’s work is a beautiful, exuberant mess. Throughout his career, which began in the ’50s, his gaze has been promiscuous, taking…
CD Review: Green Day
Five years after they revived the rock opera, re-ignited political rock and resurrected their career, Green Day returns with another concept album that’s bigger, badder and bolder than American Idiot. Divided into three acts with recurring themes and musical motifs running throughout, 21st Century Breakdown is another indictment of rampant American idealism. But where Idiot…
Look! Up in the sky
TOP PICK Max Fleischer’s Superman (Warner/DC Comics) The 17 old-school cartoons on this two-DVD set rank among animation’s all-time greatest. The Man of Steel’s ultra-stylized adventures have influenced generations of animators (Fleischer’s team was also behind the excellent Popeye cartoons in the ’40s). Best of all, these remastered toons have never looked so vibrant. CD…
The A-Team
It’s early Wednesday night at Matinee Cleveland on the edge of Ohio City and Tremont. Other Girls frontman Jonah Oryszak is tending bar. The crowd is just beginning to filter in, and Oryszak, drummer Dave Wincek and Matinee owner Mario Nemr are busy strategizing how to compete with other bars and clubs in a city…
Kevin Costner
Kevin Costner’s last movie, Swing Vote, tanked at the box office. But that’s not his fault. The actor was quite good as a loveable loser who thinks his vote doesn’t count. The film also allowed Costner to flex his musical muscles on its theme song, “Backyard,” a tune which has become even more popular thanks…
Local Music Reviews
Misery Jackals (self-released) myspace.com/themiseryjackals To the punks: If you’ve just started spinning the Misery Jackals EP, don’t stop after the first few notes. To the hillbillies: Brace yourselves; the Misery Jackals play a kind of punk bluegrass they affectionately call “pillbilly browngrass.” The title of the second track, “Crack and Similac,” suggests as much. It’s…
CD Review: New York Dolls
If lightning never strikes twice in the same place, then what do we make of the reunion between the New York Dolls and producer Todd Rundgren, whose first pairing on the Dolls’ 1973 debut resulted in one of the decade’s most enduring and influential documents of pre-punk rock mayhem? Is ‘Cause I Sez So an…
Time isn’t wasted when you’re getting wasted
By Joe Strailey Sports and booze go together like Finkel and Einhorn. Or was it Einhorn and Finkel? Either way, if you know anything about Cleveland, you know Clevelanders like to drink. And, Clevelanders love to find an excuse to drink (see: Austin Carr Drinking Game). What’s not to celebrate these days? Cavs are dominating…
