Pie Kids
At first, they approach tentatively, their pens and posters timidly extended as though afraid the two men standing beneath the blank movie screen might bite or bark them out of the theater. “No, no,” insists Chris Weitz, standing next to his older brother Paul. “I’m happy to sign your poster,” and he proceeds to scribble…
Alley in the Valley
There are two miles, and many decades, separating the noise, neon, and plastic of the Montrose shopping district from the sleepy little hamlet of Ghent. Up in Montrose, bumper-to-bumper traffic inches past acres of shopping malls, parking lots, and fast-food restaurants; the midday air vibrates with engine exhaust and the noises of commerce; and the…
A Hot Spot in Tremont
Every food — whether pizza, pasta, or roasted meat — has its own signature cooking temperature, and those thermostatic benchmarks provide the name of chef Rocco Whalen’s about-to-open Tremont restaurant Fahrenheit, where relaxed, inviting dining is scheduled to be the order of the day. The young Whalen, a Mentor native, has a résumé any 25-year-old…
Road Tested
“I’m really high. I’m not following you. You’re getting way too deep,” Volta Sound singer-guitarist Mike Cormier says from the living room of his West Side home on a chilly March afternoon. He’s talking to bassist Dave Geddes, who’s trying to dissect one of the group’s songs. A bowl has been passed, and the conversation…
Minstrel Tension
If the radio charts were the only indication, black music would be all about the booty, not the brain. It’s about shakin’ it, not about delirium tremens; it’s about rollin’ in the Benz, not about rolling in the gutter. Contemporary black music, at least as the industry conceives it, traffics in wish-fulfillment: Gucci and gats…
Ice in His Veins
Timothy Goebel’s bronze-medal performance at the Salt Lake City Olympics was, according to him, the inevitable conclusion to years of dedication. “The long program was the easiest one I did all year,” says the 21-year-old figure skater. “I felt very comfortable and wasn’t even that tired at the end.” Goebel, a former Lakewood resident who…
5 for Fighting
No matter how hard they try to avoid it, the GC5 just have a way of attracting violence. On a recent Monday night, half the band is standing around outside the Ohio City studio of Rosavelt’s Chris Allen, who has a side project with two members of the GC5. The calm is abruptly broken by…
Poetry in Motion
Six years ago, the Hessler Street Fair was rockin’ with some serious poetry action. Since its premiere during the hippie days of 1969, the neighborhood festival had always been awash in poetry, music, and crafts. But something happened on the poetry stage that fateful day in 1996: Words like “fuck” and “cock” were uttered, and…
764-HERO
It comes as a shock that 764-HERO’s newest album, Nobody Knows This Is Everywhere, is actually the band’s fourth, and that guitarist/frontman John Atkins and drummer Polly Johnson founded the outfit all of six years ago. Here’s an analogy: Remember that kid from high school who took too long getting out of his parents’ house…
Shadows of the Empire
Three years have passed since The Phantom Menace thrilled some and infuriated others, yet the schism in the Church of Lucas remains. Die-hard supporters still refuse to admit that Episode I has some truly awful acting, dialogue, and borderline offensive caricatures; and dyed-in-the-wool detractors won’t acknowledge that, despite its faults, the film is still somehow…
Kid Rock
Kid Rock’s horndog jams made so much sense in 1998, when revelry was in the air and even the President was living like a rock star. Back then, Rock was a leering sign of the times. Amid a booming economy in which Internet startups made tons of twentysomething tech geeks unlikely millionaires, he was the…
Hugh Fidelity
It’s appropriate that Universal would debut About a Boy against the latest installment in the Lucas juggernaut. Certainly it’s daring, which is the last thing one ever expected to say about a film starring Hugh Grant. Consider: Clones is an enormous movie that signifies nothing outside of itself, as disposable as a broken action figure…
Manowar
It’s usually pretty easy to laugh at Manowar’s credo, “Death to False Metal.” (It’s even easier to snicker at their bikers-in-loincloths image.) But when a band is still doing things its way 20 years after its debut and celebrating that fact with a tour this mind-blowing, you gotta show some goddamned respect. The dudes are…
Salton Crackers
If you enjoy movies about a violently widowed man who’s unsure of his identity — and is covered in tattoos that remind him of his mission of vengeance — but you can’t be bothered with the frustration of watching a movie that’s edited backwards, set that Memento DVD aside and go check out The Salton…
Mike Watt
Mike Watt is the only bass player in history who can get away with calling his instrument a “thunder broom.” It’s ridiculous. It makes you want to cry. In concert, the underground legend is a whirlwind of grimacing facial expressions and punk rock ferocity — funky, suave, rockin’, hilarious, terrifying. He’s got a litany of…
A Stab in the Dark
Evelyn Hopkins Moyer is accused of killing her boyfriend in the most direct and violent of ways: a knife to the gut. She had her reasons. Friends claim he was stalking her. She filed two police reports saying he attacked her. Her boss saw her with a black eye. While Moyer won’t talk about the…
The Breeders
We regard the Breeders as perhaps you regard your no-account, jail-prone Uncle Bob — if he shows up for Thanksgiving dinner at all, you’re happy and relieved. Even if he’s wearing his pants inside out and drooling all over the table. Yeah, savor that image. Title TK certainly embodies it. As the absurdly awaited follow-up…
Two Dead Sons
Six years ago, when Matthew Carroll’s friends ran to his father’s doorstep shouting that Matthew had been shot, Michael Carroll thought they were joking. It wasn’t until he followed them down the street and saw police everywhere that he realized the truth. While playing with a gun at a neighbor’s house, 15-year-old Matthew had shot…
Bryan Ferry
Bryan Ferry, the paradigm of rock and roll freeze-frame, would never be so disheveled as to be frantic. But he can be urgent and persuasive — qualities that dominate this album, his best in a good 10 years. Paced by a propulsive, infectious cover of Dylan’s “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,” the public image…
Shakeout for the Beautiful People
When Ford Talent rolled out of town nearly three months ago, its departure sent shudders through the ranks of Cleveland’s beautiful and talented. This was, after all, the once venerable David & Lee agency — purchased by Ford only three years before. It represented most of the city’s top actors and models, who were stunned…
Weezer
Not since the bug-eyed Ric Ocasek somehow landed in the sack with supermodel Paulina have rock geeks scored like Weezer did last year. Triumphantly returning from a five-year hiatus brought on by its slow-selling second album Pinkerton, Weezer sold out arenas, landed on scads of best-of lists, and earned another platinum record with Weezer. Now,…
Couch Patrol
Ricardo Tanker might seem a little slow at first, because his speech is slurred and he mixes up words. Out of work at the moment, he lives in a tiny house with tacked-up bedsheets for curtains. Sometimes, he and his wife, Pamela, will yell too loudly at each other, and neighbors will complain. But he’s…
The Radar Brothers
Unlike other drugs, which pique or blur the mind and senses, heroin just anesthetizes you. The euphoria passes, time slows down, the world remains present, but none of it matters. As such, heroin is the perfect analogy for the Radar Brothers’ new release. Clearly, much loving attention has been lavished on the album, and you…
Overruled
The Corrigan family speaks out: My brothers and sisters really thought the article on Judge Daniel O. Corrigan [“Bench Warmer,” April 4] was quite humorous, but lacked some essential truths about the man. Tom Francis failed to mention his many accomplishments. My father was an early proponent of computers and secretarial staff in the courtrooms.…
Boulder
If Boulder’s last disc, the poseur-pounding Ravage and Savage, was a call to arms for true metalheads to get back into their leather, the band’s latest is an invitation for ladies to get out of theirs. There’s still plenty of raw rock kicks: gas-guzzling monster-truck riffs, gnarly bass lines, and leads that drip magma. But…
Kisses for Kate
In the harsh gray light of real life, bearing witness to squabbling spouses ranks with root canal and taxes. Miraculously, through the mysterious transformational powers of art, two stage works that focus on marital acrimony manage to be enchanting in one case and riveting in the other. Kiss Me, Kate opened in December 1948, when…
