Why Not Springer?
Tom Dingow offers a polite yet patronizing look when asked his political affiliation. “Being a West Side Irish-Polack and a union member? C’mon, that’s a silly question,” he says, sizing up the moron who asked it. “I’m a Democrat.” He’s leaning over the bar at the Far More Café on Lorain, the kind of place…
Chained Up
Our beef with chain restaurants is that they take dollars away from local independent restaurateurs while contributing to the general dumbing-down of American palates. Still, it’s always good to keep an eye on the market; with that in mind, we recently dropped in on two chain-link newcomers. Upscale, youthful Bahama Breeze (3900 Orange Place, 216-896-9081)…
Ed Harcourt
Ed Harcourt is a cult favorite as enduring as The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Tom Waits. The Brit’s overlooked, genre-bending debut, 2001’s Here Be Monsters, drew comparisons to Waits’s theatrical storytelling and the over-the-top orchestration of Rufus Wainwright, but was largely ignored by the U.S. mainstream. On Sphere, Harcourt tones down his penchant for…
Letters to the Editor
Pretend investigation, real disease: Thank you for telling the real ODH story [“Stonewall,” April 23]. Sadly, it is all too true and all too frightening. My oldest daughter is one of the River Valley High School leukemia victims. It took nearly three years of constant struggling to help keep her alive, and it’s taken six…
All His Life
Dave Grohl didn’t intend to fill a niche. Not really. When he released his first Foo Fighters album in 1995 — a self-titled disc he calls “a demo tape that one person recorded in, like, five days” — he wasn’t applying for the title his old bandmate Kurt Cobain had tragically vacated a year earlier:…
Field Squad
Field Squad brings the country grammar, without Nelly’s pop-rap posturing and lame Nike rhymes. The Mansfield troupe’s debut, F.S.Q. Crew, comes correct, with head-banging beats and galvanized lyrics. Like a hardcore Digable Planets, Field Squad’s sound is both funky and feral. MC V-Hyphen is one of the area’s more promising MCs, with a booming voice…
Rebuilding the Rockers
Cleveland Rockers coach Dan Hughes is sitting outside the bustling practice court at Gund Arena, his stern face betraying no illusions about the challenges his team faces in the 2003 WNBA season. “We’ve got to put a new personality back on the floor,” he says. “What we have to do now is reestablish what we’re…
Spanish Fly
“Breaking up is hard to do,” goes the sappy old Neil Sedaka hit. But sometimes, ending a relationship can lead to artistic breakthroughs. That’s the case with Prefuse 73 (underground hip-hop producer extraordinaire Scott Herren). His new album on the British electronica powerhouse Warp, One Word Extinguisher, was conceived and recorded throughout 2002 during a…
The Rubber City Rebels
The Rubber City Rebels did their part as a sarcastic, stripped-down bar band in Akron in the late ’70s. Theirs was a sound detached from the bloated arena rock of the time; they played originals in a scene overflowing with cover bands, and they were just noisy enough to get swept up in the new-wave…
This Week’s Day-By-Day Picks
Thursday, May 22 Eric Jerome Dickey was nominated for an NAACP Image Award three years ago for his novel Liar’s Game. His latest, The Other Woman, is another tale of men, women, and the relationships that consume their lives. The couple at the center of it — a workaholic television producer and a schoolteacher –…
Sure Shots
All guns are blazing for Gatlin: The band has entered rotation on Cleveland’s FM-92.3 Xtreme Radio, becoming only the second unsigned group to achieve that feat. The hard rock troupe’s new single, “Reflection,” begins airing on June 10, with 7 to 10 spins each week for four to six weeks. The band’s song went into…
Closer to God
That little incident that happened with Evanescence last month was supposed to be a big deal. When guitarist Ben Moody spouted off in Entertainment Weekly about the band’s Christian roots — specifically, its reluctance to be labeled a Christian band — Evanescence’s debut album was pulled from Christian retail stores, where it had been a…
Great Danes
The Raveonettes come on like your classic slick European, yanking up America’s musical roots, then standing there with the limp weeds and a smirk on their purty faces. A cursory pass over the Denmark duo’s 2002 debut, Whip It On, might reinforce this stereotype. The sound of their electro-buzz guitars over droning processed beats, led…
Tasty Butt
5/22 – 5/26 Rick Browne swears by his beer-butt chicken, and he’s glad to show you how to make your own at this weekend’s Great American Rib Cook-Off and Music Festival. It’s fairly simple: Grasp a chicken by the legs. Take a can of beer and guzzle half of it. Then “slip the other half…
Rock Buyer’s Guide
Ozzy’s net worth doubled in the last year, but he’s not passing the savings on to you. Tickets for Ozzfest are up again for 2003 — topping out at an ungodly $133. And metal’s prince of darkness isn’t alone: Virtually all of the summer’s big rock festivals are priced to max out credit cards. As…
Field Trip
5/16 – 5/22 What’s the big flat wet thing directly north of Cleveland? No, before Canada . . . Yep, it’s a lake — and someone please tell the Erie Seawolves. Though the Pennsylvania town shares the same lake, it sure doesn’t have a sea. What it does have is a cozy little downtown ballpark,…
The Relapse Contamination Tour
Relapse Records has a better track record than just about any indie label around, and its current tour features three of the most interesting bands on its roster. Upon first listen, headliners Mastodon seem to settle for being heavy for heavy’s sake. But even after a dozen or so replays of the band’s 2002 debut,…
Thomas Time
5/23 – 5/26 Thomas the Tank Engine is the cheeky blue train with the perpetually sunny grin, and there’s little wonder why: The British-born steam engine, adored by preschoolers on both sides of the Atlantic, is a cash cow of the highest order. Day Out With Thomas, four days of train rides on a life-sized…
The Dictators
The Dictators need to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. As long as the debate between relevance and sales goes on, there will be advocates for the inclusion of Andy Shernoff, Ross the Boss, and Handsome Dick Manitoba. The Dictators influenced dozens of punk and metal bands, from Twisted Sister to the…
Creepshow
WED 5/28 Cleveland filmmaker Carlos P. Quiros knows all about indie movies. His directorial debut, Cut, was also written by him and shot — on a tiny budget (less than $125,000) — entirely in Ohio. It features local actors and a local production crew, and its music was scored by Quiros and performed by local…
T-Model Ford
Take away his drummer, his pickups, and his amp, and Mississippi-bred James “T-Model” Ford’s music could have sprung from the Depression era. Had the folks at Excello Records been made aware, during the ’60s T-Model might have turned out hits for the label alongside such swamp-boogie masters as Slim Harpo and Lightnin’ Slim. Four decades…
Rasta Mon
SUN 5/25 Carlos Jones remembers the summer night in 1978 when he saw Bob Marley play at the Music Hall. The concert “snagged” him on reggae music. Soon after, he was checking out local reggae gods I-Tal at the old Coach House club, where he was asked to sit in from time to time. Before…
Viva L’American Death Ray
Okay, so you’re an unapologetic retro-reveling band that’s stranded and bored down Memphis way, ’cause truth is, it ain’t no rock-and-roll town anymore. So you put out a couple of albums, tour, and then get tossed the usual “It’s all been done before” barbs. You could stew in it and believe that old line, or…
Heavenly Ham
Jim Carrey may be the second coming of Jerry Lewis, but no one’s ever mistaken him for God. Clearly, he’d like to change that — at least for now, at least at the box office. Hey, you’d feel the same way if your last movie was The Majestic. In Bruce Almighty, Carrey plays Bruce Nolan,…
Scott Hamilton
When tenor saxophonist Scott Hamilton made his way to the Big Apple from his home in Rhode Island in 1976, jazz was on the decline. The genre’s heyday was long gone, and the strains of electric jazz fusion were in the air. That would be reason enough for a young jazz musician to find life…
Till Death. That’s It.
On occasion, an artist can find meat and meaning in a previously wan and empty offering. But more often than not, the mediocre just stays that way, no matter how much money and hope you toss at it — the homage that evolves into unintended insult. This is one of those times. But that assumes…
Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra
The Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra is politically minded and powerful, with a lineup that includes Latinos, whites, blacks from America and Africa, and Asian Americans. “This 14-plus-piece band hits hard with the left and the right,” says the Antibalas website (www.antibalas.com). “Monstrous horns and bass layered over funky polyrhythmic beats and breaks, coupled with furious lyrics…
Man Abroad
Matt Dillon learned his lesson early: Suck up to the Hollywood fat cats, and you’ll keep working. From his adolescent launch in the troubled teen flick Over the Edge, to dalliances with Francis Ford Coppola, Garry Marshall, Gene Hackman, and Michael Douglas, the actor has been everybody’s boy. Now, as star, co-writer, and director of…
The Cramps
It’s easy to forget that not only did the Cramps create an entire enduring rock genre (psychobilly), but by embracing the glory of all things sleazy, beginning in the late ’70s, they cranked the ignition on the entire retro aesthetic that permeates pop culture to this day. Perhaps all this is so easy to forget…
Mayor For Life
The former all-city quarterback looks at an image of himself and sees a grandfather. Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic is at Creative Technology, a production company in Copley Township, watching a rough cut of a commercial he taped the day before. Plusquellic can be seen imploring voters to support Issue 10, an income-tax hike for school…
Rubes in Robes
Rules suck. Ever since our second-grade teacher told us to color inside the lines, most of us wanted to take a red crayon, scrawl all over the page, and then draw a long line off the page, across the desk, and out into the world, where rules didn’t matter (we thought). Then we hit third…
Marilyn Manson
Marilyn Manson’s appetite for destruction needs sustenance. After 10 years of singing fight songs in fishnets, Manson has been advocating the end of everything for so long that he’s in danger of negating even himself. The shock-rocker’s last disc, 2000’s half-baked Holy Wood, was dismissed by critics and passed over by fans. Now Manson faces…
Spin Job
Nate Simpson was wise to the game. He knew that his song, “I Believe N U,” needed radio play to be a hit, and he knew that you didn’t get radio play if you didn’t pay. Simpson had already recorded the song in his made-for-ballads baritone, backed by symphonic instrumentation and a chorus of local…
White Power
Perhaps it’s a certain kind of straight woman’s wet dream about heterosexual men: that they would actually spend hours heatedly discussing the vagaries of modern art, even as they sip Chardonnay and deeply probe their changing relationships. Yeah, that’ll happen. However unlikely the premise, playwright Yasmina Reza’s Art, which won the 1998 Tony for Best…
Dressy Bessy
When indie-rock dorks talk about pop music, they’re usually not talking about Destiny’s Child or Britney, but about Beatlesque (or at least Guided by Voicesesque) guitar bands with tons of interesting chord changes, ba-ba-ba backup vocals, and production values that worship at the altar of Brian Wilson. They’re more or less talking about Denver’s Dressy…
Good News, Cokeheads!
Hear ye, budget-conscious cokeheads: According to the Ohio Department of Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services, prices for powdered cocaine have fallen sharply in recent months, while supplies have reached all-time highs. A gram can now be purchased for the low, low price of $40-$60, compared to $80-$100 at this time last year. Not surprisingly, the…
Out on a Limbo
Over frothy-headed cappuccinos and fragrant homemade chai, card-carrying members of the East Side intelligentsia bust their moves. Shaggy-haired academics in rumpled khakis and tweed sport coats twitter over the latest departmental flap. A serious Asian grad student pores over a thick stack of papers pulled from his battered briefcase. And postmodern feminists, with high cheekbones,…
Darkest Hour
Listening to the triumphant hooks of Darkest Hour’s third album is like hearing the resounding chorus of horns that must have erupted when viking warriors routed their enemies. Instead of fighting barbaric hordes, however, this D.C. quintet has spent the past eight years battling the stale conventions of Nordic metal. Guitarists Mike Schleibaum and Kris…
