Crash Landing
The Los Angeles-based racial drama Crash (which opens Friday) may be a color movie, but virtually everything in it is black and white — from the sprawling cast of characters to the police cars that patrol the area to the streets that become the backdrop for the simmering story. As the movie progresses, black and…
The Elephant Men
Brent Hinds has put on some weight. His band, Mastodon, finished up a mega-budget, liquor-sponsored tour with Slayer and Killswitch Engage not too long ago. And apparently, the catering was too good to pass up. “I’m getting fucking fat, dude!” Hinds exclaims. Courting obesity was just one of the perks of being part of a…
Jon Spencer and Matt Verta-Ray
Elvis lives . . . in spirit anyway, as reflected by this retro collaboration between Jon Spencer, leader of his self-dubbed Blues Explosion, and Matt Verta-Ray from rockabilly revivalist Speedball Baby. Vintage-sounding rockers, such as “Dark Hair’d Rider,” “Lover Street,” and “The Loveless,” take a cue from Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and…
Hershae Bar
WED 5/11 Hershae Chocolatae describes herself as a piping-hot mug of cocoa. “Easy on the foam,” she advises. “Have a little sip. It will go right to your dome.” Quirky quotes are the norm from the Toledo-based stripper-turned-drag queen. In the summer of 1999, she was frequently partying at a Bowling Green bar, where Nadirah…
Back from the Dead
It wasn’t supposed to happen, and those with polite sensibilities probably hoped it wouldn’t. After a solid but less-than-capacity draw in 2004, Cleveland’s Brave Words and Bloody Knuckles Six Pack Weekend appeared to be on the verge of retirement this year. “This event was dead and buried,” festival director Mark Gromen told Scene earlier this…
Yellow Delicious
Yellow Delicious plays no-keyboard new-wave rock like it’s 1981, with a foot in the ’70s — “What Do You Want From Me?” has plenty of cowbell. Get Some!, the Cleveland quartet’s second album, sounds like a best-of disc from a band that had a string of Top 40 hits the last time skinny ties were…
Roll Out the Duct Tape
FRI 5/6 Never in our most fevered dreams would we have envisioned a world in which baseball, polka, and duct tape would exist under the same roof. Friday’s Lake County Captains game against the Kannapolis Intimidators brings the triumvirate together for a Salute to Duck Tape and Polka Night at Classic Park. “We’re working with…
Rubber City Metal
Joe “Jozey” Zeitler has been playing guitar since he was 18, but the 39-year-old axeman and his trad-metal troupe Mob Scene have been a presence in Akron’s metal scene for only the last two years. Now he’s making up for lost time by launching Detained Records, a new label that he hopes will bring some…
Various Artists
Even though they consist largely of unassuming white guys and their laptops, IDM and progressive electronica can be among the most intimidating of genres. By incorporating fractured beats, heady time signatures, and all manner of unidentifiable sounds, the music challenges listeners to find structure in something that can initially sound like a sped-up game of…
Still Hanging
SAT 5/7 Last month’s Top 10 debut of Lifehouse’s self-titled third album astonished nearly everyone, including the band’s frontman, Jason Wade. After the commercial letdown of 2002’s Stanley Climbfall, most industry prognosticators didn’t foresee such a strong showing. After all, this was a band pretty much labeled a one-hit wonder after 2001’s ubiquitous “Hanging by…
The Crystal Method
Ever since debuting in the mid-’90s, Ken Jordan and Scott Kirkland have been a raucous but reassuring constant in the trend-happy world of electronica. As the Crystal Method, the Los Angeles duo emphasized the “rock” in their block-rockin’ beats early on, and they’ve never really let up on the stompbox. The glammy big beat of…
Born to Cover
WED 5/11 If you didn’t get tickets to Sunday’s Bruce Springsteen show at Cleveland State University’s Wolstein Center, you’re not alone — the concert sold out in about three minutes. And if you missed all four of Michael Stanley’s April shows at Akron’s Tangier, worry not. For one night only, the Stone Pony Band will…
Jimmy Chamberlin Complex
As a Smashing Pumpkin, drummer Jimmy Chamberlin undercut his bombastic backbeat with a smack habit that got him fired. But his Complex cuts alternative rock with jazz, à la Weather Report, Bitches Brew, and Tortoise, to produce something coolly unstoppable. Pummeling, rolling, sometimes just pattering, Chamberlin and co-writer/bassist Billy Mohler mostly lay down jazzy, jammy…
War: What Is It Good For?
Whatever you do, don’t accuse Ridley Scott of turning his back on a fight. Doesn’t matter if it’s slimy-fanged space aliens attacking Sigourney Weaver, Roman slaves fighting off hungry lions down at the Coliseum, or American GIs going at it with Somali insurgents. Sir Ridley is always happy to stage the proceedings with a minimum…
Old 97’s
The Old 97’s don’t perform in Cleveland as often as they should, or so claims singer-guitarist Rhett Miller’s wife. The little lady is a native of Brunswick, and Miller says he has a bunch of in-laws in the Cleveland area. A cynic would presume that’s the reason Miller and his three Old 97’s compatriots avoid…
Wax Off
The new House of Wax — a remake, pretty much in name only, of the 1953 Vincent Price movie (itself a remake of a 1933 film) — manages to be gruesome and grisly, but it falls well short of being truly creepy, much less terrifying. Horror aficionados expecting the chills that Asian filmmakers like Hideo…
John Brown’s Body
Adopting its name from the well-known American abolitionist of the 1850s, John Brown’s Body is an extraordinary octet from Ithaca, New York, that manages to kick, drop, and groove in that funky retro-Jamaican vibe while never sounding derivative. The band plays reggae music, yet with such a unique approach that it’s easy to see why…
We’re No Angels
Much of Crash, an L.A.-stories portmanteau about the suffocating embrace of racism, is hard to watch, harder still to listen to. Its characters — the creations of co-writer and director Paul Haggis, but also of people who live next door and perhaps even inside you — say and do things they shouldn’t. Theirs are internal…
Good Charlotte
Three years ago, a Good Charlotte/Simple Plan double bill might have sent legions of TRL watchers into fainting fits or ecstatic paroxysms. Back then, the two pop-punk bands were the kings of the Wet Seal-browsing contingent. The wacky Canucks in Simple Plan earned screams for being the musical equivalent of its fans’ Livejournals, thanks to…
Love, African Style
It’s always difficult to pan a movie that features good actors, important issues, and noble intentions. But In My Country, a romantic drama about two journalists covering the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings in post-apartheid South Africa, leaves little choice. Clunky and obvious, it makes the mistake of asking drama to do what documentary should…
Lightning Bolt
Lightning Bolt has captured the hearts of indie-rock feebs by being hard ‘n’ heavy, but free of the lower-class indentifiers (and consequent social stigma) of being, y’know, metal. It’s a bass-drums duo, and it sounds sort of like the melee that would ensue had Cliff Burton joined Japanese prog-thrashers Ruins — less Mahavishnu medleys, more…
Who You Callin’ a Quack?
When secretary Nancy Nusser saw the cop walking down the hall, she thought he was coming to ask for a donation. She smiled and rose from her desk to say hello. Then she saw 11 more cops rushing in behind him. They walked purposefully, stone-faced, wearing bulletproof vests over their hooded jackets. Two wore black…
Age-Defying
We human beings wrestle with the concept of aging with all the dexterity of a circus clown trying to unfold a recalcitrant deck chair. It’s futile, but only natural, because once you realize that the miracle of birth has entitled you to a one-way ride to eventual and permanent oblivion, it sort of kills the…
Prefuse 73
No, your new Prefuse 73 CD is not skipping. It’s just the wizard of schizophrenic enterprise, Scott Herren (who also records as Delarosa & Asora, Savath & Savalas, Piano Overlord, and La Coreccion), flashing his mixing skills. On Prefuse’s latest, Surrounded by Silence, Herren scratches and knob-twiddles his way through a back catalog of beats,…
The Big Bentkowski
In a cozy place like Seven Hills — a suburb of just 13,000 — scuttlebutt scuttles quickly. When the question is “Did you hear?”, the answer most often is “Yes.” So last summer, when Mayor David Bentkowski plunked down $87,000 for a spacious house on a leafy street — well, everyone heard. And the rumors…
On Stage
Beauty and the Beast — Carousel’s version of the ubiquitous show features some terrifically enjoyable performances, but it lacks visual appeal. Many scenes — even intimate two-person moments — are played on the theater’s immense but essentially bare stage, sometimes in front of a painted backdrop or a silvery curtain. At times, it feels like…
Robert Plant and Strange Sensation
Robert Plant has produced his best album since Now and Zen in Mighty Rearranger, a seamless, organic exploration of African rhythms, mystical lyrics, and the blues Plant uses as a touchstone. Backed by Strange Sensation, the band that helped modernize Dreamland, his curious 2002 cover album, Plant proves that he still commands the dreamy, authoritative…
Blame the Right
Blame the Right Warped patriots put sanctimony on the air: In response to the article “Indecent Proposal” [April 20], I can’t see how in the hell the FCC can fine someone up to half a million dollars for saying, playing, or doing something indecent, when dumping nuclear waste into the ocean is only a fine…
On View
NEW Tri-C West Annual Juried Student Art Exhibition 2005 — The best works in student shows are those that fulfill the technical assignment while also accomplishing something personally expressive. Happily, there are many such in this giant multimedia roundup. “Teacher and Student,” featuring an older painter mentoring a child with brush in hand, not only…
R.I.C.E. Fest
It’s a meaningless acronym, but it sure has a nice ring to it: The fourth R.I.C.E. Fest is a lot of rock, a lot of art, and a little bit of everything else. In addition to live bands in the front room, the Phantasy will open its back room to 20 artists, who will display…
Eating Mister Ed
On a Friday afternoon, Leroy Baker stands on a wooden walkway above a sea of horses. Sunlight beams through slits in the stable walls as he looks down upon the maze of dusty pens. The small ones hold groups of young steeds and mares. The larger pens, about 10 by 15 feet, are packed with…
Nauti, but Nice
First things first: Provocative name notwithstanding, there are no naughty mermaids at The Nauti Mermaid, a casual beer-and-seafood joint docked in the Warehouse District. About as racy as it gets, in fact, is the small-scale figurehead mounted over the front door; still, with her ample endowments draped in Mardi Gras beads, she’s chaste enough that…
Greenskeepers
Greenskeepers made a name for themselves with the monster house anthem “Should I Sing Like This?”, and this live show will start with a DJ set by their jet-set mixmaster, James Curd. Then the main event is a set of dance-till-you-can’t-dance-no-more grooves, embellished by a full band. The Chicago-spawned crew does it all with one…
Spare Change
U.S. Attorney Greg White took a break from banging on corrupt Democrats last week to acknowledge that his office is investigating a well-heeled, well-connected Republican. FBI agents raided the Maumee home of Tom Noe, a rare-coin dealer who raised more than $100,000 for the Bush election campaign. Authorities are looking into whether Noe broke election…
Schindler’s Wine List
Every high-end restaurant has a wine list, and nearly every high-end restaurateur takes the time to teach his staff a thing or two about it. As a business principle, it’s a no-brainer: Savvy servers sell more wine — and for most dining rooms, that’s where the moola is made. As president of Hospitality Restaurants (owners…
Nouvelle Vague
The original post-punk era of the late ’70s/early ’80s may have been the most challenging and pessimistic time in the history of underground rock, which is why some aging misanthropes sneered when post-punk revivalists from the Faint to the Fever turned its forlorn sounds into the latest fad. Here the sneer is returned with a…
Night Shift
Dave Attell never imagined that his Saturday night in Cleveland a few years ago would involve a Polish American social hall and a bevy of blue-haired belles. But there he was at midnight, laughing and carrying on as he polkaed with 70-year-olds. As Attell whirled around the dance floor, his Comedy Central crew was rolling…
Idiot Savants
Gerard Way should have known the answer, but he asked anyway. “For how many of you is this your first show?” inquired the My Chemical Romance singer, sweating mascara, as he opened for Green Day at Pittsburgh’s Mellon Arena. Most of the 10,000-plus in attendance screamed loudly in the affirmative. This came as no surprise.…
Wednesday 13
Shock-rock groups that lose prominent members usually end up haunting record-store racks with horrific albums. And so things looked grim when Joey Jordison left the Murderdolls to concentrate on Slipknot, his day-job gig, and frontman Wednesday 13 dissolved the band and started writing his own songs in the same ghoulish vein. But Transylvania 90210, 13’s…
This Week’s Day-By-Day Picks
Thursday, May 5 Earlimart’s got a serious Elliott Smith fixation these days. (Back when the group started out, it cribbed from the Pixies.) Try listening to the L.A. band’s latest album, Treble & Tremble, without stirring memories of the late singer-songwriter. Betcha can’t. Singer Aaron Espinoza now sings in a fragile, near-angelic voice that seems…
This Blood’s For You
Shirley Manson went topless. Then she went to jail. Or so the crowd at Washington, D.C.’s 9:30 club thought. At a recent gig by her band, Garbage, Manson ended a rendition of a new tune, “Sex Is Not the Enemy,” by flashing the crowd her flesh-colored bra and then getting dragged offstage by police officers.…
Okkervil River
Singer Will Sheff is certainly not the first white boy to immerse himself so thoroughly in suburban stoner-bud angst that he sounds damn near British (see Conor Oberst, Ben Kweller). So it’s less than surprising that every so often, he comes across as valedictorian of the Robert Smith School for Sensitive Goths. Not that there’s…
