Zagat Survey of Cleveland’s top restaurants
It’s time again for the Zagat Survey of Cleveland’s top restaurants, a once-every-two-year opportunity for devoted diners to weigh in on the region’s most notable eateries. This time around, volunteer “surveyors” will be asked to rate and review as many as 65 of the area’s most notable eateries – ranging from casual joints like Sokolowski’s…
This Just In: Concert Announcements
As we enter the sunny season, Scene presents 55 hot new shows: My Chemical Romance, Linkin Park, and whole busload of their buds at Projekt Revolution. The Bluerunners, sometimes refered to as “the Cajun Clash.” A rejuventated Buckcherry plays Ohio Bike Week. Hot country from Tray Byrd. Ripping metal from Lamb of God and Hatebreed.…
Dennis Kucinich song contest: Sing about the elf
Scene is proud to announce its “Get Drunk and Sing About Dennis Kucinich” contest. The rules are simple: 1). Get wasted, stoned, eat some really potent shrooms, or all of the above. 2). Make a YouTube video of yourself singing a song about the Creepy Elf, in which you mention Scene. 3). Repeat Step One.…
Money Where Your Mouth Is: Fall Back
The Scene Music Department could tell you what you should do Saturday night, but they’ll let a smokin’ new band do it instead. Band: Fall Back Hometown: Cleveland, America Sounds Like: “Converge, Terror, Integrity.” Fun fact: “The male platypus has a spur on the hind foot, which delivers a poison capable of causing severe pain…
A Girl’s Guide to the Kentucky Derby
Having just returned from our first-ever trip to the Kentucky Derby, we thought we’d offer some advice to those considering going next year. Remember, this comes from two girls who until now only knew about horse racing from My Fair Lady, so proceed at your own risk: 1. Don’t expect to see any actual horses.…
Paul Monea’s convenient case of hearing loss
Career con-artist Paul Monea may have one of the world’s rarest health conditions: a hearing problem that acts up on command. In his money laundering trial that started today, Monea’s lawyer Bill Whitaker filed a motion for Monea to get special “accomodations” for his hearing loss. But before U.S. Judge John Adams starts searching the…
The Plain Dealer names a new editor
The mystery is over. The Plain Dealer has announced its new editor, Susan Goldberg, who will replace the retiring Doug Clifton later this month will be. Goldberg, a Michigan native, held the same job at the San Jose Mercury News. While leading the California paper, she steadied the ship as it went through two different…
Nut Poll: Ohio wants to kill strip joints
CCV, the downstate crazies behind the Stripper Bill, today released a poll that they say shows widespread support for their proposed crackdown on strip clubs and other adult businesses. The timing of the poll’s release was no accident: the Ohio Senate’s Judiciary committee will meet on the bill tomorrow, and is expected to push it…
The fight over regulating alternative medicine
Two years ago we brought you the story of Ohio’s out-of-control war against natural health [“Who You Callin’ a Quack?,” May 4, 2005]. Tired of harassment from state licensing boards, practitioners of such disciplines as mechanotherapy, reiki and rolfing sought a “health-care freedom” bill to limit the boards’ powers to investigate them. The boards themselves…
Show Review: Bone Thugs-N-Harmony
The past week was a good one for Cleveland. Tuesday night was party time downtown: halter tops, booze, wall-to-wall traffic, cops, and loud music. With the clock’s final seconds ticking away and the Cavaliers about to seize a 2-0 lead in their second-round playoff series, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony celebrated its five-years-in-the-making return with a CD release…
Show Review: Heaven and Hell
Friday night, the Time Warner Amphitheater was the unlikely scene for the second coming of Black Sabbath. The metal titans have reunited with their second singer, Ronnie James Dio, cleverly retitled Heaven and Hell to avoid the wrath of Sharon Osbourne. The tour is without a doubt the metal tour of the year. And it…
Mikey G’s entertainment picks of the week
This week’s top arts and entertainment picks around town, from the guy who’s paid to pick them: Monday: Sure, Saturday’s loss was tough. But LeBron and the boys have a chance to rebound at tonight’s game against the Nets. The latest Official Cavaliers Watch Party takes place at Buffalo Wild Wings in Strongsville. You know…
Danny Diablo hits Agora, not people, on Wednesday
Danny Diablo will warm up the stage for Hed (PE) at Peabody’s (2083 E. 21st St., 216-776-9999) Wednesday, May 16 — and once he’s done, the rap-rock one-hit wonders will be lucky if there’s any stage left to take. Diablo made his name as Lord Ezec, playing New York hardcore with Skarhead and Crown of…
Traveling to Chicago made cheaper
With gas prices rising to the legal measure of obsenity, a weekend trip to Chicago was not looking very pocket-friendly. Airline prices began at $140 and driving required $30 tanks. But a new long distance express bus, operating out of Tower City, allows travelers to head to Chicago for a price less than the cost…
Black contractors are talking lawsuit
Norman Edwards is president of the Black Contractors Group, which monitors construction sites countywide to ensure minority contractors and workers are getting their fair share. A noble cause, yes. But as Scene reported last year, Edwards’ past business dealings make him at best a highly questionable choice for the job [“Slave to His Past,” April…
Get Down Again With Murray Saul
Those of us who didn’t drink all of our brain cells away at “Nickel Beer Night” in the ’70s remember that back in the day, there was only one way to start the weekend off right. Each and every Friday afternoon at 6 p.m., we “got out of that sweat shop” and officially launched into…
Mikey G’s Weekend of Wonders
This weekend’s top arts and entertainment picks around town, from the guy who’s paid to pick them: Friday: Seattle singer-songwriter Laura Veirs looks to the ocean for inspiration on her latest album, Saltbreakers. She says the CD is about sweat and other liquids that leave behind traces of salt — like tears. Go hear her…
Reader: Kucinich a no-show as Ford cuts more jobs
I find it interesting with the announcement of a loss of nearly 600 jobs at the Ford plant in two weeks, and another 1,200 by 2009, that Congressman Dennis Kucinich (“I support the worker”) is too busy galavanting all over the country instead of his usual “screaming in front of the camera after the fact”…
Interview with Toni Iommi, guitarist for Black Sabbath/Heaven and Hell
Black Sabbath is back as Heaven and Hell, with a new name and a fresh set list. For the first time in a decade, the band is playing without Ozzy Osbourne. They’ve reunited with Ozzy’s successor, the legendary Ronnie James Dio, who sparked the band’s heavier, darker period, beginning with 1980’s kick-arse Heaven and Hell…
New book chronicles the history of University Circle
Folks looking for a last-minute Mother’s Day gift should pick up Cleveland’s University Circle, a photo-stuffed book all about our city’s arts hub. Clevelander Wayne Kehoe – a CSU graduate and local history buff — compiled the volume from tons of old photographs (many of them courtesy of the Cleveland Press Collection. In addition to…
Cavs announce official game parties
The Cavaliers don’t play again until Saturday. The NBA apparently wants the playoffs to last until November, so they overlap with the start of next season. Super. Personally, I prefer watching these games at home, where the beer is cheap and the sandwiches are the size of a Kia. The privacy of my living room…
Dainty Esquire foresakes Cleveland in Best Bar list
For (at least) the second consecutive year, Esquire magazine has neglected to include a single Cleveland haunt on its bulky list of the Best Bars in America. Last year’s edition featured two bars from Seattle, three from San Fran, five from Chicago, and one from goddamned Hoonah, Alaska. This year’s addition, in the issue just…
Daniel Johnston
Many artists despise imitators, but it’s all flattery to Daniel Johnston. “I love to be an influence,” he says in an amiable drawl, phoning from Texas. “People send me tapes in the mail all the time.” But here’s the irony: Few musicians have such an impossible-to-duplicate style. From the homemade, voice-and-piano cassettes he used to…
Hiding Sausage
Charcuterie, salumi, or cured meat: No matter what you call it, finding a local source for handcrafted salami, soppressata, and the like has been no easy matter — at least until last week, when we came across Kris Kreiger’s Berea butcher shop, Chef’s Choice Meats (127 West Street, 440-234-3880). Tucked into a quiet residential ‘hood,…
Paws and Effect
As long as you don’t mind a little drool, you could meet the love of your life at today’s Paws 4 a Cause: Find Your Forever Friend event. The Cleveland Metroparks’ third-annual walk and pet-adoption program is all about the hookup. “Animals bring joy in so many different ways,” says spokeswoman Colleen Bittner. “There’s nothing…
Clutch
Neil Fallon’s beardo connections to Jerry Garcia and ZZ Top run deeper than just sharing a contempt for shaving. Immortalized in the Headbanger’s Ball classic, “Burning Beard,” the singer and guitarist’s facial hair makes his band Clutch a logical successor to the beard-rock throne. Like Garcia and the Dead, Clutch is a road dog who’s…
209 Weeks Later
Four years after “Mission Accomplished,” 28 Weeks Later reminds us that the mission — both political and fictional — is now officially, apocalyptically fucked. The story thus far: Seven months have gone by since the “rage virus” passed from chimp fang to British bloodstream in an animal-rights intervention gone awry, unleashing a horde of frenetic…
Blades of Glory
North Coast Inline Skating School celebrates Skate for Health Day with free Rollerblading lessons this morning at the Cleveland Heights Community Center. Experts swear that the sport trims fat faster than a day at the gym. “It burns just as many calories as running or cycling — with half the shock on your joints,” says…
Walter Carson
You can bet your tattooed ass that in a town the size of Lexington, Kentucky, anybody who doesn’t play Zep covers or mix Eminem beats counts as experimental. This means oddball musicians in the hinterlands are forced to interact with folks who play radically different styles: The local power-noise dude has to share bills with…
Mormons: They’re Just Like Us
Three noisy women and a worn-out premise rattle around trying to make contact in Georgia Rule, an incoherent dramedy from director Garry Marshall. Marshall’s broad comedy has always made him a soft target for critics, but along with his duds (Beaches, Runaway Bride), he’s made a few charming women’s pictures, among them Frankie and Johnny,…
Sista Act
New work by nine black female artists will be unveiled at tonight’s opening reception for Summit Artspace’s STAR: Sistas Thrive Art Revolution exhibit. The 20-piece show features photos, prints, and sculptures by local artists Caressa Matthews, Christine Morrow, and Robin Sallie. Additionally, Shani Richards contributes rap-inspired jewelry, and Magalie Foster shows off paintings accented with…
Richard Lloyd & the Sufi Monkeys
Along with Tom Verlaine, Richard Lloyd represented one half of Television’s creepily telepathic guitar duo. Since the band’s breakup in 1978, Lloyd has beaten a nasty drug habit, taught kids in New York how to play axe, served time in Matthew Sweet’s backing band, and sporadically released solo albums. Lloyd is also an adept songwriter,…
Short Takes
The Ex When career slacker Tom (Zach Braff) gets fired from his latest job, he packs up his wife Sofia (Amanda Peet) and their newborn kid, and trades life in the Big Apple for the calming pleasures of small-town Ohio — Sherwood Anderson country. There, he takes his sad-sack father-in-law (Charles Grodin) up on the…
Old-school Punks
Once you get past Briggs frontman Joey LaRocca’s faux Brit sneer, the retro punk on their latest album, Back to Higher Ground, can be quite a charge. The Los Angeles quartet spits, spews, and pretty much stomps all over it in a three-chord squall. The Briggs name Bob Dylan as a huge influence, but sharp…
Savoy Brown
Like it or not, the British blues boom of the ’60s was one of the best things to happen to the music as a popular genre. Before the the Rolling Stones, Clapton, Van Morrison, and others hipped white kids on both sides of the Atlantic to its tradition, blues was losing its audience to an…
Washington Weakly
In the classic Frank Capra film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Jimmy Stewart showed how one man could buck the congressional system and protect the interests of the people. But flash forward almost 70 years to today, and we see a capital city so crammed with arrogant lickspittles, warmongers, and pathological incompetents that even Jefferson…
Tickle Me Elmo
“Here (in Your Arms),” the new single by California pop-rockers Hellogoodbye, makes the most fabulous use of the vocoder since Cher’s “Believe” had us breaking a sweat on the dance floor back in 1999. The skittering, synth-huggin’ beats on the band’s debut album, Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs!, are tons of fun. Tourmate Boys Like Girls…
Mastodon/Against Me!/Cursive/These Arms Are Snakes
It’s hard to imagine a bill that better represents the cream of the indie, punk, metal, and hardcore scenes. Mastodon is the main course; its jackhammer throb and neo-Sabbath sludge — combined as it is with prog-inflected melodies — create a visceral experience capable of both blowing your mind and bludgeoning you into submission. Each…
No Will, No Way
To sell a studio on a film idea, you have to boil your proposal down to a capsule pitch. “It’s Titanic meets Shrek, with a splash of Harry Potter!” Such high-concept ideas might seem clever initially, but the challenge is to sustain that ingenuity for an entire production. Playwright Sandra Perlman has come up with…
A Melange of Music
It’s a mixed-up, crazy bill at the Grog Shop tonight. First up: Night Kills the Day, whose debut album, The Study of Man, sounds like a moody merge of ’80s goth and ’90s metal — sorta like the Cult, without the annoying singer. Test Your Reflex, on the other hand, plays TRL-ready alt-rock on its…
God’s Disneyland
Inside the warehouse-sized chapel, music pounds as pastel lights illuminate a choir in full get-down-with-Jesus mode. They are young and polished, with enough lip gloss and passion to contend on American Idol. Cymbals crash, drums swell, four giant screens descend from the ceiling to project the lyrics of redemption: I’ve had some problems, some great…
The Library Is on Fire video premiere/pizza party
Sure, The Library Is on Fire plays some of the most poignant indie rock in Akron’s rich scene. But this week, they have not one, but two things to offer that are just as good or better: 1) free pizza and 2) a new video for the blissfully discordant “New Corner.” The band has recreated…
Capsule reviews of current area theater presentations.
Chevalier, Maurice & Me — The term “boulevardier,” describing an elegant man-about-town, has fallen out of use — probably thanks to the lack of such men as much as to the paucity of appropriate boulevards. But there are two such gentlemen now at Kalliope Stage in the singular person of Tony Sandler. Born in Belgium,…
Mother Yukkers
When the 3 Blonde Moms comedy show rolls into town this weekend, one member of the Los Angeles-based group will feel at home. Joanie Fagan plans to celebrate Mother’s Day with her Cleveland-born husband, their daughter, and his very large family. “He’s one of six kids,” says Fagan. “And all the kids have kids.” But…
Comedy Central Candidate
Jon Stewart, watch your back: Congressman Dennis Kucinich has once again managed to make himself the laughingstock of Northeast Ohio and the butt of jokes from TV comedians [First Punch, May 2]. He embarked upon his second presidential run before his latest term as congressman began. Dennis knew he was on the last tier of…
Elliott Smith
New Moon is a 24-track collection of rarities recorded over the two years preceding the release of 1997’s Either/Or, Elliott Smith’s crowning achievement. Most of these songs are among the singer-songwriter’s best work. Take “All Cleaned Out,” where Smith encapsulates his strife through the second person, a trick he loved using: “You toss the empty…
Capsule reviews of current area art exhibitions.
NEW Daniel Rothenfeld — Daniel Rothenfeld’s art is among the zillion things that changed after September 11. As this diverse, occasionally stirring solo exhibition makes clear, the terrorist attacks shook the Bratenahl artist, leading him to explore new subjects and shift from glass sculpture to acrylic painting. Still, the older work is more consistently original…
Master Keys
First Alicia Keys inspires Bob Dylan to name-drop her in a song. Now the R&B singer serves as an art-exhibit muse. In the Massillon Museum’s The Altered Journey: A Search for Meaning (which opens today), Donna Engstrom and Cheryl Strait assemble collages out of books, jewelry, and found objects. The works pay tribute to women…
Reverse Course
Earlier this year, when Scene wrote about the financial peril at 150-year-old Myers University [“Mired University,” February 28], President Dick Scaldini claimed we were living in the past. The school was in the black, he said. Things were looking up. But Scaldini must have since found some crumpled invoices in an old pair of slacks.…
The Head Cat
A surprisingly traditional rockabilly set by the Head Cat won’t completely erase the fact that singer Lemmy normally fronts Motorhead, the most tooth-rattling loud band in the history of the known universe. But it’s a start. Cop a listen to what that gravelly voice sounds like without a wall of distortion. The trio’s rounded out…
Hitchcock on Holiday
To Catch a Thief: Special Collector’s Edition (Paramount) Starring Cary Grant as a cat burglar and Grace Kelly as a hot-to-trot heiress, this is easily one of Alfred Hitchcock’s slightest films, especially coming on the heels of Rear Window; indeed, its idyllic setting on the French Riviera suggests it was a vacation getaway for the…
Here Comes the Son
Robert Olmstead knows why his novels – including the new Coal Black Horse – feature fathers, sons, and the connection between them. “My dad was a drinker,” he says. “He taught me how to drive so I could drive him home.” Coal Black Horse centers on a 14-year-old boy whose mom asks him to bring…
No Bones to Pick?
If you know your hip-hop history, then last year’s signing of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony to Interscope Records might have triggered a double-take. Sure, the long and bitter feud between ex-N.W.A members Dr. Dre and the late Eazy-E might have died with Eazy. But there’s still something a little strange about the idea of Eazy’s former protégés…
Björk
Björk’s last few albums were too polite. The ice-crystal percussion and melodies on Vespertine were stunning but mannered, while the nearly a cappella Medùlla — where beatboxing and throat-singing replaced traditional instrumentation — lacked the mischief of previous pop experiments. Thankfully, Björk’s gleeful sense of adventure is back on Volta. Collaborators like Timbaland, Lightning Bolt’s…
Lousy Hustler
There was a time in my life when I might have actually enjoyed Pocket Pool a little bit. Back when I was 12, giving myself migraines from staring at scrambled cable porn, the notion of a game where I could “win” pictures of girls in their underwear would’ve seemed pretty cool. Heck, even the game’s…
In Your Face
She-male bartender Amber calls the B-12s and O-75s at the Grid/Orbit’s twice-weekly Bar Bingo bash. Every time you buy a drink on Monday or Tuesday, you get a game card. Amber then calls out numbers throughout the night. Winners get to spin a prize wheel for gift baskets, free shots, or passes to get in…
Born Again . . . Again
It’s knowledge that’s the equivalent of a secret handshake: After Sabbath’s nasty split with Ozzy in 1979, the band kept making good albums. And even though some would-be fans write off Ronnie James Dio as the model for Spinal Tap-style excess, those with a taste for the hard stuff recognize Dio was the best to…
Giant Skyflower Band
Glenn Donaldson seems less a musician and more a medium plucking hazy visions from pop’s collective memory. Of course, surfaces can be deceiving. With projects like the Ivytree and the Skygreen Leopards, it’s really the singer-songwriter’s sly but meticulous craftsmanship tricking fans into believing he’s like that. However, on Blood of the Sunworm, the debut…
Our top DVD picks for the week of May 8:
Because I Said So! (Universal) Breaking and Entering (Weinstein) The Bridge on the River Kwai: Collector’s Edition (Sony) Cagney & Lacey: The True Beginning (MGM) The Caine Mutiny: Collector’s Edition (Sony) Catch & Release (Sony) Deliver Us From Evil (Lionsgate) Dirty Dancing: Twentieth Anniversary (Lionsgate) Donnie Brasco: Extended Cut (Sony) Everybody Loves Raymond: The Complete…
Water Logged
On her latest album, Saltbreakers, Seattle singer-songwriter Laura Veirs looks to the ocean for inspiration. “The sea is so mysterious and destructive and renewing,” she says. “It’s rich in songwriting material.” Getting back to nature is nothing new for Veirs, who’s already employed the vastness of the Pacific Northwest as a theme — particularly on…
Why Bother?
The title of Adult.’s latest album, Why Bother?, seems as portentous as the electro-goth-industrial dance punk contained within. Despite the Detroit duo’s penchant for twisted humor, are Nicola Kuperus and Adam Lee Miller suggesting that they’re hoisting the white flag after a decade of sonic insurgency? “For us, it’s [also] the whole phenomenon of free…
Sage Francis
Sage Francis is a champion battle rapper, but the dude makes shitty CDs. Maybe that’s because battling — which requires gimmicky quips, passionately spun — is a different skill set. Imagine hearing this lyric, from the track “Good Fashion,” at a rap battle: “Clowns are playing Russian roulette with paint guns/They run in place and…
Here are the week’s best releases from the pop-culture universe:
DVD — Pan’s Labyrinth: The two-disc special edition of last year’s best movie features commentary by director Guillermo del Toro, storyboards, and lots of behind-the-scenes docs — everything from the film’s special effects to its symbolic use of color gets dissected. But it’s the terrific fairy tale — complete with pixie-eating beasts and a conflicted…
Devil Horny
Otep frontwoman Otep Shamaya’s deal with the devil was probably more sexual than Robert Johnson’s. Listening to the L.A. metal band’s latest album, The Ascension, you can’t help but notice how fierce she sounds. And how sexy. If anyone can make the growls of the goat-sacrificing genre sound like foreplay, it’s Shamaya, who packs a…
Punk Sell Out?
In the spring of 2003, Denver police raided a small, inconspicuous warehouse space. What they found was Against Me! and a hundred or so spiky-haired kids, taken completely by surprise. That night has become an urban legend that still makes the rounds in punk gossip circles — mostly because of what happened after the cops…
Dinosaur Jr.
Before its recent reunion, Dinosaur Jr.’s original lineup — J. Mascis, Lou Barlow, and Murph — last jammed together sometime in 1989 (for the full story, read Michael Azerrad’s book Our Band Could Be Your Life). Mascis went on to release both interesting and awful blasts of guitar-driven rock. Barlow operated primarily under the Sebadoh…
Space Invaders
The Children’s Museum’s Blast Off! exhibit was co-developed by NASA experts, so the hands-on activities and interactive displays are the real deal. Not that little ones will have time to think about authenticity as they scale the moon, build a rocket, and make like Major Tom in a spacesuit. But don’t tell the kids they’re…
College Daze
It’s not that stand-up comic Alex Ortiz doesn’t enjoy playing universities. He just prefers comedy clubs. “You have to be 100 percent clean in colleges,” he says. “There can’t be any sex or drugs. That’s all I talk about!” The domestic jokes that make up a huge chunk of his routine also pose a problem.…
Scott Miller and the Commonwealth
While there’s no shortage of twangy, southern-fried rockers, few match Scott Miller’s skillful narratives and satiric wit. With a passion for history, Miller imbues songs like the country-styled train song, “Amtrak Crescent,” with a sepia-toned nostalgia, and “Say Ho,” his ode to Sam Houston, with a freewheeling, bluegrass-tinged perspective that perfectly bookends Davy Crockett’s famous…
Templeton’s Zeal
Rolled in the blues and dipped in jazz, Templeton’s Zeal plays virtuosic, feel-good alt rock. So forget the mopey indie-rock scene; this Akron trio is a college-circuit sensation waiting to happen. A graduate of the Berklee College of Music, singer and guitarist Jimmy Huntington Jr. has hyperactive fingers and a voice to match. “Drift Away,”…
Animal House
Stand-up comedian Dan Grueter comes from a large family. No surprise that his veterinarian dad had to occasionally cut corners with his 11 kids. “He was so cheap that he thought [he was] qualified to be our family doctor,” says Grueter. “One time I cut my foot on some glass, and he refused to take…
Cities, Slicker
Spaces’ Shrinking Cities: Interventions exhibit includes pieces that document recent renovations to several urban landscapes. Artists, architects, and city planners contribute photos, drawings, and models to the display — which features blueprints and other plans that helped cities like Detroit, Liverpool, and Ivanovo, Russia, with their extreme makeovers. (A companion exhibit, Shrinking Cities: Research, runs…
Johnston Beaten
After an opening set, Kent indie-rocker Beaten Awake will back singer-songwriter Daniel Johnston for four songs on Saturday, May 12 at the Grog Shop (2785 Euclid Heights Boulevard). The band discovered Johnston during a recent tour, via the 2004 documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston. The film documents the acclaimed, eccentric singer’s two-decade struggle with…
Slavic Soul Food
Paprikash, pierogies, and roast pork with kraut: For devotees of Polish home cooking, the very names conjure up images of urban ethnic enclaves, where broad-shouldered steelworkers and their sturdy wives sit down at tables loaded with earthy eats. What a surprise, then, to find Babushka’s Kitchen out here in the country — Northfield Center Township,…
Good to the Last Woof
Phoenix Coffee turns into a canine-welcoming café at its weekly Take Your Owner Out for Coffee Dog-Friendly Sundays. Barrista Bonnie Kaczor says the sight of dogs lapping up bowls of water alongside owners sipping java is a common one in Europe. “It’s an absolutely fun thing, because it’s common ground with people and their dogs,”…
Fab in Manila!
In the Sundance hit The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros, a slum-dwelling 12-year-old Filipino boy dresses like a girl and runs numbers for his dad. The motherless Maxi also cooks and cleans for his two crooked brothers. It’s a testament to this breezy film that the kid’s matter-of-fact sexuality isn’t played for laughs or exploitation. His…
Iris DeMent
One of my favorite Iris DeMent moments is her title-track duet with John Prine on his 1999 disc In Spite of Ourselves: “He ain’t got laid in a month of Sundays/I caught him once, and he was sniffin’ my undies/He ain’t too sharp, but he gets things done/Drinks his beer like it’s oxygen,” she sings.…
Jerk
Featuring Roué’s Justin Coulter, Jerk’s A Frenetic Menace sounds like every appliance and electronic gadget in Best Buy malfunctioning simultaneously. The thing is just impenetrable — even by noise-rock standards. If the experimental-hardcore quartet was trying to make Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music sound like Pet Sounds, it may have succeeded. And if another one…
Dream Team
Verb Ballets’ Dreamweaver takes on surrealism and other flights of fancy at the Cleveland Play House tonight. The program features three recent pieces, including the world premiere of “Ocean Depths.” The new half-hour dance is based on a Greek myth about two lovers who fall in love at the bottom of the sea. “It’s almost…
