Grape Nuts
The Tribe didn’t make it to the World Series, but the Jake will. The sixth annual Heinen’s/WVIZ World Series of Wine will score big this week with six wine seminars, three wine-tasting events at Jacobs Field, and five dinners starring the fruit of the vine. And all the bacchanalian indulgence can be excused, because proceeds…
Boo Who?
As the year winds down, breathlessly and apprehensively, the most anxiously awaited releases left on the schedule offer nothing less than whimsy and reveries. We’ve had enough of the real world, for now, so we look forward to leaving it behind and joining the company of Harry Potter, Frodo Baggins, and other fairy-tale creations, seeking…
Strung Out With Bird
Back in the late ’40s, during his peak and still a few years away from the heroin addiction that would cripple his career, saxophonist Charlie Parker wanted to take hardcore jazz into a new realm. He signed to Verve in 1949 and realized a lifelong dream of recording with strings. The subsequent records not only…
The War on the War on Drugs
Ohio is laaaaid back. Or so says a poll conducted by a drug-policy reform group. A few months ago, the California-based Campaign for New Drug Policies asked Ohioans how they felt about mandating treatment, rather than prison time, for first- and second-time drug offenders. Proposition 36, a measure to that effect, was approved by California…
Beat the Parents
In Domestic Disturbance, John Travolta provides a rare recent performance worthy of his fame, and it arrives bereft of laughable facial hair, flaccid special effects, and overwrought speechifying that too often renders him paunchy parody. As Frank Morrison, a builder of expensive wooden ships at a time when they’ve been replaced by cheaper plastic models,…
What the %$#&?
When the Cleveland mayoral race began, there were vows of civility all around. At the time, Mayor Mike White, a principal architect of The Comeback City, was presiding over The City Where Bickering Accounts for 68 Percent of Our Gross Domestic Product. He and council traded daily accusations of deceit, obfuscation, and general scumbagocity. The…
English Ails
It’s generally considered a violation of the unwritten code of film criticism to reveal anything that happens more than halfway into a movie, let alone near the end. But these are unusual circumstances, and anyone attending Stephen Frears’s new film Liam should really be forewarned. If you think you’re a hardy sort and want to…
Who Is Raymond Pierce?
At age 25, just out of law school, Raymond Pierce walked into John Walker’s law office looking for a job. Walker, an accomplished Arkansas civil rights attorney, didn’t have an opening for a new lawyer — until Pierce persuaded him to create one. “He was impressive. It was hard to tell him no,” Walker remembers.…
Kittie
On Kittie’s 1999 debut, Spit, the all-girl Canadian metal band offered up a sound and fury that was every bit as unexpected as gender and geographical stereotypes would have allowed. The two years since have been a dream come true for the band — and a nightmare for long-haired chauvinists — with Spit generating gold…
Not-So-Good-Hands People
Another Allstate tale of woe: Loved the article [“Good Hands People?” September 6]. I was involved in two separate accidents last year, neither of which was my fault. Both drivers had Allstate. All I will say is that my lawyer warned me they are pricks. The first accident totaled my car. So I went and…
New Order
Surfacing from the tragic demise of the post-punk outfit Joy Division, New Order channeled calamity into creativity during the experimental synth-pop era of the ’80s. Permanently marred after their charismatic frontman, Ian Curtis, hanged himself in 1980, the three surviving members of Joy Division (Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, and Stephen Morris) enlisted the help of…
The Bard in Buckskin
According to theater history’s most enduring legend, Good Queen Bess found her regal self so enamored of the bawdy misadventures of Sir John Falstaff that she ordered him up his own play. In the resulting Merry Wives of Windsor, the unrepentant bad-boy knight no longer had to play second fiddle to the self-righteous Prince Hal.…
Godflesh
On its sixth full-length, Brit industrial metal forebears Godflesh forsook machines to become them. Though a surfeit of loops and throbbing gadgetry still pulse beneath Hymns, electronics play a much more limited role in the whole affair than they have on recent Godflesh efforts such as 1999’s superb, jungle-tinged Us and Them. Remarkably, though, the…
Hell of a Long Day
There cannot be man, woman, child or beast alive who does not know that on November 6, Fox will debut its new series 24. Long before the fall season was to begin, it had already been appointed the most anticipated and beloved show of the year–by critics who had seen only one episode, no less.…
Robert Lockwood Jr.
At 85, Robert Lockwood Jr. has nothing left to prove. Appropriately lionized locally as one of the last, best exponents of Delta Blues, he is known for authenticity and guitar mastery. For proof, check out The Complete Trix Recordings, a wonderfully understated, two-CD collection. Taciturn and chronically underrated, Lockwood is said to have learned the…
Unpolished Gem
At first blush, Bongiorno’s Ristorante in Bainbridge has all the hallmarks of an undiscovered culinary gem, one of those little treasures that locals fiercely guard from a possible onslaught of outsiders. For starters, the restaurant is nearly impossible to find, tucked away as it is behind the antique shops of Hixson’s Country Village. Have faith,…
Pearl Jams
Sit a Police fan, a Primus fan, and a Phish fan down at the breakfast table, and the hash browns will be a-flyin’ in seconds. Almost as assured as the squabbling is the tendency on the behalf of most misleadingly dubbed, ego-ridden “supergroups” to suck like haughty Hoovers — Traveling Wilburys, anyone? Enter Oysterhead, an…
Industrial Evolution
First, there was Napster, which made it easy for anyone with an Internet connection to get thousands of songs for free. It was one of the ‘Net’s true mass-market hits, landing its 19-year-old creator on the cover of Time while 30 million users traded nearly 3 billion songs a month. But then the company ended…
Mushroom Clouds
With circles under his eyes almost as dark as the heavy metal he pushes and a countenance that rivals that of a bloodhound’s for pure facial fatigue, local concert promoter Mitch Karczewski will never identify with Tom Cruise in terms of aesthetics. But sitting in the cluttered Parma office that serves as the base for…
Disturbed
The sky-bound dirt clods rudely ripped from the Blossom lawn at OzzFest last summer were an even greater sign of the success of Chicago metallers Disturbed than the band’s double-platinum album is. It’s one thing to move units; it’s another to move people. And that’s precisely what Disturbed did on that day, inflaming the crowd…
Preston School of Industry
Many years ago, Scott Kannberg (a.k.a. Pavement guitarist Spiral Stairs) would drive north of his hometown of Stockton, California, to play golf with his father. From the first tee, he could see an imposing castle-like structure known as the Preston School of Industry. “Originally, it was a mining school in the late 1800s/early 1900s, and…
The Pharcyde
When the L.A.-based rap quartet the Pharcyde released its misfit debut, Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde, in 1992, it liberated the West Coast scene from all the bullets and bitches with a playful and intellectual bric-a-brac of hip-hop harmonies. The group (Fat Lip, Booty Brown, Slim Kid Tre, and Imani) smelted tight, up-tempo beats with…
Detroit Cobras
As a part of the so-called garage rock revival, the Detroit Cobras tend to prowl the perimeters of the movement with astounding alacrity, remaining a bit more traditional and true to punk than most of today’s Motor City spawn. Far from the primal, pounding blues that characterizes their better-known brethren the White Stripes, the Cobras…
