No Rush Job
With the release of Different Stages this week, Rush continues its career-long tradition of releasing a live recording every five years or so. Drummer Neil Peart, guitarist Alex Lifeson, and bassist/vocalist Geddy Lee have made a career out of touring and recording their live shows, and that’s because their fans are as loyal as any…
Playback
Phish The Story of the Ghost (Elektra) When you have that “jam band” tag like Phish does, it’s equal parts blessing and curse. Staggering concert numbers prove that, when Phish hit the road, there’ll be a looong trail of vehicles following. When your live show is not only your strength but your natural environment, having…
On the Good Foot
When Rick James was at the height of his fame, he was a super freak. When he was addicted to cocaine and crack, he was a super freak, too–so freaky, in fact, that he wound up in Folsom Prison for an extended stretch. But is James still a super freak after undergoing hip-replacement surgery? James…
Swing, Pardner
In the basement of the Archwood United Church of Christ on Cleveland’s southwest side, about thirty people have gathered for their weekly square dance lesson. But they’re a lot younger and less crinolined than the typical county fair set. You’d also be hard-pressed to rustle up a gal here, as most of the dancers are…
Keelhaul
Keelhaul Some CDs should come with warning labels like medication–“Do not operate heavy machinery or motor vehicles while under the influence of this recording.” Yanni would put you to sleep at the wheel, Dishwalla would annoy you to the point of road rage, and Keelhaul’s self-titled debut would cause you to speed recklessly and mow…
Midtown Mirage
The $2 Rare Bookstore isn’t the tidy, well-lighted place you walk into seeking a particular title. It’s the dim, dusty, ill-heated cavern dreamed of by people H.L. Mencken dubbed the “bibliobibuli”–those who are drunk on books. Thirty-nine-year-old former house painter Chris Uram understands this condition, because it was his own book mania that led him…
Mocking the Boat
“It’s not even so much what I dislike about the music,” Chris Smith, guitarist for the Cleveland band Keelhaul, says of mainstream music. “It’s what I dislike about the consumer and the average human being. The corporate machine fucking pumps our brains with crap and thinks we really desire all this materialistic, disposable garbage. As…
Night & Day
Thursday November 12 Give that man a throat lozenge. After surviving a nasty bout with laryngitis, singer Billy Joel is on the road again. Last summer, he had to cancel gigs with Elton John and postpone a handful of tour dates, including a visit to Cleveland, because of illness. But the piano man, who’s pushing…
Men (Back) at Work
It’s unlikely that anybody planning a comeback for aging Australian popsters Men at Work would have advised the band to invade America the second time around via a live album recorded in Brazil. But the group, which arrived in America in the 1980s through a similarly haphazard route, swears it isn’t just cashing in on…
Only the Lonely
For filmmaker Todd Solondz, it’s always midnight in suburbia. Life is lonely, and the natives can be hostile. In his daring second film, Happiness, the darkness engulfs victims of all ages: a boy in the throes of impending adolescence; three New Jersey sisters tormented by sex and love; an obscene phone caller trapped in a…
Something About Jonathan
Relentless teenager Jonathan Richman looks old. At 47, he’s still got the thin hips and short, curly hair he had as an impish rocker in the early 1970s. But now his face is a little leathery, his cheeks are rough with a three o’clock shadow, and the crow’s-feet around his eyes fly toward his temples.…
Death Rattle
Well, now we know why the term “bored to death” was invented. Meet Joe Black takes an interesting idea–Death assumes human form and comes to Earth to learn about human existence–and reduces it to a flat, uninspired, interminably slow movie. Not only slow but long: a full three hours. Produced and directed by Martin Brest…
Makin’ the Scene
Local art collector Eugene Stevens owns a piece of rock memorabilia that’s a little more precious than the guitar picks the guys in Cinderella dispensed at the Odeon Monday: Sisters of Mercy, the painting that appeared on the cover of Live’s smash CD Throwing Copper. Stevens loaned the canvas to the Cleveland Museum of Art…
Loud Silent Night
In theory, anyway, it was a cinemaphile’s dream job–working for a Columbus company that archives and distributes silent movies. But for Tim Lanza, organizer of the Avant Garage Film Festival at the Cinematheque this week, there was one hitch: He had nowhere to watch the films he catalogued at the Douris Corporation (an early film…
Livewire
Cake The Damnations Agora November 4 Sacramento, California’s Cake gave its die-hard fans exactly what they wanted: a live representation of the loose, indifferent mentality inherent in all three of its major-label releases. But don’t blow them off as an irreverent schlock band. Throughout the 15-song set, the talented band combined Vincent Di Fiore’s disciplined…
A Phish Tale
In conversation, bassist Mike Gordon sounds exactly like a member of Phish should. He’s relentlessly pleasant, and modest, too: Whenever he offers a reply that might be construed as even mildly boastful, he immediately softens it with a little laugh meant to indicate that he usually doesn’t take himself all that seriously. His speech can…
The Straight Dope
Did the Celts really celebrate a holiday by building a huge, hollow man out of wicker, filling the man with prisoners, then lighting the thing on fire? Or instead are they the victims of really bad Roman press? If true, this really sets a high bar for judging a tough family holiday. –tam2731, via the…
Who’s Minding the Store?
In the film Falling Down, the out-of-work defense industry engineer played by Michael Douglas abandons his overheating car on a gridlocked Los Angeles freeway ramp and sets out on foot across the urban jungle to find his way home. When he walks into a ghetto grocery store to get change for the phone, the surly…
The Mouth
The King’s Kourt What’s the rumpus about our Guv, King George V? Sure, George Voinovich thrashed his U.S. Senate opponent Mary Boyle at the polls. Hell, the King outspent her almost 7-1, so no shock there. But what about these new money-laundering allegations from the Guv’s ’94 campaign? Count on Mouth to chew it down…
Trained Eye
To mixed media artist Douglas Lucak, the ash heaps and railyards of Cleveland’s Slavic Village neighborhood are the city’s enduring landmarks — a sentiment reflected in his recent series of small painted photographs. Depicting industrial scenes in his own backyard, the works have the intimacy of hand-tinted postcards from the late-nineteenth century. “The whole area…
Dealing Toward Armageddon
While walking down Playhouse Square, one may note a giant billboard of a beatific Julie Harris, lovingly wrapping her arms around a teddy-bearish Charles Durning. You might think they were touting some generic theatrical peach pie, such as Back to Golden Pond or Ma and Pa on Broadway. This is anything but truth in advertising.…
Letters
Cyberthumbs Up Congrats on the “new look” online. I’m a longtime “onliner,” and I really appreciate what you guys do! I love the Livewire and Playback sections. I also enjoy the Letters section (in which a couple of mine have appeared). I make it a point to read every Thursday. Thanks a lot for your…
New-Age Asian Diner
When peripatetic Richard Baribault was wandering around Asia in the 1970s, he never guessed that one day he would reign as king of the Cleveland noodle houses. But one thing led to another–there was the export business, his eastside “Toogies” pizza parlors, and a foray into publishing–and now, here he is, making a living ruling…
