A Less Perfect Union
Diversification leads to more discrimination: Laura Putre’s article [“Welcome to the 1950s,” October 9] failed to make it clear why there is something wrong with the lack of blacks living in Parma. Ideally, city employees should live in the city they work for. Southern California prospers because it recruits migrant labor and illegals for the…
Shannon Wright
Shannon Wright’s as much an actress as a singer, with songs suffused with such drama and intensity that they’re best described as “chamber theater.” Wright’s nimble voice trills, screeches, and shrieks, going from soft and sweet to loud and bullying like antagonistic characters in a melodrama, echoing the music’s cabaret quality. While much less rock-oriented,…
Force of Hobbit
By 4 a.m., nine hours into the marathon reading of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers that’s at the center of this weekend’s J.R.R. Tolkien geekfest, you’d think that listeners would have just about enough of Frodo, Gandalf, and those damn hobbits. Not so, says Sadia Syed, who’s on the planning committee. “There…
Coco Montoya
As generations pass, blues music survives more and more in hybridized forms with rock or soul, rather than played straight-up. While this trend may displease some purists, artists such as guitarist-vocalist Coco Montoya have thrived in this mixed atmosphere. Since ending a 10-year stint with John Mayall in the early ’90s, this disciple of the…
Curve Ball
The TV ad campaign for the sleeper hit My Big Fat Greek Wedding plays cleverly on the film’s cross-cultural appeal by substituting the words Italian, Jewish, and Russian for Greek. The implication: A person from any ethnic or religious background will relate to this story’s characters, drama, and humor. Real Women Have Curves is another…
The Circle Jerks
Circle Jerks Fun Facts: 1) The band’s singer rules — but don’t take our word for it. Henry Rollins often gets props as Black Flag’s definitive frontman, but ask Hank, and he’ll tell you which Flag singer set the standard, way back in 1978: Keith Morris, who would then go on to front the irreverent…
Wonder Boy
So, you wish to know if Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is as good as its precursor. Is it as charming, visually gratifying, faithful to filthy-rich author J.K. Rowling’s inescapable books? Well, that’d be yep times four, as it’s definitely an enchanting spectacular for Potter fans anxious to ride the Hogwarts Express toward…
Hate Eternal
Hate Eternal’s second album, King of Kings, has no proper melodies to speak of, boasts drum tempos three times faster than the per-minute tally averaged by the human heart, and will get you thrown out of the house if you’re under 18 — guaranteed. It comes housed in a sleeve with a painting of a…
Caveman’s Valentine
The repellent Casanova portrayed by Campbell Scott in Roger Dodger has an instinct for looking up skirts and down cleavage, but no capacity for looking in the mirror. Part salesman, part caveman, Madison Avenue copywriter Roger Swanson is, deep in his cynical heart, as loathsome to himself as he is to us, but he disguises…
The Blood Brothers
Like all great shriekers before them, Seattle’s Blood Brothers understand melodrama and rage. They revel in shock and disgust. They thrive on nightmares and decay, and are fully committed to making an ugly world uglier. Best of all, they’re good at what they do. Similar to a lot of dark, belligerent acts, the Blood Brothers…
What’s Up, Donnie?
Against a completely black background comes the low, ominous rumbling of thunder. A sense of unease washes over the viewer. When the first images appear onscreen, they only heighten our level of apprehension, because in the middle of a curvy mountain road lies a figure. There is no way a driver would see the body…
My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult
Of all the bands named after Russ Meyer flicks (Mudhoney, Faster Pussycat, Motorpsycho, Vixen), My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult seems most inspired by the filmmaker’s bawdy vision of the world. For 15 years, the Chicago ensemble has titillated concertgoers with over-the-top live sets, complete with GWAR-like creatures, voluptuous showgirls, and fire-breathing antics. The…
And a Pig Shall Lead Them
Amy Casey doesn’t drive. Her view is one seen from trains and buses, through back lots, under bridges, and past weary buildings. She loves signage: flashing bar signs, garish neon, hand-painted and faded advertisements. Moving slower than the speed of car, she picks up all the details and records them in her paintings, using tiny…
The D.D. Jackson Trio
Combining the drama and technical prowess of a distinguished classical artist with the improvisational grace of a dyed-in-the-wool jazz man, pianist D.D. Jackson speaks with intelligence and authority in a style that can be both delicate and frenetic. A graduate of Indiana University with a master’s in music, Jackson started playing piano at about six…
Boys Will Be Boys
If your primary memory of Lord of the Flies was slumping bleary-eyed at your desk while your ninth-grade English teacher droned on about how man is inherently evil and the island is a microcosm, then take comfort: Beck Center’s dramatized version is probably a more gratifying approach to William Golding’s heavy-handed faux fable than anything…
U2
The acolyte will deride the obvious misses amid this collection of hits, among them “The Fly,” “Please,” “The Wanderer,” and “Elevation.” The casual fan won’t even notice, since the casual fan skipped most of the band’s ’90s output anyway, insisting on staying beneath the shadow of The Joshua Tree. Still, it’s amazing U2 could fill…
P.C. Hammer
Who among us will ever forget the pubic hair on the Coke can? Back when Congress was reviewing Clarence Thomas’s appointment to the Supreme Court, former co-worker Anita Hill claimed that the judge had sexually harassed her, in part, by placing the unsightly follicle on her beverage container. And after delivering a litany of his…
Pearl Jam
If Pearl Jam once came across as a group of populist party-poopers who helped put a bar code on teenage angst, these born-again progressives now seem bent on forsaking their riches for righteousness. With a new album of wild-eyed, off-the-cuff rockers with little commercial potential (including a temperamental attack on Dubya called “Bushleaguer”), Pearl Jam…
Cuisine du Corner Bar
Say you’ve got 17 pairs of blue jeans in your closet. To the casual observer, they may all look alike, but you know better. One is a paint-speckled pair of Levi’s, one is button-fly (reserved for the days you order dessert), another is that style with ankle zippers — the kind that was a hot…
Bloodbath
Bloodbath makes ugly music, even by death metal standards. The band’s second record is one of the rawest releases of the year thus far. Composed of moonlighting members of Opeth, Katatonia, and Edge of Sanity, Bloodbath makes music that has little or nothing to do with the music on those other groups’ more complex records.…
Soul Survivors
Clarence Fountain loves the Lord. The founding member and leader of gospel legends the Blind Boys of Alabama loves being dipped in the river of Jordan, loves being left to feel like a motherless child, and even loves being swung at by a chariot. Recently, though, he had to open his heart to being covered…
Various Artists
The late singer-songwriter Phil Ochs is often quoted as having said that the last real hope America had for a revolution was if Elvis had become Che Guevara. Imagine the King as a radical rockabilly martyr who one day decided to turn Graceland into a compound, surround himself with dozens of wives, declare Memphis an…
Number One With a Bullet
Recently, Interscope Records released Nirvana, a 14-song best-of that not only features tracks from Bleach, Nevermind, In Utero, and Unplugged, but also the long-lost “You Know You’re Right.” The song, recorded almost a decade ago by Kurt Cobain, Krist Novoselic, and Dave Grohl, had been tied up in litigation that pitted the surviving members of…
Various Artists
If Dogtown and Z-Boys left you jonesin’ for some hard-edged ’70s rock, but you don’t feel like shelling out 18 bucks for the soundtrack only to get 10 songs AOR radio has been playing twice a day for the last 27 years, Sucking the 70s is just what Dr. Gonzo ordered. The double-disc compilation comprises…
The Sound of Violence
In the late ’90s, the Black Dice were in the middle of a show in Minnesota when an angry mob emerged from the crowd and proceeded to beat the shit out of the band’s members. “We basically got beat up by a bunch of people while we were playing,” says guitarist Bjorn Copeland over the…
The Volta Sound
Like one prolonged Calgon moment set to wax, the Volta Sound’s latest recording is pleasantly anesthetizing. “Hello all you people, waiting for your rapture to arrive,” singer-guitarist Mike Cormier drawls midway through the disc, bringing the bliss on the appropriately titled “Zen Is Everywhere.” Cormier doesn’t breathe much life into his words; his voice is…
Aaron Judgment
By all accounts, Aaron Phillips is a good lawyer. As a Cuyahoga County assistant prosecutor, he’s argued hundreds of cases, from drug possession to murder. Last year, he was one of the prosecutors who finally won a conviction against Angela Garcia, the Cleveland mother accused of starting a fire that killed her two young daughters…
Attitude Check
Hip-hop purists disagree about who deserves credit for birthing gangsta rap. Some observers cast their votes for artists like Schoolly D, Slick Rick, and KRS-One of Boogie Down Productions, while others cite early ’80s tracks such as Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s “The Message,” which slammed a socially conscious ghetto narrative into what was…
Drumplay
Drumplay’s latest is world music in the truest sense: The album was recorded in Belgium, features Egyptian architecture on its sleeve, and pulses with African and Asian instrumentation. And much like the band’s superb Beachland, recorded live at the club of the same name and released earlier this year, Under the Map features Cuyahoga County…
Pet Peeves
Three-year-old Puco Friedman had always been high-strung. Her parents’ friends whispered that she was spoiled, but Mommy and Daddy just brushed them aside. She was so smart and loving. Who wouldn’t indulge her? Then Puco’s perfect world turned upside down. Her parents moved from Columbus to Cleveland and adopted a baby brother, whom she instantly…
Italian Boot
“I really can’t have my name mentioned, for obvious reasons,” the 26-year-old founder of the Mark Dutroux Slideshow says from his west Cleveland home. “I’d get in too much trouble. The idea of me naming a musical project after a pedophile child murderer probably wouldn’t go over that well.” Especially since the musician (let’s call…
The Forceps Affair
Until the final minutes of his mother’s pregnancy, until those awful moments when everything suddenly shifted from good to complicated to terribly bad, Matthew was expected to be a big, healthy baby. His mother worried that he was too big, in fact, but she was a first-time mother. She was supposed to worry. The first…
On the Fast Track
The superb local trip-hop ensemble Racer Mason lived up to its name by blowing past the competition at a demo-listening contest last week at the Beachland Ballroom. Put on by the Chicago chapter of the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences, the event drew over 100 local submissions, with Christian hip-hoppers Iron Triangle and…
