Hell to Play
The rackety RV that Cleveland metallers Chimaira have called home for the past five months sleeps six comfortably. There are 10 people on board. The band, its driver, road manager, and two techs left the comfort of their homes in June to take another stab at uncrossing the arms of skeptical longhairs in dives and…
Squirreling Monkeys
It’s a mouthful, but Pictures, Patents, Monkeys, and More . . . On Collecting is an intriguing title for an art museum exhibit. Especially the monkey part. Opening Saturday at the Akron Art Museum, the exhibit will likely appeal both to highbrow connoisseurs and pack rats. Representing one end of the collecting spectrum is the…
Barn Burners
If you wanted to catch a hot regional rock band in the middle of Ohio in the mid-1960s, you didn’t find it in a nightclub or bar, but in a civic hall that had been transformed into a teen rock venue for the weekend. Mansfield today won’t be mistaken for a musical mecca, but in…
Orchids R Us
Most people’s encounters with orchids are limited to one specific context: They’re either buying them as a corsage to grace the wrist of a prom date, or they’re wearing the corsage. Because orchids are seen on such rare occasions, and since most people never set foot in the woods, it’s easy to assume that these…
Poor Reception
When the economy was booming in the mid- to late-’90s, folks started to do crazy things with their money. Investors handed millions over to twentysomething computer geeks, Internet startups popped up with the frequency of Bill Clinton’s wiener, and the “greed is good” mantra of Wall Street’s Gordon Gecko again became resonant. Count radio behemoth…
It’s So Wizard!
Lovely magic, this. An enchanting family classic. If you believe in magic, you’ll love Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. And if you don’t, you will, and you will. True, the hype has been a bit much. And yes, a mad, desperate world choked with reproduction and reprobation could hardly be expected to resist such…
The Strokes
Anyone who’s visited a McDonald’s knows that consumers prefer an experience that doesn’t stray too far from a recognizable way of doing things. Sure, they’ll forgo the Golden Arches for Arby’s, buy roast beef instead of burgers, but only if everything else — from the plastic tray it’s served on to the pimply-faced kid who…
Dental Damned
It takes a nimble mind to mix light and dark, to wed humor with treachery, and in Novocaine, newcomer David Atkins is not always up to the task. Neither is Steve Martin, who wants to be taken seriously while reserving the right to produce the occasional sick yuk. If you still like your film noir…
The Icarus Line
The term “Icarus line” is slang for dying. Perfect then, since the band Icarus Line would like to kill you. Or themselves. Or something like that. “We try to break as many rules as we can,” explains frontman Joe Cardamone, whose singing voice, appropriately, cuts not unlike a bloody saber. “And we make our records…
The Look of Hate
It is difficult to imagine a more timely film than Focus; certainly, its message about intolerance resonates in a post-September 11 world in ways the filmmakers never anticipated. Adapted from Arthur Miller’s little-known 1945 novel of the same title, Focus looks at what happens to a society when basically decent people do not stand up…
Harry Connick Jr.
Harry Connick Jr.’s 2001 appointment book is busier than a saxophone arpeggio crawling up the scale on one of the jazzman’s big-band-inspired compositions. Two CD releases here, four movie projects there, a Broadway debut as a composer/arranger/ lyricist thrown in for good measure. But don’t ask the 34-year-old Connick to remain content with his musical…
A Police State of His Own
Steve Graham might actually enjoy the second-guessing a President endures. It would be tamer than the criticism he faces as Timberlake’s first full-time police chief. Graham’s presence has sparked public outcry, petition drives, and the first lawsuit against the village in its 54-year history. Despite calls for his ouster, the affable 36-year-old chief laughs off…
The Candy Snatchers
“This is rock and roll!” howls Candy Snatchers frontman Larry May, as breakneck pop-punk fury rumbles behind him, spraying rudimentary rhythms, ultra-distorted guitar riffs, and copious mouthfuls of Pabst Blue Ribbon all over the place. Anyone with a hangover, a Ramones record, a cheap guitar, and a garage can realize this sort of glory, and…
While The EPA Slept
Seven years ago, scientists found a host of volatile chemicals slipping beneath the soil of a factory and into the groundwater around Middlefield. The names — trichloroethene, tetrachloroethene, methene chloride, and dichloroethene — meant nothing to residents. To the scientists, they meant trouble. They can cause liver, kidney, and nerve problems, not to mention rashes…
Rob Zombie
“Music is becoming so personal. It’s embarrassing. It’s like listening in on someone’s therapy,” Rob Zombie gripes in the latest issue of Spin. These words ring especially true when it comes to heavy metal, Zombie’s demonic domain, which has taken a dramatic turn toward ham-fisted introspection in recent years that’s damn near antithetical to the…
Predator’s Paradise
Dean Lovelace first noticed the trend six years ago. Instead of using banks for mortgage loans, inner-city Dayton residents were turning to brokers — those specializing in customers with tarnished credit — whether they had bad credit or not. Then Lovelace started hearing horror stories. There were complaints of high-pressure sales, high fees, high interest…
The Parallax Corporation
Hailing from the Hague and named after a ’70s paranoid conspiracy film, the Parallax Corporation is the leading figure behind the worldwide Eurodisco revival. Actually, it’s pretty much the only figure involved in it, but the band’s sputtering retro weirdness really should be the next contagion to take over every dance floor on earth. It…
The Velvet Hand of Justice
Farmers Insurance fit nicely within their crosshairs. In Cleveland and Toledo, housing activists had a white guy call for a quote on home insurance, then had a black or Latino guy request a quote on a similar dwelling. The test was repeated hundreds of times. In half the cases, Farmers offered the minority guy an…
Charlie Hunter
Ol’ Chuck scored himself the Santana treatment. Revered as a young, “hip” jazz guitarist with a creative axe (eight strings — three bass, five guitar), California boy Charlie Hunter commands a funk-obsessed backing band and a guest vocalist slate that’s not exactly of Rob Thomas caliber (thank God). It’s a crossover move, from underground to…
Not-So-Bleak House
Louise Harris can’t help it if she’s popular. “You know what, baby?” she declares from her easy chair. “Everywhere I go, people like me. I don’t know why they like me. Sometimes, I can’t stand myself.” Here are a few guesses: People like her because she’s 76 years old and swears like a sailor. Or…
Gem
Sunglare Serenades is the sad comedy of the drunk who sobers up only long enough to remember why he drinks. Even at its most winsome moments, when the pilsnered pop is as intoxicating as its muse and melody springs forth like a Jack (Daniel’s)-in-the-box, this record still stings like a snifter of Tennessee’s pride. Yeah,…
Lisa Needs Bearcat Love
Hell, who couldn’t use some Bearcat love? Wow, I guess that Lisa Chamberlain really told you guys what for, huh [“Letter From the Editor,” October 25; Chamberlain’s letter was in response to The Edge, September 27]? I kinda get the feeling that Lisa is one of those women who might need . . . um…
Thanks for the Memories
Across the street from the white-linen Wyndham Hotel is a work of art that not only evokes the stained history of American slavery, but reminds viewers that the past will always haunt the present. Rememory, Johnny Coleman’s large-scale installation at the Here Here Gallery on Playhouse Square, imports the countryside into the concrete slabs of…
Full Contact
Contact, on tour at the Palace, bills itself as a full-fledged musical, yet if truth-in-advertising rules were strictly applied, it would be labeled a dance piece. That’s because it tells its story solely through dance, augmented with only the most minute snippets of dialogue. However, the work’s attributes go far beyond appealing to dance lovers.…
Almost Special
During the 1970s, while most of downtown devolved into a wasteland of littered sidewalks and boarded-up facades, Jim Swingos and his Celebrity Inn kept the flickering flame of Cleveland nightlife alive almost single-handedly. Situated on the corner of Euclid Avenue and East 18th Street, the hotel and its restaurant, the Keg & Quarter, were where…
‘Tis the Seasoning
Ask Certified Executive Chef Richard Fulchiron to name the seasonings he couldn’t do without, and salt is prominent on his list. “It’s excellent for rounding off flavors and finishing off soups, sauces, or braised items,” the assistant professor at Tri-C’s Hospitality Management program says. “Why, even bread is not bread without it.” All this is…
