Thoroughly Perverse Cabaret
The tour of Cabaret at the Palace Theatre is a somewhat diluted but still highly charged replication of the Broadway and London revivals. Originally intended for cozier quarters, this pansexual refurbishing proves once and for all that the right blend of Nazis and sex never goes out of style. Here is one of the handful…
Corner Kicks
Twenty-six years is a ripe old age for any restaurant to reach, let alone an unassuming spot like Mickey Krivosh’s Around the Corner Saloon and Eatery. In fact, in an industry that chews ’em up and spits ’em out at an alarming rate, Around the Corner’s longevity is irrefutable proof that plenty of West Siders…
Crabs That Take the Cake
Chef Mike Turcola’s lump Jonah-crab cakes are some of the best in the city and are a staple on his seasonal menu of Mediterranean-inspired fare at downtown’s Vico (1852 East Sixth Street, in the Leader Building; 216-622-1440). The inventive Turcola gussies up the goods with a mélange of frequently changing accompaniments, like Belgian endive with…
Staying Afloat
It’s election day in Milwaukee, and Sam Prekop, singer and guitarist for the atmospheric pop quartet the Sea and Cake, has already done his citizen’s duty and dropped his ballot into the great political maw that is the 2000 presidential race. His vote cast, he now turns his concern to the band’s upcoming shows, the…
Yeoman Performer
When Chris Jonas, a gifted and original avant-garde soprano saxophonist and composer, performs at Inside in Tremont this week, local musicians will be backing him up. The band will include alto saxman Aaron Ali Shaikh, tenor player Josh Smith, bassist Kurt Kotheimer, drummer Scott Davis, and guitarist Dan Dockrell. Some of these instrumentalists are already…
Sing a News Song
Award-winning WOIO-TV anchor and North Olmsted native Denise Dufala proudly counts among her side projects the Make-a-Wish Foundation, Cleveland Community Building Initiative, and a successful singing career. This weekend, she’ll get her wings as a guest soloist with Cleveland’s internationally acclaimed youth chorus, the Singing Angels. “I hear such fine reports about her,” says Bill…
Soundbites
Diane Akins holds up a yen on a silver chain that Cars bassist Benjamin Orr, a Cleveland native, sent her while the Cars were touring Japan in the ’80s. In the basement of her Parma house, among the encyclopedias, porcelain knickknacks, and a book on Girl Scout badges, Akins has a veritable shrine to Orr.…
Gory Hallelujah
To schlock film fans, a Troma production means two things: tits and gore. To Troma co-founder and auteur Lloyd Kaufman, his films mean something else: an artistic statement made with 100 percent freedom — and tits and gore. “Whether or not what I do is high art, it has opened doors for others to go…
Slaid Cleaves
It’s a prerequisite these days for singer-songwriters to have personal stories at least as compelling as their songs. Slaid Cleaves has that requirement covered fairly and squarely. The Maine native launched his career busking in Cork, Ireland, while attending college in 1985. His stateside return led him to form the rootsy country punk trio the…
Clone Wars
Refreshingly, the biggest wonder about the new Arnold Schwarzenegger ride is not that human cloning has become a reality, nor that the America of the future (“sooner than you think,” as an opening caption ominously suggests) very closely resembles present-day Vancouver, Canada. It’s not even that technological advances appear to have added pleasure, comfort, and…
Baller Blocking Tour
Like its fellow homeboys at No Limit Records, the Cash Money crew out of New Orleans makes no apologies for having material obsessions. It’s right there in the label name itself. But unlike Master P’s No Limit posse, the Cash Money assembly has contributed a couple of fine hip-hop singles to the airwaves, particularly Juvenile’s…
Life in the Pits
The soon-to-be-talked-about sensations in Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream include three or four flashing, near-subliminal montages that combine an eye’s iris and dilating pupil, an extreme close-up of heroin cooking in a teaspoon, and a sucking hypodermic needle; a surpassingly frightening sequence in which Ellen Burstyn, in the midst of amphetamine hallucinations, tries to…
Mark Murphy
When jazz singer Mark Murphy made his name some 40 years ago, listening to jazz records was actually hip. The rest of the country may have moved on, but Murphy still sings, snaps, and struts as if nothing has changed in the interim. Discovered by Sammy Davis Jr. at a hometown jam session in 1953,…
Beautiful Losers
Somewhere near the halfway mark of The Broken Hearts Club, the latest gay romantic comedy (they really seem to be piling up these days), comes a not-unexpected scene where a rock-solidly avuncular/maternal older man (John Mahoney) tells a tremulously insecure younger one (Ben Weber) the “message” that’s at this film’s core. “Not everyone is beautiful.…
Sunshine
The Czech Republic band Sunshine is a colliding force of art music, synth-heavy broken dance beats, and punk fury that lends earnest credence to the idea that everything old is new again. Only, this sort of retro refitting is done much better when born of the naïveté that only those who have been cut off…
The Ax Falls
Seven months after a demotion and pay cut, Louis J. Erste needed money. So the recently divorced, recently remarried father of eight made a proposal to his employer, the Cleveland Municipal School District: He would leave his $90,000-a-year “adviser to the CEO” post to work as a $250-per-hour consultant for the district. His fees, he…
The Offspring
Posing as a punk act since its inception in Southern California 15 years ago, the Offspring is really a meathead rock band in disguise. How else to explain its mysterious transformation from punk revivalists to hard-rock heroes — a move that pushed its last two albums, 1997’s Ixnay on the Hombre and 1998’s Americana into…
The Hunt For Dailide
At 10:30 a.m. on July 6, 1993, U.S. Department of Justice attorney Susan Siegal and investigator Mike MacQueen arrived at AMD Realty on St. Clair Avenue. Accompanied by an agent from the Cleveland bureau of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, they knocked on the door, looking for the man whose initials were posted on the…
Spice Girls
Spent force or vital player on the pop scene? Only Spice Girls management knows for sure. Whether they’re over or not, the videos will keep pumping, and you can bet there’ll be a tour. The latest material is another matter. The Spice Girls’ third album proves they know how to pump out the product. What…
The Lightning Rod of Parma
With red hair and green eyes, jaws mashing gum with Mike Ditka vigor, Parma Councilwoman Susan Straub looks every bit the “tough Irish broad from the West Side” she claims to be. She’d better look mean, because her enemies are in the audience. This coterie of residents never misses a meeting. They sit toward the…
Eddy Clearwater
Blues singer-guitarist Eddy “The Chief” Clearwater has weighed in with another superb record. Clearwater’s eclectic style has always gotten him work, but has usually hampered him when it came time to hit the studio. On Reservation Blues, however, Clearwater has successfully blended all his influences to come up with his best record in years. Rather…
Edge
To save students from casual contact with Satan, the Mayfield Heights school district has banned teachers from using Harry Potter in the classroom. The move was prompted by a mother who, while attending an open house, witnessed a teacher — gasp! — reading a Potter book to children. According to a magazine article the mother…
Disengage
One of the only Cleveland bands to have actually showcased for major labels, Disengage hasn’t shortchanged itself by signing with Man’s Ruin, the San Francisco-based indie label owned by graphic artist Frank Kozik. Having played in a side project called Hermano (which features ex-Kyuss singer John Garcia), guitarist Mike Callahan was able to convince Kozik…
From Baltimore to San Jose
The White administration draws the line on playing fields: The fate of the Cleveland Ballet had been on the wall a long time prior to its demise [“Danced to Death,” November 2]. Kind of like that old great-aunt in a nursing home hanging on to life, when everyone knows it’s simply a matter of time.…
Uncommon Vision
Crushed Coca-Cola cans and footprints in the snow are the refuse of everyday life. You might look at them differently, though, after seeing Yasuhiro Ishimoto: Traces of Memory, an exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Ishimoto, a 79-year-old Japanese photographer with a talent for spotting artistic potential in the commonplace, finds a subdued melancholy…
