No Confidence
No Confidence Parole-board move unpardonable: I found Sarah Fenske’s September 10 article, “Brother’s Keeper,” quite inspiring. It motivated me to find the two novels Michael Swiger wrote (A Trial of Innocents and A Murder of Innocents). Both were written under the pen name Michael Andrew. I was stunned to find John Grisham-like works of fiction…
Plaid to the Bone
Ah, the 1950s! How we love to think back to that innocent time prior to the rock and roll revolution, when boy groups like the Four Lads and the Four Freshmen were trilling bashful love songs in Eisenhower’s era of peace and goodwill. Of course, we tend to forget that those balmy times imposed a…
Britney Spears
Britney Spears equates growing up with going down. On her new album, she’s content to bare her backside, if not her soul, with throbbing, debauched disco that sounds like a barely legal version of Madonna’s Music. Madge lends breathy backing coos to the first single, “Me Against the Music,” though her presence is just as…
March Madness
It’s little surprise that Blast! puts the emphasis on instrumentalists: The Tony Award-winning spectacle — which opens Tuesday at the Palace — is built around an equally award-winning drum and bugle ensemble. But there’s plenty more to it than that. James Mason, the show’s director and producer, hit upon the idea of bringing marching-band theatrics…
Postcards From the Edge
Entering Wish You Were Here is a bit like arriving at a bizarre dinner party. Your host is Bas Jan Ader, joined by a handful of eccentric young admirers. They are worldly, intelligent, humorous, and at times a bit sinister. They speak of amazing places — places only they have seen, but which they illuminate…
Missy Elliot
Since Missy Elliot and Timbaland began redefining popular music with 1997’s Supa Dupa Fly, their partnership has slowly lost its balance. As more producers rip off (or catch up to) Timbaland’s futuristic funk, Elliot’s success has depended more and more upon the force of her own bad-girl personality. This Is Not a Test, with most…
Santa’s a Scab
It appears that cheap, non-union Santas have infiltrated Great Northern Mall. Sears Portrait Studio recently conscripted one S. Claus to doll up its lobby. It’s great work if you can get it: Just smile and make nice with the kiddies awaiting their turn to melt down before the camera. Job requirements: Be old and jolly.…
Sweet Smell of Success
Like a lover’s crooked grin, a single cloud in an otherwise flawless sky, or a smudge on your new Strokes CD (okay, scratch that one), a little imperfection can be a charming thing. At least, that’s the way it works at Aroma, Marco Rossi and Mario Marotta’s welcoming new Italian restaurant in Avon Lake. Outstanding…
Slayer
The heft and presumed comprehensiveness of a boxed set confers legitimacy in some folks’ eyes, but honestly, anybody fanatical enough to buy a multi-disc collection probably has most of the enticing “rare tracks” already. And for a new fan, 50 bucks (or more!) is gonna seem a little pricey. There are two versions of Soundtrack…
This Week’s Day-By-Day Picks
Thursday, November 27 The Cleveland Metroparks Zoo welcomes everybody in free today and has lined up a day full of public feedings and special activities for the animals. That means staffers will toss dead fish for seals and sea lions to fetch, and leave honey trails on trees for bears to follow. Zoo employees will…
Indie Bonds
The area’s independent restaurateurs have begun organizing for greater visibility and buying power. A small group of them, including Brad Friedlander of Moxie and Sergio Abramof of Sergio’s in University Circle, spent two months investigating strategies for putting locals on equal footing with well-capitalized national chains. Two weeks ago, their efforts paid off with the…
Kid 606
The new album from Kid 606 is a proper warning to the idle musical sponge who absorbs but never processes, who accepts that radio songs are good without wondering how they could be better. Kid 606 has tweaked Missy’s knobs and taken liberties with the Bangles. On Kill Sound Before Sound Kills You, he continues…
Jingle-Bell Crock
If your idea of Christmas cheer involves acid-tripping with Turner Classic Movies, Cleveland Public Theatre’s got the show for you. Mrs. Bob Cratchit’s Wild Christmas Binge, an absurdist hodgepodge of holiday classics that plays like Dickens hopped up on paint thinner, starts its four-week run this Thursday. The story ends up in 1970s New York,…
American Idol
Johnny Cash never did know how to give up the ghost, let alone want to. He combined sin and salvation, first succumbing to the temptation of drugs, then conquering them as he merged his pioneering rock and roll style with older, more timeless genres. Over the course of six decades, Cash blended rock, folk, and…
Various Artists
When it comes to referencing LeBron James, the Cleveland collective Ill Vizion is among hip-hop’s vanguard. But just like Tha Takeovah’s title, the collection itself isn’t anything you haven’t heard before. Ill Vizion advises us to act like we know. They solicit what-whats. They say they’re all up in the game. We say time out.…
Feeling Stressed?
11/28-11/29 If Calgon can no longer take you away, you’re ready for a Take Good Care of Yourself Holiday Weekend. The two-day sanity-fest at HealthSpace Cleveland features area chefs from the Western Reserve School of Cooking and the Cleveland Clinic, who will share recipes and cook up guilt-free holiday meals. “Feed that family, but don’t…
Don’t Call It a Comeback
David Silveria, who supplies the pummeling beats for Korn, is a patient man, described by his bandmates as “the shy one” in the group. But even reticent rock stars have their limits, and right now Silveria’s pushed to the very edge. “Leslie!” he snaps at an assistant, “Will you get me some Red Bull? I’m…
Charlie Wiener
Everyone knows Charlie Wiener is funny. He’s been doing standup for 19 years, knocking them dead at small clubs and college campuses around the Midwest. And the really on-the-ball folks know Wiener can bring it musically as well. Small Truths for Sale is a more than respectable follow-up to Ghosts in the Window, Wiener’s return…
Sound the Horn
SAT 11/29 Cleveland State says it’s launching a new era of men’s basketball, and there are a few early reasons to believe it. The Vikings followed last year’s 8-22 season by replacing rumpled coach Rollie Massimino with former Michigan State assistant Mike Garland. Along with him has come a new pipeline to Michigan talent: Already,…
The Barefoot Jungle Sound
In the beginning, there was rhythm. Hairy hominids banging bones. Then, poky Neanderthals discovered the handclap, grunted with glee, and then konked on a coconut, thumped on a stump. “Mmm. Good . . . beat. Dance . . . to . . . it.” Early rappers rhymed about meat, arrows, gettin’ paid, and gettin’ laid.…
Toy Crazy
11/27-1/4 What did you find under your Christmas tree as a kid? Chances are, you’ll find it again at Woodland Halle Days — Halle’s Winter Wonderland. Lake Metroparks’ holiday celebration includes a collection of toys from the ’50s through ’70s, some of which are still in their original packages. “Classic toys are a one-way ticket…
Logged Off
When mp3.com debuted in 1997, the online music source promised to revolutionize the way people consume music. Six years later, its revolution is over. While competition heats up among new music-downloading sites, mp3.com has been bought by download giant Cnet.com. By December 2, all music posted on the site — including the songs of 34…
Journey Into Light
11/27-12/28 At Burton’s Holiday Dee-Lites, polar bears golf, elves fish, and Santa Claus kicks field goals. The drive-through light show consists of 200 figures illuminated by more than 500,000 bulbs. It features multiple theme areas, with displays of storybook characters, Santa’s workshop, and soldiers guarding a tank. Showstoppers include a 100-foot animated train and a…
Over the Rhine
Geography defines the sound of many bands, from the ocean-kissed salty breeziness of SoCal pop-punk to gnarled indie riffs speckled by New York City’s urban static and Seattle’s cloudy grunge downpours. Still, few bands trace the contours and memories of the landscape better than Over the Rhine, which has embodied the pretense-free, spiritual, and scrappy…
One for the Ages
11/28-12/21 V-E Day is more than just a memory play. “It’s about the understanding of relationships,” says Jacqi Loewy, director of the production that opens Friday at Dobama Theatre. The story, written by Beachwood resident Faye Sholiton and developed in the Playwrights Unit at the Cleveland Play House, is about a 79-year-old woman reflecting on…
Turkey Shoot II
The Thanksgiving holiday means it’s time again to get out all our anger pent up over a yearful of wretched albums and shows — thus clearing our schedule to deck the halls, spread good cheer, and shit like that. Here are the turkeys that brought out our inner Ebenezer in 2003: Most Disappointing Tour: Lollapalooza…
The ‘S’ Word
Bad Santa, in which Billy Bob Thornton plays a drunken department-store Santa who repeatedly swears at children, pisses himself publicly, chain-smokes like an industrial plant, and cracks safes on Christmas Eve, is the least sentimental holiday release ever made. No one is redeemed, no one comes to believe in the spirit of Christmas, no one…
Hot Action Cop
Somewhere between Sugar Ray’s pasty-faced Afro puffs and Crazy Town’s tighty-whitey posing lies Hot Action Cop. Head Cop Rob Werthner relocated from New York to Nashville, ostensibly to delve into the country-music capital’s allegedly thriving hip-hop scene. As a rapper, however, Werthner sounds like he’s spent most of his time in Hollywood, peppering his pedestrian…
House of Fun
Like the Disneyland ride upon which it’s based, The Haunted Mansion opens with a spooky voice intoning, “Welcome, foolish mortals!” Scary objects, like candelabra and Tarot cards, float in front of the screen, and we’re then treated to a nicely wordless sequence from the 19th century, a Romeo and Juliet-type deal involving aristocrat Edward Gracey…
The Greenhornes
Upholding Ohio’s reputation as a bastion of hard, no-nonsense rawk and roll, the Greenhornes of Cincinnati have emerged as one of the most powerful, accomplished, butt-kicking garage-rock outfits around. Sure, you’ve got the Strokes and Hives vying for headlines and MTV airtime, but the Greenhornes sound content to play their local college bar for the…
Indian Giver
In director Ron Howard’s The Missing, Tommy Lee Jones’s Samuel Jones takes his place among the oldest archetypes in the Western genre — the white man who has lived among the Indians till he has at last become one. This plot device, used in Hombre and Nevada Smith and myriad other movies, renders Samuel what…
The Prodigals
“This might sound spacey,” says Andrew Harkin, bassist for New York-based Celt-rockers the Prodigals, “but sometimes music plays the musician.” In this case, at least, it makes perfect sense. The Prodigals’ sound — a smooth but potent cocktail of rock and traditional Irish that’s far more polished than the adopted descriptor “jig-punk” would suggest –…
Missing!
The mustached man steps out of the Popcorn Shop in Chagrin Falls, clutching a cup of frozen yogurt. His eyes scan passersby. He’s looking for that stare of recognition, that sideways glance of familiarity. But no one seems to track him as he walks back toward his car. He climbs in and sets the rest…
Time Out of Mind
Michael Crichton seems pretty clever. The doctor-screenwriter-novelist digs odd history (Eaters of the Dead, aka The 13th Warrior), clashing cultures (Rising Sun), and cutting-edge biotechnology (Jurassic Park, and virtually his whole canon). His 1999 novel and its inevitable new movie adaptation, Timeline, both attempt to deliver all this and more, wrapped in a rollicking time-travel…
Seal
When Seal walked away with three Grammys for his 1994 hit “Kiss From a Rose,” it seemed as if the elegant British soul singer, who’d improbably made a global smash of what sounded like a medieval madrigal, could do no wrong. Then came the ensuing decade: There was a rift with producer Trevor Horn, a…
Cellular Davids
A kid and a schlep, neither of them very bright. That was the scene, or so it appeared, when Mike Tricarchi first met Randy Hart at the button-down law firm of Hahn, Loeser & Parks. He stood in Hart’s office, on the 33rd floor of the BP Building, wearing his standard uniform — sweatpants, tennis…
Hail to the King, Baby
In the beginning, there was The Evil Dead, and Stephen King looked down upon it and saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let there be Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn, that the message of writer-director Sam Raimi may be spread across the land!” So it was written, so it was done. Then…
The White Stripes
So there’s the British press, picking out marble slabs to start chiselin’. And Spin magazine sacks its graphics department, ’cause it’s cheaper to have an intern slap White Stripes pix through every issue. Meanwhile, the Stripes themselves seem to be grasping a raft that’s escaping the sinking “garage” ship. But this is America. The White…
Loss in Powers
Dr. Evil: Welcome to my underground lair. This is the second meeting of the Utterly Unbiased Task Force, sponsored by FirstEnergy. I am your chairman, Dr. Evil. The task before this, er, force is to determine the true cause of the August 14 blackout. Much love to FirstEnergy for the diamond-encrusted, 60-foot-long meeting table and…
Homos Erectus
Gay culture in New York City has frequently been cited as the modern embodiment of Sodom and Gomorrah, since Gotham is home to a veritable candy store of GLBT sex clubs, bars, organizations, quilting societies, and support groups. But the gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered inhabitants of the Big Apple — visible as they are…
U.S. Maple
Since its inception in the artier-than-thou Chicago underground, U.S. Maple has had audiences and critics alike scratching their heads. The confusion begins with the band’s mission statement, which, according to lead singer Al Johnson, is “to erase rock and roll entirely from our collective minds.” How do they start? First, toss out the stifling conventions…
