D.O.A.
We’ve all seen the moment in a medical drama when a wise old physician leads his flock of young interns to the bedside of a critically ill patient, so they can identify the many symptoms of total biophysical collapse. Regrettably, this kind of educational experience isn’t often available in the theater, since almost every flawed…
Kaito
The age of anxiety is officially upon us, worldwide, so perhaps it’s only right that the music that’s socking it straight to the zeitgeist these days comes off something like the sound of a brain shorting out. England’s Kaito throws off neurotic sparks in every direction, from the freaked-out yelps and gurgles punctuating frontwoman Nikki…
Monster Mash
SAT 10/25 Your first stop at the Rock Hall Ball is the judges’ table, just inside the front door. Each costume is rated, and prizes are later awarded in each of five categories: Best Rock Star, Best Group Effort, Best Couple, Scariest, and Most Original. Winners are awarded prizes ranging from gift certificates and Gibson…
The Boss
On October 12, BBC America aired the second-season premiere of The Office, the beloved mockumentary that follows paper-selling rats ’round the maze of cubicles leading to the office of head cheese David Brent, a pathetic little man who says in public things no rational human being would even think in private. On October 13, those…
Uncle Kracker
Playing second fiddle to metalli-rap’s most annoying superstar, Kid Rock, comes with perks: namely, license to release one’s own brand of twisted brown trucker-rock. In 2000, Uncle Kracker scored a surprise hit with the throwaway “Follow Me,” which helped its parent album, Double Wide, move more than two million units — most of which are…
Elephant Man
In circus circles, Mark Oliver Gebel is known as the Maestro of the Menagerie. And Asia, Toby, Banco, and Tonka can back up the claim. They’re among the 10 lady elephants Gebel has trained to pirouette, waltz, and kick through a Rockettes-style conga line in the 133rd edition of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum &…
Below Par
Buffalo has its red hots, Charleston its she-crab soup. In Louisville, it’s hot browns, and in New Orleans. . . . well, that food city has a host of regional specialties, ranging from oyster po’ boys to warm beignets. But in Akron, the signature dish is sauerkraut balls, those tangy, deep-fried nuggets — fine with…
The Strokes
As it must, the Strokes’ second LP registers as something of a disappointment. After all, Room on Fire sounds like the Strokes’ debut — and once they remade the world in their own prickly, swivel-hipped image, nothing that sounds vaguely similar to 2001’s Is This It could ever best its trashy, spiteful, nervous energy. The…
‘N Synchro
10/23-10/26 The synchronized swimming world looks to Cleveland this weekend, when the U.S. Masters Synchronized Swimming Championships take place. It features more than 250 competitors, ranging in age from 20 to 85. “I think people will look at it and say, ‘Wow, how do they do this?'” says Amy McClintock, a event coordinator. “It’s a…
Vintage Hudson
It’s not like Hudsonites have been hangin’ out on the green, chugging white zin out of brown paper bags. But residents of this pretty-as-a-picture Summit County city are still likely to be stoked about the prospects of chef Shawn Monday’s new upscale wine bar, Downtown 140, scheduled to open in early January. It’s something of…
Basement Jaxx
With guest stars galore — from goth queen Siouxsie Sioux to the poor man’s Justin Timberlake, JC Chasez — rumblings of “album of the year” have swirled around Basement Jaxx’s Kish Kash for several months now. Although that kind of talk is a bit hyperbolic, the third disc from the spastically danceable English duo of…
Fintasia
10/24-10/26 This weekend’s Shark Celebration at the natural history museum is an event with teeth — specifically, a set of choppers that could easily accommodate an upright human. The program is an interactive companion to the museum’s Sea Monsters: Savage Ancient Seas exhibit. “This is the hands-on part,” says the museum’s Beth Gatchell. “And I…
It’s Just Personal
There are two things that Aesop Rock would like you to know are strictly fables: that he’s a genius and that he’s an abstract artist. Both denials may come as a shock to fans of the Brooklyn MC, whose dense, polysyllabic verses have made him a hero of the hip-hop underground. But not only is…
Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros
In defiance of the old F. Scott Fitzgerald quote, Joe Strummer was well into his life’s second act when a heart attack felled him last December at age 50. After more than a decade of relative silence following the dissolution of the Clash, in 1999 the iconic singer-guitarist finally came to terms with his past…
Roll Players
SAT 10/25 Tim Nyberg and Jim Berg, known collectively as the Duct Tape Guys, have written six books about things to do with the sticky stuff. They’ve just published The Original Duct Tape Halloween Book, in which they dispense info on making costumes (be a baked potato! Or a chia pet!), quickie costumes (Nasty Razor…
Picture Show
Slideshows — once an interminable form of torture rivaling the gushing of parents over their children or dogs — have been revitalized. Seattle’s Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players wed slide images with music and appropriately derisive lyrics, creating one of the most enjoyable live shows in recent years. Clad in matching outfits, the Trachtenburgs — Jason…
Van Morrison
One of Van Morrison’s best albums in years, this is a fitting debut for the legendary crooner on a storied jazz label, as well as a crossover coup effectively targeting the baby-boomer market. Picture is generous, eclectic, and funky. Morrison doesn’t sing rock and roll, he says in the sultry “Goldfish Bowl”; his art, rather,…
Bushwhacking
10/23-11/8 Consider Discordia a musical response to President Bush’s foreign policy. “It’s a commentary on our society and how things are co-opted, and how we allow ourselves to be controlled by people in power,” explains Raymond Bobgan, director of the Cleveland Public Theatre show. Discordia — written by James Levin and Linda Eisenstein — began…
Hit the Decks
House music started out as a trashy little tramp of a thing. Its early hits were built on not much more than a drum machine pumping away at a headboard-against-the-wall tempo and a few breathy pleas to jack your body into the orgiastic confluence of dancers on the floor. House was populist and lowbrow, unashamedly…
Plastikman
In the press release that accompanies Closer, Richie Hawtin’s latest release as Plastikman, Hawtin claims that listening to the disc is “as close thus far to how my mind really works” as he’s ever been. If that’s true, then Hawtin must be one scary dude. Nearly all of the 10 tracks on Closer feel like…
Narcissus
Despite the protests of the musicians who make it, much of today’s post-hardcore gets labeled screamo and stays in that fermenting pile. Cleveland’s Narcissus starts there, angular chords chugging erratically as singer-keyboardist John Pope grouses his throat raw. Then Crave and Collapse quickly climbs out of the muck, reaches for the sky, takes off, and…
Spontaneous Combustion
Spiritualized fans who are only familiar with the band’s studio recordings might be surprised when the lights go down at the group’s upcoming show at the Agora. Not that the band sounds any less powerful onstage than it does on its roaring studio work — in fact, the opposite is true. The surprise comes when…
Grey Larsen and Paddy League
The commodification of all things Irish is a relatively recent phenomenon. There was a time, long before Riverdance and U2, when Guinness was hard to find in this country and traditional Irish music even harder. So when Cincinnati native Grey Larsen was studying at Oberlin in the ’70s and wanted to learn traditional tunes, he…
High Yield
There comes a time in the lives of most musicians when Dockers replace denim, minivans fill the garage, and rockin’ gets confined to the baby cradle. For Carl Baldassarre, that moment came 20 years ago. A fleet-fingered guitarist weaned on such prog-rockers as Genesis and Yes, he fronted the popular Cleveland rock troupe Abraxas. But…
Bench Warmers
On a recent morning, Judge Thomas Patrick Curran welcomed 30 prospective jurors into a Summit County courtroom. They looked pained by the inconvenience, so Curran tried to lighten the mood. “Thank you for coming to court,” he said. “You all volunteered, right?” Curran was not trying to charm a room of registered voters, for no…
Basement Beats
Even the hippest, youngest-at-heart clubgoers have nights where Pabst and a stack of amps don’t equal the perfect mood. The Grog Shop, Cleveland Heights’ home for local and national live music of all stripes, is responding with the newly opened B-Sides liquor lounge. It’s a subterranean alternative to the upstairs club’s trademark indie-rock aesthetic. “Basically,…
House of Horrors
When the pound-keeper finally emerged from the Summit County Animal Shelter’s “kill room” with a brown, striped pit bull, Sandi Regallis didn’t need to see the dog’s bloody face to know that it had been fighting. She had already heard the yelps and snarls from behind the metal door. Still, Regallis, a deputy dog warden,…
Shonen Knife
Perhaps no Japanese artist has had as much staying power in — or gained as much respect from — the American underground as twee pop auteurs Shonen Knife. Earning a tribute record (1989’s Every Band Has a Shonen Knife Who Loves Them, which included Cleveland’s Death of Samantha covering “Redd Kross”) before they even had…
Though the Heavens Fall
The Catholic League isn’t exactly slow to anger. The self-described defender of American Catholics is best known for its comically exhaustive annual reports, which stretch the notion of hatred to include nun Halloween costumes and the swiping of Baby Jesuses from manger scenes. So it was no surprise to attorney Jay Milano when the group…
Slayer
“Disorder,” Slayer’s 1994 collaboration with Ice-T, went over like a fart in church. The lame soundtrack-cut stands unique in a catalog nearly devoid of filler. Most of the other rarities collected on the band’s upcoming boxed set, Soundtrack to the Apocalypse, are worth going out of your way for: There’s a DVD, a greatly abbreviated…
Fine Job
Fine Job Nomenclature notwithstanding: I am an administrator for the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department. I just finished David Martin’s excellent article on the blackout, “Brother, Can You Spare a Match?” [October 8]. One note, however: Martin wrote that “Sheriff’s deputies maintained control of 1,900 inmates in the jail.” While we are proud of the work…
Holly Golightly
After cutting her hemlines in the early ’90s with Thee Headcoatees, Holly Golightly has mapped a solo road paved with some of the most wonderful ’60s mod pop around. She swings from Nico-ish chanteuse to lip-curled grrrl, referencing your Dusty Springfields, your Kinks, your dreams of that idyllic cool girlfriend, with sly putdowns delivered with…
Slinging Dope
Don Plusquellic is a badass, old-school mayor. He bends arms, busts heads, and is not afraid to knock down the guy who stands in his way. This is a very good thing. He’s not the mayor of Seattle, after all, where they worry about such cute little things as an espresso tax. He’s the boss…
Rory Block and Alvin Youngblood Hart
Opposites attract? Aurora “Rory” Block and Alvin Youngblood Hart appear as opposite as you can get. Hart is male, black, a native of Oakland, California, and was raised a military brat. Block is female, white, a New Yorker, the daughter of a beatnik musician, and considerably older (she turns 54 on November 6). But musically,…
Patriot George
At a Statehouse pep rally for the Bush/Cheney reelection effort a few weeks ago, Senator George Voinovich criticized Democratic presidential contenders for ripping the administration’s handling of Iraq. “I think they ought to be careful what they’re saying,” said an ever-vigilant Voinovich. “We have thousands of men and women overseas.” After the rally, Dan Williamson,…
Divided Borders
Given the way the United Nations has been taking a beating in the American media over the past year or so, it may not be a bad thing that the new movie Beyond Borders is, at heart, a two-hour infomercial for Kofi Annan’s organization. As a call to action, the production has already worked on…
DJ Vadim
It’s no secret that home-grown hip-hop is the rule in the U.S., even though much of it — from the mainstream to the underground — is riddled with lyrical clichés and tired beats. Globally, on the other hand, you’ll find plenty of hip-hop artists experimenting with rhythm, samples, and unusual cadences and subject matter. They…
Morbid Curiosities
A horoscope President James A. Garfield received in 1880, about a year before his death, contained these prophetic words: “There are implications that, about four months into your inauguration, you will meet with a serious personal calamity. For a long time, your life will be in serious peril.” President Garfield was shot a year later,…
Too Much of a Gooding
That a new feel-good sports movie called Radio contrives to move us is just fine — that’s what feel-good sports movies are supposed to do. That its makers choose to move us in the style of a linebacker sacking a quarterback is not so good. After enduring this flagrant emotional blitz, you may feel like…
Dieselboy
It’s been a year and a half since Dieselboy (a.k.a. Damian Higgins) dropped Project Human on the drum & bass world, eliciting praise from even the most hardened U.K. purists. Dubbed America’s best jungle DJ by fans and critics alike, Dieselboy has avoided any drop off in interest with constant touring and a slate of…
This Week’s Day-By-Day Picks
Thursday, October 23 The Haunted School House and Haunted Laboratory have been scaring the crap outta folks for 30 years. Now they’re celebrating three decades of trouser-fouling with more than 100 monsters scattered throughout the 10-acre premises. The lab has four floors, the house has three, but the shocks are evenly divided. There’s also a…
Grail Birds
Checks and balances. Remember them? Used to be, our protection against a renegade federal administration was the restraint imposed by an involved investigative media and a vibrant, engaged opposition party. But since 9-11, our fourth estate has taken the fifth, and the Democrats have only recently rediscovered small fragments of their spinal cord. So it…
