Fulwood Watch: Sam takes the offensive
This week, Sam goes to battle with ignorance, and realizes he’s on the wrong side. Headline: Modest proposal to mend city’s ills Date: October 10, 2006 Topic: An anonymous caller calls Sammy out for ripping the Ohio gambling ballot issue without offering alternative solutions for improving the economy. Sammy counterattacks by proposing that that responsibility…
Cheers & Jeers: Celebrity Edition
Mayor Eric Brewer delivers his Cheers & Jeers to a standing-room-only audience. In a naked attempt to ride the success of The Plain Dealer’s enormously successful feature “Cheers and Jeers,” which they in turn stole from another paper, C-Notes hereby launches the inaugural issue of Cheers & Jeers: Celebrity Edition. Each week we’ll bring you…
Browns a Winner Again!
If you watched the Browns’ horribly depressing loss to the Panthers on Sunday, you probably passed out by the time Phil Dawson kicked a seemingly meaningless 32-yard-field goal at game’s end. You probably peeled your head from the living room floor, saw we were down by eight, bonged another High Life to your painted face,…
Last day for voter registration
Be like Paris: Vote. Only you can make Ohio government half as shitty as it is right now. Today is your last day to register to vote in the Nov. 7 election. If you don’t, you lose your right to bitch about how worthless Ohio government is. You can register at one of the following…
Nip/Tuck does Akron. Literally.
Nip/Tuck does Northeast Ohio. Literally. Nip/Tuck, the FX drama about a pair of loveably dysfunctional plastic surgeons, recently added a character from Akron to flesh out the fourth season’s cast of self-destructive sex addicts. Yeah, she’s a total slut from Akron — can you believe it? Monica Wilder (played by Jessica Hall) is a homely…
Woodward Outs Blackwell
Watergate reporter Bob Woodward’s recently released book, State of Denial, provides an inside look at how the GOP scurried to fend off a ballot challenge in Ohio in 2004 — and the role Uncle Tom Blackwell played in quashing it. According to a post at TPM cafe, a liberal blog, the book reports that Democratic…
Cleveland Goes Republican
Last we checked, this was a Democratic town — chock-full of factory workers, immigrants, and people named Russo. We even, in a moment of youthful indiscretion, elected a leprechaun named Dennis to be our mayor. You don’t get more liberal than that. So it’s a tad shocking to discover that Cleveland and its suburbs boast…
The Way It Is Now
Just a reminder that Bruce Hornsby will be handing out free copies of his boxed set, Intersections: 1985—2005 , to everyone who pays for a ticket to his Playhouse Square concert on Wednesday. You want hits that sound like the record? Ask Bono. Still, don’t expect to hear the songs you know and love played…
A new foreclosure rip-off
After Scene reported that Foreclosure Solutions charging customers $980 to help save their soon-to-be-foreclosed-on homes, then doing nothing but taking their money, we got wind that the Cincinnati-based company was working double time to screw Clevelanders. One reader wrote to say that the company was also sending out “SAVE YOUR HOME!” literature under the name…
Patty O’Toole resurfaces
In June, Patty O’Toole, the former dean of students at Notre Dame College, was indicted for failing to report two sexual assaults on campus to the police. Because of her lack of action, police believe the pervert was able to assault three more students because they didn’t know there was a sick bastard on the…
Town Fryer: You Can Leave Their Hat On
A high school friend once warned that men should never wear hats because they “cut off the oxygen to their hair.” That fashion no-no leads to baldness, she said. (What can we say? She once competed in the now-defunct Miss Lorain County Pageant, but we digress.) For years, we dutifully remembered her words of caution…
Another Sports Talk Death
Mike and Mike immersed in song Seems like only yesterday we were lamenting the demise of Tony Bruno from AM 1350’s Fox Sports Radio lineup. (And then lamenting the loss of 1350 itself.) Now there’s a fresh round of morning woe: WKNR has launched its new relationship with Fox Sports, meaning Mike & Mike in…
CSS and Ladytron Shake the Beachland
From the manic dance moves of CSS to the understated cool of Ladytron’s super-stylish set, Wednesday night’s sold-out Beachland Ballroom show was probably one of the most energetic and engaging shows Cleveland has seen all year. As the line still wrapped around the Beachland’s parking lot, the Brazilian-based CSS quickly got the room’s hips swaying…
They Knew Jack Kennedy . . .
When trying to remind the public how very, very cool Democrats can be, it is wise to reference your party’s sexiest icon: John F. Kennedy. This fact is not lost on the Summit County Young Democrats, who will host their first-ever J.F.K. Dinner at the Inventors Hall of Fame tonight at 8 p.m. Like Joe…
Luke Wilson Barred From Cleveland
Wondering why you can’t see Mike Judge’ s latest movie, Idiocracy, in Cleveland? It’s because the film’s distributor, 20th Century Fox, got cold feet. Judge — the man behind Beavis and Butt-head, King of the Hill, and Office Space — takes a look at America 500 years in the future, when a long-slumbering Luke Wilson…
The Joke’s on Wahoo
The Indians fell short of the playoffs . . . again . . . this year, but they’ve not been forgotten by Fox Sports. The network pokes fun at the Tribe — or, more specifically, us, their woebegone fans — in a new spot airing during the Division Series. Tommy spews some tough love. The…
Adventures in Beer-Punk
You Have Ten Seconds singer Jeff Lamm made his name fronting Half Life, Pittsburgh’s flagship hardcore band through the ’80s and ’90s — but don’t chuck your PBR at his head and yell “Steelers suck” just yet. He’s originally from Stark County. Backed by members of Akron’s Dropgun, his latest band plays mostly songs from…
A Crack in the Kremlin
The Cleveland schools have long been an exemplary model of Stalinist public relations, where info requests are efficiently stonewalled and comments to the public are reliably incorrect. But new intelligence suggests the iron fist may be loosening. Following the arrival of new chief Eugene Sanders this summer comes an apparent reversal of policy, explified by…
Instant Weekend: Just Add Beer
Nature goes better with fabulous beer. Rwanda, Afghanistan, East Cleveland School Board Meetings — we’d go damn near anywhere if they’re serving nutritious beverages from the Great Lakes Brewing Company. Happily, today’s “Hoppy Hour” pairs the world’s finest beer with one of Cleveland’s loveliest settings: The Botanical Garden. Ten bucks gets you appetizers and samples…
What’s in God’s iPod
Scene Night & Day editor Michael Gallucci, more commonly known as the Greatest Music Critic in the History of the World�, continues his What I Listened to Last Night series, a chance for readers to hear the voice of God — or perhaps a lesser saint — on all matters music. The Dears — Gang…
Cleveland: The Other Birthplace of Jazz?
The Preservation Hall Jazz Band — the touring arm of New Orleans’ legendary concert club — visits Playhouse Square on October 27. Band director Ben Jaffe’s ties to Cleveland are second only to the French Quarter streets on which he was raised: A 1993 graduate of Oberlin, Jaffe honed his craft at the Bop Stop,…
The Secret Lives of DJs
We often ask Cleveland DJs how they make a living beyond record-spinning into the wee hours. Most of the time, they work respectable jobs like website construction, bookkeeping, and exotic dancing. But we were taken aback by DJ John Bomba at Sea Level on Madison — not that he’s a salesman, but by what he…
Keepin’ it real at 99th & St. Clair
Bone Thugs-n-Harmony Being the poorest city in the nation apparently has some Clevelanders bummed out, especially the ones waiting in an unemployment line. But, according to some white kids from the suburbs who like rap, at least “that’s keepin’ it real, homie!” For the second time in the past few months, an out-of-towner has asked…
Fulwood Watch: Sammy tackles racism… again
This week, our intrepid reporter boldly investigates his voicemails… Headline: City business a role model Date: October 3, 2006 Topic: In desperate need of a fresh idea, Sammy Danger goes back to his Trusty Fountain of Ideas — a.k.a. his voicemail. This time, Sam gets a call from a racist named Jeff from Chardon, who…
Social D at House of Blues
“I like to think of this song as being about something bigger than an imaginary creature,” lead Supersucker Eddie Spaghetti said halfway through “Creepy Jackalope Eye,” on the first of a two-night stand with Social Distortion at the House of Blues. D.S. Resch The Supersuckers revel in their awesomeness. Using the song as an analogy…
Rapid-Fire Reviews, Pt. I
Scene music writer D.X. Ferris tries to review 10 recent LPs in 200 words. The Scene Legal Department firmly asserts this idea has not been ripped off from an old Bob Costas bit. (It was, in fact, swiped from Brent Musberger.) Sonic Youth, Rather Ripped (Geffen): Rather poopy. Being Sonic Youth’s best album in years…
Metroparks: A Celebration in Gray
On glorious autumn days such as these, a Clevelander can’t help but wish there were a way to take in all the splendor of our Metroparks without the inconvenience of actually having to go to a Metropark. Or view them in color. For us, there is finally relief: The new book Images of America: Cleveland…
The Con-Rap Con
Listening to music does not make you a genius. Sure, for years pretentious jerks have cited their favorite underground bands as proof that they are “beyond” other kids at their high school, but connecting a person’s intelligence with a band is seriously stupid. Yes, dumb people listen to a lot of generic music, but listening…
Towers of London
Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but a backlash seems to be brewing against the multitude of weepy, whiny bands that have polluted the airwaves for so long. The latest group to put these angst-peddlers on the run is Towers of London, five guys with the raw energy of the Sex Pistols, the exuberance of Def…
Capsule reviews of current area art exhibitions.
NEW Catherine Opie — Heavy doses of reality charge this ample two-part photo exhibition. The newer half, “In and Around Home,” journalistically chronicles the tumultuous political, religious, and social scene in the artist’s Los Angeles neighborhood, while the second, “1999,” effectively captures the bizarre millennial anxiety that today seems almost quaint. The older pictures are…
Pusher Man
The Danish film Pusher recounts a week in the life of a small-time drug dealer. Frank, who makes a living selling coke and heroin, borrows a stash from supplier Milo to make a deal. But when the cops show up, Frank ditches the dope in the river. Without money or drugs to give to Milo,…
Grunge Heart, Punk, Soul
Guitars and gear spill into Jim and Carla Jadwisiak’s living room as the members of their band, SeaTac 67, pull out cigarettes and curl up on couches. Carla, whose shirt reads “I Love My Fans,” is in bright contrast to the rest of her bandmates, who opt for more sedate variations on the jeans and…
Weather Report
There has been only a handful of continuous bands in jazz history. Those few, including Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and the Dave Brubeck Quartet, came to define the post-bebop eras of the ’50s and ’60s. The avant-garde and fusion eras also had their defining supergroup — Weather Report. From 1970 to 1985, master saxophonist Wayne…
Lewis Blows His Top
Lewis Black: Red, White & Screwed (HBO) Like many other Daily Show success stories, Lewis Black is a comedian made for these times; his facial contortions and verbal tics are expressions of the Bush-era phrase “outrage overload.” But unlike other big names in political stand-up right now (David Cross, Bill Maher), Lewis isn’t smug and…
Me Read Pretty
David Sedaris is one of the few humorists who’s just as funny at readings as he is in print. His gut-busting books — including Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim and Me Talk Pretty One Day — chronicle the author’s bizarre jobs, love life, and family (which includes equally funny sister Amy). David’s live…
Back to Basics
You’re not sure what to expect when the Disaster March takes the stage. In one corner is guitarist Matt Chalko, clad in a white T-shirt and jeans, black guitar hanging casually from his shoulder. Opposite him stands bassist Dan Lutz, looking like a younger Jay minus sidekick Silent Bob. Behind the traps, Bryan Robinson sits…
Richard Buckner
To those accustomed to Richard Buckner’s spare, haunted music, the guitar sound of Doug Gillard (ex-Guided by Voices) as it buzzes through Meadow might be disorienting. Sure, Buckner has employed electric guitars before, but the rock urgency pulsating through the terrific opening tracks “Town” and “Canyon” is something he has rarely tapped before. Then again,…
Copycat Killer
Let’s not beat around the bush: Saints Row is creatively bankrupt. The latest in a long list of Grand Theft Auto imitators, this clone replicates Rockstar’s controversial games so closely that the uneducated eye could mistake it for the real deal. But unlike past rip-offs, Saints Row is actually a solid game. And in some…
Medical Mockery
Comedian Harland Williams just got out of the hospital. He went in for some cosmetic surgery. “I had my chin removed,” he says. “I don’t know if that was smart. I had to cancel my violin lessons.” Then he visited patients, because “laughter is the best medicine. So, I found the sickest people and laughed…
Desert Isle Discs
Stanton Thatcher, drummer for Tall Pines, shares his disc picks. 1. Sonic Youth, Sister How do humans with guitars and drums make an album this beautifully ethereal? 2. T. Rex, The Slider I keep coming back to this. Catchy and abstract songs about nothing and everything. 3. Diplo and Triple Double, AEIOU Covers lots of…
The Dears
Give Murray Lightburn credit for cojones. The easy thing for him to do would be to find an easy escape from all the “black Morrissey” comparisons that were beginning to box him in. Instead, the frontman of Montreal indie rockers the Dears has crafted his own answer to outsider anthems like “Shoplifters of the World…
Here are the week’s best releases from the pop-culture universe:
CD — A Life Less Lived: The Gothic Box: Break out the black eyeliner and fishnets: This three-CD set (plus a DVD of videos) gathers 20 years of doom-and-gloom, from Joy Division to AFI. All your favorite misery merchants check in, including the Cure, Siouxsie & the Banshees, and the Sisters of Mercy. That’s five…
Beyond Jackass 2
The Canton Palace’s Art Film Festival is a welcome respite from the usual multiplex fare. The fifth annual fest — which features one movie per night through Sunday — includes the crime thriller Elevator to the Gallows (tonight), the crossword doc Word Play (tomorrow), the romantic comedy Russian Dolls (Saturday), and the gay soccer romp…
Jesus Rocks
Northeast Ohio’s newest concert venue is on a mission from God. The Word of Grace Church (921 Mayfield Road) in Mayfield Heights will hold its first contemporary Christian concert Wednesday, October 11, welcoming headliner Superchic(k), a female-fronted power-pop group whose music has been featured on MTV and NBC. “We think that music is a perfect…
Lords of the Highway DVD
Lords of the Highway have regaled local crowds with their high-energy rockabilly for almost 15 years. While the beautiful Sugar slaps, pounds, and grinds suggestively on her upright bass, singer/guitarist Dennis Bell unleashes a skittering twang that recalls Reverend Horton Heat. This week, the Lords release their first DVD, compiling six of their videos. The…
Our top DVD picks for the week of October 3:
Avenger (Warner Bros.) Calvaire: The Ordeal (Palm) Cedric the Entertainer: Taking You Higher (HBO) Changing Times (Koch Lorber) Confidence (Lionsgate) Deadfall (Lionsgate) Edmond (First Independent) The Greatest American Hero: The Complete Series (Anchor Bay) Harvey Toons: The Complete Collection (Sony Wonder) Humphrey Bogart: The Signature Collection, Volumes 1 & 2 (Warner Bros.) The Little Mermaid:…
If They Only Had a Brain
The Cleveland Museum of Art’s Robin VanLear welcomes autumn with scarecrows at Stan Hywet’s 40th annual Ohio Mart. Instead of using burlap for the face and straw to stuff the body, Van Lear created the 20 “culture crows” from plywood. She then shaped the eight-foot-tall monsters to look like telephone receivers and staircase banisters. “She…
Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins
After tours of duty as a child star, frontwoman for indie band Rilo Kiley, and backing vocalist for Ben Gibbard’s electronic sensation the Postal Service, red-headed fashion maven Jenny Lewis has stepped out on her own. Well, sort of. Rabbit Fur Coat, Lewis’ “solo” debut with the Watson Twins, finds the singer and her raven-haired…
Conya Doss
The landfills are littered with retro-R&B CDs as cool and slick as ice — and just as colorless. But Cleveland’s Conya Doss, a schoolteacher turned soul songstress, has found a way to be distinctive in this most indistinct genre. Subtle touches make Doss’ third album stand out, from the hints of Steely Dan-sophistication on “Find…
Scene‘s Guide to Halloween Night
Bloodview Haunted House 440-526-9148 www.bloodview.com Bloodview delivers a show unlike any other. From the moment customers arrive till the moment they flee in terror, they are surrounded by the oldest haunted house acting troupe in the world. Bloodview features the Hollywood style make-up and acting that has made it a household name in Northeast Ohio.…
Purple Haze
Frank Marino has been strangling strange noises out of his guitar for 35 years now. A disciple of Jimi Hendrix and a forefather of Eddie Van Halen, Marino — who has made most of his records with his longtime band, Mahogany Rush — combines rattling notes, howling cries, and something that sounds like a barge…
Knife Crazy
The Buffalo trio Knife Crazy combines the cacophonous screech of Sonic Youth’s guitars with the herky-jerky rhythms of D.C. post-punk. Knife Crazy’s debut, Delicious Delicious Science, even finds room for understated, atmospheric pop (“Hitting It Big on the ‘801s”). But the band’s specialty is jagged, serpentine excursions driven by dry wit, best realized in the…
Fistula
After a two-year hiatus, doom-metal merchant Fistula is back. The Akron band’s bleak lyrics masterfully reinforce despair with first-rate stoner riffs and massive drumming, creating a huge sound that both hypnotizes and bludgeons. Three of the EP’s four tracks begin like back-alley brawls between Khanate and the Melvins, then get slower, resulting in heavy and…
He’s On First
Before comedian Joe Starr’s vaudeville-era grandfather died, he made the nine-year-old boy promise he’d go onstage one day. So when he was 13, Starr performed at his school’s talent show, doing both parts of Abbott & Costello’s classic “Who’s on first?” gag. He was hooked. “I really didn’t know that comedy could be in color,”…
Beam Us Up
Freddie Now, great-grandson of the Jim Beam, talks about his family’s history at two Bourbon Barrel Beer Tastings at the Great Lakes Brewing Company tonight. “I saw him sitting at a bar one time — he’s a big 300-pound guy,” says Pete Jerome, bar manager at Great Lakes. “He was saying, ‘My grandpappy did this,…
Odiorne
Odiorne’s dreamy psych pop doesn’t so much soar as float on melancholy, lilting guitar and softly hued keyboard washes. Neither as lush as the Flaming Lips’ orchestral pop nor as drizzly and gray as the work of British counterparts South or British Sea Power, the richly layered tracks of Heavy Wish, Odiorne’s debut LP, have…
Saul Glennon
Seven albums in, Saul Glennon frontman Jack Rugan is still one of Cleveland’s brightest undiscovered talents, and his new disc shows he’s been better than good from the get-go. For the album, the Westlake quintet and friends polish tunes the prolific songsmith penned as a teen in ’80 and ’81. New drummer Andy Ullman gives…
Rock and Roll Girls
Estrogen levels rise tonight at Chicks With Picks and Sticks, featuring nine local rock and blues bands fronted by women. The benefit for Genesis House (a Lorain women’s shelter) includes performances by Tracy Marie, Becky Boyd, Robin Stone, the Jane Deans, Burning Sage, and Forté to Va Dare, which features former members of Odd Girl…
Blue Streak
You can’t escape the Blue Man Group. It’s everywhere, whether its drumming on Regis Philbin’s head or upstaging Moby at the Grammys. Tonight, the boys in blue play the Q. “You’re blown away by what you see, and yet you can’t describe it,” says tour producer Paul Emery. The performance group’s latest music-enhanced show, How…
Friends as Enemies
Hanging on the basement wall of the former Flex Cleveland at West Ninth and St. Clair were the rules of the bathhouse. One of those rules: Don’t try to explain it to straight people. Operators of gay bathhouses take that as gospel and notoriously avoid press, especially mainstream press. That was Charles Fleck’s intention, too,…
Marcia Ball
Maybe Marcia Ball had no choice. Raised on the Texas-Louisiana border, the girl was surrounded by terrain way too rich in exquisite roots music to deny her destiny as a bona fide boogie queen. R&B, gospel, Cajun, and country thrive in those parts, and Ball took it all in, tossed it back with authority, and…
Three Down
The past month has seen announcements of three high-profile closings, including Century in downtown’s Ritz-Carlton, Sage Bistro in Tremont, and Parker’s New American Bistro in Ohio City, which will remain open through year’s end. Allegedly, none of the shutdowns came for financial reasons — though it’s fair to assume that if these spots had been…
Ms. Manners
Think of My Fair Lady as Extreme Makeover — Edwardian-style. The musical — now playing at the Cleveland Play House tonight — tells the story of Eliza Doolittle and her collision with cranky professor Henry Higgins and his world of vowels, consonants, and high-society manners. He vows to turn the Cockney guttersnipe into a classy…
Hoochie Coup
The organizers of tonight’s Hoochie Couture Fashion Show say that sin is in. “A lot of girls want to look promiscuous, edgy, hardcore, and on the fringe of society,” says organizer Tino Roncone. “They may throw together a short miniskirt and leg warmers or a little T-shirt and a shawl. It’s something you would see…
Man on Fire
The boy received a note during class today. It read: Please see Coach Rotsky after school. There is no better note to receive. There is no scarier note to receive. It’s now after 3 o’clock. The coach is supposed to be doing an interview, explaining how a 40-year-old stockbroker from Gates Mills became one of…
Supagroup
Rock and roll is well suited to brotherly rock combos (you can quit a band, but not a family), producing some great bands and even better blow-ups, as Oasis proved. For Chris and Benji Lee of the hook-laden power-rock band Supagroup, their familial friendship fuels some of the catchiest sibling rock since the Allmans. These…
Flawed Flattery
No studio director was a greater hero to the Hong Kong new wave than Martin Scorsese. John Woo dedicated The Killer to him; Wong Kar-wai modeled his first feature, As Tears Go By, after Mean Streets; Taxi Driver’s rain-slicked slo-mo urban stylistics worked their way into countless lesser HK films. With The Departed, Scorsese returns…
Ready to Rumble
At tonight’s Caged Vengeance 2, Josh “Heavy” Hendricks defends his Gladiators Fighting Mixed Martial Arts heavyweight title against Geza Kalman. Leading up to the main event are bouts featuring Mitch Whitesel and Thomas “the Beast” Russell (for the middleweight title) and lightweights Jason “Dynamite” Dent and Dan “the Pennsylvania Hitman” Swift. Also on tap is…
Getcher Fine Art Here!
This weekend’s Fine Print Fair features hundreds of Japanese prints, 16th-century drawings, and contemporary photographs from some of the nation’s top galleries. More than a dozen of them (including galleries in Chicago, New York, and Berkeley) participate in the 22nd annual gathering. There are also several lectures happening throughout the weekend — like Sunday’s “Collecting…
Rethinking Asian Stereotypes
County elections director Michael Vu has always seemed like that smart foreign-exchange student, the Asian wunderkind with a brain the size of a vintage Cadillac. Or so the stereotype goes. But after the election board’s repeated fiascos — and a City Club event last week — Punch has reached a startling conclusion: Not all Asian…
KMFDM
Whip-smart political irony layered on über-heavy doses of synth-beat is what this German “Juke-Joint Jezebel” does best. The mainstream crossover of KMFDM’s techno-dance, metal, and industrial was probably inevitable; just the same, most fans are grateful to see the group’s poppy “golden age” in the rear view. On this tour, there’s plenty for Sascha Konietzko…
Pulled Pork and ‘Private Stuff’
As we tool down the two-lane highways of northwestern Medina County, past tiny towns, forgotten cemeteries, and farm stands peddling pumpkins and apples, the sweet scent of nostalgia hangs heavy in the early autumn air. Inhaling it is imperative, something that even the creeping encroachment of golf courses and gated communities cannot spoil. We pass…
Stage Mom
Betty Buckley, who played stepmom to a brood of motherless kids on Eight Is Enough, revels in her stage roots tonight. She sings American standards and Broadway classics as part of the Tri-C Performing Arts Series. And the smiles you see are genuine, she says; not like the ones she forced during her television heyday.…
Cry Me a River
Like Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks and Bruce Springsteen’s Tunnel of Love, Nick Lachey’s What’s Left of Me is a breakup album. Unlike those two records, however, Lachey’s opus chronicles his split from somebody more famous than he is: Jessica Simpson. After the Newlyweds broke up, Simpson declared her independence by hooking up with…
Smoking for Kids
Violin and accordion sing a sad, sad song, the kind that makes you think of a Black Forest widow whose husband has died in a tragic whittling accident. But it’s hard to tell. The instruments don’t speak English. The music enfolds people representing some 40 arts organizations — musicians, actors, the guys who make those…
Spank Rock
Without a doubt, the Baltimore duo known as Spank Rock –MC Naeem Juwan and his producer, XXXchange — likes it nasty, rapping about the women scattered throughout their home like Caligula’s concubines: “One on the futon, one in the shower, one in the backseat, three this past hour.” Sexed-up, glitched-out, red-eyed, and bass-dropped, they are…
Last Resort
Granted, this may seem like a jarring comparison, but like the recent dud Phat Girlz, Heading South deals with the hot-button issue of middle-aged women rediscovering their sexuality, thanks to the efforts of muscular black men with exotic accents, whose standards of female beauty are more flexible than those of your average American dude. It’s…
Las Vegas Through the Eyes of Godzilla
Italian photographer Olivo Barbieri snaps pics in a way that makes gargantuan cities like Las Vegas and Rome look like toy miniatures. In Site_Specific_, now on view at MOCA, Barbieri exhibits a series of large-scale photos and films that were shot with a tilt-shift lens camera approximately 400 feet in the air. The results are…
Party Animals
Both Republicans and Democrats get skewered in the Hearts of Darkness comedy troupe’s The Impeachment Show. Founder Jeff Blanchard says there are plenty of targets, especially since Cleveland has been named as a possible host of 2008’s Republican Convention. “We can’t save the schools, but we can raise enough money so they can eat pate…
Two Wrongs
Scamming pedophiles isn’t the solution: A “morality debate”? I don’t think so. I say throw the book at this bastard [“To Rob a Predator,” September 20]. I don’t give a shit what his motivations were. He had the ability and the resources to take God knows how many pedophiles off the streets, and he let…
Swearing at Motorists
What keeps a band out on the road, year after year, playing for the same few dozen fans, as their career circles the drain? Swearing at Motorists singer-guitarist Dave Doughman, a former soundman for Guided by Voices, has been slogging it out for more than a decade, forging lo-fi pop with a lyrical bite. Those…
Lord Have Mercy
God is in the details, no matter what you believe, but Jesus Camp is content to introduce its appalled exposé of Christian youth indoctrination with shots of a fast-food- and flag-lined highway and the words “Missouri, USA.” Welcome to hell, kids. Missouri — yikes! — is among the holy lands of traveling Pentecostal minister Becky…
The Gospel According to Otis
Despite its title, Gospel! Gospel! Gospel! isn’t all hymns. The musical, which makes its world premiere at Karamu House tonight, attempts to tell the history of black Americans through song. “These are stories and songs of faith and courage,” says playwright Otis Sallid. “It’s not just a black piece. It’s everyman’s story. This is for…
Dance Revolution
Few DJs have been as influential in the spread of dance music as Britain’s Paul Oakenfold. He brought the house sound of Ibiza to Britain in the ’80s and helped popularize trance in the mid-’90s. He’s worked on a variety of projects, from film (Swordfish, Matrix Reloaded) to videogames (Golden Eye: Rogue Agent). He’s also…
Mt. Eerie
Since 1982, Calvin Johnson’s K Records has been a pioneering small record label, with a tamper-free reputation and an incestuous, localized stable of talent that would make any independent imprint blush. As a member of Beat Happening, Go Team, the Halo Benders, Dub Narcotic Sound System, and a solo artist, the prolific Johnson casually bends…
Measure of the Men
There is something in the heart of authoritarian governments that loves to restrict the sexual pleasures of their citizenry. You’d think they’d be too busy to bother, what with all the wars to promote, elections to steal, and poor people to abuse. Shakespeare addresses this and related issues in Measure for Measure, one of his…
Little Miss Sunshine
Most singer-songwriters thrive on misery. Not Edie Carey. The troubadour from Boston says that she works best when she’s blissed out. “I’m in a really happy place in my life,” she says. “People say, ‘Then you don’t have anything to write about.'” Carey’s latest album, Another Kind of Fire, proves them wrong. “I was never…
No Reruns
Go crazy, get dumb as you want/It’s time to motivate your body/Go ladies, get sprung, have fun/It’s time to motivate the party. Chances are that lines like the above — delivered by the duo of Lateef and Q-Tip (A Tribe Called Quest) — plus the salsa groove and electro pulse of “Enuff,” the dance-floor banger…
You Have Ten Seconds
You Have Ten Seconds singer Jeff Lamm (front left) made his name fronting Half Life, Pittsburgh’s flagship hardcore band, through the ’80s and ’90s — but don’t chuck your PBR at his head and yell “Steelers suck” just yet. He’s originally from Stark County. Backed by members of Akron’s Dropgun, he and his latest band…
Shakespeare Gets Silly
Anyone who has attended the first day of college probably remembers that moment when we pledged ourselves to unstinting diligence in our academic pursuits. We were starry-eyed and imbued with a thirst for knowledge and truth; our intellectual focus shone bright — right up to the very second the guy down the hall mentioned the…
Making Adjustments
Despite an endless audience for radio-friendly music, most pop-oriented artists eventually become bored with straightforward pop-music structures — a tradition that’s been carried down from the Beatles to Christina Aguilera. And really, who can blame them? Even though it’s one of the hardest things to construct, the pop hit is also the most limiting, the…
Harvest Rhythms
Not only is Sunday DJ Rob Black’s birthday: It’s Harvest Rhythms, your last chance to dance before sweet autumn enshrouds the West End in its tawny cloak. In addition to unpredictably spiked, eclectic dance music from Black, expect everything from drum & bass to house, spun by Jay Stone, Still Life, Dan Stark, and Ian…
Capsule reviews of current area theater presentations.
Avail 4 — Linda Fredrickson has channeled her personal search for a mate into this pastiche of comedy and perhaps unintended pathos. Composed of three parts improv comedy, two parts personal classified ads, and one part group therapy, the show is frequently amusing and sometimes cringeworthy; the whole experience floats in the netherworld between theater…
