Pay to Go Away
“Frivolous and unjust.” That’s how Lorain County Commissioner David Moore described the lawsuit against him in U.S. District Court last year. It accused Moore’s mortgage company of a pattern of defrauding its clients (“The Commissioner’s Racket,” August 7, 2002). Unfortunately, Judge Paul Matia didn’t see the frivolity. First, he refused to punish the lawyers bringing…
Sub-periority Complex
Tremont’s trendy restaurant and bar scene must have something for every taste at this point — especially with the recent launch of SubStance, Susan Walters and Mark Shary’s little kitchen and carryout at 815 Jefferson Avenue. The duo are Cleveland dining-industry veterans — Shary was the original owner of Players Pizza and Pasta in Lakewood…
Spiritualized
Following 2001’s overblown Let It Come Down, which featured more than a hundred musicians and grandiose string, horn, and choir arrangements, Spiritualized main man Jason Pierce decided that his group’s next album would follow a more stripped-down, back-to-basics rock approach. While it’s certainly less dense than its predecessor, Amazing Grace is far from sparse: There…
Tumor Humor
It’s no surprise that Rene Hicks is a comic. Try facing cancer and a career in accounting, and you’d need a good laugh too. The 37-year-old San Franciscan was an Ernst & Young CPA in 1988. One night, she popped into a bar for a comedy showcase and, emboldened by a friend’s $100 dare, jumped…
Hardcore That Helps
It was when Louis Posen started going blind that he first saw the value of philanthropy. The L.A. punk scenester had grown up a fixture in local clubs like the Palladium and the Whisky, catching shows by the likes of X and Black Flag. But by the time he turned 19, Posen got news that…
Shoboat
A few tracks into The North Star, before MC Shoboat even announces that “I ain’t satisfied unless my Swiss is stacked up and pilin’,” it’s already clear this disc is loaded with cheese. Two of the album’s first three cuts are redundant odes to hot rides and the rims they roll on. Perhaps this is…
Letters to the Editor
Point Counterpoint A view from inside: As a former assistant prosecutor for the City of Cleveland, I do not believe your reporter Martin Kuz investigated “Weekend in Hell” [August 20] sufficiently. First, I have found Assistant Prosecutor Gina Villa to be of the highest ethical standards. She has never played the “cop card,” as Kuz…
Return of the Prodigal
Mark Stuart’s laundry is done. He knows, because some guy just came outside and told him to get his socks the hell out of the dryer. “It’s all about the glamour,” Stuart says wryly. “The rock-and-roll lifestyle.” Scratch a rock-and-roller with clean skivvies and find Mark Stuart, lead scoundrel in the Bastard Sons of Johnny…
9 Volt Haunted House
Matt Cassidy, guitarist for the ’60s-leaning acts the Volta Sound and New Planet Trampoline, is well practiced in warm, vintage sounds. But in 9 Volt Haunted House, the third band in the group of musicians called the Davenport Collective, he embraces modernity with ominous forays into found sounds and burping electronics. On 9 Volt’s second…
This Week’s Day-By-Day Picks
Thursday, September 11 Irreversible is a gimmick film: Its narrative plays out backward (as it does in the clever 2000 murder mystery, Memento). But the nucleus of the movie (and the part that makes it an apt choice in the Cinematheque’s “Not a Pretty Picture: Classics of Transgressive Cinema” controversial-film series) is a horrific and…
Black Gold
White-hot Akron blues-subversives the Black Keys just vaulted further into the stratosphere: They’re among the 10 finalists for the 2003 Shortlist Music Prize. The band edged out such stiff competition as Beck (who chose the Keys to play his summer tour), Gillian Welch, and Blur to place in the company of fellow finalists Sigur Rós,…
Pedals to Medals
Technically, going pro in the world of action sports has nothing to do with the ability to attract dozens of sponsors. But everyone knows that the real stars of skateboarding, wakeboarding, and motocross are the guys with brand names splashed across their bikes and boards. “There’s an obvious correlation, but it’s still [based on] skill…
Know Your Death Metal
Back in the late 1980s, New York’s Roadrunner Records was one of the best metal labels in America. At the time, Metal Blade had a few good bands, Earache was just getting started, and Relapse and Century Media barely existed. Roadrunner made a name for itself by signing up some of the best, most uncompromising…
Fat Chance
TUE 9/16 Over the last four months, more than 50 Fat Fish Blue performers have made their case for earning a cool grand. The last two competitors will take the mic Tuesday at the club’s $1,000 Talent Search. Judging is simple: The Fat Fish house bandleader, its manager, and audience members all have a say…
Gong Ho
James Onysko does interviews barefoot. Decked out in a tie-dyed T-shirt, with a wisp of dirty blond hair styled by a nor’easter, the fortysomething founder of the improv percussion group Drumplay is perpetually at ease. He talks about spiritual retreats and making his living playing conch shells. But when conversation turns to Drumplay’s upcoming collaborations…
Three for the Dough
9/13-9/14 Josh Ritchie of Tallmadge trains 24-7 to be the world’s best triathlete. He’ll see whether his work has paid off at this weekend’s Summa International Sports Festival. Ritchie is one of 800 athletes from North America, Australia, and Europe invited to run, bike, and swim toward the $2,000 first prize. “There is no real…
Dave Hole
Patience may be a virtue, but Dave Hole’s apparent lack thereof may have been just what he needed. Early on in his exploration of the sounds of slide guitarists such as Muddy Waters and Elmore James, the Australian-bred axeman injured the little finger on his left hand. Rather than wait for the pinky to heal,…
Chalk the ‘Walk
9/14-9/17 Artists at the Chalk Festival Workshop will dish out materials and advice on dolling up the sidewalks for the Cleveland Museum of Art’s upcoming fest. “Chalk is especially nice, because it is relatively quick, immediate, and temporary,” says Robin VanLear, organizer of the annual Chalk Fest. And it doesn’t take a master artist to…
John Tejada
Los Angeles resident John Tejada is one of those versatile, classically trained producer/DJs who has a huge advantage over the typical laptop jockey, who knows how to move a cursor and little else. The son of a Viennese composer father and an opera-singer mother, Tejada learned piano and drums as a youth, then caught the…
Earl’s Pearls
SAT 9/13 Earl Hamner’s dad called Earl and his seven siblings “thoroughbreds.” CBS called them The Waltons. The syrupy ’70s TV show — based on Hamner’s novel, The Homecoming, about a Virginia clan living during the Depression — made Hamner a writer and producer in demand. This weekend, he gives how-to lessons to aspiring novelists…
Black Sheep
Eighties revivalism may still be the general public’s nostalgia du jour, but the hip-hop world is always looking ahead — even when it’s gazing backward. So rappers and their fans have their wayback machines set for the early ’90s, the ultra-creative Golden Age before gunfire and blingfests began to drown out the beats and rhymes.…
Bring the Noise
9/16-9/21 Sure, Stomp is essentially eight people onstage banging trash cans, smacking hubcaps, and tramping their booted feet. But don’t reach for the Extra Strength Tylenol, says John Sawicki, rehearsal director for the touring group, which comes to the Palace Theatre Tuesday. “It’s really not as noisy as people think it is,” he explains. “We…
Easy Action/Reigning Sound
Yes, Easy Action is yet another raw rock band from Detroit. But the only “garage” singer John Brannon’s voice ever parked in was some junk-parts pit stop off the banks of the River Styx. After fronting the monster-shock blues of the Laughing Hyenas through the early ’90s, Brannon resurfaced with Easy Action a few years…
Pirates of the Refried Bean
God bless Johnny Depp. For the second time this year, the man has almost single-handedly redeemed an action movie that would otherwise be indistinguishable from the pack. Introduced right up front in Robert Rodriguez’s Once Upon a Time in Mexico, he first appears dressed up like Prince in purple glasses and jacket, delicately eating a…
Godsmack
Multiplatinum metallers Godsmack began as an Alice in Chains cover band, spent three albums shedding those shackles, and then opted to effectively become that group, planning an acoustic LP for fall release. The move isn’t without precedent: In the landmark case of Joy Division et al. v. Interpol, a Rock and Roll circuit judge ruled…
Con Heir
When Nicolas Cage plays still and sullen — a man possessed by self-loathing and melancholy in Adaptation, say, or the landlocked angel in City of Angels — he comes off as drowsy. He disappears into those roles like a head plopped in a fluffy pillow, and it doesn’t quite suit him. Cage has excelled in…
Kittens for Christian
Thanks to a few too many meatheads mired in third-generation Limp Bizkit sludge, mainstream rock bands today appear to be nothing more than exaggerated bundles of unresolved daddy issues and bad facial hair. Vocalist Serj Tankian of the hyperactive kung-fu metallers System of a Down knows a little something about bucking such stereotypes — and…
Creeping Crud
Once upon a time, there was a guy named Sam Raimi. He grew up in Michigan and made amateur horror movies. He stuck with his hobby, and now he’s a filthy rich A-list producer-director in Hollywood. Beats workin’. Unfortunately, since we haven’t yet seen a genre-redefining horror movie in the 21st century — apart from…
Thursday
Between its intensity and subtlety, Thursday’s 2001 breakthrough album, Full Collapse, bristled with friction. Its wiry, scrappy slices of pounding post-hardcore were driven as much by vocalist Geoff Rickly’s blood-curdling screams as they were by sneaky bits of melody. Jumping to a major label for Collapse’s follow-up didn’t change the combative nature of Thursday’s tunes;…
The Unlikely Triggerman
A light snow was falling as Jim Davis eased into the driveway of his mother’s house in Atwater Township. He noticed an orange garden tractor parked on the lawn of her neighbors, Bearnhardt and Cora Hartig. That’s odd, Davis thought. He’d grown up next door to the couple and knew their fastidious ways, how Bearnhardt…
Wacky, Not Wonderful
Did you attend a family reunion this summer? If so, it probably hit you (again) that families are often weird and freakish gatherings of people who, absent their shared gene pool, would never find any reason to associate with each other. That said, it’s important to realize that those people aren’t trying to be odd;…
Shelby Lynne
Shelby Lynne is almost as well known for identity crises as for artistry, but there’s no crisis here — just versatility, passion, and power. Largely written and totally produced by the complex Nashville singer-songwriter, Lynne’s third LP should reestablish her as one of today’s more compelling and penetrating artists. In 2000, Lynne released I Am…
Brother’s Keeper
For the first 19 years of his life, Michael Swiger was a good kid: an altar boy, a B student, co-captain of his high school football team. In his first two years at Case Western Reserve, he studied engineering, joined the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity, and got elected class president. The only thing he couldn’t…
In the Raw
It’s not every play that starts with a climax. But even before the lights come up on this Ensemble Theatre production, the moans of the Big O are filling the air, as a man and woman grind lovingly against each other on a scrawny hide-a-bed. Thus begins Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune,…
Richard X
On the back cover of the booklet that accompanies Richard X’s first full-length is an anti-piracy statement from EMI Music (Astralwerks’ parent), a polite but strongly worded missive reminding listeners about the danger of the internet, CD burners, and the like. Bit strange, really, since that’s pretty much how Richard X made his bones, back…
Soil Rights
When support for the new convention center collapsed, so did the hopes of developing Scranton Peninsula, a scrubby thumb of land in the Cuyahoga River valley. The 70-acre cape has an industrial past, an almost nonexistent present, and the potential to be an invigorating downtown neighborhood. “There’s something about it,” says Charles Scaravelli, who owns…
Dating Game
We dining devotees are a gregarious bunch, always eager to trade opinions on what’s best and most interesting on the local restaurant scene. So we were all ears when a colleague casually mentioned Players on Madison as “the best place to take a first date.” Sure, our own dating days — much like the Clinton…
Youngbloodz
Against Da Grain, the 1999 debut of Atlanta’s Youngbloodz (J-Bo and Sean Paul), was a hit in the Dirty South, but never broke out of the region. Now Drankin’ Patnaz adds momentum with two songs that were BET staples for months: “Damn” and “Cadillac Pimpin’.” What’s exciting is that these catchy anthems are not the…
