Grounds for Rejoicing
Sure, there’s a slew of spots in Northeast Ohio that sling a good cuppa joe, from little neighborhood diners to the ever-expanding Starbucks (motto: “First Coffeehouse on the Moon”). But occasionally we crave more with our java than just sugar and cream. Sometimes we yearn for a particular spark — a certain artfulness, a bit…
Supreme Politics
Last month, a thousand people paraded through the streets of tiny McArthur, Ohio — veterans, cops, peewee football players, and the Vinton County Queen. It was, as the editor of The Vinton County Courier put it, one of the biggest events southeast Ohio has seen in years. The paraders marched from the county’s overcrowded old…
Eat and Fun
The producers of Tony ‘n’ Tina’s Wedding, the hilariously tacky audience-participation play now running at the Hanna, overlooked no detail in matching the wedding-reception victuals to the play’s overall tasteless spirit. From the moment the staffers at fictional Vinnie Black’s Bologna Palace instruct guests, via bullhorn, to grab their pink plastic plates, form two lines,…
Bathroom of Broken Dreams
Big ideas don’t always come with a bolt of lightning or a light bulb switching on in a cartoon bubble. Sometimes they arrive in the mellow green glow that leads drunks to the can in their darkest hour. That glow would make Don Horn obscenely rich and place him alongside the great minds of our…
Detached Garage
Gregg Kostelich chuckles through what must be clenched teeth when he explains the impetus behind the resurrection of his semilegendary Pittsburgh-based psychedelic garage-punk band the Cynics. “With all the shit groups around — the rap bands and all that crap — we’re trying to get to the younger generation so as to wake them the…
A Fan’s Notes
Almost Famous is the movie Cameron Crowe always wanted to make–and the movie he tried to keep from making as long as he could. The writer-director insists he didn’t want to make a film about his wonder years as a Rolling Stone writer in the 1970s, because he didn’t want to look like an egomaniac.…
Behind the Music
Bill Flanagan’s first novel meets all the needs of blurb immortality. It’s a compelling read, its characters are larger than life, it deals with issues of integrity, creativity, and marketing, and it’s topical enough to qualify as docufiction. Unfortunately, its plot line is not only melodramatic, but also implausible and even creaky. And the way…
On Mayor White’s Last Nerve
When media-sly Mayor Michael White decides to air his feelings, it’s usually on his own terms. Earlier this month, after city council flayed the mayor for his role in the botched 1998 police exam, he fired off an “open letter” to Council President Mike Polensek and Bob Beck, president of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association.…
Soundbites
One of the most bootlegged artists of all time, guitarist James Marshall “Jimi” Hendrix, recorded just three studio albums (Are You Experienced?, Axis: Bold as Love, and Electric Ladyland) before reportedly choking on his own vomit (the result of a barbiturate overdose, it’s speculated) on September 18, 1970. Judging by the amount of material released…
Phish
During its live shows, which vary radically, depending upon the extent to which the band decides to tear its musical structures down for a few minutes of free-form improvisation, Phish displays an unending fascination and appreciation for the melodies and rhythms it has developed over the course of its 17-year existence. The Burlington, Vermont quartet…
The 6ths
A sharp, witty, and prolific songwriter, Stephin Merritt is a rare modern tunesmith who isn’t afraid to embrace nostalgia and flaunt his love for writers such as Cole Porter. And it isn’t just a throwaway tribute with him; he really does flourish in the rays of old Hollywood musical themes. On 69 Love Songs, the…
Le Tigre
Kathleen Hanna may have been at the epicenter of the feminist punk rock movement (hell, she was the epicenter), but she never got to see the whole thing through to its fruition. Starting out with her band Bikini Kill, Hanna roared forth with an agenda that was more interesting than the music she played to…
Various Artists
Equal parts metal and rap, Loud Rocks succeeds in finding the marrow within a hip-hop/hard rock marriage that has eluded many projects in the past — the ill-conceived soundtrack to the 1993 flick Judgment Night comes to mind as the most blatant example of good idea gone awry. The theme here is simple; neo-metal bands…
James Moody
Not only is James Moody among the major bop tenor sax players — ranking with Dexter Gordon, Wardell Gray, Sonny Stitt, and Lucky Thompson — but he’s also a superb alto man and flutist. He initially made his impact with Dizzy Gillespie on a 1946 version of “Emanon” (“no name” spelled backwards), opening his solo…
The Hangdogs
New York City’s Hangdogs, a roots-rock band with a prairie-sized dose of country twang, have won over many denizens of the urban jungle — no small task, when you consider that music with such a down-home feel is usually greeted with ridicule in the big city (see their song “They Don’t Play No Country on…
Lo Down
These days, it’s rare that a hip-hop CD will have an “intro” that works. But simple as it might be, the opening track on Lo Down’s debut, The Foundation, has a catchy beat and vocoder vocals that kick things off with a slightly retro, 2Pac-inspired sound. Rapper Marlo “Lo Down” Bloxson wrote all of the…
Lookout! Freakout Tour
As far as indie labels are concerned, Lookout! Records is arguably one of the best. The starting point for alternative/punk luminaries such as Green Day, Operation Ivy, and Rancid, Lookout! is currently home to some of the bigger names in the pop-punk world (notably the Mr. T Experience, the Donnas, the Groovie Ghoulies, the Queers,…
Preacher’s Pet
Some people have pets; some people go to church. And, under the right circumstances, some people take their pets to church. This Saturday the Archwood United Church of Christ will host a Festival of Animal Blessings, an afternoon full of opportunity for people who can’t do enough for their animals. The Reverend David Bahr, pastor…
Pawn Brokers
Certainly the philosophers in Case Western Reserve’s humanities department could soliloquize all day on how chess recalls the human drama around us, but that’s not really the point of the live figures chess game that will kick off the university’s Humanities Week on Monday. “No, I don’t think it’s symbolic of humanities in any particular…
Hook, Line, and Stinker
It’s unfortunate the title Being John Malkovich has already been taken, as it’s a far better one than Bait — and far more appropriate to boot. As Bristol, a computer expert, wily thief, and cold-blooded killer, Doug Hutchison is the human sampling machine. His is a routine coddled together from the Best of Malkovich DVD,…
Wild About Harvey
Scene spurns one of its own? I was surprised and disappointed that your article on the state of the comic book industry [“Ink-Stained Wretches,” August 31] didn’t once mention local comic book creator Harvey Pekar. Harvey’s been producing fantastic autobiographical comics for nearly 25 years, yet unfortunately most people know him only as “that crazy…
The Mic’s On
There’s a trio of duets in Duets. The film is set in the world of karaoke singing, but the title really refers to three sets of paired-off actors performing pas de deux to the tune of John Byrum’s Golden-Age-of-Television-ish dialogue. Only one of the three duos shakes fully to life, but that, along with the…
The Sky’s the Limit
After many years in eclipse, the work of Jon Schueler is returning to the spotlight. The artist, who died in 1991 at the age of 75, isn’t among the best-known abstract expressionists, though he’s never lacked supporters. For example, Edward Henning, the Cleveland Museum of Art’s former chief curator of modern art, paired Schueler’s work…
Love Sick
To begin, let us discuss puking. You know, upchucking, barfing, yacking, Technicolor yawning, blowing cookies, driving the porcelain bus, screaming at one’s shoes, and for you Aussies, chundering. Always unpleasant — and yet usually great relief to a queasy gut — a nice vomit can be provoked by just about anything, but a few catalysts…
Feasting With Goombas
Normally, it is customary for the bride and groom, returned from romping at the falls and satiated with pickle forks and toasters, to issue thank-you notes to their wedding guests. However, Tony and Tina have been so occupied plighting their troth in the worst possible taste, eight times a week since 1985, that they lack…
The Thrill of the Haunt
The dogs relentlessly sniffed and clawed at the fraying green carpet, and Anne Davies was at her wit’s end. She had just moved into her modest West Park home, and her four cocker spaniels would not leave the spot in the long, narrow hallway alone. “I put an aquarium over it, I put towels over…
