PD Internal Memo: Could Our Readers Be Idiots?
Okay, so the internal memo posted on The Daily Bellwether site doesn’t expressly say that, but it’s distinctly implied. According to the unnamed author, The Plain Dealer needs to lower its literary standards. The memo refers to a computer program that rates stories based on their education level, noting that a recent piece about Dennis…
This Just In: Concert Announcements
Stevie Wonder plays the Q, Nov. 6. This week, it’s 1984 again: Stevie Wonder, Hall & Oates, and George Strait head up a list of 48 new shows. Other standouts include NYC’s ecstatic duo Matt & Kim, thrash veterans Exodus, NRBQ’s Terry Adams, nerdcore star MC Chris, and Wynonna’s Christmas show. — D.X. Ferris …
No Getting Lucky’s this Weekend
Fans of weekend brunch at Lucky’s Café, Heather Haviland’s nationally noted Tremont bakery, coffeehouse, and casual eatery, are going to have to chill for one more weekend. While the remodeled café reopens this Wednesday, Oct. 3, for coffee, sandwiches, and baked goods, the popular weekend brunch service won’t resume until Saturday, Oct. 13, in order…
What’s Your School’s “Gay-Point Average?”
Shane Windmeyer runs Campus Pride , a national gay-rights organization that aims to make college kosher for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students. He’s also written five books, including The Advocate College Guide for LGBT Students , published last year. It ranks the nation’s top 100 LGBT-friendly schools based on interviews of more than 5,000…
Another Lorain County Cop Falls Victim to His Nightstick
Last week, C-Notes reported on the trials and tribulations of Elyria Patrolman Michael Tanner, who was fighting the good fight in arbitration to win his job back, after being caught on the clock drinking and playing Twister with a can of whipped cream. Our official ruling: This dude totally kicks ass! Yet now another officer…
Sirens Sister/E for Explosion Canceled
Tuesday’s Sirens Sister/E for Explosion show at the Agora has been canceled. Refunds are available at the point of purchase. It would have been a good show, too. Here’s a look at what you missed, with SS’s “Hold On” — which may officially represent the ultimate collapse of the boundaries between emo, indie rock, and…
Money Where Your Mouth Is: Earlimart and the Ryan Humbert Band
The Scene Music Department is busy, camped out in front of the Fairlawn Exchange store, determined to get a copy of the new Down album before the third consecutive shipment sells out. Rather that dig for obscure adjectives to describe Earlimart and the Ryan Humbert Band, we’ll just let the bands tell you why should…
Mike G’s Picks of the Week
This week’s top arts and entertainment picks around town, from the guy who’s paid to pick them: Monday: The songs on Regina Spektor’s latest album, Begin to Hope, come awfully close to paralleling the emotional roller-coaster ride she took after a particularly grueling breakup a couple years ago. Songs like “Fidelity” and “Edit” are about…
About a Boy: Dennis Kucinich’s new book
If you’ve ever seen a speech by Congressman Dennis Kucinich, you’ve heard the stories of his poor childhood – sleeping in cars, wearing the same pants for a year, scrubbing the floors at school to pay for his books. Other hardships are apparent just by looking at him, such as a severe lack of multi-vitamins,…
Funniest Part of LeBron SNL: Kanye Has the Best Pumpkin
LeBron’s guest-host gig on this weekend’s Saturday Night Live stunk up the place, through no fault of his own. SNL’s inept writers left James holding the ball. They even managed to botch a LeBrons bit — you know, the James family depicted in the Nike ads. Trust us on this. The only funny skit had…
Cleveland’s RTA Named Best on Continent
According to the Plain Dealer, Cleveland’s RTA is about to be named the best transit system on the continent. Seriously. We’re supposed to believe that the same system that makes you wait 15 minutes between trains to the airport, and has kept Euclid Avenue torn up for months, is worthy of a top award from…
Money Where Your Mouth Is: Sea and Cake
This time, we lets the Sea and Cake describe its ethereal indie rock in their own words. Because we’d just say the band sounds like the soundtrack to a nap — which is by no means a bad thing. Band: The Sea and Cake Web: www.TheSeaandCake.com Hometown: Chicago, IL Sounds like: “Breezy pop, evidently. We…
PD Reporter: Our Sports Dept. is a ‘Bastion of Ineptitude’ Too!
I read with interest the September 25 C-Notes item on the PD (“PD Reporters: Don’t Accuse Us of Having Balls”). It sounds like the PD Metro department isn’t much better off than us toiling on the second floor in the Sports Department – another glowing bastion of ineptitude. Getting Terry Pluto as a columnist? Great…
Lakewood Mayor: No Conspiracy about Selling City Park
When we wrote last Friday about a plan to sell Kauffman Park in Lakewood, Mayor Tom George couldn’t be reached for comment. But he did respond by email this morning: Yes, the sale of the “strip” center went through last week. The city has been approached by the new owner regarding a possible redevelopment of…
Is Lakewood Selling What Little Green Space It Has?
Lakewood is often described as the most densely populated city between New York and Chicago. So it would seem that a suburb with such scant green space would desperately cling to what little she has left. But not so in the City of Homes. Lakewood has approved a $20,000 study to see if baseball and…
You Got 5 On it?
I Got Five On It, Touch Supper Club’s (2710 Lorain Ave.; 216.631.5200) monthly old-school hip-hop party, with Mick Boogie and Terry Urban, goes down tomorrow. Best party in Cleveland, hands down. — Joe P. Tone
Ohio SPJ Hands Out Awards, (Drunkenly?) Names Scene Best Weekly
Scene’s Jared Klaus (left) and Joe Tone celebrate their Ohio SPJ Awards. The Ohio Society of Professional Journalists announced its 2007 awards yesterday, and they were particularly kind to this little rag of ours. We never thought all those unmarked vodka bottles we sent would actually sway the judges, but how else can you explain…
LeBron James roots for the Yankees; Drew Carey named Cavs’ new forward
Why can’t LeBron look more like Drew? The Plain Dealer reported today that Lebron James will be rooting for the Yankees if they face the Indians in the upcoming divisional series. Now some people might respect that LeBron is his own man, arguing that he’s allowed to root for whoever he wants. He shouldn’t be…
Fifty Reasons I Can’t Read Regina Brett
If you’ve been reading Plain Dealer columnist Regina Brett for the past five years, you probably either A) find yourself angrily lashing out at your friends and family for no apparent reason, or B) own at least three sweaters embroidered with kitten faces on them. You also may remember the column Brett wrote five years…
Mike G’s Picks, Featuring Genesis, the Lips, and One Darn Sad Exhibit
Gensis plays the Q Saturday. This weekend’s top arts and entertainment picks around town, from the guy who’s paid to pick them: Friday: We realize you probably don’t want to start off your weekend by looking at the Maltz Museum’s new downer of an exhibit, Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race, but it’s one of…
Mitch Karczewski, who owned Lorain’s Red Parrot and Flying Machine, dies
Mitch Karczewski, owner of Lorain’s Red Parrot and former owner of the Flying Machine, died Tuesday. Karczewski was a longtime promoter whose Spotlight Talent had worked with Mushroomhead and organized the World Series of Metal festivals. At his passing, he’d been working with all-girl rock group Level C. His wake will be this Sunday at…
Taste America Dinner: Cleveland foodies gather to celebrate damn good food
Psst … Wanna rub shoulders with Cleveland’s culinary elite? There may never be another opportunity as intimate as tomorrow’s Taste America Dinner, part of a series of nationwide benefit dinners sponsored by The James Beard Foundation, to take place on Friday, Sept. 28. Aimed at celebrating, preserving, and supporting heritage farmers, artisanal food producers, and…
Peking Gourmet Closes; What’s a Vegetarian Chinese Food Addict To Do?
It’s unfair. Evil, even. The moment I discover an amazing new Cleveland spot, I’m belatedly, casually, told that – oh by the way — we’re closing in two months. The torture! Such is the case with Peking Gourmet, an addictive, amazing Chinese restaurant located in the basement of a Cedar Road strip mall, across from…
Howie Chizek: So bad he’s good.
The Greeks had Plato, the French, Derrida — but in Akron, we’ve got the Howie Chizek Show. If you’ve never tuned into WNIR’s Chizek, then you really should. The man and his callers are full of mirthful insight on everything from deer hunting to the Browns to Iranian president Mahmud Ahmadinejad. Since Ahmadinejad visited Columbia…
Michael Heaton celebrates his new book, compares himself to Hemingway
Plain Dealer scribe Michael Heaton didn’t take as long as he thought to whittle thousands of stories he’d written in 25 years to the 40 tales he chose for his book, Truth and Justice for Fun and Profit: Collected Reporting. He simply thought of one of his fave wordsmiths. “You write all these stories every…
Get Wasted With Municipal Waste: An interview
The last time Municipal Waste played town, the young lads that sing “Headbanger Face Rip” (see above) had an after-party at Now That’s Class (11213 Detroit Ave., 216-221-8576). This time around, the crossover revivalists are just playing the club — no need to follow them across town if you want to tips a few brews…
When Cupcakes Attack
Oh dear. First Cleveland area school children are being told to hide their cell phones. Now, if things keep up, they’re going to have to keep their iced, vanilla-sprinkle cupcakes locked up, too. Nationally, school administrators are declaring cupcakes to be “deadly weapons” and banning school children from bringing them into the classroom on account…
Money Where Your Mouth Is: Skeletonwitch
Skeletonwitch guitarist Scott “Scunty” Hedrick has a journalism degree, so the Scene music department is letting him hype his band. Trust us: Everything he says about his squad of hyrbid death-thrash soldiers is true; no need to call his objectivity into question. Band: Skeletonwitch Web: www.myspace.com/skeletonwitch Hometown: Athens, Ohio Sounds like: “Immortal beating the shit…
Money Where Your Mouth Is: Three Miles Out
The combined might of Scene’s music department couldn’t think of a way to make Three Miles Out sound interesting, so we gave them a chance to plead their case. Turns out, neither could they. But if you don’t go see them, the terrorists win. Band: Three Miles Out Website: www.myspace.com/threemilesout Hometown: Kent/Warren Sounds like: “Foo…
Hero Tomorrow goes all Euro on us
Our favorite locally shot movie about a pot-smoking comic-book writer who moonlights as a superhero just keeps gaining more power. Hero Tomorrow makes its European debut this weekend at the B-Movie, Underground & Trash Film Festival in the Netherlands. Ted Sikora’s flick will screen alongside 20 other slabs of cinematic nerd bait — like Postal,…
Congrats, Cleveland: 100 Dead and Counting!
(Editors note: Before you ask, we’ve already begun investigating signing up Jared Klaus for sensitivity training. If you know any good programs, please let us know). Hooray for the guy who got dropped off at Fairview Hospital this morning with a fatal gunshot wound! You’re the lucky 100th homicide victim in the city of Cleveland…
It’s Official: The Melvins’ Buzz Osborne Hates Us
Phil Spector look-alike Buzz Osborne. Twenty years as a leading figure in the heavy-rock underground have made Buzz Osborne a contentious character, and the last two years of Phil Spector jokes have him REALLY on edge. Osborne founded the Melvins in the late 80s, embracing metal when the rest of the bands from Seattle’s suburbs…
The Mekons
For every snarling youth who spits, “Punk is dead” in 2007, there’s some wise 50-year-old, who was there when it all went down. And he understands something: Rebellion never dies; it just changes. Forming in Leeds, England, in 1977, the Mekons took this knowledge — that change is the only constant — and ran with…
Where’s the Beef?
Ask Scott Krizman where he gets his prime beef, and he’ll probably tell you, “Cows.” But that’s just a warm-up for this wisecracking 42-year-old. A fifth-generation Slovenian meat-cutter, Krizman proudly shows off his 6,000-square-foot Mentor market, which overflows with locally grown produce, made-from-scratch bakery, top-quality meats, and more than a dozen types of homemade sausage.…
Blow out
A pair of blues bands and a TV newsman pay tribute to the harmonica at tonight’s Mojo Blues Festival in Westlake. The 18th-annual bash also serves as a musical memorial to late music promoter Tom Halloran, whose passion for the blues was sparked by a 1989 visit to the Chicago Blues Festival. “He saw three…
The Melvins
Before the media explosion and cash-grab that was grunge, there were about five years when pretty much every single band on the West Coast was influenced by the Melvins. In the late ’80s, they were one of the first bands to play Sabbath riffs pothead-slow, thereby launching stoner rock. And they were among the first…
All Sugar, No Spice
Director Robert Benton, best known for his zeitgeisty, Oscar-hoarding divorce drama Kramer vs. Kramer, has tapped into more than a few current trends in Feast of Love. There are the interlocking mini-stories, à la Crash; different color filters for different scenes (yellow for happy times, blue for sad ones), à la Traffic. And now that…
Family Guy
Stand-up comedian Bob Marley (not to be confused with the dead reggae legend) finds inspiration in his family. His wife, he says, provides lots of material by just filling him in on her day. “She says to me, ‘I got up this morning, went to the mall, had to turn around and come back. I…
Qui
David Yow sings like someone at the end of a very long, lost weekend. He’s not the face-on-the-bar, belligerent drunk, nor is he the overly affectionate drunk. He’s the muttering, recently institutionalized drunk, who threatens invisible apparitions with his cocktail straw. Joining Qui just last year, the former Scratch Acid and Jesus Lizard frontman spreads…
Greenback Zone
The Kingdom is the first film from Peter Berg since the actor-turned-director’s Friday Night Lights, which spawned an acclaimed, if struggling, franchise for NBC. There will be no small-screen spin-off of The Kingdom — there are too many corpses lying around to populate a sequel, much less a series. Besides, it would be redundant: The…
It’s Showtime!
Charles Eversole loves the sound of cocktails clinking in a packed nightclub. “The more you drink, the better we sound,” laughs the music director of A Cabaret Sampler, which opens at Playhouse Square this weekend. The show features local celebrities and Cleveland Cabaret troupers performing sets of torch ballads and tuneful double entendres, accompanied by…
Meg Baird
Espers’ ornate folk has always sounded like the music of forest nymphs: otherwordly voices hovering over meadows of lacy guitars and moody drones. Soft, quiet, but intense, it acts like an opiate, slipping into the bloodstream and drowning the senses in dreamy reflection. Singer and guitarist Meg Baird refers to her band’s aesthetic as the…
Rocket Men
Four decades ago, the American space program was synonymous with human achievement. Thirty-eight years later, the program that punched a hole in the heavens barely dents the public consciousness. As a well-timed corrective, now comes a British documentary, In the Shadow of the Moon, to restore the space program’s luster. A stirring account of the…
The Ice Man Cometh
Jimmy Thackery plays the blues like a guy who stumbled across it on his way home from a weekend bender. On his latest album, Solid Ice, the Pittsburgh-born guitarist riffs through a loud, spare set that showcases his smokin’ fretwork. Thackery has been making records for years (initially as a member of the Nighthawks), but…
Banking on D’s
“Country-club members, meet the Joneses: It’s time for someone else to keep up with you. Spectacular appeal, breathtaking beauty, and graceful elegance — it’s Dayton Wire Wheels.” — Dayton Wire Wheels Promotional Video “Got my ’64 riding on Dayton spokes/And when I open my door/Bitch, get in my car.” — 50 Cent, “Get in My…
The Pete Best Band
Forget the JFK assassination; the firing of Pete Best is the conspiracy of the decade. Who within the Beatles’ camp shit-canned the drummer, and for what reason? Sure, in the summer of 1962, manager Brian Epstein was the one who informed the poor bastard, but he was just the messenger. Was it producer George Martin,…
Knight Light
There is an undeniable appeal to people who pursue impossible dreams. That’s why every lounge singer worth his ruffled French cuffs has included “The Impossible Dream” in his act for the last 40 years. The show that spawned that uplifting anthem, Man of La Mancha, is now opening the season at the Cleveland Play House.…
Shock Treatment
The Maltz Museum’s latest exhibit, Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race, isn’t an easy one to view. The objects, images, and documents on display include photographs of murdered children, sharp instruments used to measure faces, and yellowed notes that detail some very sinister experiments. They all chronicle the Third Reich’s plans to eradicate European Jews…
Mother’s Keeper
It was 7:30 in the morning, a bright school day in 1971, and eight-year-old Lisa Hall was lying in bed, contemplating the day. Through sleep-caked eyelids, she could see the first rays of sunlight pouring through the window of her Westlake split-level. She’d have to get ready for school soon. If she could just sleep…
John Vanderslice
Emerald City, the latest disc from San Francisco singer-songwriter John Vanderslice, was born from troublesome circumstances, mostly having to do with his French girlfriend being denied a visa. Apparently, Vanderslice’s psyche was affected by the legal limbo, as its tumultuous aftermath reverberates in Emerald City’s skittish melodies and sense of disconnect. Given his knack for…
Pick This Poison
We all have our images of serial killers, and they usually look like the bogeymen we pictured as children: dead-eyed, macabre men with a lip curl and not a whit of mercy in their tiny, blackened hearts. But what are the odds that such purveyors of evil could look like sweet and doting grandmothers, or…
Crude Awakening
Powered by greed, the corporate establishment digs for oil any place it can. Sometimes it’s in the Alaskan wilderness; other times it’s in Middle Eastern deserts. In the musical comedy Dear World, now playing at Kalliope Stage, it’s under a Paris café. The action revolves around an eccentric cast of dreamers and idealists — including…
Class Action
“Gentlemen in the back, we’re gonna work,” Theresa Lockhart warns the restless teenagers before her. It’s the end of a long day at Brush High, a 1,600-student, castle-like public school in Lyndhurst. The ninth-graders, slumping in their seats, are here to learn the basics of surviving high school: how to organize their assignments in a…
Sound of Urchin tour kickoff
Sure, every band and its mother claims to be bringing rock and roll back. Sound of Urchin is going the full nine to prove it this tour. The New York City band is taking an oversize lighting rig on tour, turning every club into an arena show for jamming rawk sets in the tradition of…
Capsule reviews of current area theater presentations.
The Dead Guy — There are many reasons why this show, by Cleveland playwright Eric Coble, is DOA. For starters, it’s a supposed satire of TV reality shows, but seems blissfully ignorant of this tired genre’s techniques. The premise — that a dim young redneck named Eldon (a game Sean Derry) would agree to spend…
Bear Exposure
Seattle indie rockers Minus the Bear’s stock has really soared over the past couple of years. Last month, they released Planet of Ice, their toughest record yet. Tonight, they play two shows at the Grog Shop. In the past, the band recorded songs with wordy, jokey titles like “Hey, Wanna Throw Up? Get Me Naked”…
No Merlot for You
If you’re lucky enough to have California wine shipped directly to your doorstep, be warned: You only have a few days of freedom left. On October 1, a new state law will ban large wineries — those producing more than 150,000 gallons a year — from shipping directly to Ohio customers. Which means you can…
Bob Kidney’s birthday show
Numbers Band founder Robert Kidney celebrates his 60th birthday this weekend. The frontman has been leading the blues-rock juggernaut for over 35 years now, since back when the band’s hometown of Kent was in the news for all the wrong reasons. But by all accounts, he just keeps getting better. Over a half-dozen Numbers alums…
Capsule reviews of current area art exhibitions.
From Here to Infinity — The Cleveland Institute of Art admissions staff’s job just got a lot easier. This exhibition, marking the 125th anniversary of the CIA, provides concrete evidence to the wary parents of prospective students that, yes, it is possible to graduate from art school and make the pages of art-history books –…
Ripping the Headlines
Comedian Tom Simmons spent the past four years holding a pity party for himself. After months of studying interviews with comic legends like Johnny Carson and Jerry Seinfeld, he says he finally figured out how to get his career on the fast track: less writing, more performing. “I feel like I’ve wasted 10 years not…
Ye Who Are Without Sin . . .
. . . keep your ass inside after 3 a.m: I just finished reading your article [“The Killing Fields,” September 12], and I must say: So what that a few a-holes pissed someone off and got killed? I do not see a real tragedy here. The killing of an innocent person, someone attacked without cause…
Deborah Harry
When she was new wave’s reigning pinup, frontwoman Deborah Harry was spicing up Blondie’s pop with dashes of disco, hip-hop, and calypso. Her solo career, which began with 1981’s R&B-touched KooKoo, has been no less chameleon-like. Necessary Evil, Harry’s sixth album, is reminiscent of early Blondie. The singer basically nixes the techno-pop heard on her…
Special Delivery
Knocked Up (Universal) Apparently, as Judd Apatow was making Knocked Up, he was also prepping for its DVD release, as most of the bonuses here were shot during breaks on location. And they’re no small treats, either — finally, here’s a “collector’s edition” worthy of the moniker. Chief among the bounty affixed to this comedy…
Nude Awakening
Clothing is not an option at tonight’s Buck Naked Yoga session for men. Even a pair of tighty whiteys will ruin the spirituality of the time-honored stress-buster, says Buck Harris, owner of There’s No Place Like Om. “Doing yoga in the nude seems to take it to a deeper level,” he says. “We use clothes…
Artsy and Intellectual
“I’ve been a big Genesis fan ever since the release of their 1980 album, Duke,” explains investment banker and self-proclaimed serial-killer Patrick Bateman in the cult flick American Psycho. “Before that, I really didn’t understand any of their work. Too artsy, too intellectual.” Bateman is right: No group in rock history has undergone a more…
The Sea and Cake
As Pitchfork once said of the group Silkworm, consistency without spectacle can make for a tough sell. This axiom also applies to the Sea and Cake, but it has been mitigated somewhat by the act’s danceability, which came to a head on 2000’s Oui and 2003’s One Bedroom. Having apparently gone as far as it…
Down in Flames
In terms of the yawning chasm between what was promised and what has been delivered, Lair earns the distinction of being the biggest letdown ever for PlayStation 3. Worse, it’s also one of those games where massive prerelease hype merely ended up underscoring its flaws, transmogrifying a game that would’ve been simply second-rate into a…
Pimp My Ride
At tonight’s MidTown 25th Anniversary block party, RTA commences its new route with live music and lots of beer. “It’s time to acknowledge our accomplishments and look to our future,” says Diane Dunleavy, MidTown’s deputy director. Free rides on the new Silver Line transit, shooting straight down Euclid Avenue, will celebrate a revitalized stretch that…
Explosive Psychedelia
“We had one of these nights where you sort of felt like we could all have died, and we all agreed that we would never do that again on purpose,” explains Flaming Lips singer Wayne Coyne, speaking before a performance at the legendary Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Denver. Coyne sounds like the opening lines of…
John Fogerty
If the opening track of this splendid new disc doesn’t convince you that John Fogerty has returned to full strength as a songwriter, you’re either deaf or really, really depressed. “Don’t You Wish It Was True” is the kind of rootsy anthem that Fogerty used to kick out with miraculous regularity. All the trademark pleasures…
Silverman’s Gold
TOP PICK — The Sarah Silverman Program (Comedy Central) Our favorite potty-mouthed comedian returns for a second season of her terrific TV series at 10:30 p.m. on Wednesday. After Sarah joins a community group because they serve awesome desserts, she realizes that it’s actually an anti-abortion collective hellbent on bombing a local clinic where her…
Heart-Shaped Rock
After 17 personnel changes in four years, Goodmorning Valentine guitarist Joey Beltram hopes his latest band will stick around a while. The new lineup makes its area debut at the Akron Art Museum’s weekly Downtown at Dusk summer musical series, which wraps its season tonight. “It’s just how the Akron scene is — a lot…
G-Unit Sit-Down
The most hyped hip-hop showdown in years — the September 11 release of both 50 Cent’s Curtis and Kanye West’s Graduation — just ended in embarrassment for Fiddy. First-week sales declared Kanye the winner. Just before Curtis dropped, we met up with 50 Cent at G-Unit Clothing headquarters in New York. The setup boasts a…
Charles Mingus Sextet with Eric Dolphy
Along with Duke Ellington, the late Charles Mingus is one of the granddaddies of jazz: a composer, bandleader, bassist, incubator of talent, and notoriously larger-than-life figure. Cornell 1964, two discs of previously unreleased material recorded at the Ivy League university, is an outstanding addition to his catalog. First off, this ensemble was short-lived; tenor saxophonist…
Our top DVD picks scheduled for release this week:
As You Like It (HBO) Babel: 2-Disc Collector’s Edition (Paramount Vantage) Broken (Weinstein) The Bronx Is Burning (ESPN) Building Bombs (New Video Group) Chalk (Arts Alliance America) Cinema 16: European Short Films (Warp) Cujo: 25th Anniversary Edition (Lionsgate) Davey and Goliath: The Lost Episodes (Starlight) Drawn Together: Season Two (Paramount) 11:59 (Tartan) George Carlin: All…
On a Role
The Bob & Tom Show started at an Indianapolis radio station nearly 25 years ago. These days, the duo is heard in dozens of cities across the nation. Their Bob & Tom Comedy All-Stars Tour — which features a half-dozen stand-up comics, including Donnie Baker, Frank Caliendo, and Drew Hastings — comes to Playhouse Square…
American Guitar
Jack Rose’s latest album is deeply patriotic, and I can’t stop spinning the thing. Almost every other night since its release this summer, I’ve cranked the self-titled disc before hitting the hay. It’s kind of like back in the ’70s, when television sent us to bed with an actual music video for “The Star-Spangled Banner.”…
Magik Markers
On the surface, drawing comparisons between the Motor City Five and Magik Markers seems absurd: The former is a proto-punk icon from the Vietnam era; the latter are modern indie upstarts. On the other hand, the two share key strengths and weaknesses. As with their Detroit idols, the Markers are renowned for cathartic live shows…
Where the Wild Things Are
Bird shrieks and rodent chatter are on the playlist at today’s Wildlife Festival at the Penitentiary Glen Nature Center. Visitors mingle with live animals (courtesy of the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History), while experts fill them in on everything they need to know about natural environments. Squirrels, eagles, bugs, and…
Blaze On
Cleveland’s Kev Blaze has signed to Imperial Records, the urban-music subsidiary of EMI’s Capitol Music Group. The label’s roster includes Fat Joe and Bizzy Bone. “[Blaze] brings back the true meaning of soul music,” says Zenobia Simmons, Imperial’s director of publicity. “I think he can deliver a great album.” Blaze recorded his debut, Smoke N…
Skeletonwitch
The mere presence of a track titled “Soul Thrashing Black Sorcery” says everything you need to know about Beyond the Permafrost. It’s the third release from Skeletonwitch, the death-thrash-power-metal beast that emigrated from Columbus to Cleveland a couple years back. Frontman Chance Garnette hacks up low-register rage from his gut. When his lyrics are intelligible,…
Jam On It
Two months after losing its weekly performance stage at the defunct Bassa Vita, the Cleveland Jams improv troupe has resurfaced at the Powerhouse Pub in the Flats. Spokesman Don Mitri says they got a sweet deal: “We’ve doubled our space and now have more room to work.” Every Tuesday night, more than a dozen Jammers…
Dream On
Paprika, Satoshi Kon’s latest anime tour de force, plays a lot like The Matrix. There’s a head-spinning premise (scientists invent a device so they can enter people’s dreams), a shape-shifting villain, and some wonderful set pieces packed with explosions and giant robots. Time, space, and perspective are skewed beyond recognition in this perplexing, visually dazzling…
Hostile Omish
Like the pseudo-Amish ECW wrestler Roadkill, Hostile Omish have a questionable gimmick, but the Cleveland alt-rock quartet will wear you down, even if they have to rise before dawn and work at it all day. As the World Churns unloads a barrage of borderline-funny gags that run the gamut from simplistic to juvenile. “Subway (the…
A Hut Above
If you build it, they will eat in it. That’s the prevailing spirit at today’s Fall Harvest Festival at the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage. The bash celebrates Sukkot, the holiday that’s also known as the Feast of Tabernacles. Participants will learn how to construct a traditional open-air hut to commemorate the season. “It’s the…
Busting Broadway’s Balls
Forbidden Broadway: Special Victims Unit begins with perennial optimist Little Orphan Annie taking a bullet. It’s fitting, since this popular stage series has spent the past 25 years lampooning the Great White Way’s stars and musicals. “You don’t really have to have seen the shows [we make fun of] to have a good time,” says…
Small Thrills
Even on a Wednesday night, the Flying Fig is rocking, with a bubbly, energetic mix of after-work unwinders, noisy knots of friends, and cuddly young couples indulging in a midweek splurge. Lights are dim, the vibe is festive, and a wailing sax riff rips through the air as diners — many of them neighborhood regulars…
Portrait of the Artists
San Francisco’s Two Gallants record for Saddle Creek, the same label Bright Eyes calls home. And like Conor Oberst’s revolving group, Adam Stephens and Tyson Vogel make music that loves to play around with words. Little surprise, since the duo took its name from a typically wordy James Joyce story. On their third album, Two…
