Tedium for Two
In the early ’90s, during a particularly dark time for the pro wrestling business, perennial jester and onetime Andy Kaufman accomplice Jerry “The King” Lawler proclaimed that he was going to do something that had never been done before: call play-by-play commentary on his own match. Entering the ring armed with a microphone, he proceeded…
System of a Down
System of a Down’s second album comes after three years of expectation and a whirlwind of media attention. And while it takes some warming up to, in the end, it’s well-composed, aggressive, and unique: meaty metal with a social conscience. Those who heard the band’s 1998 self-titled debut will be familiar with System’s quirky song…
Out of Africa
Raoul Peck’s Lumumba takes on a task so massive — the story of a vastly complex political change, involving figures barely registering any longer on the public consciousness — that it is a miracle it succeeds as well as it does. Since there is no way to present the history of Congolese independence in the…
Jah Wobble/Bill Laswell / Jah Wobble and Deep Space
Radioaxiom is a smooth, dub-based release by bassist Jah Wobble and bassist/producer/ remixer/atmosphericist Bill Laswell. Beach Fervour Square, an import, is one of several discs in an ambitious, progressive series produced by Wobble, an old friend of Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten. It features a gang of experimentalists including drummer Mark Sanders, ambient composer Paul Schultze,…
Good Hands People?
One day in March 1997, Lance Rutledge’s friend Kenny Aigner came to visit. They grilled steaks, had a couple of beers, then jumped into Aigner’s car to see Rutledge’s girlfriend, who was working at a bowling alley on Cleveland’s West Side. Rutledge says he didn’t know that his friend drank 13 to 15 beers and…
Love as Laughter
Singer-guitarist Sam Jayne is one of those frustratingly amazing musical constructionists, putting together project bands to realize his intermittent visions of lo-fi sonic grandeur. After the 1994 demise of his acclaimed Seattle band Lync, Jayne formed a de facto ensemble known as Love as Laughter, first a completely solo project and then a loose affiliation…
The Trouble With Trico
Bobby Hayes knows he should have seen the signs. “It is not,” he says in his soft Alabama drawl, “my first time at the rodeo.” The steel industry was in a free fall. The economy was slowing. His plant was a midwife to countless operational snafus. Yet Hayes didn’t anticipate how quickly the end would…
State of Being
When State of Being formed some 10 years ago, industrial rock had made it out of the clubs and onto the charts. Like Ministry and Nine Inch Nails, State of Being combined noisy guitars with techno beats on now out-of-print cassettes such as Function, Derivative, and Knotted in Chains. At the height of its popularity,…
Mother Lode
Sometimes, just entertaining the thought that rock stars had mothers can be a stretch. Rolling Stone Keith Richards rebelling by not cleaning his room? That’s not the emaciated junkie we know and love. And although Snoop Doggy Dogg has been known to chill in his lavish crib, it ain’t the kind with a teething ring…
Badmouthing Butch
The relationship between Butch Davis and the media hasn’t officially soured, but already some Browns beat reporters are pouting with the ferocity of spurned prom dates. Davis has earned the passive-aggressive ire of a few hacks who cover the team for the unpardonable sin of restricting access to certain practices. Most NFL coaches let media…
Bank Shot
A Charter One exec eats “Crow”: As an African American and customer of Charter One Bank, I appreciate your in-depth article about their disgusting mortgage lending practices [“The Bank of Jim Crow,” August 16]. I have made several calls to their offices and was unable to get any type of response. Finally, I noted Vice…
Beau Regard
Even before his winter move from the Merriman Valley to the business district in Fairlawn, chef-restaurateur Beau Schmidt was known for his large culinary repertoire. “In the valley location, his regular menu was fairly conservative — items like Veal Scaloppine and Chicken Marsala,” confides a longtime fan. “But then he had this huge daily list…
Funny Food
How about a vitamin-fortified, vegetarian Dilberito, stuffed with corn and beans? A muscular Popeye Power Salad, with spinach, mandarin oranges, and peanuts? Or a freshly baked Gotham Pizza, with a choice of gourmet toppings? Along with Burgerpipes (extra-lean ground meat or chicken in the form of a hot dog, served on a wienie bun), homemade…
Built to Last
It’s hard to imagine a more self-effacing guitar hero than Doug Martsch. The leader and driving force of Built to Spill — Boise, Idaho’s greatest claim to musical immortality — Martsch brings to mind Robert Christgau’s old line (in reference to T-Bone Burnett) about being unable to resist a humble man with a proud guitar.…
Jux’s Position
The headquarters of Def Jux Records is a modest beige duplex in Brooklyn. Label owner El-P lives upstairs, and Vordul Megilah and Vast Aire, the two rappers in Cannibal Ox, sleep on a couple of futons downstairs. One of the rooms serves as a recording studio. “We live there, and we have a cat,” Aire…
Dave’s Addiction
Three years ago, Dave Navarro’s enormous house in the Hollywood Hills was home to drug dealers, crack whores, and rock stars. When Navarro installed a commercial photo booth, he used it to document his visitors — glamour girls and pizza boys alike — and some of those photos were printed in a recent issue of…
Guy Clark
With the exception of Willie Nelson and the late Townes Van Zandt, no Texas troubadour commands as much respect as singer-songwriter Guy Clark. His songs have been recorded by close to 40 artists, ranging from John Denver to Slim Pickens. “Poet” might not be an accurate description of him; maybe novelist is more to the…
Rail People
John Ormandy is a robotics expert for General Motors; his friend John Shephard is a semiretired graphic designer. But in their minds, they’re workin’ on the railroad all the livelong day. Earlier this year, Ormandy and Shephard opened the Medina Toy & Train Museum, a converted apartment on Medina’s Public Square dedicated to classic locomotives…
Buddy Guy
At 65, Buddy Guy is still taking to the stage and setting an impossibly high standard for blues guitarists of every vintage, the majority of his devotees young enough to be his grandchildren. In the early ’50s, Guy began his blues career with stints in Baton Rouge, playing with established bands that ultimately gave him…
Drawing Paychecks
Illustrator Ron Hill has a simple question for abstract artists who bandy about flowery statements for canvases that feature nothing more than two shades of green: Can they draw? “They’re experimenting with color or balance or space or depth,” says Hill, whose work will be shown in Other-Worldly Paintings at the Valley Art Center in…
Jimmy Eat World
Music critics suck. They’re ornery, obnoxious, uncouth, uncaring, numbnutted, and shitheaded. Take the way they treated Jimmy Eat World, for example. Back in 1999, the Arizona quartet released Clarity, an epic, airy mix of cooing vocals and gentle emo arrangements. It was harder-edged in a few places, but delicate and effervescent pop percolated throughout. But…
Metal Meltdown
A year after Cameron Crowe climbed back aboard the tour bus for one last spin through rock’s golden days of giddy hedonism and phony heroism comes a film set a decade later, in the mid-1980s, when the parties got harder, the music louder, and the musicians prettier. The world of Rock Star is one Crowe’s…
Dwight Yoakam
Kentucky-born, Ohio-raised Dwight Yoakam rebuffed Nashville’s commercial music demands back in 1977 when he fled Tennessee for the artistic tolerance of California. Taking the stage with off-the-beaten-path bands such as Los Lobos, Yoakam discovered the creative freedom he required. And once established, he was able to lure legendary performer Buck Owens out of decade-old retirement…
