Wild Style
Tonight, Kalliope Stage kicks off its fourth season with Andrew Lippa’s critically acclaimed off-Broadway look at the Jazz Age, The Wild Party. Six years ago, two different musicals based on the same 1920s-era poem were staged in New York. The Broadway version boasted the stars (Mandy Patinkin and Toni Collette appeared), but it was the…
Pissed-Off Parrothead
I would like to respond to “Mutiny in Margaritaville,” by Jared Klaus [August 16]. Mr. Klaus is truly a gifted and colorful writer. Take “. . . preaching escape from the soul-squeezing corset of Middle America. Salvation was the warm sand of the Florida Keys. The Eucharist was a slushy, salt-rimmed margarita.” Now that’s some…
Robinella
True to her name, Robinella makes music that dips and soars like a bird. She flits from tree to tree in the forest of music styles: country, jazz, folk, pop. Think of her as a Norah Jones in reverse. Where Jones touches up her laid-back piano jazz with a little twangy pop, the Tennessee-based Robinella…
Skeletonwitch
Freshly transplanted from Columbus to Cleveland, Skeletonwitch delivers the fistful of metal promised by the horned skull and long hair that grace the cover of the band’s second release. Chance Garnette’s Cookie Monster vocals and gurgling are pure death metal, but the power-metal melodies of the quintet’s twin-guitar attack put the band squarely in the…
Pace Yourself
The Arizona foursome A Change of Pace mixes snarling Britpop and fizzy power pop on its second album, Prepare the Masses. The band is fond of buzzing, ringing guitar riffs and big, rolling drum fills. But the group doesn’t sacrifice catchy songs for all the sonic decorations. The sweeping choruses work overtime to please, and…
The Ice House Danceth
GroundWorks Dancetheater returns to Akron’s Ice House tonight with a little help from its friends. The troupe’s eighth annual program — which runs during the next two weekends — features the Akros Contemporary Percussion Collective, a six-piece group of local drummers that bangs away to Julio Estrada’s Eolo’oolin. GroundWorks dances to Latitude, a piece written…
Generic rip, complete with obligatory toilet-paper reference!
Back in my high school and college days, I was an avid reader of Scene. As I became a family man in the ’90s, I found other endeavors to occupy my time and spent less time going out in Cleveland. Hence, I stopped reading Scene for several years. From time to time I’d pick it…
Oakley Hall
Most bands would content themselves with one strong release a year, but this Brooklyn sextet has already released two of 2006’s best efforts, Gypsum Strings and Second Guessing. Joining national summer and fall tours with Calexico, the Constantines, and M. Ward, Oakley Hall is one of this year’s breakout bands. Ex-Oneida member Pat Sullivan formed…
Lou’s Blues
In the last decade or so, Cleveland has grown into a great little dining town, with contemporary bistros, sassy menus, and nationally recognized chefs. But among even the most finicky foodies, you’ll find a remnant of our blue-collar past: a deep appreciation of the venerable neighborhood tavern, and a soft spot for a great burger…
Shine Up Your Balls
The North Coast Bowling Association tells new recruits to “grab your balls [but] just stay out of the gutter.” The Sunday league of the gay-friendly bowling group begins its 30-week season this afternoon. “This was started to create an opportunity for people to meet other gay people without having to go to bars,” says Greg…
Modern Classic
Tonight’s Celebrating Elliott Carter concert introduces classical-music novices to one of the most significant, prolific, and profound composers in the world today. The Cleveland Contemporary Players will launch their new season with the show, which features performances by violinist Rolf Schulte and pianist Stephen Gosling. The 98-year-old composer himself might even show up. The concert…
Calling Captain Nutbag
Ohio needs all the help it can get when it comes to elections. Critics are still crying foul over ballot-tampering in 2004. And after the Great Voting Machine Meltdown in Cuyahoga County last spring, we can expect November’s tallies to be as accurate as Barbara Byrd-Bennett’s attendance figures. Fortunately, Secretary of State Uncle Tom Blackwell…
Trace Adkins
You’ve probably heard Louisiana-born honky-tonk heartthrob Trace Adkins just as much on ESPN as on CMT this summer. That’s thanks to his huge, ahem, single, “Swing,” a simplistic tune about baseball as a metaphor for gettin’ some, with its eminently, ahem, catchy chorus — “Swing batter batter swing batter batter swing” — perfect for the…
Edged Out
Anyone wondering why Cleveland restaurants rarely make snooty magazines’ Top 10 lists need look no further than Chicago for an answer. In fact, we were ensconced at a table at Alinea, in the Windy City’s artsy Lincoln Park neighborhood — going gaga over a tempura-battered prawn, anchored by a vanilla bean and tucked inside a…
Benson Gets the Blues
Veteran TV and stage actor Robert Guillaume will relive his theatrical memories at tonight’s inaugural Karamu House Hall of Fame Inductions. “It fills me with dread,” admits the 78-year-old Guillaume, best known as the butler-turned-politico on Soap and its spin-off, Benson. “I don’t necessarily want to be honored, because it signals a certain event in…
Gold Mine
Gold Mine Although artists Shari Jamieson and Mary Weimer Green share space at True Art’s Mine: Images of Descent exhibit, they have very little in common. In fact, they don’t even interpret the word mine the same way. Jamieson’s abstract paintings borrow images derived from photos of old coal mines; Green’s prints take a more…
Underperformance Art
The Cleveland Museum of Art is one year into an expansion that, if successful, will keep visitors away till at least 2010. Meanwhile, the museum’s plan for picking up the tab is lagging somewhat behind. When crews broke ground on the $258 million mudpie last fall, only half the money had been raised — and…
Muse
Muse is a band you either love or hate. Although born in the same gloomy environs as Radiohead, Muse enjoys more rock kick. Its stadium-size roar is like British prog (see King Crimson/ELP) filtered through the cheesy melodrama of Coldplay. But if you let it, the epic sweep of the opulent arrangements, coupled with the…
Detective Comics
If Superman Returns attempted to resurrect the Man of Steel as a mythic hero, the season’s other Superman movie wants to disabuse us of any such childish illusions. Glamorously adult, Hollywoodland purports to part the veil on the circumstances by which George Reeves, the actor who played the superhero on ’50s television, wound up with…
The Human Side of Synth
Although the Presets are an electronic duo, the two members do more work than their machines. “Most techno stuff is cold,” says Kimberley Moyes, one-half of the Australian electro-pop group. “We want to stay away from that.” On their debut album, Beams, Moyes and Julian Hamilton combine flashy synth bursts with peppy, poppy hooks. They…
Golden Years
Don’t let Urinetown’s title piss you off, says director Jen Cody. “People think it’s going to be this lewd, foul production,” she says. “It’s really a story about two kids falling in love.” The Tony-winning musical (opening tonight at the Carousel) centers on star-crossed lovers caught in a fight against corporate greed. It’s all set…
Whacking Debbie Fink
State school-board member Deborah Owens Fink doesn’t have many friends — just a few in the right places. Her husband, John, is chairman of the University of Akron board of trustees. Fink just happens to be a marketing professor there, where she received tenure under hubby’s watch. It also helps that her husband is a…
P.F. Sloan
P.F. Sloan has never been properly rewarded or appreciated for his contributions to pop. Sloan wrote such ’60s classics as “Secret Agent Man” and “Eve of Destruction” for other artists while working with Steve Barri for Dunhill Records, but the label sabotaged Sloan’s attempts at a solo career in order to keep its grip on…
Estrogen Fest
That churning sound you hear downtown is not the Browns gearing up for their next 6-10 campaign. It’s the tidal wave of estrogen being unleashed up on East 14th, as Menopause, the Musical has given way to another songfest committed to making boomer babes dance in the aisles. Yes, this time the You go, girl!…
In the Mix
Montage as Illustration features more than 70 color pieces that artist Chuck Rosenberg meticulously constructed out of graphics gleaned from old magazine pages. The exhibit, which opens today, was inspired by classic books. For example, the orgy scene from Brave New World is depicted in a dozen juxtaposed images of naked, writhing bodies. “I searched…
Swing Your Party
If Brokeback Mountain taught us anything, it’s that gay guys sure do love the cowboy stuff. So tonight the homo hoofers from the Cleveland City Country Dancers will kick up their spurs to show folks that square dancing isn’t just for Grandma anymore. “It’s funky, fun, and different,” says Mike Krupar, the club’s secretary. “If…
Mayor MySpace
You might expect a baby-faced mayor, the youngest in his suburb’s history, to hide his age, perhaps grow a beard or invest in some short-sleeved dress shirts. Not David Bentkowski. The 34-year-old mayor of Seven Hills, Bentkowski embraces his youthful demeanor, which political experts might describe as “Dennis Kucinich meets Ace from Real World: Paris.…
Converge
>Hardcore pioneer Converge helped invent metalcore, combining punishing rhythms, sludgy Slayer breakdowns, and arrangements that spasm between chest-pounding churn and terse guitar angularity. The writhing guitars, quaking bottom end, and stop-start dynamics morph in quicker succession nowadays, and the production has been beefier since the band signed with Epitaph for 2004’s You Fail Me. But…
Blue Blues
There are many who consider musicals the playpen of American theater, mistaking them as unserious just because people break into song every few minutes and prance about. Well, okay, that doesn’t sound very serious. But there are many musical shows with satirical bite (Urinetown), culture-challenging bravado (Hair), and even gender rage (Hedwig and the Angry…
Goes Great With Beer
The Up Periscope Gallery wants to prove that original art isn’t just for old millionaires anymore. “I want to get people my age and younger to buy legitimate art, rather than buying a poster at Target,” says Tony Trunzo, the gallery’s 31-year-old founder. “We’re investing in these beautiful cars, clothing, and stuff that’ll soon be…
Cave Man
When writer Jeff Biggers ventured into Mexico’s Sierra Madre a few years ago, he had no idea what to expect. “You’re overwhelmed by the landscape,” he says. “It’s one of the great wonders of the world.” He emerged after a year of scouring the mountain range with a backpack full of tales that he collected…
We Suck, Again
The US News and World Report college rankings are in — and things are not looking good for Northeast Ohio’s public universities. The report, which ranks colleges on their “academic merit,” decided that our schools had very little. Kent State, the University of Akron, and Cleveland State all fell into the fourth tier of universities…
Vienna Teng
Given the state of the industry, leaving a well-paying day job to pursue a music career seems counterintuitive. But that’s exactly what Stanford grad Vienna Teng did. A software programmer at Cisco Systems, Teng tired of juggling code-writing and songwriting, and decided to focus solely on her piano and meditative coffeehouse pop a few years…
Fun With Flesh Wounds
If nothing else, give the makers of Beowulf & Grendel high marks for boldness and for a certain playful irreverence. It’s a good bet that today’s moviegoers have all the respect in the world for eighth-century poetry, Norse legend, and the tenets of early Christianity, but the real attraction of the film might be summed…
Shots in the Dark
Cleveland Metroparks’ Moonlight Golf outings feature one of the most challenging courses you’ll ever play. It’s not the roughs, hills, and bends that make tonight’s nine holes at Shawnee Hills so tough, so much as the fact that they’re played in the dark. Sure, you have glow-in-the-dark balls and lighted tees, but little good they’ll…
Reality Check
Cheyenne Kimball is a post-Avril popster who combines beefy guitar hooks with chewy sing-along choruses. The 16-year-old Texan got her big break on the MTV reality show Cheyenne, which chronicled her journey through the music industry — it was sort of like Ashlee Simpson’s career, but without an obnoxious dad pulling the strings. On her…
Life in the Fast Lane
When the Eagles of Death Metal came through town with the Strokes in April, mistaking them for a headlining act was all too easy. The Agora’s audience raised devil horns and beers alike for the band’s sleazy, sexed-up tunes, like something from the Rolling Stones in a decadent tryst with a gaggle of glam rockers…
Mika Miko
If Gossip isn’t enough reason to drag your butt through the 36 stoplights between Downtown and Cleveland Heights, then Mika Miko bloody well ought to be. Passing the mic on every other line, the riot grrrls play the kind of punky garage rock that you can’t help but dance to. Because it’s funky. And really…
Capsule reviews of current area theater presentations.
A Murder of Crows — This frequently comical rant on hypocrisy, bigotry, and heroism is the latest in a number of playwright Mac Wellman’s works produced by Convergence-Continuum. And if an hour seems like a short show, it’s not when you’re listening to Wellman’s breathless, airtight screeds, which are often directed actor-to-audience, with no pretense…
Hate Life? Join the Club
Over sludgy riffs and muddy vocals, the alt-rock band Three Days Grace bemoans pretty much every aspect of modern life. Love, isolation, detachment — they’re all really big Issues in the hands of the Toronto foursome, which piles on the guitars and anguish with equal aplomb. Its second album, One-X, is even more supercharged than…
Pour Some Sugar
Their days of multiplatinum record sales may be behind them, but that doesn’t mean Def Leppard and Journey don’t continue to pack some serious touring power. They’ve both released new albums within the past year, but on this summer jaunt, the two veteran bands play enough classics to keep old fans happy. Expect to hear…
Spread the Word
Nothing official has been said, but it looks as if Le Tigre has bid the world adieu. It’s even more definite that Sleater-Kinney has played its last shows for the foreseeable future. So who exactly is reppin’ Riot Grrrl aboveground, out loud and proud? Rumor is, it’s Gossip. While some young female bands mimic ’80s…
Lil’ Ed & the Blues Imperials
When the blues came up to Chicago after WW II, the music may have urbanized, but it was never really civilized. The brash, raucous Delta sound fit right in with its new ghetto digs. The newfound amplification blasted forth from South and West Side bars with an attitude that challenges rockers even today. Bands with…
Capsule reviews of current area art exhibitions.
NEW Hidden Images — Be sure to read the gallery notes at this small but hard-hitting exhibition; otherwise, half the power of Austrian-Israeli artist Wolf Werdigier’s mysterious, expressionistic, and tremendously varied paintings will remain buried. Accompanying each image is a personal testament from a real Israeli or Palestinian, whose dreams and stories Werdigier analyzed and…
Will Play for Food
Saxophonist Dave Sterner worries that folks checking out his free downtown performance this afternoon might mistake his jazz trio for a bunch of bums. “Because we’re outside, people think we’re panhandling,” he sighs. “That can make you feel a little unartistic.” The Dave Sterner Trio plays songs made famous by Duke Ellington and Frank Sinatra.…
Sleep With the Fishes
Tonight’s Snooze at the Zoo slumber party at the Akron Zoo shines a light on nocturnal critters. It starts with a sunset hike on the grounds, where visitors can spot more than 50 types of night stalkers, including snakes, owls, and chinchillas. “The animals are more active at dusk,” says zoo rep David Barnhardt. “It’s…
Empty Pose
Tim Kinsella is a pretentious wank. His off-key croak as lead singer of Cap’n Jazz and Joan of Arc inspired hundreds of tonally challenged emo singers, and his musical catalog is littered with discordant, meandering dreck in the guise of the avant-garde. Compared to the work of Sonic Youth protégés such as Glenn Branca and…
Motörhead
Recent reissues of Motörhead’s mid-’80s albums (Another Perfect Day, Orgasmatron, and Rock ‘n’ Roll), with contemporaneous live concerts as bonus discs, are nice reminders that these reprobate rockers never lost a bit of power. Indeed, the current lineup — together since ’92 — is one of its fiercest, each album offering at least three or…
Necessary Evil
United 93 (Universal) A suggestion to those who’ve put off watching the year’s most wrenching and essential film: Before rolling the feature, first watch the documentary in which the families of those who died on the plane give the filmmakers their blessing, without reservation. If the mother, father, and sister of Richard Guadagno can meet…
Pass the Syrup
Today’s downtown Pancake Flip may finally settles the great pancake-waffle debate. For our money, flapjacks are not only tastier, they’re more versatile, as local celebs will prove by mixing, flipping, and serving more than 7,000 of them at Public Square. All that flippin’ has a purpose, though: Folks can purchase $5 breakfasts, which benefit the…
Rhyme’s Reason
Paulie Rhyme may have left Cleveland, but his heart hasn’t. It’s here that he and his Finless Brown bandmates got their start. Smelting rap with jazz, funk with lounge, and live performances with DJ culture, they’ve made their mark splicing genres and sounds to Rhyme’s political urban raps and the soulful bilingual vocals of his…
Iswhat?
Everybody’s always griping about how hip-hop isn’t is as good as it was when you were in high school — cut it out, already. And if you don’t believe us, check out Cincinnati’s Iswhat?, a progressive crew that’s supporting a brand-new album, The Life We Chose. The Roots’ Rahzel called it “all about what’s happenin’.”…
Grateful Dead
The mall in Dead Rising is pretty much like any other you’ve visited. There’s a bunch of women’s clothing stores, a movie theater, and of course the obligatory food court. The only real difference is that it’s teeming with enough zombies to fill a stadium. Dead Rising opens with freelance photojournalist Frank West being flown…
Mr. Sandman
Philadelphia singer-songwriter Denison Witmer is like Elliott Smith without the suicidal tendencies. His stark, acoustic songs detail a lifetime’s worth of disappointment. Witmer’s voice and guitar may appear fragile, but happiness is just a sunbeam away. Next month, Witmer releases a two-CD set featuring his hard-to-find debut, Safe Away, and a new EP, Are You…
Crimes Against Catholics
When Joseph Smith left Cleveland, only to resurface in Columbus, the move had the suspicious air of so many similar reassignments within the Catholic Church. For decades, it has covered up widespread pedophilia among its priests, preferring to transfer them to distant outposts whenever things got too hot. But this wasn’t about molestation. Smith was…
Land of Distortion
Singer-guitarist Justin Coulter fronts an electrical storm that drenches the audience in viscous sheets of white noise. The songs — insofar as you could call them that — billow in fast-cycling waves of feedback that build to the force of a passing locomotive, throwing you onto your back foot. Wearing a “Surf Naked” T-shirt, Coulter…
Yo La Tengo
Living up to its feisty, yard-long title, Yo La Tengo’s I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass is the classic sucker punch — who’d’ve expected the band to release a masterpiece two decades into its career? Especially since the last album, 2003’s sedate Summer Sun, sounded like a holding pattern,…
Our top DVD picks for the week of September 5.
The Abbott and Costello Show: 100th Anniversary Collection, Season One (Passport) Ace Ventura Deluxe Double Feature (Warner Bros.) Amarcord: The Criterion Collection (Criterion) Anne of Avonlea (Koch Vision) Blade Runner: Director’s Cut (Warner Bros.) Broken Trail (Sony) Clive Barker’s The Plague (Sony) Commander in Chief: 2-Disc Inaugural Edition Part 2 (Disney) Dead Man’s Shoes (Magnolia)…
The Other Motor City
Two vintage Templar roadsters on display at today’s Come Home to Lakewood House Tour commemorate the only time an automaker built cars in the city. History buffs can learn about the 1920s-era sets of wheels before they peek inside nine homes and businesses, like a stately Georgian colonial on Clifton Park, a turn-of-the-century cottage in…
The Battle For Lake Erie
A cold February wind blew across the marsh in Benton Township. Rick Meinke often came here to hunt ducks, his trusty Labrador, Ottis, by his side. But today, Ottis was back at the house. And the .38 pistol weighing down his hand wasn’t for sport. Rick, with his full head of sea-salt white hair and…
Desert Isle Discs
Singer-guitarist Jim Tigue (Wish You Were Here, Tie Dye Harvest) shares his five faves. 1. Rolling Stones, Goats Head Soup Truly the greatest rock and roll band of all time. Just listen to Mick Taylor’s guitar! 2. Pink Floyd, Meddle Something to chill to and provoke thought. So smooth. Gilmour is God, not Todd. 3.…
Jucifer
Surrounded by mountains of amps stacked and cranked to unhealthy levels, Jucifer can shatter the fibulas of most modern-metal fans by feedback alone. The coed Atlanta duo literally rattles plaster loose, and drummer Edgar Livengood pounds the skins so hard, he’s broken bones. On their third LP, the smash-riff-bash stoner rockers have abandoned the borderline…
The week’s best releases from the pop-culture universe.
CD — The Byrds: There Is a Season: This five-disc box (four CDs and one DVD) divides the seminal folk-rockers’ career into four chapters: the early years, when they covered a lot of Dylan (“Mr. Tambourine Man”); the middle periods that took them from psychedelic dabblers (“Eight Miles High”) to country-rock pioneers (“Hickory Wind”); and…
Heavy Mental
In the mid-’80s, Daniel Johnston was heralded as one of the best young songwriters of his generation. His fragile love songs landed him on MTV, in the pages of Spin, and on the lips of hipsters around the globe. Then he took a hit of acid that screwed up his already-damaged psyche. The Devil and…
Browns 2006 Exclusive
With just 16 games left to play, the Browns are still undefeated and looking swell! For a Derf’s-eye view of our chances, click here.
Geek God
“My backpack’s got jets/I’m Boba the Fett/I bounty hunt for Jabba Hutt/To finance my ‘Vette.” — “Fette’s Vette,” MC Chris MC Chris’ geeky paean to Star Wars’ intergalactic badass changed his career. Before, he was but one of the shadowy creators behind Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim. He worked on Sealab 2021, The Brak Show, and…
Gigantour
The two-disc Gigantour DVD documents a 2005 heavy-metal tour that, in the words of visionary and headliner Dave Mustaine, was “for people who love the guitar solo.” Like Black Sabbath before it, the classic lineup of Mustaine’s Megadeth mixed blistering hesher metal, jazz fusion, and black magic. But you’ll find none of it here. Like…
Come Get Your Beating
Calcutta native Sandip Burman is a master of the tabla — a hand drums that plays both melody and rhythm rather than just the backbeat. A typical tabla consists of two small hand drums of different sizes and timbres. Burman also plays the complex tabla tarang in concert. It’s made up of 15 drums and…
All Mike’s Perverts
Wonkette, a website once described as the “offspring of a date rape incident between the Drudge Report and Spy magazine,” now has another role: defendant in a federal lawsuit filed by Robert Steinbuch, Senator Mike DeWine’s former legal counsel. Our saga begins two years ago, when former DeWine assistant Jessica Cutler decided that her stint…
Music and Mocha
Tucked away at the edge of downtown Akron, the new Musica (19 Maiden Lane, off Market Street between South Main and High streets) is a smokefree music club with a thoroughly cosmopolitan feel. “It’s a pretty progressive art scene in this neighborhood,” says Musica host, master of ceremonies, and partner Tony Troppe, a developer who…
The Black Keys
Every band on the planet could use a swig of the luminescent mojo swirling in Magic Potion, the fourth LP from Akron’s Black Keys, blues-rock retrofitters who deserve every decibel of their buzz. Recorded in a local basement, the duo’s self-produced disc has all the depth and restraint absent in most stoner and garage rawk,…
Potatoheads
In the past, Mantua has paid tribute to its bountiful potato crop with such oddball events as the world’s largest serving of mashed potatoes and gravy, which was blended in a cement mixer. Then there was the wrestling contest where grapplers duked it out in a large vat of squashed spuds. This year’s Potato Festival…
Follow the Money
‘Cause it’s not about journalism: Pete Kotz does a great disservice to the talented, hardworking women and men who make up the news-gathering staff of The Plain Dealer [“Wounded Giant,” August 23]. It’s a tired, hackneyed stereotype that newsrooms — especially unionized newsrooms — are stuffed with “dead weight” and “minimalist productivity.” Of course, it’s…
Unearth
New England’s Unearth stands distinct from the new wave of generic modern metal. Renowned for its live show, the neo-thrash quintet swirls shoulder-length mop tops, burning more calories than your average emo kid consumes in a year. Warming the stage for Slipknot last year, Unearth gave the nine-man metal machine a run for its money,…
Rob Metz
Legion of Dreams should earn its guitar-teacher creator Rob Metz some more lesson money from aspiring shredders in the Akron area. Metz’s execution of every flashy guitar trick in the shred-metal genre will drop the jaws of six-string geeks. His debut also includes something for non-guitar players; his impeccable technique creates memorable melodies over his…
