Loose Cannon
Stanley Strnad’s dinner had gone cold. On November 14, Nicole Tomazic, a pretty nursing student with tanned skin and Georgian curls, picked up a large pepperoni pizza. From her mom’s house in Euclid, she called her fiancé and told him dinner was ready. “I’m right down the street,” Strnad said. “I’ll be there in a…
The Wisdom of JoJo
If you’re like most people, you’re heartsick over an 11-year-old friend who’s in an abusive relationship. You’ve begged her to get out, but she’s still hanging in and hanging on, even after she found another girl’s number on his cellie. Until this summer, there simply wasn’t an answer to this crisis. Then along came JoJo…
The Black Keys
On the third album in three years from dirty blues duo the Black Keys, frontman Dan Auerbach still sings as if he’s goose-stepping on hot coals; his guitar still wails like a newborn. Patrick Carney still provides a lean, mean thump, whacking his drum kit hard enough to set off car alarms. But on Rubber…
Sk8er Grrrl
The boys still rule, admits Lyn-Z Adams Hawkins, a 14-year-old skateboarder from San Diego who’s participating at the sixth annual Gravity Games, which begin Wednesday. But they’d better watch their backs. “Those guys are pretty good,” she says. “But I want to push skateboarding to another level.” This year marks the inaugural appearance of the…
Viking Raid
A viking’s life is filled with hardship, what with all the rowing, raiding, and embarrassing headgear. But life as a viking rapper is a far stiffer challenge. Just ask Norse Law. Or what’s left of them. “There’s been no money, no girls, no audience, nothing,” sighs Valhalla Ice, founder and frontman for the area’s premier…
Arcane / Ballhogz
The three-man Arcane clique is as strong as its source material, and the source material is impeccable. On “Intermission — Get Higher,” Black Olympians saxophonist Romel joins the group for an original piece of quiet-storm jazz that proves the squad doesn’t have its head just in hip-hop. When it’s time to rhyme, the thoughtful three…
This Week’s Day-By-Day Picks
Thursday, September 9 Howard Zinn is sorta like an old-school Michael Moore. Back in the day, Zinn — an affable teacher and historian — was a vocal opponent of the Vietnam War. He also was an early Civil Rights activist. In the captivating documentary Howard Zinn: You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train, his…
Soulfly
Soulfly leader Max Cavalera has plenty of creative flaws. Luckily for us, his conviction is still compelling enough (thanks in part to the energetic blur of his shows) to tip the scales in his favor after nearly 20 years. As Sepultura’s frontman from 1984 to 1997, Cavalera’s passions were balanced by three other members. Left…
Stuart Brittle
Jason Stuart doesn’t date much, and he can’t understand why. At 5 foot 11 and a fit 185 pounds, he thinks he’s a pretty good catch for a gay dude. “I just went on a date two weeks ago with this guy who said, ‘Oh, I think I’m going to get a tattoo on my…
They’ll Drink to That
The breakup didn’t take: Five months after the Cowslingers called it a day, three-fourths of the country-tinged rock group are back with the Whiskey Daredevils. “It’s an obligatory step for any great band,” says understated singer Greg Miller. “You need to move on to a second great band — Big Audio Dynamite, Damn Yankees, the…
Man About Town
9/11 – 9/26 Ron Newell visualized the scene as he waited for the cameras to roll. He would storm into the hall, knock on the apartment door, and tell the rock band inside to knock it off. In the next shot, one of the rockers raps on Newell’s door with a peace offering: a bag…
Q-Burns Abstract Message
Q-Burns Abstract Message Orlando, Florida’s Q-Burns Abstract Message (Michael Donaldson) was one of America’s brightest hopes in the erstwhile electronica boom of ’97 (he opened for the Chemical Brothers and Fatboy Slim on their North American tours that year and later signed to Astralwerks). Q-Burns’s early tracks (helpfully collected on Oeuvre) marked him as a…
Every Given Sunday
SUN 9/12 Jacob Witkowski’s reminded of his Polish ancestry every time he steps onto the soccer field. As the manager of Polonia in the Lake Erie Soccer League, the 27-year-old goalkeeper estimates half of his 20-member team was born in Poland. “It’s always nice when a player is from that background,” says Witkowski, an ex-pro…
Tommy Stinson
Tommy Stinson’s story is one of the strangest on the pop-music periphery. At 12 years old, he started playing bass with the legendary Replacements, and he was out boozing and touring by 13. He was soon forced to kick his brother Bob out of that band because of the alcoholism that eventually took his life.…
Nuclear Families
THU 9/9 Filmmaker Maryann De Leo didn’t know what to expect when she set out to make Chernobyl Heart, her documentary about the aftermath of the 1986 nuclear power plant accident that’s since claimed thousands of victims in Ukraine. “I really had forgotten about Chernobyl, I’m embarrassed to say,” she admits. “I just didn’t think…
Brave Combo
Using polka as its launching pad, Brave Combo catapults listeners along a journey that makes obscure stops on the global music highway. The French national anthem might segue into a klezmer song and twist into a tango, which could morph into zydeco or cumbia. Celebrating their 25th year (and as many albums), they’d be considered…
Maher’s Attacks
THU 9/9 Bill Maher couldn’t have picked a worse time to take a break from his weekly HBO series, Real Time With Bill Maher. The live comedy-and-politics chat program went on hiatus in March, just as things were starting to boil in the news. “It was a little frustrating to be off when momentous events…
The Melvins
Summing up the Melvins’ contribution to rock and roll is a fool’s errand at best. While the band introduced the world to a slow-plodding sludge later marketed as grunge, the sound’s early pioneers moved from Washington to San Francisco well before the mega-hype hit the fan. And though former Melvins roadie Kurt Cobain once pined…
The People’s Historian
The first thing you notice about Howard Zinn, the wildly popular populist historian and activist, is that he’s beautiful. The deep creases in his face radiate from his almost-constant smile, his eyes sparkle with warmth, and his cheeks glow with ruddy life. At 80-plus, Zinn emanates a sheen that spreads cheer even as he exposes…
Jon Dee Graham
Jon Dee Graham is now four CDs into a solo career that proves he’s a songwriter possessed of the same insight as Tom Waits (to whom his sandpaper voice has often been compared), Neil Young, and Fred Eaglesmith. His newest disc, appropriately titled The Great Battle, is another chronicle of people for whom life is…
Crooked as They Come
Movie remakes are a fact of life — Hollywood is nothing if not timid, and never so enthusiastic in its timidity as when it thinks it’s betting on a sure thing — and some of them aren’t too bad. The 1946 version of Great Expectations, for instance, is much better than the 1943, and it’s…
Norma Jean
Norma Jean should not be playing at Peabody’s. You should be able see the group only on the Nature Channel; in person is damn near too dangerous. Why? Because the sound of Norma Jean’s sophomore release, Bless the Martyr and Kiss the Child, can be described best as a hive full of angry bees. The…
On Stage
La Turista — Almost 40 years ago, Sam Shepard wrote La Turista, a play that takes place in two temporary rooms inhabited by a young, white American couple adrift in the world and beset by difficulties both physical (sunburn, raging dysentery) and cultural. Written a decade before Shepard’s better known plays (True West, Buried Child),…
Robbie Fulks
If Robbie Fulks were a baseball player, he’d be a five-tool man. He can pen funny songs and serious ones with equal skill. He’s a nimble enough guitarist to have played in the Grammy-nominated bluegrass band Special Consensus, and his expressive, Carolina-bred voice has impressive range. Oh, he’s one helluva performer too. Fulks turns his…
On View
A Different Direction — Michael Castellana’s sculptures call into question the conditioned responses of the viewer. Each is a traffic sign about three inches thick, made of lead; the letters are defined by relief. The solid finality goes beyond the mundane purposefulness of a street sign, and each work’s powerful presence makes the viewer’s emotional…
LL Cool J
Hip-hop’s flavor-of-the-minute aesthetic keeps the music perpetually exciting, even as it makes successful long-term careers as unlikely as Al Franken endorsing Bush. Contrarians inevitably point to LL Cool J — the lone old-school rapper with a flag still planted near the chart summit — as proof the odds can be beaten. But in 2004, beating…
High Steaks
Mad cows, angry farmers, and ticked-off vegans notwithstanding, dining’s never been finer for Cleveland’s meat eaters. Between upscale steakhouses like Ruth’s Chris, Morton’s, John Q’s, and the various Hyde Park Prime locations, a carnivore probably could dine on giant porterhouses and brick-sized baked potatoes seven nights a week without once retracing his steps. But if…
Paul Westerberg
Most rock critics worth their five-cents-per-word would love to give a new Paul Westerberg disc proper inspection, no matter the consistent mediocrity of recent discs. Such is the still-strong emotional pull of Westerberg’s beloved ’80s band, the Replacements. But even diehard fans have felt a coasting of late. After the futile major-label attempts to clean…
Canary in the File Cabinet
Without even trying, Edward Gertsburg placed himself at the heart of the Cleveland economy. Co-owner of A&G Office Furniture Inc., Gertsburg stands in the middle of his crammed warehouse on Prospect Avenue one recent Tuesday, trying to hold a conversation amid an almost unbroken mass of used things. There are desks of scratched metal and…
Secret Lives of Chefs
Not all of Cleveland’s culinary talent is found in restaurants. For better or worse, the local scene is teeming with accomplished chefs whose skills are off-limits to public consumption. In large part, these men and women are survivors of restaurant closures, reorganizations, or general dissatisfactions that have led them out of high-profile kitchens and into…
The Prodigy
The Prodigy came of age when big pants and even bigger beats reigned supreme in England, but became known to most Americans in 1997 with the sadistic metal twang of “Firestarter.” Outgunned, their first proper studio disc since that time and first without spiky-haired barker Keith Flint, hasn’t moved much beyond the electroshocked rock that…
The After-Party
The After-Party Tradition doesn’t pay the bills: I read Chris Maag’s article “Growing Up Fast” [August 18] with great interest. The beautiful cultural and family traditions such as the quinceañera are some of the most valuable things we pass on to our children. However, I was also saddened by the extent that some families will…
Smooth Landing
Mark Farina hates the same things about house that you do. “House all sounds the same,” you gripe. In response, the Bay Area DJ plays some weird and refreshingly silly downtempo songs. “House DJs play crap tunes all night just so they can save two or three good records for a peak,” you moan. Farina…
Dan Bern
When George W. Bush brags about the jobs that have been created since he became President, he must be talking about the recording industry. Seems like dozens, perhaps hundreds, of talented Americans are booking studio time to record their lyrical contributions to the movement for regime change. Folk-rocker Dan Bern is among the latest. His…
The Thin Red Line
Susanna Niermann O’Neil suspected something fishy. Cleveland Heights residents kept calling the city to complain that insurers refused to give them home insurance, even when their houses were in excellent shape. And people with coverage complained that insurers threatened to drop them because their homes had perfectly functional knob-and-tube wiring. It made Niermann O’Neil, director…
It’s All Relative
If multi-instrumentalist Matt Friedberger’s relationship with his sister Eleanor wasn’t strong, there’s no way the two would have teamed up to form the engagingly quixotic partnership dubbed the Fiery Furnaces. Yet they’ve had their ugly moments, the worst of them coming as a result of cohabitation. “We would play when we were younger, but very…
The Faint
The Faint should be, like, so over. Between the stack of releases by electro-rock bands in the past two years, the group’s media saturation on the heels of 2001’s Danse Macabre, and its consequent gig opening for No Doubt, you’d assume that the only way the Faint could keep its cred intact would be by…
