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DE C E M BER 23 - 29, 2015 • VOLU M E 46 NO 2 5 Dedicated to Free Times founder Richard H. Siegel (1935-1993) and Scene founder Richard Kabat Publisher Chris Keating Associate Publisher Desiree Bourgeois Editor Vince Grzegorek
CONTENTS 36
Upfront
Editorial Managing Editor Eric Sandy Music Editor Jeff Niesel Staff Writer Sam Allard Web Editor Alaina Nutile Dining Editor Douglas Trattner Contributing Dining Editor Nikki Delamotte Stage Editor Christine Howey Visual Arts Editor Josh Usmani Interns Nicole Schneider, Phoebe Potiker
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Chief Wahoo may be on trademark chopping block, Lakewood Hospital deal gets vote, and more
Framed
10
Film
12
Feature
15
Get Out!
25
Art
30
Stage
31
Dining
35
Our favorite photos we’ve shared with you this week
Advertising Senior Multimedia Account Executive John Crobar, Shayne Rose Multimedia Account Executive Kiara Hunter-Davis, Joseph Williamson, Savannah Drdek Classifi ed Account Executive Alice Leslie Creative Services Production Manager Steve Miluch Layout Editor/Graphic Designer Christine Hahn Staff Photographer Emanuel Wallace
Christmas Day openings screen in the shadow of the Force
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A behind-the-scenes look at Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s latest over-the-top tour
Dozens of events spanning the next week in Cleveland
CPAC and CAC Creative Workforce Fellowships announced
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The aerodynamic nanny is back in flight in a satisfying Mary Poppins
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UPFRONT CHIEF WAHOO COULD BE NEXT NATIVE AMERICAN TRADEMARK TO BE OVERTURNED Photo by Sam Allard
THIS WEEK
LAWYERS FOR LOCAL NATIVE Americans have drafted a petition asking for the immediate cancellation of the Cleveland Indians’ Chief Wahoo trademark. The petition, they say, will be filed with the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board as soon as funds for filing fees become available. “The [Chief Wahoo] logo is a crude caricature of a proud and abused race of people that was and is a pejorative, derogatory, denigrating, offensive, scandalous, contemptuous, disreputable, disparaging, and racist designation of Native American people,” reads the petition, provided exclusively to Scene. The petition additionally asks for an estimated $9 billion in damages. Native Americans say they are owed this money by the Indians’ organization, based on profits generated by Chief Wahoo over the course of “nearly 100 years of racism, discrimination and cultural perversion.” Petitioners acknowledge, however, that monetary recovery is not part of a trademark cancellation. The language of the petition is consciously very similar to the Washington Redskins’ petition of 2014 (Blackhorse v. Pro-Football Inc.), in which the TTAB ruled that the name “Redskins” was disparaging to Native Americans. “Chief Wahoo is the caricature of an Indian, incorporating a completely red skin tone,” reads the petition. “This is the non-verbal communication of the racial slur, “redskins,” which the TTAB has ruled to lack federal trademark protection.” The petition will be filed on behalf of People Not Mascots, Inc.; Robert Roche, the Director of the American Indian Education Center (AIEC); and others. Much like in the 2014 case, if
6
Local Native Americans and their legal team.
the Wahoo trademark were to be canceled, the Cleveland Indians would not be required to change their name (or even stop using the Chief Wahoo logo). It simply would mean that the baseball team could no longer claim exclusive ownership. Anyone could sell Chief Wahoo memorabilia. Customs and Border Patrol, for example, would no longer be required to block the importation of counterfeit goods bearing Wahoo’s likeness. Robert Roche said that for years, he has tried to appeal to the baseball team on moral and ethical grounds to no avail. He has been protesting with other Native American organizations and social justice activists on the Tribe’s opening day for decades. The Penobscot Nation, from which Indians’ outfielder Louis Sockalexis hailed, contacted the Cleveland Indians via a resolution in 2000. It called for the cancellation of Chief Wahoo and asked the team to advocate “for the elimination of racist images of Indians.” (Sockalexis is the putative inspiration for the Indians’ team name.) But the Indians’ organization never responded. Roche now says that a trademark cancellation petition feels like their only recourse.
MY GENERATION
Oberlin students decry lack of cultural sensitivity toward cafeteria food (i.e. poorly prepared Japanese sushi). Speaking of cultural issues, brash American millennial angst remains unchecked.
GOODNIGHT, SWEET PRINCE
“With these people, [Indians’ baseball executives], if you don’t go after their pocketbooks, they don’t care at all,” Roche told Scene in 2014. At the AIEC’s Annual Christmas party Sunday, lawyers announced the forthcoming petition to the the gathered families. “We don’t want to eliminate Chief Wahoo,” said Joseph Meissner, one of the lead attorneys. “We just want to retire him. He has served long enough. The poor guy has been used by the Cleveland Indians baseball team, probably to earn billions of dollars. That’s blood money from Native Americans.”
UNANIMOUS VOTE SEALS LAKEWOOD HOSPITAL CLOSURE PLAN Lakewood City Council formally began the process to close Lakewood Hospital on Monday night with a unanimous vote. Even though city attorney Robert Cahill repeatedly claimed the master agreement between the Cleveland Clinic and the Lakewood Hospital Association was nothing more than “a piece of paper” as late as Monday afternoon, the document is now ratified and placed in city canon. The council meeting was tense,
Harbor Inn finally sells to affiliate of Jacobs Investment, which promises no changes except the addition of “appe-teasers.”
magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015
SAY CHEESE!
MetroHealth internal audit director reveals Botox thefts among high-ranking VPs. The explanation? County Exec Armond Budish would like all administrators to look like him.
though not nearly as impassioned as past meetings. A Dec. 7 press conference had all but confirmed that council would be voting unanimously on Dec. 21. Despite the fact that no master agreement was shared with council or the public until Dec. 10, everyone was given the sense that this was a done deal. In fact, the sense was so strong that it compelled former mayoral challenger Michael Skindell to file a lawsuit against the council on Dec. 18. (The judge denied Skindell’s request for an injunction on Monday, thus allowing the council to vote.) During witness testimony in Cuyahoga County Court on Monday, Councilman Sam O’Leary explained that he had been brought into a meeting with Mayor Mike Summers, Law Director Kevin Butler, and Development Director Dru Siley on Dec. 6 to ascertain whether he’d support legislation being written on the basis of the agreement -- one which did not yet formally exist. He surmised that similar conversations may have taken place with the rest of council. So, after 11 months of meetings, presentations, negotiations, court filings, press conferences, political campaigning, impassioned speechmaking and more than a few holiday-season references to the Grinch, the “story of the century” for this inner-ring suburb slid neatly to a halt. If only. On Tuesday morning, a petitionsigning process began among some residents hoping to place an up-ordown vote on the hospital’s fate on the March ballot. It’s uncertain what state the hospital’s operations will be in by that time. Built into the master agreement is a ticking clock. To wit, (emphasis ours): “The wind down plan shall instruct the Clinic to wind down Lakewood Hospital’s operations
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UPFRONT (excluding emergency department services and certain outpatient services) as quickly as practicable, taking into consideration patient safety and the preservation of LHA’s assets.” According to the agreement, if inpatient operations do not cease “by an agreed upon date in early 2016,” regardless of pending litigation, and if expenditures continue to grow, the Clinic will begin reducing the amount it will pay to the as-yetill-defined Community Wellness Foundation. The Clinic’s plan upfront is to use the Lakewood Hospital Association’s cash to pay the foundation $24.4 million over the next eight years. All of which points to a very busy winter and spring over at the hospital. As one resident -- a weary supporter of the master agreement -- told us before the meeting began on Monday, “This won’t be over until the wrecking ball takes down the hospital.”
FEDS TO TARGET SEX TRAFFICKING IN CLEVELAND
DIGIT WIDGET
The Northern District of Ohio was selected as one of six federal districts to participate in the AntiTrafficking Coordination Team Initiative. More effective prosecution is the goal here, with this new team “streamlining the investigation” of federal human trafficking offenses. In short, the program will provide a broader and deeper range of resources — collaborations across multiple area agencies — to investigate cases of “forced labor, international sex trafficking, and sex trafficking of adults by force, fraud, and coercion, complementing Project Safe Childhood and related efforts aimed at combating child sexual exploitation, including child sex trafficking.” “The cases we have prosecuted remind us time and again that labor trafficking and sex trafficking hide
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in plain sight,” U.S. Attorney Steven Dettelbach said yesterday. In 2013, Scene reported on a case out of Ashland that involved a couple abusing a developmentally impaired woman and her toddler, who had been “forced to live at [Jordie] Callahan and [Jessica] Hunt’s home and perform various chores and tasks for nearly two years.” After their conviction, Callahan is serving 30 years in prison, and Hunt is serving 32 years in prison for their crimes. “We are yet again reminded that modern-day slavery exists all around us,” Dettelbach said at the time. And just last week, Dettelbach indicted Cleveland resident Ronnie Pratt for pimping out at least two underage girls in a long-running scheme of extortion, sexual abuse and threats of violence. According to Dettelbach’s office, “[Pratt] did this by taking photos of his girls and posting the photos on www. backpage.com. Pratt handled all text communications with potential customers and transported the girls to ‘dates.’ He kept a portion of the money they were paid for commercial sex acts, according to court documents. “One of the girls was 13 when she began working for Pratt, according to court documents. “Pratt had a gun that he used to intimidate at least one of the girls, according to court documents.” Earlier this year, the 13-yearold victim (14 at the time of the investigation) told the FBI that Pratt was aware of her age “and he believed she could pass for 16 or 17 years of age.” A friend had introduced her to Pratt, who soon began bringing her along on rides when he transported other girls to what he called “dates.” Pratt repeatedly asked her, “When are you going to start working for me?” The backpage.com ad described a “lovely college girl” who has a “thing for older men.” On Nov. 5, an FBI special agent reached out to the “lovely college girl,” whose photos featured backgrounds that seemed familiar
Utica shale drilling permits pulled in Ohio this year through November, down from 768 and 734 in 2014 and 2013, respectively.
2
to him — backgrounds from other photos that involved underage girls. The agent met the girl and Pratt at a Lakewood hotel. After briefly confirming identities, law enforcement converged and arrested Pratt. A loaded .38-caliber revolver was found in Pratt’s car. The girl recounted instances where Pratt used the gun to intimidate her and at least one other girl.
CRAIN’S SETTLES DOWN AFTER PUBLISHER SCANDAL The current editor of Crain’s Cleveland Business, Elizabeth McIntyre, will now also serve as acting publisher. (Acting = at least until suspended publisher John Campanelli’s indecent exposure charges are “reviewed internally.”) It’s unclear what Crain Communications VP and group publisher Mary Kramer intends to uncover in an internal review — A clearer picture of Campanelli’s alleged “childhood trauma(s),” perhaps? And/or how precisely said trauma(s) came to manifest themselves in the exposing of one’s genitals to women? — but she focused most of her comments on McIntyre when she made the announcement last week. “We are fortunate that we have in Elizabeth such a high-quality leader with a deep knowledge of the Cleveland community, especially its business and civic culture,” Kramer said. “We know she can lead our team as it continues to serve our readership and our clients.” McIntyre has been the editor of Crain’s since April, 2014. Like Campanelli, she spent many years at the Plain Dealer in multiple roles. She went on to do some PR work for the Cleveland Foundation and then oversaw communications for the National Association of College Stores, based in Oberlin. Scene celebrated McIntyre’s work at Crain’s in a piece earlier this year. We considered her hiring one of the chief explanations for a renewed commitment to diversity in the pages of Cleveland’s business publication.
Number of new investigators who will join city’s long-time-coming Health Department crusade against lead poisoning, bringing total staff to eight.
magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015
66
Degrees of record high temperature for Dec. 25 in Cleveland, reached in 1982.
OVI FOR LAKEWOOD WOMAN FOUND IN CAR WITH DEAD BODY One of the stranger stories to slip across the local news cycle started with an apparently routine OVI stop this fall in Crawford County. What law enforcement found behind the wheel was not only an eight months pregnant Lakewood woman, but the dead body of a 34-year-old Lakewood man in the seat next to her. Now we’ve learned that Kristle Kendall has pleaded guilty to an OVI charge, while the investigation into Michael Collins Jr.’s death continues. Court records indicate that the driver — Kendall — entered a guilty plea on November 30. “The deal we worked out with our county prosecutor is that they agreed they would not file any felony charges against her if she pleaded guilty to the OVI,” Kendall’s attorney, Adam Stone, told us last week. The details of the case — at least what we know now — are beyond bizarre. Kendall was reportedly kidnapped by Collins, her best friend, while Collins was allegedly on a criminal tear. He was wanted in connection with a robbery at his own father’s house in Lakewood, where he allegedly took a gun. Collins allegedly then robbed a gas station in Strongsville, heading off on Interstate 71 afterward. Hours later, law enforcement received a call that Collins was dead in a car, which was at that time tooling around Crawford County. It’s unclear who made that call, or how Collins linked up with Kendall. When Ohio Highway Patrol pulled over the Jeep Liberty, Collins was found dead in the passenger seat. Kendall was behind the wheel. Last week, Lt. Lawrence Firmi with the Ohio Highway Patrol told us the investigation into Collins’ death was still open. He did, however, confirm that the shooting has been ruled a suicide. With the case file still open, Firmi couldn’t offer up any more details.
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$238 MILLION
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magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015 9
FRAMED!
our best shots from last week Photos by Emanuel Wallace, Jon Lichtenberg*
Lookin’ great on the mic @ Cruel Winter Fest
Even flow @ Cruel Winter Fest
Jewelry arrangement @ Last Minute Market
Happy customer @ Last Minute Market
Aerial shopping @ Last Minute Market
Natalie? @ Naughty Ball at AURA Ultra Lounge
Droid @ Naughty Ball at AURA Ultra Lounge
Vodka up @ Savor at C’est La Vie
What once was @ New York Spaghetti House demolition
And what became of it @ New York Spaghetti House demolition
Dancin’ @ Naughty Ball at AURA Ultra Lounge
Winged DJ @ Naughty Ball at AURA Ultra Lounge
Disco @ Naughty Ball at AURA Ultra Lounge
Spittin’ @ Cruel Winter Fest
Hair metal @ Black Dhalia Murder and Goatwhore at Hard Rock Live*
Never miss a beat! See more pics @ clevescene.com R2 @ Naughty Ball at AURA Ultra Lounge
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magazine | clevescene.com | December 2311/23/15 - 29, 2015 11 11:05 AM
MOVIES
in theaters
CHRISTMAS DAY OPENINGS GALORE EVERY MOVIE OPENING ON Christmas Day has both the fortune and misfortune of occupying the shadow —ahem, the “dark side” —of The Force Awakens. On one hand, they’re consigned to second or thirdbanana status at the box-office and in the media. On the other, so many Star Wars screenings are destined to be sold out that they’ll be on the receiving end of some overflow ticket sales. Either way, Christmas moviegoers will have no shortage of options at the Cineplex this holiday weekend.
THE HATEFUL EIGHT Quentin Tarantino’s boffo Western mystery opens Friday at Valley View -- the only theater in Ohio showing the film as Tarantino intended it to be seen, in “glorious 70 mm,” intermission and all. It’ll open in wide distribution in January. The movie, which follows in Tarantino’s period-piece phase (Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained), is as visually stunning as it is meticulously scripted. It tracks a bounty hunter (Kurt Russell) and his captured criminal, a sadistic murderer named Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) as they make their way to an inn in Wyoming and are forced to wait out a blizzard alongside a handful of sinister patrons. Tarantino’s penchant for violence eventually asserts itself, but far more compelling in The Hateful Eight is the gradual revelation of each character’s motives and backstory. It’s almost as if Agatha Christie co-produced. Prepare for a three-hour-plus experience, and prepare to be absolutely gosh-wowed. Hands-down a top-ten film of the year. (Sam Allard) THE BIG SHORT The Big Short offers up a terrifically entertaining semi-comical account of the mortgage crisis that hit the states in the early 2000s. While it might get lost in the mix of Oscar-caliber movies hitting area theaters this week, the film has plenty going for it. With its mix of vintage news and sports clips taken from the era, the movie comes off as a Wolf of Wall Street-Drunk History hybrid. Working from Michael Lewis’s book of the same name, director Adam McKay masterfully turns finance into high drama. He gets some help
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Joy
from a terrific cast that features Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale, Brad Pitt and Steve Carell. Gosling plays Jared Vennett, a financial investor based on Deutsche Bank trader Greg Lippmann, who talks another group of investors led by Mark Baum (Carell), a character based on loudmouth hedge fund manager Steve Eisman, into buying up his junk bonds. All the while, hedge fund guru Michael Berry (Bale) has recognized the signs of a subprime mortgage crisis and invested heavily, betting that he can profit from the collapse. McKay holds nothing back in this outlandish, but pitch-perfect production. (Jeff Niesel)
CONCUSSION Actor Will Smith can ham it up with the best of them. But every so often, he delivers a performance that shows his incredible range. In Concussion, a film about the NFL’s attempts to cover up a doctor’s research into the severity of head injuries sustained from playing the sport, he portrays Bennet Omalu, the forensic pathologist who discovered what is now known as CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy). After the eccentric doctor from Nigeria publishes his findings in a report, the NFL tries to discredit him, and Bennett must fight one of the country’s most powerful organizations. Despite Smith’s performance, it doesn’t transcend the subject matter and too often comes off as a made-for-TV movie. (Niesel)
magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015
THE DANISH GIRL Though it seems almost inhumane that the academy would deny Leonardo DiCaprio an Oscar for his tortuous performance in The Revenant (out Jan. 8), Eddie Redmayne surely presents Leo’s stiffest competition as a painter who transitions from male to female in The Danish Girl. (Hot take: Redmayne’s performance is way better than Leo’s, which consists chiefly of bleeding, wheezing, eating raw meat and crawling through mud – shit the academy loves). Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech, Les Miserables) directs The Danish Girl, and his early 20th century sets are as assured and elegant as ever. The real beauty and power of the movie, though, rest almost entirely in the hands of Redmayne and Alicia Vikander, who plays the wife and unconditional friend of one of the transgender community’s first pioneers. The film has received some flak from that community, some of whom have maintained that a transgender actor should play a transgender role, but it’s difficult to find fault with Redmayne’s go-for-broke portrayal. Oscar bait or no, this one’s the tearjerker of the season. (Allard). DADDY’S HOME Not every movie hitting theaters this week has Oscar potential. Daddy’s Home offers up predictable comedy designed to appeal to the entire family (even though a few jokes are rather crude). The film centers on Brad (Will Ferrell), a straight-laced smooth
jazz radio executive who tries his hardest to be the best stepfather he can be to his wife’s (Linda Cardellini) two children. Despite his efforts, the kids still draw pictures of him with poop on his head. He takes it all in stride, however, until the kids’ badass biological father Dusty (Mark Wahlberg) arrives. Dusty wants to reconnect with his wife and kids and Brad naively lets him stay at the house. The film has some very funny moments, but the plot is so flimsy that the movie struggles to command attention for the full 96 minutes. It opens areawide on Friday. (Niesel)
JOY Eh. David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle) and his clique (Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Robert DeNiro) have made a competent film about a gutsy, gifted woman – Joy Mangano, who invented the self-wringing Miracle Mop – which is unfortunately not too terribly interesting. It’s your standard rags-to-riches saga, but with a bizarre collection of peripheral characters and storytelling devices (posthumous voiceover, dreamscape, flashback). Despite tremendous personal stakes – financial survival – and recurring risk involved in Joy’s ascent, life and death on the Home Shopping Network somehow fails to bestir the moviegoer’s soul. (Allard)
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GAME DAY! SCENE
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CAVS VS KNICKS....................DEC 23 at 7:00PM CAVS AT WARRIORS ....DEC 25 at 5:00PM CAVS AT BLAZERS .........DEC 26 at 10:00PM CAVS AT SUNS ............................DEC 28 at 9:00PM CAVS AT NUGGETS...........DEC 29 at 9:00PM
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magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015
SUN. DEC 27 at 1:00PM
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FEATURE
Photo courtesy of Night Castle Management
FROM SOMEWHERE IN MIDDLE AMERICA TO AN ARENA NEAR YOU A behind-the-scenes look at Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s latest over-the-top tour By Jeff Niesel “WE HAVE STUFF EVERYWHERE,” says Adam Lind, the self-proclaimed “guy who’s responsible for everything that goes wrong.” Lind heads up Night Castle Management, the firm that handles all of Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s “artistic endeavors.” He makes the remark as he walks through the cluttered hallways of Mid-America Center in Council Bluffs, Iowa, a small town just across a bridge from Omaha where the prog rock band rehearses each year in preparation for its annual winter tour. To say TSO has taken over the venue would be an understatement. At the arena’s entrance there’s a table full of old, brightly colored crew T-shirts from nearly two decades of
TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA 3:30 AND 8 P.M., WEDNESDAY, DEC. 30, QUICKEN LOANS ARENA TICKETS: $34-$74, WWW.TRANS-SIBERIAN.COM/TOUR
touring. They’re spread out on a table, free for the taking. One bright orange T-shirt displays the logo for 2012’s “Beethoven’s Last Night” tour — a drawing of Beethoven with disheveled hair — and a purple shirt features an image of a fire-breathing dragon and an electric guitar. A plastic gargoyle stands watch in a hallway as members of the crew whirr by on Segways and electric scooters. You can hear wailing guitars and operatic vocals emanating from
behind the closed arena doors as the band practices tunes such as “What Child is This?” and “Music Box Blues.” Inside those doors, roadies walk the empty arena floor while carrying open laptops. A giant pyramid-like contraption sits under a black tarp as if it’s a modern-day Batmobile, ready to shock and awe once the tarp comes off. On the back loading dock, forklifts bring in the heavy equipment, and somewhere in the arena’s bowels, a
crew works at cutting sheet metal and drilling the gigantic metallic structures that hold the array of lights and pyrotechnical gear together. A rehearsal stage for the East Coast version of the tour sits on one side of the arena floor while a stage for the West Coast version of the tour has been erected on the other end of the arena floor. The reason for the two stages is simple: TSO’s concerts have become so gigantic that they require two incarnations. “The rehearsal process is the hardest part of the whole tour,” admits raspy-voiced backing singer Kayla Reeves, who joined the group six years ago when she was only 17 years old. “Once we’re on the road, it’s
magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015 15
FEATURE like Groundhog Day [because band members wake up day after day to the same reality], and everything is second nature. Picture an iceberg. The top of it is just barely sticking out. Underneath it you have this huge chunk of ice. That’s like rehearsal. The show is the little top above the water. Every year, [show creator] Paul [O’Neill] keeps putting more and more chips on the table. I remember how overwhelmed I was the first year I came into the arena and saw the two stages. I’ve never seen anything like it. Every year, I’m just blown away. Paul never ceases to turn it up a notch.” For the past seven years, the group has rehearsed in this small, centrally located town that puts the East and West Coast versions of the tour in prime launching position. A fleet of trucks and tour buses are already positioned in the arena’s parking lot. Soon, they’ll roll out and haul crew and gear across the country for the next eight weeks to bring the biggest, baddest, most over-the-top and extravagant Christmas rock show
you’ll ever see to an arena near you. Paul O’Neill: A Man of Letters When he was young, O’Neill, the group’s mastermind, had trouble reading anything more sophisticated than Cat in the Hat. In the first grade, he was in danger of falling behind. But then his mother spent a summer teaching him phonetics, and the floodgates opened as O’Neill, whose parents forbade him to watch TV, started devouring the books around the family’s home. Now, he easily recites facts from European history and quotes Cicero. As he was learning to play guitar, he went to see the Who perform at Madison Square Garden in the late ’60s, something he describes as a pivotal moment. “The Who were the only band that I walked out on because they were so good I couldn’t stand watching them,” says O’Neill, who, with his black leather jacket, dark Italian sunglasses, speckled gray beard and shoulder length hair, looks like a cross between a member of the Ramones and a Lord of the Rings wizard. His dressing room includes a keyboard, two guitars
and a KISS-themed pinball machine. the world. He has every letter from For guests, the room also contains a Thomas Edison. He bought the letters few cases of Trans-Siberian swag — a through the auction house Christies stack of denim jackets with the TSO and at various estate sales. emblem on the back and CDs of the “I have every letter from Thomas band’s new album, Letters from the Edison to his tool and die guy about Labyrinth. He gives the stuff away at how to build the first record player such a rapid pace, — I have every the cases have single one,” he to regularly be says. “I have a lot replenished. of letters from “[The Who] Lincoln, from were so good, Churchill, from I was about to Oscar Wilde, throw up,” he because when continues. “I you’re holding walked around letters that New York City Lincoln held, that really depressed Churchill held, for about two that Robert Lewis hours. To me, Stevenson wrote — Al Pitrelli the Who were when he was a West Coast musical director the ones who teenager, you invented the rock feel a connection. opera. When I first heard ‘Pinball Like I tell my daughter, we don’t own Wizard’ on the radio, I thought, these, we’re just the caretakers of ‘Whoa!’ When I heard it on the album them for the next generation. Tommy, it was a whole different “I have one letter from George thing.” Washington to Thomas Jefferson, Later, as he toured with Aerosmith from December 1779. He thought in the ’70s, he started collecting letters he was going to lose the war. It’s and developing his esoteric sense of fascinating stuff.”
“We were just having fun. We didn’t think it would ever sell. Who the hell would buy a Christmas record by a bunch of long hairs from Queens?”
Trans-Siberian Orchestra uses all the latest technology on its current tour.
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magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015
Photo by Samantha Fryberger
FEATURE Those literary sensibilities would inform the prog band Savatage, which originally recorded “Christmas Eve Sarajevo 12/24” in 1995. The song would reappear on TSO’s debut, 1996’s Christmas Eve and Other Stories, and launch the band into the behemoth that it is today. Al Pitrelli, the current West Coast musical director, describes the informal nature of that album’s initial songwriting sessions. “Me, Paul O’Neill, Jon Oliva and Bob Kinkel got together at what we called the kitchen table in Paul’s apartment,” says the slender, longhaired Pitrelli from his dressing room where he’s plastered a sticker that reads “roadie for life” on a black case full of clothes and gear. “We would throw ideas in the middle of the table, literally and figuratively. We were just having fun. We didn’t think it would ever sell. Who the hell would buy a Christmas record by a bunch of long hairs from Queens? Don’t ever tell the bumblebee it can’t fly. It was really that simple.”
video,” says Lind.” “He turned what would have been shown only once on TV into this story that’s been on TV every year since. In typical Paul fashion, he threw everyone a curveball.” Filmed in an old Jersey City theater, the show features Ossie Davis, Jewel and Michael Crawford. O’Neill has said the band, though still in the early stages, captured a certain “magic,” as the special features some of the best songs from the band’s catalog at the time. At the urging of Cleveland disc jockey Bill Louis, the group took its 1996 Christmas rock opera Christmas
Eve and Other Stories, the first part of a trilogy of prog rock-influenced Christmas albums, on the road in 1999. Lewis had been playing the album’s single, “Christmas Eve Sarajevo 12/24,” on WNCX and had gotten great feedback from fans. “He said, ‘You can do a show in New York, but not in Cleveland?’ So he nagged me to death,” O’Neill says of Lewis. “Turns out, he was right. The first show sold out in four hours.” The group then added another Cleveland show and that sold out. A third was added. It also sold out. “Cleveland was pandemonium,” Pitrelli says.
Cleveland-based Belkin Productions also booked gigs in Detroit, New York, Philadelphia and Chicago. With the exception of Chicago, each show exceeded expectations. The following year, the band hired Elliot Saltzman to be its tour director as it expanded to about 30 shows with two different installations traipsing across the country. “Adam Lind suckered me into it,” says Saltzman while sitting on the swanky leather sofa in his dimly lit office, the walls of which are festooned with Indian tapestries to give off the proper “vibe.” “He said it would be really easy. Once I said yes, he then
Back to Square One The first-ever TSO show took place in 1996 at a New York hospital. New York DJ Scott Shannon, whom O’Neill describes as “the most powerful DJ in America at the time,” invited the band to play Blythedale Hospital just north of New York City. O’Neill initially didn’t want to play the show; but once he visited the hospital, he couldn’t resist. Pitrelli says that show “changed my life forever.” He had walked out of an Irish bar in Astoria, in Queens, at 4 a.m., oblivious to the concert’s significance. But once he arrived at the venue, he realized the show would be something special. “We were just killing time the night before the show,” he says, adding that he had spent the wee hours of the morning drinking an 18-year-old Scotch. “I thought, ‘Man, it’s early in the morning for this kind of concert.’ I quickly realized it wasn’t a ‘I have a boo-boo’ concert. I realized it was serious stuff, and we would have an impact. I was watching people crying, and I thought it was more special. I just thought we have a song on the radio — that’s awesome. I realized it wasn’t just a rock band anymore.” Then, in 1998, the band recorded a TV show before it had ever toured. O’Neill has described it as the band’s “first show.” “Paul didn’t want to do the typical
magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015 17
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magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015
added that he wanted to have a second tour go out. I had to scramble to hire other people. That year, it was really crazy.” Saltzman also hired lighting designer Bryan Hartley, to help the band come up with a product that Saltzman says is better than everything else on the road. That incarnation of the tour had a good 13-year run before O’Neill decided to mix things up, often playing new albums in their entirety while still incorporating the “hits.” Now, it’s consistently one of the highest grossing tours in the world. When asked about how he deals with the pressure to outdo each previous tour, Pitrelli uses a sports metaphor. “The New England Patriots won three Super Bowls and they’re not counting their rings,” he says. “[Former St. Louis Cardinals’ manager] Tony LaRussa, who’s a big fan of the band, comes every year. We’d ask him if he was done, he always says no. In sports, you go back to square one at the start of every season. It’s like that with TransSiberian Orchestra.” Lights, Lasers, Pyro! In its 19-year history, TSO has played more than 1,600 shows for more than 11 million fans, officially making it one of the world’s biggest arena rock acts. For the past several years, the band’s winter tours have consistently ranked in the Top 10 for attendance and grosses; back in 2009, Billboard called it one of the “Top
Touring Artists of the Decade.” Last year’s 2014 Winter Tour grossed more than $51 million in 52 days; it played to nearly one million fans. This year’s Ghosts of Christmas Eve production will hit 60 cities across North America to perform 100 shows. Based on TSO’s multi-platinum DVD and long-running PBS fundraiser, the concert follows the journey of a young runaway who, on Christmas Eve, breaks into an abandoned vaudeville theater seeking shelter from the cold. She then experiences “ghostly visions” from that concert hall’s past. The band will also play past hits such as “Christmas Eve Sarajevo 12/24,” “O Come All Ye Faithful,” “Good King Joy,” “Christmas Canon,” “Music Box Blues,” “Promises to Keep” and “This Christmas Day” during the two-hour concert. “Some of the vocals and instrumentals from the new album are amazing,” says Pitrelli when asked about the current show. “The film from the original TV special is part of the backdrop, and when you see that, you feel like you’re in the old 19th century theater where we filmed that first special.” The current show also features a new high-definition video screen that’s about the size of half a football field. The production involves 40 trucks, 20 buses, 240 touring personnel, 276 local stagehands per date, 256 rigging points, 256 one-ton motors, 1,248 intelligent lighting fixtures, 36 full color lasers including audience scanners, 6,352 video panels, 1,552 pyrotechnic effects, 596 flame/fire
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Exam Voucher, All Class Materials and Textbooks magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015 19
Photo by Samantha Fryberger
FEATURE modules, 112 speaker boxes and four mixing boards (the boards alone cost a total of $1 million). As a dress rehearsal of the current show commences, which O’Neill says hearkens back to TSO’s beginnings, O’Neill arrives on stage, black guitar strapped across his chest. He unleashes one meaty riff after another while a tender Christmas tune featuring children singing plays over the house PA. Huge flames shoot from the rear of the stage as a crew of sound guys hovers over mixing boards and computers, adjusting the sound levels and positioning the tresses near the arena’s roof. “Freebird!” yells one roadie, causing O’Neill to break into a smile. And when the crew cranks up the pyro, O’Neill responds favorably. “Fuck, yeah!” he screams. As the show begins, a cadre of backing singers belt out the operatic “Time and Distance” as the stage’s ginormous video screens project the image of an animated rendition of a castle that looks like it was taken from a video game. It’s the kind of trippy imagery that’s often only seen
TSO founder Paul O’Neill joins the group for a rehearsal.
in today’s EDM concerts. It’s not long before the pyro kicks in, making the stage look like an oversized outdoor fireplace. Soon, crisp blue and white lasers flicker through the arena as
the band launches into the power ballad “Lost Christmas Eve.” The video screens flicker with old news reports and white noise as the band sinks its teeth into “Christmas Eve Sarajevo,”
TSO’s signature tune that finds the group guitarists standing side-byside at the front of the stage, guitars hoisted high over their heads for the song’s climactic crescendo.
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magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015
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magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015 21
FEATURE Photo by Samantha Fryberger
Singer Kayla Reeves, captured backstage in Council Bluffs.
Sitting back in his dressing room, O’Neill describes TSO as “an ideal and an idea.” He says he wants to continue to “break down the wall” between band and audience, and envisions that, at some point, the show will populate two stages on the arena floor connected by a catwalk for what he calls “end-to-end arena rock.” Performers will sing and play in unison so that “no matter where you turn, you’re surrounded by the music.” He’s not sure if that sort of setup will work in venues where the stages can only be situated on one side of the floor, but he comes off as the kind of guy who doesn’t take “no” for an answer. You get the sense that he’ll find a way to make it work. Saltzman agrees that the game plan remains to keep getting bigger and better. “TSO is all about walking out of the show and saying, ‘That’s the best show I’ve ever seen,’” he says. “The firepower we have out there is unparalleled. We spend in the millions of dollars for lighting and pyro. For us, it’s full blown. It’s a risk, though not so much now that we have a dedicated fan base. But these are lighting and pyro effects that people have never seen before. You will never see this many lasers in your life. At one point, it looks like the whole stage is morphing and
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magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015
coming off its tracks and moving toward you. It’s an onslaught. It’s visual and sensual experiences you’ve never had before.” The fact that TSO has become such a huge production means that it has outlived O’Neill’s initial expectations. “We hoped it would do okay,” he admits. “When the first album came out in 1996, it didn’t sell, but then Aerosmith wasn’t a hit out of the box either. But I wouldn’t ever want to change this, even though it threw off the whole rhythm of our whole lives. Because of how popular the Christmas rock operas are, no matter what we were doing, come October, we have to stop and build these monstrous systems. I want people to experience emotions they’ve never felt before.” Saltzman concurs as he watches a dress rehearsal of the 140-minute show come to an end. “This passes the shiver test,” he says emphatically, pointing at the stage. “If you get the shivers from the singing and then the shivers from watching the production, it’s the double shivers. And if you have that, then you have the audience in the palm of your hand.”
scene@clevescene.com t @cleveland_scene
magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015 23
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magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015
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everything you should do this week
WED 12/23
orchestra hosts a holiday singalong at 1:30 p.m. in the Bier Hall. (Niesel) 1550 Chester Avenue, 216-6212337, hofbrauhauscleveland.com.
ART
The Art of Looking Each month, the folks at the Cleveland Museum of Art invite you to explore a new theme through the careful examination of a select few works of art. This month’s theme is Light Illumination, Glow, Glare. A museum curator will help you understand how artists use light and darkness in their works. Meet at the information desk in the Atrium at 3 p.m. Free. 11150 East Blvd., 216-421-7350, clevelandart.org.
FRI HOLIDAY FUN
COMEDY
Nelsin Davis Shop local. Eat local. Laugh local. That’s what Cleveland-native Nelsin Davis hopes you’ll do tonight when he performs at the Improv The situational comic focuses on storytelling in his routine, so expect more of a clever audiobook than a standup routine. Davis stands up at 7:30 p.m. He performs at the club again at 7:30 and 10:15 p.m. on Saturday. Tickets are $17. (Brittany Rees) 1148 Main Ave., 216-696-IMPROV, clevelandimprov.com. COMEDY
Home for the Holidays Cleveland’s comedy scene just keeps getting better. New comics keep cropping up and the veteran comics on the scene continue to hone their skills. Because some of the best comics will be in town for the holidays, Hilarities has booked them for one special night. Dubbed Home for the Holidays, tonight’s concert features Mike Cheselka, Mike Polk, Charlie Weiner, Ryan Dalton, Mike Paramore, Brian Kenny, Mike Ivy, Marc Jaffe and Bill Squire. The jokes start flowing at 7 p.m., and tickets are $10 to $15. (Niesel) 2035 East Fourth St., 216-2417425, pickwickandfrolic.com. THEATER
The Nutcracker Nina Kaptsova, Artem Ovcharenko, Denis Savin, Pavel Dmitrichenko and Vyacheslav Lopatin star in Bolshoi Ballet’s The Nutcracker, which shows at 11 this morning at the Cedar Lee Theatre. The classic story centers
12/25
The Harlem Globetrotters will show off their skills at the Q. See: Monday.
on a magician who sets out to find a young girl who can break a curse on his nephew and restore him to human form. Mice and toys do ferocious battle. Yuri Grigorovich choreographed the dance movements. Admission is $15 for adults, $12.50 for children and seniors. (Niesel) 2163 Lee Road, Cleveland Heights, 216-321-5411, clevelandcinemas.com. FILM
Un Carnet de Bal Director Julien Duvivier’s film, Un Carnet de Bal, hasn’t been available theatrically in the U.S. for years. Tonight at 6:30 at the Cleveland Museum of Art, you’ll have a rare chance to see it. The movie centers on a wealthy widow who finds a dance card from her first ball and decides to track down her former partners. Shot in black and white, the film has a real elegance to it. Tickets are $9. (Niesel) 11150 East Blvd., 216-421-7350, clevelandart.org.
THUR 12/24 HOLIDAY FUN
Annual Grog Xmas Eve Party While many bars and rock clubs
shutter for Christmas Eve, the Grog Shop stays open for its Annual Grog Xmas Eve Party. The club promises that there will be an assortment of “gifts.” You’re encouraged to “get drunk with your ‘other’ family.” The party starts at 8 p.m. Admission is free. (Niesel) 2785 Euclid Hts. Blvd., 216-3215588, grogshop.gs. HOLIDAY FUN
Frosty 5 and Mistletoe Mile Downtown Hudson plays host to the annual road race Frosty 5 and Mistletoe Mile, a Western Reserve Racing fun run. The pitch: “dress up, be merry.” You’re encouraged to bring canned food for the Akron Canton Food Bank drive. The race is walker and stroller friendly. It all starts at 8 a.m. Frosty 5 benefits Friends of Hudson Parks. An ugly sweater contest will take place prior to the 5 Mile start. Registration ranges from $10 to $40. (Niesel) MUSIC
Hermit Club Orchestra Holiday Concert The Hermit Club Orchestra’s holiday concerts aren’t normally open to the public. But this year, for the second time in 110 years, the concert will be open to the public as Cleveland’s longest-standing
12 Assholes of Christmas It’s a tradition that at noon on Christmas day, the punk rock club Now That’s Class opens its doors to welcome “those who don’t have anywhere to go or don’t wanna go anywhere” for an event dubbed 12 Assholes of Christmas. From noon to 3 p.m. today, the bar will offer specials on Great Lakes and Negro Modelo beers, selling them for only $1. The price goes up by increments as the night goes on. Bring some food for the potluck dinner. Perverts Again, Brainwashed California, Basement Boi, Jew Babes, Double Doubtfire, Real Regular, Basketball is Fixed, Swindlella and Retard Jesus provide the tunes. It’s free. (Niesel) 11213 Detroit Ave., 216-221-8576, nowthatsclass.net. ART
Can-Can One of the only area museums open on Christmas Day, the Maltz Museum adopts the spirit of giving with its “Give What You Can, Pay What You Can” day. Knowledgeable docents will talk to you about the current exhibit, Violins of Hope, a collection of instruments rescued from the Holocaust. You can also explore the treasures of The Temple-Tifereth Israel Gallery or celebrate the contributions made by the Jewish community in An American Story. There will be a make-andtake craft for kids and a special 2 p.m. screening of Orchestra of Exiles, a documentary about how one man helped save Europe’s premiere Jewish musicians from the Nazis. All canned goods will be donated to the Semach Sedek R.I.A.S. Kosher Food Bank & Pantry and the Greater Cleveland Food Bank. The museum opens at 11 a.m. and closes at 5 p.m. (Niesel) 2929 Richmond Rd., Beachwood, 216-593-0575, maltzmuseum. org.
magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015 25
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HOLIDAY FUN
The Boar’s Head and Yule Log Festival Now in its 53rd year, the Boar’s Head and Yule Log Festival is a Cleveland Christmas tradition. A volunteer production, the festival is a “multi-sensory Elizabethan Christmas experience with pageantry and music that celebrate the light of Christ coming into the world.” Performances take place at 3 and 5:30 p.m. at Trinity Cathedral. The 3 p.m. performance will be ASL interpreted for the deaf community. Most of the performance is sung and includes audience participation. Please call the message line at 216-771-3630 x392 to reserve a limited number of ASL seats in front. Donation requested. (Niesel) 2230 Euclid Ave., 216-736-3724. COMEDY
John Caponera Chicago is to comedians as Kenya is to marathon runners. The place just churns them out. John Caponera cut his comedic teeth in the Windy City before he started getting gigs at clubs around the country. He’s at Hilarities tonight at 7 and 9:30 and performs tomorrow at 7 too. Tickets are $20 to $28. (Niesel) 2035 East Fourth St., 216-2417425, pickwickandfrolic.com.
HOLIDAY FUN
Holiday Carriage Rides Beginning on today and continuing through Sunday, Jan. 3, Cleveland Culture Gardens will host Holiday Carriage Rides on Saturdays and Sundays from
Festival, Famicos Foundation and Shamrock Carriages, the Holiday Carriage Rides celebrate the Cleveland Cultural Gardens Centennial. A special kickoff event today from noon to 2 p.m. will feature free hot chocolate and snacks and the chance to roast marshmallows in the fireplace. The Holiday Carriage Rides leave from the Upper Italian Garden (990 East Blvd.)
#SonicSesh
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FILM
The Secret Garden To complement the Painting the Modern Garden exhibit that’s currently on display, the Cleveland Museum of Art will screen several films that have something to do with gardening. Today at 1:30 p.m., it will show The Secret Garden, a 1949 film about a young orphan who discovers a walledoff garden on her uncle’s estate. Based on a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, the movie stars Margaret O’Brien, Herbert Marshall and Dean Stockwell. Tickets are $9. (Niesel) 11150 East Blvd., 216-421-7350, clevelandart.org. FAMILY FUN
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COMEDY
Ryan Dalton It’s been a long, slow climb to the middle for Cleveland comic Ryan Dalton. The guy started performing standup in 1998 and has had some minor success. He’s regularly on The Bob and Tom Radio Show and has appeared on Comedy Central’s Live at Gotham. He also makes the rounds at the comedy festival circuit. Currently in the midst of a short Midwest tour, he performs tonight at 7:30 at Club Velvet at the Hard Rock Rocksino. Much like Seinfeld, Dalton jokes about life’s absurdities. It’s a testament to the strength of his material that he doesn’t need to rely heavily on obscenities in order to be funny, and he’ll joke about things like what a mistake it is to tell a woman she has a gray hair. He has shows scheduled through Wed., Dec. 30. Tickets are $13 to $20. (Niesel)
ext. 269 or go to the website. (Niesel) clevelandworldfestival.com/carriage-rides/. 990 East Boulevard, Cleveland, Ohio, 216-264-6998.
TICKETS: $ 5.50 (including fees)
On sale now at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame box office, or online at rockhall.com
1100 Rock and Roll Blvd., Cleveland, OH 44114 noon to 8 p.m. The Holiday Carriage Rides are designed to create “memorable, special moments with family and friends.” Guests will wait before the ride at a fireplace and then receive hot chocolate and hot cider to drink as a carriage takes them through the gardens and fields. Sponsored by the Cleveland World
magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015
The cost of each ride, which accommodates up to five persons, is $25 or $50, depending on the length of the route. A percentage of the proceeds goes to the Famicos One World Theatre Camp, which takes place during the summer at Michael R. White School in Cleveland. For further information, call 216-791-6476
Winter Week Today marks the beginning of the Great Lakes Science Center’s hands-on, interactive Winter Week programs and activities. There will be carpet skating in the auditorium, hourly dance parties complete with artificial snowfall, magnetic ice fishing and a public build project that organizers call “Create Our City – Winter in the CLE.” Patrons can make their own Rudolph nose, and create their own artificial snow and New Year’s Eve noisemaker. cEemonstration labs will host liquid nitrogen ice cream sessions as well as BASF Kids’ Lab chemistry programs, and the Fire and Ice Big Science Show offers some cold-weather themed experiments and demonstrations. Winter Week fun is included with your regular Science Center admission, but a donation of a new or used winter coat is welcomed. Winter Week is also closing week for the current special exhibition, 2TheXtreme: Math Alive! (Niesel) 601 Erieside Ave., 216-694-2000, greatscience.com.
SUN 12/27 NIGHT LIFE
7th Day Sweat The “seventh day” tends to be a day of rest for many folks. But not for the party hearty people who run B-Side Liquor Lounge, the popular dance club located underneath the Grog Shop. Dubbed 7th Day Sweat, their weekly
magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015 27
Spend Christmas Downtown at Trinity Cathedral
Christmasssings! Ble
~ MASS SCHEDULE ~
DEC 24th | 4:30PM & 10PM DEC 25th | 9AM & 11:30AM DEC 31st | 4:30 PM JAN 1st | 10:00AM
CHRISTMAS EVE
Thursday, December 24
West 25th & Detroit | 2459 Washington Ave (216) 861-5343 | www.stmalachi.org
5 p.m. Family Eucharist and Pageant 10:30 p.m. Prelude Carols for choir, organ and trumpet 11 p.m. Choral Eucharist The Very Rev. Tracey Lind preaching at all services.
CHRISTMAS DAY
Friday, December 25 10 a.m. Eucharist with Carols The Very Rev. Tracey Lind, preaching
BOAR’S HEAD AND YULE LOG FESTIVAL Saturday, December 26 3 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. Freewill offering boarsheadcleveland.org
SUNDAY SERVICES December 27
8 a.m. Early Eucharist 10 a.m. A service of Lessons and Carols with Holy Eucharist
2230 Euclid Avenue Cleveland, OH 44115 216.771.3630 www.trinitycleveland.org
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FREE PARKING AT PROSPECT AND EAST 22ND ST. Connect with us:
magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015
GET OUT Sunday night soiree features DJ White Rims spinning “today’s hottest dance hits,” so you can “sweat it out” every Sunday. Admission is free but you must be 21 or older. It all starts at 7 p.m. (Niesel) 2785 Euclid Hts. Blvd., Heights, 216-932-1966, bsideliquorlounge. com.
people who identify as “Darksiders.” They jump off the rides and film behind the scenes at the park. They even create Disney employee ID badges to sneak into the Magic Kingdom. A Q&A with Swift and participants from the film follows the screening. Tickets for the film are available at the screening the night of the event or online. They cost $10. (Niesel) 60 South High St., Akron, dsoddoc.com.
FILM
FAMILY FUN
Murmurs from Mentor A visual essayist, critic, programmer and teacher who just happens to also manage Martin Scorsese’s video archive, Mentor-raised Gina Telaroli was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 Faces of Independent Film” in 2014. She’ll host a screening of a selection of her films at 2:30 p.m. today at the Nightlight Cinema in Akron. The program includes 35 Minutes Northeast of Cleveland, a film she made with her parents partially in response to LeBron’s decision to leave Cleveland for Miami. Dubbed Murmurs from Mentor: An Afternoon with Gina Telaroli, the program also includes Agnès Varda’s 1981 documentary, Mur Murs, a film about the public murals in Los Angeles. Tickets are $8.50. (Niesel) 30 North High Street, Akron, 330-252-5782.
The Harlem Globetrotters The spectacular Harlem Globetrotters bring their unrivaled ballhandling wizardry, high-flying dunks and gut-busting comedy to the Quicken Loans Arena this afternoon and this evening. This basketball-entertainment bonanza is fun for the whole family. Plus, rumor has it that this year, the Globetrotters’ pitiable rivals the Washington Generals have been practicing with unprecedented rigor and focus.They are eager for a win. Tickets start at $20 and can be found at the Quicken Loans Arena website. The guys play today at both 1 and 6 p.m. at the Q. (Niesel) 1 Center Ct., 216-420-2000, theqarena.com.
TUES 12/29 FILM
MON 12/28 FILM
The Dark Side of Disney A Digital Filmmaking Artist-inResidence with Young Audiences New York and a member of the Tribeca Film Institute’s Teaching Artist roster, director Philip Swift, who grew up in Akron, has built an impressive resume of films. His short documentary “Sincerely, PV Reese” was shortlisted for the 2010 Vimeo Awards (and it served as the opening night selection at the 2010 Akron Film Festival). A documentary about Celebration, Florida, 2013’s The Bubble, delivers “an objective oral history of the town that Disney built.” It’s currently available through Amazon. Tonight at 7 in the Cleveland Public Library Main Branch’s auditorium, Swift will host a screening of his latest film, The Dark Side of Disney, a movie inspired by the bestselling book of the same name. The film centers on a community of
The Draughtsman’s Contract To complement the Painting the Modern Garden exhibit, the Cleveland Museum of Art will screen several films that have something to do with gardening. Today at 1:30 p.m., the museum screens director Peter Greenaway’s The Draughtsman’s Contract, a period piece about a young artist enlisted to make 12 drawings of a large country estate. Michael Nyman provides the score. Tickets are $9. (Niesel) 11150 East Blvd., 216-421-7350, clevelandart.org. THEATER
Elf Based on the popular film, Elf follows the exploits of Buddy, a young orphan child who mistakenly crawls into Santa’s bag of gifts and winds up at the North Pole. The play opens tonight at 7 at Connor Palace and performances run through Jan. 3. Tickets are $10 to $80. (Niesel)
Find more events @clevescene.com t@cleveland_scene
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BREAKING NEWS. HOT OFFTHE INTERNET PRESS.
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magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015 29
ART AND THE WINNERS ARE...
CPAC and CAC Creative Workforce Fellowships announced By Josh Usmani AFTER MONTHS OF ANTICIPATION amongst the local art community, Cuyahoga County’s Community Partnership for Arts and Culture (CPAC) and Cuyahoga Arts & Culture (CAC) released the names of 40 local artists receiving 2016 Creative Workforce Fellowships. The Fellowships include $15,000 in public funding to assist these talented and skilled individuals in their professional development, as well as engaging their community. Additional resources include PR and marketing support during the Fellowship year and a three-minute promotional video documenting the artist and his/her work. “Cuyahoga Arts & Culture is proud to support Cuyahoga County’s vibrant artists by funding the Creative Workforce Fellowship,” says Karen Gahl-Mills, CEO & Executive Director of Cuyahoga Arts & Culture. “Through this program, managed by our friends at Community Partnership for Arts and Culture, we’re investing public dollars into creative individuals who are committed to making connections with our community through their work.” CPAC’s president and CEO, Tom Schorgl agrees, “These Creative Workforce Fellows are providing new opportunities for residents and visitors alike to engage with a wide array of art forms. Their work is contributing to youth education and a heightened awareness of our environment, community and place. The work these artists make is intelligent, playful, striking and skillful. CPAC is fortunate to be able to support this talented group of individuals through a grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.” This is the first year that 40 artists received the Fellowships. These artists work in a variety of disciplines, including visual arts,
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Work by Lauren Herzak-Bauman
theatre, music, literature, design, dance, media arts and craft. In previous years, 20 artists received Fellowships, and the disciplines were divided into two groupings, alternating every other year. The Creative Workforce Fellowships are funded by Cuyahoga County’s tax on cigarettes, which was soundly renewed by voters in November’s election. The Creative Workforce Fellowship’s regular schedule was temporarily suspended while CAC and CPAC re-evaluated the program in the summer of 2014. After months of public meetings and conversations, the organizations announced that the program would resume in 2016, with some major changes. The Fellowships were cut from $20,000 per Fellow to $15,000, and applications were opened to all disciplines for a total of 40 Fellows. Additionally, the organizations placed an added emphasis on community engagement (as opposed to artistic excellence). This year’s application included questions about how the applicant would engage his/her community. This year’s visual art Fellows include John “Derf” Backderf, Christi Birchfield, Kathy Buszkiewicz, Dana Depew, John Greiner (aka John G.), Lauren Herzak-Bauman, Freddy Hill, Ryan Jaenke, Sarah Kabot, Kevin Kautenburger, Irina Koukhanova, Jimmy Kuehnle, Ali Lukacsy, Darice Polo, Paul Sobota, Darius Steward and Nathan Ward. These 2016 Fellows include
magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015
Work by Darius Steward
cartoonists, fine artists, arts professionals, educators, an architect and more. This variety should help ensure that the funds (and results) are distributed throughout our community. Though they may not all be household names, the list is exciting to those familiar with their work. Visit clevescene.com for more information on this year’s visual arts recipients. Additional 2016 Creative Workforce Fellows include Julie Andrijeski, Christopher AuerbachBrown, Simone Barros, Amy Breau, Ray Caspio, Bob Drake, Michael Garriga, Alison Garrigan, Eric Gonzalez, Jakob Hochendoner, Holly Holsinger, Rebecca Leuszler, Dave Lucas, Darlene Montonaro, Jeremy Paul, Megan Pitcher, Imad Rahman, Pandora Robertson, Mary
Robles, Renee Schilling, Annika Sheaff, Chris Webb and Catherine Wing. Throughout the next year, these artists will each impact our community thanks to CAC and CPAC’s funding. “This group of Fellowship recipients is an incredibly accomplished and diverse set of artists focused on exploring themes of contemporary relevance,” says Valerie Schumacher, director of artist services at CPAC. “From work focused on safety, violence and war to racial, gender and sexual identity, these artists are presenting a new lens and safe space to explore our world. Comic artists, filmmakers, huge inflatables and tiny galleries are all taking their place this year in the funding pool. They have some exciting plans for their Creative Workforce Fellowships. CPAC’s board and staff are really looking forward to seeing the developments that will come out of this group in 2016.” As are we. Again, check our website for more information on this year’s individual visual arts Creative Workforce Fellows, and stay tuned in 2016 for more information on their various projects throughout Northeast Ohio. In January, CPAC and CAC will host a public reception for this year’s Creative Workforce Fellows. For more information, visit CultureForward.org or stay tuned to Scene.
jusmani@clevescene.com t@cleveland_scene
STAGE POPPIN’S FRESH
The aerodynamic nanny is back in flight at the Beck Center in a satisfying Mary Poppins OKAY, SO IT’S ALMOST CHRISTMAS and you still haven’t taken the family to any event where you can all get together and enjoy the same thing at the same time. Everyone in your clan is isolated with their own personal screens and doing their own thing: watching Django Unchained on Netflix, playing “Knightmare Tower” on an iPhone, giggling at the kitties on the icanhas.cheezburger website, and binging on Parks and Recreation. But there comes a time in every family’s life when two or more people arise from their screens, bump into each other on the way to the bathroom, and think, “Wait, this is a person I’m related to. Why don’t we go do something together?” And that’s where Mary Poppins at Beck Center comes in. It’s a show anyone in your family can enjoy, of any age, and then you can all chat about it afterwards and everyone knows exactly what you’re talking about. For the uninitiated, this is called a “shared experience.” I know, weird, right? So here are the Ten Best reasons to see this production of Mary Poppins: Beck Center knows how to do holiday shows. In the past, their presentations of Beauty and the Beast and Annie have been dazzling spectacles, and this version of the flying nanny, now in its second season at Beck, is no exception. Rebecca Pitcher is a spot-on Mary, singing the familiar Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman music with gusto. And Pitcher seems even more relaxed in the role this year, throwing the right amount of superciliousness into the tart Poppins’ putdowns (“We are not a codfish, Michael!”). As Mary’s comic foil Bert, Matthew Ryan Thompson is even more engaging this time around, relating more effectively with Mary and dancing up a storm in the
Photo by Kathy Sandham
By Christine Howey
showstopper “Step In Time.” Katherine DeBoer and Curt Arnold as mom and pop Banks, proper London parents, provide a solid base for the show, with DeBoer adding her powerful pipes to “Cherry Tree Lane” and “Being Mrs. Banks.” Even the two Banks’ kids don’t get on your nerves, as portrayed by Anna Barrett and Joseph Daso. These two definitely know their way around this show. As the Bird Woman, Peggy Gibbons gives the gorgeous song “Feed the Birds” a lovely and tender interpretation, showing why this was supposedly one of Walt Disney’s favorite tunes.
Poppins, etc.) soaring across a field of open white umbrellas. It’s almost enough to make you believe in airborne babysitters. A tasty, acidic turn by Amiee Collier as Mrs. Corry, the fearsome nanny who croons an ode to the nasty concoction of “Brimstone and Treacle,” which she uses to keep her youthful charges in line. It was she who, back in the day, turned Mr. Banks into a hollow shell of a man, before Mary breathes life back into him. Once again, choreographer Martin Cespedes shows how he can fashion wonderful dance numbers even when the hoofers aren’t exactly Broadway quality.
MARY POPPINS
THROUGH JANUARY 3 AT THE BECK CENTER 17801 DETROIT AVENUE, LAKEWOOD, 216-521-2540.
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. ‘Nuff said. The not-so-talented cook Mrs. Brill is given a comic edge by Nan Golz as she and the in-house handyman (Eric Dahl) keep hearth and home together until Mary unleashes her magic. The projections designed by Mike Tutaj are a show in themselves, with various flying species (birds,
Director Scott Plate has a masterful way with bringing out the theme of a show without pounding you over the head with messaging. There are some tiny wrinkles, such as the rather ground-based technology (a rolling staircase) used to “fly” Mary. And, of course, some of the aspects of this show have changed over the years, due to new
knowledge. For instance, the song “A Spoonful of Sugar,” which was once a tuneful homage to a harmless carbohydrate, can now be seen by some as an insidious invitation to fructose-poison our children. And upon reflection, chimney sweeping doesn’t seem like a charming occupation, what with the attendant dangers of falling from roofs, spontaneous bat attacks and chimney-lung disease. Not only that, hiring a nanny for your kids without references (Mary doesn’t abide such things) seems like a sure route to disaster and an appearance on NBC’s Dateline. But this show, set more than a century ago and based on the Disney/ Cameron Mackintosh production in London and on Broadway, can ignore all those contemporary issues and blissfully proceed. Beck Center’s Mary Poppins, while not “practically perfect in every way” like the title character, is close enough to merit an initial or return visit. So couch potatoes, throw off your electronic chains and share some fun live theater with other live people!
scene@clevescene.com t@christinehowey
magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015 31
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magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015
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FOLLOW US ON magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015 33
MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM ALL OF US AT MERRY ARTS! Thursday 12/24
Our 16th Annual Free Gift Wrap 12- 3pm
Friday 12/25 MERRY CHRISTMAS! Doors Open at 4pm CAVS at WARRIORS 5pm
Saturday 12/26 CONUNDRUM Sunday 12/27 BROWNS at Chiefs 1pm Thursday 12/31 New Years Eve Bash!!
Top Shelf Liquor, Domestics & Champagne Toast Appetizers & Party Favors 9-Midnight ONLY $35.00/ Person Limited Availability Advance Ticket Purchase Suggested
Friday 1/1 Happy New Year! Open For Breakfast At 10am OHIO STATE vs NOTRE DAME 11am
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magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015
EAT
NEW YEAR, NEW DRINKS Upgrade your standby with a twist or try something a bit more adventurous By Douglas Trattner
FOR BOURBON FANS, IT’S TOUGH to top a well-built Old Fashioned. But even the best drinks grow tiresome over time. The same applies to gin fans, tequila buffs and rum heads, all of whom crave a little cocktail-based adventure from time to time. The good news is that there’s never been a better time to push the envelope in Ohio given the influx of interesting new spirits and brands, says Jake Orosz, owner of the Fairmount at the top of Cedar Hill. “There are a lot more new products coming into Ohio, which is exciting,” he says. “Someone will be like, ‘Hey Jake, just make me something,’ which is great because it lets us experiment too.” For bourbon fans who typically stick to their trusty Old Fashioneds and Manhattans, Orosz suggests swapping out their beloved bourbon for a nice and spicy rye. “A classic Manhattan is an easy way to get someone’s feet in the water,” he says. “You know how a lot of times bourbons are on the sweet side? Rye has an earthy, grain-like flavor to it.” One of his favorite rye-based cocktails is the Scofflaw, which he makes with Templeton rye, dry vermouth, lemon juice and a wee bit of chartreuse. The daiquiri, birthed in Cuba over a century ago and adopted by American drinkers in the decades since, is the
perfect marriage of rum, fresh lime juice and sugar. Shaken and served up, the appealing cocktail is crisp, boozy and pleasantly sour. But why not shake things up a bit, asks Eric Mattimore, bartender at Gigi’s After Dark in Cleveland Heights. “If you’re bored with daiquiris, try a caipirinha” he says. “It’s more rustic with raw edges.” Essentially a daiquiri on the rocks, the caipirinha swaps the customary rum for Brazilian cachaça, which completely alters the flavor profile of this classic tropical refresher. “Most rum is made with molasses while cachaça is made from fresh sugarcane juice, which gives it a bright, funky, fruit flavor,” he explains. The two most popular brands available here are 51 and Pitú, which bears a bright red shrimp on the label. It’s almost required drinking for diners at a Mexican restaurant to order a margarita – and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that – but maybe it’s time you gave tequila’s complex and distinctive brother mezcal, which continues to make noise in the spirits world, a try. “People who are familiar with mezcal ask what kinds we have and what’s new,” says Athina Thomas, bar manager at Momocho, home to a pretty impressive selection. “But people who are adventurous will
ask me for something they’ve never had before. I’ll make them a classic margarita with mezcal in place of tequila.” While flavor profiles change from brand to brand, Thomas generally describes the agave-based spirit as smoky, ranging from fruit forward to earthy tobacco. Available brands include Ilegal, Mezcal Vago and Mezcal Vida. As with tequila, mescal is often offered in different age categories: joven (unaged), reposado, and anejo. “If you love scotch, you’ll probably like mezcal. Personally, I think mezcal would make a great alternative to the scotch in a Blood and Sand,” she says of the cocktail made with scotch, cherry heering, sweet vermouth and orange juice. Gin drinkers tend to be an obstinate bunch; they like what they like and don’t try to convince them otherwise. Or so says Danny Mullin, bartender at L’Albatros in University Circle. “A lot of gin drinkers order gin martinis, so I’ll try and steer people away in a conservative way that sticks to their palate.” Of course, the easiest way to nudge a gin drinker away from the triedand-true is to swap the customary London dry gin for something a bit more unconventional. Mullin suggests a juniper-forward Holland genever
like Bols, the lime-centric Tanqueray Rangpur, or Nolet’s Dry Gin, a highquality brand from the oldest distillery in the Netherlands. For those willing to venture a tad bit farther outside their comfort zone, Mullin concocts a Vesper, James Bond’s version of a martini in Casino Royale. The stiff drink is made with three parts gin, one part vodka and a half-part Lillet – stirred, not shaken as Bond demands. It’s not just new spirits that are appearing on liquor store shelves; liqueurs, too, are increasing in number, which is great news for classic cocktail lovers, notes David Earle, who can be found behind the bar at Lolita. “The craft-cocktail craze has done wonders in dragging back into the light lost bitters and old world liqueurs,” he says. “Now, Creme de Violette is all over the place. 15 years ago, the only place I could find any was on the dusty back bar of the Harbor Inn.” Without the arrival of good-quality creme de violette, for example, there are no Aviations, Pousse-Cafes or Angel’s Tits, says Earle. “The Aviation has made a comeback on the shoulders of the fact that you can now get creme de violette.”
scene@clevescene.com t @cleveland_scene
magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015 35
EAT
Sal and Nina
STAYING POWER Sal Mansour of Sal’s Menu Restaurant has been on the line seven days a week for more than 30 years By Nikki Delamotte
THE DON(FORCORLEONE PIZZA A LIMITED TIME) Red Sauce, Mozzarella Cheese, Cappacola Ham, Salami, Pepperoni, and Oregano
Don Corleone
Pizza
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magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015
“THANKS, SAL,” WILSON Velazquez says when the cook hands him his plate at the lunch counter, a mere arm’s length away. On an early Saturday afternoon, everyone at Sal’s Menu Restaurant (3850 Pearl Rd., 216-398-1446) knows Sal Mansour by name. Today he’s wearing a white chef’s apron and green and white striped shirt with the name “Sal” stitched over his chest to inform the few who might be unfamiliar. From any seat in the house you can see him press sizzling corned beef hash, flip eggs hot off the griddle and send plates off with waitresses. There’s rarely an empty seat in the place. Regulars will tell you he’s the best short-order cook in the land. Since the small Brooklyn Centre diner near the corner of Pearl and Denison opened in 1984, he’s been on the line – a one-man show – seven days a week. “It’s like Cheers here,” says Velazquez, who stops in every weekend. Some affectionately refer to his current seat, the one closest to Sal, as the chef’s table. “We sit around the counter, we watch him cook.” “This was always my first stop when my kids would come up from Georgia,” another regular, Lenny Jones, offers. Someone else a few stools down, overhearing the conversation, chimes in, “Everybody travels for Sal’s!” In 1971, Sal moved from Lebanon to Cleveland to join his now-wife Nina, who he insists is his “right hand,” helping serve and keep records. Sal himself was no stranger to the day in and day out of the business. Back home, he helped cook traditional Lebanese food at his father’s restaurant. He brought his appreciation of fresh ingredients to the diner, where he keeps a small garden
out back during the growing season. “We gardened all around the restaurant in the old country,” he recalls. Sal and Nina grew up in a small village where “everyone knew everyone,” not unlike what their lives would become today. “When I came to America, I had $500 in my pocket,” says Sal, who worked odd jobs until finally purchasing the restaurant. “When we bought this place, everybody thought we weren’t going to make it,” says Nina. “They thought the neighborhood wasn’t right and we proved them wrong. We felt very welcomed.” It doesn’t take more than a glance at the shiny blue menus to know that couldn’t be truer. Opening every morning at 5 a.m., the shop has long been a respite for local shift workers. Order meatloaf with mashed potatoes and you have the Metro Special, named after the staffers from the nearby hospital. Three extra-large eggs with gyro meat makes the ALCOA Special, in honor of the workers from a nearby factory. Swap the gyro meat for bacon, sausage or ham and you’re ordering The L.T.V., a menu item that has long outlasted its namesake steel mill. “Things change but he still has customers from 30 years ago!” says Natalie Dempsey, a waitress of five years, wiping off the counter as the weekend shift winds down around 1:30 p.m. Through the rises and falls of the decades, it helps to have a constant, and for many a Clevelander that constant has been Sal. “He’s not afraid of hard work,” says Nina. “He is a permanent fixture, seven days a week.”
scene@clevescene.com t @cleveland_scene
Brew House Bar & Grill 6395 Pearl road | Parma Heights ohio 44130
DecemBer 31, 2015 live music By
Disco inferno
champagne Toast at midnight Tickets available in House or at eventbrite.com now Taking reservations | Please contact us about ViP (440)345-5815
masBrewHouse@gmail.com
magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015 37
Photo by Emanuel Wallace
EAT
ways to spend $4. Served atop a bed of fluffy white rice, the gumbo is smoky, spicy and deeply flavorful, with tender chunks of pork and okra bobbing in the rust-colored gravy.
Grilled octopus at Santorini
CREAM OF THE CROP The best things we ate all year By Douglas Trattner SO MANY MEALS, SO FEW NAPKINS. It’s never easy to single out the best dishes from a year full of eclectic dining experiences. Over the course of 12 months I’ve covered nearly 50 restaurants and sampled five to eight times that number of starters, mains and sides. Best, as you know, isn’t about fancy or expensive. And best is subjective. For the sake of clarity, we’ll call these the “Best Things I Ate,” but in truth they are the dishes that most stand out in my mind as being memorable. Falafel @ Café Falafel 3843 Riveredge Rd., 216-688-0330, mycafefalafel.com Falafel is like guacamole in that everybody has his or her own way to make it. After trying Café Falafel, my favorite recipe currently belongs to owner Ehab Enaia. Take a bite and peer inside and you’ll see a shade of green so vivid and fresh, it can only come from heaps of fresh parsley and cilantro, which also serve to keep the patties moist and light. Small-batch frying in peanut oil produces the perfect golden brown shell. Grilled Octopus @ Santorini 1382 West Ninth St., 216-205-4675, santorinitaverna.com This has been the year of the “octo,” with numerous restaurants offering one version or another of this oft-challenging sea beast. It’s not surprising that Santorini, a Greek restaurant, does it best. Firm, meaty and charred from the grill, the sliced tentacles are paired with shaved red onion, a few ripe tomatoes and some greens. Drizzle it with some fresh
38
lemon and you’ll swear you’re dining at a seaside taverna. Bone-in Ribeye @ Cabin Club 30651 Detroit Rd., 440-899-7111, Westlake, thecabinclub.com There are loads of reasons to adore Cabin Club, from the easy-going roadhouse vibe to the evenhanded tariffs for food and drink. But we go to steakhouses for steak and the Club’s massive bone-in ribeye, cooked to perfection on the restaurant’s raging Top Fuel broiler. Grab the hefty shank, slice through the meat, and take a moment to savor a truly great steak. Lemon Soufflé Pancakes @ Fire Food and Drink 13220 Shaker Sq., 216-921-3473, firefoodanddrink.com I never order pancakes for breakfast; compared to biscuits and gravy or corned beef hash, who would? And the truth is, I didn’t order Fire’s lemon soufflé pancakes either. But chef Doug Katz, fresh off a pancake competition where he took top honors, insisted that we try them. Hot off the griddle, these light, airy and golden brown cakes – kissed with lemon and tangy buttermilk – will never leave a brunch diner with buyer’s remorse. Spit-Roasted Chicken @ Campus Grille 10 seminary St., 440-243-4229, Berea, thecampusgrille.com Berea might not sound like the place one goes to score killer Latino and Puerto Rican food, but that’s where affable chef Luis Roman opened up shop. Day in and day out, a broad mix of regulars line up for large
magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015
platters of mofongo, roast pork and beans, and crispy Cubanos. But the best dish is the marinated and spitroasted chickens, hacked in half and served with lime-and-cilantro scented rice and black beans. Oysters on the Half Shell @ Alley Cat 1056 Old River Rd., 216-574-9999, alleycatoysterbar.com The view, along with the company, has everything to do with the quality of raw oysters. That might sound apocryphal, but once you’ve sucked back a platter of raw bivalves on the water’s edge, all others pale by comparison. That’s why the oysters at Alley Cat, which has unobstructed watery views, taste just a little bit sweeter than those shucked elsewhere. Korean BBQ @ Seoul Hot Pot 3709 Payne Ave., 216-881-1221 Gather some adventurous friends around the grill tables at this recently revived Asiatown icon for some amazing grilled meats, namely galbi and bulgogi, spiral-sliced bone-in beef short rib and thin-sliced beef sirloin. Sure, it takes some work manning the grill, but the experience is so unique it more than makes up for it. When done, the flavorful meats are tucked into a lettuce leaf along with sauces and garnishes and popped whole in the mouth. Gumbo @ Chow Chow Kitchen 14201 Madison Ave., Lakewood, 216712-4126 Call it soup, stew or chowder, the gumbo served at this Southern-themed café and carry-out is one of the best
Peddler’s Noodle Soup @ Phusion Café 3030 Superior Ave., 216-861-3399 Tainan is the culinary epicenter of Taiwan, and one of the most beloved dishes to enjoy while there is danzai mian, also known as Peddler’s noodles. New to the Asiatown scene,Sal Phusion and Nina introduces local diners to this and other Taiwanese dishes previously unavailable in these parts. This complex bowl features chewy noodles, minced pork, boiled shrimp and crisp bok choy in a shrimp flavored broth. French Onion Egg Rolls @ Graffiti Social Kitchen 1261 West 76th St., 216-651-6969, graffitisocialkitchen.com High-concept food isn’t always worth the effort. Deconstructed, reconstructed or simply fooled-aroundwith, fun food sometimes just isn’t. That’s not the case with Okin and Bostwick’s French Onion Egg Rolls, which have been a staple of the Graffiti menu since the start. Sliced on the bias, the slender rolls are filled with caramelized onions and gruyere cheese, so that when dipped into the accompanying broth, the flavors are a dead ringer for the classic soup. Slyman’s Fries @ Syman’s Tavern 6901 Rockside Rd., Independence, 216642-0062, slymanstavern.com The guys at Slyman’s might have no idea what poutine even is and yet they managed to create a Clevelandstyle version that is an instant classic. At its heart is a pile of crispy crinklecut fries, which serve as the base for heaps of fluffy chip-chopped corned beef, melted Swiss cheese sauce and a shower of green onions. Those snooty Québécois have nothing on us! Jerk Chicken @ International Restaurant 7823 Cedar Rd., 216-339-4544 No two jerk chicken recipes are the same, which means that every new dish is an opportunity to be pleasantly surprised. I was blown away after finally making it to International Restaurant, a rough-hewn carry-out just a few blocks off the Cleveland Clinic campus. Dark as night from a cornucopia of spices, the meat is tender but not falling of the bone, with a deep, intense and mounting heat.
scene@clevescene.com t @cleveland_scene
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By Douglas Trattner FOR EIGHT YEARS, TASTE OF Jamaica was the place to go for fiery jerk chicken, pudding-soft braised oxtails with rice and beans and flakey beef patties – as long as you didn’t want to stick around to eat it. The small, largely take-out operation featured an open kitchen and almost zero seats. The on-street parking wasn’t very accommodating either. All that changed three weeks ago when Taste of Jamaica relocated from its old home in S. Euclid to a brand new one in Lyndhurst (5104 Mayfield Rd., 440-565-7230). Located in a shopping center near the intersection of Mayfield and Richmond, the new restaurant offers easy and free off-street parking. Inside, the greatly modernized setup features separate stations for ordering and pick up and a dining room that accommodates around 35 guests. The food is still dished up to go in Styrofoam boxes, but at least you can sit down and eat it while it’s steaming hot. The bright and clear menu screens make it easier than ever to plan your meal, with entrees divided into categories for chicken, meat,
fish and shrimp. Items like chicken curry, oxtail stew, jerk chicken and shrimp curry all come in two sizes and include two sides. The most popular are rice and beans with warm steamed cabbage, but there’s also white rice and fried plantains. A daily special shaves about $2 off the price of an item. Monday is roasted chicken; Tuesday is jerk bbq chicken; Wednesday and Friday is jerk fried chicken; Thursday is stew peas; Saturday is curry cow foot. If you love Jamaican food as much as we do, get in line.
scene@clevescene.com t @cleveland_scene magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015 39
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Saturday December 26 Triage 8:00 (rock, folk, blues) Anne E. DeChant 10:00 (rock, singer/ songwriter)
Sunday December 27
PIE AND COFFEE
Rising Star Coffee partners with Humble Pie Bakery to launch own bakery By Douglas Trattner SINCE OPENING ITS FIRST SHOP in Ohio City, Rising Star has always offered baked products from various local producers. But soon they will be producing those products themselves thanks to a new partnership with Diane Sikorski of Humble Pie Bakery. The high quality pastries will be produced in a kitchen in the Hildebrandt Building, where Rising Star currently has its roastery.
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magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015
“It only makes sense,” says Robert Stockham, GM. “If you want the best quality you can get, then hire the best baker you can find. We were lucky to entice Diane to come and work for us. She has a great talent for food and presentation, and is truly tuned in to the local food market. If you have ever had one of her jams or pies, then you know what I am talking about.” Rising Star hopes to begin offering the products at all three of their locations – Ohio City, Little Italy and Downtown – sometime in January. In addition to the pies that they already carry, the shops will soon carry biscuits with jam, muffins and cookies. Plans are in the works for more offerings down the line. The products will only be available at Rising Star, adds Stockham.
Diane Sikorski
“We want our shops to be destination locations, but who knows, we may need be open to offering our goods at wholesale,” he says. Sikorski, who recently scrapped plans to open an Ohio City bakeshop of her own, relishes the opportunity to work with such a great local company. “When you have a great fit, how can you say no?” Diane Sikorski offers. “There are few companies that have the conviction to quality that Rising Star does. When your values align so closely, you know that this is a great opportunity.”
scene@clevescene.com t @cleveland_scene
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magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015 41
P O H S G THE GRO
HTS ELAND P D, CLEVO .GS V L O B H S S T G H ID GR 2785 EUCL 216.321.5588
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The Ravenna Arsenal • Pillars
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THURSDAY 12.24 X-MESS EVE HOLIDAY PARTY! FRIDAY 12.25 DIGERAATII w/THE MOST
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TUESDAY 12.29 LYRICAL RHYTHMS 7:30PM Open Mic | Live Band | Drink Specials WEDNESDAY 12.30 MUG NIGHT = $2 PBR Mugs DJs Elliot Nash + FRIENDS
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THE AGORA
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with MELVINS with MELT
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SKULL PRACTITIONERS (Mem. of DREAM SYNDICATE)
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HARI KONDABOLU LAUREN LANZARETTA Hosted by RAMON RIVAS in
Uptowne Buddha conjunction w/ Accidental Comedy MC SAT 1/16
BEST OF CLE: SINGER SONGWRITERS SERIES RAY FLANAGAN SHAWN BREWSTER of Oldboy MORGAN MECASKEY ERIN KAPFERER of Noon
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42
Happy Hour Every Day until 9 PM WEDNESDAY 12.23 MUG NIGHT = $2 PBR Mugs DJs Elliot Nash + FRIENDS
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magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015
Thu 12/24 FREE ANNUAL X-MAS EVE PARTY AT THE B-SIDE! Sun 12/29 UNDERGROUND KINGZ Mon 1/4 MAKE ‘EM LAUGH MONDAY Sat 1/9 6PM DEAD FALL • Home for Fall • Homesafe Sat 1/9 10PM BRAVE BONES • Posh Army • The Science Fair Sun 1/10 FLASHBACK HUMOR • All Over the Place Mon 1/11 BROADENING THE DAYLIGHT • Super Awesome Macho Wed 1/13 KEVIN BIANCHI & THE CHESTERTONS Fri 1/15 HIGH CLASS CRIMINALS • Root Bottle Thu 1/21 Lyrical Rhythms presents DURAND BERRNAN Fri 1/22 YOSEMIGHT • Vine Street Vibes Sun 1/24 JUSTINROBERTS&THENOTREADYFORNAPTIMEPLAYERS Thu 1/28 KISS ME DEADLY • Way of Life • Black Spirit Crown Fri 1/29 HONEY • Wesley Who Fri 2/5 MASS GOTHIC • Mazed • The Village Bicycle Wed 2/17 SEERESS • Harvey Pekar • Wolf Teeth Sat 2/20 RIVAL SONS RESCHEDULED FOR THU 9/1 Fri 3/11 CRAW • Murderedman Tue 3/22 HUNTER VALENTINE Wed 3/30 DREAMERS • The Arkells Tue 4/5 UNWRITTEN LAW • Fenix, TX Sun 4/24 MURDER BY DEATH • Kevin Devine & The Goddamn Band
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MUSIC PSYCHIC POWERS Hard rockers Clutch are in a league of their own By Jeff Niesel LIKE MANY TEENS THAT GREW up in the ’80s, Clutch guitarist Tim Sult gravitated to the hard rock music of the era. “I got into rock and classic rock and heavy metal when I was a younger teenager,” he explains via phone from his Maryland home. “I was influenced by stuff like Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and Iron Maiden. I liked the hair metal stuff of the day, too, like Motley Crue’s ‘Shout at the Devil’ and the first Ratt album and all that. The early Ozzy stuff with Randy Rhoads was a huge influence as well. Black Sabbath too. That was the stuff around in my era when I started playing guitar. That’s the era I come from — when hair metal was still metal.” Somewhere along the line, however, his style of playing morphed as Clutch became a truly unique act in the hard rock world. While the band’s music could be called heavy metal/hard rock, the group also draws from the blues and from progressive rock. “I think our music comes out the way it does because we’re all involved in the creative process with every song and we’re contributing as much as we can,” says Sult. “Even though Neil [Fallon] is the main lyricist, we work on the music together and we just start beating up riffs until they’re vocal friendly. That has a lot to do with it. Every song is a true collaborative process.” The band’s latest album, Psychic Warfare, simply can’t be pigeonholed. A terrific collection of tunes that show a breadth of musical influences, it might be the band’s best effort yet and it serves as a testament to the band’s staying power. When the group first formed in Maryland in 1991, Sult admits the guys didn’t have any idea that they’d be together some 24 years later. “Well, I don’t think we were
Clutch
thinking in quarter century terms as that point,” he says. “We were just hoping to be together for two years. Every time I think about it, I think it’s really a miracle.” Released in 1991, the 12-inch single “Passive Restraints” got the band some attention from a variety of labels and set the group on its course. “That was the first time we ever got played on the radio,” says Sult. “We got to go on tour and play some real shows. That was where it all started. Just the fact that we went on tour and never came back. That was the first time we got radio exposure and national recognition.” The exposure resulted in a cult following of loyal fans. That, in turn, caught the attention of major labels and they came knocking. Columbia Records would release the 1998 album, The Elephant Riders. “We have four albums that we
put out on major labels,” says Sult. “For us, there were a couple of times where we got tour support and it helped us to get out there. Our early albums would have never gotten into stores if it weren’t for the fact that we were on major labels. We never had that much of a negative experience but at the same time, from our first album on, we knew that if we wanted to do it and keep doing it, we would have to depend on ourselves and not a record label constantly funding us. Or we would just drown in debt. Early on, we figured out how to be self-sufficient and pay for our own touring and make it all happen on our own.” Given the band’s unique approach, it’s easy to imagine how confusing the music might have sounded for major label types who often adhere to convention when it comes to marketing and promoting bands. “I’m pretty sure about 97 percent
of all employees at every major label we were on were very confused by what we were doing,” says Sult. “The fact that we had an audience was what drew them to us. They would come to our shows and see that people came to our shows and knew who the band is and enjoyed the music. Looking back on it, our early music is even less commercial than our current music that we make these days. I understand the fact that most people at major labels were very confused by what was happening with Clutch.” For the new album, Psychic Warfare, the group took its time when it came to writing the songs. “We started the songwriting process about a year after we ended the songwriting process for [2013’s] Earth Rocker,” says Sult. “It was a while ago. We recorded Psychic Warfare almost a year ago. We waited a little while to put it out. As
magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015 43
MUSIC far as the songwriting process goes, we did a lot more pre-production this time with the producer. We would write a batch of songs and fly him up from Texas to our rehearsal space and try to refine those songs as much as possible. We would forget about those five and try to write five more songs. We had several batches of songs we worked on. In general, we spent more time on the songwriting process than we ever have with any of our albums in the past.” As a result, the recording went much smoother as the band knew exactly what it wanted to accomplish in the studio. “We had every single part that we knew we were going to record,” says Sult. “We had demoed and done pre-production. When we got into the studio, we were more focused. We were more focused than we’d been on any other recording. On the older stuff, going into the studio was more loose. We would write material in the studio but this time we didn’t do that.” The album really resonated with fans. It debuted at No. 11 in Billboard Top 200 as well as at No. 1 on both the Rock and Hard Rock Charts. Prior to its release, the band released its tenth studio
provides a great segue into the album’s second half, which comes off as a bit more subdued than the first half. “It’s the intro to ‘Our Lady of the Electric Lights,’” Sult says. “We just broke it into two pieces because we wanted to. It’s a bit different than anything we have done in the past. It has a Pink Floyd-meetsAmericana vibe. It does kind of usher in the second half of the album.” The band’s concerts have always drawn well. Sult says the old fans keep coming back, and new fans continue to come as well. “It seems like we do have a working class fan base — just regular people,” says Sult. “Over the years, these regular people have grown up and their children are into us too. There is a lot of gray hair at our shows but there are more younger people than I’ve ever seen. It’s amazing to look out on the crowd and know that a large percentage has never seen us before. That’s amazing that we can go out and play shows and so many people are seeing us fro the first time. We don’t have to rely on getting the old people to continue coming back. They seem to do that anyway.” So what’s been the key to keeping the band together without any lineup changes? “We have always tried to move forward artistically,” says Sult.
CLUTCH, CROBOT, VALKYRIE 7:30 P.M. WEDNESDAY, DEC. 30, AGORA THEATRE, 5000 EUCLID AVE. 216-881-2221. TICKETS: $25 ADV, $29 DOS, AGORACLEVELAND.COM.
album, Earth Rocker, via its own label Weathermaker Music. That album entered the Billboard Top 200 chart at No. 15, giving the band its highest chart position to date. With its woozy vocals and bluesy guitar licks, one of the album highlights, “A Quick Death in Texas,” sounds like heavy rendition of a ZZ Top track. “Musically, that was the last song we wrote for the album,” says Sult. “We finished when we were in Texas getting ready to record. I know Neil wrote the lyrics for it. I don’t know if you ever heard of the ’70s band Captain Beyond. The original singer of Deep Purple ended up in the band. They have one or two albums that are totally awesome that you should check out. Musically, the song sounds like a cross between that band and ZZ Top. They’re like a real heavy riff band.” The twangy “Doom Saloon”
44
magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015
“We’re always writing new material. We try not to repeat ourselves. We could have easily said, “We have so much success with ‘Passive Restraints,’ we should make every song sound like that.” The fact that we didn’t do that and that we just continue to play shows is important. We just haven’t gone away. As far as building a fanbase, that’s the most important thing. We’re looking forward to the next song, the next tour. We’ve never stopped. We’ve never been at a stand still and had nowhere to go. We’ve always had a place to move forward. It’s a minor miracle when I think about it and how long it’s been. It doesn’t seem like that to us. It doesn’t seem like 25 years. It just seems like part of life.”
jniesel@clevescene.com t@jniesel
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Order By Phone: 800.745.3000 • House of Blues Box Office magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015
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MUSIC A ‘PROVEN PEOPLE’S GROUP Living Colour fought its way to prominence By Matt Wardlaw Photo by Karsten Staiger Photography
THE YEAR WAS 1989, AND LIVING Colour was on the road opening for the Rolling Stones on their nowfamous Steel Wheels stadium tour. The group had already had two big radio hits with the intense “Cult of Personality” and the Mick Jaggerproduced follow-up, “Glamour Boys,” both from Vivid, their 1988 debut album. But as frontman Corey Glover shared with us during a recent conversation, the glamour quickly faded away when he returned home during a break in the tour. “The only way that things changed was just the people’s own perception of who and what we were. I don’t think anything really changed for us,” he says in a phone interview. “During the Steel Wheels tour, I got off the road for a minute, and my mother handed me a bucket of paint and a paintbrush and said, ‘Paint the front porch.’ So I had to do that. Nothing changed at home and nothing changed in my regular life. It just changed around me and their perception of who I was changed. I was still who I was, and I’m still doing what I was doing, still taking the subway to wherever it was I was going. Nothing really changed dramatically — not initially. But then you slowly realize that things are different around you and people are treating you differently because of what they perceive about you. And that sometimes changes who you are as well.” Guitarist Vernon Reid had done session work on Jagger’s second solo album, Primitive Cool, and that ended up being a good gig in more ways than one. After working with Reid, Jagger took a field trip to go check out a Living Colour gig and liked what he saw. He offered to work on demos with the band and became an important advocate for the group, eventually putting them on the radar of Epic Records, who signed Living Colour to a long awaited major label record deal years after many labels had seen the group and passed on them. “We spent a week and a half or two weeks [working with Jagger, prior to getting signed],” Glover recalls. “What I thought was very interesting were the conversations that we had. Jagger and I at one point were talking about
46
Expect to hear some new tunes when Living Colour plays the Music Box.
music and we’re talking about the blues and we’re talking about all of this music that I had at that point just discovered. The next day, he brought me a cassette of the 78s and the 33 1/3 albums that he had in his house. He made me a mixtape, just to further my education. So I thought that was great.” Jagger later explained the choice of Living Colour as the opening act for the Steel Wheels tour, telling the L.A. Times in an interview that Living Colour and Guns N’ Roses, who opened the Los Angeles dates, had been chosen for a very specific reason. “We added [those bands] because they’re proven people’s groups,” he said.
You don’t hear about the plight of gentrification very often in songs, you know, unless you’re doing a protest song. And we don’t write protest songs -— we write songs about the lives we’ve lived and the places we see and the people that we know.” They continue to write those songs nearly 30 years later and occasionally, they explore the lives and words of other songwriters, as they did with their version of Robert Johnson’s “Preachin’ Blues,” one of the songs that they’ve recorded for their upcoming record, Shade. The Johnson cover was the opening moment that launched the conversations for the developing album, after they performed the song
LIVING COLOUR, OUTLAWS I & I 8 P.M. TUESDAY, DEC. 29, MUSIC BOX SUPPER CLUB, 1148 MAIN ST., 216-242-1250. TICKETS: $30-$40, MUSICBOXCLE.COM.
“They’ve come up not because of music industry flogging, but on their own, because they hit a populist nerve.” Living Colour had fought its way to prominence with its songs and powerful live performances. “I couldn’t agree more,” Glover says. “For me, music is not just something I do just to pay the bills. It’s something I live. You know, I write about the things that I live and how I live. We all write about the things we observe and not in a therapeutic way, but in a way to give voice to something that would not normally get that kind of treatment.
magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015
live at a tribute concert celebrating Johnson’s 100th birthday at the Apollo in 2012. “That was us really trying to come to terms with what that meant,” he says. “You know, doing the blues at the Apollo in Harlem, talking about Robert Johnson and what he was doing and what he was talking about in prose, it was really about the world he was living in and he was talking about how he was living. You know, he had a hellhound on his trail. He was talking about what he was going through as a black man in America
living day to day as a musician. So you know, we take all of those things into consideration. We saw the corollaries and we were trying to deal with that.” Glover describes the new album as “a sort of deconstruction of the blues in a Living Colour way.” “The blues is sort of the bedrock of what we do, and it is the foundation on which we stand on to get to wherever it is that we’re going,” he explains. “And that’s true of all modern music, that the blues sort of informed everything about it. And what better band to sort of take a look at the blues in their own way than us. Because that’s what our songs are, modern day blues. You know, it’s telling a story, it’s telling the news, it’s giving you the whys and the wherefores of the world that we live in on a regular basis. We thought we should take that to task in some way. Whether we did that or not, I’m sure is hotly up to debate, but it’s a Living Colour record.” Glover says it’s likely that fans will get a taste of songs from the new album when the band plays Cleveland at the end of this month. “It gives us an opportunity to see what works and what doesn’t work and what things reach people and what things don’t particularly give the audience enough.” he says. “We’re looking to elicit a reaction, obviously and we’re looking for a specific kind of reaction. What combination of notes and intention do we have do in order to reach an audience? That’s what playing does for us. So I’m sure we’re going to play some songs from the new record from some of the choices that we have for the new record and we’ll see how people react to it.” He says that there are about “six to 10 songs that we know are going to be on the record at this point.” But they’re taking their time with no firm release plans currently on the calendar, and Glover says that there’s a good reason for that. “We want to get the right record and get it done correctly,” he says. “Sometimes, it takes time and sometimes it takes some patience. We’re trying to exercise both of those things.”
scene@clevescene.com t@cleveland_scene
magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015 47
MUSIC FILMSTRIP SINGER DAVE TAHA follows the fabled tradition of the singing storyteller, but not in the same way folkies do. Growing up listening to a range of sounds from Bob Dylan to Nirvana, Taha decided to pursue the lyrical middle ground between folk’s ramblin’ man rhymes and grunge’s self-absorbed obscurity. But rather than tell his own story, Taha is far more interested in tales of geographies, circumstances and time periods foreign to him. “Even if it’s not my story, I just want to tell a story,” Taha says over a beer at the Mexican restaurant Barrio. “Almost like writing a novel or writing a poem, some of the elements might be autobiographical, but some of them are just totally random. Putting it in a framework that people can relate to in a historical way, instead of saying, ‘This is my story, here it is.’ To me that just seems, I don’t know, narcissistic.” For example, Taha jumps back more than 100 years in the song “Two Bullets,” which he wrote from the perspective of a wounded Civil War soldier. Since the soldier’s home is in Ohio, listeners might speculate that the character is a proxy for Taha, but aside from that single similarity, the song (and others by the band) requires a unique degree of empathy with the experiences of the subjects. Taha’s first electric guitar was a 1960s Teisco Del Ray given to his brother Matt by a homeless man. He began relying on “a kid down the street” to show him his first chords before he joined the Cleveland DIY scene, frequenting historic venues such as Speak in Tongues and Fort Totally Awesome. “The DIY scene is legendary in Cleveland, and I think that stems from the fact that there was no alternative,” he says. “You had the mainstream venues. In the ’90s, payola was still a big thing. With the age of the internet, now a garage band has just as good of a chance as a signed band to play the Grog Shop or the Beachland, but it wasn’t always like that. When I was coming up, the DIY scene was literally the only alternative, you had to go underground, you had to play basements or backyards or weird abandoned storefronts because there was no other way to do it.” Though Taha had been playing backyard shows for years before he set foot in these DIY hangouts, it still took him a long time to feel comfortable even approaching the residents of the houses, let alone sharing their stages. Those early backyard shows took place
48
BORROWED IDENTITIES
Local rockers Filmstrip thrive on lyrical role playing By Bethany Kaufman under band names such as Comfort of Misery and Red Shift, both of which involved the original three members of Filmstrip: guitarist/lead vocalist Dave, his bassist/backing vocalist brother Matt, and their drummer friend Nick Riley. Uncertain as Taha may have felt finding his place in the DIY scene, he quickly became an integral part of it. Filmstrip’s first practice and debut show took place in 2009 at yet another DIY spot called the Tower, where the trio would eventually rise to the role of dedicated house band. At the time, Filmstrip was playing regularly at the Tower, and a filmmaker approached Riley, then the house’s primary booking agent, about
kids are outcasts in their own country, especially now [after 9/11],” says Taha. Although he may not use the same religious vocabulary to describe it, Taha fully appreciates the connection between music and spirituality that the Taqwacores embody. “Music is my connection to spirituality in a lot of ways. Every time I get on stage or sit down to play the guitar, it’s engrossing and I feel like there’s something greater than myself that’s guiding this experience,” he says. Shortly before filming Taqwacore, Filmstrip released its first album, 2010’s Everything Can Change. Although the album was self-released, the band worked with the then-local
FILMSTRIP, ALL DINOSAURS, HARLEM AIRSHAFT AND JOSHUA JESTY 9 P.M., SATURDAY, DEC. 26, MAHALL’S 20 LANES, 13200 MADISON AVE., LAKEWOOD 216-521-3280. FREE, MAHALLS20LANES.COM.
shooting a documentary there. The resulting film, Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam centers on a group of Muslim Americans inspired to create a punk community in Buffalo after reading Michael Muhammad Knight’s prophetic book The Taqwacores. “Half of the people involved in the making of the film weren’t Muslim. I’m not Muslim, but it’s about community and punk rock is the common theme that ties it all together and trying to find your identity in a world where not all the odds are in your favor. These
magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015
imprint Exit Stencil to record it, partly due to Riley’s partnership with studio owner Ryan Weitzel in another band called Mystery of Two. The album is a hybrid of straight rock and new wave punk interlaced with bits of swirling Beatles-like harmonies, and also includes a home-state anthem simply entitled “Ohio” that could easily double as a camp song. When the time came to record their next set of songs, the band explored a different route. “The songs we were writing at
the time were a little more open and down-tempo and could have benefitted from more production: more instrumentation, some different approaches that we hadn’t taken yet,” says Taha. Filmstrip reached out to their first choice studio, Echo Mountain in Asheville, North Carolina, and received an immediate invitation to come down. Exit Stencil visited during recording and offered the band an official label release. Last year’s Moments of Matter included fewer than half of the songs the band recorded at Echo Mountain. Some of the excluded tracks, such as “Skip a Stone to Canada,” the band now incorporates into its live show. Others, however, will have to wait until something compels Taha to pull them out and dust them off. In late 2014, Matt Taha quit the band, and Taha and Nick Riley pulled bassist Nick Licata aboard to keep Filmstrip alive as a touring entity. The band arranged an extensive 2015 tour of the eastern half of the United States, hitting cities from Orlando and Charleston to Fort Wayne and Brooklyn. In September 2015, Matt Taha suffered a stroke but made a remarkable recovery; as a result, he decided to rejoin the band earlier this month. Licata will remain a member, sharing bass and keys duties with Matt Taha while also helping Dave Taha on guitars. “I’m extremely grateful to have him alive, let alone playing with us again,” Taha says of his brother’s return. The next step for the now four-piece Filmstrip is definitely a new album, but money is a prohibitive factor. The band would like to record locally again, this time working with multiple producers on a few tracks each. “I would like to do stuff that’s more influenced by noisier stuff, or maybe throw some beats in there or something, synths, I’m very open to that shit. I play in another band, Hiram-Maxim, that is very experimental and kind of avant-garde, we improvise largely. Not that that’s the direction Filmstrip would go in naturally, but it’s good to get out of your shell and not stagnate and keep growing as an artist,” says Taha. It seems that he is not only a lyrical storyteller, but a stylistic one as well. Rather than defining himself by a single genre, he’s more interested in writing himself into a variety of different sounds.
scene@clevescene.com t@cleveland_scene
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magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015 49
LIVEWIRE
all the live music you should see this week Photo courtesy of the Boys from the County Hell
WED
12/23
10 X 3 Hosted by Brent Kirby (in the Wine Bar): 8 p.m. Brothers Lounge. Boys from the County Hell/Mary’s Lane: When the Boys from the County Hell first got together in 2000 as a Pogues cover band, it was supposed to be just a one-night stand. But after selling out their first show at the Euclid Tavern, the group’s popularity escalated. As you can imagine, the band is pretty busy by the time St. Patty’s Day rolls around. But it regularly plays a special holiday show this time of year too. The band’s been working on blending some horns into the mix so expect to hear a bit of R&B as it plays a selection of Pogues tunes as well as some seasonal covers tonight at House of Blues. (Jeff Niesel), 8 p.m., $10 ADV, $13 DOS. House of Blues. Wesley Bright & the Hi-Lites/The Monday Sound: 9 p.m., $13 ADV, $15 DOS. Beachland Ballroom. Austin Craig: 8 p.m., $8. Musica. Johanna Dey/Thread and Needle: 7 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern. How About No Home for the Holidays Show: 8 p.m., $5. Mahall’s 20 Lanes. Jingle Bell Rock & Hip-Hop Festival: 6 p.m., $10 ADV, $15 DOS. Agora Ballroom. Chris Massey and the Nue Jazz Project: 8 p.m., $12. BLU Jazz+. Motown Night with Moss Stanley and Nitebridge (in the Supper Club): 7:30 p.m., $8 ADV, $10 DOS. Music Box Supper Club. Northcoast Christmas with the Modern Electric/Seafair: 8:30 p.m., $10. Grog Shop. Punk Rock Festivus 3 with Harvey Pekar/Swirly in the Fryer/Shisho: 8:30 p.m., $5. Beachland Tavern. Daniel Reichard’s Under the Mistletoe: 7:30 p.m., $30-$50. Music Box Supper Club. Curtis Taylor Quartet: 7 p.m., $15. Nighttown.
THU
12/24
Christmas Eve with DJ A-Live: 10 p.m., Free. Now That’s Class.
FRI
12/25
Blue Lunch with Special Guest Mary Bridget Davies: For the past several years, the local blues/jazz/
50
The Boys from the County Hell raise some holiday hell at House of Blues. See: Wednesday.
soul outfit Blue Lunch has played a special Christmas concert. This year is no different. As a bonus, Cleveland-born singer Mary Briget Davies, who had a good run with the musical A Night With Janis Joplin, which ran for an extended period on Broadway and earned her a Tony Nomination, will on hand for tonight’s event. Latkes (Jewish potato pancakes) will be served along with all the other fine food the Beachland has to offer. Proceeds from the concert benefit the Collinwood-based Dream On Kids, a group that provides academic assistance and arts training for kids in the Collinwood area. (Niesel), 8 p.m., $12 ADV, $15 DOS. Beachland Ballroom. Grateful Phish-mas with Dead Ahead Ohio/Powerful Pills: If there’s one thing I’ve learned, nothing clears the mental detritus of a long day spent with extended family more effectively than a 20-minute “Tweezer.” Blessedly, this year, we’ll get the chance to catch one live. Grateful Phish-mas pairs two of Cleveland’s tributes to jam band giants for a night of heady space and cow funk. If you know, you know. But if you haven’t jumped on the bus, tonight is a terrific way to get into the greats and cap a fine, fine Christmas among good friends. Bring leftover cookies from your grandma’s house, avoid the brown acid and have a hell of a good time. Who’s got my extra?
magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015
(Eric Sandy), 9 p.m., $10. Beachland Tavern. Dennis Lewin: 10:30 p.m., free. Nighttown. X-Mess DJ Dance Party with DJ Red-I/East/West Collective: 9 p.m., Free. Grog Shop. Xe La/Tom Girard: 8 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern.
SAT
12/26
Mushroomhead Xmas: When the local metal act Mushroomhead first formed in 1993, few critics imagined the group would still be going at it years later. And yet the masked band is now more popular than ever. Its latest album, 2014’s The Righteous and the Butterfly, embraces a wide range of musical styles, including hip-hop, electronica and hard rock. Recorded at the band’s studio in North Royalton and mixed by long-time collaborator Bill Korecky, the disc is arguably the band’s most polished effort to date. Expect to hear songs from it as well as from the band’s back catalogue at tonight’s annual Christmas show. (Niesel), 7 p.m., $30-$75. Odeon. Rachel Brown & the Beatnik Playboys (in the Supper Club): 8 p.m., $7. Music Box Supper Club. California Speedbag/David Loy & the Ramrods: 8 p.m., $5. Beachland Tavern. Anne E. DeChant/Triage: 8 p.m.
Barking Spider Tavern. Duane and Caryn: 8 p.m. Brothers Lounge. Filmstrip/All Dinosaurs/Harlem Airshaft/Joshua Jesty: 3:56 p.m. Mahall’s 20 Lanes. Holiday Hangover Party Featuring Old Skool: 8 p.m. House of Blues. Joe Hunter and Friends: 8:30 p.m., $15. Nighttown. Carlos Jones & the P.L.U.S. Band Annual Holiday Revival Show/ Gato’s Gullah Gumbo: 8 p.m., $10 ADV, $12 DOS. Music Box Supper Club. Lo-Pan/Venomin James/The Ravenna Arsenal/Pillars: 9 p.m., $8. Grog Shop. Midnight/Party Plates/Vanilla Poppers: 9 p.m., $5. Now That’s Class. Radioactive: 9 p.m., $5. Vosh Club. Ratt: 8 p.m., $20-$35. Hard Rock Rocksino. Vanessa Rubin All-Star Quintet: 7 p.m., $25. BLU Jazz+. Sammy Slims: 9 p.m., $5. Happy Dog. This Moment in Black History (in the Locker Room): 9 p.m., $6 ADV, $8 DOS. Mahall’s 20 Lanes. Toneshift with Brian Blackbird: 9 p.m., $5. The Euclid Tavern. A Very Broccoli Christmas with Broccoli Samurai/Aqueous: 9 p.m., $10 ADV, $13 DOS. Beachland Ballroom. Jackie Warren: 10:30 p.m., free. Nighttown. Dan Wilson: 8 p.m. Akron Civic Theatre.
magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015 51
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magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015
LIVEWIRE SUN
12/27
Aranka Fabian/Gypseydaze: 8:30 p.m., $8 ADV, $10 DOS. Grog Shop. Bruce in the U.S.A.: 8 p.m., $15 ADV, $20 DOS. House of Blues. Clean House Benefit with I-Tal/ Outlaws/I & I/Austin ‘Walkin’ Cane/The Nazz 3/Daddy Longlegs Homegrow: 8 p.m., $15. Beachland Ballroom. Duel of the Iron Mic I: 9 p.m., Free. Mahall’s 20 Lanes. Eve N’ Stephen: 6 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern. Steve Hauschildt/LXV/Forest Management/Chemtrails: 9 p.m., $5. Now That’s Class. Brent Kirby: 3 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern. Mike Petrone (in the Wine Bar): 5:30 p.m. Brothers Lounge. Vanessa Rubin: 7 p.m., $25. Nighttown. The Schwartz Brothers: 8 p.m., $6. Beachland Tavern. The Wren Boys Festival 2015: 2 p.m., $8 ADV, $10 DOS. Music Box Supper Club.
MON
Nighttown. Velvet Voyage (in the Wine Bar): 8 p.m. Brothers Lounge.
TUE
12/29
28 North: Pittsburgh-based 28 North still maintains its Cleveland footprint, having gigged pretty frequently around the city and Northeast Ohio over the years. And while they’ve gone through some lineup changes, the same dedication to hard rock remains. In the words of the musicians themselves,
they’re serving up a “new classic American blend with an ethereal rockternative crunch.” (A bit of Jim James runs through the stylings of frontman Michael Lindner.) It all sounds terrific. And that much is very clear on the band’s releases over the years, which pair quite well with the stage. (Sandy), 5:30 p.m. Mahall’s 20 Lanes. DJ Dara/TashaTribeSteppaz/ Sheepdog/Logan Boggs: 9:30 p.m., $12 ADV, $15 DOS. Beachland Ballroom. Event Horizon: 8 p.m., $7 ADV, $10 DOS. Beachland Tavern.
Gary Leidy/Cyrens: 8 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern. Debi Lewin Variety Show: 7 p.m., $20. Nighttown. Living Colour/Outlaws I & I: 8 p.m. Music Box Supper Club. Two-Set Tuesday Featuring Chris Hanna: 7 p.m. Brothers Lounge. Underground Kingz: 9 p.m., $10. Grog Shop.
scene@clevescene.com t@cleveland_scene
12/28
Skatch Anderssen Orchestra: 8 p.m., $10. Brothers Lounge. Cloud Nothings/Aaron Dilloway/ Vanilla Poppers: A couple of years ago, the local indie rock outfit Cloud Nothings’ manager suggested the group make an album with producer John Congleton (Modest Mouse, St. Vincent). That manager no longer works for the band, but the band finally got to work with Congleton. He produced its new album, Here and Nowhere Else, which the band recorded in Hoboken at Water Music over an 8-day period. It’s another terrific from one of Cleveland’s best bands. Baldi is reportedly hard to work writing tunes for the follow-up album. With any luck, he’ll debut some of the songs at tonight’s gig. (Niesel), 9 p.m., $15. Grog Shop. The Holiday Comedown Tour Featuring Take a Breath/Brian Moroney/Marshall Traver: 8 p.m., $7 ADV, $10 DOS. Beachland Tavern. Guy Pernetti/Mike “Big Baby” Brown: 8:30 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern. Vanessa Rubin: 7 p.m., $25.
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magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015 53
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magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015
HOW ABOUT NO By Eric Sandy MEET THE BAND Mike Donovan (bass, vocals), Anthony Zart (drums), Nicholas Peters (guitar, vocals) WAY BACK WHEN The band started in the beginning of 2000; Peters and Donovan were high school friends who just wanted to get a band together. With Zart onboard, the band gigged for about four years. “We had a good run or whatever, but then we stopped and went back to school and all got jobs and everything,” Peters says. “It wasn’t until a couple years ago that we got back together just for fun. It was interesting to see how we’d evolved since the beginning.” Back then, the band was still sussing out its sound and parsing through their influences. Peters says that, looking back, he sees the efforts as a bit more “juvenile.” REVIVAL The band is back in action, gigging around the region when they can. They’ve all got jobs, and they don’t really want to “overplay” the city. As far as writing and rehearsing, that too is a matter of simply finding time and having fun. “It took us a little while, whereas before, in the past, we would just get together and do it: record,” Peters says. Over the course of a few months, though, the guys began penning new tunes. That led to their latest release, 8 Surefire Ways to Stay Irrelevant. The “musical album” slams eight fast-paced melodic
pop punk tunes through the stacks -- guaranteed head-banging stuff. “Opinions Are Like Assholes, So Be One,” the leadoff single, has Zart’s pulsing drums paving the way for chugging verses and anthemic choruses.
WHY YOU SHOULD HEAR THEM Northeast Ohio bears a terrific punk heritage, and How About No has been tapped into that world in one sense or another for the past 15 years. With new tunes like “If You’re Gonna Be The Worst, Be The Best At It” and “Always Say Never and Do the Bare Minimum,” How About No keeps the energy cranked to at least 11 throughout the album. Still, now that they’re back in the swing of things, the band is keeping its collective eye on the future. To flip a metaphor, Peters says that the band isn’t yet fully evolved. They’re the Australopithecus to a future Homo sapiens, he says. WHERE YOU CAN HEAR THEM how-about-no.bandcamp.com WHERE YOU CAN SEE THEM How About No headlines a holiday concert with Cypher, The Atmomix, SDWB and the Hooligans on Wednesday, Dec. 23, at Mahall’s.
esandy@clevescene.com t@ericsandy
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magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015 55
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magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015
SAVAGE LOVE COCK LOCKED By Dan Savage
Dear Dan, After spending some years in the doldrums after having kids, my husband and I are now enjoying hot kinky sex and the occasional free pass to fuck other people. We couldn’t be happier. I have a friend who was extremely keen for me to cage his cock with the same kind of locking male chastity device I got for my husband—a fixed-ring stainlesssteel type. I have two questions: (1) It took some maneuvering to get my husband’s balls through one by one, followed by his cock, but he managed. Is it okay for his balls to swell up tight, get cold, and go purple when he’s wearing the cock cage and he is aroused? He says it doesn’t hurt, and he is wearing it only while I peg him—a couple of hours tops. I worry that even though he can squeeze into the ring, he might be cutting off circulation and doing damage. (2) My friend couldn’t get his balls and cock into the cage. His balls never dropped as a child, so he had an operation that pulled them down but fixed them in place. Consequently they sit “high and tight” and can’t be pulled away from his body. Can you recommend a cage that might fit him? He is into total submission and orgasm denial, and he wants to experience long-term forced chastity and relinquish control of his dick to me. (Hot, right?!) If a cage can’t work for him, are there other toys/methods I can use to give him that sense of surrendered cock and loss of control? — Bitch Ably Locking Lucky Sluts Up Properly 1. “The first rule of thumb when it comes to male chastity is this: If the balls go blue or cold, take the fucking cock cage off!” said Christopher Miers, the founder and creative force behind Steelwerks (steelwerksextreme.com), purveyors of the world’s finest male chastity devices. “I’m a firm believer in play safe, stay comfortable, and cause pain or discomfort only when it’s asked for and nobody is at risk of long-term damage,” said Miers. “So for the sake of their marriage and the longevity of their hot kinky sex life, BALLSUP needs to get her guy a cage that keeps him trapped but still in the realm of safe!”
A short primer for readers who aren’t familiar with male chastity devices: Most are anchored in place by a ring that goes around the shaft and behind the balls. The penis slides into a cylinder that attaches to the top of the ring, and the cylinder prevents erections and can even punish erections. (Some are lined with spikes.) Once the chastity device is locked—cheaper ones with a wee padlock, custom ones with something more artful—there’s no way to remove it (and free the cock) without tearing the balls off. “I often hear from guys who wear cages made with a one-piece, slip-onstyle cock ring that it allows them to slip in easily and comfortably— but a lot of guys can remove these chastity devices even when they’re locked,” said Miers. “But a cage with a smaller, more secure cock ring often results in a cock ring that is too tight, especially when the person is using cheaper, mass-produced cages. The best chastity devices are ones that come with a cock ring that can be opened via a hinge or taken apart—then you can get a ring that might be too small to push his balls through using the one-ball-after-theother method, but because the ring comes apart, getting it on and off is much easier while providing the safety and inescapability both parties are looking for.” 2. “I encountered my first client with the ‘balls not dropping issue’ a few years back, and it is a challenge when it comes to chastity,” said Miers. “For most of these guys, I encourage a PA as a means of anchoring a lightweight chastity device.” (A PA, also known as a Prince Albert, involves poking a bonus hole in the urethra below the head of the cock and putting a ring through it.) “A PA combined with a chastity device is the most durable and secure way to lock a guy’s cock up for long-term orgasm denial and forced chastity play.” But if your friend can handle some pressure on his balls, BALLSUP, a traditional style chastity device with a hinged or two-piece cock ring might work.
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magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015 59
LEGAL NOTICES T-Mobile is proposing to collocate antennas on the top of an existing building located at 20755 Greenfield Drive (DE01036A Northland Towers); Southfield, Oakland County, Michigan 48075. T-Mobile is seeking comments from all interested persons on the impact of the proposed tower on any districts, sites, buildings, structures, or objects significant in American history, architecture, archaeology, engineering, or culture, that are listed or are eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. All questions, comments, and correspondence should be directed to Mr. Sheldon McLeod, at 520 South Main Street, Suite 2531, Akron, Ohio 44311, Phone # 330572-2284, or smcleod@gpdgroup.com.
T-Mobile is proposing to collocate antennas on the top of an existing building located at 1151Taylor Street (DE02010B Herman Keifer); Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan 48202. T-Mobile is seeking comments from all interested persons on the impact of the proposed tower on any districts, sites, buildings, structures, or objects significant in American history, architecture, archaeology, engineering, or culture, that are listed or are eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. All questions, comments, and correspondence should be directed to Mr. Sheldon McLeod, at 520 South Main Street, Suite 2531, Akron, Ohio 44311, Phone # 330572-2284, or smcleod@gpdgroup.com.
T-Mobile is proposing to collocate antennas on the top of an existing building located at 19855 West Outer Drive (DE04115B Garrison Building); Dearborn, Wayne County, Michigan 48127. T-Mobile is seeking comments from all interested persons on the impact of the proposed tower on any districts, sites, buildings, structures, or objects significant in American history, architecture, archaeology, engineering, or culture, that are listed or are eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. All questions, comments, and correspondence should be directed to Mr. Sheldon McLeod, at 520 South Main Street, Suite 2531, Akron, Ohio 44311, Phone # 330572-2284, or smcleod@gpdgroup.com.
T-Mobile is proposing to collocate antennas on the top of an existing building located at 15100 West 10 Mile Road (DE01054C Jewish Federation Building); Oak Park, Oakland County, Michigan 48237. T-Mobile is seeking comments from all interested persons on the impact of the proposed tower on any districts, sites, buildings, structures, or objects significant in American history, architecture, archaeology, engineering, or culture, that are listed or are eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. All questions, comments, and correspondence should be directed to Mr. Sheldon McLeod, at 520 South Main Street, Suite 2531, Akron, Ohio 44311, Phone # 330572-2284, or smcleod@gpdgroup.com.
T-Mobile is proposing to collocate antennas on an existing smoke stack located at 535 Madison Avenue (DE02037B DECOBeacon Heating); Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan 48226. T-Mobile is seeking comments from all interested persons on the impact of the proposed tower on any districts, sites, buildings, structures, or objects significant in American history, architecture, archaeology, engineering, or culture, that are listed or are eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. All questions, comments, and correspondence should be directed to Mr. Sheldon McLeod, at 520 South Main Street, Suite 2531, Akron, Ohio 44311, Phone # 330572-2284, or smcleod@gpdgroup.com.
T-Mobile is proposing to collocate antennas on the top of an existing building located at 100 East Jefferson Street (DE01100J Detroit Windsor Tunnel); Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan 48226. T-Mobile is seeking comments from all interested persons on the impact of the proposed tower on any districts, sites, buildings, structures, or objects significant in American history, architecture, archaeology, engineering, or culture, that are listed or are eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. All questions, comments, and correspondence should be directed to Mr. Sheldon McLeod, at 520 South Main Street, Suite 2531, Akron, Ohio 44311, Phone # 330572-2284, or smcleod@gpdgroup.com.
T-Mobile is proposing to collocate antennas on the top of an existing transmission tower located at 5185 Clarkston Road (DE02828C ITC Tower #9769); Independence, Oakland County, Michigan 48348. T-Mobile is seeking comments from all interested persons on the impact of the proposed tower on any districts, sites, buildings, structures, or objects significant in American history, architecture, archaeology, engineering, or culture, that are listed or are eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. All questions, comments, and correspondence should be directed to Mr. Sheldon McLeod, at 520 South Main Street, Suite 2531, Akron, Ohio 44311, Phone # 330572-2284, or smcleod@gpdgroup.com.
T-Mobile is proposing to collocate antennas on the top of an existing telecommunications tower located at 12730 Beech Daly Road (DE04141A Beech Daly Glendale); Redford Township, Wayne County, Michigan 48239. T-Mobile is seeking comments from all interested persons on the impact of the proposed tower on any districts, sites, buildings, structures, or objects significant in American history, architecture, archaeology, engineering, or culture, that are listed or are eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. All questions, comments, and correspondence should be directed to Mr. Sheldon McLeod, at 520 South Main Street, Suite 2531, Akron, Ohio 44311, Phone # 330572-2284, or smcleod@gpdgroup.com.
T-Mobile is proposing to collocate antennas on the top of an existing telecommunications tower located at 23850 Military Drive (DE01330D VFW Stitt Post); Dearborn Heights, Wayne County, Michigan 48127. T-Mobile is seeking comments from all interested persons on the impact of the proposed tower on any districts, sites, buildings, structures, or objects significant in American history, architecture, archaeology, engineering, or culture, that are listed or are eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. All questions, comments, and correspondence should be directed to Mr. Sheldon McLeod, at 520 South Main Street, Suite 2531, Akron, Ohio 44311, Phone # 330572-2284, or smcleod@gpdgroup.com.
T-Mobile is proposing to collocate antennas on the top of an existing transmission tower located at 44860 Oleander Drive (DE03020B DECO Tower #10859); Sterling Heights, Macomb County, Michigan 48311. T-Mobile is seeking comments from all interested persons on the impact of the proposed tower on any districts, sites, buildings, structures, or objects significant in American history, architecture, archaeology, engineering, or culture, that are listed or are eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. All questions, comments, and correspondence should be directed to Mr. Sheldon McLeod, at 520 South Main Street, Suite 2531, Akron, Ohio 44311, Phone # 330572-2284, or smcleod@gpdgroup.com.
T-Mobile is proposing to collocate antennas on the top of an existing building located at 1370Electric Avenue (DE01420K Lincoln Park Towers); Lincoln Park, Wayne County, Michigan 48146. T-Mobile is seeking comments from all interested persons on the impact of the proposed tower on any districts, sites, buildings, structures, or objects significant in American history, architecture, archaeology, engineering, or culture, that are listed or are eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. All questions, comments, and correspondence should be directed to Mr. Sheldon McLeod, at 520 South Main Street, Suite 2531, Akron, Ohio 44311, Phone # 330572-2284, or smcleod@gpdgroup.com.
T-Mobile is proposing to collocate antennas on the top of an existing building located at 50 Church Street (DE03203D MC Housing Commission); Mount Clemens, Macomb County, Michigan 48043. T-Mobile is seeking comments from all interested persons on the impact of the proposed tower on any districts, sites, buildings, structures, or objects significant in American history, architecture, archaeology, engineering, or culture, that are listed or are eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. All questions, comments, and correspondence should be directed to Mr. Sheldon McLeod, at 520 South Main Street, Suite 2531, Akron, Ohio 44311, Phone # 330572-2284, or smcleod@gpdgroup.com.
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T-Mobile is proposing to collocate antennas on the top of an existing transmission tower located at 42371 Interstate 94 Service Drive (DE04156B DECO Tower #10616); Belleville, Wayne County, Michigan 48111. T-Mobile is seeking comments from all interested persons on the impact of the proposed tower on any districts, sites, buildings, structures, or objects significant in American history, architecture, archaeology, engineering, or culture, that are listed or are eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. All questions, comments, and correspondence should be directed to Mr. Sheldon McLeod, at 520 South Main Street, Suite 2531, Akron, Ohio 44311, Phone # 330-572-2284, or smcleod@ gpdgroup.com. T-Mobile is proposing to collocate antennas on the top of an existing building located at 10201 Joseph Campau Street (DE04195A Domestic Furniture RT); Hamtramck, Wayne County, Michigan 48015. T-Mobile is seeking comments from all interested persons on the impact of the proposed tower on any districts, sites, buildings, structures, or objects significant in American history, architecture, archaeology, engineering, or culture, that are listed or are eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. All questions, comments, and correspondence should be directed to Mr. Sheldon McLeod, at 520 South Main Street, Suite 2531, Akron, Ohio 44311, Phone # 330572-2284, or smcleod@gpdgroup.com. T-Mobile is proposing to collocate antennas on the top of an existing church steeple located at15889 East Seven Mile Road (DE04383M St. Jude Church); Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan 48205. T-Mobile is seeking comments from all interested persons on the impact of the proposed tower on any districts, sites, buildings, structures, or objects significant in American history, architecture, archaeology, engineering, or culture, that are listed or are eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. All questions, comments, and correspondence should be directed to Mr. Sheldon McLeod, at 520 South Main Street, Suite 2531, Akron, Ohio 44311, Phone # 330572-2284, or smcleod@gpdgroup.com.
T-Mobile is proposing to collocate antennas on the top of an existing building located at 21700 Greenfield Road (DE04402M Greenfield Plaza); Oak Park, Oakland County, Michigan 48237. T-Mobile is seeking comments from all interested persons on the impact of the proposed tower on any districts, sites, buildings, structures, or objects significant in American history, architecture, archaeology, engineering, or culture, that are listed or are eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. All questions, comments, and correspondence should be directed to Mr. Sheldon McLeod, at 520 South Main Street, Suite 2531, Akron, Ohio 44311, Phone # 330-572-2284, or smcleod@gpdgroup. com. T-Mobile is proposing to collocate antennas on the top of an existing building located at 8711 2nd Avenue (DE04426M Lee Crest LLC); Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan 48202. T-Mobile is seeking comments from all interested persons on the impact of the proposed tower on any districts, sites, buildings, structures, or objects significant in American history, architecture, archaeology, engineering, or culture, that are listed or are eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. All questions, comments, and correspondence should be directed to Mr. Sheldon McLeod, at 520 South Main Street, Suite 2531, Akron, Ohio 44311, Phone # 330-572-2284, or smcleod@gpdgroup. com. T-Mobile is proposing to collocate antennas on the top of an existing telecommunications tower located at 3255 Goldner Street (DE04443M DET1277 Elixir Corp); Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan 48210. T-Mobile is seeking comments from all interested persons on the impact of the proposed tower on any districts, sites, buildings, structures, or objects significant in American history, architecture, archaeology, engineering, or culture, that are listed or are eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. All questions, comments, and correspondence should be directed to Mr. Sheldon McLeod, at 520 South Main Street, Suite 2531, Akron, Ohio 44311, Phone # 330-572-2284, or smcleod@gpdgroup. com. T-Mobile is proposing to collocate antennas on the top of an existing building at 4951 Ternes Street (DE04453M Dearborn Public Schools), Dearborn, Michigan 48126. T-Mobile is seeking comments from all interested persons on the impact of the proposed tower on any districts, sites, buildings, structures, or objects significant in American history, architecture, archaeology, engineering, or culture, that are listed or are eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. All questions, comments, and correspondence should be directed to Mr. Sheldon McLeod, at 520 South Main Street, Suite 2531, Akron, Ohio 44311, Phone # 330-572-2284, or smcleod@gpdgroup. com. T-Mobile is proposing to collocate antennas on the top of an existing building located at 16333 Trenton Road; Southgate, Michigan 48195. T-Mobile is seeking comments from all interested persons on the impact of the proposed tower on any districts, sites, buildings, structures, or objects significant in American history, architecture, archaeology, engineering, or culture, that are listed or are eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. All questions, comments, and correspondence should be directed to Mr. Sheldon McLeod, at 520 South Main Street, Suite 2531, Akron, Ohio 44311, Phone # 330572-2284, or smcleod@gpdgroup.com.
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magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015 61
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Fedex.com/us/careers magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015
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magazine | clevescene.com | December 23 - 29, 2015 63
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