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magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016 3
JA N UA RY 13 - 19, 2 016 • VO LU M E 4 6 No 2 8
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 44 Upfront
Editorial Managing Editor Eric Sandy Music Editor Jeff Niesel Staff Writer Sam Allard Dining Editor Douglas Trattner Contributing Dining Editor Nikki Delamotte Stage Editor Christine Howey Visual Arts Editor Josh Usmani
6
Fire at Lolita, Joe Cimperman resigns, and more
Advertising Senior Multimedia Account Executive John Crobar, Shayne Rose Multimedia Account Executive Kiara Hunter-Davis, Joseph Williamson, Savannah Drdek
Framed
Our favorite photos we’ve shared with you this week
10
Creative Services Production Manager Steve Miluch Layout Editor/Graphic Designer Christine Hahn Staff Photographer Emanuel Wallace
Feature
13
Get Out!
23
Art
28
Stage
29
Film
31
Dining
33
Music
41
A look at how the city of Cleveland is navigating the world of police department settlements
Business Asst. To The Publisher Angela Lott Sales Assistant/Receptionist Megan Stimac Circulation Circulation Director Don Kriss Euclid Media Group Chief Executive Officer Andrew Zelman Chief Operating Officers Chris Keating, Michael Wagner Human Resources Director Lisa Beilstein Digital Operations Coordinator Jaime Monzon www.euclidmediagroup.com
Dozens of events spanning the next week in Cleveland
Transformer Station showcases impermanence of art and life
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Revisiting the Hough riots in Incendiaries at Cleveland Public Theatre
Cleveland Scene Magazine is published every week by Euclid Media Group. Verified Audit Member Cleveland Distribution Scene is available free of charge, limited to one copy per reader Copyright The entire contents of Cleveland Scene Magazine are copyright 2015 by Euclid Media Group. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher is prohibited. Publisher does not assume any liability for unsolicited manuscripts, materials, or other content. Any submission must include a stamped, self-addressed envelope. All editorial, advertising, and business correspondence should be mailed to the address listed above. Subscriptions $150 (1 yr); $ 80 (6 mos.) Send name, address and zip code with check or money order to the address listed above with the title ‘Attn: Subscription Department’
Ron Weasley, Hellboy stage the moon landing in new action-comedy
Sarita opens in former Players spot, though doesn’t quite achieve same heights
Holy Holy Tour aims to give Bowie’s The Man Who Sold the World album its proper due
Savage Love
Infuriating racist preferences
...The story continues at clevescene.com Take
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magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016
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magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016 5
UPFRONT FIRE DAMAGES PROPERTY, HISTORY AT LOLITA A FIRE AT LOLITA, MICHAEL Symon’s Tremont restaurant, began early Sunday afternoon, according to the chef and owner. “[It] started between the top floor ceiling and the roof, so they had to cut it open,” he explained, while still in constant contact with responders on the scene. “[There’s a] tremendous amount of smoke upstairs. We currently don’t feel as if it has spread downstairs.” No word as to when the restaurant will reopen, as the story is still developing. The extent of the damage is still being assessed, though Symon wrote in a later Facebook post that it appeared to be “significant.” The silver lining is that nobody was injured in the blaze. Lolita, which began life as Lola, Michael and Liz Symon’s first restaurant, opened 20 years ago next year. “This is just fucking awful, 19 years of memories literally going up in smoke,” Symon said. On Monday afternoon Symon added: “[We’re] still not allowed to touch anything as they are assessing damage.”
JOE CIMPERMAN RESIGNS FROM COUNCIL
THIS WEEK
Cleveland City Councilman Joe Cimperman, the man who can give a three-hour interview in 30 minutes, has announced that he is resigning from City Council to take over as president of Global Cleveland, the nonprofit geared toward attracting “newcomers” to the region. The Global Cleveland board announced last week that they’d unanimously elected Cimperman after a “lengthy and thorough executive search.” He’ll begin work there this spring, just as soon as he finishes up 2016 budget meetings with the city. In March, City Council will appoint a candidate to replace Cimperman. That appointee will serve the remainder of his current term, which
6
Photo courtesy of Dante Boccuzzi
A fire struck the second floor of Lolita in Tremont on Sunday.
ends Dec. 31, 2017. It’ll be a lot like the Brian Kazy situation. Kazy took over for Marty Sweeney in January 2015 when Sweeney was elected to the state legislature, and was re-elected for a full term later in the year. Cimperman’s replacement will serve for nearly two years before he/she will face the nuisance of a campaign. Meantime, Cimperman will join an organization that has been without a permanent president since April, when then-president Joy Roller “resigned.” In a letter to friends and supporters of Global Cleveland, board chair David Fleshler (Case Western’s international provost) called Cimperman the “visionary leader with the background, capabilities and passion to take our organization to the next level.” Cimperman served on City Council for seven terms, representing constituents in the St. Clair-Superior neighborhood, the Flats, downtown, Tremont and Ohio City. He is currently the Ward 3 councilman. His is a ward that encompasses the hottest areas of Cleveland’s recent economic and cultural resurgence. (His replacement, presumably, will
SHIPPING SAFETY
Councilman Zack Reed proposes raising income tax to increase funding for police. Steve Loomis, reportedly already reupping Amazon Prime for his union, was unavailable for comment.
ACES
have deep ties to the neighborhood development sector, although Angela Shuckahosee, Executive Director of the Cleveland Tenants Organization, is making some noise as a potential replacement.) Cimperman is also, as he regularly points out, the son of a Slovenian immigrant. “It has been a deep honor to serve the constituents of Ward 3 and the city of Cleveland these past 18 years on Cleveland City Council,” Cimperman said in a Global Cleveland statement. “With this experience and a heart of service I am truly excited to join the Global Cleveland team and to continue its critical economic, community and human development work of making our city and region ever stronger.” Council President Kevin Kelley, who has often praised Cimperman’s work as the Health and Human Services chair, was effusive in his comments. “There is no one with a bigger heart for the less fortunate in our community than Joe Cimperman,” Kelley said in a statement released by the city. “Joe’s energy, passion and grassroots work has consistently brought about positive changes.” Mayor Jackson, too, bid the fast-
Wednesday Powerball jackpot soars to $1.4 billion as of press time. When asked what he’d do if he won, Dan Gilbert said “the county’s a much safer bet.”
magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016
STRUGGLE IS REAL Cleveland 19 News presumably *still* staking out Johnny Manziel’s Avon home. Internal memo suggests editorial staff “move in, get comfy, order Domino’s” as work continues.
talking councilman farewell. “I congratulate Global Cleveland for a very good choice in selecting Joe Cimperman,” he said. “Joe has always shown great passion and compassion in standing with both the immigrant and refugee populations here in Cleveland. His work ethic and leadership speak volumes to his capabilities.” Cleveland.com’s Columbus Bureau Chief Robert Higgs reported Friday that Cimperman’s resignation was unrelated to an ongoing probe by the Ohio Ethics Commission. They’re looking into Cimperman’s involvement in city contracts awarded to LAND Studio, where his wife, Nora Romanoff, is the senior project director. As of Friday, Cimperman had not spoken to the Commission.
FIRST-TIME HEAD COACHES LEERY OF BROWNS JOB In the last week, the Cleveland Browns have conducted head coaching interviews with seven different candidates. Two of them — Adam Gase and Jerome Henderson — are headed to Miami, and a few others may also be dropping out of the running – and not because they’ve landed a new job. According to a source, several of the first-time coaching candidates, especially New England defensive coordinator Matt Patricia, seem to be feeling reluctant about choosing Cleveland as their first head coaching destination. On the surface, the 41-year-old Patricia seems like he could be an outstanding choice to help assist the new-fangled Browns leadership. With the elaborate executive system in place to dictate the roster and major decisions, Patricia could pour his entire focus into Xs and Os as the head coach, while also likely still call the plays on defense, his pride and joy. According to some reporters, Patricia might not be against the use of analytics to help make football
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UPFRONT decisions either. Firmly entrenched in this new way of thinking, Cleveland’s power players ideally want to choose a younger head coach to grow with over the course of time. This seems like a win-win. But because he’s aligned with Bill Belichick, Patricia will remain a hot coaching name for many seasons to come, and the source said Cleveland is (obviously) not considered an ideal place to begin a head coaching career. Of the six coaches the Browns have fired since Mike Pettine, only one of them have returned to the sidelines as a head coach (Romeo Crennel), and that includes former Belichick protégé Eric Mangini. Through Jimmy Haslam’s quick trigger finger and the perpetual losing and chaotic reputation, the owner may have alienated some of football’s brightest minds. On NBC’s broadcast of the Seahawks-Vikings game, Cris Collinsworth pointed out Minnesota’s Mike Zimmer was once offered the head coaching gig at Nebraska and had the inside track on a few other NFL opportunities, but the longtime coordinator was not going to jump
at the first offer. He waited for the Minnesota gig and it’s ended up being the perfect fit. His approach seems to be impacting other candidates who already possess strong credentials as coordinators of solid organizations. Becoming an NFL head coach used to be the most sought after prize, no matter the NFL franchise. Now? It’s become much more of a strategic career move. It’s understandable why Patricia would view the Cleveland job as a risk to his future. If the Browns do land Patricia, something not totally out of the question, it should be viewed as a major victory for Sashi Brown and Paul DePodesta. Brown is a negotiator at heart and has salesman skills to frame interview questions in a way to entice someone like Patricia. But the reality of the Browns’ situation is that they not only have to convince coaching candidates to trust their involvement in football decisions, they’re still fighting the league-wide perception that Cleveland is a coach killing factory. Of the candidates the Browns have interviewed, Doug Marrone and Hue Jackson are the only applicants with previous head coaching experience. Pouncing on Jackson seems like the best option on the table.
WASTE NOT. The city has fired five employees in its division of waste collection after shelling out $1.3 million in overtime in 2015 and realizing that a significant number of garbage men just aren’t showing up for work. Council members were incensed and confused at a finance meeting Monday, at which finance director Sharon Dumas apprised them of the grim year-end totals: the city paid 274 percent more than they’d budgeted on overtime for waste collection. “Chronic absenteeism” was the problem of that Dumas emphasized, though council members pointed to deeper concerns. Was the division understaffed? Under equipped? Was absenteeism why garbage was being picked up so late in some areas and not at all in others? Much of this was brought to the city’s attention when Channel 19’s Carl Monday chronicled the overtime fiasco in action. With hidden cameras, his investigative team followed a city garbage collector as he clocked in and then spent hours running personal errands and chilling at his house, all on the city’s dime.
DIGIT WIDGET 189
Rooms in the new Drury Plaza Hotel, housed in the former Cleveland Board of Education Building, which is nearing completion for a spring opening. (Nightly rates will start at $180.)
$813 MILLION
Current domestic box-office haul for Star Wars: The Force Awakens; it’s already the biggest domestic gross of all time.
$10
Cost of the 2016-2017 Cleveland Cavalier Girls calendar, the proceeds from which benefit the Cavaliers’ youth fund.
82
Days until Opening Day at Progressive Field (as of Wednesday).
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magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016
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magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016
FEATURE
CITY HALL SCREWJOB While Cleveland pays lip service to police reform, the city is also employing a novel legal maneuver to avoid paying court settlements to victims of bad cops By Kyle Swenson SHAUNA SMITH SAT IN THE COURTROOM EACH DAY, nausea knotting her stomach, as lawyers tussled over the details of how a Cleveland police officer killed her son. The trial stretched over a week last September on the 19th floor of the Federal Building downtown. Witnesses climbed into the stand before Judge Solomon Oliver and the eleven jurors, each speaker reeling off first-hand accounts or expert testimony. Smith, a baby-faced South Euclid woman topped with a swirl of reddish hair, absorbed everything — blood-flecked crime scene photos; grisly autopsy reports; the words of the very officer who pulled the trigger. The sum total of the trial essentially ripped off the emotional bandages she’d worn for the past two years after the death of her son. “It was like reliving everything,” Smith recalls today. “It was an awful experience.” Illustration by Ronan Lynam
magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016 13
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magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016
magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016 15
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magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016
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FEATURE In March 2012, Smith’s son Kenny, a promising rapper then riding an express elevator to the top of the local hip-hop talent heap, was in a downtown bar when a fight spilled out into the parking lot. Gunshots ripped the night. The 20-year-old jumped into the car of a friend from the neighborhood. An off-duty Cleveland police officer named Roger Jones, thinking the car contained the shooter, ran to the vehicle with his gun drawn. Moments later, another gunshot, this time from the off-duty cop’s gun. Jones, and police officials, quickly said in the aftermath that Kenny had been shot while reaching for a gun in the car. Officer Jones “correctly and heroically took action to protect the safety of the citizens of Cleveland,” Cuyahoga County prosecutor Tim McGinty said in a letter to Cleveland Police Chief Calvin D. Williams after McGinty’s office ruled the shooting was justified. But now, inside a federal courtroom three years later, that official account was toppling over. Smith’s attorneys Terry Gilbert and Jacqueline Greene argued Officer Jones had violated Kenny Smith’s civil rights with an unjustified use of deadly force. They dismantled the city and Jones’ story with the help of an eyewitness who had watched Smith die outside the car, with his hands up. Physical evidence — there was no blood in the car — backed up the scenario. The city’s version of the story — that Smith was shot in the head, then walked a few steps onto the pavement where he expired — came off as implausible. So confidence was high as the jury packed up for deliberations on the morning of Sept. 8. Smith and her family members barely had time to get settled in the courthouse cafeteria for the wait when they were told the jury was back. It was before noon. Shauna Smith was sunk in an expectant daze as the jury handed over their decision. Slowly the words began tumbling from Judge Oliver, a storm of legalese filling Smith’s confused ears. Only when the judge began reading dollar amounts did she realize they’d won: $4.5 million for the wrongful death, $1 million for Kenny’s survivors. Her face wet with tears, Smith wrapped her attorneys in hugs, ready to finally push on into a different part of her life. Her son’s death had occasioned the secondlargest civil judgment against a Cleveland officer in recent history.
“It was joyful,” Smith recalls today. “I thought now at least I could move forward with my life, try to live normally.” But thanks to some crafty moves from the city’s law department, Smith’s moment of justice might never come. Across the country, piggy bank-
to move into personal bankruptcy. It’s a calculated effort, according to the attorneys fighting the move, for the city to skip out on their responsibilities to pay the judgments. The screwjob burns all the more after the parade of black eyes the city has suffered due to cops and criminal justice. Just as mayor Frank Jackson,
Kenny Smith’s shooting death became a linchpin example of the city’s approach to civil litigation.
busting civil judgments have become the best way to keep police and municipalities honest in cases of officer misconduct. From 2004 to 2014, for instance, Cleveland shelled out $10.5 million in settlement money to victims of badly behaving cops. Under state law and the terms of the union contract, chronically cash-strapped Cleveland indemnifies officers in the cases where they’ve been personally found liable, meaning ultimately, taxpayers foot the bill for an officer’s misconduct. But now, in the two largest civil judgments currently sitting on the books — one being Kenny Smith’s death; the other a sloppy and malicious murder investigation that railroaded an innocent man — the city has pulled a move that one veteran civil rights lawyer calls “wrong, immoral, disingenuous and unethical.” In both cases, the Cleveland law department used city funds to pay for cops saddled with judgments
clutching the Department of Justice’s 2014 consent decree, promised citywide soul-searching on police reform, Cleveland’s law department is messing with civil matters that have already been decided by a jury. And the implications aren’t only local. “This provides a road map for any municipality that wants to evade their obligations,” says Ruth Brown, a Chicago attorney currently locked in legal judo with Cleveland over the issue. “We fully expect that if Cleveland is allowed to get away with this, they will try this again.”
The clerks who were catching incoming filings at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Northern District of Ohio in July 2013 wouldn’t have had much reason to run more than a bored eye over the 52-page filing stamped with Denise Kovach’s name. The retired Cleveland police
detective listed the usual hohum stack of assets: an $82,500 Brecksville home; $66,000 in a public employee retirement plan; $63 in cash; a $250 9mm Smith and Wesson; two toy poodles checking in at $500. But a closer look would have spotted a surprise in the debt column: $13.2 million, all owed to a man named David Ayers. “Federal Section 1983 Claim,” the listing notes, “rendered March 2013.” In December 1999, David Ayers was a Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority security guard when a 76-year-old woman was found beaten to death in the authorityowned high-rise Ayers called home as part of his job. CMHA police and the Cleveland detectives assigned to the case, Denise Kovach and Michael Cipo, put Ayers in the crosshairs of their investigation, despite zero concrete evidence tethering him to the death. Instead, the detectives made false statements in search warrant affidavits; testified Ayers made a partial confession (even though neither noted such a statement in their case notes — case notes, incidentally, which take the time to point out when an interviewee appeared “gay like”); forced a friend of Ayers to sign a false affidavit (the friend later said he was coerced into signing); declined to follow-up on (and later didn’t tell defense attorneys about) a recent fight the victim had had with a family member who was stealing her money; and dispatched a jailhouse snitch, armed with details of the case, to chat up Ayers in jail. At trial, that snitch, Donald Hutchinson, told a jury the former CMHA officer confessed to the crime. All this — what a later 2013 appellate court judge would call sufficient “evidence that Detectives Cipo and Kovach conspired to violate [Ayers’] civil rights” — secured Ayers’ conviction in March 2000. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole. So began a 11-year legal brawl, with Ayers and his attorneys from the Ohio Innocence Project mounting a series of state and federal appeals to right the wrongful conviction. Finally, in 2011, DNA evidence secured from pubic hairs found on the body of the victim was tested. It failed to match Ayers. He was exonerated, and quickly launched a federal lawsuit, known as a Federal Section 1983 claim, against the city, CHMA, and the detectives Case Bargè who engineered his railroading. Lawyers for the city of Cleveland law department represented the officers
magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016 17
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when the case found its way to trial in early 2013. That March, jurors found that, yes, Kovach and Cipo had violated Ayers’ rights with their investigation and arrest. The exoneree was awarded a $13.2 million judgment against the two detectives, the largest such judgment at the time. But Ayers’ happy financial ending wasn’t in the offing. As records now indicate, a month after the verdict, Cleveland Law Director Barbara Langhenry signed a contract with a Broadview Heights attorney named David Leneghan to represent Kovach and Cipo. The detectives “have requested legal representation to assist them with personal, individual bankruptcy proceedings,” the contract stated. Cipo never got a chance: He died in July 2013. But later that month, Kovach dropped her 52page Chapter 7 filing on the district court, including the tallies of assets (toy poodles, Smith & Wesson) and debts, including $6,000 in credit, and nearly $13 million for the Federal Section 1983 claim. By November, with a routine snap of a bankruptcy judge’s pen, the millions Ayers had earned from his decade in hell were swept away, and with it, apparently to the city’s thinking at least, Cleveland’s obligation to foot the bill for the bad cops and the justice awarded by the jury.
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“We became notified the officer was filing for bankruptcy, and basically realized Cleveland had engaged in a wrongful scheme to evade the judgment,” explains Ruth Brown, one of Ayers’ attorneys at the Chicago firm Loevy & Loevy. In a typical case where a city employee has been slapped with a civil lawsuit, the Ohio Revised Code dictates the municipality has the “duty to defend” the employee as long as they were “acting both in good faith and not manifestly outside the scope of employment or official responsibilities.” So too with indemnification: If the employee meets those two requirements and is found liable for a civil judgment, the law says the city indemnifies — or picks up the tab. This tracks nationally. “Police officers are virtually always indemnified,” wrote UCLA law professor Joanna C. Schwartz in a 2014 study that crunched data on
settlements from the country’s largest police departments, including the Cleveland PD. Overall, Schwartz found that cities indemnify officers in 99.98 percent of the cases she studied. “Between 2006 and 2011, in forty-four of the country’s largest jurisdictions, officers financially contributed to settlements and judgments in just .41 percent of the approximately 9,225 civil rights damages actions resolved in plaintiff’s favor,” she wrote. “[A]nd their contributions amounted to just .02 percent of the over $730 million spent by cities, counties and states in these cases.” Interestingly, Schwartz found that Cleveland was one of the few municipalities that hadn’t fully indemnified officers in two cases out of the 35 local civil rights actions resolved in favor of the plaintiff that she examined. In one case, Cleveland officers beat up a handcuffed driver after an auto accident during an unrelated 2007 car chase. One of the cops was criminally charged from the incident and later fronted $25,000 of the total $45,000 paid to the victim. The other case stemmed from a 2009 lawsuit ignited when an off-duty Cleveland police officer working security at a housing complex shot and killed a resident. The officer eventually paid $12,000 of the total $47,000 payout. However these cases, where the incident was outside of the scope of the officer’s employment or led to criminal charges — i.e., was done in bad faith — have little in common with the Ayers case. But rather than indemnify per state law in that case, the city paid for the officers to enter bankruptcy — paying not only for their legal representation, but for their filing fee. Not to think about going into bankruptcy, Ayers’ attorney Brown points out, but to dive right in. “I think it’s really clear when you look at the contract that the purpose was not to provide the officers with neutral, unbiased legal advice,” she explains. “It was to ensure they filed for bankruptcy right away.” For one, the contract didn’t pay the attorney by the hour, but instead forked over a $1,000 lump sum for each bankruptcy. “This is pretty unusual,” Brown argues. The contract also does not compensate the bankruptcy attorney for any legal research; in fact, the attorney must get permission from the city’s law department to undertake any research, discouraging the officers from finding an alternative to bankruptcy.
After 11 years of wrongful incarceration, David Ayers went on to earn an associates degree in criminal justice. Photo courtesy of the Ohio Innocence Project.
So why would the city want its officers to go into bankruptcy? To flush away the judgment without indemnifying the officers, Ayers’ lawyers claim. As Brown points out, when Kovach’s filing actually hit the court, nowhere in the document did it mention Kovach had a right to indemnification for the Ayers debt. Brown argues the situation created a plus-sized conflict of interest: It doesn’t benefit Kovach to declare bankruptcy when her debt can be paid off by the city. But it does benefit the city for Kovach to declare bankruptcy rather than seek indemnification from Cleveland. And Cleveland was paying for Kovach to go into bankruptcy. “No attorney in good faith would ever counsel a client to go bankrupt instead of seeking indemnification first from the city of Cleveland,” Brown argues. “The only reason these employees made that decision is because the attorneys representing them were also representing the city of Cleveland.” She continues: “Once Cleveland had any thought it was not going to indemnify the officers, it was not appropriate to have the same counsel representing Cleveland and the officers. It’s a clear violation of legal ethics.” In June 2015, Ayers fired off a lawsuit against the city, an attorney in the city’s law department, and the bankruptcy attorney who represented Kovach in her Chapter 7 filing. The new complaint blasted the city for an “ill-conceived attempt to avoid” the judgment. Although the city declined to answer questions about the lawsuit due to ongoing litigation, subsequent filings have staked out its position. Cleveland doesn’t believe a plaintiff in such a case has any right to indemnification if the officer involved doesn’t want it. The city also points
out that the police union contract caps indemnification at $1 million. That said, as Brown and Ayers’ other attorneys point out, state law requires full indemnification: no cap. And the police union contract contains language suggesting the Ohio code trumps the contract’s fine print. “It’s a tenuous legal argument that no court has endorsed,” Brown says flatly. “Cleveland is required to indemnify above a million dollars. And they have indemnified officers in the past above a million dollars.” In 2000, the city paid out a $3.1 million judgment won in civil court by a man paralyzed after being shot by police. Three years later, the city paid $1.9 million to the family of a 6-year-old boy accidentally shot by a Cleveland detective in Collinwood. In 2008, the family of Ricado Mason won $1 million in a wrongful death suit. David Leneghan, the bankruptcy attorney paid by the city to file Kovach’s filing and one of the parties named in the recent Ayers lawsuit, blasts back against the allegations in the complaint. He says that Ayers’ own attorneys waited too long to make the indemnification an issue, after the bankruptcy was closed, even though they knew it was going forward. “David Ayers’ purported right to personally seek compensation from my client’s employer is not an asset which should have been listed in bankruptcy,” Leneghan wrote to Scene in an email. “David Ayers’ right to seek payment from my client’s employer existed both before and after bankruptcy — there was no interference with that. Bankruptcy just means that my client will not have to be personally liable, nor have to personally pay, the Ayers judgment.” He continues: “I have repeatedly stated on the record that it appears
magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016 19
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magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016
that David Ayers waited too long, more than two years, before filing his lawsuit for indemnification, which, in my opinion, is beyond the statute of limitation period for a claim for statutory indemnification in Ohio.” Some of that legal swamp will be drained and clarified as the parties continue to spar in court. In the meantime, Ayers hasn’t seen any of his $13.2 million judgment. (Ayers did receive a $50,000 settlement from CMHA police before his civil trial.) Also, it’s become apparent the bankruptcy ploy isn’t a one-time legal chess move in Cleveland’s playbook. As part of the paper shuffling that goes on between sides in the pregame of a lawsuit, Ayers’ attorneys asked the city if they’d hired bankruptcy attorneys for any other officers facing civil judgment. The city answered with a contract between Cleveland and a private attorney to provide those services for Roger Jones, the off-duty officer who shot and killed Kenny Smith. The documents were dated about six weeks after the Cleveland officer was found liable for the death.
Smith’s attorneys weren’t happy when they were alerted last fall about the situation. “They seem to want to try every possible angle to defeat the justice that’s required by the court in providing indemnification,” attorney Terry Gilbert says. “It would be like if you were in a car accident and there’s insurance for the wrongdoer, but the insurance company refuses to pay — that’s unheard of. That’s what they’re supposed to do.” But the city’s moves in the Ayers and Smith cases have implications that go beyond the two cases, as Gilbert, and civil rights lawyers across the country, clearly point out. As the recent Tamir Rice situation shows, police misconduct cases are less likely to find footing in the criminal justice system. “Civil rights lawsuits for money damages under the Federal Civil Rights Act are really the only check that exists on rampant police misconduct that is resulting in hundreds of unnecessary deaths, years in prison on the basis of frame ups, and many more small injuries,” says John Burton, a California attorney who serves as president of the National Police Accountability Project, a non-profit branch of the National Lawyer’s Guild. Cleveland’s actions in the Smith
and Ayers case appear to be an attempt to dance around that check. “I haven’t heard of this happening a lot,” Burton adds. For the city — which is still trying to scrub off the umbrage of the Department of Justice’s 2014 consent decree regarding bad police practices, the controversial acquittal
David Ayers, earlier, upon being booked into the prison system
of police officer Michael Brelo and the deaths of Tamir Rice and Tanisha Anderson — even the appearance of a concerted effort on the part of the law department to shake loose of the federal judgments tied to police misconduct is a bad look. “I believe that a chronic problem in municipal governments nationwide is the disconnect between the responsibilities of the law department and the responsibilities of the politicians that run the municipality,” says David Malik, a Cleveland civil rights attorney who is not involved in either the Ayers or Smith cases. “You could have a very benevolent mayor who feels for his constituents about a wrong that has occurred,” Malik says. “At the same time, you could have a law department that is sending a message like they are sending in the Ayers case, which is, ‘I don’t care.’” Subodh Chandra, the local attorney representing the Tamir Rice family, also served as law director in Mayor Jane Campbell’s administration. During his tenure, Chandra says his office would seek to resolve cases quickly where the city could face exposure in the early innings of litigation. “Unfortunately, the law department over the last decade has not been doing as much of that as they should,” he explains. “The Kenny Smith case really should have been settled much earlier.” Chandra however, says on his watch the law department never
cooked up such a scheme. “It’s unprecedented for the city to expend it’s own resources for bankruptcy counsel for officers of city officials,” Chandra says. “It may be doing it to avoid the liability of the poor judgment that led to the [civil judgment] to begin with.” He adds: “It just shows you how elusive justice. The criminal justice system is broken, and rarely if ever does it hold police officers accountable for their conduct. The civil justice system takes an enormous amount of time and expense, and even when one jumps through every hurtle, one still might be left with nothing because of this maneuvering. And that’s not something the city should be proud of.” It remains unclear whether Mayor Frank Jackson was advised of the law department’s activities. The city declined to answer that question. City council members, however, were caught off guard when told of the practice. City Council president Kevin Kelly tells Scene he was not aware the law department was opting to hire bankruptcy attorneys for officers with civil judgments rather than indemnification. “I hadn’t heard of that,” Kelly says. “I wish I could comment more intelligently on that, I just don’t know enough about this area of law.” The law department, he points out, has wide discretion within their council-approved budget to hire outside counsel, as well as settle lawsuits. “Man, you blew me away with that,” says councilman Kevin Conwell, who is the vice-chair of the public safety committee. “I think I got to dig into this one.” When reached on his cell phone last week, Conwell was walking his district, distributing fliers urging his constituents not to re-elect Tim McGinty for county prosecutor. Conwell noted he’d ask the current head of the safety committee, councilman Matt Zone, to inquire in writing to the law department about the practice. Cleveland councilman Jeff Johnson also says he has not been informed of the practice. “I believe it is inappropriate for the city to pay for lawyers for bankruptcy,” Johnson says, adding that the decision should be left to the individual. By hiring the officers’ bankruptcy attorneys to discharge settlements, the city is sending the wrong message, he argues. “It’s disingenuous. We’re making a statement in public that money is our predominating concern in these
cases, not whether a citizen was harmed or not.” Attempts to reach Kovach and Jones for this article were unsuccessful. An email for comment to the city-hired attorney representing Jones was also not answered. Steve Loomis, the outspoken head of Cleveland Police Patrolman’s Association, also did not return messages seeking comment. In response to questions about the cases, a Cleveland spokesman issued the following statement: “The Ayers and Smith judgments are not against the City of Cleveland, but are against the individual police officers. In the Ayers case, one of the police officers has died and the other discharged the debt in bankruptcy. The Smith case currently is on appeal to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. The City does not avoid the payment of its legal obligations, including judgments.”
Shauna Smith sits in the kitchen of her tidy South Euclid home, her nails tapping nervous staccato against the tabletop. Her dead son Kenny — big smile and creased cheeks — is peeking from an array of pictures tacked on the fridge over her shoulder. “I’m tired of talking about it,” she says, the words friendly but as deflated as a blown tire. “I really didn’t even want to do this,” she says, indicating the interview she’s in the middle of now. Although Jones has yet to file for bankruptcy, Gilbert and Greene, Smith’s attorney, are watching the court for the eventual filing. The judgment against the officer is currently in appeal. Gilbert says he hopes to put the officer and city on notice before they try to atomize the debt with bankruptcy. “I have a client who lost her son to a terrible shooting that never should have happened,” the attorney says. “Basically the city is saying to her, ‘We don’t care.’” This morning in her house, Smith is hearing the message loud and clear. “I’ve been though enough,” she says. “The jury has reached a verdict. Quit dragging it out; quit coming up with these tactics.” The hardest part, she says, it that all this has kept her stapled to the part of her life she was hoping to push free from with the verdict. “I’m tired,” she says again.
scene@clevescene.com t @cleveland_scene magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016 21
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magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016
everything you should do this week
GET OUT
Photo courtesy of Right On PR
WED
1/13
MUSIC & DINNER
The Beachland Dinner Series Earlier this year, the Beachland launched an all-inclusive themed dinner that includes live entertainment, cocktails and a three-course meal featuring two appetizers, an entree and dessert. Each menu is designed around a theme. Tonight’s event is a Southern-themed Blues Dinner featuring music by Austin Walkin’ Cane. Guests can look forward to fried okra, crab cakes, Cajun-fried chicken, braised greens, sweet potato pie and blueberry cheesecake. Tickets are $28 per person or a table of four for $100. The dinner events begin at 7 p.m. and there is limited seating. (Douglas Trattner) 15711 Waterloo Rd., 216-383-1124, beachlandballroom.com.
Hari Kondabolu appreciates a good ethnic joke as much as the next guy. See: Thursday.
COMEDY
Cocoa Brown If you’ve seen any of Progressive Insurance’s “Name Your Price” commercials, then you’ve seen comic Cocoa Brown. In the commercial, this vivacious comedian and actress plays the angered wife whose husband decides he wants to juggle chainsaws. Tyler Perry has even taken her on as a vital character in his TV shows and films. Brown’s no-holds-barred attitude has gotten her a Screen Actors Guild award nomination; she’s now in the process of writing a revealing autobiography and putting together her own one-woman show, The Confessions of a Suicidal Diva. She performs tonight at 7:30 at the Improv and has shows scheduled through Saturday. Tickets start at $17. (Lisa Hammond) 1148 Main Ave., 216-696-IMPROV, clevelandimprov.com. SPOKEN WORD
Copernicus and Cream Ale The Happy Dog-sponsored monthly program, Life, the Universe & Hot Dogs, provides a platform for local scholars to discuss their work front of an audience at a bar. In tonight’s lecture, “Copernicus & Cream Ale: Heavens Above!”, Case Western Reserve University professor of intellectual philosophy and mathematics, Truman P. Handy, discusses the “people and ideas behind the Copernican/scientific revolution, including what made it
revolutionary for the sun to be in the center of the solar system — and whether it was really such a revolution at all.” The talk begins at 7 at the Euclid Tavern. It’s free. (Jeff Niesel) 11625 Euclid Ave., 216-231-5400, happydogcleveland.com. FILM
Fantastic Voyage A 1966 sci-fi flick that “drops the bottom out of the world you know and understand,” as it’s put in the official trailer, Fantastic Voyage follows four men and a woman as they enter the human body to perform an operation in a scientist’s brain. Raquel Welch, Edmond O’Brien and Donald Pleasance star. Part of Cleveland Cinemas’ Reel Science series, the film screens at 7 tonight at the Capitol. Lee Gambol, distance learning coordinator and museum educator, and Nikki Burt, a postdoctoral fellow in human health and evolutionary medicine, will introduce the film and lead a postfilm discussion. Tickets are $7.50. (Niesel) 1390 West 65th St., 216-651-7295, clevelandcinemas.com. FILM
The Lady of the Camellias Adapted for the stage, Alexandre Dumas’s novel The Lady of the Camellias centers on a woman suf-
fering from tuberculosis. She lets her lover know if she’s available by wearing a white camellia. Today at 7 p.m. at the Cedar Lee, you can see the Bolshoi Ballet’s interpretation of the classic story. Broadcast from Moscow, the performance has been called “a dramatic masterpiece.” Tickets are $15. (Niesel) 2163 Lee Rd., Cleveland Heights, 216-321-5411, clevelandcinemas.com. COMEDY
Mike Merryfield Mike Merryfield, who has three comedy albums on iTunes and had two one-hour comedy specials on SiriusXM, was the winner of Comcast’s third season of Trial by Laughter. Fellow comedian Louis C.K. is his inspiration. He’s also an avid podcaster and even does one with his two young sons called Every Other Weekend. He performs tonight and tomorrow night at 8 at Hilarities. Tickets are $18 to $20. (Niesel) 2035 East Fourth St., 216-241-7425, pickwickandfrolic.com. FILM
Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict Back in 1978 and ’79, art collector and socialite Peggy Guggenheim gave what would become her last interview. She spoke to Jacqueline B. Weld for her biography, Peggy:
The Wayward Guggenheim. Those tapes were thought to be lost before director Lisa Immordino Vreeland (Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel) found them as she was working on Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict, her fascinating documentary about the woman. Those never-before-heard tapes form the main narrative structure for this well-crafted, warts-andall documentary that shows at 7 tonight and at 7 on Friday night at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Tickets are $9. (Niesel) 11150 East Blvd., 216-421-7350, clevelandart.org. ART
Scholastic Awards Exhibition Today, the Reinberger Gallery at Cleveland Institute of Art’s recently unified campus on Euclid Avenue hosts the 36th Annual Scholastic Art and Writing Awards Exhibition. Last year, over 1,200 students in grades 7 to 12 submitted more than 3,000 videos, writing samples, and works of art. Gold and Silver Keys, as well as honorable mentions, will be awarded in categories including painting, photography, editorial cartoons, comic art, film/animation, printmaking and more. Gold Key winners advance to the national competition in New York City. The exhibition opens today with a reception for friends and
magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016 23
GET OUT family; it remains on view to the general public through Saturday, Jan. 30, during regular gallery hours. Admission is free. (Josh Usmani) 11610 Euclid Ave., 800-223-4700, cia.edu
MUSIC
Shostakovich’s Fourth Symphony When he began work on his Fourth Symphony, composer Dmitri Shostakovich was held in high regard in the Soviet Union. But then, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin denounced his music and Shostakovich withdrew the score
Hannigan, for whom the work was written. A pre-concert talk about Shakespeare and Shostakovich with guest speaker Meaghan Heinrich, director of conservatory connections at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music, takes place an hour before the concert begins. The concert repeats tomorrow at 8
#SonicSesh
THUR 1/14 FILM
Detour Live At Liverpool Philharmonic Hall A new concert film, Detour Live At Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, features Elvis Costello performing a solo show from last year’s tour. Costello regularly talks about his upbringing as he plays hits such as “(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes,” “Accidents Will Happen,” “Watching the Detectives” and “Alison,” as well as a version of his classic Nick Lowe cover “(What’s So Funny ’Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding.” It’s a tremendous show. The film is playing in a small number of cinemas in the United States before it comes out on DVD next month. See it tonight at 7:30 at the Cedar Lee Theatre. Tickets are $12.50. (Niesel) 2163 Lee Rd., Cleveland Heights, 216-321-5411, clevelandcinemas.com.
THEATER
with HONEYBUCKET
JAN. 14 • DOORS 7 PM JAN. 28 • Doors 7 PM
COMEDY
Hari Kondabolu Hari Kondabolu, a comedian who likes to joke about his ethnic background and how people always ask him where he’s from, has announced dates for a winter tour. The shows will feature all new material and provide a sneak preview of what will be included on his new album coming out next year. He’ll record material from the shows to include on the album. The New York Times calls the guy “one of the brightest and most politically engaged young performers in New York,” and Kondabolu, who originally worked as a human rights organizer in Seattle, got rave reviews for his debut album Waiting For 2042. He was also a writer and correspondent for the Chris Rock-produced show Totally Biased with Kamau Bell. He performs at 8 tonight at the Grog Shop. Tickets are $15. (Niesel) 2785 Euclid Hts. Blvd., 216-321-5588, grogshop.gs.
24
was born with a broken volume control and their favorite antics are conducting parades with pots and pans at 6 in the morning. Poor dude. As if that wasn’t hard enough, they never want to get in family pictures and they force him to play Barbie dolls for hours. His drunken-dad shtick can be alarming at times, but he’s actually pretty funny and obviously loves his family. If you have kids, you’ll relate — even while you cringe at his jokes. If you don’t have kids, he’ll probably convince you to wait a little longer. He’s in town for two days only, with appearances scheduled for 7:30 and 10 tonight and 7 and 9 tomorrow night at Hilarities. Tickets are $33 to $38. (Liz Trenholme) 2035 East Fourth St., 216-241-7425, pickwickandfrolic.com.
with
FEB. 19 DOORS 7 PM with LMNTL 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 to his Fourth Symphony. It was not performed until 25 years later, at which point Stalin was dead. Tonight at 7:30 at Severance Hall, the Cleveland Orchestra performs the piece. The concert opens with the American premiere of a recent work titled “let me tell you” by Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen, who received the 2016 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition for the piece. The soloist is Canadian soprano Barbara
magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016
p.m. Tickets start at $29. (Niesel) 11001 Euclid Ave., 216-231-1111, clevelandorchestra.com.
FRI
1/15
COMEDY
Jim Breuer Things are tough for Jim Breuer. He’s got three adorable kids who torture him and make his hangover unbearable. The second one
Flanagan’s Wake Now in its fifth year in Cleveland, Flanagan’s Wake transports the audience to a wake in Ireland where villagers tell tales and sing songs for their dearly departed Flanagan. The wake acts as a dark backdrop to an otherwise hilarious show in which alcohol fuels the humorous reminiscing. A sort of tragic Tony ’n’ Tina’s Wedding, the interactive and improvised show engages the entire audience as the guests are treated as the friends and family of the deceased. Performances are at 8 tonight and tomorrow night Kennedy’s Theatre. Tickets are $26. (Patrick Stoops) 1501 Euclid Ave, 216-771-4444, playhousesquare.org. COMEDY
Dean Napolitano Comedian Dean Napolitano likens turning 40 to a rotten tomato. “You look good on the outside and feel good, but you cut it open and it’s a mess inside.” He jokes that he now needs hair gel on his eyebrows and his noise hairs will “pop out in the middle of the day.” His Italian background comes into the equation too as he says his problems with his hair are more complex than those of most men. Napolitano’s narrative style has mainstream appeal, and the guy can make the trials and tribulations of everyday life seem funny without resorting to profanity and expletives. He performs at 7:30 and 10 tonight and at 7 and 9:30 tomorrow night at the Hard Rock Rocksino’s Club Velvet.
GET OUT Tickets are $13 to $18. (Niesel) 10705 Northfield Rd., Northfield, 330-908-7793, hrrocksinonorthfieldpark.com.
Gallery at Judson Park. Jones will give a short talk during tonight’s opening reception from 4:30 to 6 p.m. The exhibition remains on view through Feb. 28. It’s free. (Usmani) 1834 East 123rd St., 216-721-9020, artistsarchives.org.
ART
ART
An Opening Reception This weekend the Artists Archives of the Western Reserve (AAWR) and the Sculpture Center are partnering for a Davis Foundation campus-wide opening reception. AAWR hosts an opening reception tonight for its Annual Members Show from 5:30 to 8 p.m. This year’s juried exhibition was selected by Anna Arnold, painter and director of the Florence O’Donnell Wasmer Gallery at Ursuline College. Meanwhile, the Sculpture Center presents a reception for John Seefeldt’s Fragments of Reconstruction and Longing and Ron Lambert’s House Wear. This reception also takes place from 5:30 to 8 p.m. tonight, with the artists presenting remarks at 6:15 and 7 p.m. Additionally, AAWR will be presenting the work of renowned local photographer Jennie Jones at the Howson
Persistence of Vision The Cleveland Print Room begins its 2016 exhibition schedule with an opening reception today from 5 to 9 p.m. Persistence of Vision is Greg Martin’s first solo exhibition. A graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Art, Martin has been working with the wet plate collodion process for nearly a decade. His award-winning work has been featured in the Plain Dealer, in addition to numerous group shows throughout Northeast Ohio. The exhibition runs though Feb. 27. Admission is free. (Usmani) 2550 Superior Ave., 216-401-5981, clevelandprintroom.com. ART
Remade in Cleveland Heights Arts presents its first gallery exhibition of 2016 with an opening reception from 6 to 9 to-
night. Remade in Cleveland is an exhibition of beautiful yet functional objects intended for use in daily life. The exhibition features the work of Northeast Ohio artisans Kevin Busta, Doug Meyer (Rustbelt Rebirth) and the firm Rustbelt Reclamation. All three utilize locally sourced materials to create custom tables, seating, mirrors, lighting, wall features and tabletop objects such as clocks, wine caddies, serving boards and even “paper” planes. Remade in Cleveland showcases the ingenuity driving our region’s “Rustbelt Revival.” It’s free. (Usmani) 2175 Lee Rd., Cleveland Heights, 216-371-3457, heightsarts.org. ART
Third Friday This month’s Third Friday festivities at 78th Street Studios include Collage 101 at E11even2, Into the Canvas: Post-Painterly Abstraction in Cleveland at ARTneo, Fandom216 at Hedge Gallery, Pop Goes Cleveland at Popeye Gallery at Survival Kit, and much, much more. It all takes place from 5 to 9 p.m. (Individual gallery hours may vary.) Enjoy music by local musician Brian Straw at 9 p.m.
inside Survival Kit. (Usmani) 1300 West 78th St., 78thstreetstudios.com.
SAT
1/16
FILM
Blow Up Set in London during the ’60s, director Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up follows a fashion photographer (David Hemmings) after he captures what may or may not have been evidence of murder. Released in 1981, Brian De Palma’s Blow Out, a thriller about a guy (John Travolta) who captures an automobile accident on audio tape, serves as a tribute to Blow-Up. A 35mm print of the film screens tonight at 9:25 and tomorrow night at 6:30 at the Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque. Tickets are $10. (Niesel) 11610 Euclid Ave., 216-421-7450, cia.edu. FILM
The Fifth Element Whether a movie made big money at the box office or bombed has little to do with whether it becomes a cult classic. In fact, many cult classics were commercial failures.
“A visually dazzling tour of 5,000 years of Chinese history and culture.”
-- San Francisco Chronicle
“Visually stunning, and emotionally uplifting.” -– Play Magazine
“Marvelous dance… absolutely perfect music.” -– Brooklyn View
Sat., Sun., Jan. 30-31, 2016 TICKETS: 216-241-6000 PLAYHOUSESQUARE.ORG HOTLINE: 888-974-3698 SHENYUN.COM/CLEVELAND
State Theatre
1501 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, OH 44115 Presented by Ohio Falun Dafa Association magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016 25
GET OUT Cleveland Cinemas acknowledges as much with Late Shift, its cult film series. Tonight at midnight at the Capitol Theatre, the theater chain screens Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element, a film that stars Bruce Willis as a cabbie who winds up on a search for a cosmic weapon. Tickets are $6. (Niesel) 1390 West 65th St., 216-651-7295, clevelandcinemas.com. FILM
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9500 SWEET VALLEY DR.
The Left-Handed Woman One of the key figures in the “new German cinema,” director Wim Wenders has put together a remarkable resume over the course of a career that stretches back to the ’60s. The Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque has spent the past three months paying tribute to the auteur in a series dubbed Portraits Along the Road. The series concludes today with a screening of The Left-Handed Woman, his film about a German woman living in Paris. A new 4K digital restoration screens at 5 p.m. Tickets are $10. (Niesel) 11610 Euclid Ave., 216-421-7450, cia.edu. MUSIC
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IRISH NIGHT
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SUN. 17
REGGAE NIGHT
MON. 18
VINYL NIGHT WED. 20
OPEN MIC WITH JOHN MISHAK
SAT. 26
WINTER REGGAE FEST
BOB MARLEY CELEBRATION
26
TUE. 19
KARAOKE
TUE. 29
BIGGEST
MARDI GRAS PARTY IN CLEVELAND!
magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016
Martin Luther King Jr. Concert The 36th annual concert honoring Martin Luther King Jr. finds the Cleveland Orchestra celebrating the spirit of Dr. King’s “life, leadership, and vision in music, song, and community recognition.” The concert begins at 7 tonight at Severance Hall. Tickets are sold out. But you can still enjoy a live concert broadcast on radio stations WCLV (104.9 FM) and WCPN (90.3 FM). (Niesel) 11001 Euclid Ave., 216-231-1111, clevelandorchestra.com. FAMILY FUN
WinterFest 2016 in Chardon Today from 2 p.m. until dusk, Chardon Square hosts the familyfriendly WinterFest, with horsedrawn wagon rides, ice sculpture displays, dog sled races, face painting, food and more. The family friendly event culminates with the lighting of the Fire & Ice Tower. Admission is free. (Niesel) chardontomorrow.org. ART
Preserving Works on Paper 2731 Prospect presents a special program in conjunction with
its current exhibition, Works on Paper. At 2 p.m. today, representatives from the Morgan Art of Papermaking Conservancy and ICA (Intermuseum Conservation Association) Art Conservation will discuss archival preservation of paper and artwork created on and with paper. There will be time for questions following the presentation. Works on Paper includes new and recent work by Christi Birchfield, Jerry Birchfield, Timothy Callaghan, Lane Cooper, Bruce Edwards, Elizabeth Emery and others. The exhibition remains on view through Saturday, Feb. 6. It’s free. (Usmani) 2731 Prospect Ave., 888-273-1881, 2731prospect.com.
SUN
1/17
NIGHTLIFE
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 below the Grog Shop. Dubbed 7th Day Sweat, their weekly 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., Cleveland Heights, 216-932-1966, bsideliquorlounge.com. COMEDY
Kevin Bozeman Comedian Kevin Bozeman likes to joke about the mundane. “I got one thing out of college,” he likes to say. “Bad credit.” With his highpitched voice, Bozeman practically winces as he tells his narrativebased jokes. His problems are everyone’s problems. He has trouble with women and issues with his finances. Expect him to touch on social issues too, as he’s made fun of the fact that there aren’t any “brothers” in auto racing. He performs tonight at 7 at Hilarities. Tickets are $18. (Niesel) 2035 East Fourth St., 216-241-7425, pickwickandfrolic.com. FILM
Nanook of the North Considered the father of the documentary film, director Robert J. Flaherty made a number of significant films before he passed away in 1951. With Return of the Na-
GET OUT ive, a special film series featuring four features and four short films, the Cleveland Museum of Art provides a retrospective of his work. Today at 1:30 p.m., it screens the 1922 silent film Nanook of the North. A documentary about an Inuit family living in the Arctic Circle, it blends ethnography and poetry. Tickets are $10. (Niesel) 11150 East Blvd., 216-421-7350, clevelandart.org.
MON
1/18
FAMILY FUN
Free Admission Day at the Zoo Looking for a fun and free way to start your week? Head on over to the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, which offers free admission for all residents of Cuyahoga County and Hinckley Township on Mondays. The Cleveland Metroparks Zoo is open on Mondays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. This free Monday promotion is not available on holidays and unfortunately excludes access to the RainForest. (Alaina Nutile) 3900 Wildlife Way, 216-6616500, clemetzoo.com. MLK DAY
Community Open House at Severance From noon to 5 p.m. today at Severance Hall, the Cleveland Orchestra hosts a Martin Luther King Jr. Community Open House. There will be performances and activities. Admission is free and no tickets are required. (Niesel) 11001 Euclid Ave., 216-2311111, clevelandorchestra.com. MLK DAY
Free Admission at the Rock Hall The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum will once again host a series of special events to celebrate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Museum admission will be free today, from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and will offer live performances, education programs and family activities that highlight how people use music to “find their voice and create a sense of community.” The Distinguished Gentlemen of the Spoken Word, a group that consists of adolescents from various Cleveland communities, kick things off at 11 a.m. At noon, Timbara plays music from
the African diaspora, and at 1 p.m. the Boys and Girls Club of Cleveland plays Motown hits. At 2 p.m., Jul Big Green plays soul rock. Throughout the day, King’s “I Have a Dream” speech will be broadcast on a loop at the Forest City Theatre. Sessions on rock ’n’ roll and civil rights and the history of soul and R&B in Cleveland will also take place. Kids’ activities include face-painting. They’ll also get the chance to create protest signs and participate in other crafts. Visitors can win a museum membership. (Niesel) 1100 Rock and Roll Blvd., 216-515-8444, rockhall.com.
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Classical Revolution Cleveland Classical Revolution Cleveland helps bring great chamber music to the people. Showcasing a variety of performers in bars, cafes and the like, it’s actually not that different from how people used to listen to chamber music. The third Tuesday of every month, CRC brings its wide array of chamber music to Happy Dog. Performers like the Trepanning Trio, Anime Duo, students of Cleveland Institute of Music and even Cleveland Orchestra members grace the stage in these exciting concerts. Full of immensely talented performers, CRC re-instills the relevancy of this vibrant art form. Tonight’s free, all-ages performance starts at 8. (Stoops) 5801 Detroit Ave., 216-651-9474, happydogcleveland.com.
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A Half Hour Taping with Ramon Rivas Local comic Ramon Rivas serves as a ringleader for the local comedy scene. He regularly hosts shows featuring local comics and often brings national acts to town. Tonight at 8 at Mahall’s, he brings us Accidental Comedy Presents: A Half Hour Taping with Ramon Rivas. Recently selected to participate in Comedy Central’s A Comic to Watch program, he’ll tape tonight’s event. Tickets are $10. (Niesel) 13200 Madison Ave., Lakewood, 216-521-3280, mahalls20lanes.com.
BY NEIL SIMON
JANUARY 15 - 31
FRIDAYS & SATURDAYS AT 7:30 PM AND SUNDAYS AT 3 PM TICKETS: $10 - $18 | (440) 949-5200 OR WWW.TNCARTS.ORG
Find more events @clevescene.com t@cleveland_scene magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016 27
ART UNSTUCK IN TIME Transformer Station showcases impermanence of art and life By Josh Usmani THIS WEEKEND, TRANSFORMER Station presents its first exhibition of 2016, Unfixed: The Fugitive Image. Unfixed features artists who explore the fleeting nature of life and reality through representational, photographic imagery designed to fade and deteriorate over time — sometimes even across the course of the exhibition. The exhibit opens Friday with a members preview from 5 to 6 p.m. Artists Françoise and Daniel Cartier will present a free public lecture at 6:30 p.m., and a reception will follow. Some of the images will fade into oblivion just hours after Friday’s opening reception. Scholars mark the invention of photography as the first time a representational image was “fixed” permanently to a light sensitive surface. With the invention of the camera, artists had the ability to
historically significant artwork. Despite these advances, however, the rise of SnapChat (and similar social media) has proven that some things are meant to be temporary. As Heraclitus said, “The only thing that is constant is change.” Life is fleeting, and the artists in Unfixed have chosen to embrace, and even celebrate, this temporary quality, utilizing this short-lived nature of images that are eventually destroyed by the same light that originally created them. This exhibition features objects and images that cause us to contemplate time, memory, entropy, our own mortality and the beauty of life’s transitory nature. “We are excited about the concept for this show which overturns some conventional wisdom about art and photography,” says Transformer Station founder and Unfixed curator Fred Bidwell. “Most museums and
Paul Shambroom, Poppy, 2014, pigmented inkjet print on paper. Courtesy of the artist
document their reality faster, easier and cheaper than ever before. Art historians credit the invention of photography, as well as the rise of the middle class and open art market, as the beginning of Modern Art. As technology advanced over the past century, artists and scientists continued to develop archival materials and processes to preserve these memories in suspended animation, seemingly forever. Similarly, museums and conservationists have spent fortunes and countless hours developing new technology and techniques to preserve
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collectors collect and conserve art with the goal, at least, to have it last forever. But some of the artists in Unfixed are making art which is designed to fade away. Most people
Anonymous, Untitled, circa 1953-1960, Kodacolor print Courtesy Collection of Peter J. Cohen
question the old quote, “Ars longa, vita brevis” (art is eternal, life is short), and see art as an experience that is about change and is, itself, constantly changing.” Unfixed includes work created with and without the use of a camera, in still imagery as well as video by national and international artists. Participating artists include Eric William Carroll, Françoise and Daniel Cartier, Phil Chang, Matthew Gamber, Brian Ganter, Dustin Grella, John Opera, Tom Persinger, Paul Shambroom and Luke Stettner. Although these artists share a common interest in the ephemeral nature of photography, Unfixed showcases a diverse collection of work in a wide variety of media. Swiss artists Françoise and Daniel Cartier have created a special, sitespecific installation. Matthew Gamber utilizes obsolete slide projectors to deconstruct the illusory nature of color photography. Additionally, a group of Kodacolor snapshots from the collection of Peter Cohen have all turned pink due to faulty dye couplers. Phil Chang’s unfixed photographs will disappear within hours of Friday’s opening reception, while John Opera’s use of
UNFIXED TRANSFORMER STATION 1460 WEST 29TH ST., 216-938-5429 TRANSFORMERSTATION.ORG
see photography as a way to stop time and preserve a moment. But some of the photographers in Unfixed see the photograph itself as an object that evolves and shifts its meaning over time. This show will make you
magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016
natural, light-sensitive dyes ensures that his photographs will fade gradually over time. Paul Shambroom explores what is lost and cannot by replaced through his photographs of lost pet flyers,
washed out over time by the elements. Brian Ganter’s interactive work reveals itself when held in the viewer’s hand. Ganter’s heat sensitive tintypes reveal haunting portraits of LGBT porn stars, all of whom have died of AIDS. Unfixed includes many more engaging and thought-provoking works by highly accomplished artists. Overall, the exhibition challenges our current definition of photography, and expands our awareness and understanding of the materials, processes and maybe even ourselves as well. See for yourself this Friday, and plan another trip soon after, as this show is sure to change each time you see it. Additionally, Transformer Station has scheduled a gallery talk with Matthew Gamber at 2 p.m. this Saturday. Later this year, Kate Albers will present her lecture, “The Ephemeral Photograph: From Salt Prints to Snapchat,” at 2 p.m. on Saturday, March 12. Finally, Tom Persinger will give a gallery talk and performance at 3 p.m. Sunday, April 3. Unfixed remains on view at Transformer Station through April 3. Regular gallery hours are Wednesdays from noon to 5 p.m., Thursdays from noon to 8 p.m., Fridays from noon to 5 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The gallery is closed Mondays and Tuesdays. Additional viewing hours are available by appointment.
jusmani@clevescene.com t@cleveland_scene
STAGE THE RIOTS LAST TIME
Revisiting the Hough riots in Incendiaries at Cleveland Public Theatre By Christine Howey IT’S HARD FOR ANYONE WHO wasn’t around in the era of the Hough riots to imagine the impact they had on this city. In the summer of 1966, a nasty racist encounter at a bar at East 79th and Hough Avenue triggered six nights of arson, police over-reaction, sniper fire, commiebashing, and deaths of four AfricanAmericans. Two years after the riots, I felt some of those strong reverberations when, as a new teacher in the Cleveland public school system, I walked across the parking lot at Patrick Henry Junior High on my first day. This was in the Glenville neighborhood, some distance from Hough. Still, there was a fine dusting of broken glass underfoot, and as I approached the school I paused to watch an eight-man squad of black militants wearing matching berets as they marched in
a syncopated drill. In the ensuing years, all neighborhoods in Cleveland were rocked by the Hough riots, giving rise to black power initiatives on one side and furthering racial animosities on the other. And while much progress has been made since then — some fundamental and some merely cosmetic — the racial tensions between police and the black community are still front-page news. These deadly encounters across the country aren’t
Crawford III, Walter Scott, Eric Garner, Miriam Carey, Freddie Gray, so many more. And, of course, Clevelanders Malissa Williams, Timothy Russell and Tamir Rice. Make no mistake, police are sometimes put in difficult situations where life-and-death decisions must be made in fractions of a second. Most of us would never want to shoulder such a terrible burden. But the statistics of police killings n the U.S. (at last count, three per day in 2015) have sparked demands for
INCENDIARIES
THROUGH JAN. 23 AT CLEVELAND PUBLIC THEATRE, 6415 DETROIT AVE., 216-631-2727, CPTONLINE
race riots; the confrontations are often individual and contained. But they are equally horrific and the names of the victims are legion: Bettie Jones, Michael Brown, John Steve Wagner Photography
The Incendiaries
reform. At times, such reform can be stimulated by the arts, such as the current play at Cleveland Public Theatre. In Incendiaries, conceived and directed by Pandora Robertson, the Hough riots are brought front and center. This co-production by CPT and the Ohio City Theatre Project recounts that 50-year-old conflagration, often in powerful and startling ways. Robertson is a fiendishly imaginative director, and she stages many of the vignettes in this piece with devastating clarity. The terror that occurs when the police stop a car filed with black occupants, or when a home is assaulted by those who are sworn to protect and serve, can be overwhelming. This effect is augmented by Benjamin Gantose’s stark lighting that often throws the performers into a smoky silhouette. Using public records and testimonies of people on all sides of the events, a picture emerges of an urban nightmare. It is performed by an energetic and talented cast that includes Brittni Shambaugh Addison, Wesley Allen, Ashley Aquilla, Laprise Johnson, Daniel McNamara, Randi Renee and Chris Walker. These folks share the stage with one sturdy table and some folding chairs, which are employed to represent all manner of physical objects.
However, the production suffers from an excess of yelling and general cacophony created by repeated pounding on the table. Sure, riots are often loud and disorienting things, but on stage those techniques lose their power with repetition, eventually numbing the audience. In addition, this one-act, 60-minute play suffers from “death by Wikipedia.” It attempts to cover virtually all the talking points of the riots, from their inception to the weird reports that followed a year or two later, blaming Communist infiltrators! Instead of finding the universal in the personal and the specific, the script almost runs itself to ground by conscientiously trying to document every loose end. And director Robertson seems intent on demonstrating how many ways a table and chairs might be used on stage, which at times gets a bit silly (e.g., two characters are nonsensically compelled to crawl on the upended table like a jungle gym as they speak). More importantly, a key fact lost in this presentation is that, even in a riot (or a war), much of the societal damage happens away from the immediate carnage. It occurs in homes and bars and bowling alleys where people gather and try to process what is happening. And it festers in the aftermath, when neighborhood residents walk out onto their streets and see that the shops and buildings that made up their daily lives are now charred shells, never to be rebuilt. If you want to get a visceral sense of how it felt to be swept up in the Hough riots, Incendiaries will take you by the hand through that hellscape. But if you yearn for a deeper look at how that awful week damaged our city’s psyche for decades to come, you may have to look elsewhere. Perhaps there is a second act in this play’s future.
scene@clevescene.com t@christinehowey
magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016 29
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RATED PG FOR MARTIAL ARTS ACTION AND SOME MILD RUDE HUMOR. NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. While supplies last. One pass per person. One entry per person. Seating at the screening is first-come, first-served and is not guaranteed. Please arrive early. Winners will be chosen at random. Winners within the past 30 days are ineligible. Passes received through this promotion do not guarantee admission - seating is first come, first served. 20th Century Fox, JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. & its affiliates, Cleveland Scene, Allied Integrated Marketing and their affiliates accept no responsibility or liability in connection with any loss or accident incurred in connection with use of a ticket. Tickets cannot be exchanged, transferred or redeemed for cash, in whole or in part. We are not responsible if, for any reason, recipient is unable to use his/her ticket in whole or in part. Void where prohibited by law. No purchase necessary. NO PHONE CALLS!
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magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016 CLEVELAND SCENE WED: 01/13/16 4COLOR
CLEVELAND SCENE
magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016 3
Photo by Emanuel Wallace
EAT
I HAD MY CONCERNS ABOUT Sarita before we even walked in the door. Standing on the sidewalk, peering through the enormous storefront windows, it looked as if every last diner in Cleveland had the very same idea that evening. Fortunately we had reservations, which were honored immediately, but, man, was that joint jumping. A large private party gobbled up the entire second room, both the bar and communal table were 100-percent vacancy-free, and we were seated in what appeared to be the last remaining chairs in the entire restaurant. In terms of service, my fears turned out to be unfounded. Apart from an initial delay, our server was a champ operating under very challenging circumstances. The food, on the other hand, didn’t fare as well. Both the barbecued pork chop ($24) and the miso-glazed cod ($26) entrees were total busts. The former suffered from overcooked meat, crunchy, undercooked onion rings and chilly polenta. The latter was cooked to a dry, crumbling heap and partnered with an oily, soggy vegetable spring roll. The sauce? Sriracha, straight from the bottle. Our server, to her credit, removed the fish from the tab of her own volition. Diners learned last fall that longtime Player’s owner Gary Lucarelli was selling his popular Lakewood restaurant to his longtime chef Anthony Romano. Sarita, we soon discovered, would take its spot. Romano described his fresh concept as a modern, health-conscious, New
TOUGH FOLLOWUP
Sarita opens in former Players spot, though doesn’t quite achieve same heights By Douglas Trattner American bistro with Asian, Latin and Mediterranean influences. Following a wholesale interior renovation, Sarita opened its doors in mid-November. Sarita, post-makeover, is sharper, brighter and more cosmopolitan than I recall Players being. It’s also spare, largely featureless and loud as hell when the dining room is full. Apart from a handful of monotone wall hangings, which I assume are ineffectual sound-dampening panels, the decor pretty much is limited to a Pinterest-worthy silverware chandelier and wall art assembled from tableware. Given the time of year, we chalked up the initial experience to the preholiday rush and gave Sarita another shot. We were glad we did as the subsequent post-holiday, mid-week meal was tranquil, the servers were unflustered and the food was delivered
different definition of “modern” and “New American” food than I do. Asianspiced calamari with Napa slaw, blue cheese-encrusted beef tenderloin and horseradish-crusted grouper all might be delicious, but they aren’t exactly cutting edge. In fact, many dishes here are not new at all, but rather holdovers from the Players playlist. Our meals tended to be up-anddown affairs. How can one not devour a cast iron skillet of oven-hot cornbread ($4), served with honey and spice-kissed butter? That bread was all but crumbs in a pan when the roasted beets ($10) arrived, which, despite the appealing name, were simply ice-cold sliced cooked beets sprinkled with some crushed nuts and paired with goat cheese. “You really have to love beets to like this dish,” a tablemate uttered matter-of-factly.
SARITA 14523 MADISON AVE., LAKEWOOD | 216-226-5200 SARITA-RESTAURANT.COM
hot, fresh and mostly unblemished. Instead of being the cute new girl at school, Sarita had settled into its familiar role as approachable neighborhood bistro. After working in the same kitchen for 16 years, Romano might have a
Romano’s crispy pork belly appetizer ($11) takes some interesting turns, perched as the perfect cubes are on crispy tostones and capped with dollops of cool and tangy creme fraiche. But the meat is so lean, fat-free and firm that it tastes as though it
came from a completely different part of the pig. While devoid of any actual lumps of sweet meat, the crab cakes ($12) are perfectly enjoyable renditions of the classic starter. The most common buzz words associated with New American cooking are “local” and “seasonal,” but Sarita buries that bone-in barbecued pork chop beneath a mound of outof-season corn-tomato salsa. The only complaint I can muster about Romano’s wholesome bouillabaisse ($27), a medley of clams, shrimp, scallops, white fish and potatoes in a flavorful broth, is the price, which strikes me as high given the catch. In fact, much of the menu comes across as steep. Granted, it’s a huge portion, but $20 for cavatelli and meatballs in a straightforward marinara doesn’t exactly scream value. Sarita’s pepperoni and sausage pizza — a doughy Cleveland-style pie that’s heavy on the sweet sauce and cheese and light on crunch — weighs in at $16. At these prices, Sarita feels more like a special occasion restaurant than a neighborhood mainstay that will solicit repeated visits from neighbors and friends, the type of place where attentive and professional servers know and welcome guests by name, the kind of place that survives for decades on good vibes. A place, coincidentally, like Players.
dtrattner@clevescene.com t @dougtrattner
magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016 33
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magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016
IN THE FAR CORNER OF THE Haus Malts (6107 Carnegie Ave., 216570-1108, hausmalts.com) storage area, 55 brown sacks, each containing 55 pounds of malt, are stacked from floor to ceiling. They were bagged up on New Year’s Day, when malt house co-owners Andrew Martahus and his father, Craig, put their brother and wife, respectively, to work. Like many parts of this new business, Craig jokes, “It was a family affair.” Last April, the father and son team purchased a building that once belonged to mechanical contractors Smith and Oby. Since then, they’ve outfitted 10,000 square feet of it with the equipment needed to turn barley into malt. For the first time since Prohibition, local brewers will have access to locally produced malt. Soon, those 55-pound sacks will be shipped off to a handful of local breweries, including Market Garden Brewery, Great Lakes Brewing, BottleHouse, Brick and Barrel and Platform Beer. Haus Malts already has released a collaborative brew with Nano Brew called Rust Belt Spelt. The idea was born while touring North Carolina’s Riverbend malt house. The duo learned that most craft brewers purchase malt based on what’s available by corporate market demand. Haus Malts aims to change that model by putting brewers in control of the product, down to the type of barley and where it’s sourced. Considering that wine makers want to know where their grapes are from and cider makers want to know the types and origins of their apples, the farm-to-pint concept makes sense. “We have a direct relationship with the farmer,” Andrew says. “If our clients have questions we can put them in touch with the farmer and they
can go through exactly what they did. We’re tracking the purity of the grain throughout the entire process.” Though they’re currently sourcing barley from Maine, they’ve already been working with the Ohio State University’s agriculture program and Ohio Seed Improvement Association to partner with area farmers, who will become future suppliers. A handful of Ohio farms, including ones in Sandusky, Smithville and Dayton, have started planting crops. “We think the grain grown in one part of Ohio is going to have a different taste than a variety grown in another,” Craig says. Barley shipments arrive precleaned from Hirzel Farms in Wood County, Ohio. In a giant temperaturecontrolled room in the back of the facility, an industrial-size bed holds two tons of barley at a steady 50 degrees. The grains are steeped and soaked for two days, followed by four days of germination. Then it’s into the kiln, where the amount of time the “green malt” is heated determines its style, from pilsner to dark Munich. The malt is run through a debearder and seed cleaner, which allows for even water absorption. Haus Malts plans to produce at least two tons per week. Craft brews use nearly three times as much malt per volume as mass produced beer. And with more tastes shifting towards craft, the need for malt increases. “What we’ve been struck by is the sophistication of the palate and the knowledge that the beer drinking community is very quickly developing,” says Craig. “And demanding.”
scene@clevescene.com t @cleveland_scene
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Photo by Emanuel Wallace
FLOUR RESTAURANT HEADS WEST TO HOST NEW POP-UP SERIES AT SPOTTED OWL By Douglas Trattner SOME PAIRINGS – SAY, SPAGHETTI and meatballs – make perfect sense. Others – say, Flour Restaurant and Spotted Owl bar – don’t. But that’s precisely why Flour chefpartner Matt Mytro decided to reach out to Spotted Owl owner Will Hollingsworth to cultivate a new partnership. Beginning Jan. 19 and 20, and each Tuesday and Wednesday thereafter for the foreseeable future, the Spotted Owl will host Flour popups from 5 to 8 p.m. “I saw that Will was doing these pop-ups at Spotted Owl and thought it was fucking genius,” Mytro says. “We’re in such a specific area, with a very specific clientele, so sometimes it seems like people on the west side have a hard time getting out here. I thought that this could be a really good opportunity to be a little bit closer to some of those people, but also an opportunity to be a little more creative.” Given the unconventional setting, Mytro says the plan is to keep things pretty simple, offering a concise menu of four pasta dishes. Each will be small and affordable ($4 to $8) so diners can try more than one. “The plan is to not go overboard with options, but just make sure that each one of them is awesome,” he says. “Just something fun and different.” Along those lines, only one of the initial four pastas will be pulled from the Flour menu: the popular Peas & Carrots, ricotta agnolotti with truffle and mint. The other three will stretch the creative envelope of the chef’s Italian repertoire. The Nori Bucatini, for example, features a toasted seaweed-infused pasta with mussels, nori butter and a shaving of cured, smoked and dried scallop. Cacio e Peppe is a marriage of black pepper spaghetti, Ritz Cracker and brodo. The most straightforward dish is the fusilli with tomato sauce, Sicilian pecorino and crispy parsley. “This isn’t meant to be fancy; we’ll be serving these on disposable bamboo platters,” says the chef. The plan, adds Mytro, is to host these “for as long as we feel like it.”
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The
Matt Mytro
“There’s no set formula for this, so we’ll just let it evolve,” he notes. “If something isn’t working, we’ll change it.” Hollingsworth will curate a beverage program geared to the dishes. No reservations are needed as these events are first come, first served.
TEXAS-STYLE BBQ RIG PROPER PIG LANDS BRICK-AND-MORTAR SPOT IN LAKEWOOD It’s only been a little more than two years since partners Shane Vidovic and Ted Dupaski launched their Texas-style barbecue food truck Proper Pig Smokehouse, but already they’re graduating to immobility.
magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016
While they’ll keep piloting the big rig, the duo will open a brick-andmortar shop in Lakewood this spring. “We are running out of room for our catering, so we had to expand,” says Vidovic, adding that the crew purchased a second smoker last year to help keep up with demand. “The space has a nice big kitchen.” The plan is to open sometime this March in the old Cleveland Pickle location at 17100 Detroit Ave. Proper Pig Smokehouse, when it opens, will offer both sit-down and carryout service. Of course, all the standards from the truck will be available, but fans can look forward to an expanded menu of offerings. “We’ll do brisket, pork, Texas hot link sausages, pork ribs and
turkey,” he says. “We’ll also do sides like potato salad, baked beans and coleslaw.” The barbecue will be sold in sandwiches and as part of combo platters featuring one, two, three or
every single blessed meat. “We’re setting it up to be like the way we like to eat,” he says. “When I go to barbecue places I like to try everything on the menu. That’s what
EAT bites monday – thursday 4pm – 12am friday & saturday 4pm – 2am kitchen open ALL NIGHT
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Located in the Historical District of Solon I hope people will do here.” The casual restaurant will offer walk-up counter-style service. There will be seating for 30 to 40 guests. The new owners are working on obtaining a beer license, and there will be an ’80’s-era video game retrofitted into an old bourbon barrel set on free play. “Just a neighborhood place,” he notes. “We want it to be the kind of place that we’d like to hang out in — if we weren’t always working.” Look for the Pig to open its doors this March.
TAVERN OF LITTLE ITALY WILL OPEN TO THE PUBLIC ON JAN. 15 For the past nine months, the 100plus year old structure that long had been home to the Mayfield Cafe has been getting a complete makeover inside and out. The aluminum siding has been stripped, revealing the original clapboard siding. New windows have been installed up and down, including a fold-away glass façade that will open the building up to the neighborhood. A pair of garage doors have been installed on the side of the building, turning the slender alleyway into a secluded side patio. All in preparation for opening day of the Tavern of Little Italy (12117 Mayfield Rd., 216-331-1069), which will take place on Jan. 15. The plan all along, says owner Eric Kennedy, was to give residents and visitors to the area some variety in terms of food and beverage offerings. That means not building another Italian restaurant. “I think it’s always a good time for something new and different as long as you do something good,” says Kennedy, who is partnering on the project with longtime Little
“I think it’s always a good time for something new and different as long as you do something good.” — Eric Kennedy Italy resident Dominic Gogol. “This will be a neighborhood gastropub that will invite a wider Cleveland to experience Little Italy.” That’s evident from the pub-like menu, which veers from Greek salads with grilled zucchini to chorizo and cheese-stuffed jalapeno peppers. A flatbread section offers pies topped with Gruyere and apples, chorizo and dates, or a Vietnamesefocused one with beef, chiles and lime-ginger dressing. One look at the Tavern Shrimp Po’ Boy and you’ll know you’re not in another Italian-American restaurant. Grilled shrimp are tucked into a roll with pickled veggies, cucumber, Thai basil and mint aioli. About as close to Italian as the joint gets is an Italian beef sandwich made from short ribs and topped with house-made giardiniera and something called deep-fried “Spaghetti in Meatballs.” Another rarity for these parts is the extensive craft beer selection, a roster of 14 taps and more by the bottle and can. Wines by the glass and bottle are as approachable as one can get. Check out Tavern of Little Italy any day after Jan. 15.
dtrattner@clevescene.com t @dougtrattner
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Beegees tribute Band at the club Motor estates Learn More At www.agostinos.events
Saturday, January 16th at 8pm Tickets $20/VIP Tickets $75 Featuring
Siobhan Atomica & Lady Jack with
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P O H S G THE GRO
D HTS EVELAN L C , D P.GS V L B ID HTS GROGSHO 2785 EUCL 216.321.5588
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Fri 1/16 ROOT BOTTLE • High Class Criminals • All But Violet Mon 1/18 MAKE ‘EM LAUGH MONDAY Tue 1/26 Band Practice Open Mic w/MAX STERN Thu 1/28 KISS ME DEADLY • Way of Life • Black Spirit Crown Fri 1/29 HONEY • Wesley Who Thu 2/4 Workingman’s Reggae w/THE ARK BAND Sat 2/13 LAUREN LANZARETTA • Uptowne Buddha • MC Tue 2/16 Band Practice Open Mic w/THESE KNEES Thu 2/18 SEERESS • Harvey Pekar • Wolf Teeth Sat 2/20 JIMILLER BAND • Sassafraz Tue 2/23 Band Practice Open Mic w/SHAWN & SHELBY Sun 2/28 GLUTTONS • Earth Chief • Deathcrawl • Toro Blanco Thu 3/3 Workingman’s Reggae w/THE ARK BAND Tue 3/29 CHON • Polyphia • Strawberry Girls Tue 4/6 UNWRITTEN LAW • FENIX, TX Thu 4/14 Duncan Trussell Sun 4/24 MURDER BY DEATH • Kevin Devine & The Goddamn Band Fri 4/29 CASH’D OUT Sun 5/1 ELEANOR FRIEDBERGER
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Holy Holy Tour aims to give Bowie’s The Man Who Sold the World album its proper due By Annie Zaleski DAVID BOWIE’S 1970 LP THE Man Who Sold the World is often considered to be one of his first great albums. But besides the title track — which was famously covered by Nirvana on MTV Unplugged and subsequently became a mainstream radio staple — the record isn’t an obvious hit machine. Its amalgamation of pastoral folk, muscular hard rock and gnarled prog are challenging and complex. Still, within Bowie’s catalog, The Man Who Sold the World stands tall for several significant reasons: It was the first record he made with guitarist Mick Ronson and drummer Woody Woodmansey, who would become anchors of his glammy backing band, the Spiders from Mars. And it was the second Bowie LP produced by Tony Visconti, who also played bass on the album. The core quartet that recorded The Man Who Sold the World parted ways after the record, with the late Trevor Bolder replacing Visconti on bass and Ken Scott producing Bowie’s next LP, 1971’s Hunky Dory. As a result, this band configuration never had the chance to play the album live. “We were so into going out on the road with it at the time, all four of us, but we never did it,” Woodmansey says, calling from London the week before Christmas. “It never got played as an album.” That’s all changed thanks to the live project Holy Holy, which finds Woodmansey and Visconti reuniting to perform the album (and a second set of other early Bowie classics such as “Ziggy Stardust,” “Life on Mars?” and “Changes”) with an impressive cast of musicians: guitarists James Stevenson (The Cult, Gene Loves Jezebel) and Paul Cuddeford (Ian Hunter, Bob Geldof); keyboardist Berenice Scott (Heaven 17); saxophonist Terry Edwards (Gallon Drunk, Lydia Lunch); and backing vocalist Jessica Morgan, who’s also Visconti’s daughter. “Her mom is Mary Hopkins, so she’s got rock and roll parents,” the proud dad notes in a separate interview. “She grew up singing right from the crib to the stage.” Tackling Bowie’s vocal parts is Glenn Gregory, whom Visconti met while working on a project called
Photo by Chris Youd
The crew behind the Holy Holy Tour.
International Blue with a Dutch composer named Stephen Emmer. Gregory — who’s perhaps best known in the U.S. for being the lead singer of ’80s synthpop act Heaven 17 — is “one of the best singers I’ve ever worked with in my life,” Visconti says. “He’s so good. His voice is rich, and his interpretations are very, very sensitive.” Indeed, both Visconti and Woodmansey were in agreement that the Bowie figure needed to be someone who wouldn’t imitate his style and vocals. “I thought, ‘If we’re going to play this album, we can’t get someone who sounds like Bowie on stage, or looks like Bowie, or dyes his hair orange,’” Visconti explains. “[We] can’t have any of that stuff, because it’s not a tribute band. We’re the original musicians.” Adds Woodmansey: “We didn’t want someone who sounded like David, because that would be just a bit what we’d say ‘cheesy.’” He laughs, and adds, “Glenn managed to grab the songs. You were so used to hearing David sing them, and [Glenn]’s got his own communication that comes through the songs.”
The genesis of Holy Holy was “a little bit accidental, really,” Woodmansey says. In 2013, the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London invited him to be interviewed about the Bowie albums on which he played, and how they shaped music and culture. Along with the event, the Institute put together an ace live band — which at the time included Spandau Ballet’s Steve Norman, Blondie drummer Clem Burke, and Mick Ronson’s sister, daughter and niece (Maggi, Lisa and Hannah, respectively), along with Stevenson and Cuddeford — that ended up doing a set of Bowie songs at that summer’s Latitude Festival under the name Holy Holy. This troupe of Bowie fans and acolytes invited Woodmansey to guest on a few songs. “It went down incredible, but I didn’t realize I would be [standing] at the side of the stage watching Clem Burke play all the parts that I’d played in my career,” Woodmansey says with a laugh while recalling the Latitude Festival experience. “And I was going ‘Aw, no, not that one, I want to play that one,’ but I’d only picked
three tracks to play, so it was really frustrating. It just reminded me how good the music was.” The drummer scratched his itch to play more Bowie songs after joining Holy Holy full-time for their late 2013 gigs, as Blondie commitments prevented Burke from participating. As Holy Holy’s 2014 plans rolled around, however, Woodmansey gravitated toward doing something he’d always wanted to do: give The Man Who Sold the World its proper due in concert. To make the experience sweeter — and more authentic — Woodmansey decided to call up Visconti and see if he had the time and/or inclination to reprise his bass parts. “I knew he was up to his ears in production things with different bands and artists, and I rang him up and said, ‘Look, I’ve got this idea, do you fancy doing it? I found two fantastic guitarists and a sax player,’” Woodmansey says. “And he just went, ‘Yes.’ I went, ‘I didn’t even have to talk you into it — I thought I’d have to talk you into it.’ He said, ‘No, it was one of my big regrets in my career that we never did that. I’ve often spoke to David about it; I regret we never got to tour it live.’” To Visconti, the request was indeed a no-brainer. “We split up after the album was made,” he says. “You rarely get second chances in life, so I just jumped at the opportunity.” In fact, when the bassist landed in London to rehearse for the first four The Man Who Sold the World gigs, which took place in the U.K. in September 2014, he couldn’t wait to dive back into relearning the record. As Woodmansey recalls, Holy Holy had planned “to spend a day in rehearsals just getting everything polished up” without the bassist, as they figured Visconti would be jetlagged. However, his old friend had other ideas. “[Tony] took his bags to the hotel, picked up his bass and came down to the studio that day, instead of the next day,” Woodmansey recalls. “He just walked in and said, ‘So what are we doing?’ We went, ‘Whoa, you’re not supposed to be here until tomorrow.’” Holy Holy started running through the set anyway, and realized they had immediate chemistry. “By the end of the first number, everybody
magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016 41
MUSIC in the band had grins on their faces,” Woodmansey says. “That was without any rehearsal. It was tight, and it was spot on. It was really easy putting it all together, because everybody was trying to do the best they actually could. You could feel that.” The initial U.K. Man Who Sold the World gigs went over like gangbusters and led to more touring there, as well as dates in Japan and Ireland, and now the U.S. — somewhat to Visconti’s surprise. “I just wanted to do the initial four shows back in 2014 to prove to myself I can still do it,” he says. “We didn’t say, ‘Oh, let’s do an American tour.’ [But] American fans have been screaming for an American tour.” If all goes well, he hopes Holy Holy is able to hit other places — the West Coast and the Midwest in the U.S.,
nearly 45 years after he drummed at Music Hall on the opening night of the Ziggy Stardust American tour, Woodmansey says he’s thrilled to be coming Stateside for the first time with Holy Holy. And he’s also been pleased with the enthusiastic reception to Holy Holy’s take on The Man Who Sold the World. “When we did the U.K. tour, the English tour, we wanted to do a meet and greet,” he says. “We had families [that] the mother and father had been at the Ziggy [Stardust] tours, and now they’ve got like 18-year-old kids and they were clutching albums, they were their favorite albums. There was a lot of that; it wasn’t just one off. “[And] there were 16-year-olds in the front row at some of the gigs singing all the words. I never thought The Man Who Sold the World was a sing-along album,” he chuckles. “We were blown away. Tony, in fact, stopped at one point and said, ‘There’s a 16-year-old girl down here,
HOLY HOLY U.S. TOUR 7 P.M., SATURDAY, JAN. 16, THE ODEON, 1295 OLD RIVER RD. TICKETS: $20, TICKETWEB.COM.
Canada and even Mexico — and maybe even record some original songs with this current line-up, assuming the stars aligned. “I think it would be enticing to write new material.” Visconti says. “There’s enough recorded music out there. I would only do this if it became something exceptional. I just don’t want to throw another CD into the fire.” Then again, both Visconti and Woodmansey are certainly keeping busy. The latter does session gigs in between Holy Holy shows, while the former is busy producing the new record by avant-pop artist Kristeen Young and Bowie’s new album, Blackstar, which arrived Jan. 8. “[Some people] are trying to say ‘It’s like the Berlin period. It’s like this, it’s like that,’” Visconti says of Blackstar. “It isn’t. It’s very new and very different. I can tell you we didn’t consciously try to recreate anything from the past. This is a completely forward-looking album. Whereas on [Bowie’s 2013 album] The Next Day, I’d say we drew heavily on the past. We did revisit Ziggy on some tracks; we did revisit The Man Who Sold the World. But Blackstar’s totally new, and I can’t help it if it reminds you of something old, but it’s not intentionally in the album.” As to whether Woodmansey heard from Bowie about Holy Holy’s interpretations, he says, “I have a zip on my mouth, I’m afraid.” But
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magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016
she’s just sung every flipping word of [an obscure The Man Who Sold the World] track. He said, ‘She knew it word for word, she’s like 16.’ The girl was just beaming.” But as befitting Bowie’s relentless commitment to progress and the shock of the new, Holy Holy is a transformative experience, something which breathes new life into a beloved classic. “Musicians love this album, and Bowie aficionados worship this album, but to revisit it, it gave us a chance to bring out even more depth,” Visconti says. “I think the show has actually got more depth than the original album has.”
Postscript: It was announced on Monday, Jan. 11, that Bowie had succumbed to cancer after an 18-month battle. In a touching Facebook post, Visconti wrote, “He always did what he wanted to do. And he wanted to do it his way and he wanted to do it the best way. His death was no different from his life — a work of Art. He made Blackstar for us, his parting gift. I knew for a year this was the way it would be. I wasn’t, however, prepared for it. He was an extraordinary man, full of love and life. He will always be with us. For now, it is appropriate to cry.” — Zaleski
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jack & jack naughty by nature warren haynes ashes & dust ft. railroad earth lotus beach house - in association with dark star orchestra bryson tiller cradle of filth W/BUTCHER BABIES • Ne Obliviscaris geoff tate’s operation: mindcrime
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Order By Phone: 800.745.3000 • House of Blues Box Office magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016
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MUSIC
AN OLD CROW GOES SOLO
Singer-songwriter Gill Landry focuses on ‘moving forward’ with new album By Jeff Niesel SINGER-SONGWRITER GILL Landry met the guys in the Americana string band Old Crow Medicine Show some 15 years ago. At the time, he was busking on the streets of New Orleans. The band and the singer started working the New Orleans streets together and formed a lasting bond. Landry officially joined the group in 2007 and then left the group last year to devote more time to his successful solo career. “Those were the most free and liberated human experiences I’ve ever had,” Landry says via phone from a peninsula in Washington state where he was “writing songs and just hanging out.” “We were doing fine and making enough cash to get down the road and pay our rent or do whatever we were doing. We didn’t have to book through anybody. We were accountable to no one but ourselves and the street itself. There’s no substitute for performance. It was good to get chops going in that way. It was also good to not get too hung up about anything. We would just play and play.” During that time, Landry played guitar, pedal steel and banjo. He also wrote the songs. “It was great,” he says. “We would play for five hours a day. You did it because you loved it. It was a good adventure. [Old Crow Medicine Show and I] just hit it off as pals because we were coming from the same place. We were all studying every old recording we could get our hands on. There weren’t a whole lot of guys our age at that moment who were doing whatever the fuck it was that we were doing. It was slow and steady. It was a long,
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slow climb; at least it felt that way. For me, you watched the crowds grow a little bit year by year. There was no glittery bullshit at the time. We felt like working-class heroes in a way. It was fun.” With his new self-titled studio release, Landry delivers a somber collection of introspective tunes that show just what a sharp songwriter he’s become. Laura Marling duets on “Take This Body” and trumpeter Nick Etwell of Mumford & Sons plays on a handful of songs. Odessa also lends harmonies and violin to a number of tunes, including “Emily.” Robert Ellis plays guitar on “Fennario” and “Bad Love.” Landry recalls receiving his first guitar when he was only 5. His uncle played guitar and that made him want to play too. “My grandparents bought me one — just a little junky parlor guitar,” he says. “I started with a songbook for
“moving forward.” “What I would say more than anything after this year of touring and leaving the band and finding my own feet, I know so much more than when I started a year ago,” he says. “And I’ve been doing this for 20 years, so it’s rather ridiculous. The whole idea was that I wanted to self-produce it. I spent tremendous amounts of money on my earlier works for which I didn’t get the results that I wanted. With the current climate, nobody is throwing money around like it’s water. I didn’t want to see how cheap I could make it, but if I could get a real quality product exactly like I wanted at a low cost. I recorded it at my apartment. I did it in the shittiest room you can picture. Total dump. Mice crawling under the floor. I feel like a champion, just for that alone. There was nothing modern going on in that scenario.” He didn’t intend the ballad “Take This Body” to be a duet, but it evolved
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‘Camptown Ladies’ and moved forward from there. This whole mission I’m on now was never a mission. It never started as one. It’s just one thing after another. I didn’t think I’d be playing music for a living for as long as I have. Now, I’m in the game. Back then, it was just the love of playing music.” He says the songs on the new album center on a theme of
magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016
into one as the song starts with his baritone vocals before Marling provides a nice counterbalance with a quietly emotional performance that evokes indie rocker Cat Power. “I sent Laura Marling two songs,” he says. “I love her voice and her spirit and everything. That was the one she chose. It could have gone either way. The song was keyed a little low for her.
I don’t remember if she was completely comfortable with where the key was. It was almost like a whisper. It was not very forcibly loud but really wonderful. She’s great. Her singing carried a lot of emotion.” “Lost Love” features strings and horns and really swings. It’s one of the looser songs on the album. “That’s the first one where I wrote the music before I wrote the words,” Landry explains. “I can’t tell you what the song’s about, but it’s really sincere. I want to protect the innocent, or the guilty. Which one is it? The approach was purely fun, which is what I always like to do in the beginning. My first record is all about fun. The label gave me a substantial amount of money. I thought it might be the last time I got that amount of money. We could have gotten weirder, but we did whatever we wanted. We had fun putting the horns on it and fucking around with shakers and things like that. There’s lots of space and we worked with dynamics and letting things die. That one is really just a fun experiment. I really like that song.” Touring in January, a time when ice and snow often descend upon Northeast Ohio, can be tough. Landry says he’s up for the challenge. “No worries,” he says. “Live by the sword, die by the sword, as they say. I’m up for the adventure. Worst-case scenario, you don’t make it. I love the challenge. I got a full band, so it’ll be nice. They’re not afraid either.”
jniesel@clevescene.com t@jniesel
magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016 45
MUSIC THE NO BRO ZONE Country singer Brandy Clark joins the Next Women of Country tour By Jeff Niesel WHEN SHE CAME THROUGH town back in 2014, country singer Brandy Clark had the unenviable task of opening for hugely popular country singer Jennifer Nettles. Armed with nothing more than an acoustic guitar, Clark, who looked like a cross between troubadour and rocker with her snap-cap and tight black pants, didn’t appear the least bit nervous. She quickly won the audience over with narrative-based tunes such as “Crazy Women” and “Pray to Jesus.” The bare-bones approach worked well as her often humorous lyrics really resonated. As a result, fans mobbed her as she signed copies of her then-new CD in the lobby after her performance. “That was the second show I did with her,” says Clark via phone in Nashville. “From what I remember, that was the first weekend. We played in Washington, D.C., the night before. We played in Cleveland, and I sold out of merch. The next night I didn’t have any merch in West Virginia, but it made me feel like I was doing something right.” Clark returns to town with Nettles, who’s bringing her CMT Presents Jennifer Nettles with 2016 Next Women of Country Tour to Hard Rock Live on Jan. 16. Clark, who says she’ll have a band in tow this time around, will provide support along with singers Lindsay Ell and Tara Thompson. A true storyteller, Clark just wrapped up a remarkable year. “Hold My Hand,” a song from her debut, 12 Stories, was just nominated for a Grammy. And she launched a long-in-the-works musical. “It has been a great year,” she says. “I’ve been working on a musical — Moonshine: That Hee Haw Musical — with Shane McAnally. It opened in Dallas this summer. Being out on the road with Jennifer is really amazing. I was out with Alan Jackson before that. The thing I’m most excited about is that I made another record. I spent the month of June working with Jay Joyce and I’m pretty proud of it. Being out with Jennifer, I’m getting to play this record live right now.” Raised in a Washington logging town, Clark initially performed in school musicals.
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“When I was a really young kid, I was in a community theater production of The Music Man,” she says. “I was in a high school play. I was in art class. And I was an athlete. I loved it. I can’t imagine a different way to grow up. I don’t think I could go and live in small-town America at this stage in my life, but I think smalltown America is where it’s at. For growing up, I can’t imagine anything better.” She would leave Washington state to study commercial music at Belmont University in Nashville. “I was trying to learn the business,” she says. “Honestly, I was a music business major because I was denied into the School of Music twice. It was my fallback. I thought I would do the music business degrees and if it didn’t work at least I would have that degree.” But she gravitated to songwriting and would pen “Mama’s Broken Heart” with frequent collaborators Shane McAnally and Kacey Musgraves. “That was an idea that Shane had had for a long time,” she says when asked about the song. “It was ‘ain’t your mama something.’ I loved that idea. I remember when he said it, I didn’t want him to write it with anyone else. I got what he was talking about. Then, Kacey came in one day and Shane started talking about his sister. His sister was going through this breakup and his mom thought she should handle it one way, but he thought she should handle it another. I said, ‘Maybe that’s the “ain’t your mama something.”’ We talked about ‘your mama’s broken heart.’ I remember the first response was that ‘broken heart’ was too plain. But that’s
Brandy Clark has fond memories of her last appearance inNortheast Ohio.
Miranda Lambert, who had to talk Kacey Musgraves into letting her have it. It became a monster hit. Clark’s 2013 debut, 12 Stories, features a wide range of material. Some songs are funny and others are rather sad. Some are about getting high and some are about illegitimate children and divorce. “The first time producer Dave [Brainard] and I sat down, I said I had two loose concepts: either the day in the life of one woman or the length of a relationship,” she explains. “If it were the relationship, we’d start the record with ‘Illegitimate Children’ and end it with ‘The Day She Got Divorced.’ We didn’t do either of those things but that helped shape the song selection.” One of the album’s highlights, “Crazy Women,” centers on a woman who claims her significant other is the source of her erratic behavior. “I was watching a Lifetime movie about that Texas cheerleader scandal/
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what we came to. We wrote that song in a day, and it felt like it was good. Kacey went home and did a Garage Band take with some handclaps that made it something really special.” The song would find its way to
magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016
murder,” says Clark when asked what inspired the tune. “In the movie, Beau Bridges gets in Swoosie Kurtz’s face. He’s like, ‘You are crazy, woman.’ She says, ‘Crazy women are made by crazy men.’ She said it just like it is in the
song. Things that are said in movies or I read in books often spark songs.” With the followup album that’s due out this year, Clark also started with a concept. “My producer Jay [Joyce] was quick to say he didn’t want it to be too ‘on the nose,’” she says. “It helps make the songs feel like they should be on the same record. It was a much more intense process. The first time, we were working on a shoestring. With Jay, we did have the luxury of a budget, so we did it in a month. That was all I did. There was a point in the process where [Jay] asked me to give him about nine days by himself. That was a little bit scary. On my first record, I was there for every note. To hand it over to someone and let him tinker with it was scary. When I came back in and heard what he had done, it was mind-blowing.” Clark admits that she embraces the female perspective. “I love the female point of view,” she says. “Women are interesting to me. I think it’s a lucky time for us in music. Women can tackle issues that men couldn’t. ‘Stripes’ is a great example. A man could never sing about even thinking about shooting his wife. A woman can get away with that and tell a story that way. I feel pretty lucky to be a woman from that angle.”
jniesel@clevescene.com t@jniesel
magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016 47
LIVEWIRE
all the live music you should see this week Photo by Justin Nolan Key
WED
1/13
10 X 3 Hosted by Brent Kirby (in the Wine Bar): 8 p.m. Brothers Lounge. Kevin Bianchi & the Chestertons/ Lower Middle Management/ Bryan Karas: 8:30 p.m., $8 ADV, $10 DOS. Beachland Tavern. Kofi Boakye: 7 p.m., Free. BLU Jazz+. Crucible/Toothgrinder/Ghost Key: 6:30 p.m., $12 ADV, $15 DOS. The Outpost. Dan Holt/Phil Merkun: 8:30 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern.
THU
1/14
Sam Hooper Group: With four CDs released on the FBJoy Records label, singer-guitarist Sam Hooper, who grew up in Shaker Heights, has assembled a significant discography. His songs have been featured on the daytime TV dramas All My Children and The Young & the Restless. The guys in his band are no slouches. Guitarist Mike Null is a multi-instrumentalist musician and singer who’s toured the U.S., Canada, Europe and Asia. They originally met in 2010 while playing in Shanghai to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the House of Blues & Jazz. Produced by Hooper and Null and recorded by James Kananen in Cleveland at Bad Racket Studios, Hoodoo Blues, a new EP from Hooper and Null, features a classic blues sound. A song like “Messin’ with the Hook” thrives on a terrific mid-song jam punctuated by some back and forth between Hooper and keyboardist Sakait Baksar. And Null delivers a gritty mid-song guitar solo too. Mixing and mastering was handled by India. Arie producer/engineer Jim Lightman at JL Productions in Nashville. It’s a solid effort. (Jeff Niesel), 8:30 p.m., $8 ADV, $10 DOS. Beachland Tavern. Blaze Ya Dead Homie Album Release Show: 7 p.m., Free. Agora Ballroom. Chris Hatton’s Musical Circus (in the Wine Bar): 8 p.m. Brothers Lounge. Keg Hirakawa Trio: 8 p.m., $10. BLU Jazz+.
48
Country singer Dustin Lynch returns to House of Blues. See: Sunday.
Jam Night with the Bad Boys of Blues: 9 p.m., Free. Brothers Lounge. Keystone Lab (in the Supper Club): 7:30 p.m., $5 ADV, $8 DOS. Music Box Supper Club. Michael McDonald/Blue Spruce Cat: 8 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern. Mocoso/Mueco/Prison Moan/Diva Cup: 10 p.m., $5. Now That’s Class. New Soft Shoe: 9 p.m., Free. Happy Dog. Northeast Ohio Drum & Music Jam: 9 p.m., Free. Beachland Ballroom. Owl Creeks: 7 p.m., $5. Mahall’s 20 Lanes. Megan Zurkey Band: 8 p.m. Hard Rock Rocksino.
FRI
1/15
Ottawa/Ohio Weather Band/New Moon Rising/Bro Dylan: Local indie rockers Ottawa cite acts such as Portugal the Man and the Talking Heads as influences. You can hear their influence on the band’s recent EP, 2014’s Random Lights. It offers a nice distillation of its influence. The title tracks careens like a Strokes song on steroids, and “The Good Kind”
magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016
features a bit of Black Keysinspired garage blues and has a real swagger to it as its beefy bass riff propels the track. The guys are working on new material so expect to hear some unreleased songs at tonight’s show. (Niesel), 8:30 p.m., $10 ADV, $12 DOS. Beachland Ballroom. Thor Platter (in the Wine Bar): For his new album, Long Road Ahead, local singer-songwriter Thor Platter went to Blue Buddha Studio and worked with local producer Jim Wall, the guy who owns the Cleveland-based studio. The disc showcases his crisp vocals, which recall masters such as John Hiatt, Lyle Lovett or Willie Nelson. The song’s arrangements draw from bluegrass and folk but don’t strictly to traditional structures and allow his stellar band that includes bassist Matthew Charboneau and mandolin and fiddle player Bill Lestock to really shine. Two session players — Paul Kovac and Tommy Hannum — also contribute. It’s one of our favorite local releases from last year. (Niesel), 8 p.m. Brothers Lounge. Ballyhoo!: 7 p.m., $13 ADV, $15 DOS. Agora Ballroom. Broadside/7 Minutes in Heaven/ Marina City/Austin Lawrence/An
Ongoing Story/James Maher: 7 p.m., $8 ADV, $10 DOS. Mahall’s 20 Lanes. Cleveland Tapes Beat Clash hosted by A-Live and Obnox featuring DJ Nu Era, Red-I and More: 9 p.m., Free. Now That’s Class. Disco Inferno: 9 p.m., $5. Vosh Club. The Drexels/Dutch Babies: 5:04 p.m., $5. The Euclid Tavern. Ella Fitzgerald & Billie Holiday Tribute with Cleveland Jazz Orchestra: 8 p.m., $18 ADV, $20 DOS. Music Box Supper Club. Lucas Kadish Spearhead Quartet: 8 p.m., $12. BLU Jazz+. Dennis Lewin: 10:30 p.m., free. Nighttown. Motown Night with Moss Stanley and Nitebridge (in the Supper Club): 8 p.m., $8 ADV, $10 DOS. Music Box Supper Club. Anna Nalick/Pete Nitscht: 9 p.m., $20. Musica. Root Bottle/High Class Criminals/ All But Violet/Graceful Closure: 9 p.m., $5. Grog Shop. Russian Duo: 8:30 p.m., $15. Nighttown. Slowhand Featuring Tim Askin and Band: 9:30 p.m., $10. Brothers Lounge. The Stingers: 8 p.m. Akron Civic Theatre. Ten: A Tribute to Pearl Jam/ RATM2: A Tribute to Rage Against the Machine: 8 p.m., $12 ADV, $15 DOS. House of Blues. You’re Among Friends/Meganne Stepka/The Katy: 9 p.m., $5. Happy Dog. Zydeco Kings/The Del Rios/George Foley & Friends: 5:30 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern.
SAT
1/16
Travis “Moonchild” Haddix: A staple in the Cleveland blues scene -- and in the American music circuit writ large -- Travis “Moonchild” Haddix has always brought the heat to the stage. He also surrounds himself with great musicians -- like a tight, tight brass section. What he has always done so well has been his steady merger of classic blues structures with smooth R&B-style singing. He makes the blues accessible to anyone willing to listen and, inevitably, dance. (Eric Sandy), 8:30 p.m., $15. Nighttown. New Salem Witch Hunters/New
LIVEWIRE Planet Trampoline: Cleveland heavy metal band Boulder once asked the existential hypothetical in the song “Who Care, Baby?” off of their 1999 debut The Rage of It All, “How much rock do you have to live to really live rock?” You can look at any one of the New Salem Witch Hunters at any point in time during the last 30plus years and find your answer. The New Salem Witch Hunters live rock. Period. (C.J. Klassa), 9 p.m., $10. Beachland Tavern. Greg Banaszak Quintet (in the Wine Bar): $10. Brothers Lounge. Best of CLE: Singer-Songwriter Series with Ray Flanagan/ Shawn Brewster of Oldboy and More: 8:30 p.m., $5. Grog Shop. Birds of Chicago (in the Supper Club): 8 p.m., $10 ADV, $12 DOS. Music Box Supper Club. Bravo Bash Featuring Light Years/Above This Fire/Seafair: 5:30 p.m., $5. Mahall’s 20 Lanes. Bummed Out/Soft Copy/The Residuels: 9 p.m., $5. Happy Dog. Enforcer & Warbringer/Cauldron/ Exmortis: 6 p.m., $12 ADV, $15 DOS. Agora Ballroom. Heaven is in You/Community Corporation/Three Seas/DJs ADAB and Geauga Lake: 9 p.m., $5. Now That’s Class. Hollywood Slim Band/the Original Waysiders: 8 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern. Holy Holy US Tour: 7 p.m., $20. Odeon. Carlos Jones & the P.L.U.S. Band: 9 p.m., $10. Musica. Ernie Krivda All-Star Quartet: Requiem for a Jazz Lady Album Release Celebration: 8 p.m., $12. BLU Jazz+. School of Rock Strongsville Presents: Rage Against the Audio Garden/Zombie Fried Chicken, Psychedelic ‘60s (in the Supper Club): 1 p.m., Free. Music Box Supper Club. The Spazmatics: 9:30 p.m., $5. Brothers Lounge. That 80s Band: 9 p.m., $5. Vosh Club. The The Band Band: 8 p.m., $22 ADV, $25 DOS. Music Box Supper Club. Time Traveller: A Tribute to the Moody Blues: 8 p.m., $12 ADV, $15 DOS. The Kent Stage. TriHearn: 9 p.m., $5. The Euclid Tavern. Jackie Warren: 10:30 p.m., free. Nighttown.
SUN
1/17
Dustin Lynch/Chris Lane: A fastrising star, country singer Dustin Lynch had some noteworthy success last year. He played Crash My Playa 2015, a blowout country music bash held in Cancun, and he toured with singer Luke Bryan as the guy hit the nation’s stadiums. The success stems from last year’s chart-topping Where It’s At, a terrific collection that veers from hard rocking anthems like “Hell of a Night” to poppy tunes such as “To the Sky.” Expect a big crowd to turn out for tonight’s gig. (Niesel), 8 p.m., $25 ADV, $27 DOS. House of Blues. Babies in Black: 6 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern. Frances Black/Aoife Scott/Liz Carroll/New Barleycorn: 7 p.m., $35. Music Box Supper Club. An Evening with the Park Brothers: 8 p.m., $8 ADV, $10 DOS. Beachland Ballroom. Hubbs Groove Featuring Stephen Fowler: 7 p.m., $20. Nighttown. Hot Jazz Seven: 3 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern. Maysa: 7:30 p.m., $45-$97.50. Tangier Cabaret. Mr. Carmack/Sam Gallantry/ Teeko: 8:30 p.m., $10 ADV, $12 DOS. Grog Shop.
MON
1/18
Skatch Anderssen Orchestra: 8 p.m., $10. Brothers Lounge. Stone Soul/Jet Set 216/Noah Peele/ DJ Nuera: 8:30 p.m., $5 ADV, $8 DOS. Beachland Tavern. Velvet Voyage (in the Wine Bar): 8 p.m. Brothers Lounge.
TUE
1/19
Ecotype/Like Monroe: 6:30 p.m., $10 ADV, $12 DOS. The Outpost. Puddles Pity Party: 8 p.m., $32 ADV, $35 DOS. Beachland Ballroom. Swingtime Big Band: 7:30 p.m., $7. Vosh Club. Two-Set Tuesday Featuring Steve Masek (in the Wine Bar): 7 p.m. Brothers Lounge. Zusha: 8 p.m., $10 ADV, $15 DOS. Beachland Tavern.
scene@clevescene.com t@cleveland_scene magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016 49
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magazine | clevescene.com | January 13 - 19, 2016
MEET THE BAND Gary Solomon (bass, fiddle, vocals), Jack Kraft (keyboards, accordion, guitar, vocals), Vinny Nicosia (drums, guitar, vocals), Josh Radin (guitar, mandolin, vocals), Loren Korevec (piano, vocals) PUTTING THE THE BAND BAND TOGETHER The brainchild of lifelong friends and Band fans Kraft and Solomon, the group came together in 2007 in Stony Point, New York. “We’ve been playing music together for close to 40 years,” Solomon says. “When we were hanging out, we would noodle around on some band songs just for fun. He wanted to work the tunes out. I didn’t know what a tribute band was. We were just doing it for ourselves. We didn’t intend to get any gigs. We just played a party.” After months of practice, they made their public debut the following summer. “It grew organically,” Solomon says, adding that an agency picked them up and started booking them. Now, the group regularly plays theaters, clubs and festivals throughout the Northeast and has shared the stage with acts such as Richie Havens, New Riders of the Purple Sage, Aztec Two Step and Marshall Crenshaw. “We never predicted it would take off the way it has,” says Solomon. “The music is just so great. The original incarnation of the Band stopped touring in 1976. People really love this music and we present it really well.” TAKING ON THE LAST WALTZ The band’s farewell concert, The Last Waltz, was a momentous event that director Martin Scorcese captured on film. Both the album and movie are the stuff of rock legend. “I was at that concert. I happened to be in SF. Just a stroke of luck that I heard about it. If you’ve been to that show, you’re in for life. After we added the horns a
few years back. The Last Waltz is so iconic. Younger people haven’t seen them and their main introduction to the group is the movie. We decided to do a tribute show. We didn’t want to mimic the movie but present a show that includes some songs from The Last Waltz. Next year will be the 40th anniversary, so we’re working on a special show for that.
WHY YOU SHOULD HEAR THEM Complete with horns and husky vocals, the group’s cover of “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” captures the rootsy rock vibe of the original and their rendition of “The Weight” is every bit as epic as the original version. The band takes its repertoire largely from The Band’s seminal period and mixes well-known hits with obscure gems. They have performed “album shows” (Music From Big Pink, The Band, Stage Fright, Basement Tapes), recreations of historic concerts (The Last Waltz, Woodstock, Watkins Glen Music Festival), and a special tribute to the songs of Bob Dylan. “We started sneaking some Dylan songs into the show, and not just the ones that the Band used to do. We play ‘New Morning’ and ‘I Want You’ and ‘Just Like a Woman.’ The audience really loves it. We even do a show of Basement Tapes material, which is a little bit obscure.” WHERE YOU CAN HEAR THEM thethebandband.com. WHERE YOU CAN SEE THEM The the Band Band performs at 8 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 16, at the Music Box Supper Club.
jniesel@clevescene.com t@JNiesel
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b a r k i n g s p i d e r t a ve r n . c o m
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Thursday January 14 Blue Spruce Cat 8:00 (americana) Michael McDonald 10:00 (americana)
Friday January 15 George Foley & Friends 5:30 (jazz) The Del Rios 8:00 (rock) Zydeco Kings 10:00 (blues, rhythm and blues, roots, zydeco)
Saturday January 16 The Original Waysiders 8:00 (alternative, folk) Hollywood Slim Band 10:00 (blues, jazz)
Sunday January 17 Hot Jazz Seven 3:00 (jazz) Babies In Black (rockabilly) 11310 JUNIPER RD., CLEVELAND • 216.421.2863
C-NOTES local music news SINGER-SONGWRITER KORBY LENKER TO READ FROM HIS FIRST BOOK SINGER-SONGWRITER KORBY Lenker describes his first book, Medium Hero, as a “quirky collection of 27 short stories inspired by his life as a traveling musician with a cat and finding beauty in everyday life.” The talented author and musician comes to Cleveland this week for a book reading and musical performance that takes place on Jan. 13 at Loganberry Books.
Author and musician Korby Lenker comes to Loganberry Books for a reading this week.
A mortician’s son from rural Idaho, Korby grew up in a conservative Evangelical Christian home. His grandfather was a preacher in a small logging town in Oregon. His brother became a pastor. “I missed the boat on the church thing,” he says via phone from his Nashville home. “I’ve often felt like I’m in the ‘meaning’ business. The music and stories are a way of getting at that. It’s in my personality to wonder what the hell is going on and why we are here and what we are supposed to do. A lot of what I sing about and write about is in that vein. That’s a product of growing up in the family I grew up in. My father isn’t really a philosopher. [He’s more of] a ‘serious liver.’ I don’t think that’s an actual phrase. He just took things seriously and wanted to do the right thing. Now, I’m a totally slacker and I drink too much.” Because his parents were of
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the generation that encouraged their children to learn to play an instrument, they arbitrarily assigned him the piano and signed his brother up for violin lessons. They took lessons once a week and practiced every day. “I liked it,” Lorber says. “When I was young, I had external validation. I remember being in the third grade and the girl I had a crush on but couldn’t talk to wanted to stand next to me for the class song that we had to sing together for the school variety show. I thought there was something to it. I was serious about it all the way through school.” While still in Idaho, he joined a New Wave alternative cover band. After that band dissolved, he started a bluegrass band at about the same time that the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack made bluegrass popular again. “That happened right as I graduated from college,” he says. “For about five years I ran that band. I had finagled my way into $200 a month rent, and I had this band that I made $800 a month from. In my twenties I just hung out and played guitar a lot and wrote songs and read all the classics.” During that time, he started writing the stories that would become Medium Hero. The book now has national distribution. Lender says one recurring theme centers on “things being beautiful to themselves.” “I guess that’s something I noticed in hindsight,” he says. “I noticed the stories were about that and realized that’s how I tend to see the world. Part of it is just that I’m a person who’s really bad at arguing. I often see both perspectives of any given argument. Reading makes you reflective. I spent time looking into my own prejudices. It’s just things that are different from you or that you’re afraid of for some reason. I spent a lot of time as a practicing Buddhist and did some Zen retreats. A lot of that is about letting things go.” Lorber reads and performs at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 13, at Loganberry Books (13015 Larchmere Blvd., Shaker Heights, 216-795-9800). Go to loganberrybooks.com for more info. — Jeff Niesel
ROCK HALL EDUCATES ROCK-OFF CONTESTANTS While Live Nation’s Barry Gabel, one of the organizers behind the annual High School Rock Off, likes to tell young musicians that they shouldn’t plan to become successful with their original lineups, there are exceptions to that rule. Bands such as U2, the Black Keys and Radiohead started when members were in their teens and somehow preserved their original line-ups even as they became superstars. As a way of educating the teens who participate in this year’s competition, the Rock Hall has introduced a new “master class” to the Rock Off that kicked off on Saturday at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. Before the competition began, the Rock Hall’s Stephanie Heriger introduced the bands to some of the acts that began their careers at a young age. “You should think about where you are right now and where could be in 15 or 20 years,” she told the group as she showed it a picture of the Black Keys, the Nashville-viaAkron duo that went from playing small clubs in Northeast Ohio to performing at some of the biggest venues in the world. Then, she spoke about Radiohead, whom she described as “one of the most acclaimed bands out there.” She then played one of the band’s early demos and compared it to a live recording from a 1997 appearance at Glastonbury, the huge UK festival. She also spoke about the Shirelles, one of the leaders of the Girl Group movement of the 1960s, and explained how they first formed in 1957 for a talent show. She concluded the class with segments on the O’Jays and Green Day. Each week, a Rock Hall representative will meet with the Rock Off bands before they take the stage to present a “class” that will serve as a form of inspiration. The High School Rock Off takes place each Saturday in January at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. Finalists participate in a “Final Exam” on Feb. 13.
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SAVAGE LOVE RACIST PREFERENCES By Dan Savage
Dear Dan, As a queer man of color — I’m Asian — I feel wounded whenever I am exposed to gay men in New York City, Toronto, or any city where white gay men dominate. Gay men, mostly whites and Asians, reject me because of my race and no one admits to their sexual racism. I understand that sexual attraction is subconscious for many people. But it is unfair for a gay Asian like myself to be constantly marginalized and rejected. I fight for gay rights, too. I believe in equality, too. I had the same pain of being gay in high school and the same fears when coming out. Why is there no acceptance, no space, no welcome for me in this white-painted gay community? I’m 6-foot-1, 160 pounds, fit, and very good-looking. What can I do? I might as well be a sexless monk. — Enraged Dude Details Infuriating Experience “I relate to a lot of what EDDIE is feeling here,” said Joel Kim Booster, a Brooklyn writer and comedian. “The double-edged sword of living in a city with a large gay community is that the community gets so large that we finally have the opportunity to marginalize people within it.” Jeff Chu, a writer who also lives in Brooklyn, can relate: “Racism still thrives in the gay community, just as in broader society,” said Chu. “Many of us who are Asian American come out of the closet and walk into this weird bamboo cage, where we’re either fetishized or ignored. Many times I’d go into a gay bar and see guys playing out some gross interracial porno in their heads — with me playing the part of their Chinese pocket gay. Others (the ones I was interested in, to be candid) would act as if I were wearing an invisibility cheongsam.” Chu feels there’s plenty of blame to go around for this sad state of affairs. “It’s the gay media,” said Chu. “It’s Hollywood. (Even with all the LGBT characters we have on TV now, what images do we have of Asian American ones?) It’s that LGBT-rights organizations still haven’t diversified enough, especially in their leadership. And it’s all of us, when we’re lazy and don’t confront our own prejudices.”
Even you, EDDIE. You cite your height (tall!), weight (slim!), and looks (VGL!) as proof you’ve faced sexual rejection based solely on your race. But short, heavy, averagelooking/unconventionally attractive guys face rejection for not being tall, lean, or conventionally hot, just as you’ve faced rejection for not being white. (The cultural baggage and biases that inform a preference for, say, tall guys is a lot less toxic than the cultural baggage and biases that inform a preference for white guys — duh, obviously.) “As a stereotypically short Chinese guy, my first reaction to reading EDDIE’s letter? Damn, he’s 6-foot-1! I’m jealous,” said Chu. “And that’s also part of the problem. I, like many others, have internalized an ideal: tall, gym-perfected, blah blah blah — and, above all, white.” A quick word to gay white men: It’s fine to have “preferences.” But we need to examine our preferences and give some thought to the cultural forces that may have shaped them. It’s a good idea to make sure your preferences are actually yours and not some limited and limiting racist crap pounded into your head by TV, movies, and porn. But while preferences are allowed (and gay men of color have them, too), there’s no excuse for littering Grindr or Tinder or Recon — or your conversations in bars — with dehumanizing garbage like “no Asians,” “no Blacks,” “no femmes,” “no fatties,” etc. The last word goes to Booster: “A note to the rice queens who will undoubtedly write in about this man: We like that you like us. But liking us solely because of our race can be uncomfortable at best, and creepy as hell at worst. In my experience, it’s perfectly okay to keep some of those preferences behind the curtain while you get to know us a bit as humans first.” Jeff Chu is the author of Does Jesus Really Love Me?: A Gay Christian’s Pilgrimage in Search of God in America. Follow him on Twitter @jeffchu. Follow Joel Kim Booster on Twitter @ihatejoelkim.
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