Scene Feb 10, 2016 by Chava Communications

February 10 - 16, 2016 â&#x20AC;˘ Volume 45 Issue 32

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F E B R UA R Y 10 - 16 , 2 016 • V O L U M E 4 6 N O 3 2

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 Writer-at-large Kyle Swenson Web Editor Bliss Davis Dining Editor Douglas Trattner Contributing Dining Editor Nikki Delamotte Stage Editor Christine Howey Visual Arts Editor Josh Usmani

City Council raises campaign contribution limits, Browns may move training camp to Columbus, and more

Framed

Feature

Get Out!

Art

Stage

Film

Dining

Our favorite photos we’ve shared with you this week

Advertising Senior Multimedia Account Executive John Crobar, Shayne Rose Multimedia Account Executive Kiara Hunter-Davis, Joseph Williamson, Savannah Drdek Creative Services Production Manager Steve Miluch Layout Editor/Graphic Designer Christine Hahn Staff Photographer Emanuel Wallace

A journey through our favorite things between two slices of bread in Cleveland

Business Asst. To The Publisher Angela Lott Sales Assistant/Receptionist Megan Stimac Circulation Circulation Director Don Kriss Euclid Media Group Chief Executive Offi cer Andrew Zelman Chief Operating Offi cers 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

New Reinberger Gallery hosts CIA student exhibition

National Advertising Voice Media Group 1-800-278-9866, voicemediagroup.com Cleveland Scene 737 Bolivar Rd, #4100 Cleveland, OH 44115 www.clevescene.com Phone 216-241-7550 Retail & Classifi ed Fax 216-241-6275 Editoral Fax 216-802-7212 E-mail scene@clevescene.com

Three characters reveal their deepest secrets in Slow Dance on the Killing Ground

Verifi ed 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, selfaddressed 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’

Son of Saul examines the atrocities of the Holocaust

Locally made Full Measure Aromatic Bitters to hit market

...The story continues at clevescene.com

Music

Big Sam’s Funky Nation brings the NOLA heat to the north shore

Take

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“Cleveland Scene Magazine”

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UPFRONT

CITY COUNCIL INCREASES CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION CAPS

THIS WEEK

AFTER A LENGTHY FINANCE Committee discussion on Monday, City Council approved an increase on the maximum amount of political campaign contributions allowed by a donor. These caps had not been increased in more than 20 years. In short, the new limits cap individual campaign contributions to a mayoral candidate at $5,000. Political action committees may donate up to $7,500 to a mayoral candidate’s campaign. These numbers came from Councilman Matt Zone, who suggested them toward the end of the Monday committee meeting. Relatedly, maximum contributions for City Council candidates were increased to $1,500 for individuals and $3,000 for PACs. That increase was approved by City Council at its regular evening meeting, by a vote of 13-3. (Council members Zack Reed, Michael Polensek and Kevin Conwell voted against the ordinance.) Council President Kevin Kelley’s original measure would have jacked

up maximum contributions for Cleveland mayoral candidates to $10,000. The biggest hangup among council members throughout the discussion seemed to be that $10,000 proposed limit for mayoral candidates. Once Zone began seeking a happy medium, the overall sense of debate petered out. (Regarding the mayoral campaign contribution caps, Mayor Frank Jackson’s office has said that he did not influence the introduction of this legislation.) Part of the day’s debate involved the role of inflation, of course, but also the changing nature of political campaigns. Councilman Martin Keane pointed out how communication has evolved since 1994. It’s just more expensive to reach out to voters in a competitive and earnest way, Keane said. He also said that the committee will need to really ground this legislation with reason — a method of explaining and justifying this measure, or what was at the time

STILL DELICIOUS

Local furniture guru Marc Norton shows up in Taco Bell’s Super Bowl TV spot. Updated tagline: “If you can’t get diarrhea from Taco Bell’s new Quesalupa, you can’t get it anywhere.” | clevescene.com | February 10 - 16, 2016

TOO SOON

a specific $10,000 mayoral cap, to constituents. In terms of that accountability question, Polensek added: “The decisions we make are going to affect future mayoral races...and we’d just better think about what foundation we’re laying for our neighborhoods and our community.” Zone, offering his suggested numbers, which were eventually approved, said he recognizes the need for some sort of adjustment in 2016 and asserted that those running for the mayor’s office next year in Cleveland will need to spend “$2 million minimum, absolutely.” Greg Coleridge, director of the Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee, offered his thoughts at City Hall. He pointed out that there are various factors that “compete” against one another — i.e., the importance of having sufficient funds to run a credible political campaign vs. the establishment of proper limits that will guard against the influence of special interests (or

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even the perception of that influence). “There is no mathematical formula,” Coleridge said. “It is relative, and it is a balancing act.” Coleridge, asserting that massive campaign contributions have a stifling effect on the notion of free speech in politics, landed on what he claimed was an old Chinese saying: “You are likely to end up where you’re headed. And which direction are you heading in?”

CIRCUIT COURT UPHOLDS JUAN ORTIZ’S USE-OF-FORCE CASE AGAINST CLEVELAND OFFICERS Last week, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the case of Juan Ortiz against Cleveland police officers Brian Kazimer and Dan Crisan, two officers who roughed up the then-16year-old boy during a 2010 incident. The case will head to trial, where the officers “will have the chance to give their version of events to a jury,” according to the opinion. Scene published an extensive

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Photo: Public record via Cuyahoga County Court

UPFRONT Ortiz at the hospital, awaiting a chest x-ray.

feature on the case last year. In short: Officers responded to a robbery incident in the westside’s Jefferson neighborhood. While seeking the suspects — one described as white and of average height, the other black and of average height — two officers spotted Ortiz, all of 4’11” and Hispanic. Ortiz also has Down Syndrome, and when he saw the officers, he began to run. When Kazimer caught up with him, he “grabbed Juan from behind, forcefully pulled him from his mother’s arms, and slammed him very hard into [a] vehicle like a football player making a tackle,” according to eyewitnesses. He held the boy against the car for 15 minutes. Ortiz was “not making any effort to resist” and was “crying out in pain.” (At some point in the struggle, a nearby apartment manager told the officers that the wallet from the initial robbery report had been recovered. Neither officer responded.) Kazimer and Crisan then hurled racist epithets at his parents and other onlookers. Kazimer told Ortiz’s parents that they were lucky he didn’t shoot the boy. Last week, based on witness input and the officers’ affidavits, the court ruled that, due to the nature of the incident, the defendant officers cannot fall back on “state-law immunity.” The Ortiz family’s attorney, Subodh Chandra, said: “The Ortiz family is gratified that they will have their day in court to hold the officers accountable for hurting young Juan and for hurling racist slurs at the family—even while city officials continue to refuse to hold the officers accountable.”

BROWNS TO COLUMBUS? Columbus business leaders presented a wish list to the state legislators last week, asking for allocations from the Ohio capital budget to pay for infrastructure projects. Among its requests was a $5 million ask to pay for an athletic facility that would host the Cleveland

| clevescene.com | February 10 - 16, 2016

Browns’ summer training camp. Summer camp negotiations between the Browns and Columbus officials have been ongoing for some time -- prompting some to speculate that Columbus intends to snatch the franchise writ large -- but the Plain Dealer’s Brent Larkin excoriated the budget request, in a column published last Thursday, primarily because he felt the real purpose of the facility was veiled. He thought framing the request to highlight the facility’s community benefits was a sham. “The Athletic Practice and Training Facility will serve as a backdrop for collegiate athletic teams and community youth programs to utilize throughout the year,” the Columbus Partnership document reads. “It will also attract professional athletic teams and franchises to our region.” Larkin called the language underhanded and was outraged that all Ohio taxpayers (including Clevelanders) should have to foot the bill for the move from training camp’s current location in Berea. He even suggested that if the funding is approved, local taxpayers might repeal the Sin Tax — we ought to anyway — and abandon political leaders who support the deal. Larkin’s apoplexy (on behalf of local taxpayers) is odd indeed, given the furor with which he has promoted every Sin Tax that has landed on County ballots. Anyway, Berea Mayor Cyril Kleem told Scene in a phone interview that the situation’s not as devastating for Berea as Larkin may have made it seem. There’s often a confusion between “training camp” and Browns headquarters, he said. “The headquarters are staying in Berea,” said Kleem. “They’ve agreed to stay through the 2028 season and they’ve been very open with us about the possibility of moving training camp.” Kleem said that though he’d “obviously prefer” if training camp stayed in Berea, he wouldn’t classify the potential relocation as “a crisis.” “We’re still pulling in about $3 million per year in income tax with

the headquarters, and ever since the training camp moved from two-a-days to one-a-day in the mornings, we don’t see as much economic development from having it here,” Kleem said. “It’s a nice draw, but it’s not huge.” To Larkin, Kleem estimated that Berea stood to lose about $40,000 per year in income tax revenue should the training camp move elsewhere. Kleem told Scene that he hasn’t formulated an opinion on the funding mechanism for the Columbus facility — “the first time I heard about it was from Brent Larkin,” Kleem said — but stressed that Berea has had a very good relationship with the Browns and says, in general, that a pro team having its training camp someplace other than its home town isn’t unusual. “A lot of people want to believe that Berea’s in a bad situation with the Browns,” Kleem said, in conclusion, “but from my perspective, it’s been a great situation.”

GCP’s WIsH LIsT Never to be outdone in the category of Pumping Funds from an Overtaxed Public to Stimulate Private Sector Growth, the Greater Cleveland Partnership submitted a wish list to the state of Ohio as well. The highest priority on their list was $8.5 million for the Lakefront Pedestrian Bridge. Also included as “Tier 1” projects was the Flats East

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Bank (for whatever reason). The GCP wants $8.1 million to “take the revitalization to the next level.” They also asked for $10 million for a Health Education Campus for the Cleveland Clinic and Case; $5 million for phase two of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History reconstruction; and $4 million to address the landslide issues at Irishtown Bend. Funds to help build new exhibits at the Rock Hall and a new parking garage at Playhouse Square were considered “Tier 2.” Though the GCP identifies all of the above as exceedingly “highimpact,” it’s not like all of them will be funded in full (or even at all). Last year, the state provided $30 million for regional projects. For now, local officials are concerned, foremost, with nabbing the final $3.5 million for Public Square. On that all-important request, the city will not comment.

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FIrsT ZIka Case DIsCovereD In oHIo According to a news release from the Ohio Department of Health, the first case of the Zika Virus has been discovered in Ohio. A 30-year-old Cleveland woman contracted the virus on a recent trip to Haiti. Prior to this report, 35 cases of Zika have been reported in 12 states by the Center for Disease Control. The Zika virus, transmitted chiefly through mosquito bites in Brazil and other parts of Central and South America, has made headlines for its calamitous medical effects on pregnant women. It’s thought to be a cause of microcephaly -- “shrunken head syndrome.” An Ohio health official, late in January, correctly predicted that it was only a matter of time before the Zika virus arrived in Ohio. Almost every reported case is from a recent traveler to Central or South America. Haiti is adjacent to the Dominican Republic on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, just south and east of Cuba. Though there’s no indication that the virus may be contracted through casual contact, and though the Zika-transmitting mosquitos aren’t currently found in Ohio, state health officials say a “tabletop exercise” is being planned to ensure preparedness for Ohio’s mosquito season regardless. The mosquito season runs (loosely) from May to October.

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FEATURE

SANDWICH, PLEASE

A Cleveland journey through our favorite things between two slices of bread By Douglas Trattner

THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY DEFINES A SANDWICH AS … Just kidding. Everybody knows what a sandwich is. Since we were old enough to grip a greasy grilled cheese, we’ve been shoving the blessed things in our mouths and smiling about it. Sandwiches are the ultimate convenience food, requiring zero silverware and sometimes not even both hands to devour. For such a straightforward food item — it is just two pieces of bread separated by a filling — there is remarkable diversity on the sandwich landscape. We decided to dig a little deeper into the local sandwich environment to explore some of our favorites. languishes in a warm bath of pan drippings. For others, it’s the spicy giardiniera, which provides the only texture in an otherwise squidgy sandwich. Here in Cleveland, the options are slim, but Local West’s version comes pretty close. We also like the ones served at D’Italia (websiteditaliafoods.com). French Dip at Rosewood Grill (Multiple locations, rosewoodgrill. com) The kissing cousin to the Italian beef, the French Dip is ideal for diners who like to control the level Photo by Emanuel Wallace

Philly Cheesesteak from Original Steaks & Hoagies (10735 Ravenna Rd., Twinsburg, steaksandhoagies.com) In Philadelphia, “steak shops” are as common as Flyers fans, where on practically every corner shaved ribeye is cooked up on a coal-black griddle and piled into foot-long hoagie buns with — or with-out — sauteed onions and Cheez Whiz. Provolone also is acceptable. The best versions, like those served at Original Steaks & Hoagies, are built upon soft but sturdy buns from Phillybased Amoroso Bakery, and the beef is chopped into bits on the griddle, leaving the meat surprisingly light and airy. Options are slim when it comes to real-deal cheesesteaks around here, but we also like Eddies Famous Cheesesteaks in Akron (eddiescheesesteaks.com). Chicago-Style Italian Beef at Local West (7400 Detroit Ave., localwestcleveland.com) If you order your Italian beef “hot and wet” in Chi-town, you’ll be treated to a flavorful onslaught of buttery, thin-sliced roast beef, sweet peppers, spicy pickled vegetables and enough pan juices to ruin a good pair of loafers. For some, the attraction lies in the heap of tender beef, which

of sogginess — and saltiness — of their shaved-beef sandwich. Instead of being dunked in au jus, or being on the receiving end of a ladleful, this sandwich gets a sidecar of sauce. Dip, dab or dunk, the results all are delicious. The addition of cheese, mustard, horseradish or grilled onions, while not typical, also are not not delicious. We still haven’t found a better dip in town than the ones served up at Rosewood Grill, but give the ones at Parkview Nite Club (parkviewniteclub.com) and Flat Iron Cafe (flatironcafe.com) a spin and you French Dip at Rosewood Grill

won’t be disappointed. Italian Sub at Cleveland Pickle (850 Euclid Ave., clevelandpickle.com) If you grab slices of damn near everything in the deli case of your local Italian market, pile them into a sub bun, and douse the whole affair with vinaigrette, you end up with one of America’s best lunches. Since opening its doors downtown, Cleveland Pickle has been knocking this sando out of the park, a twofisted pipe of prosciutto, capicola, sopressata, provolone and spicy pickle relish, which gives it a modern kick. We’re fans, too, of the versions sold at Angelo’s Pizza (angelosonline.com), Dave’s Cosmic Subs (davescosmicsubs. com) and the Hot Italian at Melt Bar & Grilled (meltbarandgrilled.com). Roast Pork at Bogtrotters Doorstep (1848 West 25th St.) That “other” famous sandwich from Philly, the roast pork actually is preferred by many locals because of its multi-dimensionality. Whereas the cheesesteak is basically meat and cheese on a bun, the roast pork benefits from the addition of bitter broccoli rabe, sharp provolone, and plenty of juicy porky drippings in place of run-of-the-mill griddle grease. Cleveland’s best version goes by the name of Porkopolis, and it’s sold from a make-shift cafe carved out of the Old Angle Tavern. The newly opened Herb’n Twine (herbntwine.com) has a model built with juicy, savory porchetta. Lobster Roll at Alley Cat Oyster Bar (1056 Old River Rd., alleycatoysterbar.com) When your principal ingredient is lobster, the main job of the cook is simply not to screw things up. If you start — and practically stop — with succulent chunks of sweet | clevescene.com | February 10 - 16, 2016

Field Guide to Bread Sandwich Bread This here is your general loaf bread. The saying “best thing since sliced bread” is no meager maxim. Busy places like delicatessens (and kid-filled homes) rely on the efficiency of sliced bread to speed up the sandwichmaking process. White, wheat, rye and pumpernickel varieties offer slight textural differences and modest flavor contrasts. Commonly seen in deli sandwiches like grilled cheese, tuna fish, egg salad, corned beef and the Club. Baguette Long, crusty and generally soft enough inside to receive a full complement of ingredients, the baguette immediately elevates everyday sandwich combos to something a bit more sophisticated. In a well-crafted French baguette, ingredients as simple as ham and cheese or tuna and sliced hard-boiled eggs become unforgettable meals. They are the usual mode of transport for banh mi sandwiches, French Dips and the summery Caprese.

Photo by Emanuel Wallace

Maine lobster meat, the sandwich will take of itself. If you gently poach that lobster meat in butter, as Alley Cat does, all the better. Here, the customary mayo is swapped for light and creamy Green Goddess dressing, a nice twist, and slaw adds a pleasant crunch. All that jazz is spooned into a toasted split-top bun and served with fries. Nauti Mermaid (thenautimermaid.com) serves up a great one, as does Jammy Buggars

Fried Chicken at Greenhouse Tavern

order at Lobster Brothers, a fresh fish and seafood market that only does carry-out. The thin flanks of fish are flash fried and tucked into a burger bun with lettuce and mayo for a crunchy, creamy taste of summer. Out west, in Port Clinton, hit up Jolly Rogers Seafood. Out east, visit HilMak Seafood in Ashtabula. Here in town, we love the fried walleye sando at Fish Shack & Grill in Clark-Fulton. Fried Oyster Po’ Boy at Bourbon Street Barrel Room (2393 Professor Ave., bourbonstreetbarrelroom.com) You can scoop almost anything out of the sea, deep fry it, pile it into a baguette with crunchy veggies and creamy remoulade and it will be delicious. But we prefer oysters, shrimp or soft-shell crab. Both shrimp- and oyster-based versions are available at Bourbon Street Barrel

Boy Shop (nolaspoboyshop.com) in Strongsville is a crispy bundle of Creole lovin’. Bravocado Sandwich at Beet Jar (1432 West 29th St., beetjar.com) You don’t have to be a practicing vegan or vegetarian to opt for a meat-free lunch. Heck, you might even feel better afterwards. The good news is that Cleveland is chock-full of delicious sandwiches that shun the beef, options which are available both at conventional eateries and those well-known for catering to vegetarians. Since opening, the Beet Jar has been adored for its take on the popular avocado toast concept. Though it starts with avocado and toast, it expands to include toasty coconut, red onion, greens and creamy cashew spread, which all combine to form a meat-free fiesta.

Photo by Emanuel Wallace

FEATURE

(jammybuggars.com), which folds in some sweet shrimp. Fried Perch at Lobster Brothers (26055 Detroit Rd., Westlake, lobsterbrothers.com) Lobster might not be a local product, but lake perch and walleye most certainly are. In fact, some could argue that the fish fry is our official sandwich. Everybody from the corner pub to the local church professes to make and serve the best around, but we know better because we’ve suffered through countless versions made with the opposite of fresh fish. The best around is friedto

Hoagie Roll The hoagie bun is like a wider, softer and paler version of the French baguette, making it ideal for American diners who might be put off by a ruthlessly crusty exterior. The bland and forgiving white bread provides a roomy blank canvas on which to build sandwiches like the Italian sub, Philly Cheesesteak and the pressed and griddled Cubano. Bagel The king of the breakfast sandwich, the bagel is best known for openface delights like a bagel and schmear with lox, onion and capers. Bagels also are used as the vehicle of choice for all matter of morning sandwiches, the best usually involving some arrangement of bacon, egg and cheese. Of course, delis use them in place of sandwich bread for countless combinations. Ciabatta Bread Broad, squat and slipper shaped, the ciabatta has a characteristically dusty, floury exterior and airy, chewy crumb. The mini loaf’s uniform shape and thickness make it ideally suited for all matter of sandwiches, many of which feature flavorful spreads like pesto that fill the cracks and crevices in the bread.

Bravocado Sandwich at Beet Jar

Room, with that latter edging out the former in terms of flavor and texture. They’re paired with shredded lettuce and chopped tomato and drizzled with a creamy mayo-based “bistro sauce.” On the east side of town, Tavern Company (thetaverncompany. com) in Cleveland Heights concocts a near-perfect soft-shell crab version while the Ragin’ Cajun at Nola’s Po’

When it comes to other vegetarianfriendly sandwiches, we also love the Grilled Eggplant with bocconcini and pesto mayo at La Bodega (labodegatremont.com) in Tremont, the On the Road at Root Cafe (theroot-cafe. com) in Lakewood, made with beets, goat cheese, caramelized onions and spinach, and Market at the Fig’s (theflyingfig.com) Mediterranean-

inspired Vegan, ciabatta bread loaded with grilled eggplant, roasted red pepper, hummus and pickled vedge. Fried Chicken at Greenhouse Tavern (2038 East Fourth St., thegreenhousetavern.com) That’s right, we gave fried chicken sandwiches their own damn category. Not only are they the best way to eat fried chicken short of a picnic in a park, but they are the hottest thing going on the sando circuit. Greenhouse knocks them out of the park for a number of reasons, but mainly because they’re made using boneless thighs; also because they are hot as Hades and crisp as a chip. No surprise that Southern-themed take-out shop Chow Chow Kitchen in Lakewood serves up its own killer version, this one a Nashville Hotstyle with crispy breast meat, creamy coleslaw and refreshing pickle chips. Also on the must-sample list: the Epic Fried Chicken Sandwich at Southside (southsidecleveland.com) with chow chow relish and chili aioli, and Market Garden Brewery’s (marketgardenbrewery.com) Fried Chicken Sandwich that’s topped with buttermilk coleslaw, cucumber pickles and spicy mayo. Breakfast Banh Mi at Jack Flaps (3900 Lorain Ave., jack-flaps.com) Every joint in town that serves breakfast and/or brunch has some edition of the breakfast sandwich, and pretty much all of them feature some combination of pork, egg and cheese. Sure, the bread or bun changes, and maybe the garnishes and sauce, but when your three main ingredients stay put, there’s only so much possible deviation. That’s why we can’t stay away from the Breakfast Banh Mi at Jack Flaps, tricked out with Vietnamese-spiced sausage, lightly fermented kimchi, everything bagel cream cheese and a fried egg. Fire Food & Drink (firefoodanddrink. com) shakes things up by tucking local fried eggs, bacon, lettuce and tomato into smoky Indian flatbread. Breakfast sandwiches served on a fluffy croissant, as is the case with XYZ Tavern’s (xyzthetavern.com) BLT

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Photo by Emanuel Wallace

Fried Oyster Po’ Boy at Bourbon Street Barrel Room

& A, are always appreciated. This is a bacon, lettuce and tomato sando with a fried egg and avocado. Bonbon Bakery (bonboncleveland.com) has been winning the breakfast sandwich category thanks to the housemade English muffin that supports maple syrup-scented sausage, over-easy egg and cheddar cheese. Corned Beef at Slyman’s Restaurant (3106 St. Clair Ave., slymans.com) What’s left to say about this sandwich that hasn’t already been said? When it comes to sliced-meat deli sandwiches in Cleveland, corned beef immediately comes to mind. And when it comes to suppliers of said beef, Slyman’s owns the field. The model of the category, these jaw-busting towers of plush, rosyred beef are ridiculously savory and satisfying, destroying our cravings for the beasts for a solid month. Culinary tourists travel far and wide to visit this bustling midtown deli for a taste of one of the best CB on ryes in the country. We also wouldn’t turn our noses up at the versions sold at Danny’s Deli (dannysdeli.net), Superior Restaurant (9108 Superior Ave.) and Tal’s Bakery & Deli in Parma (talsbeverageanddeli.com). Hot Pastrami at Mr. Brisket (2156 South Taylor Rd., Cleveland Heights, misterbrisket.com) For eons, Mister Brisket was known best as the butcher shop to the stars — or at least to chefs and home cooks who demanded the best quality meats and chops. It was only in recent memory that the small Cleveland Heights shop began making and selling sandwiches starring house-roasted meats, and the response has been almost unanimously positive. While the corned beef is spot-on delicious, the luscious, peppery hot Romanian pastrami on soft rye is the deli’s true treasure. Notable runners up can be enjoyed at Corky & Lenny’s (corkyandlennys.com) and Ontario Street Cafe (2053 Ontario St.). Reuben at Jack’s Deli (14490 Cedar Rd., University Heights,

| clevescene.com | February 10 - 16, 2016

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jacksdeliandrestaurant.com) Technically, the Reuben ain’t kosher given the verboten mix of meat and dairy, but it is one of the best things to come out of a delicatessen since the dill pickle. What sets the sandwich apart from your typical corned beef on rye is the unholy marriage of corned beef, swiss cheese, crunchy, tangy kraut and creamy Russian dressing, all of which get griddled up to a crunchy, melty, amazing mess. You won’t find

many better than the one served at Jack’s Deli, but Lucky’s Cafe (luckyscafe.com) in Tremont does a truly fine job, as does Joe’s Deli (myjoesdeli.com) in Lakewood and Jaworski Meats (jaworskimeats.com) in Middleburg Heights. Club Sandwich at Diner on Clifton (11637 Clifton Blvd., dineronclifton.com) The Club is sliced into fun-size triangles, four pointy quadrants that immediately set the classic clubhouse

Photo by Emanuel Wallace

FEATURE

Breakfast Banh Mi at Jack Flaps

sandwich apart from the rest. Each tidy stack is held securely in place by a toothpick, making the sections easy

to eat with one hand while, perhaps, holding an ace-high straight flush in the other. The Diner on Clifton

Behold the BLT, the World’s Greatest Sandwich In a world filled with immensely enjoyable sandwiches, it’s pretty foolish to attempt to crown any particular variety as the best. Well, don’t ever let it be said that we here at Scene aren’t fools. The BLT — not even by a little bit — is the World’s Greatest Sandwich. In terms of form and function, taste and texture, simplicity and objective, this unassuming stack of four modest ingredients (and one pale condiment) delivers more pleasure per square inch than most solid foods. It is perfect in its equilibrium: ratio of meat to bread and vedge; balance of sweet and salty; juxtaposition of creamy and crunchy. It has bacon, which already gives it a leg up on most earthly things, let alone sandwiches. But without the supporting cast of cool, crisp lettuce, sweet and juicy tomatoes, and bright and tangy mayonnaise, that bacon would never rise to its porky potential. We don’t often think of sandwiches as seasonal foodstuffs, but don’t even bother to make, order or attempt to enjoy a BLT at any time of the year other than the pinnacle of summer. Bacon and lettuce might be year ’round staples, but perfectly ripe tomatoes are not. And when it comes to the mayo, it’s best to stick with homemade, Duke’s or Hellman’s. Miracle Whip is murder on a BLT. As for the bread, keep it thin, toasted or grilled, so as not to get too much in the way of the real stars of the World’s Greatest Sandwich. I’ll await your angry replies on the topic, but just know that you are wrong.

| clevescene.com | February 10 - 16, 2016

Photo by Emanuel Wallace

FEATURE

Falafel at Cafe Falafel

does them right, with three pieces of toast layered with roast turkey, crispy bacon, chilly lettuce, tomato and mayo. They’re so good, you’ll swear you’re at the country club. Al’s Deli (als-deli.com) downtown and Muldoon’s (muldoonscleveland.com) on East 185th also know their way around a Club sandwich. Banh Mi at Superior Pho (3030 Superior Ave., superiorpho.com) Vietnamese cooks manage to pack more flavor, texture and satisfaction into a crusty French-style baguette

than any other culture on earth. The love child of French and Vietnamese cuisines, this addictive sandwich’s charm lies in the contrast of ingredients, like creamy chicken liver pate and mayonnaise set against the crunch of pickled veggies, the satisfying meatiness of thin-sliced roast pork against the summery shine of fresh cilantro and the kick in the teeth from jalapeños. Excellent versions are also served at Bac in Tremont (bactremont. com), Pho Thang downtown

(phothangcafe.com) and On the Rise Bakery (ontheriseartisanbreads. com). Cubano at Caribe Bake Shop (2906 Fulton Rd.) The Cubano — or Cuban — is the Latin version of the Italian panini, a crusty, lusty pressed sandwich that oozes melted cheese around its waist. Sure, it’s meaty and savory thanks to sliced roast pork, ham and, if you’re lucky, crispy pork skin. But it’s also bright and tangy thanks to the schmear of yellow

mustard and sliced dill pickles. At Caribe, deep in the Clark-Fulton neighborhood, you’ll find one of the best versions around, thin as a cheap seat cushion in the fourth quarter and dense as a celestial black hole. In Valley View, hit up the Oak Barrel (theoakbarrel.com) for a ridiculously good version, while in Berea, head to the Latin-run Campus Grille (thecampusgrille.com). Fat Italian at Fat Heads (24581 Lorain Rd., North Olmsted, fatheadscleveland.com) There are sandwiches, minimalist and beautiful with spare ingredients, because those few choices should be the focus of your gastronomy. And then there are sandwiches, whole meals and layers stuffed between two slices of bread or buns, the carbs simply the easiest and most effective way to hold all of the goodness together. Behold, if you’re talking about the second philosophy, the sandwiches at Fat Heads. And, specifically, behold the Fat Italian. Yes, they’re called headwiches — as big as your head, natch — for a reason. The Fat Italian holds ham, salami, capicola, pepperoni, crumbled hot sausage, provolone cheese, banana peppers, hard-boiled egg, lettuce, tomato, red onion and mayo. It’s a mouthful in every sense of the word.

The Polish Boy: A Brief History Google the Polish Boy and you’ll likely spot blurbs crowning it Cleveland’s signature sandwich, or where to score the best version of this culturally significant food, or how this odd mashup of kielbasa, coleslaw, french fries and barbecue sauce in a bun has been praised once again in the national media (by Michael Symon, Food Network, Serious Eats, Esquire … the list goes on and on). But what you won’t likely read is how we got here. Seriously: We checked the Plain Dealer’s full archives and found only a handful of mentions of the Polish Boy, and in each case it was simply a colloquial way to refer to a kielbasa on a bun. (For example, a 1986 piece on streetside vendors queried one stand on the difference between a hot dog and a Polish Boy, and the vendor’s “knowing reply” was, “One’s bigger.”) There was no origin story, no deep dive into the history of a particular cook or restaurant or person who first dreamt of slapping fries and BBQ sauce on the kielbasa. Whereas Philadelphia’s cheesesteak or Chicago’s Italian beef or Detroit’s coney have legendary stories and robust accounts of their births, the Polish Boy just seemed to pop up one day without much to-do and simply became part of the city’s culinary landscape. History on the topic is scarce, as you can see, but what we can gather is that the sandwich was probably an invention of convenience dreamt up by a resourceful barbecue restaurant owner named Virgil Whitmore, who opened the original Whitmore’s Bar-B-Q in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood back in the 1940s. Working with a smoked beef sausage that was a cross between a hot dog and a true Polish kielbasa, Whitmore combined ingredients that he already had on hand — coleslaw, french fries and his beloved barbecue sauce — to come up with this delicious mess of a sandwich. Various family members went on to open other barbecue shops, including additional Whitmore’s locations as well as Mt. Pleasant BBQ on Kinsman, which opened in 1977 and is currently operated by Virgil Whitmore’s grandson Larry Turner. When asked where the Polish Boy originated, Turner responds, “It Polish Boy at Banter wasn’t Poland, that’s for sure!” But, he adds, his shop has been doing them since Day 1, and they’re still one of the most popular items going. Other barbecue joints in town, most notably Hot Sauce Williams, which opened in 1963, have also been serving up Polish Boys for as long as we can recall. One of the best versions around is sold out of a truck almost permanently moored at Dean Supply called Seti’s Polish Boys. Owner Seti Martinez says that when he launched his truck 15 years ago he decided to specialize in Polish Boys, admitting that he was a good 50 years behind on the trend. We recently lost Freddie’s Southern Style Rib House and Steve’s Lunch, two popular destinations for the classic sandwich, but others are picking up the torch. Banter (bantercleveland.com) in Detroit Shoreway makes a deluxe version with housemade kielbasa, slaw, frites and sauce, while Cajun-minded Battiste and Dupree (battisteanddupreecajungrill.com) in South Euclid serves up a more traditional take. If you’re near the Map Room downtown, give the Drew Carey a try. It’s a Polish Boy that swaps the kielbasa for an all-beef hot dog topped with BBQ sauce, slaw and fries.

Lobster Roll at Alley Cat Oyster Bar

Photo by Emanuel Wallace

CLEARANCE SALE!

All Ohio at The Grocery in Ohio City (3815 Lorain Ave., thegroceryohc.com) Local, local, local. The tastiest ingredients are the freshest and come from just down the street. In the case of The Grocery in Ohio City (SoLo, whatever), the whole store does. And while you’re picking up some local bagels or salsa, take advantage of The Grocery’s menu, which unsurprisingly is filled top to bottom with Cleveland-made goodies. One of our favorites? The All Ohio, which layers on roast beef from the lady butchers of Saucission with Cleveland Kraut, Middlefield Amish Swiss, Stone Oven bread and Montana Girl mustard (which is made locally, don’t be confused by the name). Pig Mac at Crop Bistro (2537 Lorain Ave., cropbistro.com) Think about the Big Mac for a second, and then remember that you probably shouldn’t eat a Big Mac. Well, in the case of Crop, you take the simple structural elements and instead of burgers you throw in three kinds of pig. You improve it. You de-Micky D it. Thus was born the Pig Mac, which layers braised pork, bacon and pork loin between three buns with the usual Big Mac accouterments — pickles, onions, special sauce, etc. It’s decadent, it’s piggy, and it’s just about the best thing you can get on three pieces of bread (challah bun, in this case.) It’s on the lunch menu, but don’t bank on going back to work after you finish it. Falafel at Cafe Falafel (3843 Riveredge Rd., mycafefalafel.com) Cafe Falafel’s falafel will ruin you for other versions. Generous amounts of minced parsley and cilantro in the batter keep the patties light, moist and airy while last-minute deep frying in peanut oil provides the perfect crunch. The falafel is rolled in a thin lavashstyle pita with tahini sauce, pickled

turnips, pickles and fresh herbs, creating one of the most satisfying vegetarian sandwiches in town. Praiseworthy versions of this Middle Eastern classic also can be found at Maha’s Falafil (mahasfalafil. com) at West Side Market, Frank’s Falafel House in Detroit Shoreway, and numerous Aladdin’s Eatery (aladdinseatery.com) locations around town. Shawarma at Ferris Deli (13507 Lakewood Heights Blvd.) Walk into Ferris and you’ll spot a trio of spinning-meat towers, each stacked with marinated pieces of chicken or beef as opposed to gyro’s seasoned chip-chopped meat mixture. Order the beef shawarma wrap and the owner shaves off thin slices, bundles them up tightly in a thin lavash-like wrap with Arabic pickles and creamy garlic sauce, slaps it on the griddle until golden brown, before slicing it up into easy-to-eat rounds. We are pretty certain that it’s the best shawarma wrap in town, though we also make frequent visits to Sahara Restaurant (saharacle.weebly.com) and Nate’s Deli (natesohiocity.com). Arepa at Barroco Grill (12906 Madison Ave., Lakewood, barrocogrill.com) The good folks at this Colombianthemed eatery didn’t invent the arepa sandwich, but they did introduce many a grateful Clevelander to the genre. The thick corn flour tortillas smell amazing, and when griddled and split, make an ideal chassis for any combination of Latin-inspired ingredients. We’re partial to the chorizo and cheese with onions. El Arepazo y Pupuseria in Fairview Park makes a similar dish, with fragrant arepas sliced and stuffed with chorizo, onions, green peppers and little bits of cheese.

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allstatehairstyling.com | clevescene.com | February 10 - 16, 2016

convergence-continuum in association with the Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts and Cleveland State University

Unwritten History: A Grays Lecture Series

Ohio’s Resistance To The Fugitive Slave Law Join us as Ron Gorman; docent, blogger and researcher for the Oberlin Heritage Center delivers a talk on Northeast Ohio’s role in the Underground Railroad, Abolitionism and Fugitive Slave Law. Ron is a skilled speaker delivering multiple presentations on this subject matter and is also a 2015 Member of the Year of the CivilWarTalk.com discussion forum.

Open to the Public Free of Charge

FEBRUARY 15 • 7:00PM at GRAYS ARMORY MUSEUM 1234 Bolivar | Cleveland, OH 44115

Limited seating, please RSVP by Feb. 12th. to 216-621-5938 or grays1837@yahoo.com Brought to you by:

The Cleveland Grays and Cleveland Arts & Culture.

| clevescene.com | February 10 - 16, 2016

The NEOMFA Playwrights Festival Four World-Premiere Plays By Area Graduate-Student Playwrights Thu-Sat, Feb 11-13 at 8 pm:

Thu-Sat, Feb 18-20 at 8 pm:

The Last Word by JC Cifranic – a 10-minute comedy

The Last Stand on Mango Street by Samuel Amazing – 20-min. play welcomes you to the first day of the Apocalypse.

The Panther Dancer by Logan Smith – twoact play that takes a sidelong glance at the meteoric rise and tragic fall of Michael Jackson that’ll have you laughing bleak and crying colored glass.

The Split Show by L. Langford – two-act satire that examines ripped-from-the-headlines issues by placing the two very different worlds Blacks and Whites inhabit side by side.

At the

Liminis Theater

2438 Scranton Rd, Cleveland 44113 in the historic Tremont neighborhood

$10 general admission, $5 students

Reservations at convergence-continuum.org or 216-687-0074 THE LIMINIS THEATER BUILDING IS GOING UP FOR SALE.

HELP convergence-continuum TO BUY IT! Full details are at convergence-continuum.org

WED

2/10

COMEDY

Kevin McPeek Contrary to popular disbelief, standup comedian Kevin “Naked” McPeek doesn’t really work in the nude. He earned the nickname years ago when he was telling a joke onstage about seat belts. Now, he just inserts the word “naked,” and it gets a laugh no matter how good or bad the joke might be. He performs tonight and tomorrow night at 8 at Hilarities. Tickets are $18 for tonight’s show, $20 for tomorrow’s performance. (Jeff Niesel) 2035 East Fourth St., 216-241-7425, pickwickandfrolic.com. SPOKEN WORD

A Roundtable Discussion Each February, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum celebrates Black History Month with a series of events and programming. This year’s series kicks off with Black Music Matters, a panel discussion that takes place at 7 tonight in the Foster Theater. A roundtable of Cleveland activists, scholars, musicians and arts administrators, including Dr. Fredara Hadley (ethnomusicology professor, Oberlin Conservatory), RA Washington (activist and owner of Guide to Kulchur bookstore), Deirdre McPherson (curator of public programs, MOCA-Cleveland), Jul Huntley (founding member, Jul Big Green) and rapper Chelsea Pastel, will discuss the value of black music in Cleveland. The event will be streamed live on rockhall.com and will be followed with a reception with cash bar. It’s free with a reservation through the website or at the Rock Hall box office. (Niesel) 1100 Rock and Roll Blvd., 216-515-8444, rockhall.com. FILM

A Sinner in Mecca Saudi Arabia may ban both filmmaking and homosexuality, but a gay, Indian-born Muslim man living in New York City surreptitiously documents his pilgrimage to Islam’s holiest site in director Parvez Sharma’s A Sinner in Mecca. The New York Times calls the movie “a swirling, fascinating travelogue and a stirring celebration of devotion.” It makes its Cleveland debut tonight at 7 at the Cleveland

Photo courtesy of Quicken Loans Arena

GET OUT

everything you should do this week

Monster Jam returns to the Q. See: Saturday.

Museum of Art. It screens again at 7 on Friday night. Tickets are $9. (Niesel) 11150 East Blvd., 216-421-7350, clevelandart.org.

has shows scheduled through Sunday. Tickets are $17 to $20. (Niesel) 1148 Main Ave., 216-696-IMPROV, clevelandimprov.com. FILM

THEATER

The Two Gentlemen of Verona All hell breaks loose when two young men fall in love with the same woman in Shakespeare’s The Two Gentleman of Verona. The Case Western Reserve University/ Cleveland Playhouse MFA acting class of 2016 takes on this “rollicking” comedy that addresses modern-day issues of “fidelity, shifting loyalties, and love run amuck.” The play includes a crazy cast of characters as well — idiosyncratic servants, a runaway woman disguised as a man, domineering parents, outlaws and even a dog. It opens tonight at 7:30 at Helen Rosenfeld Lewis Bialosky Lab Theatre. Performances continue through Feb. 20. Tickets are $20. (Niesel) 1407 Euclid Ave., 216-771-8403, playhousesquare.org.

THUR 2/11 COMEDY

Gina Brillon Born and raised in the Bronx, actress, comedian, and writer Gina Brillon has been a standup comic since she was 17. She had a role in Gabriel Iglesias’ film The Fluffy Movie and she’s appeared on Comedy Central’s Live at Gotham, E!’s Chelsea Lately, AXS’ Gotham Comedy Live and The View. The mild-mannered comic likes to joke about everyday life. In one routine, she talks about how great it is to be a kid because kids don’t have a “filter” and can say whatever they like. She’s also a singer, published writer and poet. She performs tonight at 7:30 at the Improv and

Field Niggas The Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque doesn’t shy away from controversy. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that tonight at 6:45, it screens a film called Field Niggas. An “immersive documentary,” the movie centers on the poor people who frequent the corner of 125th Street and Lexington Avenue in Harlem. A “hallucinatory nocturne,” the movie takes its title from a Malcolm X speech. It’s preceded by four 4-minute films made by emerging visual artists. Tickets are $7. (Niesel) 11610 Euclid Ave., 216-421-7450, cia.edu. MUSIC

Mitsuko Uchida’s Mozart Famous for her intelligent and elegant interpretations of Mozart, conductor Mitsuko Uchida leads the Cleveland Orchestra tonight at Severance in the Piano Concerto No. 17, Symphony No. 34 and Piano Concerto No. 25. An hour before the concert, Kent State University professor of piano Donna Lee gives a pre-concert talk, “Magnificent Mozart,” in the Reinberger Chamber Hall. The concert begins tonight at 7:30. Tickets start at $29. The program repeats tomorrow and Saturday at 8 p.m. (Niesel) 1001 Euclid Ave., 216-231-1111, clevelandorchestra.com.

FRI

2/12

MUSIC

Chirihue Tonight at 7 at John Knox Presbyterian Church in North Olmsted, the Latin American Music Collec-

tive Chirihue plays a roots-inspired fusion concert, performing songs from Central and South America. Chirihue’s music is “a vital expression of the human experience in Latin America, with poignant connections to specific regional traditions.” Singer/songwriter/ethnomusicologist Emily Pinkerton, who has performed Chilean music for almost two decades, joins them on the bill. This tour is made possible in part through support from the University of Pittsburgh and through a collaboration between Karen S. Goldman, assistant director of the Center for Latin American Studies, and Emily Pinkerton, ethnomusicology instructor in the music department, who organized an artist residency for Chirihue in 2013. Admission is free. (Niesel) 25200 Lorain Rd., North Olmsted, 440-777-3744, johnknoxpc.org. MUSIC

Love, Longing & Cleveland Jazz Orchestra The Cleveland Jazz Orchestra promises to provide a romantic setting for tonight’s show, dubbed Love & Longing in CLE. The concert features guest artist Dominick Farinacci, a local jazz artist who has become a national draw yet still finds it in his heart to come back and play Cleveland on a regular basis. He’ll play tunes from his latest recording along with Paul Ferguson’s original arrangements and “familiar swoon-inducing favorites to make it a night to remember.” The show begins tonight at 8 at the Hanna Theatre. It repeats at 8 tomorrow night. Tickets are $25 to $50. (Niesel) 2067 East 14th St., 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org. COMEDY

Bobby Collins Bobby Collins was destined to be a comedian from the start: His father named him after Bob Hope, and Bobby’s been telling jokes ever since. A New York native, Collins left a very prestigious position as vice president of Calvin Klein to pursue his dream of being a comedian. He quickly catapulted to fame and has even opened for bigname acts such as Jay Leno and Jerry Seinfeld. Collins’ very heavy New York accent shines through as he tells jokes about everyday life. He performs tonight at 7:30 and 10 at Hilarities and has shows scheduled through Sunday. Tickets | clevescene.com | February 10 - 16, 2016

GET OUT are $28 to $30. (Niesel) 2035 East Fourth St., 216-241-7425, pickwickandfrolic.com.

traditions. Attendees can purchase soups, snacks and sweets from the Conservancy Canteen; the venue also offers local alcoholic and nonalcoholic handcrafted beverages. Single concert admission is $17 for adults, $12 for conservancy members and $5 for children ages 3 to

ration from the museum’s recent acquisition of Ji Yun-Fei’s painting, “Last Days of Village Wen,” which depicts a fiction story that explores environmental issues and mass human migration in contemporary China. The exhibition is augmented by works from the CMA’s per-

stage with him. He performs tonight at 7:30 and 10 and tomorrow night at 7 and 9:30 at Hard Rock Live’s Club Velvet. Tickets are $13 to $18. (Niesel) 10705 Northfield Rd., Northfield, 330-908-7793, hrrocksinonorthfieldpark.com. ART

FOOD

Fish Fry-Days Through March 25, Prosperity Social Club hosts Fish Fry-Days every Friday from 11:30 a.m. to 2 a.m. The special Lenten menu includes the Big Fish Fry, a seasonal staple that features a generous portion of haddock covered in a fluffy blanket of beer batter and complemented by homemade coleslaw, house tartar sauce and old-school-style mac and cheese. New this year: a pan-seared tilapia dressed in chimichurri sauce and served with sauteed spinach and coconut rice. As a bonus, Platform Brewing’s Palesner will be on tap to complement the special menu. (Niesel) 1109 Starkweather Ave., 216-937-1938, prosperitysocialclub.com. THEATER

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. Finding the humor in life and death, 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 audience members are treated as the friends and family of the deceased. The curtain rises at 8 tonight and tomorrow night at Kennedy’s Theatre. Tickets are $26. (Patrick Stoops) 1501 Euclid Ave, 216-771-4444, playhousesquare.org. MUSIC

Heritage Concert Series Presented by the National Park Service and the Conservancy for Cuyahoga Valley National Park, the Heritage Concert Series aims to celebrate the cultural legacy of the Cuyahoga Valley with a series of folk and roots rock concerts at the Happy Days Lodge. Tonight’s concert features the world musicinfluenced Ten Strings and a Goat Skin, a Canadian group that taps into Irish, Acadian and French

#SonicSesh

New Directions Tonight, Harris Stanton Gallery’s Cleveland location opens New Directions, a special group exhibition showcasing emerging artists locally trained through art programs in Northeast Ohio. To celebrate, the gallery will host a free, public reception from 6 to 8 tonight. (Usmani) 1370 West Ninth St., 216-471-8882, harrisatantongallery.com. ART

Tremont Art Walk This month’s Tremont Art Walk takes place tonight from 6 to 10. Doubting Thomas Gallery hosts an opening reception for T-time: Paintings by Terrance Hubbard, as well as cigar box art and music by “The Cleveland Guitar Man,” Eli Fletcher. In observance of One Billion Rising, the international action against violence toward women, House Tremont Gallery will host a temporary and participatory public art display. Visitors are invited to decorate heart-shaped or heart-themed artwork and install it on the fence around the building. Take down will be Sunday, Feb. 14. From 8 to 10 p.m., the Pretentious Artists of the Tremont Literary Cafe will be doing portraits. It’s free. (Usmani) tremontartwalk.com.

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1100 Rock and Roll Blvd., Cleveland, OH 44114 12. Doors open at 7 p.m., and the concert begins at 8 p.m. (Niesel) 500 West Streetsboro Rd., Peninsula, 330-657-2909, ConservancyforCVNP.org. ART

Ji Yun-Fei’s Last Days of Village Wen Today, Ji Yun-Fei: Last Days of Village Wen, the Cleveland Museum of Art’s latest temporary exhibition, opens to the public in the Chinese Painting Gallery. The exhibition takes its title and inspi-

| clevescene.com | February 10 - 16, 2016

manent collection that address two common themes in Chinese art: the relationships between man and nature and past and present. Ji Yun-Fei: Last Days of Village Wen remains on view through July. It’s free. (Josh Usmani) 11150 East Blvd., 216-421-7350, clevelandart.org. COMEDY

Kevin Lee A comic and magician, Kevin Lee often brings a slew of props onto

2/13

BURLESQUE

Fifth Annual Sweetheart Showcase Just in time for Valentine’s Day, the local burlesque production company Le Femme Mystique begins its 2016 season with the Fifth Annual Sweetheart Showcase that takes place tonight at 8 at the Beachland Ballroom. A founding member of Sin City Grind Kittens, headliner Lou Lou Roxy has been a featured act in various variety, vaudeville, burlesque and drag cabarets around Las Vegas. She’s also been featured on HBO’s Real Sex, in the motion picture Camp Burlesque and in the video for the Pervs “I Don’t Care.” An abstract fashion designer, fine artist, aspiring couture model and “sultry burlesque bombshell,” Columbus-

| clevescene.com | February 10 - 16, 2016

GET OUT based Dimples Diamond, who’s also on the bill, works as a local artist. She’s performed burlesque for four years and is a principal headliner and co-manager for Crimson Lace Cabaret. Local Bella Sin will also perform as will Noella Deville, Marley Tennie, Kinsey Quake and the full cast of Le Femme Mystique Burlesque. Sir Bryan Mravec hosts. Tickets range from $15 to 30. (Niesel) 15711 Waterloo Rd., 216-383-1124, beachlandballroom.com. MUSIC

Tommy Emmanuel A two-time Grammy nominee, Aussie guitarist Tommy Emmanuel boasts a career that spans five decades and has won him awards and accolades from international publications and peers, including the legendary Chet Atkins. On his first solo-acoustic album, 2011’s Only, Emmanuel shows off his finger-picking ability and plays instrumentals that have a New Age quality to them (think of the late, great Michael Hedges). He performs tonight at 8 at the Ohio

Theatre. Tickets are $39.75 to $49.75. (Niesel) 1501 Euclid Ave., 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org. FAMILY FUN

Monster Jam A self-described farm boy from Oil City, Pennsylvania, Tony Ochs grew up driving off-road trucks and ATVs. So he should feel right at home at the Q this weekend during Feld Motor Sports’ Monster Jam, the annual monster truck rally that turns the arena floor into a racetrack complete with a series of jumps and obstacles. Ochs will sit behind the mammoth Soldier Fortune Black Ops, a camouflaged, tank-like truck “inspired by the dedicated men and women who serve in the elite Special Forces branches of the U.S. military.” Performances take place at 2 and 7 p.m. today and at 1 and 6 p.m. tomorrow. Tickets start at $12. (Niesel) 1 Center Ct., 216-420-2000, theqarena.com. FAMILY FUN

Smitten with Science From 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. today and from noon to 4 p.m. tomorrow, Great Lakes Science Center hosts

Smitten with Science, a special family friendly Valentine’s celebration that enables guests to make their own stethoscopes from paper cones, duct tape and cardstock, and listen to their family members’ hearts. You can also design and build your own crossbow and test its accuracy in the Cupid Archery Range. Special activities for today include a drop-in early childhood workshop for pre-K kids and their parents from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the birthday party room, and a special visit from the Cleveland APL in the auditorium with adoptable dogs and cats (adoption fee and application process apply). The activities are free with regular museum admission: $15 for adults and $12 for youth ages 2 to 12. Learn more on the website. (Niesel) 601 Erieside Ave., 216-694-2000, greatscience.com.

SUN

2/14

VALENTINE’S DAY

Battle of the Sexes Romance doesn’t have to be serious. To celebrate St. Valentine’s Day, the Cleveland Comedy Festival and the Bop Stop have teamed up to present an event they call Battle

of the Sexes. The event will include the top-rated jokes submitted to the Ambiance “Best Sex Jokes” contest. Comedians in the “battle” on the men’s side include John Wellington, Cody Cooper and Mike Paramore. Sarah Jones, Carey Callahan, and Nancy Remley will represent the ladies. The event will serve as a fundraiser for the nonprofit Cleveland Comedy Festival, which holds its annual festival each November. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. at the Bop Stop. Tickets are $40 per couple with dessert and a cocktail included. (Niesel) 2920 Detroit Ave., 216-771-6551, themusicsettlement.org. MUSIC

CIM/CWRU Joint Music Program Young musicians from the Cleveland Institute of Music and Case Western Reserve University regularly play together in the galleries at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Today from 2 p.m. to 3:15 in Gartner Auditorium, they present a recital of works for solo organ on the museum’s McMyler Memorial Organ. Music from Bach, Brahms, Conte and others will be heard. Admission is free. (Niesel) 11150 East Blvd., 216-421-7350, clevelandart.org.

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Mario Kart Competition At tonight’s Mario Kart Competition at the Beachland Tavern, you and a teammate can compete with others. A handful of Cleveland comedians will provide the color commentary. The competition starts at 9 p.m. and you must register by then in order to compete. Only 40 tickets are available for registration. A single ticket costs $8, and a teammate will be assigned; $12 registers both you and your teammate. (Niesel) 15711 Waterloo Rd., 216-383-1124, beachlandballroom.com.

MON

2/15

FAMILY FUN

Presidents’ Day Celebration Maltz Museum volunteers have brushed up on their Presidents’ Day facts for the museum’s free, family friendly celebration that takes place today from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. There will be hands-on activities, and visitors can meet people portraying past presidents (and, in some cases, their wives) during special tours between 1 and 2 p.m. Performances will take place in 10-minute intervals. In addition, patrons can get photos with the presidents and eat kosher cookie treats from 2 to 2:30 p.m. Additional activities include Experience an American Story, exploring immigration and the historic struggle to hold on to tradition while embracing new opportunities; or participate in a president-inspired hands-on activity such as creating a Washington or Lincoln construction paper mask. (Niesel) 2929 Richmond Rd., Beachwood, 216-593-0575, maltzmuseum.org. MUSIC

Wing Ding Doodle Blues icon Howlin’ Wolf famously covered “Wang Dang Doodle,” the old blues tune penned by Willie Dixon. Prosperity Social Club in Tremont has adopted that slogan, calling its wing night Wing Ding Doodle. The weekly event features specials on Buffalo wings and cold brews. Prosperity will not only serve up substantial, $1 whole wings, but it’ll also offer meatless Monday ‘wing’ baskets for vegans. Discounted drafts and a specially curated playlist of vintage-electric blues and soulful R&B curated by

| clevescene.com | February 10 - 16, 2016

local musician Clint Holley will be on tap as well. Wing Ding Doodle will take place every Monday from 6 p.m. to midnight. (Niesel) 1109 Starkweather Ave., 216-937-1938, prosperitysocialclub.com.

TUE

2/16

FOOD AND ART

They Draw & Cook Fans of food and art are sure to enjoy the Northern Ohio Illustrator Society’s program, They Draw & Cook: A Creative Playground with Salli S. Swindell. Swindell, an illustrator who lives in Hudson, co-founded They Draw & Cook, an online illustrated cookbook featuring an archive of more than 5,500 recipes from around the world. Swindell will discuss the project at the Cleveland Institute of Art tonight at 7. They Draw & Cook has inspired a Food Network-sponsored recipe contest and publisher Weldon Owen printed a collection of They Draw & Cook illustrated recipes. Additionally Swindell and her brother and co-founder Nate Padavick have published smaller books by individual artists, who earn 50 percent of sales. Learn more about this project at this free, public lecture. (Usmani) 11141 East Blvd., 216-421-7407, cia.edu. MUSIC

Classical Revolution Cleveland For many years, classical music wasn’t intended for the masses. Seemingly reserved for quasiexclusive concert halls, classical music hid from the outside world. Classical Revolution Cleveland helps tear down that wall and once again bring great chamber music to the people. Showcasing performers like the Trepanning Trio, Anime Duo, students of Cleveland Institute of Music and even Cleveland Orchestra members in bars, cafes and the like, it’s not that different from how people used to listen to chamber music. Full of immensely talented performers, CRC re-instills the relevancy of this vibrant art form. The third Tuesday of every month, CRC brings its wide array of chamber music to Happy Dog. Tonight’s free, all-ages performance starts at 8. (Stoops) 5801 Detroit Ave., 216-651-9474, happydogcleveland.com.

Find more events @clevescene.com t@cleveland_scene

ART SHOWTIME

New Reinberger Gallery hosts CIA student exhibition By Josh Usmani FOR THE 70TH CONSECUTIVE year, the students of the Cleveland Institute of Art are presenting their annual Student Independent Exhibition this week. This year’s SIE is particularly special, because it is the first to be held in CIA’s new Reinberger Gallery in its unified campus on Euclid Avenue. SIE opens this Friday, Feb. 12, with a free public reception from 6 to 9 p.m. Prizes will be presented around 7 p.m. on opening night. “After decades in the old Reinberger Gallery on East Boulevard, the Student Independent Exhibition this year is 70 years young, a venerable tradition re-invented by a dynamic new cohort of student organizers in a beautiful new space,” says Grafton Nunes, president and CEO of the Cleveland Institute of Art. “These students are adapting to the reborn Reinberger with energy, focus and innovative brilliance. We are truly blessed by their efforts.” True to its name, the SIE is organized entirely by current students. Each year, an organizing committee of upperclassmen selects and invites the jurors, promotes the show, solicits donations for awards, receives their fellow students’ submissions, mounts the exhibition and even handles refreshments. The whole process begins in May of the academic year before the exhibition. The committee meets weekly during the school year to plan out all the details. Aside from the committee, a number of students volunteer to

emphasis. She helped organize SIE as a junior last year. In previous years, duties were divided among the organizers. This year, the group decided to work as a collective to ensure that everyone was well informed throughout the process. Yet each brought unique skills: Maddie Toth did all the graphic design and advertising work, James Waite served as the line of communication between the committee and the jurors, Noelle brought her experience of exhibitions from working at MOCA Cleveland, and Konet carried over her experience from last year’s SIE. “Last year, I was on the SIE committee as a junior, so the responsibility to organize this year’s committee was passed down to me,” Konet explains. “I felt it was important to involve younger students, so that they had the experience of dealing with SIE the year previously. Noelle and James had expressed interest while volunteering last year as sophomores. I brought Maddie in because none of us have any kind of graphic design or advertising background, and usually design students aren’t included as prominently in the planning and executing of SIE until they’re called upon.“ Konet’s planning will pay off in 2017, as Richard and Waite both promise they’ll be returning to organize next year’s exhibition. They plan to include a junior on next year’s committee as well. During last week’s scheduled

add more prizes, allowing more students to be recognized for their achievements,” Konet explains. “It’s really exciting, because this was the first time we were able to extend that funding that we received directly to the students.” After selecting all-male jurors last year, the student body voted for an all-female panel this year. The jurors are Brooke Inman, Jesse McLean and Leta Sobierajski. During their visit last week, the jurors participated in studio and classroom visits and spoke to students and members of the community during CIA’s Lunch on Friday lecture series. “It’s the same process every time,” Waite explains. “At the beginning of the year we field submissions from the student body of people they’d like to see as potential jurors. Then we compile a very long list; this year was especially long with over 100 artists, curators and designers,

because it was the first year we did online voting. In previous years, the voting took place in-person at our meetings.” Each year, SIE precedes the senior students’ BFA Thesis Exhibitions later in the spring. The Student Independent Exhibition differs from CIA’s BFA Exhibitions in many ways. The BFA Exhibitions are a collection of mini solo shows by graduating seniors. SIE is a juried group exhibition, and any current CIA student may submit work. SIE remains on view through March 19. The Reinberger Gallery is open Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Friday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. The BFA Exhibitions will open on Friday, May 6. Stay tuned for more details this spring.

usmani@clevescene.com t@cleveland_scene

STUDENT INDEPENDENT EXHIBITION CLEVELAND INSTITUE OF ART 11610 EUCLID AVE., 216-421-7000 CIA.EDU

help make SIE possible. This year’s SIE committee is composed of four current students. Noelle Richard and James Waite are in their junior year in CIA’s drawing program. Maddie Toth is a senior in graphic design. Samantha Konet is a senior double majoring in printmaking and drawing, and is also currently in consideration for the visual culture

drop-off in the gallery, students submitted nearly 270 original works of art. Of these entries, this year’s jurors selected roughly 100 works by 68 artists. Additionally, more prizes will be awarded than ever before thanks to an increase in donations from CIA’s board. “This year, we had an incredible increase in our board’s donations, so we were able to officially

Image by Maddie Toth

jusmani@clevescene.com t@cleveland_scene | clevescene.com | February 10 - 16, 2016

STAGE SOULFUL DANCE IN A CANDY SHOP Three characters reveal their deepest secrets in Slow Dance on the Killing Ground at Ensemble Theatre By Christine Howey

history, which includes seeking an abortion in this nasty part of town. So there we have Hanley’s troika of sadness, three people who each see the world outside the little shop as a killing ground, for entirely different reasons. The three proceed to box step around volatile issues as Randall shares his history of abandonment by his prostitute mother and his defiant pride concerning his mental prowess. We soon learn that Randall’s hip exterior is just camouflage, hiding a more serious and reflective core that battles with his instinct for violence, a fact that is made clear when he discloses why the police are looking for him.

back then, his gruff and defensive posture seems quite understandable: He has demons that are eating him from the inside out. Rosie hasn’t yet taken action on her choice to terminate her pregnancy, as she is trying to find a “doctor” in this seedy neighborhood who could do the job. (Yes, children, that’s how women had to scrap for this type of medical care, pre-Roe v. Wade.) In this way, the playwright puts lives at stake all over the place, and there is much contemplation of these issues through dialogue that, while not always realistic, has a frank and open honesty that is refreshing. As Glas, Joe Milan has the fixed,

SLOW DANCE ON THE KILLING GROUND

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As for Glas, all is not as it seems with him either. Turns out, his story about being a Jewish prisoner isn’t quite true, even though he has the numerical arm tattoo. When Glas talks about a terrible choice he made Photo by Celeste Cosentino

FIFTY YEARS AGO, SOME OF US thought that issues such as racism and abortion would certainly have been resolved by now. We were the generation of love, hope, peace and ganja. In retrospect, we clearly should have backed off a bit on the wacky weed, because those issues have only festered and become even more divisive over the decades. But if you want to journey back to that time, the play now at Ensemble Theatre is a sturdy little vehicle. In Slow Dance on the Killing Ground, William Hanley used his 1964 script to deal with a number of important topics at the time. And while the play frequently creaks with age, the three performers under the expressive direction of Greg White find some surprising nuances hiding in the creases. The all-too-convenient structure of the play, set in New York City in 1962, features folks who meet in a rundown candy store and immediately start probing for each other’s deepest secrets. The dour shop owner Glas (no first name) is an immigrant from Germany who says he was a prisoner in the Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Soon his door is flung open by Randall, a jive-talking young black man who is clearly hiding from someone. And hiding seems like a good idea since he’s not exactly inconspicuous — wearing a purple satin cape, a snap-brim fedora and carrying an umbrella. If this seems like a strange and random costume choice, it isn’t. Around that time in Hell’s Kitchen, there was an infamous double murder committed by two young gangbangers: one who sported a cape and the other who carried an umbrella with a sharpened point. And Randall, who says his IQ is 187 (and has the rap to justify it) is a character meant to embody that sinister aspect of society. Fun fact: Paul Simon created a short-lived Broadway musical based on those people, titled The Capeman. Anyhow, in the middle of the first act of Slow Dance a woozy young woman named Rosie stumbles into Glas’ dingy domain. She promptly unburdens herself of her recent

| clevescene.com | February 10 - 16, 2016

thin-lipped frown and rigid posture of a man who is keeping way too much inside himself. And he registers powerfully with the other actors, when the script allows it. But his Glas doesn’t inhabit his own store, executed

with admirable detail by set designer Ron Newell, as fully as he might. This shabby shop and all the items in it are ultimately his refuge from the emotional carnage outside the door, and it would be good to feel that sense of fragile comfort. Nathan Tolliver exhibits slick charm as the glib version of Randall, even though his street-wise patter takes on a decidedly mechanical rhythm after a while. A smoother and more engaging affect in these early scenes might have helped “serious” Randall land with more heft, and generate a bit more fear, later on. In the sharply written role of Rosie, Leah Smith is both funny and achingly genuine. Swinging easily from self-deprecating jabs to deeply felt anguish about her pregnancy decision, Smith forges the most fully rounded character in the piece. Even with its geriatric creaks, Slow Dance takes us through a number of moves that feel true and important.

scene@clevescene.com t@christinehowey

| clevescene.com | February 10 - 16, 2016

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| clevescene.com | February 10 - 16, 2016

MOVIES

in theaters

A FACE YOU CAN’T FORGET Son of Saul examines the atrocities of the Holocaust By Sam Allard “OVER THE YEARS, THE HOLOCAUST has become an abstraction,” said Son of Saul director Laszlo Nemes as he accepted the Golden Globe for best foreign language film last month. “For me, it’s more a face. Let us not forget that face.” For viewers of Son of Saul, the gripping Holocaust thriller opening Friday at the Cedar Lee, the face you’ll come to know intimately is that of lead actor Geza Rohrig. He plays Saul Auslander, a former locksmith who, at the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, has been enlisted in the Sonderkommando. It’s a division of Jews forced to work for the Nazis before being exterminated themselves: They help the hundreds of new arrivals disrobe, herd them into the gas chambers, and then dispose of the corpses — “pieces,” in the Nazi vocabulary. In a chaotic opening sequence, Saul does all of the above. The horrific images are presented in a boxy 4:3 aspect ratio, camera fixed tight over Saul’s shoulder or up close

Son of Saul

on his face. The viewing experience is at first claustrophobic, almost oppressive. You keep wanting the camera to pull back, to breathe a bit, to expose a wide shot of the camp and its horrors. But it resists. We’re with Saul the whole way. After the initial slaughter, a young boy is discovered to have survived, somehow. A Nazi medical team promptly smothers his face to finish him off, but Saul recognizes him as his son. Saul is from Hungary, and the film takes place late in the Second World War, after the mass deportation of Hungarian Jews. At that time, the threat of invasion loomed, and the pace of extermination picked up. It’s during the frenzy of that acceleration that Saul attempts to give this boy a traditional Jewish burial. His two central tasks are preserving the body from autopsy — the Germans want to know how he survived the gas — and finding a rabbi to perform kaddish, the traditional Jewish prayer for the dead. Concurrently,

a Sonderkommando contingent is trying to organize a rebellion in the face of its own imminent extermination. Saul participates, but only to the extent that he can further his agenda. The terrible geography of Auschwitz comes into focus. It was organized on multiple campuses. Saul manages to bus to the labor camp on his rabbi search, but the majority of the action transpires at Birkenau, “the death factory.” There, even the gas chambers can’t accommodate the velocity of extermination the Nazis prefer. In a dizzying third-act scene, new arrivals are executed assembly-line style, outdoors and at night, with single headshots on the lips of mass graves. Fire spews everywhere, and it’s equal to the most monstrous war zone horrors you’ve seen in recent movies. Geza Rohrig’s face, throughout, is the principal means by which the daring narrative is conveyed. It’s a rugged, sturdy face with a blister on its upper lip. Its brows are a constant furrowed shelf over

intense and searching eyes. And when Saul speaks — he doesn’t often — his voice is a pleading whimper, at odds (but somehow in perfect harmony) with his gaze. His is the face of a man who has endured the unendurable: not only witnessing the murder of his countrymen at the hands of monsters, but serving at the monsters’ command. The word that’s been associated with the film (and the filmmaking) is immediacy. Writer-director Nemes doesn’t give Saul much of a backstory — whether or not the boy is his son is never empirically answered — and the dialogue, when it arrives, is scant and often either whispered or shouted amid throngs. Instead, he focuses on Saul’s face, which does change by movie’s end. The penultimate shot is devoted to it. And though Laszlo Nemes instructed us not to forget the face, it’s unlikely that you’ll have much of a choice.

sallard@clevescene.com t@SceneSallard

SPOTLIGHT: DEADPOOL RYAN REYNOLDS’ FACE IN THE GLEEFULLY R-rated superhero flick Deadpool, which opens widely on Friday, is often obscured by a red mask. Deadpool is the alias of Wade Wilson, a smooth-talking bruiser with terminal cancer. His face is grotesquely mutated in an experimental procedure, facilitated by generic bad guy Ajax (Ed Skrein), a scientist-cumweapons dealer with super strength. Wilson escapes Ajax’s clutches, but not before he’s been imbued with healing powers (like Wolverine), generic superhero stuff, and a brand new look: “You look like Freddy Krueger face-fucked a topographical map of Utah,” says bar-owner pal Weasel (Silicon Valley’s T.J. Miller). Indeed. The handsome face of Ryan Reynolds is hideously scarred. The central question in the movie — generic and predictable, as are most of the questions in the genre — is whether or not the love of his life, Vanessa (Morena Baccarin), will take him back. Will he even have the courage to face her in his physically damaged state?

Deadpool, from the first shot to the last, is entirely too enamored of its own naughtiness and meta commentary. The opening credits reveal not names, but satirical descriptors: It stars “God’s Perfect Idiot,” we’re told, as a People magazine with Ryan Reynolds “Sexiest Man Alive” appears on the seat of a toppling SUV. The script is rife with innuendo and outrageous sex scenarios. In an early montage — the origin story is communicated via extended flashback — Wade and Vanessa celebrate the holidays with themed sex acts. “Happy Thanksgiving,” Vanessa says, as she shoves mashed potatoes into Wade’s open mouth. “Happy Lent,” Wade says, a few shots later, as they sit across from each other, tastefully dressed, reading magazines. There are countless other meta moments: Deadpool speculates that the absence of X-Men A-listers might be the result of the studio’s budget constraints; when he’s dragged by the X-Man Colossus to see Dr. Charles Xavier, he asks: “McAvoy or Stewart?” And these moments are

in keeping with Deadpool’s comic-book persona. In the Marvel universe, Deadpool is unique in his awareness of his existence as a character. He routinely breaks the fourth wall to interact with readers. In the film, this is mostly a cutesy gimmick — and at first, it really is delightful — but in aggregate, it’s a tiresome gag. There are laughs to be had, make no mistake. But you won’t be able to get through a single scene without the writers reminding you how clever they think they are. And though the banter is consistently witty, the delights are fleeting. You’ll leave with an impression of amusement rather than any legitimate emotional response. The opening action sequence unfolds as a tableau, and is mesmerizingly cool, but the imagination on the action side stops there. It devolves into things like butthole shots and dick punches. Deadpool, as you’re watching it, seems exceedingly fun, but for all its noise and wit — even Tony Stark must play second fiddle to this jaunty repartee — it still manages to say precisely nothing. — Sam Allard | clevescene.com | February 10 - 16, 2016

Should have ordered that...

| clevescene.com | February 10 - 16, 2016

Should have ordered that...

Nickâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Stuff is the Best!

EAT BETTER BITTERS

Locally made Full Measure Aromatic Bitters to hit market By Douglas Trattner “FIVE YEARS AGO I GOT SUPER into cocktails,” says Ryan Irvine. “I was buying all these cocktail books and I was buying a ton of bitters.” Around the same time, Irvine also began covering the topic of cocktails for this magazine, a post he performed admirably for about a year. “Jeffrey Morgenthaler, the famous bartender, said there are only three ways to improve a drink: ingredients, recipe and technique. Once you have recipe and technique down, that leaves ingredients.” Because Irvine wasn’t about to set up a potstill in his downtown apartment, he instead turned his attention to bitters, the second most vital ingredient in cocktails following the booze. Bitters were something he could begin tinkering with in his spare time, with the ultimate and immodest goal of making a product that was better than he could buy. Along with the rise of craft cocktails in this country, there has been a corresponding revival of the bitters market, which also once flourished before being decimated by Prohibition. While there is a broad range of categories, styles and flavor profiles on the modern-day bitters market, the most common type, explains Irvine, is represented by aromatic bitters like Angostura and Peychaud’s. “Eighty to 90 percent of cocktails with bitters in them use aromatic bitters, so that’s the style I wanted to tackle,” he explains. “But I wanted to offer something with a slightly different flavor palate.” The key flavor components in aromatic bitters come from characteristically warm spices like cloves, cardamom and cinnamon — your mulling spices. Irvine liked that as a starting point, but his bitters would diverge in a slightly different direction. “I decided to do something around Chinese five spice, because right there you’ve got clove, fennel, star anise, cinnamon, and then also some Szechuan peppercorn for heat.” Full Measure Bitters, the name Irvine and his wife and business partner Stephanie Jansky ultimately landed on for their new product, starts with those five key ingredients but contains another 10, including black

mission figs for aroma and color. The characteristic bitterness in bitters comes from the addition of roots, barks and/or leaves. Irvine next turned his attention to the production method, which typically involves a weeks-long maceration and extraction process that results in what he describes as blended but murky stew-like flavors. “I have a technique that allows me to extract everything in 24 hours and bottle after 48,” he says, being intentionally vague. “My technique is the best I have found for color, for aroma, and flavor clarity. It’s a unique process that provides a cleaner expression of flavors.” When he landed on a result he was proud of, Irvine began soliciting opinions from pros he admired in the cocktail world. One of the first guinea pigs was Paulius Nasvytis of the Velvet Tango Room, known far and wide for its progressive cocktail program. “It’s got a unique flavor profile, but it’s still something that’s versatile enough to be used in quite a few cocktails,” Nasvytis says of the bitters. “It’s not too heavy in one particular

ingredient and it’s very well balanced. Having tasted the product in an Old Fashioned, I thought it was just delicious, but I’m looking forward to working more with the product to see how it works with various spirits.” “If you could please Paulius, you’ve done something right,” Irvine remarked of the experience. “The first time he tasted it and liked it was what made me realize that I was on to something.” Bottles of Full Measure Bitters weigh in at 100 ml, or 3.38 ounces. They are topped with a “dasher top” as opposed to a dropper top because the gesture requires less time and fewer steps for busy bartenders. The price per bottle will run anywhere from $16 to $18, but each bottle contains enough bitters to make at least 50 cocktails. As soon as this week, the product will begin appearing on the backbars of places like Velvet Tango Room, Porco Lounge & Tiki Room, and Society Lounge. It also will begin appearing at select retail outlets like Bank St. Wine & Spirits on West Sixth and Happy Hour Collection at the 5th Street Arcades. Irvine is the only

person in Ohio legally doing this for sale, he says. “We are a cocktail specialty shop that sells everything you need for your cocktails minus the booze,” says Happy Hour Collection owner Marie Teckmyer, who opened the shop last year. Already Teckmyer carries about 10 lines of bitters, with roughly 30 different types available. Shelf space at the shop is limited and a new product hits the market every day, it seems. The owner says that not only does she routinely turn down product requests, but she stopped carrying certain brands because the product no longer met her satisfaction. Still, she will be making room for Full Measure Aromatic Bitters. “They are locally made, but more important than just being locally made, they are actually quality bitters,” Teckmyer explains. “He is very good at extracting a bunch of different flavors and when you make a cocktail with them it’s definitely a nice, well balanced cocktail.”

dtrattner@clevescene.com t @dougtrattner

Ward 3

1.5 oz Bulleit Rye .25 oz 2-to-1 Demerara syrup * .25 oz Jack Rudy Cocktail Co. Grenadine ** .5 oz fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice .5 oz fresh-squeezed lemon juice 8-9 dashes Full Measure Aromatic Bitters *** Shake with ice and strain into an ice filled rocks glass. * In a saucepan, combine 2 parts Demerara sugar to one part water, by weight, and stir to dissolve over medium heat ** Available online and at Happy Hour Collection *** This equals two “normal” dashes. The aperture on Full Measure bottles is ¼ that of a normal dasher bottle. | clevescene.com | February 10 - 16, 2016

EAT FRESH MEAT

Cleveland native launches national grass-fed beef company By Nikki Delamotte BEFORE LENNY LEBOVICH MOVED from Ukraine to Cleveland at the age of 2, he already had roots in the food business. In his small hometown, his grandfather ran the only grocery store in the neighborhood. “You could say it was in my blood,” he says. Last year, the 1991 Beachwood High School graduate launched PRE Brands (pre-brands.com), a grassfed beef company with products now sold in Giant Eagle stores across the Midwest. This January, the beef landed in all local Heinen’s stores and will expand even more in the coming months. Sourcing from around the world, PRE developed what they call a 15-point Obsessive Pick process that focuses only on animals being raised GMO- and hormone-free. Even the name recalls a time when natural was

the status quo, Lebovich says. Grass-fed beef became a hot ticket in the United States around 2003 amid a wave of meat-related health scares. Ten years later, sales of grass-fed beef surpassed $400 million, a 25-percent uptick over the decade. The added punch of its omega-3 to omega-6 ratio continues to attract buyers. Factors such as breed, age, meat color and fat content all are carefully considered when selecting beef for PRE’s blends. The extra lean but still juicy ground beef, for example, clocks in at a mere five percent fat and a whopping 80 mgs of omega-3. “Today’s consumers are asking a lot of questions,” says Lebovich. “Those who are willing to be transparent with them and can build their trust are having success.” A lack of transparency also was part of the reason the former

investment banker gave up Wall Street. When he was ready to get out of the trading game, Lebovich was recruited by his Indiana University roommate, whose family owned the Chicagobased meat operation Ruprecht Company. He officially joined the company in 2002, and two years later, with Ruprecht’s financial backing, Lebovich and his old roommate cofounded the meat company Sommers Organic, where he delved even deeper into the world of meat sourcing before finally going off on his own. When it came time to lay the groundwork for PRE, he spent several years traveling around the globe to meet with farmers in New Zealand, Australia, South America and across the United States in order to seek out what they consider the top 10 percent of meat. One of their largest suppliers is New Zealand’s Silver Fern Farms, a cooperative of 16,000 farmers. Meat is transported to a processing facility in Chicago, where PRE oversees all operations. “We want to make sure we control everything every step of the way,” says Lebovich. If PRE hopes to shake up the meat industry, look no further than your local grocery’s meat aisle, where the bright green, vacuum-sealed

packaging and the deep red-purple beef stand out among the rows of plastic-wrapped Styrofoam. Lebovich developed the aesthetic when considering how often regular buyers can only see a fraction of what they’re buying. PRE’s clear wrap offers a 360-degree view of the meat. “Oftentimes, it’s the single most expensive thing they’re going to buy that week, but when they take it home a lot of people are pretty disappointed,” Lebovich says. “We figure if we’re going to expose ourselves to this kind of consumer evaluation, then we have to really raise our bar.” In 2014, a survey by the Institute of Food Technologies showed purchases of natural products up by 25 percent and non-GMO products up by 23 percent. As interest in clean food continues to rocket forward, the demand for grass-fed beef like PRE also expands. “All the growth is coming from this segment because consumers are looking for alternatives to conventional products,” says Lebovich. “We want to give them something they can have confidence in.”

scene@clevescene.com t@cleveland_scene

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| clevescene.com | February 10 - 16, 2016

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OPENING SOON Tavern on 91 in Solon By Douglas Trattner CHEF IAN THOMPSON COMES from a fine-dining background, working alongside Doug Katz at Fire Food and Drink, helping to open Provenance at the Cleveland

Museum of Art and later joining the crack culinary team at South Franklin Circle. But starting as soon as this week, he’ll be dialing things back

The Rock hall & cleveland SToRieS ThaT Really Rock

| clevescene.com | February 10 - 16, 2016

in the kitchen as chef-partner of the soon-to-open Tavern on 91 (6150 SOM Center Rd., 440-914-0052) in Solon, which is being billed as an American smokehouse tavern.

“The style of food is one that is personally familiar to me and one that I enjoy, and is the type of place that my wife and I would go to for dinner,” says Thompson. “But besides that, the chance to truly mold a concept from its inception was one of the biggest draws for me: the chance to really put our signature on something and see where it goes.”

Management shuttered the Panini’s that existed on this site only 30 days ago with the intention of making the operation more of a neighborhood restaurant and less of a sport bar. A large 18rack rotisserie smoker now sits in the middle of the dining room, which helps break up the wideopen sports bar layout. Much of the sports-themed decor was jettisoned, as were many — but not all — of the televisions. “Sports-friendly” is a more accurate description of the place now. There will be seating for about 140 guests in the dining room and at two bars, plus more when the patio is operational. While certainly approachable, the menu is all made from scratch, with homemade soups, houseformed burgers, and home-style entrees like fish and chips, grilled strip steak and fresh fish. In addition to a broad collection of starters, salads and pizzas, the menu features a large “from the smokehouse” category filled with slow-smoked ribs, pork shanks, duck legs, briskets, pulled pork and whole chickens, the meat of which will also land in pot pies and tacos. “We put together a menu that we think is well rounded, hits all bases, but still has room to grow,” says the chef.

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2270 LEE ROAD | CLEVELAND HEIGHTS | clevescene.com | February 10 - 16, 2016

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CALL FOR ENTRIES: SECOND ANNUAL HEINEN’S SHARK BANK OPEN TO LOCAL FOOD ARTISANS Do you or someone you know make a food product so delicious that it belongs on a grocery store shelf? If so, Heinen’s would love to hear about it. The local chain of fine grocers is gearing up for its second annual Shark Bank competition, which is open to local artisan food purveyors. Last year’s competition was limited to non-perishable food items, but this year’s is open to fresh foods as well. No alcoholic beverages are permitted. For the inaugural event, 60plus entries were accepted into the competition. Those were whittled down to 10 semifinalists, which were tasted and voted on by the public in the rotunda of the downtown store. The final four came back for the big event, which included demos and tastings for celebrity chefs like Zack Bruell and Dante Boccuzzi. The winner was Bissell Maple Farm’s Bourbon Barrel Aged Maple Syrup. This year’s winner is guaranteed placement in all stores for at least a year, plus four product demos in each store, as well as placement in ads, emails, web and social media. All told, the prize is valued at $10,000. The submission deadline is Thursday, March 31, with the semifinals taking place on Friday, May 13, and the finals on May 20.

WILD EAGLE SALOON TO OPEN IN DOWNTOWN CLEVELAND THIS SPRING The former Howell Building in downtown Cleveland will soon be the

| clevescene.com | February 10 - 16, 2016

new home of Wild Eagle Saloon. The Wild Eagle Saloon is described as putting a modern twist on the traditional saloon, and patrons can expect an American menu with Southern roots, self-serve draft beer, gaming, televisions and live entertainment. This ain’t your regular bar or restaurant though. The following details on Wild Eagle’s plans make that clear: The self-serve beer walls, dubbed “Inebriation Stations,” are designed for guests to have control over their saloon experience. They can also immediately order food at the bar and choose their own seating table. It will also house indoor bocce ball courts, pool tables and vintage arcade games, along with the Rumble Room with a punching bag, arm wrestling machine, darts and its own Inebriation Station. So guests are, ostensibly, encouraged to get inebriated, play games, and if they lose, go take out their anger on a punching bag. In a public place. “Clevelanders don’t have to choose between a quality food and beverage experience or a quality social experience anymore. By combining both of these experiences, we’ve created two floors of playful environments with ample nooks and crannies for mischief,” said Keith Halfmann, principal & COO of Geis Hospitality Group in a release. “We are really pushing the envelope with this concept. It won’t be a place for our guests to take their grandmothers.” The Wild Eagle Saloon will be open during lunch, happy hour, dinner and late night. Plans are for a spring opening. (Bliss Davis)

dtrattner@clevescene.com t@dougtrattner

| clevescene.com | February 10 - 16, 2016

MUSIC

SALUTE THE FUNK

Big Sam’s Funky Nation brings the NOLA heat to the North Shore By Eric Sandy IT’S COLD, THOUGH NOT freezing, in Cleveland when thoughts of New Orleans slink through Scene’s downtown office. Still, the city’s mid-winter reputation for icicle-clad streetlights and frosty lines outside music venues reaches the home of Big Sam — a stalwart of the NOLA funk scene and a lively, rockin’ trombonist. He’s planning on arriving in the middle of February, thousands of miles and a few dozen degrees Fahrenheit away from his balmy refuge. He’s at home in New Orleans as we speak, where, besides the music and food, the winter weather is simply divine. Early mornings bring the upper 50s, but by noon the city is relaxing beneath a nice 70 degrees.

“I’m loving it,” Sam says. Big Sam fronts Funky Nation, a contemporary force of funk and rock from down South. Culled from years of talent and collaboration, the band is one of many bringing the sweet sounds and vibes of New Orleans to venues around the world. Cleveland, always very open to the funk, plays host this weekend. For the trombonist, it’s another notch in a long career of bringing smiles to people’s faces. When Sam started getting into music, his biggest inspiration was the Dirty Dozen Brass Band. “I told myself that one day I was going to play with that group, or one day have my own group like it,” Sam says. Sam, see, is a goal setter. He

shoots high and tracks down the sounds he wants to create. This was when he was all of 15, studying at the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts. (“Any musician you know from New Orleans probably went to that school,” Sam says.) He began crafting his sound and helping found the Stooges Brass Band. By 19, he had joined the Dirty Dozen. Simple. Ascendant. After a year with that band, his desire to branch out began pulling in the curiosity of other musicians, other friends. With vision and dedication, Funky Nation was born. The first few years were kind of rough, he says, because the band was mostly non-existent. At the time, he was still touring with the Dirty

Dozen, a band that regularly throws down 200-plus shows a year. To launch itself as a genuine New Orleans force, the band picked up a weekly gig at the Funky Butt. Sam, though, was still on the road with the Dirty Dozen, so the guys in Funky Nation had to perform many shows without him. “A lot of times the audience was like, ‘Where is Big Sam? Who is Big Sam? When is Big Sam gonna be here?’” Sam says. The whole thing took a while. Around 2004, Sam realized that if this is to take off, he needed to drop out of the Dirty Dozen. So he did. “I had to take a leap of faith.” So Funky Nation began playing more shows around NOLA and continuing to grow their sound at | clevescene.com | February 10 - 16, 2016

MUSIC

NOLA — he sold the place out. The crowd ate it up, dancing all night. That’s the key: Bring the unseen energy from his hometown to the regular gigs around town. There more distant corners of the country was no pressure. Things were still and the world. Share the love from the building in their gentle, methodical Crescent City. ways. (“That’s the time for you to New Orleans, really, is a timeless build your sound. It gives you the city. Sam has seen the city’s musical chance to play with all kinds of ideas traditions keep the nightly vigil for that you might not do at a show if years, arcing across the breakwall of you’re putting on a full-on concert,” 2005’s Hurricane Katrina. He says the Sam says.) But, again, these things city’s scene isn’t changing so much take time. He soon thereafter got a — that just doesn’t happen, really, call from none in New Orleans other than Allen — but rather it’s Toussaint, who growing. Katrina, wanted him to play on one hand, with his band. Sam brought even had to. He took the more attention to gig. the city’s music He played a community, which bunch of shows as fed hungry young part of Toussaint’s artists. massive band, Nowadays, touring ultimately Sam is an elder for two years. statesman in the During that time, city’s funk world. Toussaint was all He says there are wrapped up in a teenagers coming number of different out of the city’s projects, allowing school system — Big Sam Sam to skate back — kids! — who to NOLA and can throw down nurture his own band. “I had that with the best of the top brass onstage. freedom to do what I wanted to do “There’s so many of them, so fast, I with Funky Nation,” Sam says. By can’t keep up with them!” Sam says. the time 2007 rolled around, Sam was And these kids are forming 10-piece back in town full time, 100-percent in bands, which spawn additional bands on the Funky Nation trajectory. down the line. It’s evolution.

“I didn’t know it when I was younger, but people all over the world love New Orleans music. They have such a great appreciation for it.”

BIG SAM’S FUNKY NATION WITH YOUR BROTHERS 8:00 P.M., SUNDAY, FEB. 14, BEACHLAND BALLROOM, 15711 WATERLOO RD. 216-383-1124. TICKETS: $13 ADV, $15 DOS, BEACHLANDBALLROOM.COM

“I’ve been up and down with my sound,” Sam says. “It started out being more like an instrumental jazzsong type of group. Then over the years it evolved into a James Brown style, then it even got pretty rockin’. We started rocking pretty hard. It’s weird, because I love all music. Like Funkadelic: They’re funky, but it’s pretty edgy and rocking. I’m going back to the funk now. It’s so much more fun to dance to. When we play a funk beat, everyone’s got smiles on their faces. “I didn’t know it when I was younger, but people all over the world love New Orleans music. They have such a great appreciation for it.” Indeed, Sam has found that people all over the world cherish the musical traditions coming out of New Orleans. Imagine: The first time he played New York City — this young guy from

| clevescene.com | February 10 - 16, 2016

Sam likens the city’s growth to the everlasting circle of life: He found himself as a young man inspired by the guys in the Dirty Dozen Brass Band. He cultivated a sound based on those inspirations — a lineage that can be traced through time. Now, Sam can hear young guns rocking trombones in corner bars — and they sound just like the stuff Sam and his band are working out. “It’s weird when you’re walking down the street, and you hear cats that sound like you,” Sam says. “You know where they’re coming from. Like, ‘Y’all coming up, and y’all better than we were at your age!’” It’s a community of love and tradition.

esandy@clevescene.com t @EricSandy

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fetty wap w/post malone COLEMEN HELL CAMBRIDGE ROOM kirk franklin live at masonic auditorium Decades Collide: ‘80s vs ‘90s featuring Biz Markie mutemath divas oF drag: america’s biggest drag queen superstars who’s bad - michael jackson tribute datsik charles kelley w/josh kelley

Buy Tickets at houseofblues.com Order By Phone: 800.745.3000 • House of Blues Box Office

| clevescene.com | February 10 - 16, 2016

YIN AND YANG

Photo courtesy of Fleming Artists

MUSIC

Singer-songwriter Steve Poltz has fond memories of playing Cleveland.

Singer-songwriters Steve Poltz and Grant-Lee Phillips share the stage on tour By Matt Wardlaw STEVE POLTZ HAS DONE A number of things throughout his career, but he’s grateful that he doesn’t have the NFL on his resume. He doesn’t have to worry about getting the kind of bad press that has followed Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel. “I’m glad I was never a professional quarterback in the NFL back in the days when I was partying,” he quips early in our phone conversation. “I would have made Manziel look like an altar boy. Honestly, you can’t do anything nowadays. Back in the old days, Joe Namath could go out drinking and have a lot of fun, play a few casinos and the press wasn’t reporting on that. Nowadays, with the 24-hour news cycle and everybody’s got a phone and a video, you can’t do anything.” In his younger rock ’n’ roll days with the Rugburns, his band at that time, Poltz did a lot of that “anything.” “We used to go to the Cracker Barrel [when I was with] the Rugburns, and I had this thing and I would see how long I could get away with it. I would go back into the kitchen and act like I was a manager visiting from another Cracker Barrel,” he recalls. “But I’d be dressed like a Rugburn, like in some thrift store clothes and people would be like, ‘Why is this guy back there?’ But I would tell the rest of the band, it’s all in how you carry yourself.” In the early ’90s, Cleveland was one of the early markets that took an interest in the Rugburns and the San Diego-based group began receiving airplay on WMMS with singles such as “Hitchhiker Joe” and “Me and Eddie Vedder.” “We were big in Cleveland,” Poltz remembers. “As far as I was concerned, we were rock stars. We [flew out for a show] and they picked us up in a limousine, and we played the Agora Theatre. And then we played Buzzard Fest [in 1995] and we got to open

for the Ramones. We [also] had a residency at the Euclid Tavern, and those were like the greatest days of our life. We played with a band called Deaf Children at Play and another band called Medicine Show. Cleveland sort of adopted us. [The band] did really well and our favorite place to play was the Euclid Tavern. It was just a really cool bar and the shows there were insane. So I’ve always had this really soft spot for Cleveland, because they were early adopters.” He brought singer-songwriter Jewel, his girlfriend at the time, to town. “I was like, ‘Fly to Cleveland with me!,’” he says. “I brought her out on stage — she was dressed in something

Poltz found songwriting success when he co-wrote “You Were Meant For Me” with Jewel, which became a big hit for the young songstress, eventually rising to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in April of 1997; but his interest in writing introspective material in addition to the comedic songs he was writing went further back than that. Long before the Rugburns had ever played their first tour date outside of San Diego, he had seen folk singer Loudon Wainwright III play at McCabe’s Guitar Shop, and it was an experience that moved him. “Loudon was able to hold an audience all on his own and tell stories and take this journey and he was able to fingerpick on the guitar and you

STEVE POLTZ & GRANT-LEE PHILLIPS 7:30 P.M., WEDNESDAY, FEB. 10, MUSIC BOX SUPPER CLUB, 1148 MAIN ST., 216-242-1250. TICKETS: $18 ADV, $20 DOS, MUSICBOXCLE.COM

nice and she was hot and you know how Cleveland is, everybody was drinking and it’s a Rugburns show — they want to hear ‘Dick’s Automotive,’ and she comes out and I go, ‘This is my girlfriend — her name’s Jewel — she’s going to be big one day.’ And people are just going, ‘Show us your tits!’ She’s laughing and I was like, ‘You watch: I promise you, she’s going to be big.’ And [the Agora] was one of the first places she played.”

| clevescene.com | February 10 - 16, 2016

could hear it,” Poltz explains. “He wasn’t just thrashing about — which I love doing too with the Rugburns; I don’t mean any disrespect to that, because I still love that. But it was like a lot of that with the Rugburns, I couldn’t even hear my acoustic guitar — there was electric guitar over it and I’d be breaking strings, running around and it was frenetic. I still love it to this day. What I saw in Loudon was that he was able to do

it all on his own.” He says that as much as he loved being in the Rugburns, being in a band can “kind of be a drag too,” because you have three other people besides yourself that you need to worry about. “You become like brothers and there can be horrible times too where you’re just all hating each other and you’re like, ‘God, I’m like a slave to this,’” he says. “When I saw Loudon, I went, ‘Man, he just travels alone.’ He’s just this troubadour playing these small clubs, and that’s all I really wanted. I didn’t have visions of grandeur. To me, to be able to play McCabe’s and be in my 50s would be awesome, and to be able to play all of the [venues like that] in the U.S., Australia and Canada would even be better. And that’s kind of what I am doing [these days] and playing all of these folk festivals.” Appropriately, Poltz comes to town in support of his new album, Folk Singer, a collection of songs that he’s really enthusiastic about. “It’s the first record I’ve made in San Diego in years,” he says. “I picked this guy named Jeff Berkley, who really did a good job and he’s seen me play over the years. He’s in a band called Berkley Heart and he’s made literally hundreds of records in San Diego and he’s got a really sensitive ear. He was just like, ‘Let’s make a real acoustic-y, folk-y record.’” Poltz has paired up with fellow ’90s troubadour Grant-Lee Phillips for this current run of tour dates. The duo shares the stage to collaborate on each other’s songs while also playing individual sets. According to Poltz, fans can expect two and a half hours of “good music” from the pair without a single bit of downtime. He’s having a great time on the road with Phillips — something that you can quickly pick up on if you check out his Instagram and Facebook presence where he’s been chronicling the shared journey. “It was like being set up on a blind date the first night. I didn’t really know what it would be like and we instantly got along,” Poltz says, adding that he’s always been a big Grant Lee Buffalo fan. “We just rent a car together and just do all of the driving together and everything, so it’s really fun. Because he’s really smart and he has a lot of stories, there’s never a lot of dead air on the drives. He’s just a cool guy to hang with. We’re like the yin and yang of each other: I’m a lot more hyperactive, he’s a little more reserved, but it works.”

scene@clevescene.com t@cleveland_scene

| clevescene.com | February 10 - 16, 2016

A GREAT INTELLECT Raucous indie rockers Protomartyr embrace their imperfections By Bethany Kaufman THE RAUCOUS, BULLDOZERdriven post-punk of Detroit-based Protomartyr’s third release, The Agent Intellect, landed the album on more than one “best of” list for 2015, including those compiled by Consequence of Sound and Rough Trade. But lyricist-singer Joe Casey can’t quite pinpoint why, nor does he want to. The most he’ll say is that the band’s growth has something to do with its full-steam-ahead attitude, a work ethic hell-bent on producing, producing and producing without fretting over possible imperfections. Any rough edges can be sanded off later, any holes patched up with stucco. “What I liked about the band early on, and what I think we still do now, is that we just kind of approach it, we don’t do much chin-stroking, we don’t sit around and wait for inspiration, we just kind of get to work,” says Casey via phone from his Detroit home. “Even though there’s a lot of mystery in the songs, there’s not a lot of mystery in making the songs. Not to use a terrible Detroit analogy, but it is kind of like an assembly line and at the end there’s a car.” The band, which also includes guitarist Greg Ahee, drummer Alex Leonard and bassist Scott Davidson, certainly works together like a welloiled machine. The instrumentalists create an eerie sonic landscape for Casey’s deadpan vocals, with rolling and tumbling repetitive musical phrases that alternate between jarring, brash guitar and mindexpanding dream pop. Many have called Protomartyr post-punk: brute force riffs stitched together with a surprising amount of thoughtfulness and elegance. The band succeeds at self-editing too. While preparing to record The Agent Intellect, the band spent countless hours whittling down the monster of a contraption they had created, hoping to form an album that would run at optimum efficiency with no dragging parts or grinding gears. Though it’s their longest album to date, the band has achieved its goal: an album that delivers consistent crescendo. Although he majored in English, Casey had no significant writing

experience when he began sitting in on pre-Protomartyr jam sessions between Leonard and Ahee around 2009. Band members all attended the University of Detroit Jesuit High School and Academy, although not at the same time; Casey is almost a decade their senior. Protomartyr’s first album, 2012’s No Passion All Technique, leans more toward ’70s and ’80s punk and New Wave than their latest, with tracks reminiscent of early Wipers or Joy Division running side-by-side with others more like the Damned. The second album, 2014’s Under Color of Official Right, the band softens its sound with a coat of early indie rock: Casey’s vocals mimic Morrissey on tracks such as “Maidenhead,” and segments of noise guitar hearken to Sonic Youth. For a songwriting process that is so calculated and mechanistic, Protomartyr’s methods are equally haphazard. Casey doesn’t approach his lyric writing with a message in mind; instead, he starts by mumbling over music he’s hearing for the first time in the band’s group writing sessions. He’s a 38-year-old who has spent his years sucking up every bit of culture around him, and Protomartyr gives him a reason and an outlet to deconstruct and reassemble decades’ worth of observations and obsessions into newfangled inventions. Casey is more in the business of junkyard salvage than antique store picking: rather than indulging in pop culture references or working from over-mined high-brow source material, Casey is

Photo courtesy ofPitch Perfect PR/Zak aBratto

MUSIC

Ancient history inspired the Detroit band Protomartyr.

windows. There was a stained glass window of a martyr in our church next door, the one who was shot full of arrows, and when you’re a young kid, the martyrs are always the coolest saints because they’re the closest to an action movie.” The band is named after St. Stephen — the first martyr, or protomartyr — who was stoned to death. “I picked the name because I thought it sounded cool,” Casey admits. “It’s a little too long [laughs], but it looks good on a record.” All this is not to say that Casey doesn’t engage in purposeful intellectual exploration: His love for obscure literature is fed by hours spent in Detroit’s John K. King Used & Rare Books. (His current obsession is Belgian author Georges Simenon.) “I just try to draw from wherever I can; I think that’s how everyone does it,” he says. “As you’re walking through the day, you can’t really control what affects you or what stays with you, it’s all kind of floating around.” A cultural amalgamator in the truest sense of the word, he fashions poetry the way Rube Goldberg makes machines. Sometimes that means joining strings of words that don’t exactly seem to fit together.

PROTOMARTYR, PRIESTS, TOTAL BABES, BUMMED OUT 8 P.M., WEDNESDAY, FEB. 10, NOW THAT’S CLASS, 11213 DETROIT AVE., 216-221-8576. TICKETS: $10, NOWTHATSCLASS.NET

good at gathering treasures from the quotidian realm. He draws inspiration from the ancient Christian history he was taught in Jesuit high school and from long periods of unemployment tspent with the television caricatures of Judge Judy and late-night infomercials. “Growing up I was next to a monastery, and my first experiences with art were with religious art,” he says. “You know, stained glass

| clevescene.com | February 10 - 16, 2016

“If you try to force meaning on something, it really can blow up in your face. So I stick with these phrases and things that I think about and try to plug them into a song. Either they kind of grow thoughts around them or they don’t, they kind of sit there,” Casey explains. While he hesitates to take credit for consciously conjuring up the mysteries that lie within Protomartyr’s music, Casey is intent on preserving their

cryptic nature. He shies away from attributing definitive meanings to his lyrics; instead, he likes to hear the meanings listeners derive themselves. “A third meaning can come from two things that don’t make sense next to each other. And if I had a robot for every song and said, ‘Okay, this means this, this means that,’ then that kind of takes away that third meaning that I always know is coming about, and I think it kind of ruins the song,” he explains. One song he’s been asked to discuss time and time again is “Uncle Mother’s” from The Agent Intellect. “It’s actually about people going over to somebody’s house and having a medical procedure done. I read somewhere about plastic surgery parties and things like that. The older you get, the more worried you are about your health, and it almost becomes your prime concern. Which when you’re young, you might go to a party to just take drugs and get off your head, now you do it to try to continue your life, and how weird that is.” After decades of being an avid cultural consumer, Casey is keenly aware of the vast amount of humanproduced content that has been accumulating since the beginning of time. So how does he know that his work serves a greater purpose beyond adding to the rubble? “You want to create something that has a little bit more longevity than something that just is so many characters long and goes past. Especially when you’re making music, it can drive you mad how much music there is out there, so you just have to try to find personal fulfillment in it, because if you start judging it by the outside world, the outside world is very fickle. And I’m very fickle.”

scene@clevescene.com t@cleveland_scene

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FRI 2/12 10PM

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TUESDAY 2.16 LYRICAL RHYTHMS 7:30PM Open Mic | Live Band | Drink Specials WEDNESDAY 2.17 MUG NIGHT = $2 PBR Mugs DJ Elliot Nash + Gino XL

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MC CHRIS JIMILLER BAND Nathan Anderson Sassafrazz 2d6 SAT 2/20

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SUN 3/13 SAT 4/23

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BEACH SLANG SCARFACE ICON TOUR Potty Mouth

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FDA Music • OG Grip Dyke Drama

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WED 2/24 TUE 3/22

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EL TEN ELEVEN HUNTER VALENTINE Stems Early Girl

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CHAD VALLEY MON 5/2 FREDDIE GIBBS BLACKBIRD BLACKBIRD Shallou

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MOJOFLO ELI “PAPERBOY” REED Wildlife Soundz SAT 2/27

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NEW MOON RISING Pura Vida EP Release with

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EARTH CHIEF CHON Deathcrawl Polyphia

Toro Blanco Strawberry Girls Axioma

| clevescene.com | February 10 - 16, 2016

Tue 2/23 Band Practice Open Mic w/SHAWN & SHELBY Wed 3/2 RICKY & TREVOR Alive & Gold Tour Thu 3/3 Workingman’s Reggae w/THE ARK BAND Sat 3/5 SWEEPYHEADS • Who Hit Me • ThankYouSHUTUP Fri 4/1 KURT VILE & THE VIOLATORS Sat 4/2 TROPIDELIC CD Release Show Wed 4/6 THE FALCON • Worriers • The Lippies Thu 4/7 BONGZILLA • Black Cobra • Kings Destroy • Lo Pan Fri 4/8 AUTOLUX Thu 4/14 DUNCAN TRUSSELL Fri 4/15 THE WHISKEY HOLLOW • Midnight Passenger Thu 4/21 THE SUBWAYS • PINS Fri 4/22 THE THERMALS • Summer Cannibals Sun 4/24 MURDER BY DEATH • Kevin Devine & The Goddamn Band Fri 4/29 CASH’D OUT • Texas Plant Sun 5/1 ELEANOR FRIEDBERGER Wed 5/18 SAVAGES Thu 5/19 WEEKEND NACHOS • Homewrecker • Vice Thu 9/1 RIVAL SONS

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Heavenly Creatures Brothers From Another Otieno Terry

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THURSDAY 2.11 OPEN STAGE SOUNDSYSTEM hosted by XELA 7-10PM THE HOOKUP College ID night w/ DJ Mike Filly 10PM

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all the live music you should see this week Photo courtesy of Adrenaline PR

WED

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Never Shout Never/Metro Station/ Jule Vera/Waterparks/Me Like Bees: 6:30 p.m., $18 ADV, $22 DOS. House of Blues. The Road to Delfest Featuring the Travelin’ McCourys/Billy Strings: At the Jan. 2 Phish show in New York City, the guy sitting next to me said that Delfest is “the best festival experience in the country.” He’s not the only guy to make that claim. The fest, which happens in late May in Cumberland, Md., features some of the finest bluegrass musicians in the world. Right now, the Travelin’ McCourys -- fronted by Ronnie and Rob McCoury, sons of Del himself -- are touring the U.S. and spreading the good word about Delfest. Fast pickin’ abounds, and dancing is sure to follow. The Travelin’ McCourys are a force unto their own, and they provide excellent entertainment wherever they wander. We’d also like to mention the band’s album with Keller Williams -- 2012’s Pick -- which is a delightful little ‘grass album if we’ve ever heard one. (Eric Sandy), 8:30 p.m., $17 ADV, $19 DOS. Beachland Ballroom. 10 X 3 Hosted by Brent Kirby (in the Wine Bar): 8 p.m. Brothers Lounge. Vicki Chew (in the Supper Club): 7 p.m., $7. Music Box Supper Club. Alvin Youngblood Hart/Austin Walkin’ Cane: 8:30 p.m., $15. Beachland Tavern. Steve Poltz & Grant Lee Phillips: 7:30 p.m., $18 ADV, $20 DOS. Music Box Supper Club. Ana Popovic: 8 p.m., $10 ADV, $15 DOS. The Kent Stage. Protomartyr/Priests/Total Babes/ Bummed Out: 8 p.m., $10. Now That’s Class. Janis Siegel: 7 p.m., $30. Nighttown.

THU

2/11

Freakwater/Jaye Jayle: Freakwater frontwomen Janet Bean and Catherine Irwin first put their harmonies to tape in Bean’s parents’ basement in Louisville. That was way back in 1985. Bean and Irwin like to joke that they then founded Freakwater in 1989 simply to “get into bars for free.” But the band has had remarkable staying power if that’s truly the case. They’ve taken sustenance from the fact that they were the forerunners of an alt-

Twiztid brings its “bloody” Valentine’s Day show to the Agora. See: Saturday.

country movement that has since blossomed. But for whatever reason, Freakwater never broke big like many of its contemporaries. Still, Bean and Irwin have kept moving forward, and after 10 years without releasing a studio album, the group finally breaks the dry spell with its terrific new effort Scheherazade. (Niesel), 8:30 p.m., $12. Beachland Tavern. Brand New Hat/Bob Frank: 8 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern. Jessy Carolina & the Hot Mess: 8 p.m., $10. BLU Jazz+. Cave Bear/Jitters: 9 p.m., $5. Happy Dog. Chris Hatton’s Musical Circus (in the Wine Bar): 8 p.m. Brothers Lounge. 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. Janis Siegel: 8 p.m., $30. Nighttown. Mike Stud/OCD: Moosh and Twist/ Futuristic: 8 p.m., $18 ADV, $20 DOS. House of Blues.

FRI

2/12

Skizzy Mars: Young New York-based rapper Skizzy Mars cites indie rock acts such as Death Cab for Cutie and Animal Collective as influences. Not that you can really hear those influences on his latest effort The Red Balloon Project. The album opens with “Like This,” a narrativeheavy track that finds Mars adopting a sluggish delivery style as he intones, “like this/like this/like this” over a slow-motion groove. The loopy “The City” has a good beat to it and recalls old school jazz-inspired acts such as Digable Planets. (Niesel), 7:30 p.m., $18. Grog Shop. Red Wanting Blue: Red Wanting

Blue is a touring band’s band. They’ve essentially been on the road for nearly 20 years, deepening their personal map and writing “road records” along the way. So when singer Scott Terry and his bandmates — bassist Mark McCullough, guitarist Greg Rahm, drummer Dean Anshutz and guitarist Eric Hall — found themselves on the other side of a near-death experience, well, that’s when the writing for their next album grew more immediate. They released Little America in July 2014, etching a moment in time for a band that’s relished countless others. The songwriting seems more clear-eyed and more laid-back on this one. Terry may have become a more comfortable songwriter over the years, as he’s maintained his commitment to honesty in music and to transposing the stories of his life into song. It’s less heavy, dynamically, while still being complex, “Dumb Love” being analogous in some ways to 2012’s “Audition.” The album closes the book on a trilogy of sorts — the three albums that came out of Red Wanting Blue’s relationship with Fanatic Records. (Sandy), 8 p.m., $20 ADV, $25 DOS. The Kent Stage. Silent Disco: The concept of the silent disco may have been inspired by a scene from the late-’60s Finnish film A Time of Roses in which partygoers wore headphones. Now, almost 50 years later, it is becoming a nationwide staple, and the Grog Shop has fostered the trend in Cleveland with events sometimes being held at MOCA. It’s a modernized clubbing experience that plays into the isolationism encouraged by current technology: each disco-goer dances to music provided through headphones, while anyone on the outside sees a room

full of people dancing in silence. At any given time, three DJs will be playing, and you can toggle between them on your headset. How’s that for a custom experience? (Bethany Kaufman), 10 p.m., $8 ADV, $10 DOS. Grog Shop. Turkuaz/Ghost Note: Not a band that rests on its laurels, funky hydra Turkuaz dropped Future 86 in 2014 -- to much acclaim -- and immediately began expanding its sound further. The result -- for now, at least? Digitonium, an electronicleaning dance party on a disc. From the infectious “Introduction” (which really could have gone on for another 10 minutes without a problem) to the disco-funky robotica of “Nightswimming,” Turkuaz somehow pulls off a 24-song album without even the hint of a hitch. Even better: The band has shown over the years that translating these relentlessly upbeat tunes to the stage ain’t no thang. We imagine tonight will continue that tradition. (Sandy), 9 p.m., $14 ADV, $17 DOS. Beachland Ballroom. Josh Rzepka: 8 p.m., $15. BLU Jazz+. State Champs/Neck Deep/Knuckle Puck/Like Pacific: 5:30 p.m., $20 ADV, $25 DOS. The Agora Theatre. Gerald Albright: 7:30 p.m., $35-$95. Tangier Cabaret. Nathan Bell & the Optimist Club/ Ryann Anderson Trio: 8 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern. Sean Benjamin (in the Wine Bar): 8 p.m. Brothers Lounge. David Bowie Memorial with Vanity Crash/Rainy Day Saints/New Planet Trampoline/DJ Catalina Wine Mixer: 8:30 p.m., $7 ADV, $10 DOS. Beachland Tavern. Commander Cody (in the Supper Club): 8 p.m., $20 ADV, $22 DOS. Music Box Supper Club. John DiMartino Trio + Vanessa Rubin in Salute to Billy Strayhorn: 8:30 p.m., $20. Nighttown. Disco Inferno: 9:30 p.m., $5. Brothers Lounge. Lupe Fiasco/The Boy Illinois/Billy Blue/Zverse: 8 p.m., $25 ADV, $30 DOS. House of Blues. Fifty Amp Fuse: 9 p.m., $15. Vosh Club. Bill Fox/Chary Argus/The Katy/ White Buffalo Woman: 9 p.m., Free. The Euclid Tavern. Dennis Lewin: 10:30 p.m., free. Nighttown. Lopez/Young Humans: 9 p.m., $5. Happy Dog. | clevescene.com | February 10 - 16, 2016

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VINYL NIGHT WED. 17

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KARAOKE

TRIVIA • BOWLING • CHESS

| clevescene.com | February 10 - 16, 2016

LIVEWIRE Welshly Arms: 8 p.m., $10. Musica.

SAT

2/13

2016 Tri-C High School Rock Off: As a way of nurturing and supporting the talent native to Northeast Ohio, the folks at the concert promotions behemoth Live Nation devote what is traditionally a slow time of the year for concerts to this annual event, a battle of the bands that pits highschool bands against one another in a competition to crown one final winner the best high-school band in the land. Last year, the event returned to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame where a handful of bands battled it out each weekend before one winner was crowned in the Final Exam. This year, the event also takes place at the Rock Hall. Every Saturday in January, regional bands competed before a panel of judges for the right to move on to tonight’s “Final Exam,” which takes place at 5 p.m. at the Rock Hall. Now in its twentieth year, the event will also feature special appearances by alumni acts who’ll perform at the end of each round. (Niesel). Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound/ Bassel & the Supernaturals/The Got It Got It Need It: For about a decade now, JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound have been tossing edgy funk and soul music into all corners of the country’s many music scenes. Gaining cred on the national festival circuit, the band picked up a nice rep for its genre-blending: Brooks’ soulful stature works in juxtaposition with the band’s more distorted chord progressions and riffs. We’re still spinning 2013’s Howl, which will give you a nice idea of the sort of musical experience these guys offer. (Sandy), 9 p.m., $15. Musica. Twiztid/Stevie Stone/Boondox/The Roc/G-Mo Skee/MBK/Insane E: The rap-rock duo that features Jamie Spaniolo and Paul Methric, who perform under the respective personas of Jamie Madrox and Monoxide Child, brings its Be My Bloody Valentine show to the Agora tonight. Former members of the group House of Krazees, which disbanded in 1997, Spaniolo and Methric have the same rabid fanbase as former labelmates Insane Clown Posse. Their most recent album, The Darkness, debuted on the Billboard Top 200 charts at No. 29, making

it their 11th album debut on the chart. The Darkness marks the group’s first Billboard debut since the launch of its own imprint, Majik Ninja Entertainment and suggests the group is as popular as ever. (Niesel), 6 p.m., $25 ADV, $30 DOS. The Agora Theatre. Weird Science/Ma Holos: Weird Science has played dive bars across the Midwest for years and their first release, 2012’s We Are Sick People…Pray for Us, fits soundly in the garage punk genre, mixing ‘60s garage rock with just a dusting of country twang. Tracks such as “Pig’s Ear Creek” and “This Page is Running Itself Dry” will be enjoyed by fans of the Black Lips, while the band ventures into prog rock territory on lengthier jams like “Appalachian Creeper.” After Party, the band’s 2016 follow-up album, is closer to pure punk, leaning hard on influences like Husker Du. (Kaufman), 9 p.m., $5. Happy Dog. Eric Burdon & the Animals: 8 p.m., $42.50. The Kent Stage. David Allan Coe: 8:30 p.m., $35-$90. Tangier Cabaret. Lauren Lanzaretta/Uptowne Buddha/ MC: 9 p.m., $8 ADV, $10 DOS. Grog Shop. Love, Wesley: Valentine’s Date Night with Wesley Bright: 7 p.m., $13. BLU Jazz+. Midnight Slander/Fine Subterraneans/Shawn and Shelby: 9 p.m., $5. The Euclid Tavern. Nicki Parrott Trio in Salute to Les Paul: 8:30 p.m., $25. Nighttown. Ted Riser’s Triple Tribute: 9:30 p.m., $5. Brothers Lounge. The Scintas: 8 p.m., $29.50-$47.50. Hard Rock Rocksino. Songwriters in the Round: 4 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern. Spazmatics: 9 p.m., $5. Vosh Club. The Steepwater Band Performing the Rolling Stones Get Yer Ya -Ya’s Out/Thirteen Cadillacs: 8:30 p.m., $10. Beachland Tavern. Ventana/Circus of Dead Squirrels/ Cyanotic: 6:30 p.m., $13 ADV, $15 DOS. Agora Ballroom. Jackie Warren: 10:30 p.m., free. Nighttown.

SUN

2/14

Rick Springfield: Stripped Down: 7:30 p.m. Hard Rock Rocksino. Big Sam’s Funky Nation/Your Brothers: 8 p.m., $13 ADV, $15 DOS. Beachland Ballroom. The Brass/Vanilla Poppers/Short Order/Orange Girls: 9 p.m., $5. Now That’s Class. Patsy Cline’s Valentine’s Brunch Featuring Rachel & the Beatnik

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Allman Bros. • Neil Young Marshall Tucker Band SUN 2/14 • 3:00

CLE IMPROV GROUP –– Comedy –– WED 2/17 • 7:00

BLUEWATER KINGS BAND

LIVEWIRE Playboys (in the Wine Bar): 12 p.m., $10. Music Box Supper Club. ConFunkShun: 7 p.m., $35-$90. The Tangier. DJ Red-I Valentine’s Day Set: 3 p.m. Now That’s Class. Jon B./Shai/Adina Howard: 6 p.m., $30. The Agora Theatre. Anita Keys & Friends: 6 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern. Lionize/The Shadow Division/THE HAX: 8:30 p.m., $10 ADV, $12 DOS. Grog Shop. Night Owls: 3 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern. Nicki Parrott Trio in Salute to Les Paul: 7 p.m., $25. Nighttown. Mike Petrone (in the Wine Bar): 5:30 p.m. Brothers Lounge. Pure Prairie League/The Empty Pockets: 7:30 p.m., $20-$35. The Kent Stage. Brittany Reilly and Achill Crossing Featuring Mike Crawley and Brent Hopper of Mary’s Lane (in the Supper Club): 4 p.m., Free. Music Box Supper Club. Valentine’s Day Cabaret: 7 p.m. Vosh Club.

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2/15

Skatch Anderssen Orchestra: 8 p.m., $10. Brothers Lounge. Vance Joy/Jamie Lawson/Armstrong Leigh: 8 p.m., $35. House of Blues. The Nadis Warriors/Blunt Force/ Maderra: 8:30 p.m., $5 ADV, $8 DOS. Beachland Tavern. Vacula/Spill/Straw Hats/Heart & Lung (in the Locker Room): 7 p.m., $5. Mahall’s 20 Lanes. Velvet Voyage (in the Wine Bar): 8 p.m. Brothers Lounge.

TUE

2/16

Trampoline Team/Kill the Hippies/ Tonawandas: 9 p.m., $5. Now That’s Class. Band Practice Open Mic Night with These Knees: 9 p.m., Free. Grog Shop. Albert Lee/Robert and Jack Kidney: 8 p.m., $25. Beachland Ballroom. Swing City Big Band: 7:30 p.m., $10. Vosh Club. Two-Set Tuesday Featuring Jim Keserich: 7 p.m. Brothers Lounge. Charlie Wiener/John Hansen/Rob Flax: 6 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern.

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scene@clevescene.com t@cleveland_scene | clevescene.com | February 10 - 16, 2016

LIVE ENTERTAINMENT

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Sunday February 14

9:00pm Sat. February 13

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Night Owls 3:00 (jazz) Anita Keys & Friends 6:00 (folk, rock) 11310 JUNIPER RD., CLEVELAND • 216.421.2863

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MEET THE BAND: Dave Conner (vocals, guitar), Mike Gray (drums, keyboards, vocals), Al Rodriguez (bass, vocals) and Drew Maziasz (guitar). STRAIGHT OUTTA SOUTH CAROLINA: Formed in South Carolina in 2012, this Americana/altrock band relocated to Cleveland in 2014. A native Clevelander, Conner was living in South Carolina with the woman who’s now his wife. He was in another band at a time recording at Charleston Sound, a renowned studio. They wanted to stop writing and be a cover band, so Conner reconnected with Gay and took advantage of some cheap studio time. Rodriguez came with Gill, and the band was born. “Everything clicked and we decided to be a band,” says Conner. “Something magical came out and we decided to roll out with it. I was listening to Southern rock, and they were listening to bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but we just clicked.” Recently, the band has opened for national acts such as X Ambassadors, Matt and Kim, Generationals and 28 North and local artists like Tom Evanchuck, Cities and Coasts, Joshua Jesty, Village Bicycle, and many more. Drew Maziasz joined just last year. A SPECIAL MIX OF SONGS: After releasing 2013’s Open Road and 2014’s The Long Way Home, the band decided to record at Lava Room Recording Studio in Cleveland with local producer Jim

Stewart during the fall of 2015. October is “a special mix of songs showcasing the growth of the band in both sound and lineup.” “We made everything so polished and radio ready on The Long Way Home, and we sacrificed some of that raw, real passion we had on the first EP,” says Conner. “Jim Stewart is great. I haven’t heard anything that he’s done that I didn’t like.”

WHY YOU SHOULD HEAR THEM: The mid-tempo “Ready Set Go” features hiccupping vocals as Conner sounds particularly soulful as he croons, “I know we’ll stay up late to see the stars take flight.” The tune even includes an evocative mid-song guitar solo. The group recalls Dave Matthews Band on the mournful self-titled track, which Conner originally wrote when he was in college but had never recorded. “That song never had the right feeling until I brought it to this band,” says Conner, who adds that Matthews was the reason he picked up the guitar. “They took it home and now it’s one of our favorites.” WHERE YOU CAN HEAR THEM: themidnightslander.com. WHERE YOU CAN SEE THEM: The Midnight Slander performs with Fine Subterraneans and Shawn and Shelby at 8 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 13, at the Euclid Tavern.

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SAVAGE LOVE INTROPERVERT DUMPS EXTROPERVERT By Dan Savage Dear Dan, Gay male in my late 20s. I recently ended things with a guy. Our relationship started as a strictly sexual one. We’re both involved in the kink scene in our city and have interests that align in a particularly great way. Quickly it became clear there was a real connection. The next two months were great! I had a toothbrush at his place within three weeks. But early on, I noticed that he was a much more extroverted person than I was. He would laugh loudly at movies, work the room at parties, say things about kink in the middle of crowded restaurants. I prefer to blend in. Initially I thought of this as “the price of admission,” one I was willing to pay, but it soon became tiresome. I ended things, telling him that there were conflicts with our personalities that made a relationship difficult, not specifying what. He fell for me—he’s stated it over and over—but I don’t want him to think he has to change who he is to be with me. I’m confused, Dan. I loved being in a relationship again (I’ve been single for a VERY long time), the sex is great, and finding someone who shares your kinks and you’re attracted to emotionally is rare. We have a ton in common when he’s being down-toearth. He’s asking me to reconsider. Was I right to end this? —Tired Of Being Single He shouldn’t have to change who he is to be with you, TOBS, but what if he wants to? It’s unlikely he’ll morph into an always-quietly-tittering, always-discreetlykinking introvert, just as you’re unlikely to morph into a braying, oversharing extrovert. But if making an effort to dial it back is the price he has to pay to be with you—along with reserving convos about his kinks (and, by inference, your kinks) for fetish clubs and play parties— why not let him decide if he’s willing to pay? Gays represent a tiny percentage of the general population, TOBS, and kinky gays represent a not-so-tiny-butstill-smallish percentage of the gay population. I don’t think you have to marry this man, regardless of his flaws, just because you’re gay and your kinks align. But you should think twice about discarding a guy who’s gay and kinky and whose company you enjoy most of the time just because he gets on your

nerves now and then. At the very least, you owe it to yourself, just as you owe it to him, to be specific about the reasons you pulled the plug—because he might want to make an effort to win you back. With some effort, TOBS, you could find the work-arounds that work for you two: He makes an effort, when you nudge him, to dial it back; he goes to comedies with his friends, dramas with you; if he’s working a room, he won’t take offense if you slip into another room. Give it—give him—a chance.

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Dear Dan, I’m a gay male college student in a healthy D/s relationship with a bisexual guy. My boyfriend posts pictures of our kink sessions to his Tumblr. (No faces.) A trans woman active in campus queer politics confronted me today. Ze had seen my boyfriend’s Tumblr (!) and recognized me (!!!). Ze demanded I stop engaging in BDSM because ze has to see me on campus and knowing my boyfriend “controls and abuses” me is triggering for zir. Ze said images of me in medical restraints were particularly traumatizing. Ze was shaking and crying, and I wound up comforting zir. I stupidly let zir think I would stop. Now what? —Scenario Utterly Bananas P.S. Ze also threatened to out my boyfriend if ze saw new pictures go up on his Tumblr. My boyfriend is already out—about being bi and being kinky— so he laughed it off. But how fucked up is that? You tell this woman you take orders from your boyfriend, SUB, not from random campus nutcases. You advise zir to stay away from Tumblr porn ze finds traumatizing. And if ze pushes back, you explain to zir that if anyone’s being controlling and abusive here, it’s zir. And if ze starts shaking and crying, SUB, direct zir to the student health center. And for your own protection, SUB, tell zir all of this with at least one witness present. Document everything, and if ze keeps getting in your face about your consensual, nonabusive D/s relationship, take the ironic step of filing a restraining order against zir.

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