SOMETHING’S ROTTEN IN OHIO’S PRISON KITCHENS By Stephen Katz
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F E B R UA R Y 17 - 2 3 , 2 016 • V O L U M E 4 6 N O 3 3
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 46
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
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SWAT handles hostage situation on West 9th, city filings make mockery of Tamir Rice case, and more
News
9
Despite the county prosecutor’s new Conviction Integrity Unit, no exonerations in 2015
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
Feature
11
Get Out!
15
Art
20
Stage
21
Film
23
Dining
25
Something still stinks in Michigan and Ohio’s prison kitchens
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
A trip into this week’s artistic offerings at 78th Street Studios
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If/Then at PlayhouseSquare wants to have it both ways and gets neither
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No cheap tricks in Robert Eggers’ wondrously spooky The Witch
Jeremy Umansky to open Schmaltz Delicatessen and Bakery
Music
10 bands you should see at the Brite Winter festival
Savage Love
The ghost of cuckoldry past
...The story continues at clevescene.com 35
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UPFRONT CITY FILINGS MAKE ONGOING MOCKERY OUT OF TAMIR RICE CASE
THIS WEEK
IN THE WAKE OF A PUBLICrelations SNAFU last week in which the City of Cleveland filed a $500 creditor’s claim to the estate of Tamir Rice for emergency transport services, Mayor Frank Jackson is trying to make good on his promise to address “the process” he hinted was at fault. “When you get into a bureaucratic routine,” Jackson said in a press conference, “there’s always things that slip through the cracks.” Except the policy change outlined Friday in a memo to all city personnel handling or processing licenses, permits and insurance claims (much like the city’s press conference) generated as many questions as it answered. “Effective immediately,” the memo read, “any license, permits, insurance claims, and/or invoices of any type, along with all pertinent documentation, whether opened or closed, that may be subject to potential court activity must be submitted to a Commissioner and/or Assistant Commissioner within two business days.” After it’s submitted, a review and “a written response regarding next steps” is required by the Commissioner or Assistant Commissioner. “These steps,” the memo mandated, “will include clear instruction as to the appropriate process.” The appropriate process? The appropriate process for what? Within two business days of what? What does pertinent documentation mean? Couldn’t any invoice or license or permit or insurance claim be subject to potential court activity? And why on earth does
this apply to claims and permits and invoices that have already been closed? Our confusion wasn’t shared by city employees. “At 8:30 this morning,” the city said in a statement Friday, “all employees within the departments of License and Assessments and Law were briefed on this policy change and signed a copy acknowledging that they have read and understand this policy change.” When we sought clarity regarding the policy’s language, the city’s chief legal counsel, Rick Horvath, said that the policy was clear to the employees who work in this area. “When an employee is aware that a license, permit, insurance claim, or invoice involves or could involve court activity, the commissioner and assistant commissioner must be notified.” Right, got it. But again: Couldn’t any of these things potentially involve court activity? Short of mysticism, how can all these licensing employees foresee any/all potential court activity, especially when, in the course of the routine, “things slip through the cracks”? It’s anybody’s guess what effect this policy change will have — looks like more red tape, at first blush -- beyond making it seem as if something is being addressed. One thing it certainly does do is obfuscate the city’s proactive role in filing the $500 claim. At the press conference, Mayor Jackson stressed that the insurance claim had indeed already been closed, and it was only re-opened last week because the executor of Tamir Rice’s estate requested documentation.
DOING 63 IN A 60 Protesters rail against deer culling method in Lyndhurst. Mayor claims that writing exorbitant number of speeding tickets for deer is actually most humane form of population control.
Photo by Sam Allard
“We never sent a bill to the Rice family,” Mayor Frank Jackson said.
But the Rice family lawyer, Subodh Chandra, said that the executor had only filed a routine public-records request and should not have resulted in a court filing. Chandra called Jackson’s insistence that the city never billed the Rice family an “unprecedented non-sequitur.” On Friday, Chandra hammered the city yet again, calling the “so-called policy change feel-good, bureaucratic gobbledygook that has nothing to do with what happened— namely that Tamir Rice’s estate (that is, effectively, his family) faced a $500 creditor claim by the city in court for EMS service that was necessary only because another city employee fatally shot the child. Medicaid had already paid EMS, and trying to collect the balance may be
GET YOUR STOMACH TRUMPED Heinen’s and Platform Beer Co. to collaborate on one-off craft brew for RNC. After eight cans or so, brewers say that delegates are sure to find at least one candidate mildly appealing.
COUNTY LADDER Downtown Hilton hotel hiring for 300 open positions. County Exec Armond Budish tells prospects: “Start here, and with enough cunning deals, you could be in my position!”
Medicaid fraud, because Medicaid requires its payments to be payment in full—the provider can’t go ask for more. The city didn’t just try to collect the supposed balance—it tried to collect even that which Medicaid had already reimbursed it. And the city did so long after the six-month statute of limitations had elapsed, so, from the Rice family’s viewpoint, the filing was an exercise in harassment. “The actual policy change should be a directive to cure bad judgment, inhumane treatment, and incompetency. But that’s what led to Tamir’s death in the first place.” Cleveland’s Finance Director Sharon Dumas said yesterday that the city had received a partial reimbursement from Medicaid in the amount of $172.90. The
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UPFRONT remaining $327.10 for Tamir’s emergency transport was then absorbed by the city “and then the matter was closed.” They probably wish it had stayed that way.
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Kevin Kiley appeared on Channel 19’s broadcast last week to make an announcement. The simple version: After filling the airwaves with garbage for many years, Kiley will cease doing so. He announced that back in November he had submitted his resignation to Top Men at 92.3, to be effective at the end of this month. Tony Zarella asked Kiley where he goes from here, and Kiley replied, “I go away.” The morning show host, of course, gathered national headlines last month when he said that there was no place for women to be coaches in men’s professional sports. (This followed earlier comments where Kiley said he believed women also shouldn’t be refs or Hall of Fame voters. So Cleveland had been blessed with a Grade-A class act.) Anyway, no more. “For reasons that were unrelated to this,” Kiley said, he’s out. Those reasons have to do with the fact that he doesn’t think his principles of business match with the principles of 92.3. (For starters, Kiley probably thinks the station shouldn’t hire any women.) “I’ll be ending at the end of the month, maybe at the end of the show,” Kiley added, before bringing up Orson Welles and Howard Stern and, once again, attempting to defend himself for his absolutely ignorant comments. “I have no right to accept censorship,” he says. “Demand the truth.” Check the full video at clevescene.com.
MAKING SENSE OF THE LAKEWOOD HOSPITAL ISSUE As we know now, Lakewood City Council opted not to place the Lakewood Hospital referendum on the March ballot. What that means for the future is unclear. On one hand, the Save Lakewood Hospital crowd has pointed out that 2,868 certified signatures remain on
file and in support of a ballot issue. With the March election set to pass with no mention of the hospital matter, SLH leadership warns that the city’s voters will have to wait until a possible special election later this year -- or until November. At that point, of course, Lakewood Hospital and its services will look much different. Were the measure to pass -- signalling residents’ will to maintain in-patient hospital services, among other services -- the state of the hospital would be further deteriorated and that much more difficult to restore to its former condition. On the other hand, Lakewood Law Director Kevin Butler has said that the contract in place with the Cleveland Clinic Foundation -- one ratified unanimously by council in December -- cannot legally be reversed by a vote of the people, whenever and however that might take place. “By now the moving parts of the contract approved by Ordinance 49-15 are certainly moving,” Butler said Feb. 11. “The hospital is now closed. The employees have largely been moved to other facilities or have found other work.” In other words, what’s done is done, the city asserts. Or rather, to paraphrase Miles Straum in LOST: “Whatever happened, happened.” So what’s to come? Both sides of the issue -- the city and the SLH campaign -- will continue to stake their claims and make moves to enact them as the year goes on.
LOLITA LIKELY CLOSED FOR A YEAR Just about a week after the calendar ticked to 2016, a fire crippled Michael Symon’s restaurant Lolita in Tremont. At the time, there wasn’t much word on when things would get back to normal at the corner of Professor and Literary. Symon, of course, had/ has plenty of other things on his plate, including finishing up Mabel’s for its launch on East Fourth St. in the coming weeks/months. The second floor of the restaurant and the roof were affected, as far as investigators at the scene told us. That second floor had served as offices for Symon’s operations; they’ve since leased space in the former Visible Voice bookstore space across from Crust. But what of Lolita itself? There was little hard information in the aftermath of the flames. Would it be a couple months? Longer? The space that began life as
Photo courtesy of Dante Boccuzzi
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Lakewood, ohio: VoLunteer epicenter for dems, and hiLLary Gets a Boost from cheLsea on LocaL campaiGn traiL Chelsea Clinton was in Cleveland Monday afternoon with other Ohio legislators to campaign for her mother, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Chelsea spoke to a crowd of supporters at the Murtis Taylor Community Center. Chelsea stressed her mom’s political experience, but also highlighted her familial success, calling her a loving grandmother. Chelsea Clinton is 35 and is expecting her second child this summer. She reportedly asked the gathered crowd for parenting advice. Both Chelsea and former president Bill have been hitting the campaign trail hard in the past couple of weeks. (New Hampshire, where rival Bernie Sanders trounced her last week, was likely a wake-up call for the presumed front-runner.) But Hillary will have scores of local volunteers aiding and abetting her efforts locally. Sunday, a west side volunteer office opened its doors in Lakewood. More than 50 people signed in to volunteer, said west side coordinator Karolyn Isenhart. She said the Madison Avenue Lakewood location is optimally placed for mobilizing support and holding events. “Kathy Curran, who owns
Goddess Blessed, is a longtime Hillary Clinton supporter and jumped at the chance to share her second storefront for volunteers in Lakewood, Cleveland’s West Side and the rest of the western suburbs,” Isenhart told Scene. “We’re on an RTA route and minutes from I-90.” The Hillary office is also, as fate would have it, only minutes away from the Bernie Sanders volunteer HQ at Detroit and West 119th.
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NEWS WINDOW DRESSING
2015 was a record year for exonerations around the country. But none of them came in Cuyahoga County, despite the Conviction Integrity Unit set up by the county prosecutor By Kyle Swenson Photo by Mark Bealer/Studio 66
IN NOVEMBER 2014, CLEVELAND notched a grim accomplishment. That month, under a charcoal grey morning sky, Ricky Jackson walked out of the Justice Center in downtown Cleveland, frozen breath exploding out of a wide smile, while dozens of news cameras flashed. In 1975, Jackson and two friends — Kwame Ajamu (formerly Ronnie Bridgeman) and Wiley Bridgeman — were arrested by Cleveland police and charged by Cuyahoga County prosecutors for murder. It took 39 years for the legal system to reverse course, realizing that the three black eastsiders had been shipped on a oneway ticket to Death Row (they were later handed life sentences) on bogus testimony. At nearly four decades, the Jackson-Bridgeman case was the longest wrongful conviction to end in exoneration in U.S. history — an ugly achievement that made international headlines. The three exonerations were also among the 125 fixed convictions in 2014, a record year. This month, the National Registry of Exonerations, run by the University of Michigan Law School, released the figures for 2015: wrongful convictions had another record-busting 12 months. Still, the Jackson-Bridgeman case — and Cuyahoga County — held onto the ignominious title for longest conviction. A deep look at the numbers also shows that wrongful convictions are still a problem staring Cleveland in the face. The recent data shows that in 2015, 149 defendants were exonerated in 29 states. A defendant released last year spent an average of 14-and-a-halfyears in prison for a crime he or she didn’t commit. No Cuyahoga County cases reached exoneration in 2015. Only two from Ohio — a 1992 Richland County murder case and a 1997 Summit County assault case — were among the recent pack. It’s a surprise more local cases weren’t reversed in the last year considering the county’s track record. According to the National Registry, 17 defendants convicted in Cuyahoga County courtrooms have been
exonerated between 1994 and today. The lack of 2015 exonerations in the Cleveland area is also notable considering the Cuyahoga County prosecutor office’s apparent interest in getting ahead of bad cases. In April 2014, prosecutor Tim McGinty set up a Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) within the office. The county was on the leading edge here. Across the country, only nine jurisdictions had CIUs in 2013, with that number growing to 14 in 2014. As in-house specialists kicking the tires on convictions, CIUs are tasked with investigating all claims of innocence or suspicions of wrongful prosecution. “We want to convict the guilty, not the innocent,” McGinty said when the unit was formed. “So if we learn we have convicted the wrong person, we want to correct it. We always want to have open ears on the subject of innocence.” CIUs are exploding nationally: 2015 counted 24 CIUs in jurisdictions across the U.S. Experts say these units are powering the rising number of exonerations; to date, CIUs have pushed forward 151 exonerations, including 58 in 2015. Yet at the same time, the mere presence of a unit doesn’t mean a jurisdiction is overturning convictions at a rapid clip. Or even at all. “As of this week, the CIU had received 88 requests for review since it was launched,” Cuyahoga County prosecutor spokesman Joe Frolik tells Scene. “Sixteen made it through the initial screening process. Eight of those are still pending. To date, the CIU has not recommended an exoneration.” According to the National Registry, this isn’t rare. “Half of all CIUs have not been involved in any exonerations — and four others worked on one only — including several that have existed for three to five years,” the registry’s 2015 report says. “The performance of these CIUs has been highly variable and some have been criticized as mere window dressing.” Frolik declined to offer specifics on the eight cases currently under
Eugene Johnson, Derrick Wheatt and Laurese Glover had their convictions for the 1995 murder of Clifton Hudson Jr. thrown out after nearly a decade of legal advocacy from the Ohio Innocence Project.
review by the Cuyahoga County CIU. But at least one case is currently sitting in the local court system that could represent another significant exoneration for the county. It’s also one that the Cuyahoga County prosecutor’s office is fighting. In February 1995, three men — Laurese Glover, Eugene Johnson and Derrick Wheatt — were arrested for the murder of a 19-year-old on an East Cleveland street. At trial, police produced a witness who claimed she’d seen one of the defendants fire on the victim, as well as forensics tests that claimed to have detected gun-powder residue on the defendants and in the SUV they were driving at the time. Despite their claims of innocence, the men were convicted. But as the years passed, new details began to emerge for the East Cleveland Three. The witness changed her story, telling attorneys now she had not spotted any of the defendants fire on the victim, and that she’d only testified as such at prompting from police. The chemical tests used to detect gunpowder were also largely discredited due to their tendency to create false-positive results. But most important: Defense attorneys for the first time gained access to the full police file. This included exculpatory evidence that
should have shifted the investigators’ attention away from the three men, including two previously undisclosed witnesses who saw and recognized the actual gunman. This material was never provided to defense attorneys for the original trial. Last year, the Ohio Innocence Project (OIP) was able to win bond for the three. The state has since fought the East Cleveland Three’s efforts at exoneration, and their attorneys argued for a new trial before an appeals court in January. (A judge had previously granted a motion for a new trial; McGinty’s office appealed that decision. They’re still waiting for the results from the 8th District’s decision.) “These men have insisted they were innocent for 18 years,” says Brian Howe, one of the Ohio Innocence Project attorneys working the case. “Never wavered. In that time, the case against them has fallen apart, and new evidence of their innocence has been found by the defense. They deserve a fair trial, one where the jury gets to hear all the facts. If they get that chance, we are confident they will be vindicated.”
scene@clevescene.com t@cleveland_scene | clevescene.com | February 17 - 23, 2016
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Human Rights considered suing the company for allegedly starving inmates in Georgia. Trinity didn’t return calls seeking comment.
STARVING INMATES
EMPTY PROMISES Something still stinks in Michigan and Ohio’s prison kitchens By Stephen Katz
IT’S DIFFICULT TO LOOK AT Aramark’s management of Michigan and Ohio’s prison kitchens and not call it a disaster. A series of reports over a two-year period in Michigan told of disturbing incidents in which the company served food tainted by maggots on multiple occasions, knowingly served rotten meat, ordered inmates to serve food pulled from the garbage, handed out food on which rats nibbled, and served moldy food. The substandard ingredients and small portions lead to prisoner protests and lawsuits. Oh, and the company overbilled the state of Michigan by $3.4 million for the pleasure. Things were no better in Ohio. The Buckeye State cited Aramark 240 times in 2014 for shorting inmates on food. The state’s prison kitchens have also seen issues with maggots, mice turds, employee shortages, substandard food, and unsanitary conditions. Even though a majority of Michiganders wanted Aramark out for a long time, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder didn’t end the three-year, $145-million contract until July of this past year. The state replaced the company with Trinity Services, a private Florida-based food giant, which receives $12 million more annually than Aramark. The good news: Prisoners have yet to find maggots in their Trinitybranded potatoes.
The bad news: Trinity’s potatoes are often rotten or too dried out to eat. And there are far fewer of them. In fact, prisoners at two facilities we spoke to say rotten and expired food is still common. The portions are smaller than ever, leading to suspicion that Trinity isn’t providing the 2,600 calories required by state law, and a prisoner charges he was recently hospitalized because Trinity ignored his medical diet. In other words, Michigan may have booted Aramark, but not much has changed. And it doesn’t help that Trinity hired many of the employees Aramark fired when it left the state. “The only thing they did was switch the employees’ shirts,” Lamont Heard, a prisoner serving life for murder in Michigan’s Kinross Correctional Facility, tells us. “It’s the same people, they just switched the title, but the food is worse. Everything is worse than with Aramark.” In Ohio, the prisons’ unions offered to run the kitchens for less money than Aramark, but Ohio’s Department of Rehabilitation and Correction opted to extend Aramark’s contract in June while boosting its pay from $110 million to $130 million over two years. As a precautionary measure, Michigan and Ohio hired more monitors to ensure prisoners aren’t starving or eating larvae. So there’s that. But even with the monitors in
place, problems with sanitation, tainted food, food shortages and Aramark employees having sexual contact with inmates persist in Ohio, prison employee union chief Chris Mabe says. Prisoners and officials say those problems didn’t exist when the state ran the mess hall, and the situation is not an “Aramark problem” or a “Trinity problem,” it’s a privatization problem. “There are things you cannot tamper with in prisons, like food, because that leads to a volatile situation,” Mabe says. “There’s only one way to make money privatizing food service, and that’s the shortcuts: not training your staff, cutting quality, not maintaining sanitation standards, serving less food. Those are dollars in private companies’ pockets.” Aramark, the world’s largest institutional food conglomerate, and Trinity, plop meals onto prisoners’ trays at around 950 detention centers in North America, according to the companies’ websites. But that figure is dropping, mostly because Aramark is establishing itself as the poster child for all that’s wrong with privatization, due in no small part to widely publicized incidents in Michigan and Ohio. Trinity‘s record is better than Aramark, but the bar is low. Last year the Southern Center for
When asked about the small portions, Michigan Department of Corrections spokesman Chris Gautz questioned how inmates could keep track of calories. Lamont Heard, the prisoner in Michigan’s Kinross Correctional Facility quoted above, explained the eyeball test is sufficient to know it’s happening, but says he also consults a book that provides prison meal calorie counts. Over the past three years, he and several other Muslim prisoners successfully sued the MDOC and Aramark in federal court multiple times for refusing to provide the state-mandated 2,600 daily calories to Muslim prisoners during Ramadan. When the MDOC lied to the judge about the calorie counts, Heard proved their fibs, and the MDOC was found in contempt of court. Since Trinity took over, other issues include rotten fruit, rotten potatoes and expired milk, prisoners say. The line where the food is served is filthy and unsanitary, trays are dirty, food is cross-contaminated, and Trinity staff refuses to wear hairnets. The food is so bad that some are skipping meals even though they’re hungry, say Heard and Randy Jones, another Kinross prisoner. “The food is worse. Somehow, the food got worse. Whatever they cook, no matter what it is, it’s always worse. Now, everyone has a negative attitude toward Trinity. It’s the same as before,” Jones says. The prisoners claim inmates who file grievances face retribution from Trinity staff. If a prisoner reports a problem, then he’s likely to end up with the smallest slice of cake on the next run through the chow line. And the grievances go to Trinity’s food boss, so little is resolved. “It’s like complaining to the wolf about what’s going on in the hen house,” Heard says, adding that the staff is on its best behavior if Trinity brass is visiting the site. Kenneth Williams, also a prisoner at Kinross, deals with kidney issues that require a special diet. He tells me that Trinity refuses to consistently feed him that diet, and that led to a recent hospitalization. “I‘m angry. This could cause me to be on dialysis, and that’s what I keep telling them,” Williams says. | clevescene.com | February 17 - 23, 2016
11
FEATURE “I’m trying to avoid to being on dialysis. Once your kidneys start failing, then everything starts failing. “A lot of times I end up going without eating. I go hungry.” And in Ohio, the story is the same as it was before the state re-signed Aramark in June, Mabe says. The union is in arbitration with the state in an effort to regain the contract. Beyond the run-of-the-mill Aramark problems, the company is now trying to wiggle out of buying beef and milk from the state, as Mabe says its contract requires. That could cost Ohio millions of dollars. In the Belmont Correctional Institute, Aramark employees recently ordered inmates working in the kitchen to use can lids to cut meat because there is no meat slicer. In 2015, around 65 Aramark employees were fired for security violations, and over 200 are banned from entering Ohio prisons. Alex Friedmann, associate director of the Human Rights Defense Center and managing editor of Prison Legal News, contends the short-term, upfront savings private
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companies offer are deceptive. The 30 new monitors Michigan installed to “clamp down” on private companies cost money. Medical expenses are high for prisoners like Williams who aren’t receiving the correct medical diet. There’s a consistent pattern of private companies charging taxpayers for more prison meals than they serve. Contracts typically increase in cost with each renegotiation. A report shows Aramark violated its Michigan contract 3,707 times, and only around 1,700 of the issues were resolved. The headaches are endless. “It goes back to the question, ‘Do you really want a private company to feed inmates?’ Looking at the horrific past record of, say, Aramark, it’s the whole refrain about how the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results,” Friedmann says.
THE CASE AGAINST STARVING INMATES To be clear, no one is asking
| clevescene.com | February 17 - 23, 2016
the state to polish the silver and lay out a buffet for a bunch of thugs, criminals, murderers and goons. However, lunch shouldn’t be so bad, or there shouldn’t be so little of it, that it leads to riots, protests, confrontation and a general destabilization of the prison yard. Heard says that’s exactly what’s happening. “The thing is when there’s not enough food, or it’s half cooked or rotten so no one wants to eat it, the only thing a guy is going to do is go over there and take food from the weaker guys,” he says. “It all falls on the weaker prisoners. If someone else weaker is eating something from commissary, he’s going to become a target.” That situation can escalate, and that puts inmates and guards at risk says Mabe, who worked as a prison guard in Ohio for 20 years. “You must maintain standards to keep peace because they’re violent places to work, and one ripple creates a wave at the end of the day,” he says. Over the past 10 years, Aramark’s rotten food and low calorie counts
sparked enough riots, hunger strikes, violence and inmate protests that many of the company’s critics are essentially labeling its recipe books a security threat. In an interview with the Atlanta Journal Constitution for a story on the company underfeeding Georgia inmates, a Trinity spokesman defended the company’s meal plans, and added, “We could have a bigger discussion of why they’re there to begin with.” Mabe notes part of the reason for incarceration is rehabilitation, and starving inmates doesn’t fit into the equation. The vast majority of those in the prison system are getting out one day. He questions the wisdom of underfeeding people society wants to rehabilitate and reintegrate. “Our job is to provide a safe, secure environment, and prepare them to come back to the streets where they’re your neighbor and my neighbor. We’re not trying to create criminals, we’re trying to create productive members of society,“ he says. “We can’t take the stance that we’re going to feed them bread and water and think they’ll come back
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and be productive.” Friedmann, who served 10 years in prison in Tennessee, sees it similarly, and notes that the debate on starving inmates or feeding them rotten food has already been settled. We don’t do that, he says, “because we are decent human beings.” “If we consider them indecent, then we don’t remedy that by being equally indecent by treating them like animals and feeding them garbage,” Friedmann says. “We lose our moral high ground to say anything, and we’re just as bad as them.” But Gautz says the MDOC isn’t finding the same problems with Trinity as it did with Aramark. “Overall, Trinity has been responsive to issues that have come up. We have had a small number of issues in the first five to six months, but when there have been issues, Trinity has been quick to terminate staff and correct the issues with enhanced training,” Gautz says. “We’ve had a lot of positive feedback in terms of quality, and feedback in terms of fewer number of complaints.” Prisoners, however, see it differently. “The food is horrible. People don’t want to eat it. And there’s less of
it. You might as well go eat grass,” Heard says. Friedmann and Mabe say the only way to remedy the issues is to spend more money and place wellpaid, well-trained employees in the prisons. Private companies can offer lower prices than the unions, but cost savings are found in cutting food quantity, cutting quality, or cutting staff and/or pay. Friedmann says those shortcuts lead to “legitimate long-term costs.” “There’s that allure to the notion that you can save money by contracting with these companies. Did Aramark actually save anyone money? I don’t know. It’s hard to say because we’re dealing in the theoretical,” Friedmann says. “But we’re dealing with all the problems and their employees, and those are additional costs on the system. “Whenever we hire a private company, what we’re trying to do is achieve cost savings in the short term. Are those savings worth the effort in the long term, especially when the cost is going to go up on the next contract?” he asks. “Probably not.”
scene@clevescene.com t@cleveland_scene
Bill Frisell
w/Petra Haden, Eyvind Kang, Thomas Morgan & Kenny Wollesen Wed., Feb. 17
Hard Day’s Night
The Wailers Featuring:
Carlos Jones & The P.L.U.S. Band Wed, Feb. 24
Robert Randolph
Sat, Mar. 5th
& The Family Band Thu., Mar 10
David Cook
Eileen Ivers
Sat., Mar. 12
Sun, Mar. 13
Cabin Fever Meltdown Fri., Feb. 26
Delta Rae Fri., Mar. 11
Ron Halloway Band Thu., Mar. 24
An Evening With
Todd Rundgren
feat. John Ferenzik • Jese Gress • Prairie Prince • Kasim Sulton
Mon., May 16th & Tue., May 17th Tickets go on sale FRIDAY, Feb. 19th @ 10am
ALL SHOWS AT THE KENT STAGE UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED Tickets available at the kent stage box office bodega or online 175 East Main Street • Kent, Ohio 44240 • 877-987-6487 • www.kentstage.org | clevescene.com | February 17 - 23, 2016
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Appearing at Playhouse Square
Ron White February 20
March 2
Š LITTLESTAR
THANK YOU FOR THE MUSIC!
FAREWELL TOUR March 8-13
Malpaso
A Cuban Dance Project with live music from Arturo OFarrill Afro Latin Jazz Ensemble
February 27
The Peking Acrobats
216-241-6000 Group Sales 216-640-8600 playhousesquare.org
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| clevescene.com | February 17 - 23, 2016
April 2
Kathleen Madigan April 2
GET OUT 2/17
SPOKEN WORD
Comedian David Cross comes to the Masonic Auditorium. See: Wednesday.
Cleveland Stories Dinner Party Stop by the Music Box Supper Club for Cleveland Stories Dinner Party, a new weekly series that pairs a prix fixe dinner with storytelling. The series aims to help raise awareness of the mission of the Western Reserve Historical Society’s new Cleveland History Center. The club’s owners consider the Cleveland History Center to be “one of the most interesting museums in Cleveland” and “an unknown gem that Clevelanders should know more about and support.” The goal of the Cleveland Stories Dinner Party is to “bring to life some of the fun, interesting stories about Cleveland’s past — from sports, to rock ’n’ roll, to Millionaire’s Row,” as it’s put in a press release. Each week features a guest speaker and a custom prix fixe menu: a full three course meal for only $20. (The program itself is free. There will be no cover charge.) Dinner is served at 6 p.m., and the storytelling starts at 7:30 p.m. The series kicks off tonight with Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum CEO Greg Harris. Tonight’s three-course meal is ’shroom soup, pot roast and a cosmic brownie sundae. (Jeff Niesel) 1148 Main Ave., 216-242-1250, musicboxcle.com.
The event is organized by the Rust Belt Monster Collective and sponsored by Carol and John’s Comic Book Shop. Drink & Draws are an opportunity for artists of all levels of experience to drink, draw, socialize/network and collaborate in a very relaxed and welcoming environment. Events take place at 7 p.m. on the first and third Wednesday of each month. At the end of each Drink and Draw, prizes are awarded for various superlatives. It’s free. (Josh Usmani) 2516 Market Ave., 216-771-4404, greatlakesbrewing.com.
COMEDY
MUSIC
David Cross Named one of the “Top 100 StandUp Comedians of All Time” by Comedy Central, comedian/actor/ writer David Cross began performing stand-up comedy when he was only 17. By the 1990s, he emerged as a comedian to be reckoned with. Currently on his first stand-up tour in five years, Cross — possibly most widely known from his role on Arrested Development — brings his “Making America Great Again!” tour to the Masonic Auditorium tonight at 8. Sponsored by the Grog Shop, show tickets are $32 to $45 online. (Niesel) 3615 Euclid Ave., 216-431-7370, grogshop.gs.
Guns N’ Roses Pinball & Happy Hour After years of bitter fighting, Guns N’ Roses recently announced that long-time rivals Axl Rose and Slash have decided to perform together once again. To celebrate the reunion, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will feature the 2012 Hall of Fame Inductees in its Legends of Rock exhibit that will open on Friday, Feb. 26. To help launch the exhibit, the Rock Hall will host a special Guns N’ Roses-themed evening tonight at 6. During the special event, local residents will enjoy discounted entry for Rock Hall exhibits, happy hour drink specials and the chance to win an opportunity to play the Guns N’ Roses pinball machine. Admission to the event is free, but a museum admission ticket will be needed to tour exhibits. (Niesel) 1100 Rock and Roll Blvd., 216-515-8444, rockhall.com.
ART
Drawing Power Twice every month, Great Lakes Brewing Company hosts Cleveland’s Drink & Draw Social Club.
Photo courtesy of the Grog Shop
WED
everything you should do this week
FILM
Sembene! Often called “the father of African cinema,” Sengalese director Ousmane Sembene was the first native director to make movies in sub-Sahara Africa. A documentary directed by Samba Gadjigo and Jason Silverman, Sembene! chronicles his accomplishments. The movie makes its Cleveland premiere tonight at 7 at the Cleveland Museum of Art and screens again at 7 on Friday night. Tickets are $9. (Niesel) 1150 East Blvd., 216-421-7350, clevelandart.org.
THUR 2/18 MUSIC
Dvorák’s Seventh Symphony Composer Antonín Dvorák often found inspiration at Prague’s railway station. He wrote his Seventh Symphony after seeing troops arrive for a concert to support the struggle for a Czech homeland, saying that the piece “must be capable of stirring the world, and may God grant that it will.” Considered by many to be his finest symphony, it’s generally regarded as his “most dramatic, emotionally intense work.” Tonight at 7:30 at Severance Hall, the Cleveland Orchestra performs the piece. Before the concert, the orchestra’s Brett Mitchell and Mark Williams give a talk dubbed “Let’s Talk About Music.” Tickets start at $29, and the orchestra performs again tomor-
row and Saturday. (Niesel) 11001 Euclid Ave., 216-231-1111, clevelandorchestra.com. COMEDY
Jim Florentine Inspired by loud-mouth comics like Andrew Dice Clay and Sam Kinison, comedian Jim Florentine, who starts a four-night stand at the Improv tonight, began doing standup in the early ’90s. Florentine’s career took off after he released an album of crank phone calls. That led to an appearance on The Howard Stern Show where he became a regular. He was also the co-host of That Metal Show on VH1 Classic; it ran for 14 seasons before VH1 pulled the plug. And Florentine has had appearances on Girls, Californication and Inside Amy Schumer. He performs tonight at 7:30 at the Improv, where he has shows scheduled through Sunday. Tickets are $17 to $20. (Niesel) 1148 Main Ave., 216-696-IMPROV, clevelandimprov.com. NIGHTLIFE
John Hughes Birthday Bash Originally released on Feb. 28, 1986, the John Hughes film Pretty in Pink centers on Andie (Molly Ringwald), a middle-class girl who falls for a rich kid (Andrew McCarthy). To celebrate its 30th anniversary, some local theaters will screen the movie this month. Born on Feb. 18, the late Hughes made a slew of teen movies in the ’80s and helped launch the careers of Ringwald, Michael Keaton, Anthony Michael Hall, Bill Paxton, Matthew Broderick and Maccauley Culkin, among others. The soundtracks to his movies — like Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink — featured some of the best underground acts of the 1980s. Tonight at 8 p.m., Music Box Supper Club throws a John Hughes Birthday Bash and celebrates “everything 1980s.” There will be a trivia contest, prizes, and drink specials. Leg-warmers, flashy colors, and teased hair are encouraged. The Sunrise Jones Band will play songs from Hughes’ film soundtracks. Tickets are $10. (Niesel) 1148 Main Ave., 216-242-1250, musicboxcle.com. COMEDY
Jamie Lissow Comedian Jamie Lissow likes | clevescene.com | February 17 - 23, 2016
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GET OUT to joke that you don’t have to be drunk to have fun. He recalls one incident in which he dropped a drunken friend off at the car wash and told him to hurry home because it was pouring rain. Lissow, who delivers short narrative-based jokes, doesn’t try to connect his random thoughts. But he has good comic timing and knows how to deliver a punchline. He performs tonight at 8 at Hilarities and has shows scheduled through Sunday. Tickets are $18 to $27. (Niesel) 2035 East Fourth St., 216-241-7425, pickwickandfrolic.com.
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
off today and runs through Feb. 28. Among the participating food spots are Alley Cat Oyster Bar, Blue Point Grille, Butcher and the Brewer, Cibreo, Lola, Pura Vida and many more. The result is a
#SonicSesh
MUSIC
SPOKEN WORD
PechaKucha Night Cleveland At 8:30 tonight, PechaKucha Night Cleveland presents its Vol. 27 at Music Box Supper Club. As always, PKNCLE will feature 10 local creatives giving presentations using 20 slides for 20 seconds each. The result is a fun, fast-paced evening of interesting stories and fascinating people. Confirmed presenters include Nolan Beck, Dan Dean, Ariel Clayton Karas, Liza Michelle Rifkin, Dave Robar and David Sabol. Doors open at 7 p.m. and the presentations will be over by 10:30 p.m. Admission is free. (Usmani) 1148 Main Ave., 216-242-1250, musicboxcle.com.
FRIDAY, FEB. 19, 2016
7 PM Doors • 8 PM Show
FAMILY FUN
The Price is Right Live! America’s favorite game show returns to Cleveland this winter with its interactive stage experience, The Price is Right Live! Showgoers will have the chance to be plucked from the audience and win big prizes — Appliances! Vacations! A brand new car! — during tonight’s show at Playhouse Square. The game begins at 7 p.m. at the State Theatre. Tickets are $34.75 to $59.75. (Alaina Nutile) 1519 Euclid Ave., 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org.
FRI
2/19
FOOD & DRINK
Fish Fry-Days Through March 25, Prosperity Social Club hosts Fish Fry-Days every Friday from 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. The special Lenten menu includes the Big Fish Fry, a seasonal staple that features a generous portion of
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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 in roles as mourners, friends and family. The curtain rises tonight and tomorrow night at 8, at Kennedy’s Theatre. Tickets are $26. (Patrick Stoops) 1501 Euclid Ave., 216-771-4444, playhousesquare.org.
with LMNTL TICKETS: $ 5.50 (including fees)
On sale now at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame box office, or online at rockhall.com
1100 Rock and Roll Blvd., Cleveland, OH 44114 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.
great opportunity to dine your way through downtown’s burgeoning restaurant scene. A full list of participating restaurants and links to their Restaurant Week menus can be found online. (Niesel) downtowncleveland.com. THEATER
FOOD & DRINK
Restaurant Week Kick-off An annual tradition that finds select downtown restaurants offering lunch and dinner deals from $15 to $40, Restaurant Week kicks
| clevescene.com | February 17 - 23, 2016
Flanagan’s Wake No one knows grief and mourning like a Catholic, let alone an Irish Catholic. Now in its fifth year in Cleveland, Flanagan’s Wake transports the audience to a wake
Kent Beatlefest One of the most talented groups of singers and songwriters to ever walk the planet, the Beatles left behind an incredible musical legacy. To this day, tribute acts try to recapture the band’s glory. Slated to take place in downtown Kent from 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. today, the third annual Kent Beatlefest aims to honor the Fab Four as 23 bands showcase “their unique take on Beatles songs” at 18 different venues. Fullon Beatles cover bands like Abby Road perform at Dominick’s. Local hero Colin Dussault’s “Beatles Project” offers a blues take on the British band’s music, and Helen Welch emphasizes a jazzy lounge style at Bricco. Rick Locoboni will present “Behind the Music of the Beatles,” a look into the band’s business model and songs, at the Kent Cheesemonger. This year’s Kent Beatlefest will also feature Opus 216, a string ensemble showcasing a “fun twist” on the Fab Four’s songs. Admission is free. You can find a schedule online. (Niesel) kentbeatlefest.com. COMEDY
Darren “DS” Sanders Known as the “the man with many faces” because his expressions communicate just as much as his words, comedian Darren “DS” Sanders is one fun act to watch. Sanders’ routine mainly centers around his daily life and observations — like how he thinks state troopers are, in fact, ninjas. He likes things upbeat and fast-paced, always keeping the crowd laughing. He performs tonight at 7:30 and 10 and tomorrow night at 7 and 9:30 at Hard Rock Rocksino’s Club Velvet. Tickets are $13 to $18. (Martin Harp) 10705 Northfield Rd., Northfield, 330-908-7793, hrrocksinonorthfieldpark.com.
music
Super ’70s Soul! Each February, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum celebrates national Black History Month with a series of events and programming. Today at 1 p.m., Rock Hall experts will talk about some of the biggest ’70s soul stars including Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, the O’Jays and more during a session dubbed “Super ’70s Soul!” that takes place in the Rock Hall’s Foster Theater. Admission is free with museum admission and seats are available on a first-come, first-served basis. (Niesel) 1100 Rock and Roll Blvd., 216-515-8444, rockhall.com. dance
Verb Ballets: Tribute to Heinz Poll Tonight at 8 at the Akron Civic Theatre, Verb Ballets honors the 90th anniversary of the birth of celebrated choreographer Heinz Poll, founder of Ohio Ballet. Verb will present an evening-length concert selected “from the panorama of Heinz Poll’s work to (celebrate) the diversity of his choreographic style and enduring legacy to Northeast Ohio and the dance world including the revival of full company classics Elegiac Song, Songs Without Words and Bolero.” Tickets are $32 to $42. (Niesel) 182 South Main St., Akron, 330-253-2488, verbballets.org.
SAT
2/20
dance
Naach di Cleveland A national bhangra and fusion competition, Naach di Cleveland pits nationally recognized collegiate and regional Indian dance teams from across the United States against one another as they compete for a grand prize. NDC aims to “promote South Asian culture throughout the Great Lakes region.” All proceeds go towards A Leg to Stand On (ALTSO), a nonprofit organization that provides free orthopedic care to children with limb disabilities in India and other developing countries. The event begins tonight at 6 at the Ohio Theatre. Tickets are $15 to $20. (Niesel) 1501 Euclid Ave., 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org. art
Tunnel Book Workshop At 10 a.m. today, the Morgan Conservatory hosts a tunnel book workshop by Cris Clair Takacs,
owner of Books Bound & Repaired. Tunnel books are freestanding and ideal for exhibition display. Participants will learn how to make their own tunnel book, capable of standing by itself through its paper-engineered slide. The workshop will begin with construction of a model from pre-cut pieces, followed by time to fill your book’s pages with your own creativity. The cost of the workshop is $90 per person. To register, and for a complete list of required supplies, see the Morgan Conservatory’s website. (Usmani) 1754 East 47th St., 216-361-9255, morganconservatory.org.
GODSPELL LORAIN COUNTY METRO PARKS & TRUENORTH CULTURAL ARTS PRESENT:
BOOK BY JOHN MICHAEL TEBELAK | MUSIC & LYRICS BY STEPHEN SCHWARTZ CONCEIVED AND ORIGINALLY DIRECTED BY JOHN TEBELAK BASED ON THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW
FEBRUARY 26 MARCH 13 FRIDAYS & SATURDAYS AT :307 PM AND SUNDAYS AT 3 PM
TICKETS: $10 - $18 (440) 949-5200 OR WWW.TNCARTS.ORG
art
A Wet Plate Collodion Demonstration In conjunction with his current Cleveland Print Room exhibition, Persistence of Vision, Greg Martin will present a photographic wet plate collodion demonstration and gallery talk at 1 p.m. today. Martin graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Art’s industrial design program in 1989, and has been working with the wet plate collodion process for nearly a decade. The collodion process dates back to the 1850s. It gained popularity quickly due to its ability to make virtually limitless photographic reproductions, as well as its clarity and sharpness. However, it had a major disadvantage: The whole process, from plate coating to developing, had to be completed before the plate dried, or roughly within 10 minutes. This event is free for CPR members, and $20 for non-members. Greg Martin’s Persistence of Vision exhibition remains on view through Feb. 27. (Usmani) 2550 Superior Ave., 216-401-5981, clevelandprintroom.com.
LORAIN COUNTY METRO PARKS & TRUENORTH CULTURAL ARTS PRESENT:
A FAMILY LIFE SERIES PRODUCTION OF: THE
THREE LITTLE WOLVES AND THE BIG BAD PIG
comedy
Ron White You won’t get any nonsense from straight-talking, hard-drinking comic Ron White, who appears tonight at 7 at the State Theatre. White, who rose to fame on the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, embraces a redneck sensibility. A classic storyteller, he regularly talks about growing up in a small town in Texas. The guy’s sold over 14 million albums (solo and with the Blue Collar Comedy Tour); he’s also been nominated for two Grammys. Tickets are $48.75 to $213.64, which gets you the Ron White “200 Proof” VIP Experience. (Niesel) 1519 Euclid Ave., 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org.
MUSIC BY BRET SIMMONS | BOOK & LYRICS BY DAVID HOWARD BASED ON THE BOOK THE THREE LITTLE WOLVES AND THE BIG BAD PIG BY EUGENE TRIVIZAS
FEBRUARY 5 - 14
FRIDAYS & SATURDAYS AT 7:00 PM AND SUNDAYS AT 3 PM SPECIAL SIGN-INTERPRETED PERFORMANCE FEATURING ‘THE HEARD’ ON FEBRUARY 7!
TICKETS: $10 - $15 | (440) 949-5200 OR WWW.TNCARTS.ORG
| clevescene.com | February 17 - 23, 2016
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GET OUT SUN
where else. Tickets are $15. (Niesel) 2163 Lee Rd., Cleveland Heights, 440-717-4696, clevelandcinemas.com.
2/21
MUSIC
Gospel Brunch The monthly Gospel Brunch has been a spiritual Sunday staple for years at the House of Blues. Curated by famed gospel singer Kirk Franklin, the recently reinvigorated show puts a bit more emphasis on the music. This week, the local artist Lafayette Carthon and Faith performs. The all-you-caneat musical extravaganza features Southern classics like chicken jambalaya, biscuits and gravy, and chicken and waffles. It takes place at 11 a.m. Tickets are $40. (Niesel) 308 Euclid Ave., 216-523-2583, houseofblues.com.
FILM
Ghost Town: The Hebron Story UNESCO, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch all consider Hebron to be the most violent city in occupied Palestine. Director Ellie Bernstein profiles the families there in Ghost Town: The Hebron Story. Narrated by Martin Sheen, the film makes its Cleveland debut today at 4 p.m., at the Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque. Bernstein, and Sister Paulette Schroeder of the Christian Peacemakers Team who appears in the film, will be on hand to take questions after the screening. Tickets are $9. (Niesel) 11610 Euclid Ave., 216-421-7450, cia.edu. WRESTLING
FAMILY FUN
15335 WATERLOO | WEST OF BEACHLAND
OPEN BOCCE BALL ALL DAY SATURDAYS THUR. 18
FRI. 19
IRISH NIGHT
LIVE MUSIC
7PM
REGGAE
GUINNESS BILL
THE ARK BAND
SAT. 20
CHRIS JACOBS
(ONE MAN COVER BAND) MON. 22
TUE. 23
VINYL NIGHT
KARAOKE WED. 24
BOWLING • CHESS 18
| clevescene.com | February 17 - 23, 2016
It’s a Wild World Animal Show Home to a wide range of animals, the Akron Zoo will showcase some of its remarkable collection tonight at the Akron Civic Theatre in “It’s a Wild World Animal Show.” Among other highlights, the program will feature an 8-foot long boa and a Savannah monitor, a relative to the zoo’s Komodo dragons. Some of the Akron Zoo’s mammals that will be featured include a rescued and rehabilitated opossum, a North American porcupine and the rainforest animal “Chloe” the kinkajou. The interactive event also includes some audience participation, including a chance to hold some of the “animal ambassadors.” The show begins at 2:30 p.m. Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for children ages 3 to 12. (Niesel) 182 South Main St., Akron, 330-253-2488, akroncivic.com. DANCE
The Taming of the Shrew The plot of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew centers on Baptista, a rich guy who has two daughters he must marry off. Problem is, he has to marry off the oldest one first — but all the suitors are more interested in the younger one. Today at 11 a.m. at the Cedar Lee Theatre, you can see the Bolshoi Ballet’s version of the play. French choreographer Jean-Christophe Maillot adapted the play specifically to highlight the talents of the Bolshoi dancers in this new production staged exclusively for the Bolshoi. It cannot be seen any-
WWE Fastlane WWE Fastlane makes its debut tonight at the Q, with a Triple Threat #1 Contender Match for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship that features Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns vs. Dean Ambrose. In other action, Sasha Banks and Becky Lynch take on Naomi and Tamina in a Divas Tag Team Match. Kalisto and Alberto Del Rio face off in the United States Championship Match; and Charlotte battles Brie Bella for the Divas Championship. Doors open at 6, the fun begins at 7:30 and tickets start at $25. (Niesel) 1 Center Ct., 216-420-2000, theqarena.com. FILM
The Woman Next Door French New Wave master François Truffaut made some incredible movies before his death in 1984. Today at 1:30 p.m., the Cleveland Museum of Art screens The Woman Next Door, a 1981 film that stars Gerard Depardieu and Fanny Ardant. The plot centers on a happily married man whose life falls apart after an ex-lover moves next door. Don’t you hate it when that happens? The flick is part of a series that concludes Feb. 28 with Truffaut’s final film, the breezy crime comedy Confidentially Yours. Today’s screening takes place in the museum’s Morley Lecture Hall. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased on the museum’s website. (Niesel) 11150 East Blvd., 216-421-7350, clevelandart.org.
MON
2/22
food
Industry Brunch Brunch isn’t just a Saturday/ Sunday thing. Over at Mahall’s, you can grab a great brunch on Mondays too as the club caters to industry folks and others who have the day off. The menu features items such as Chicken and Doughnuts, a dish that includes three pieces of fried chicken along with two “Old Hushers” doughnuts. Other staples include the Everything Pretzel and the Creamy Egg Sandwich. A DJ from WCSB will be on hand to spin cool tunes too. Brunch is served from noon to 4. (Niesel) 13200 Madison Ave., Lakewood, 216-521-3280, mahalls20lanes.com. film
Movie Mondays Every Monday, Cleveland Cinemas hosts $6 Movie Mondays, where film fans can catch up on the latest Hollywood flicks for significantly reduced prices. Bring your friends and family and make Movie Mondays a weekly tradition — many theaters even offer discounted concession stand items. Participating theaters include Apollo Theatre,
Capitol Theatre, Cedar Lee Theatre, Chagrin Cinemas, Shaker Square Cinemas and Tower City Cinemas. (Nutile) clevelandcinemas.com. nightlife
Trivia Pursuits Do you have tons of obscure music knowledge? Are you a student of fast food menus and their nuanced histories? What say you about the geographic evolution of Scotch whisky? Tonight’s your chance to wow your friends, make yourself instantly more desirable to someone you’re newly dating, and hang with Cleveland’s headiest hipsters and hot dog lovers. It’s the Happy Dog Monday Night Trivia. Starting at 8 p.m., expect themed rounds — it’s a crapshoot — and general knowledge questions that seem considerably trickier than some of the other live trivia locales in town. Obviously, have a hot dog and a craft brew while you’re at it. And arrive early. The tables fill up quickly. (Sam Allard) 5801 Detroit Ave., 216-651-9474, happydogcleveland.com. food & drink
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 special playlist of vintage electric blues and soulful R&B curated by 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
2/23
film
Southbound A group of travelers must confront their worst fears and darkest secrets in Southbound, a 2015 horror flick set in the barren desert. The hyper-violent film, which consists of five short interlocking movies, each by a different director, has been
called “Twilight Zone for the indie generation.” And a whopping 81 percent of approved Rotten Tomatoes critics gave it a positive review. Southbound screens tonight at 7:30 at the Capitol Theatre. Tickets are $9.50. (Niesel) 1390 West 65th St., 216-6517295, clevelandcinemas.com. nightlife
Trivia Tuesdays How do you spend your Tuesday nights? If you’re not at Nano Brew in Ohio City, you’re definitely missing out. This friendly neighborhood brewpub hosts weekly trivia nights from 8 to 10 p.m. Grab some friends and head on down for a little brain-stimulating trivia, freshly brewed craft beer and seriously stellar bar grub. Better yet, if the temperature allows, bike on over. The folks at Nano Brew love bikes almost as much as they love beer, and they’re happy to give you half off your first drink when they see your bike helmet. (Nutile)
Find more events @clevescene.com t@cleveland_scene
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| clevescene.com | February 17 - 23, 2016
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ART INTO THE MAZE A trip into this week’s artistic offerings at 78th Street Studios By Josh Usmani THIS MONTH’S THIRD FRIDAY open house at 78th Street Studios takes place this Friday from 5 to 9 p.m. The 170,000-square-foot labyrinth is densely packed with local art. Let us take you through the details, from the basement to the third floor. Lower/”Ramp” Level and Galleries Accessible From Separate Entrances ARTneo (Suite 016): ARTneo’s Into the Canvas: Painterly Abstraction in Cleveland opened during last month’s Third Friday reception, but the show continues through March 25. Into the Canvas explores three local artists whose shared technique of staining unprimed canvases with pigment contributed to the national artistic dialogue during the late 1950s and early 1960s. The exhibition includes work by Carl Krabill, Barbara Smukler and William Ward. Tregoning & Co. (Suite 101): Opening this month, Tregoning & Co. present Face the Facts: Portraits by Mark Giangaspero. These largescale, hyper-realistic graphite and pastel portraits depict Giangaspero’s friends and family. Last year, he had an acclaimed solo show at the Butler Institute of American Art. In 2013, his work was included in the prestigious BP Award Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London. Face the Facts remains on view at Tregoning & Co. through March. Forum Artspace (Suite 103): February’s Third Friday includes a closing reception for Jacob Koestler’s Go Away Everywhere at Forum Artspace. In this multimedia installation, Koestler explores the desire to disappear through obsolete and outdated technology and household artifacts. Utilizing journal entries, photography and video, Koestler examines southeastern Ohio, where the Rust Belt meets Appalachia. The area was his home while earning his MFA in photography and integrated media
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Portrait by Mark Giangaspero. Face the Facts opens at Tregoning & Co. this Third Friday
from Ohio University. Originally from Pennsylvania, Koestler now lives and works in Cleveland. First Floor CWAL (Suite 110): Also closing this Third Friday is Michael Lombardy and Cindy Smith’s Rhythmic Geometry at the Cleveland West Art League. The exhibition features Lombardy’s prints and Smith’s paintings. Through their mutual use of diverse forms, textures and mediums, both artists explore the tension between the self and the chaotic universe surrounding us. Smith’s abstract paintings are a combination of acrylic paint and permanent ink applied to canvas, wood, paper or panel board. Lombardy graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Art, where he was recognized for Excellence in Printmaking with the 2014 Frank N. Wilcox Prize.
successful adult entertainment CEO. “Absolute luxury and radical nurture” are the laws of the island that this all-female family calls home. Koury explores their love and their home through photographs and two life-size nude sculptures of the women. Eileen Dorsey Studio (Suite 105): As a sort of runup to St. Patrick’s Day, Eileen Dorsey has produced a new series of dynamic landscape paintings inspired by a 10-day visit to Ireland last May with her sister and mother. Welcome Home showcases Dorsey’s mastery of impasto landscape painting. The vibrant colors will draw you in, and the depth of the details will surprise you. Dorsey earned her BFA in painting from Kent State University in 2006. The exhibit remains on view through March 18. E11even 2 (Suite 112): E11even 2 hosts a closing reception for its collage-themed group exhibition. Collage 101 features 10
THIRD FRIDAYS 78TH STREET STUDIOS, 1300 WEST 78TH ST., 330-819-7280 78THSTREETSTUDIOS.COM
Zaina Gallery (Suite 108): Zaina Gallery hosts a closing reception for founder Leila Koury’s installation, Kamins Island: Reflections of a Queer Feminine Utopia. This mixed media installation honors the love of women living on an island founded by their Matriarch, a
| clevescene.com | February 17 - 23, 2016
local artists including Rich Cihlar, Nicole Edwards and Bridget Daryl Ginley among others. Second Floor Hedge Gallery (Suite 200): Opening this Third Friday, Hedge Gallery presents Threaded, featuring
recent textile-based work by Libby Chaney, Rebecca Cross and Jessica Pinsky. Hedge’s walls will be filled with prints, large-scale weavings and collages, showcasing the relationship between the artists and their fabric mediums. Not simply “fabric art,” these artists see their work as using an ancient medium to manifest thoughts into physical form. Threaded remains on view through April 16. Kenneth Paul Lesko Gallery (Suite 212): Kenneth Paul Lesko Gallery presents a second chance to view Director’s Choice 2016. This group exhibition explores both historical and contemporary art from Cleveland and beyond. Featured artists include Judith Brandon, Preston Buchtel, and Carl Gaertner among others. Director’s Choice 2016 remains on view through March 12. Gallery One Sixty Pop Up (215) Although Gallery One Sixty’s days on Waterloo may be over, founder Bryon Miller is popping up temporarily at 78th Street Studios with Tyler Zeleny’s first solo show since returning to Cleveland after earning his MFA from William Paterson University. Zeleny earned his BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art. Zeleny’s recent work explores Absurd Existence. In the process, he examines his own creative process within the context of this absurd existence. Third Floor Survival Kit/Popeye Gallery (Suite 303): On the top floor, Popeye Gallery presents the closing reception for Pop Goes Cleveland, a group exhibition of local emerging and established artists who share a distinctly illustrative sensibility, often inspired by comics and cartoons which themselves have a rich history in Cleveland. Pop Goes Cleveland features new and recent work by Steve Ehret, Jake Kelly, Clare Kolat, John G., Ashley Ribblett, Noelle Richard, Daniel Roth and Justin Michael Will. At 9 p.m., Survival Kit co-founder Brian Straw presents live performances from Mark McGuire (Emeralds), Matthew Ryals (asound) and Original Soundtrack (Talons, the Six Parts Seven). There’s plenty more to see and do at 78th Street Studios’ Third Friday free open house. Stop by and see for yourself.
jusmani@clevescene.com t@cleveland_scene
Photo by Joan Marcus
STAGE
BIG CITY, TWO LIVES, ONE MESS
If/Then at Playhouse Square wants to have it both ways and gets neither By Christine Howey IT’S NOT OFTEN YOU CAN SEE what appears to be a college sophomore’s almost-charming attempt at a short story turned into a Broadway musical. But that time has arrived with If/Then, now at Playhouse Square. Of course, calling this musical extravaganza “sophomoric” may do a disservice to many secondyear scholars at our colleges and universities. No doubt some of them could have written a more engaging show than Tom Kitt (music) and Brian Yorkey (book and lyrics) have produced. The music is almost uniformly repetitive and dull, and the storyline manages to bury a familiar and yet mildly interesting concept under a heaving mound of cliches and self-satisfying bromides. Before we proceed with the dissection, let’s be clear: Jackie Burns who plays the central role of Elizabeth (the Idina Menzel role on Broadway) sings wonderfully, with power and nuance. While she may not be solely worth the price of admission, she’s got about 90% of it covered. And the set design by Mark Wendland is a glorious, ever-changing galaxy of pivoting room units, airborne walkways and colorful projections often drenched in New York City iconography consisting of landmark structures,
subway stuff, and street maps. On the other hand, there’s the kluge of a script that takes a slender existential realization and turns it into pablum. At some point in our early adulthood, we come to understand that our lives are governed by fate and the decisions we make, and that it is often difficult to separate which is which. Did I slip on that patch of ice because I chose to leave the house at that exact time, or was I fated to place my foot on exactly the wrong place on that snowy sidewalk? Who knows? Well, Kitt and Yorkey do. They have Elizabeth, a professor of urban planning, return to NYC after her divorce. Where do you want to see her
We are called upon to keep these stories straight, along with the friends who also have separate life paths, because Elizabeth’s full name is subdivided and then apportioned in the stories: Beth in one life and Liz in the other. (Good thing her full name wasn’t Ethel.) In any case, neither of the stories is particularly compelling. This is strange because Kitt and Yorkey also wrote Next to Normal, a remarkably sensitive and insightful musical about a complex and difficult subject, bipolar disorder. In this show, the two talented creators seem to have left their brains at the door. The show is made up of songs that share the same ambling
IF/THEN
THROUGH FEB. 21 AT CONNOR PALACE 1615 EUCLID AVE., 216-241-6000, PLAYHOUSESQUARE.ORG
go from there: search for romance or buckle down to her career? Hey, why make a choice when you can observe both. So we watch Elizabeth split: As the aggressive careerist “Beth,” she gains fame and recognition and sleeps with her boss; as the family gal “Liz,” she meets a cute Army doc named Josh and starts a family. There are ups and downs in both of her lives, but these events never register powerfully because, look out, here comes her other life around the bend.
melodic structure and lyrics and seem intended to numb your cerebral cortex. To wit: “Our love belongs to everyone who loves us/ So it’s not just you and me/ And we both know love doesn’t make us perfect/ It just makes us want to be.” Occasionally a song or two struggles out of the miasma of sameness and strikes a slightly more distinctive chord, such as “Hey Kid,” a tender tune sung by Josh to their about-to-be born child. And “What the
Fuck?” sung by Liz and Beth has a nononsense attitude, even if it remains as contextually oblique as many of the other musical meanderings. The supporting cast does what it can with this material, but they’re basically just meat props for Liz and Beth to reference as the next bland song appears. Even the inclusion of one gay male couple and one lesbian couple feels a bit too pat — what, no bisexual couple? Even so, Tamyra Gray stands out as Elizabeth’s gal pal Kate, and the love of Anne (Janine DiVita) until their breakup. Anthony Rapp as Lucas is more interesting as the partner of David (Marc DelaCruz) in the Beth story than he is as the lame pseudo-suitor of Liz in the other. Or is it the other way around? Ultimately, what is so curious about this play is the lack of genuine wit. People who live in New York City have a lot to deal with: Even going to the grocery store is a challenge. So they develop a strong hide and often a sly and selfdeprecating sense of humor. In If/ Then, the scenery is pure New York, but the clueless, remarkably boring people seem like they were flown in from Iowa.
scene@clevescene.com t@christinehowey | clevescene.com | February 17 - 23, 2016
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| clevescene.com | February 17 - 23, 2016
FOLLOW: @lanzaretta laurenlanzaretta.com booking@laurenlanzaretta.com PHOTOGRAPHY BOKO PHOTO | ART DIRECTION CONTRAST HIGH
MOVIES
in theaters
HORROR FRONTIER No cheap tricks in Robert Eggers’ wondrously spooky The Witch By Sam Allard A BANISHED FAMILY HOMESTEADS on the outskirts of a dark, dense forest in rookie writer-director Robert Eggers’ exhilarating new horror film The Witch, which opens Friday in limited release. In the hands of Eggers and his team, the forest is also, somehow, animate. Black trees sashay in the wind. Gnarly uprooted trunks expose their grotesque nethers, like carcasses corrupted. The camera, as positioned by cinematographer Jarin Blaschke, doesn’t move an awful lot. It’s not there to elicit cheap thrills via jump cuts or herky-jerky pans. It does the opposite, lingering on images of the forest at a distance or up close, zooming ever so slowly as the tension builds, coaxed onward by a spare and stringy score. We know, of course, that something evil lurks within. The Witch is a masterwork of mood. And perhaps it goes without saying, but the mood is extremely dark. The film isn’t scary, per se, at least not in the jumpy vein of today’s
horror-slash-thrillers. It is more — shall we say? — distressing. It is the 1630s (ah, the 1630s). A devout Christian family, for Puritanical reasons not quite clear, is banished from their colonial village in an opening courthouse scene. William (Game of Thrones’ Ralph Ineson), Katherine (Game of Thrones’ Kate Dickie, who breast feeds under even more ghastly circumstances than in GoT, if it can be believed), and their brood of five set up a primitive home and farm some distance away, on the edge of the wood. Very soon — in the first 10 minutes of the movie — the baby, Samuel, is abducted. He disappears before the eyes of the eldest daughter Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy) who, ominously, has just “received the sign of her womanhood” for the first time. As traumatic events often do, the baby’s disappearance frays the family nerves. Katherine falls into despair, weeping in prayer to a god she no longer trusts. Caleb, the
middle child and eldest son, gazes in longing at Thomasin’s budding breasts while trying to keep an even keel. William has stolen his wife’s cherished silver cup and bartered it for food — their crop of corn has failed — but doesn’t own up when Thomasin gets blamed. Only the cherubic young twins, Jonas and Mercy (they’re almost gnomic), remain chipper. They prance around the farm singing Christian hymns and commune in whispers with Black Phillip, the family goat. The despair and distrust leaves the lot of them vulnerable to all sorts of unpleasantness: satanic possession, notably. When Caleb wanders into the woods, lured by a lusty phantasm, and returns, naked and possessed, the farm becomes a chaos of blame and paranoia. Who is the witch among them? The Witch is technically superb and it hews, at least in flavor, to historical authenticity. The dialogue
has been harvested from court documents and journal entries, we’re told, and both the language itself and the costumes and sparse sets create an atmosphere of stark realism. We must not dwell for too long on questions of accuracy, though. The Witch is billed, after all, as a “New England folktale.” And one suspects that embellished stories like this were the fear-mongering sort that helped persecute scores of could-be witches during America’s grim 17th century. If you make that face too long, it’ll stay that way, parents warn their children today. Back then, the stakes were higher: If you lie to me, satan will possess your soul, and we’ll hang you by the neck ’til you die.
sallard@clevescene.com t@SceneSallard
SPOTLIGHT: RACE ACTOR STEPHAN JAMES VENTURED TO Cleveland earlier this month to appear in a Cleveland Cavaliers’ Black History Month halftime presentation. The Cavs honored Cleveland native Jesse Owens, whom James portrays in the film Race, opening in wide distribution Friday. James’ heartfelt performance in the film was aided, in part, by Jesse Owens’ daughters, who were also honored by the Cavs. They told James stories about their father to help him prepare for the role. “They were incredible, instrumental,” James told Scene in an interview at the Westin hotel prior to the Cavs game. “There’s not a group of people who knew Jesse better, and I had their support from the beginning, telling me about who their father was on a personal level. A lot of people don’t know these things about him.” Things like Owens’ overlooked career as a humanitarian, for instance, and the way he treated other people. “He was a consummate gentleman who exuded love and loved to dress well and smell nice,” James summed up. “He was always wearing cologne.” (Another detail: Owens’ given name was actually James Cleveland. When Owens introduced
himself as J.C. in grade school, his teachers heard it as “Jesse.”) Stephan James is an athlete himself, and he brings a level of physical verisimilitude to the role. Race chronicles Owens’ rise to stardom at Ohio State, under head coach Larry Snyder (Jason Sudeikis) and, eventually, his triumph over adversity at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. “I could run as fast as I could, but that wasn’t enough,” James said. “I had to run like Jesse. How
did he start his race? How did his stride look? How did his face look? I had to really key in on those things. The devil was in the details for me.” James is a bona fide rising star in Hollywood, with supporting roles in the 2014 films Selma and When the Game Stands Tall. This is his first starring role, and he said that for him, even though it’s thrilling to be the top-billed actor — “literally the face on the poster” — it’s more important to honor the character he was cast to play. “Working those 16-hour days was new to me, but I realized how important it was to give all of myself to this project,” he said. “You understand that it’s not all about you. I had to give it all to the story and to Jesse Owens.” Two additional notes: First, James, a Toronto native, is a huge NBA fan and wants nothing but the best for former Cavaliers’ No.1 pick Anthony Bennett, who now rides the Toronto bench. And second, James and Sudeikis became buddies during the making of Race. While on set in Berlin, they orchestrated an ALS ice bucket challenge gag that James encourages everyone to watch on YouTube. | clevescene.com | February 17 - 23, 2016
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| clevescene.com | February 17 - 23, 2016
EAT
COMING SOON
Jeremy Umansky to open Schmaltz Delicatessen and Bakery By Douglas Trattner AS THE LARDER MASTER AND wild foods forager for Trentina, Jeremy Umansky’s handiwork touched every plate in that finedining restaurant. Working alongside chef and owner Jonathon Sawyer in the “food lab,” Umansky amassed wild edibles, concocted vinegars, cultured yogurts and used Japanese molds to accelerate the curing process of meats and fish. This past November, Umansky quietly parted ways with Team Sawyer to pursue his own goals. Already he has begun scouting the perfect location for Schmaltz Delicatessen and Bakery, a fromscratch Jewish deli that will utilize many of the practices and techniques he has been refining for years. A perfect example is his innovative technique for making corned beef. This time-intensive procedure typically requires a week or more of curing time in the fridge — if you’re making it from scratch, that is, and not simply opening a bag. By using Japanese-inspired koji culture, Umansky is able to make tender, umami-rich corned beef in 48 hours. “To the diner, it will look and taste and feel like a regular corned beef sandwich,” Umansky explains. “But if you want the story behind it you’ll learn that the beef was bathed in an enzymatic soup produced by the koji.” That storyline also can be applied to the deli as a whole, he says. While there will be a whole lot of tinkering,
experimentation and modern-day wizardry taking place in the kitchen, the knowledge of much of that activity will stay behind the swinging doors.
“And, of course, there’s going to be lots of schmaltz and lots of gribenes.” — Jeremy Umansky “If someone were to come in there and eat, a lot of the food would look, aesthetically, like what they’re used to seeing at a deli,” says Umansky, who lives in Cleveland Heights with his wife Allie and daughter Emilia. “But what is really modern about it is some of the techniques we’ll be using to produce the food.” Like any respectable Jewish deli, this one will sell bagels and schmears, corned beef and pastrami sandwiches, knishes and latkes, and babka and rugelach. But just below the surface there will be a considerable amount of thought and preparation going into each dish that’s designed to elevate this culturally significant food. The broth for the signature matzo ball soup will be made from chicken feet in a pressure cooker, a process
that produces intensely flavored stock. Stuffed cabbage will be made using fermented cabbage leaves, which creates a dish with a pleasant tang instead of usual cloying sweetness. Potato pancakes — aka latkes — utilize a multi-step process that involves time spent in a waffle iron, leaving them impossibly crispy and littered with nooks and crannies to cradle the applesauce or sour cream. Of course, that sour cream will be cultured in-house and that applesauce might very well be made using foraged wild Ohio apples. There will be kosher dill pickles, made with local cucumbers when they are in season, but at other times of year other pickled produce might take over. “And, of course, there’s going to be lots of schmaltz and lots of gribenes,” says Umansky, referring to the flavorful poultry fat and the crispy skin bits that are a byproduct of the rendering process. At Schmaltz, schmaltz will be stabilized with vegetable glycerin so that it stays spreadable at room temperature. There will be various flavors like roasted garlic or sauteed onion, and they will be the stars of a bread-and-butter plate that might include assorted house pickles, whole grain mustards and non-pork charcuterie. “We won’t be kosher, we’ll be kosher-style,” explains Umansky, stating that no pork or shellfish
will be served. Umansky says the operation will be “more deli than restaurant,” adding that it will feature counterdriven service and 20 to 25 seats. Customers can pop in for a quarterpound of corned beef, a quart of matzo ball soup and a dozen rugalach, and be on their way. Or they can purchase a bagel and a schmear and enjoy it on-site. As for the location, Umansky hasn’t yet signed a lease, but he has narrowed his search. “There are 85,000 Jews in Cuyahoga County and most of them live in the inner ring to mideastern suburbs, so that’s the area we’re currently scouting,” he says. Cleveland Heights and Shaker are the two most likely candidates. Interest in Umansky’s skills and strengths is high, with the chef making culinary appearances in Pittsburgh, Chicago, Austin, Portland, Italy and Costa Rica. That education won’t stop when he opens the deli, he promises, but the students will have to come to him. “I’ll be doing a rotating stage program,” he says. “We want our guests to really enjoy the food, but we also want other cooks to take the things they learned here in Cleveland back home to New York or Miami or San Francisco.”
dtrattner@clevescene.com t @dougtrattner | clevescene.com | February 17 - 23, 2016
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EAT SCENE’s
BEST SUSHI SUS SUSH HI HI in Cleveland 2014
TABLESIDE MANNERS Brecksville’s Mizestro celebrates one year of tricks and treats By Nikki Delamotte “AND THAT’S HOW YOU CREATE levitation,” says Matt Mize as he slides his hand between a superconductor propped on the white tablecloth and a super electromagnet floating in air. Gravity-defying food and other tricks up the sleeve are par for the course on a night at his Brecksville restaurant Mizestro (8918 Brecksville Rd., 440792-4679, mizestrodining.com), which celebrates its first anniversary this month. Tableside sorbet whisked into dessert in 30 seconds in cryogenic bowls, and strawberry basil lollipops made with an anti-griddle in front of your eyes are just a few of the spectacles in his routine. Mize recently printed coasters in 3-D and wired an LED light to create glow-in-the-dark cocktails he delivers himself. “I’m not one to hide in the back,” he jokes. But if Mize is Penn, he still allows food to be his Teller, the co-star that quietly makes the magic happen between entertaining. His regularly changing menu is built around small plates, many of them globally inspired. Much of that influence comes from his travels around the world. Born and raised in California, Mize had no intention of becoming a chef when he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in 1991. Fresh out of boot camp, he was placed as a cook despite nonexistent experience. He learned the ropes while traveling, when he often looked to locals from Hong Kong to Brazil to Japan to discover new cuisines. After re-enlisting in 1995, he was randomly selected to interview for the position of personal chef to the Commandant of the United States Marine Corps. His next four years were spent in Washington, D.C., split between the Pentagon and the Commandant’s home. It was all part of what he calls “a series of being in the right place at the right time.” A perk of the new role included training at the Culinary Institute of
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America. Back in D.C., he also met José Andrés, a leader in molecular gastronomy who instilled a love of the fusion between science and food that Mize has spun into showmanship. “It’s taking something so simple and just transforming it,” he admires. Following his tenure, he cooked for the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and worked in catering at the Smithsonian Institute. When he moved to Philadelphia, he signed on as multi-unit executive chef to esteemed restaurateur Stephen Starr. His wife Jacquie’s career as personal assistant to Joe Banner, who began working with the Browns in 2012, brought them to Ohio. But Philadelphia still has a place in their hearts and menu; look no further than the Cheesesteak Eggroll. Even his California roots are represented in the chicken mole. His most in-demand dish is a short rib, cooked sous vide for 96 hours, with a house-made rub concocted of crushed espresso beans and dehydrated mushrooms. “In the Marines, when you had a long weekend, it was called a ‘96,’” he says. Colorful, playful creations dominate the plate at Mizestro. The popular Violet Duck takes dehydrated and crushed violet petals mixed with coriander to bring out a floral flavor that balances the tartness of its blood orange glaze. Only a year in, Mize knows there’s room for fine tuning. But once he gets to what he deems excellence, his five-year plan is to open two more restaurants. Until then, he’s content to perfect the art of surprise. Mize isn’t shy about wanting to keep you on your toes. Each time guests walk in, he promises, they’ll never know what to expect. “I don’t call it fine dining,” Mize insists. “I call it fun dining.”
scene@clevescene.com t @cleveland_scene
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HR BRINGS SEAFOOD CONCEPT TO COPLEY By Douglas Trattner
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| clevescene.com | February 17 - 23, 2016
JUST THIS PAST OCTOBER, Hospitality Restaurants opened their third Rosewood Grill location, this one in Westlake; already there’s another restaurant project waiting in the wings. But this latest venture from the folks behind Cabin Club, Salmon Dave’s Pacific Grille, Blue Point Grille, Delmonico’s Steakhouse, Thirsty Parrot and Rosewood Grill will be like none of the above, says Christopher Oppewall, managing partner. “This will be kind of a one-off,” he says. The location, a 6,500-squarefoot building in Copley Township, currently is in full demo mode. Build-out will begin in spring and management is hoping to have the new restaurant up and running in mid- to late-summer. As for the concept, Oppewall says the logical choice is seafood. “The steak market seems pretty well-served down there. We’re hoping there’s some room for seafood so we’re headed in that direction. Between Blue Point and Salmon Dave’s we feel like we’ve got a pretty good feel for how to execute seafood well.” Despite the undeniable success of Blue Point and Salmon Dave’s, which opened in 1997 and 1993 respectively, the plan is not to copy either playbook. Each of those concepts was determined by its unique setting and location, which dictates everything from the decor to the menu, Oppewall explains. “What we can do with the space will determine the concept, but we’re envisioning a coastal, wharf type thing,” Oppewall says. “We’re enjoying the process of letting the concept develop around seafood and in line with our other concepts, which are moderate to fine dining. Our aim with seafood has always been to get the best product we possibly can and push it forward. We will continue with that qualityfirst mentality.” The free-standing building with a dedicated parking lot once housed an Amazon Trail restaurant.
THE LITERARY CAFE IN TREMONT IS FOR SALE The Literary Cafe in Tremont was put up for sale about a week ago. The trendy neighborhood staple has been a part of the community for 26 years. It may not be the usual spot for a new wave of residents, but it’s been a part of the neighborhood for longer than most residents have lived there. Known as “The Lit” by locals, the owners are asking for $499,000. This includes its liquor license, a two-bedroom second story flat and a backyard garden. The building is one of the oldest in the Tremont neighborhood and dates back to the pre-Civil War era. “We’ve been there 26 yeas and we’ve loved it,” co-owner Linda Baldizzi told Cleveland.com. “We still love it and we hope whoever buys it will have as many happy memories as we have. It was an exciting time to come to Tremont.” Baldizzi’s husband, Andy Timithy, is the other owner. “We were both art students and we graduated with art degrees,” she said. “We wanted a place where you could sell local artists’ work and not take a commission. We had art shows even before Art Walk started, we always wanted original art on the walls. We’ve also had drawing clubs and poetry readings, and we just recently started a book club. This is not your regular sit and watch sports on the TV bar.” It’s time for the couple to retire. Along with the cafe, The Lit has served as an artistic beacon in Tremont. It’s hosted art shows, art sales and poetry readings long before many of the art-centered events and programs began in the neighborhood. The Lit will remain open while they entertain prospective buyers.
INSOMNIA COOKIES TO OPEN DOWNTOWN CLEVELAND LOCATION IN WAREHOUSE DISTRICT First Akron and Kent, and now downtown Cleveland. The Forest City soon will have an Insomnia Cookies location to call its own. Insomnia Cookies will be located
4630 Ridge Road Brooklyn, Ohio 44144
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in the Warehouse District on the first floor of the Bradley Building on West 6th Street. Walk-in service will be daily from 11 a.m. to 3 a.m., and cookie delivery is from noon to 3 a.m. Insomnia Cookies promises cookie deliveries within 45 minutes of ordering in your service area. The chain says downtown Cleveland’s growing communities make it a prime candidate for a new store, and it will join seven others in Ohio and 80 nationally. The bakery is scheduled to open this spring.
TREMONT FARM & MARKET TO OPEN IN APRIL Detroit Shoreway home, garden and pet owners likely are familiar with Grace Brothers Nursery (1907 West 65th St., 216-5133262), a wonderful shop loaded with essential home and garden products. Since it opened four years ago, the shop has been managed by Kevin Kubovcik, the resident expert on all things urban farming. In April, Kubovcik will partner with Alan Glazen to open a similar
style operation in the heart of Tremont. Tremont Farm & Market will be located in a sunny storefront at the corner of Professor and Jefferson, a building owned by Glazen. The location features a 1,600-square-foor main floor plus a large yard for a nursery. “I’m very excited about it,” says Kubovcik. “It’s such a wonderful opportunity.” When it first opened, Grace Brothers had a few staple products like dog food, chicken feed and plants. In the intervening years, Kubovcik continued to grow the inventory, adding tons of local food products like eggs, milk, cheese, meat and fermented products. Books guide readers through the finer points of urban homesteading. And Grace Brothers has become the No, 1 spot for chicken owners and beekeepers (including this writer). “I’ll be taking the best of that store and bringing it to Tremont,” Kubovcik says. “Location is everything.” The spot, across the street from Fahrenheit, will provide easy access to scores of urban gardeners. Kubovcik intends to stay open late on Artwalk nights, with open houses and workshops on urban farm topics like container
gardening. “It’s beautiful on the inside,” he says. “The only thing left to do is fill it.” The endeavor might sound like a departure for Glazen, who is best known (these days, anyway) as the man behind popular bars and taverns like ABC the Tavern, XYZ Tavern, and Ontario Street Cafe. But the same efforts and skills he used to set up restaurant owners could be applied in other disciplines as well, he says. He’s calling his new organization Glazen Urban, and Kubovcik and Tremont Farm & Market are its first beneficiaries. “I came to realize that I don’t really run bars or restaurants, Randy [Kelly] and Linda [Syrek] do,” Glazen explains. “I looked back and saw that what I’ve really done is take properties — nine different properties — and by my investment and getting somebody else we turn those properties into good places in the city. And I’m going to continue doing that. “This turns really deserving business people, who were never going to get anywhere equity-wise, now to own their own business without penalizing them for not having the money.”
GREAT AMERICAN RIB-COOK OFF CANCELED AFTER 24 YEARS This year’s Great American Rib Cook-Off isn’t going to happen, Live Nation has announced. The festival was one of the largest food related festivals in Northeast Ohio and 2016 would have marked its 25th year of celebrating barbecued rib goodness in downtown Cleveland. The four-day celebration was held during Memorial Day weekend at Jacobs Pavilion and the Nautica Entertainment Complex. It was hosted by Live Nation, and the company says this year they will be focusing on other events and festivals in the works. One of the company’s prime reasons for canceling was the dozens of other rib cook-off events every summer in the city, which translates to less revenue. (Hint, hint: Make sure you don’t miss Scene’s Pig & Whiskey festival in Willoughby this year.) There was a lot of competition and some folks have already noted on various comment threads that the Great American Rib Cook-Off had its problems — crowds and prices being two of the biggest factors.
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MUSIC THE BRITE STUFF 10 bands you should see at the Brite Winter festival RETURNING TO THE ARTS festival’s roots, the upcoming iteration of Brite Winter, which kicks off at 3 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 20, will move to the west bank of the Flats. The festival was held in Ohio City for the past four years, where its visual arts offerings and music line-ups expanded annually. Brite organizers say that, simply put, they need more space. West 25th Street worked really well for the festival, they say — blending indoor and outdoor venues in a blossoming neighborhood — and the new Flats location will allow them to stretch their creative legs that much more. The event will be held beneath the Main Avenue Bridge. Indoor venues will include McCarthy’s Downtown, the Harbor Inn and Music Box Supper Club. Here’s a few bands we think you should check out. Check the Brite Winter website for a complete schedule. Common Ave. 9:45 p.m. McCarthy’s Stage Three producers who met in high school in Cleveland Heights, Common Ave. is a dynamic hip-hop group comprising Phrazes, Stoke and Jordan M. They’ve dropped a handful of releases over the years, including a really incredible album last year. If you’ve been seeking old-school, immersive hip-hop, you’re going to want to cue this up. The title track off Aurora Borealis is a real loungefunk trip, as the guys spin inventive rhymes around a guitar-driven beat. It’s swanky stuff. And it’s smart, too: Common Ave. dishes up the sort of thinking man’s hip-hop that’s so hard to find in the mainstream these days. To those who dig — and those who check out CMMN’s set at Brite Winter, say — the reward is great. “We’re not going down the normal hip-hop trail to get a deal and get a bunch of change,” band manager Wallace Settles told us recently. “We want to enhance hip-hop. You don’t have to listen to 107.9 FM and try to imitate what you hear there.” (Eric Sandy) FreshProduce 8:30 p.m. McCarthy’s Stage It was Christmas night in 2014 when DJ Red-I (Brittany Benton) and Playne Jayne (Samantha Flowers) joined forces to form the hip-hop duo FreshProduce. What originally began
as a few impromptu ciphers soon became the full-length album, We Are FreshProduce. The album is a blend of thought-provoking lyrics and lush, soulful beats. In 2015, they released their first single, “More Like You” and they soon thereafter released a video for “The Stroll.” Playne Jayne cites Mary J. Blige and Lauryn Hill as two of her earliest influences on her decision to become an emcee. “At 11 years old, I went to the Lauryn Hill Miseducation concert and it felt like Lauryn spoke directly to me,” she says. “What she talked about made so much sense, she looked like me and was so talented. After the concert I got a T- shirt and a notebook and that’s where I started as an emcee.” DJ Red-I attributes her sound to the diverse genres of music she effortlessly spins on a regular basis. “Most of my experience comes from years of DJing and collecting different styles of music,” she says. “I grew up listening to reggae, soul, jazz and hip-hop. The base of my production style comes from constantly blending these styles for the dance floor and making people move to the music.” Last year, the ladies rocked stages at Grog Shop, Mahall’s and the Bop Stop. This year, FreshProduce has plans to embark upon a 20-date European tour and release their second project, Duce. (Emanuel Wallace) Archie Green 7:15 p.m. McCarthy’s Stage Archie Green wants to resurrect old-school class through rap. Modern rap, fixated on drugs, violence and sex, is not representative of the lives many of its fans lead, he says. Although the music would say otherwise, growing up in a nurturing family with the tools for success provided to you is nothing to be ashamed of. Instead, it’s what Green calls “blessed” in the song “40 Acres” from 2013’s The Greatest Pretender. He challenges listeners to embrace the blessed lives they lead as testament to the work of Martin Luther King Jr. and others who fought for equality. Raised in Chagrin Falls, Green started rapping at 13. He debuted as SoulKlap before owning his given name. Back in Cleveland after time away for school and music, Green has developed an entire brand around the idea of class built on respect,
humility, education, self-confidence and, of course, dapper dress. His next project, The Black Pharaoh EP, drops on March 7. Archie Green brings the positivity that Cleveland needs. And did I mention that the beats beneath his pep talks are jam-worthy? (Bethany Kaufman) Jivviden 10:30 p.m. Harbor Inn Stage What do you get when you sprinkle a little Robert Plant sass on Bob Dylan’s throaty croon? Matt Sikon, the vocalist for Cleveland blues-rock outfit Jivviden. Getting its start at Negative Space Gallery open mic nights in 2012, the blues-rock band now appears on bills at the Beachland Tavern, Grog Shop and Happy Dog. It recently released Rough Brew Demos, an EP of six killer tracks which features Delta blues-inspired slide guitar on “Always Bleeding,” and groove-inducing bass lines on “Love (at 70mph)” and “Dead on the Vine.” The tracks are early hints at a followup to the band’s first full-length, Slow Commotion, released in 2014. The band records in an old warehouse space, and the songs succumb to a billowing echo. Fans of Heartless Bastards and the Black Keys will approve, but don’t expect an exact replication of any existing group: Jivviden is a breed of its own. (Kaufman) Istvan Medgyesi 8:10 p.m. Music Box Super Club Just like his name, Istvan Medgyesi’s music evokes the sounds of distant lands. Even more impressive
than his ability to play world instruments like the sitar is the wide range of sounds he can produce using nothing more than an acoustic guitar. On “The Lost Regions,” a track from his only release, Friendly Experiments, Medgyesi’s guitar becomes, for a moment, a didgeridoo. Medgyesi doesn’t simply revel in traditionalism: He’s intent on evolving these ancient sounds in light of modern trends. Just as George Harrison used effects to blur the lines between psychedelic rock and Indian music in the ’60s, Medgyesi pairs synths with a Tibetan singing bowl to create drone sounds that enhance his guitar playing. Aside from his experimental work, Medgyesi is also an expert singer-songwriter, performing heartfelt, poetic ballads like “I Knew This Girl” and “Close Your Eyes Katy.” Even those who aren’t fans of acoustic music should look twice at Medgyesi; his work has a forceful undercurrent even if its power doesn’t come from rock’s volume or speed. When not performing as a solo artist, he can be heard backing up local folk rock outfit Maura Rogers and the Bellows, another Brite Winter act. (Kaufman) Nick D’ & the Believers 7:15 p.m. Covermymeds Stage This Columbus-based band started last year after drummer Joseph Barker moved to Ohio from Minneapolis and worked with guitarist Kerry Henderson on a music video he was producing for singer-keyboardist Nick D’Andrea. In 2013, the group put out its first EP; things have slowly | clevescene.com | February 17 - 23, 2016
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MUSIC snowballed since, and now the group is part of a burgeoning Columbus indie rock scene that includes acts such as Twenty One Pilots and the Floorwalkers. A song such as “Bang Bang” features falsetto vocals and percolating synthesizers, making it sound a bit like a cross between MGMT and Foster the People. Recently, TV programs such as Pretty Little Liars and Chasing Life have featured the band’s music. (Jeff Niesel) Ohio Sky 9:15 p.m. The Stage Under the Bridge Ohio Sky released The Big Distraction about a year ago, garnering some much-deserved acclaim in various corners of the Cleveland music community. It was, to our ears, one of the biggest releases of the year, and Ohio Sky held up the energy onstage for the next 12 months, which is where we find ourselves now. Their music is progressive songcraft, layered and heavy as all hell. “Slow Down Stay Alive,” the opening cut on the album, starts off as an ethereal, quieter number before exploding in every direction. From there, the musicians build dense patterns of melody. (The band had two guitarists in the past, but found that their shift to a oneguitar setup actually allowed them to open up their sound even more.) With singer-guitarist Vinny DiFranco belting emotional lyrics — absolutely soaring in tone, throughout the album — Ohio Sky is able to flip the typical prog-rock templates on their heads and inject some real personality into music that’s already enticingly complex. (Sandy) Ottawa 6:35 p.m. The Stage Under the Bridge Garnering a nice rep for their high-energy shows around Cleveland, Ottawa has certainly given us plenty of reasons to look forward to their Brite Winter set. Toeing the line between the poppier edges of indie rock and the grittier side of American garage rock, Ottawa delivers a pretty great distillation of some of the best parts of the Cleveland music scene these days. Their 2014 EP, Random Lights, reels in the whole Ottawa spectrum of sound; it’s a fun, rocking album. The opening title track hugs a central melody, buoyed by excellent drums and vivacious keys and strings work around nearly every twist in the song. Elsewhere on the album, “Tarantino”
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toys with soft-loud dynamics before opening up to a desert-rock soundscape, where Dale DeLong’s vocals can really flourish. As we’ve seen many times over the past few years, that creative spirit and energy translates well to the stage. (Sandy) Playing to Vapors 5:15 p.m. The Stage Under the Bridge Two strangely similar and equally poignant falsettos belong coincidentally to two ginger-haired singers: hard-rock god Josh Homme and Lucas Harris of Columbus’ Playing to Vapors. Playing to Vapors claims to offer audiences “a unique style of groove-based alternative rock.” That’s a bold assertion in this oversaturated business, but it’s hard to disagree. The band’s music combines “First It Giveth”-style Queens of the Stone Age with the sounds of experimental act Battles, producing electronic-infused rock that is heavily dependent on a driving percussive rhythm. Harris is the real deal: His live performances are spot on, proving that his organic talent isn’t just a studio-engineered hoax. Listen to “You Never Seem Sorry When You’re Gone” or “Whisper” to be carried away by his levitating vocalizations. The band has released two EPs, 2012’s Identities and 2015’s A Glitch in a Void, and premiered at New York’s CMJ Music Marathon last year. If they keep the momentum going by releasing a fulllength formal debut in 2016, there’s no telling where these fellas are headed. (Kaufman) So Long, Albatross 9:15 p.m. Harbor Inn Stage We’ve been excited about So Long, Albatross for a while now. With a stellar 2015 that saw two terrific releases from the band (Keith Vance, Eric Baum, Adam Horwatt), now’s the perfect time to catch the live show. The band released its latest EP back in November, and it’s a heavy trip. “Something in the Way” kicks things off, with pronounced vocal emotions behind every syllable and pulsing drums guiding the song into port. It’s both extremely heavy and danceable as all get-out, making for a nice take on the riff-heavy blues-rock that populates much of the local music scene here. Later, “Off to the Races” sees Vance demonstrating the power of voice as instrument. Here, the power trio sounds way more powerful than their numbers might suggest. This band is not to be trifled with. Check them out, and rage onward. (Sandy)
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Divas of Drag: America’s Biggest Drag Queen Superstars MUTEMATH w/ Paper Route Who’s Bad – Michael Jackson Tribute Tricky Dick & the Cover-Ups Progressive Field Tribe Opener Datsik Charles Kelley w/ Josh Kelley Killswitch Engage w/ Memphis May Fire, 36 Crazyfists Ciara Andrew Bird in Association with the Grog Shop
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Photo by Joe Kleon
MUSIC REVISITING THE RIVER
The E Street Band’s Nils Lofgren assesses the significance of Springsteen’s epic album By Jeff Niesel LAST YEAR, SINGER-GUITARIST Nils Lofgren, a member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, put out the solo album UK2015 Face the Music Live and booked some tour dates for 2016. He knew that Springsteen needed him for a Saturday Night Live appearance in support of the just-released Ties That Bind: The River box set. But he didn’t think Springsteen had planned an extensive tour in support of the album. He thought wrong. “I knew about Saturday Night Live and knew there were no plans past that for us to play,” says Lofgren via phone from a New York tour stop. “I booked five months of work. They had a true change of heart. I’m not involved with the blow-by-blow decision-making. It’s like when me and [my wife] Amy sit around with my four dogs and wonder how much time I’ll spend on the road. I don’t call my band mates and have them weigh in.” Not that he had any reservations about heading out with the E Street Band — they call Springsteen “The Boss” for a reason. When he beckons, you best pack your bags. “It’s always a blessing,” Lofgren says of touring with Springsteen. “I’m coming up on my 32nd year with the band this May. It’s no fun to cancel or postpone solo shows. I’ll try to reschedule them all. It’s not like I had a huge choice in the matter. These clubs will forgive me and understand; I hope the fans will come and see me when I make up the dates.” Even by Springsteen’s standards, 1980’s The River has an epic feel to it. Springsteen originally intended it to be a 10-song single album before scrapping the initial song sequence and extending it into a double album that features 20 songs. It opens with “The Ties That Bind,” a jazzy number punctuated by the late Clarence Clemons’ woozy sax solo. The album goes through a number of musical peaks and valleys:
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Springsteen sounds somber on midtempo ballads such as “Independence Day” and “I Wanna Marry You”; the punchy “Hungry Heart” comes across as a rowdy barroom rocker; and the title track stands as one of Springsteen’s best narratives. Rolling Stone’s review of the album notes, “Scope, context, sequencing and mood are everything here,” and the review draws comparisons to American authors such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Theodore Dreiser. On the current tour, which comes to the Q on Feb. 23, the band will play the album in its entirety. Lofgren — who says he first met Springsteen in 1970 when his band Grin and Springsteen’s band Steel Mill auditioned for promoter Bill Graham — wasn’t yet in the E Street Band when Springsteen cut The River. He can still remember the first time he heard the album. “I bumped into [Springsteen] at the [Sunset] Marquis [hotel],” he says. “He mentioned that he had just finished a double album called The River. He asked if I wanted to listen
Springsteen and his E Street buddies playing at the Q.
piece and adding my bit because I wasn’t there is a great honor and I’m embracing it.” Released during a deep recession, the album reflects the times. In “The River,” Springsteen famously sings, “For my 19th birthday, I got a union card and a wedding coat,” as he confesses that finding steady employment was a challenge “on account of the economy.” Lofgren, however, says he thinks the album has more to do with “personal struggle” than politics. “I love how Bruce writes,” he says. “He’s as great a lyricist as we’ve ever had. That’s his forte if I had to pick one. [In life] either you’re at peace and everything is okay with friends, family and money or there’s something coming apart. Sometimes, it’s all coming apart. He speaks to that more from the common man perspective but doesn’t exclude everybody because it’s more about the
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND THE E STREET BAND 7:30 P.M., TUESDAY, FEB. 23, QUICKEN LOANS ARENA, ONE CENTER COURT 888-894-9424. TICKETS: $55-$150, THEQARENA.COM.
to it. I was very grateful for that. He threw me in the car and went over to the studio. He sat me in front of the old [Yamaha] NS-10 speakers, which were popular playback speakers. I listened to the whole double album, and I still remember being struck by how I felt like they got the sizzle and electricity of the live show into the grooves for the first time. My favorite thing is playing live when there’s that sizzle and energy and crackle in the air. It’s deafening and maddening, and it’s just a muddy mess of musical insanity sometimes. That’s part of the live experience. I felt like they got that into the record. Now, god knows how many decades later, to be playing it as a set
| clevescene.com | February 17 - 23, 2016
internal workings of man and the inherent human nature of greed and satisfying yourself and never having enough of things. It’s the reality of how is your family doing. Maybe your wife is sick. Maybe my parents are getting old and feeble and what do I do?” He says a variety of emotions run through the tunes. “You’re sitting there inconsolable with ‘Stolen Car’ and then he starts ‘Ramrod,’ and it’s a wakeup call,” he says. “It’s back and forth. I’m that schizophrenic writer myself. I do country, blues, rock, R&B and metal. It all comes from the blues and folk. Bruce has put it together in his own voice as well as anyone in history
has ever done. I’m happy to sit there and play these songs that are so dear to me and add my piece and know that I have good instincts for it.” Between touring with Bruce and doing solo shows — Lofgren just played in Northeast Ohio last year — the musician is more active than ever. Not bad, given that he’s now 64. “[Growing up] in middle America, we loved the Beatles and Stones and Hendrix and of course everything that went with it,” he says when asked about his initial aspirations. “But nobody thought you could do that for a living where I lived. One night, I saw the Who and the Jimi Hendrix Experience in the same night at two different venues in D.C. I still remember being uncomfortably possessed with this notion that I needed to try to do it as a living. It seemed so foreign to me.” One of the highlights came when singer-guitarist Neil Young befriended him and asked him to play in his backing band. “Neil asked me to play on After the Gold Rush at 18 years of age,” he says. “That was an enormous challenge and opportunity for a rookie musician just on the road trying to make his way. That served me well. I remember going to work and thinking, ‘It’s nice going to work and not having to be the boss today.’ I liked being part of a team of people and playing rhythms and singing harmony. That served me to this day. I’m happy to lead any band anywhere. If we’re in a bar jamming and someone says, ‘Sing something,’ I would say, ‘Okay, follow me,’ and off we go. But I do thrive in the band setting as a member instead of always the leader. That’s served me well all these decades.”
jniesel@clevescene.com t@jniesel
P O H S G THE GRO
D HTS EVELAN L C , D P.GS V L B ID HTS GROGSHO 2785 EUCL 216.321.5588
2875 EUCLID HEIGHTS BLVD CLEVELAND HEIGHTS WWW.BSIDELIQUORLOUNGE.COM
FRI 2/19
THE QUEERS CHOMP
Restless Habs • Who Hit Me
THU 2/25
WED 2/24
SUN 2/21
EL TENStems ELEVEN • Shallou
GUTTERMOUTH
The Cryptics • Public Squares
HOP ALONG
Meridian • Lowercase Roses THU 4/7
THU 2/18 SUN 3/13
BONGZILLA Black Cobra
SEERESS SCARFACE Harvey Pekar ICON TOUR
Kings Destroy Lo Pan
Wolf Teeth FDA Music • OG Grip
TUE 3/22
SAT 2/20
TUE 2/23 FRI 3/25
THE SUBWAYS PINS SAT 3/26
FRI 4/22
CHAD VALLEY THE THERMALS Summer Cannibals BLACKBIRD BLACKBIRD Shallou Presented w/ Beachland
FRI 2/26
MOJOFLO Wildlife Soundz SAT 2/27
NEW MOON RISING Pura Vida EP Release with
Fever Fever • By Light We Loom Michael McFarland & the Mess Makers
WEDNESDAY 2.17 MUG NIGHT = $2 PBR Mugs DJ Elliot Nash + Gino XL THURSDAY 2.18 OPEN STAGE SOUNDSYSTEM hosted by XELA 7-10PM THE HOOKUP College ID night w/ DJ Mike Filly 10PM
SATURDAY 2.20 1ST ANNUAL WIG & MUSTACHE BASH DRINK DISCOUNTS WITH DISGUISE! with DJ JL THU 4/21
CARLOS JONES SHAWN & SHELBY & THE P.L.U.S. BAND BAND PRACTICE OPEN MIC W/
email bsidecleparties@gmail.com for info!
FRIDAY 2.19 ELEVATION FRIDAYS with DJ BLACKBIRD
MON 4/11 HUNTER VALENTINE Early Girl SAN FERMIN Audi(o)holic
JIMILLER BAND Sassafrazz
Happy Hour Every Day until 9 PM WEDNESDAY PINBALL LEAGUE & OPEN CASH TOURNAMENTS
SUNDAY 2.21 HIP HOP & OLD SCHOOL with DJ ESO & COREY GRAND MONDAY 2.22 SPORCLE TRIVIA NIGHT 8PM & 9PM GAMES TUESDAY 2.23 LYRICAL RHYTHMS 7:30PM Open Mic | Live Band | Drink Specials WEDNESDAY 2.24 MUG NIGHT = $2 PBR Mugs DJ Elliot Nash + Gino XL
SAT 4/23
BEACH SLANG Potty Mouth
SUN 3/27
ELI “PAPERBOY” REED
Dyke Drama
THE GROG SHOP PRESENTS AT
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NAPALM DEATH
THU 4/21
with MELVINS with MELT
BANANA
THE GROG SHOP PRESENTS AT
SUN 2/28
BEACHLAND BALLROOM
MON 3/28
EARTH CHIEF Deathcrawl
FRI 5/6 SKINNYBeans LISTER on Toast TOKYO POLICE CLUB Will Varley
Toro Blanco Axioma
FRI 3/4 WED 3/30
DREAMERS ANTISEEN Joe Buck Yourself
MON 5/23
DIIV
THE ARKELLS
Dead Federation Karma Killers
THU 2/25
THU 3/31
WED 3/9
SOL
DRESSY BESSY Cheap Clone
THE HEADSPACE TOUR Brothers From Another Otieno Terry
Heavenly Creatures
THU 3/10 MON 4/4
FOXING THE EXPENDABLES
Lymbic System Passafire Tancred Jon Wayne & the Pain Adjy Tunnel Vision
TUE 4/5
FRI 3/11
UNWRITTEN LAW FENIX, TX
CRAW MURDEREDMAN The Great Iron Snake
The Missing
SAT 3/12 WED 4/6
MC CHRIS THE FALCON Nathan Anderson members of ALKALINE TRIO
2d6 and THE LAWRENCE ARMS Mayor Wertz Worriers • The Lippies
WED 6/8
SUNN O))) Mon 2/22 LUCKY SPARROW TATTOO Grand Opening Party Wed 3/2 RICKY & TREVOR the Alive & Gold tour Thu 3/3 Workingman’s Reggae w/THE ARK BAND Sat 3/5 SWEEPYHEADS • Who Hit Me • ThankYouSHUTUP Fri 3/18 EC MARV • Dirty Kicks • King Jerm • Tae Tuck • DJ Coop Tue 3/22 HUNTER VALENTINE • Early Girl • Audi(o)holic Tue 3/29 CHON • Polyphia • Strawberry Girls Fri 4/1 KURT VILE & the Violators Sat 4/2 TROPIDELIC CD Release Show • Shrub • Bumpin’ Uglies Sun 4/3 LE1F • Junglepussy Fri 4/8 AUTOLUX Thu 4/14 DUNCAN TRUSSELL Fri 4/15 THE WHISKEY HOLLOW • Midnight Passenger Sun 4/24 MURDER BY DEATH • Kevin Devine & The Goddamn Band Thu 4/28 FAT WHITE FAMILY • Dilly Dally Fri 4/29 CASH’D OUT • Texas Plant Sun 5/1 ELEANOR FRIEDBERGER Mon 5/2 FREDDIE GIBBS Wed 5/18 SAVAGES Thu 5/19 WEEKEND NACHOS • Homewrecker • Vice Thu 9/1 RIVAL SONS
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LUCERO WED 5/4 BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE FRI 4/8
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MON 2/29
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SAT 4/16 | clevescene.com | February 17 - 23, 2016
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MUSIC IN A ‘STATE OF DETERMINATION’
Dropkick Murphys drummer Matt Kelly reflects on the band’s 20-year run By Jeff Niesel
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think they just asked us on those two points,” he says. “I mean, this was before the Boys on the Docks EP was even out, and months before Do or Die was even recorded — so I think they took a pretty big gamble taking us on the road. Luckily, we went down very well in the States and Europe, playing to huge crowds. After those tours, I and Brian (our T-shirt guy) were homeless, so we ended up moving into the apartment that Dicky and Tim had been renting from Joe Gittleman’s mother. The Bosstones guys were always great to us, and I think that first tour taught the guys in our band Photo by Kerry Brett
THIS WEEK, THE QUINCY, Massachusetts-based Irish punk band Dropkick Murphys kicks off its 20th anniversary tour with two shows at House of Blues, where there’s a Green Room, a kick-ass sound system and attendants in the bathrooms. The guys have certainly come a long way from their humble roots. Early on, the band played basement parties as it cut its musical teeth in DIY venues in the Northeast. “In many cities, there’s a thriving ‘basement’ scene, especially in places with few all-ages venues,” says drummer Matt Kelly in an email interview. “We did basements in Providence, around Boston, Baltimore, and a couple in California. Those days, it was the four band members and our T-shirt guy, Brian, driving around in an MBTA high-top van, and doing small gigs like most bands have done at one time or another. Good camaraderie, long overnight drives, bad food, bad women and lots of memories.” In 1997, the group even played the cellar of a squat house in Baltimore. “We drove forever to get there, and by the time we showed up the crusty punk bands whom we shared the bill with had packed up and left,” says Kelly. “Here’s the setting: abandoned/ occupied apartment building; people shooting up in the bathrooms; the basement we played had a dirt floor; the ‘stage’ was made out of pallets and carpet, where my drums and cymbal stands just wobbled around and sank between the pallet boards; about three songs into our set, [bassist] Ken [Casey] broke one of two bass strings I’ve ever seen him break (and he plays a left-handed bass ... about as ubiquitous as hens’ teeth); [guitarist] Rick [Barton’s] amp blew up ... and all the other band people were gone ... so we were done. We’d driven 10 or so hours to play three songs!” The Mighty Mighty Bosstones gave the band its first big break; MMB’s Dicky Barrett and Joe Gittleman were fans of original Dropkick guitarist Barton, who was rhythm guitarist in the seminal Boston punk band, the Outlets. “I think that the Bosstones guys knew that Rick was in this band, and we were kicking up some dust in the Northeast and California, so I
of the guys’ couches between pre-pro sessions. Half the songs we were going to record were also previously released on other 7-inches and the Boys on the Docks EP, but Lars guided us and gave us a lot of tips on more crafty song arrangement and definitely on sounds. Basically, we tightened the screws on a lot of those songs and changed them for the better. Other songs, specifically ‘Caught in a Jar,’ were in their infancy before I joined, but we played that one a few times before pre-production started ... but again, Lars helped us trim the fat and perfect it. Other songs were just riffs or lyrics (or both) that Dropkick Murphys launch their 20th anniversary tour this week at House of Blues.
DROPKICK MURPHYS 20 YEAR ANNIVERSARY TOUR WITH TIGER ARMY, DARKBUSTER 7 P.M., WEDNESDAY, FEB. 17, AND THURSDAY, FEB. 18, HOUSE OF BLUES 308 EUCLID AVE., 216-523-2583. TICKETS: $32.50-$40, HOUSEOFBLUES.COM
a lot about the manifold aspects of life on the road.” After a series of EPs, Hellcat Records signed the group and released 1998’s Do or Die, produced by Rancid’s Lars Frederiksen. The album kicks off with a bit of bagpipes, and then the songs come fast and furious; each track features gang-style vocals and noisy guitars that owe more to the Sex Pistols than the Pogues. “It was a special time, to say the least,” says Kelly. “We did preproduction for Do or Die in Rick (Barton)’s grandmother’s garage, which was our de facto practice space. Lars had flown out from San Francisco and was crashing on some
| clevescene.com | February 17 - 23, 2016
we put together in the practice space up to and during pre-production. It was definitely a fun time and I look back fondly on it. The camaraderie we shared wouldn’t be matched again till almost 10 years later in our existence.” The guys went to the Outpost in Stoughton, Massachusetts, where the Bosstones had recommended engineer Jim Seigel. Also, Rich Spillberg (Wargasm) contributed as assistant engineer and “all-around one-man comic relief act.” “It was nice to work on instrument sounds and get that killer, killer guitar sound,” says Kelly. “To this day, while I may blush at some of the (drum!) takes that Lars let make it
onto the final cut, I love the guitar sound and all-around feel of the album. There was a hell of a lot of thought put into the song order, the guitar sound, layout, the fat guys in hardhats on the front cover, and the final mix. Actually speaking of which, the record label had the album remixed because they didn’t like how it came out. The new mix, which the label preferred, was dull, flat, and bereft of life. We were definitely not having that! It was a big blow to us because the original mix was exactly how we wanted it. So the long and short of it is, at the end of the day the band won out and the better mix is what you hear.” “I’m Shipping Up to Boston,” with lyrics penned by Woody Guthrie, has taken on a life of its own. It’s prominently featured in Martin Scorsese’s The Departed and can be commonly heard at sporting events and on television as a theme song for many sports teams. So what is it about that song that resonates? “I have no idea because before the song was featured in the film, it was one of our ‘also ran’ songs,” says Kelly. “It was second- or third-to-last on the album (not a very flattering spot for a ‘hit’ song), and playing it live was like an exercise in statuary … nobody moved when we played it. It seriously took that movie to get anybody excited about it, and now it’s a platinumselling single. I don’t get it! Fine with me though! I guess it’s better than hearing more Beyonce or Modern Country or other garbage.” Given the fact that so many punk bands don’t last for more than one year, Kelly admits he’s shocked the group has endured for two decades. “It was something that happened so quickly that it sort of took us by surprise, and I personally hadn’t thought about that,” Kelly admits. “The 10-year mark seemed to take forever, but the last 10 years seem to have happened twice as fast! It was always just, ‘Let’s go for it,’ and that attitude helped keep the focus, at least for myself, in a perpetual state of determination to be as good and intense as we possibly could — or can — be, and time just shot by.”
jniesel@clevescene.com t@jniesel
| clevescene.com | February 17 - 23, 2016
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LIVEWIRE
all the live music you should see this week Photo by Catie Laffoon
WED
2/17
Dynamo: Taking the Nashville rock mentality and fusing it with jazz heritage, Dynamo serves up a compelling twist on the modern jazz album. On Find Your Way, drummer Nate Felty’s brand of tom-heavy syncopation reminds us that we’re not listening to your granddad’s jazz. And the way pianists Ryan Connors and Josh Blaylock play off the brass (Kevin Gatzke on sax and Andrew Golden on trumpet) shows a deep understanding of how to construct lead melodies across the percussive foundation of a song. This is an exciting band. (Eric Sandy), 8 p.m., $10. BLU Jazz+. 10 X 3 Hosted by Brent Kirby (in the Wine Bar): 8 p.m. Brothers Lounge. Cleveland Stage Alliance Presents Bittersweet Symphony: $15. Bop Stop. Lee DeWyze/Wakey Wakey/Leslie Dinicola: 8 p.m., $15-$50. Musica. Dropkick Murphys/Tiger Army/ Darkbuster: 8 p.m., $32.50 ADV, $35 DOS. House of Blues. Bill Frisell When You Wish Upon a Star with Petra Haden/Eyvind Kang/Thomas Morgan/Kenny Wolleson: 8 p.m., $27.50-$45. The Kent Stage. Gary Hall/Sleep Ramblers: 8 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern. Whitey Morgan/Cody Jinks: 8:30 p.m., $16.25-$125. Beachland Ballroom. Outlaw Happy Hour: 5 p.m., Free. Beachland Tavern. Seeress/Harvey Pekar/Wolf Teeth: 8:30 p.m., $8. Grog Shop. Skate/Derek Luh: 6 p.m., $25. Agora Ballroom.
THU
2/18
CIMprovise: The Cleveland Institute of Music, a staunchly classical conservatory, outsources even the most innocuous modern music to other institutions. Enter CIMprovise, a student jazz combo featuring Gabe Novak on keys, Joel Negus on upright bass, and Evan Mitchell on drums. Since August, the group has played a monthly Thursday night gig at the Happy Dog at the Euclid Tavern. Warm yourself on a cold winter’s evening by the fire of these budding musicians’ incredible versatility. They’ll play popular favorites as well as tunes for the
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Roots rockers Bronze Radio Return come to Musica. See: Saturday.
true hepcats. (Bethany Kaufman), 8 p.m., Free. The Euclid Tavern. Hayden Arp and Friends: 8 p.m., $10. Bop Stop. Blu Jazz Jam with Theron Brown: 8 p.m., $8. BLU Jazz+. Cape of Bats/Yambag/Grin and Bear It/Diva Cup: 9 p.m., $5. Now That’s Class. Dropkick Murphys/Tiger Army/ Darkbuster: 8 p.m., $32.50 ADV, $35 DOS. House of Blues. Chris Hatton’s Musical Circus (in the Wine Bar): 8 p.m. Brothers Lounge. Hillbilly Idol/Spoon Too Soon: 8 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern. Jam Night with the Bad Boys of Blues: 9 p.m., Free. Brothers Lounge. Roy King Quartet: 8 p.m., $10. Nighttown. Low Cut Connie/Texas Plant: 9 p.m., $10. Beachland Tavern. Northeast Drum and Music Jam: 9 p.m., Free. Beachland Ballroom. Sorry, Please Continue: Love Stinks: 8:30 p.m., Free. Mahall’s 20 Lanes. Tanya Tucker: 7:30 p.m. Hard Rock Rocksino.
FRI
2/19
Sam Blakeslee’s International Quintet: 8 p.m., $12. Bop Stop. Ronnie Baker Brooks/Harper/ Midwest Kid: 8 p.m., $20 ADV, $22 DOS. Music Box Supper Club. Buckwheat Zydeco: Zydeco is a style of music that emerged out of deepsouth Louisiana bayous in the first half of the 20th century. Simply put, the genre blends Cajun heritage with upbeat rhythm and blues, with various accordion instruments driving the music. Buckwheat Zydeco is a pillar of the style. A good point of initiation may be the Best of/20th Century Masters collection, which boasts a number of peak
| clevescene.com | February 17 - 23, 2016
singles from the Buckwheat canon. “Ma Tit Fille” showcases some of the best features of the zydeco sound - jumping percussion, funky bass, Cajun vocal stylings and, of course, jaunty accordion work. And don’t sleep on the zydeco send-up of Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti.” You’ll be dancing all night. (Sandy), 9 p.m., $18 ADV, $20 DOS. Mahall’s 20 Lanes. Disco Inferno: 9 p.m., $5. Vosh Club. East Coast Meets West Coast with Dave Banks Big Band Featuring Jimmy Mulidore: 8 p.m., $20. BLU Jazz+. Free Clinic Annual Rock n’ Reggae Fest Featuring Outlaws I & I/ Oldboy/Polars/Tastycakes: 7 p.m., $10. Beachland Ballroom. Gage Brothers/Nate Jones Band: Folk isn’t just for the old boys anymore: Ben and Zach Gage, aka the Gage Brothers, are young bloods with the energy and charm to prove it. Born and bred deep in the countryside of Akron, their self-penned acoustic ditties range in style from Americana to blues, all suitable for a whoopin’ and hollerin’ hoedown. Their latest release, Take It Back from 2015, even takes hints from indie folk with doses of harmonica and handclaps on “Hear Me” and “Take It Back.” Joining them are two recently-adopted musical brothers, Brendan O’Malley on mandolin and Chris Volpe on banjo. They’ll play with Nate Jones, who’s back in Cleveland after a stint in San Francisco. Jones has a voice you’ll swear you recognize, and his band brings a powerful mix of soul, blues and country. (Kaufman), 9 p.m., $5. The Euclid Tavern. Led Zeppelin 2: 9 p.m., $13 ADV, $15 DOS. House of Blues. Dennis Lewin: 10:30 p.m., free. Nighttown. Tracy Marie (in the Wine Bar): 8 p.m.
Brothers Lounge. Marion Meadows: 8 p.m., $30. Nighttown. Mullett: 9:30 p.m., $5. Brothers Lounge. The Queers/Chomp/Restless Habs/ Who Hit Me: 9 p.m., $10 ADV, $12 DOS. Grog Shop. Radiate 2016: 9 p.m. The Agora Theatre. Schwartz Brothers: 8:30 p.m., $6. Beachland Tavern. Tom Shaper/The Elderly Brothers/ George Foley & Friends: 5:30 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern. Sonic Sessions: Casey Veggies: 7 p.m., $5.50. Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. Doug Tuttle/Paperhead/Part Time Lovers: Doug Tuttle is gaining confidence in the saddle as he blazes forward with his second solo release, It Calls on Me. Tuttle’s former band, neo-psychedelic outfit Mmoss, was one part Byrds and one part Chocolate Watchband (on account of their shared love of flute). In 2013, Tuttle’s music and personal life buckled following breakups in both, forcing him to take up the reigns himself. On 2014’s Doug Tuttle, he offers more of what made Mmoss enjoyable: double-tracked choral vocals over a swirling backdrop of guitar and organ punctuated by bomping bass lines. Those who enjoy the baroque pop of Tuttle’s Trouble in Mind labelmate Jacco Gardner will approve. For It Calls on Me, Tuttle begins to cut sonic ties to his past. (Kaufman), 9 p.m., $8. Happy Dog. Umojah Nation: 9 p.m., $7. Musica. The Whispers: 7:30 p.m., $32.50. Tangier Cabaret. Hank Williams & Friends by Hillbilly Idol (in the Supper Club): 8 p.m., $7. Music Box Supper Club. Xela and Lovemuthas (in the Locker Room): 8 p.m. Mahall’s 20 Lanes.
SAT
2/20
Bronze Radio Return/Howard: Tapping into the open-landscape feel of today’s rootsy Americana rock ‘n’ roll, Bronze Radio Return has been slowly carving up the national festie circuit with uplifting instrumentation and soaring vocals. Take their last album, for instance: 2015’s Light Me Up. At times smoky in tone, elsewhere starry-eyed, the songs on that album come together to form a compelling road trip of an
LIVEWIRE album. Bronze Radio Return’s nom de plume points to their desire to travel back into the past, to hit the great freeway of time and deliver unto listeners a sepia-tinged trip across America. “Build a Stage,” to use an example, deliberately constructs a multi-layered pop framework. (Sandy), 9 p.m., $12. Musica. Hey Mavis: On last year’s What I Did, local rockers Hey Mavis teamedup with Yonder Mountain String Band guitarist Adam Aijala, Chuck Auerbach (co-writer of the Black Keys song “Hard Row”), singersongwriter Brent Kirby and the aforementioned Dixon. Kirby plays guitar on a couple of songs and co-wrote several of the tracks, and Auerbach has been supportive of Hey Mavis from the start. He showed up with a stack of lyrics and the band picked some they liked for the album’s title track. (Niesel), 8 p.m. Akron Civic Theatre. Ches Smith, Mat Maneri, Craig Taborn: 8 p.m., $15. Bop Stop. 1964 The Tribute: 8:30 p.m., $30-$45. Tangier Cabaret. Dream Circuit/The Twanglers: 8 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern. Duo Decibel System/Sleepykid: 9 p.m., $5. Happy Dog. Gaelic Storm: 9 p.m., $22.50 ADV, $25 DOS. House of Blues. In Training: February Dedication with Argot Sound System/Adab 7/ Kiernan Laveaux: 9 p.m., $5. Now That’s Class. The JiMiller Band/SassafraZ: 9 p.m., $10. Grog Shop. Les Delices Family Concert: 3 p.m., Free. Bop Stop. Lost State of Franklin/Rodney and the Regulars/Jack Cameras: 8:30 p.m., $7. Beachland Tavern. Nitebridge: 9:30 p.m., $5. Brothers Lounge. Reverse the Curse/Braindedveins/ Thundercougarfalconhawk/Old Souls (in the Locker Room): 7 p.m., $6. Mahall’s 20 Lanes. Justo Saborit & Latin Soul: 8:30 p.m., $15. Nighttown. The Sadies/Ethan Daniel Davidson: 9:30 p.m., $15-$25. Beachland Ballroom. Soleo: 9 p.m., Free. The Euclid Tavern. Teen/Times10: 9 p.m., $8. Mahall’s 20 Lanes. The Vegas Player: Jimmy Mulidore Quartet: 8 p.m., $15. BLU Jazz+. Jackie Warren: 10:30 p.m., free. Nighttown. Witness Protection (in the Wine Bar): 9 p.m. Brothers Lounge.
SUN
2/21
Ahi Nama: 8 p.m., $10. Bop Stop. The Sydney Ellis Quintet (in the Supper Club): (Niesel), 7 p.m., $7. Music Box Supper Club. Guttermouth/The Cryptics/Public Squares: 8:30 p.m., $15. Grog Shop. Hot Jazz Seven: 3 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern. Jack & Jack/Daya: 6:30 p.m., $25 ADV, $28 DOS. House of Blues. Lil’ Boosie: 6 p.m., $40-$100. The Agora Theatre. Lunasa/The Portersharks: 4 p.m., $22 ADV, $25 DOS. Music Box Supper Club. Mike Petrone (in the Wine Bar): 5:30 p.m. Brothers Lounge. Jeff Rosenstock/Max Stern/Sorry. (in the Locker Room): 7 p.m., $10 ADV, $12 DOS. Mahall’s 20 Lanes. Sommerfugl: 6 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern. StoryTime: A Storytelling Open Mic: 9 p.m. Barking Spider Tavern.
MON
2/22
Skatch Anderssen Orchestra: 8 p.m., $10. Brothers Lounge. Velvet Voyage (in the Wine Bar): 8 p.m. Brothers Lounge.
TUE
2/23
Audio Social Dissent Tour with Wolf Eyes/Timmy’s Organism/Video/ Rubber Mate: 9 p.m., $10 ADV, $12 DOS. Now That’s Class. Band Practice Open Mic Night with Shawn & Shelby: 9 p.m., Free. Grog Shop. Blu Jazz and Student All-Stars Concert Series Presents: Hudson High School: 7 p.m., $10. BLU Jazz+. M2B2 Big Band: 8 p.m., Free. Brothers Lounge. Naughty By Nature — 25th Anniversary Tour: 8 p.m., $20 ADV, $25 DOS. House of Blues. Neighborhood Night with MoKo BoVo/Albert Dennis/Nicholas Deveny: 8 p.m., Free. Beachland Tavern. Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band: 7:30 p.m. Quicken Loans Arena. Swingtime Big Band: 7:30 p.m., $7. Vosh Club. Two-Set Tuesday Featuring Steve Masek: 7 p.m. Brothers Lounge.
INGREDIENTS:
ORGANIC TOBACCO ORGANIC MENTHOL
VISIT NASCIGS.COM OR CALL 1-800-435-5515 PROMO CODE 96636 CIGARETTES
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jniesel@clevescene.com t@jniesel | clevescene.com | February 17 - 23, 2016 Cleveland Scene 02-14-16.indd 1
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1/28/16 3:01 PM
THIS FRI. FEB. 19
FRI. MARCH 4
Euge Groove
The Whispers
American Smooth Jazz Saxaphonist
R & B Legends
TWOWS SHO
APR. 22 & 23, 29 & 30
FRI. APRIL 1 Tribute to Rock Icon David Bowie
Michael Stanley
Diamond Dogs
and the Resonators
FRI. APRIL 8
SUN. MAY 1
Robin Trower
Groove Jazz Icons
THIS SAT. FEB. 20
SAT. MARCH 12 1964 The Tribute Dailey Double #1 Beatles Show
Pieces Of A Dream
British Guitar God
w/Pat Dailey
The Reese Dailey Band Ben Dover & the Screamers
FRI. MAY 13
SAT. APRIL 9
Classic Country 30Th Anniversary Show!
SAT. MARCH 26
Wish You Were Here
The Sights & Sounds of Pink Floyd
WED. MARCH 2
British Hard Rockers
TWOWS SHO SAT. APRIL 16
SAT. OCTOBER 1
Love Affair 40 Year Reunion
U.F.O.
Classic Soul and Funk
American Hard Rock Icons
The Breeze
Special Guests: WILD OATS BAND
Average White Band
Blue Oyster Cult
FRI. FEB. 27
All Original Members 1980’s hit “Mama Sez”
Jazz Sax Legend
David Sanborn
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44
| clevescene.com | February 17 - 23, 2016
OHIO’S AWARD-WINNING GAMING, DINING AND ENTERTAINMENT DESTINATION
FEBRUARY 18
MARCH 4
MARCH 11
MARCH 15
APRIL 1
APRIL 15
FEBRUARY 19 - 20
FEBRUARY 26 - 27
DS is known as “THE MAN OF MANY FACES” because his facial expressions are as descriptive as his words. Very interactive with his audiences, never be surprised if you or someone in your party becomes part of the show.
Al’s material covers a broad range of topics, from growing up on suburban Long Island to marriage and much more. Al knows his audience, and his give and take with each crowd ensures that no two performances will be alike.
PRESENTS
EVERY THURSDAY • 6:30PM
ROCKIN’ COUNTRY NIGHTS FEATURING TYLER REID BAND Live music, DJ, trivia & prizes! FREE ADMISSION!
DARREN “DS” SANDERS
AL ROMAS
TICKETS AVAILABLE ON TICKETMASTER.COM AND AT THE ROCKSINO BOX OFFICE, OPEN DAILY FROM 1PM - 9PM. 10777 NORTHFIELD ROAD | NORTHFIELD, OHIO 44067 | HRRNP.COM | 330.908.7625 ALL SHOWS 21 & OVER
SCHEDULE SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE. FOR FREE, CONFIDENTIAL HELP 24/7, CALL THE OHIO PROBLEM GAMBLING HELPLINE AT 1.800.598.9966 | clevescene.com | February 17 - 23, 2016
45
HAPPY HOUR
M-F • 3-7PM & ALL DAY SUN $1 OFF ALL DRINKS
11609 DETROIT AVE CLEVELAND 216.226.2767 | brotherslounge.com LIKE US:
CHECK OUT OUR MENU! ‘BEST OF THE WEST’ WINNER! WED 2/17 • 7:00
BLUEWATER KINGS BAND
LIVE ENTERTAINMENT
Tues. February 16
SWING CITY BIG BAND
7:30pm
Fri. February 19
FRI 2/19 • 7:30
MULLET
9:00pm Sat. February 20
SAT 2/20 • 7:30
NITEBRIDGE M2B2 BIG BAND
7:30pm Hottest Dance Party In Town!
MON • WING NIGHT 5:00-10:00
Tues. February 23
TUE 2/23 • 7:00
SWINGTIME BIG BAND
(Big Band Jazz) 8:00
TUE • SUSHI NIGHT 5:00-10:00 WED • $5 BURGER NIGHT 5:00-10:00 THURS • TACOS 5:00-10:00
7:30pm Fri. February 26
LADIES NIGHT
7:00PM-2:30AM $4 WINE • MARTINIS • CHAMPAGNE
BAD BOYS OF BLUES JAM NIGHT 9:00
WINE BAR FRI 2/19 • 8:00
9:00pm Sat. February 27
TRACY MARIE
SAT 2/20 • 8:00 MIKE POLK JR. STANDUP AND AT 9:00
WITNESS PROTECTION
EVERY SUNDAY • 5:30
MIKE PETRONE
ANNIVERSARY PARTY!
EVERY MONDAY - JAZZ
VELVET VOYAGE 8:00 TUES 2/23 2 SET TUESDAY 7:00 & 8:30
STEVE MASEK
EVERY WEDNESDAY • 8:00 10 X 3 SINGER-SONGWRITER SHOWCASE W/BRENT KIRBY contact: harvesttownmusic@gmail.com
EVERY THURSDAY • 8:00
CHRIS HATTON’S MUSICAL CIRCUS
46
| clevescene.com | February 17 - 23, 2016
ALL GENRES • ALL STYLES
9:30pm Great music, food and drink BOOK YOUR SPECIAL EVENTS WITH US. 1414 RIVERSIDE DRIVE LAKEWOOD 216-767-5202 • Voshclub.com
| clevescene.com | February 17 - 23, 2016
47
NO COVERS ALL WEEK
Thursday February 18 Spoon Too Soon 8:00 (americana) Hillbilly Idol 10:00 (alt. country, rockabilly)
Thursday February 18
Friday February 19
Into The Blue Duo
George Foley & Friends 5:30 (jazz) The Elderly Brothers 8:00 (americana, country, rock) Tom Shaper 10:00 (rhythm and blues, roots)
8-11PM
Progeny 4:00 (student fundraiser} The Twanglers 8:00 (americana, rock) Dream Circuit 10:00 (rock)
Blue Collar Band
Hot Jazz Seven 3:00 (jazz) Sommerfugl 6:00 (alternative, singer/ songwriter) Story Time: A Storytelling Open Mic 9:00 (open mic, story telling)
Saturday February 20
Rosavelt
11310 JUNIPER RD., CLEVELAND • 216.421.2863
9PM-1AM Sunday February 21
Improv Comedy 6-8PM Sunday February 21
The 8:45 Club 8-11PM MONday February 22
Jam Night Feat. Good Energy 8PM-12AM THURSDAY February 25
Find your happy hour.
Medicine Show 9-11PM
food menu available 2247 Professor AVe. tremont
Download SCENE’s official happy hour app! clevescene.com/happyhours
216.274.1200 www.coda.danteboccuzzi.com
WEST END TAVERN presents
TUESDAY
$3 OFF Including Choice Of Side
$2.00 TACOS Beef, Pulled Pork or Fish,
Red Cabbage, Cilantro & Tequila Lime Mayo
$2 Cuervo, Mezcal, Margaritas, $2 - 3 Olives • $2 Fireball Coronas, Modellos $3 Domestic Beer/Well Liquor
THURSDAY
$2.00 Absolute Moscow Mules in the Copper Mug Long Islands & 40¢ Boneless Wings
FRIDAY
LENTEN FISH FRY – Featuring –
LAKE ERIE YELLOW PERCH
$2 - 3 Olives
During CAVS Games
- SUNDAY -
KARAOKE RETURNS! Week “Roman Numeral 2” 9pm-1am
Join Us for a “Star Making” (Not) Evening Last Week Was Awesome & Packed!! $2 Domestics• $2 Well • $2 Fireball •Three Olives
WEDNESDAY
$2 “You Choose” Including Domestic, Imported & Craft Bottles
Stolis • Morgan • Fireball • 3-Olives Tito’s • Absolute • Cuervo • Bacardi UV Blue • Tanqueray • Skyy & MUCH MUCH More!!
SATURDAY BREAKFAST & LUNCH @ 11am
SUNDAY
Gourmet Ala Carte Brunch 10am
Featuring:
Featuring
America’s Very First & Original Create Your Own Bloody Mary Bar
“Mega” Mimosas
With FRESH FLOWERS $2 Fireball • Domestics • Well Drinks
New HAPPY HOUR Specials! Monday - Friday: 1pm - 7pm
ALL DRAFT CRAFT BEERS $2 CAV’S GAME DAY SPECIAL! •$2 Three Olives •$2 Domestic Beers & Well Drinks
We Have Wi-Fi | visit us at westendtav.com | Like us on
18514 DETROIT AVE | LAKEWOOD | 2165217684 48
et h Capello
By Emanuel Wallace MEET THE BAND: Casey Veggies (vocals)
Sunday February 21
9PM-1AM
ANY Burger or Sandwich
CASEY VEGGIES
Saturday February 20
Friday February 19
MONDAY
BAND OF THE WEEK
Photo by Kenn
b a r k i n g s p i d e r t a ve r n . c o m
LIVE MUSIC
NO COVER
HAVE A PICNIC, RELAX & ENJOY
| clevescene.com | February 17 - 23, 2016
PLANTING THE SEEDS: Rapper Casey Veggies was once a shooting guard for his high school basketball team. He began making songs for fun and posting them to his Myspace page. He soon started taking his talent more seriously and released the mixtape Greatly Customized Vol. 1. Veggies would go on to become one of the founding members of the popular hip-hop collective Odd Future, a group fronted by the popular Tyler, the Creator. Veggies had an amicable split with the group after he graduated high school, stating that he had a different vision for what he wanted to do with his career. HARVESTING THE CROPS: As he’s moved forward, Veggies has often found himself working alongside some of the bigger names in hip-hop, including Mac Miller, Kendrick Lamar and Dom Kennedy to name a few. “Getting to meet Jay Z [was one of the highlights],” he says. “I got to chill with him and play some tracks. That was pretty dope.” In addition to Jay Z, Veggies cites Kanye West and Q-tip the Abstract from A Tribe Called Quest as his biggest influences. After his 2013 mixtape Life Changes, Veggies inked a deal with Vested In Culture and Epic Records. He released his first album, Live & Grow, in September of last year; it features appearances from the likes of Dom Kennedy, Dej Loaf, YG, BJ the Chicago Kid, Tyler, the Creator — and even Veggies’ parents. “They’ve had a big influence on me as both an artist and a person,” Veggies says. “They’ve always
encouraged me to just be who I am and I’ve always done that.”
WHY YOU SHOULD HEAR HIM: For such a young artist, there’s a duality about Casey Veggies that comes across in his music. On his latest album, there are tracks like “I’m Blessed” and “Sincerely Casey” with the former being an ode to the many people who’ve helped Veggies become a success and the latter being a heartfelt dedication to his mother. On the other side of the coin, tunes like “Backflip,” “Tied Up” and “Aw Man” are ones that can get the crowd moving. “I think it’s just about me expressing myself the way I want to,” Veggies says. Never one to rest on his own laurels, Veggies remains busy. “I’m working on the new album and some new pieces from my clothing line, Peas & Carrots. Just working on creating the Casey Veggies sound.” WHERE YOU CAN HEAR HIM: caseyveggies.com WHERE YOU CAN SEE HIM: Casey Veggies performs at 7 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 19, at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.
scene@clevescene.com t@cleveland_scene
$1 pints $5 mules HAPPY HOUR
till 8p
m DAI
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• BIG BALL BOWLING • BILLIARDS • SHUFFLE PUCK • GOLDEN TEE • POWER PUTT • NBA JAM
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FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 19
OLD SKOOL
“Coolest local live band venue I’ve seen in a long time” - Slash
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 20
| clevescene.com | February 17 - 23, 2016
49
THE MOTHER OF ALL MARDI GRAS PARTIES STARTING AT 7:00PM
SUN., FEB 21 IN ELYRIA 348 BROAD ST. ELYRIA HOURS
Monday-Saturday 3:00pm-2:30am Sunday 7:00pm-2:30am (440) 323-5967
ST THE BEE LIV S! BAND
BOOK YOUR PARTY OR FUNDRAISER
HOT BABES COLD BEER HOT FOOD MARDI GRAS STYLE!
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PIZZA • SALADS • CALZONES SPECIALTY MAC & CHEESE STONE PIES
50
| clevescene.com | February 17 - 23, 2016
OFF ONE FREE ANY10% DVD, GAME OR VHS
ADULT MOVIE RENTAL with 2 or more paid. Expires 2/27/16
purchase of $25 or more. Expires 2/27/16
Check out our second location
Club 1245
1245 E. Tallmadge Ave. Akron, OH 44310 Mon-Sat 4pm - 2:30am. | Closed Sundays
2 Domestics $ 00
mon-sat 2-8pm open sundays @ 7pm
no Cover!
Full Kitchen open Daily
Great FooD! saturday 3-9pm
$5.99 steak Dinner 2 Drink Minimum • Dine In only
Join Your Favorite entertainer in our
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12820 brookpark rd. @ w. 130th | 216-458-1131 open: mon-sat 2:00Pm-2:30am | sUnDaY 7:00Pm - 2:30am | clevescene.com | February 17 - 23, 2016
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| clevescene.com | February 17 - 23, 2016
SAVAGE LOVE THE PAST IS NEVER DEAD By Dan Savage Dear Dan, My new girlfriend blurted out that she had a cuckolding past with her exhusband. She says her ex badgered her into arranging “dates” with strangers and that he picked the guys. Her ex would then watch her having sex with a guy in a hotel room. The ex only watched and didn’t take part. I am really bothered by her past. She says she did it only because her ex pressured her into it and she wanted to save her marriage, so she agreed. But I suspect she may have enjoyed it and may have been testing me to see if I wanted to be a cuck. What should I do? I am really torn by my feelings toward her. Confused In NOVA You suspect she may have enjoyed fucking those other men? I hope she enjoyed fucking those other men — and you should too, CINOVA. Because even if cuckolding wasn’t her fantasy, even if she fucked those other men only to delight her shitty exhusband, anyone who cares about this woman — and you do care about her, right? — should hope the experiences she had with those other men weren’t overwhelmingly negative, completely traumatizing, or utterly joyless. And, yes, people will sometimes broach the subject of their own sexual interests/fantasies using the passive voice or a negative frame because they’re afraid of rejection or they want an easy out or both. (“My ex was into this kinda extreme thing, and I did it because I felt I had to.” “That’s gross.” “Yeah, I totally hated it.”) But cuckolding is almost always the husband’s fantasy — it’s rare for the wife to initiate cuckolding scenes/relationships — so odds are good that your girlfriend is telling the truth. As for whether she’s testing you: That’s a pretty easy test to fail, CINOVA. Open your mouth and say, “Cuckolding isn’t something I would ever want to do. The thought of you with another man isn’t a turn-on for me. Not at all.” It’s an easy F. What should you do? If you can’t let this go, if you can’t get over the sex your girlfriend had with her ex-husband and those other men, if you can’t hope she had a good time regardless of whose idea it was, if you can’t take “I’m not interested in cuckolding you!” for an answer — if you can’t do all of that — then do your girlfriend a favor and break up with her. She just got out from under a shitty husband who pressured her into
“cheating.” The last thing she needs now is a shitty boyfriend who shames her for “cheating.”
Dear Dan, My husband is Native American. I’m white. We’ve been together 16 years. We love each other very much, so this isn’t a deal breaker. I’ve got a thing for his long black hair. He’s a drop-dead gorgeous man, and while I gave up asking that he wear leggings or a breechcloth once in a while, I wish he would grow out his hair. I’m willing to wear (and do) anything he asks. He’s somewhere to the left of Sherman Alexie when it comes to this stuff, but could you tell me why I’m so wrong? A long time ago, he participated in a sun dance, and he looked incredible. So I guess that makes me a blasphemous pervert, but really? Is asking for a couple of braids really so wrong? Whitey McWhite Wife I forwarded your e-mail to Sherman Alexie, the award-winning poet, novelist, essayist, and filmmaker. Your question must have touched a nerve, WMW, because Alexie’s response arrived while my computer was still making that woooosh-sending-e-mail sound. Now I’m going to step aside and let Alexie answer your question … “What does ‘to the left of Sherman Alexie’ mean in this context? I doubt there are very many Native dudes more leftist than me! And long hair on Indian men is more conservative and more tribal, anyway — more ceremonial. More of a peacock thing, really. And a lot of work! My Native wife certainly misses my long hair. But I don’t miss the upkeep and I don’t miss answering questions about my hair. I mean, I cut my hair 13 years ago, and some people still ask me about it! Thirteen years! Also, Native men tend to cut their hair as they age. Long hair is generally a young Indian man’s gig, culturally speaking. “I would venture that Native dude is tired of being romanticized, ethnocized, objectified. We Indians get enough of that shit in the outside world. Maybe this dude doesn’t want that in bed. Or maybe he just likes the way he looks with shorter hair. Maybe this Indian dude is just sick of all the sociopolitical shit that comes with long hair. Maybe it kills his boner. Talking about it has certainly killed my boner.”
Find your happy hour. Download SCENE’s official happy hour app! clevescene.com/happyhours
REAL PEOPLE REAL DESIRE REAL FUN.
Try FREE: 216-377-6292
More Local Numbers: 1-800-926-6000
Ahora español Livelinks.com 18+ | clevescene.com | February 17 - 23, 2016
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| clevescene.com | February 17 - 23, 2016
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| clevescene.com | February 17 - 23, 2016
55
Get fit. Get paid. For part-time Package Handlers at FedEx Ground and Home Delivery, it’s like a paid workout. The work’s demanding, but the rewards are big. Come join our team, get a weekly paycheck, tuition assistance and break a sweat with the nation’s package delivery leader.
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Check out www.necare.org Vintage Building with all the Modern Amenities. The McKenzie Apts. have been completely renovated while maintaining it’s classic architecture. The suites feature new kitchens w/dishwasher, new bathrooms, new mini blinds, lighting, ceiling fans & double pane vinyl windows. Walking distance to everything: grocery, café, restaurants, public transportation, parks, banks, etc. These are a Must See!
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820 West Superior Avenue, Suite 100 Cleveland, Ohio 44113
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440.342.7355 (SELL) To Buy...or Sell
Call Grizzell *Some restrictions may apply *for those who qualify... we consider...
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