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MARCH 21-27, 2018 • VOLUME 48 NO 38 Dedicated to Free Times founder Richard H. Siegel (1935-1993) and Scene founder Richard Kabat Group Publisher Chris Keating

CONTENTS

Publisher Andrew Zelman

Upfront

Associate Publisher Angela Nagal Editor Vince Grzegorek

5

An odd battle against AirBnb, and more

Editorial Music Editor Jeff Niesel Senior Writer Sam Allard Staff Writer Brett Zelman Web Editor Laura Morrison Dining Editor Douglas Trattner Stage Editor Christine Howey Visual Arts Writers Dott von Schneider Copy Editor Elaine Cicora Interns Michael Wu, Matt Poshedley

Feature

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How Goodyear hid evidence of “the worst tire ever made,� tied to at least 9 deaths

Advertising Senior Multimedia Account Executive John Crobar, Shayne Rose Multimedia Account Executive Kiara Davis

Get Out!

Creative Services Production Manager Steve Miluch Staff Photographer Emanuel Wallace

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All the best things to do in Cleveland this week

Business Sales Assistant/Receptionist Megan Stimac Controller Kristy Dotson

Art

Circulation Circulation Director Don Kriss Euclid Media Group Chief Executive OfďŹ cer Andrew Zelman Chief Operating OfďŹ cers Chris Keating, Michael Wagner VP Digital Services Stacy Volhein Digital Operations Coordinator Jaime Monzon

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National Advertising Voice Media Group 1-800-278-9866, vmgadvertising.com

25

A lackluster performance of a Sam Shephard work at None Too Fragile

Cleveland Scene 737 Bolivar Rd, #4100 Cleveland, OH 44115 www.clevescene.com Phone 216-241-7550 Retail & ClassiďŹ ed Fax 216-241-6275 Editoral Fax 216-802-7212 E-mail scene@clevescene.com

Film

27

The remarkable story of renowned violinist Itzhak Perlman

Cleveland Scene Magazine is published every week by Euclid Media Group.

Eat

VeriďŹ ed Audit Member

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Cleveland Distribution Scene is available free of charge, limited to one copy per reader

A ďŹ rst look at a Landmark, plus BBQ coming to Ohio City

Copyright The entire contents of Cleveland Scene Magazine are copyright 2018 by Euclid Media Group. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher is prohibited. Publisher does not assume any liability for unsolicited manuscripts, materials, or other content. Any submission must include a stamped, self-addressed envelope. All editorial, advertising, and business correspondence should be mailed to the address listed above.

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...The story continues at clevescene.com

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Kent Archie celebrates his return to Cleveland, and all the shows to catch this week

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Art exhibitions

UPFRONT LAKEWOOD MIGHT REMOVE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE FROM LIST OF NUISANCE ACTIVITIES UNDER CITY LAW LAKEWOOD CITY councilman Dan O’Malley introduced an ordinance at Monday’s city council meeting that would eliminate domestic violence from the list of qualified nuisance activities in the city. If passed, it would strip a particularly troubling aspect of a generally troubling law.

Twenty-one Northeast Ohio cities have Criminal Activity Nuisance Ordinances on their books. They are, by defi nition and practice, pretty broad, which means that with every intention of, say, shutting down a drug house, they also became a magnet for thinly veiled racism, as well as a tool cities can use to force out renters and those with subsidized housing vouchers. Lakewood is currently one of five cities that includes domestic violence in their CANOs. Domestic violence is already an underreported crime, and the possibility of losing housing or being fi ned creates an additional reason for victims to not call 911. For those that do call 911 to report domestic violence in Lakewood, it counts as a nuisance activity, logged by the city’s law department, which can lead to fi nes and evictions.

As for the timing of the proposed ordinance, O’Malley says conversations stemming from a recent report from Cleveland State University, a vital and troubling study that found nuisance laws unduly punish victims of domestic violence, minorities, renters, and those struggling with mental illness and drug addiction, were a driving force.

“A few months ago there was a string of publicity around our law and its inclusion of domestic violence as a nuisance activity,” he says. “While those cases are complicated, I still felt a potential victim could come away believing they might have to choose between seeking protection and avoiding eviction. I would never want to put someone in that position. It makes sense to do

Airbnb screenshot.

away with this part of the law. I am also proposing we eliminate menacing and stalking from the list of nuisance activities as well.”

Marissa Pappas, one of the study’s authors, notes Lakewood would be the eighth city in Cuyahoga County to remove domestic violence from its CANO since 2016.

O’Malley says Lakewood mayor Mike Summers has voiced his support. Once introduced, the ordinance was referred to council’s Public Safety Committee for further consideration.

As for the rest of the city’s current nuisance ordinance, O’Malley says that it may be time to explore how else it could be changed to protect innocent victims.

“I wouldn’t support doing away with the nuisance law altogether,” he says. “It has proven worthwhile in many areas. But this may be a good time to take up a review of the law to see where else we may be able to improve.” — Vince Grzegorek

Councilman Proposes Short-term Rental (Airbnb) Moratorium to Push for Regulations Cleveland councilman Anthony Brancatelli, who represents Slavic Village, has proposed legislation that would ban all short-term rentals in Cleveland. The legislation would include all Airbnb rentals, which reportedly generated $4.1 million for roughly 1,000 local hosts in 2017.

Brancatelli has said that he would prefer not to have a full moratorium on these rentals — he likes them! — but that proposing dramatic legislation like this is the best way to get companies like Airbnb to the negotiating table.

The proposed legislation hit the books in February. Brancatelli cited a property in his ward about which neighbors had been complaining.

There seemed to have been some late-night comings and goings.

This is presumably one of many local properties that non-resident investors have purchased and now use for short-term rentals.

This arrangement is technically

illegal in Cleveland. But as long as there aren’t issues, that law goes unenforced. Even when a building and housing inspector visited the nuisance property in Slavic Village, he didn’t detect a problem.

That doesn’t cut the mustard for Brancatelli. He thinks a proposed moratorium may force the hand of private rental companies like Airbnb.

“We need the companies to ban hosts who break the City Law,” he wrote Scene in an email. “So this is a way to get the Limited Lodging Companies [like Airbnb] to the table and this is the most effective way to get them here.”

There will be a hearing scheduled soon, but for now, the legislation is still under review in the city’s law department. — Sam Allard

Cleveland Councilman Kevin Conwell, Victim of Racial Profiling Cleveland city councilman Kevin Conwell was stopped by Case Western Reserve University police | clevescene.com | March 21 - 27, 2018

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Photo by Sam Allard

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last Friday on a daily walk through campus, near his home in Ward 9.

A caller had alerted police dispatch that a black man with missing teeth was mumbling on a street corner near the Weatherhead School of Management.

The ofďŹ cers told Conwell he was free to go after he said who he was.

Conwell told multiple media outlets after the incident that he believed he was the victim of racial proďŹ ling — he had been stopped for “walking while blackâ€? — and he wondered what might have happened if he didn’t immediately identify himself as a Cleveland city councilman. “If I can’t walk through my own neighborhood, I’m sure they’re stopping my residents,â€? he said.

University president Barb Snyder apologized for the incident, and said that while the campus police had already been trained in “the tenets of community policing,� the university would provide additional education over the next few weeks.

Police chief Jay Hodge, for his part, said police were reviewing the incident and would reinforce community policing best practices.

He said that Conwell’s tan coat and blue hat matched the color descriptions provided by the caller.

Conwell was in D.C. much of last week with the National League of Cities, but he said he planned to meet with CWRU’s campus police chief Friday.

Just as troubling as the police stop — which involved multiple

ofďŹ cers — was the call that led to it. The caller, who sounded like a female student, called dispatch because a man was standing on the corner and “mumbling.â€? “I don’t know if he was necessarily suspicious ...â€? the caller said. “He was just on the street corner and I don’t think he’s necessarily a part of campus.â€?

Students shouldn’t be fearful of taking proactive measures if and when they feel threatened, but the caller never said that she felt unsafe or that she was being pursued. In fact, it’s unclear to what extent the caller even interacted with the man. At ďŹ rst, she said the man was mumbling to himself. But when the dispatcher asked if he said anything to the caller, she said yes, “but I have no idea what it was.

He was missing some teeth and I was just, like, not sure what he was saying.�

The possibilities are many: Perhaps he was a panhandler, as Cleveland.com surmised. Perhaps he was a mentally handicapped man talking to himself. Perhaps he really was councilman Kevin Conwell, offering a friendly greeting that was misinterpreted or misheard. Perhaps he was a predator.

And while hammering community policing tenets into the campus police force is absolutely advisable, it also might not hurt to reinforce (or teach?) some basic sensitivity to the student population. — Allard

Ed FitzGerald is Being Hired to Do a Bunch of Things He’s Historically Been Really Bad At Ed FitzGerald, the former and first Cuyahoga County Executive whose tenure ended in a string of minor scandals and a disastrous gubernatorial run against John Kasich, has kept a few irons in the fire since departing from public office. Back in 2015 he formed a nonprofit to explore creating an annual festival, a reboot of sorts of the Great Lakes Exposition, an idea he first floated early in his time as county exec. He later joined a Chicago-based consulting firm called Placevalue.

More recently, FitzGerald emerged again in the Cleveland public eye, to guffaws and unmistakable notes of irony. Mark Naymik reported a couple of weeks ago that Middleburg Heights mayor Gary Starr appointed Fitzgerald as one of the part-time magistrates for the city’s mayor’s court. In that capacity, FitzGerald, who notably didn’t have a valid driver’s license for 10 years, would be ruling on cases involving people who drive on lapsed licenses.

The trend of FitzGerald nabbing jobs for which he seems personally unsuited given his track record continued with this week’s news that the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party has hired FitzGerald and his firm, Democracy Advisors, to be the party’s fundraiser.

“The party has been trying to beef up its wallet for some time. It needs money for party operations and its get-out-the-vote efforts, especially in this year’s key elections. (Shontel Brown, who was elected in August as chairwoman of the county party, told me during a January interview that she hopes the party will someday have enough money to even pay its chair person),” Naymik reported last week. “Cleveland City Council President Kevin Kelley, who is the party’s executive vice chairman, said FitzGerald’s firm made the best presentation by far.

‘It was very impressive,’ said Kelley, who previously used the firm to help raise money for Cleveland City Council candidates.”

FitzGerald, we all know now, faired terribly in his run for governor — thanks to the driver’s license revelations, the whole being caught with a woman who was not his wife in a car in a suburb at 2 a.m., and news that his initial selection for Lt. Governor owed almost a million dollars in unpaid back taxes. Fundraising troubles, independent of and tied to those incidents, also played a big role.

Kasich’s collections outpaced FitzGerald’s at a 5 to 1 rate while the candidate haughtily dismissed his low-dollar performance, saying, “I don’t beg, ever.”

Fitz probably has a different

DIGIT WIDGET 227,304 Number of extremely low-income Ohio households (those living either at or below the poverty line) that can’t find affordable housing, according to a new report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

8.6 Percent of rape cases in Cleveland in 2016 that were solved, according to data from the FBI. Cleveland was only one of four cities with the most reported rapes that year to have a singledigit clearance rate. Cities such as Washington D.C., Dallas and Philadelphia solved more than half their cases.

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$10.8 MILLION Estimated yearly cost to Cuyahoga County for case management under Ohio’s proposed Medicaid work requirement provision, according to a study from the Center for Community Solutions.

The total amongst all local governments statewide clocks in at $380 million.

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UPFRONT opinion now, of course. The question is whether he can actually fill the party’s coffers better than he filled his own campaign’s.

If this hiring trend continues, by the way, expect Westlake to name FitzGerald as its newest curfew enforcement officer any day now.

—Grzegorek

Poor Communication? The Saga of a Dayton Legislator and His Position on Guns After the Parkland shooting, the policy solution advanced by the most hogtied australopithecines within the Gun-God-Business Party’s Gun wing was — go figure — more guns.

Arming teachers, in fact.

The “whole point” of that garbage proposal, according to one analyst, was merely to “deflect and delay.” It was an unserious, offensive idea (that nevertheless gained the support of an unserious, offensive Commander-in-Chief) whose purpose was the equivalent

of “thoughts and prayers.”

“If they can make the conversation about arming teachers last a week or two,” wrote Dave Karpf, (in a Tweet thread reprinted by Vox), “then they can duck the conversation about their indefensible positions [defending the gun show loophole, opposing an assault weapons ban]. And then some other tragedy will probably happen. (Deporting the DREAMers, global war, etc.)”

But like good whoopee cushions, a legion of right-wing lawmaker goons answered the call of their overlords and began fiendishly embracing-slash-promoting the “Arm Teachers” nonsense. Teachers and students gazed with bafflement at these buttheads as the tears were still drying on their cheeks.

But the idea, like other bad ideas pushed by moneyed interests, managed to pick up steam. And as it was doing so, an armed teacher was taken into custody in Georgia, instantly validating the concerns of those opposed to the proposal. (No students were injured in that incident.) Many horrified Americans with a sardonic edge had some version of the following reaction: “@ashleyfeinberg: it appears that

the only way to solve this is to arm the children” That’s right. Arming the students was the only possible solution left.

The parents had been armed. The “resource officers” had been armed.

The teachers were being armed, (and were predictably beginning to misfire). Only the students remained.

State Rep. Niraj Antani, a Gun-God-Business nut from Miamisburg, down near Dayton, actually believes this to be the case. He thinks that all god-fearing, responsible gun owners who are at least 18 years of age ought to be able to bring their “long guns” to school.

It pains the mind — but the soul, most of all — to envision scenarios by which this policy preference would lead to catastrophe. “Are you here to kill your classmates?” teachers would presumably have to inquire in this idealized learning environment dreamed up by Ohio Buckeye Firearms Associationhomeslice Niraj Antani. “Or are you a responsible gun owner toting your AR-15, just cuz?”

Antani made headlines last week for a Twitter exchange on the subject he had with his opponent.

“Students deserve a chance to

stand their ground and defends themselves,” Antani tweeted, in response to his challenger Zach Dickerson’s request that he renounce his support for HB233.

HB233 would allow a concealed handgun licensee or military member to carry a deadly weapon into a gun-free zone, and avoid punishment, so long as the person leaves upon request and doesn’t return with the weapon within 30 days. In other words, it would make ‘gun free zones’ — schools and churches chief among them — no longer gun free. Antani is a cosponsor.

In followup comments, Antani has called the headlines and stories written about this stuff “clickbait.” Karen Kasler, from the Ohio Public Radio Statehouse News Bureau, even mentioned on WCPN’s Reporters Roundtable Friday that she’d spoken with Antani, and he told her it’s not like he intended to propose new legislation. This is just how he feels.

On social and in traditional media, he has argued that his comments were being misinterpreted because of “cultural differences.”

“You go out to Valley View, in my district, you go shooting against a

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Antani told the Dayton Daily News. “Of course, in inner-city Dayton Public it would be a big deal, but there is a cultural difference ‌ In rural America, there is a culture of carrying ďŹ rearms safely. In any urban area, such as Dayton Public, there is not. In Dayton, unfortunately, there is a lot of gang violence, and ďŹ rearms are used improperly.â€?

Later Friday, after the story had been picked up by regional and national outlets, Antani released a statement saying he’d done a “poor job communicating his position� on guns. — Allard

For Every White Baby Who Died in Cuyahoga County in 2017, More Than Six Black Babies Died Incomplete data on Cuyahoga County’s infant deaths in 2017 paint — once again — a grim picture. While the overall rate of infant mortality fell by 8 percent last year, the racial gap widened signiďŹ cantly. The rate of white infant deaths declined by 45 percent, but the rate of black infant deaths increased. “The improvement for white babies has widened an already shocking gap in the odds of survival for the county’s smallest residents,â€? wrote the Plain Dealer’s Brie Zeltner, in her account of the data after a First Year Cleveland meeting last week. “For every white baby that died before reaching a ďŹ rst birthday in Cuyahoga County last year, more than six black babies died, nearly double the gap in previous years.â€?

Last year, when black babies were thought to be dying at only three times the rate of their white counterparts, Christin Farmer, who founded the nonproďŹ t Birthing Beautiful Communities, said, “I don’t know if you want to use the

term ‘appalling’ or just ‘ridiculous.’�

Now, black babies are dying at six times the rate of white babies.

The First Year Cleveland folks seem appropriately shook by this trend. Director Bernadette Kerrigan said she and her staff “[would] not sleep at night� until the disparity is addressed.

Addressing racial disparities in infant mortality, after all, has been a key part of First Year Cleveland’s mission from the beginning, awkwardly appended to its mission statement: “First Year Cleveland is mobilizing the community through partnerships and a uniďŹ ed strategy to reduce infant deaths including racial disparitiesâ€? [sic].

In the ďŹ rst year of First Year Cleveland’s three-year strategic plan (2017-2020), the stated goal on the racial disparities front was to “focus on gauging a better understanding of the roles that race and maternal stress play in infant deaths.â€? The goal for Year 3: “Advance R&D efforts to better understand issues impacting high rates of African American infant deaths and work to ensure that the issue of race is never overlooked in either policy or distribution of funds.â€?

New funds are forthcoming.

The Ohio Department of Health announced that it would be contributing $600,000 in federal funds to Cuyahoga County’s Help Me Grow partners and MetroHealth’s Nurse Family Partnership. The money is intended to increase home visiting services available for pregnant women.

But something Christin Farmer told Scene last year now rings truer than ever. “In the black community, we often have to resort to our own organizations and circles, so that we can ensure that we get the care that we’re most comfortable with,� she said. — Allard

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FEATURE HOW GOODYEAR HID EVIDENCE OF ‘THE WORST TIRE MADE IN HISTORY,’ LINKED TO AT LEAST 9 DEATHS

By Ryan Felton Illustration by Eric Millikin

This article fi rst appeared on Jalopnik.com ; it’s republished here with permission.

IN OCTOBER 2003, BILLY Wayne Woods and his family packed into a luxury $181,000 motorhome for a fun getaway to Florida. Call it a textbook American vacation: Their destination was Disney World, and with his wife, Shirley, his son and daughter-in law and two grandchildren in tow, Woods’ trip would surely be one to remember. But on the return home for the Alabama family, the vacation took an abrupt turn for disaster.

Somewhere along I-75 in Georgia, the treads came off the left front Goodyear tire of their Monaco Coach RV. Woods tried to keep the RV under control, according to a lawsuit fi led by his family, but it crossed over the median and slammed into an embankment. The nearly 40-foot-long vehicle then hit a direction sign, slid across the entranceway for a rest area, and struck a second embankment, before fi nally coming to a stop.

Both Woods’ wife and his daughter-in-law suffered broken backs; his son, a broken hip. His two grandchildren were uninjured, but the crash left Woods paralyzed.

Several months later, he died as a result of complications from his injuries, according to the family’s lawyer.

“The underlying story is what tragedies are made of,” said Rick Morrison, an attorney who represented the Woods family in the lawsuit — just one lawsuit of many in a decades-long web of cases that accuse Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. of aggressively covering up a deadly defect that’s responsible for at least nine deaths.

The tire that burst was a Goodyear G159. It was a tire that was designed for lower-speed delivery vehicles and, according to the suits, shouldn’t have been equipped on RVs at all, a tire that lawyers and victims say is responsible for scores of crashes over the past two decades.

It should have been recalled or fi xed, they say, but it never was, thanks to an exhaustive legal campaign by Goodyear that kept plaintiffs from knowing the details of just how bad the G159 really was.

In a lawsuit fi led later against Goodyear, the Woods family accused the company of selling a defective tire that had been marketed to recreational motorhome makers, even though it knew the G159 couldn’t handle highway speeds when equipped on an RV. The Woods’ case is just one of at least 41 lawsuits fi led over the

past two decades against the tire company that pertain to the G159.

The suits — nearly all of which were eventually settled — accuse the company of selling a tire to RV manufacturers that, based on Goodyear’s own internal data and experts, wasn’t suitable for motorhomes. (The manufacturers, it later turned out, were seemingly as clueless about the risks of the tires as customers.)

The tire was designed “specifically” for regional delivery vehicles that, company records disclosed in court show, should

travel no more than 65 mph. But Goodyear made at least 40,000 that were installed on motorhomes produced between 1996 and 2003.

When equipped on motorhomes — commonly used for travel on highways at speeds well above 65 mph — the tires were prone to heatinduced failure, the lawsuits allege, and as early as 1999, RV owners across the U.S. reported accidents due to tread separations and blowouts with G159 tires.

An investigation by Jalopnik found at least nine deaths and 34 injuries are linked to crashes | clevescene.com | March 21 - 27, 2018

11

FEATURE involving the G159 from 2002 to 2009. Those numbers are almost certainly higher in reality: In court, Goodyear admitted it has received at least 98 injury and/or death claims over the tire.

Jalopnik reviewed hundreds of state and federal court fi lings and tabulated for the fi rst time the number of known fatalities linked to G159 blowouts and tread separations. Goodyear’s extensive history with the tire has never received attention from mainstream news outlets, outside of a story by the Arizona Republic in 2015.

Despite the accidents and the litany of lawsuits — including one that eventually went up to the U.S. Supreme Court — the G159 was made until 2003, when Goodyear stopped production of the tire. Some deaths and injuries weren’t even reported to federal safety officials, and no recall has ever been ordered.

Part of that has to do with Goodyear’s aggressive effort to settle cases, handled by company attorneys who withheld crucial data from plaintiffs, according to

a federal judge’s ruling. In each case, judges signed off on protective orders that allowed Goodyear to designate crucial documents, testimony and internal data as “confidential,” and the decisions meant victims of G159 tire failures couldn’t disclose any of that information to other victims with similar claims or regulators.

And by getting settlements, complaints and claim data sealed, America’s auto safety regulator says it was prevented from launching an investigation that could’ve prompted a recall — until now.

In a fi ling posted Jan. 1, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it was examining whether the G159 failed because it was put to use on a motorhome, which it was never designed to do.

The agency added that data “produced in litigation was sealed under protective orders and confidential settlement agreements, precluding claimants from submitting it to NHTSA.” The probe covers about 40,000 tires from 1996

to 2003, which is estimated to be the total number of G159s installed on motorhomes. About 160,000 G159 tires were made during that time period, court records show. (A spokesperson for NHTSA said “the agency doesn’t comment on open investigations.”)

Taken together, the lawsuits and court fi lings lay out an effort by Goodyear that allowed the company to keep a lid on evidence for nearly 20 years of the tire’s deadly misuse.

Goodyear knew the strategy, one suit alleged, “would cause future deaths and injuries from G159 tread separations.”

Goodyear declined to respond to a list of questions sent by Jalopnik and didn’t make someone available for an interview.

“The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has opened a Preliminary Evaluation concerning G159 tires produced between 1996-2003 and used on Class A motorhomes,” Goodyear said in a statement.

“The Preliminary Evaluation was opened to look at data released

to NHTSA under a Court Order issued in pending litigation.

Goodyear will cooperate fully with NHTSA in its investigation, but we cannot comment further due to the pending litigation.”

In court fi lings, Goodyear denies there was any problem with using the G159 on motorhomes, and the company downplays the significance of its own records and experts in court that points to a serious risk with using the tires on RVs. It’s not an issue of heat, Goodyear counters, it’s user error — defl ated tires, an RV that’s overloaded, hitting road debris.

“A lot of times people didn’t maintain them with enough infl ation pressure,” a Goodyear spokesperson said of the G159 back in 2007. The company recently argued that “no fi nding of a public safety risk” over the tire “has even been made, in this or any other court” and that it’s up to NHTSA, now with the necessary documents in hand, to make that determination.

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13

Photo courtesy David Kurtz

FEATURE products from some of the biggest auto scandals in history, the G159’s failure rate is astonishing and “unheard of for consumer products,” as one court fi ling put it. It even eclipses the defective Firestone tires that ensnared Ford in a nationwide scandal some 20 years ago.

Court fi lings suggest the G159’s failure rate is anywhere from 10 to 27 times worse than the Firestone tires deemed defective

by NHTSA. (Goodyear employees themselves said in depositions that they can’t identify “any” tire made by the company that comes close to the failure rate of the G159 described in court.)

In a Jan. 8 court fi ling, David Kurtz, an attorney who’s embroiled in an ongoing legal battle with Goodyear over the tire, estimated its reported rate “means that 1 out of 10 motorhomes using the G159 experienced a failure resulting in a claim for property damage, injury or death.”

“You cannot debate the defective nature of the G159,” Kurtz told Jalopnik . “There’s nothing to discuss.” His opinion’s clear: “I believe it to be the worst tire made in history.”

Federal complaints fi led on the G159 show drivers have reported experiencing blowouts as far back as 1999. A motorist directly told Goodyear in 2001 about the safety of the tires, after two G159s on their Winnebago fell apart, including one that had only been used for 5,000 miles. The G159’s initial tread life is designed to last at least 60,000 miles, records show.

“I feel fortunate that the fi rst two failures occurred on a rear dual position,” the driver wrote in the letter to Goodyear that was forwarded to NHTSA, “if the same failure should occur on a front tire, a total loss of control would be a concern.”

Two years later, that’s what happened to the Haeger family. And if you’re wondering why NHTSA has taken nearly 20 years to investigate the safety of the G159, their case is a helpful starting point.

In June 2003, the Haegers were traveling in the family’s 38-foot motorhome along Interstate 25 in New Mexico at posted highway speeds when, suddenly, the right front tire blew out.

14

The crash scene involving the Haeger family, whose RV had Goodyear G159 tires.

At the wheel was 70-year-old LeRoy Haeger, who was unable to control the vehicle. The RV swerved to the right, off the freeway, over an embankment, before skidding along on its side and coming to a stop.

In the back of the motorhome were Donna and Suzanne Haeger.

Both ended up buried under debris, unable to escape, according to the Haeger complaint. Donna Haeger had multiple fractures — wrist, jaw, ankle, toes — and spent two months homebound in a wheel chair with her jaw wired shut. She suffered permanent facial nerve damage and has trouble eating.

Suzanne Haeger suffered head trauma and lost 60 percent of her left arm’s function, the suit said. The family’s Great Dane flew through the windshield, but ended up with only minor injuries.

(The Haegers aren’t open to being interviewed by reporters, Kurtz said.)

According to the complaint,

| clevescene.com | March 21 - 27, 2018

LeRoy Haeger was trapped between the steering wheel and the seat, and his right leg nearly torn apart below the knee. He also suffered a dislocated elbow and abdominal injuries. After 17 surgeries, he still dealt with chronic pain; in 2008, he passed away from cancer.

Kurtz represented the family in a 2005 lawsuit fi led against Goodyear, the start of a legal battle that has lasted more than a decade and has expanded in ways the attorney couldn’t have imagined at fi rst.

“It’s the most outrageous piece of corporate misconduct I’ve seen in 35 years,” Kurtz told Jalopnik .

In response to the Haeger suit, Goodyear contended that Leroy Haeger was to blame for slamming on the vehicle’s brakes after the tire blew. Similar to other publicly known G159 cases, the company has said the issue with the tire had to do with overloading motorhomes, under-infl ation, or simply driver

error.

Kurtz requested safety tests on the tire from the outset of the case, but Goodyear lawyers vehemently objected by claiming the inquiries were too broad, until the judge in the case ordered it to respond. Court records show the tires were designed to handle a sustained temperature of 194 degrees F when traveling at highway speeds between 65 and 75 mph. In excess of 200 degrees, the tire ran the risk of tread separations.

But years into the case, Kurtz still hadn’t received test data to show the G159 reached more than 200 degrees when used at highway speeds. Goodyear only turned over some data, but not the highway speed data that he requested, Kurtz said.

Without any evidence otherwise, the family accepted a confidential settlement in 2010. “These guys, their whole mantra is to wear you

out financially,” Kurtz said. “That is their game. They will outlast you.”

At the time the case was filed, tire failures were being frequently cited in RV lawsuits, including the G159. Goodyear said it was a sound product.

“We never really had a problem with that tire,” Dave Wilkins, then-spokesperson for Goodyear, told Lawyers Weekly USA in 2007.

“Most of the situations that came up were application problems. They were put on RVs, but [the RVs] were overloaded,” or owners didn’t inflate them properly.

But Robert Ammons, an attorney representing a plaintiff in a tire case unrelated to the G159, said RVs present a risk because they’re infrequently used, meaning the tires are older.

“The tire will pass inspection because the tread depth is fine, but it’s being run during the summer during high ambient temperatures,” Ammons told Lawyers Weekly USA .

“It may be five or six years old, and it’s not really designed for the application for which it’s being used. He added, “Those factors combined are simply a recipe for disaster.”

But after the Haeger settlement, Kurtz learned there was indeed more to his theory that Goodyear knew the G159s should have never been used on RVs in the first place.

One day in 2010, he came across a blog post that highlighted a similar case out of Florida involving the Goodyear tire in question. In the summer of 2010, the only trial over a G159 case ever occurred for a case filed by the Schalmo family. The tread of the right front tire to their motorhome separated and, similar to the Haegers, ended with a serious crash. The Schalmos won a $5.6 million verdict.

But unlike the Haegers, the Schalmo family forced Goodyear to turn over test data that Kurtz had never seen. Due to the settlement, Kurtz couldn’t reopen the Haegers’ case, so he sought sanctions against Goodyear’s attorneys for hiding evidence, kicking off another legal battle that continues today.

After wrangling in court, the company finally handed over test data revealed in the Schalmo case, which portrayed the G159 in an entirely new light: As it turned out, Goodyear’s own test data showed the tires ran at temperatures as high as 229 degrees, far beyond their capacity.

“Goodyear admitted that

exposure to prolonged temperatures greater than 200° F can lead to separation of the tire’s 25 structure,” Kurtz wrote in a 2015 court filing, summarizing Goodyear’s previous testimony.

“Exposure above 250° F threatens the capability of the tire to stay together much longer.”

Two Goodyear experts previously testified that the G159, when properly pressurized, should run at 140 to 150 degrees F when traveling at 75 mph, Kurtz’s filing noted. (Perhaps surprisingly, Goodyear later argued these tests weren’t important, despite its own internal documents, a hired expert, and its own witness saying otherwise.)

Goodyear’s legal strategy started to make more sense to Kurtz: The company’s attorneys would turn over evidence in one G159 case, convince a judge to issue a protective order barring plaintiffs from sharing documents with other attorneys in similar cases, and then secure a confidential settlement, preventing anyone in the case from speaking out. That’s why some evidence would show up in one case, but not another.

Goodyear, for its part, has offered a convoluted argument in court on why this transpired.

In court filings, the company appears to say it determined what documents to produce on a case-by-case basis, depending on the language of requests by plaintiffs. Last year, the company asserted that it never directed the “concealment or withholding of the heat rise tests, or any documentation.”

Illustrating the complexity of the situation, NHTSA says that federal law didn’t require Goodyear, one of the largest tire manufacturers in the world, to report some of the claims to regulators. Goodyear reported only nine incidents to the agency involving the G159, the filing says, which included one death and 13 injuries — far short of the publicly known total that’s linked to the tire.

But judge Roslyn Silver, the federal judge overseeing the Haeger case in federal court, thought Goodyear’s intentions were obvious.

“From the very beginning, [Goodyear and its attorneys] adopted a plan of making discovery as difficult as possible, providing only those documents they wished to provide, timing the production of the small subset of documents they were willing to turn over such that it was inordinately difficult for Plaintiffs to manage their case,

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FEATURE and making false statements to the Court in an attempt to hide their behavior,” Silver wrote in an order.

“In the end, that plan succeeded in making this case far more complicated than necessary, requiring an absurd expenditure of resources by Plaintiffs and the Court.”

Silver awarded the Haegers $2.7 million in legal fees, a fi gure Goodyear appealed up to the U.S. Supreme Court. (Last April, the high court punted the case back to a lower court to reconsider the total amount of the fi nancial penalty, and it remains pending.)

In 2013, Kurtz launched a second court battle on behalf of the Haegers against Goodyear in Arizona state court, where he started peeling back just how much the company knew about issues with the tire.

According to fi lings in that case, Goodyear’s internal data shows it has received nearly 3,500 warranty returns for the G159, more than 600 property damage claims not tied to litigation, and 41 lawsuits arising out of G159 failures. The company also identified at least 98 death or injury claims.

In court fi lings, Kurtz included statistics from the August 2000 Firestone tire recall for comparison.

The industry typically measures failure claim rates in a “parts per million” basis, court fi lings show, and Goodyear testified the accepted average is 3.4 ppm.

The recalled defective Firestone tires had an average tread separation claim of 270.6 ppm, records show. If only half of Goodyear’s 730 property damage and injury claims from the G159 happened because of tread separations, Kurtz wrote, “the G159 claim rate equals 2,270 ppm.”

That’s about 10 times worse than the Firestone tires NHTSA deemed defective, and, as one fi ling put it, “Such failure rates are unheard of for consumer products.”

It wasn’t until last summer that Kurtz fi nally secured a court order that allowed him to send certain documents to NHTSA for review and consideration of a possible probe.

“There’s no doubt this tire was defective and Goodyear should’ve pulled it years ago,” Kurtz said.

Now, after 20 years of quietly being fought over in court, a more

complete picture of Goodyear’s knowledge of the G159 tire has come into focus.

Here’s what’s clear: Starting in 1996, Goodyear commenced manufacturing the G159, which it later said was “designed for pickup-and-delivery trucks in commercial service.” The tire also fit motorhomes, so it was used for those recreational applications too. Over an eight-year period, the company made 160,683 G159s, but it started receiving alarming reports about tread separations almost from the moment they were installed on RVs, according to internal memos cited in court.

When the tire was fi rst made in early 1996, the G159 was speedrated at 65 mph max. Shortly after, however, some states increased their speed limits to 75 mph.

By June 1998, Goodyear responded by increasing the G159s rating to 75 mph, even though its own data “revealed that if Goodyear approved an increase in the speed rating of the tire to 75 mph, the tire would generate temperatures well beyond the design capacity of the tire, producing predictable tread separations, with resultant death and injury,” the Haegers say in one court fi ling. It was a turning point, to say the least.

That October, Goodyear representatives met with Fleetwood RV owners at a rally in Louisiana.

The company was advised about numerous tread separations and learned that some owners drive their motorhomes up to 85 mph, according to an internal memo. Overall, there was a “strong concern” about blowouts and tread separations, the memo said.

Problems persisted to a point that Fleetwood felt compelled that summer to issue a recall for some of its RVs equipped with G159s. But the issue they cited had nothing to do with the misapplication of the G159 on motorhomes; rather it pinned blame on disproportionate front axle weight distribution, cargo and improper tire pressure — or, put simply, user error. (Fleetwood didn’t respond to a request for comment.)

Still, crashes continued to rack up. In a four-day span during August 2000, one vehicle owner reported experiencing two tire blow-outs; the second incident sent the vehicle fl ying into oncoming traffic. Thankfully, there was no accident or injuries reported. But two blowouts in such a short span caused enough alarm to prompt the driver to notify NHTSA. “GOODYEAR DENIED ANY

Photo by Phillip Pessar Flickr CC

RESPONSIBILITIES,” the driver later wrote in their complaint to NHTSA. In the latter half of 2000, Goodyear released what it called its “first-ever radial tire specifically designed for recreational use.”

A press release announcing the product couldn’t have been more clear.

“Until the release of the G670 RV, recreational vehicle owners seeking a Goodyear tire usually purchased the G159,” the release said. “A solid performing tire, the G159 was designed for pickup-and-delivery trucks in commercial service.”

Whether or not the explicit announcement played a role, three months later, in May 2000, Fleetwood told Goodyear it was going to switch to Michelin tires because of the reported problems with the G159. Goodyear wasn’t pleased, according to evidence disclosed in court.

When motorhome maker Monaco started asking similar questions that same year, Goodyear had an almost identical explanation for the issues. (Monaco didn’t respond to a request for comment.)

“At no time did Goodyear disclose to either Fleetwood or Monaco the test results it possessed which revealed heat generated by the G159 at highway speeds was far in excess of 194° Fahrenheit,” the Haegers wrote in their complaint. “Rather, Goodyear actively concealed its test data from these two motorhome manufacturers.”

The G159 story has parallels to the massive Ford/Firestone scandal of the early aughts. Similar to Goodyear, both Firestone and Ford executives “fought allegations of tire defects and SUV rollover propensities in private lawsuits, many of which were settled and the documents sealed,” The Washington Post reported at the time.

With NHTSA looking into it, now Goodyear might face regulatory scrutiny that attorneys like Kurtz and Morrison sought years ago.

Safety groups like the Center for Auto Safety are also wading in by trying to pry loose documents that Goodyear successfully sealed years ago.

“The numbers are staggering,” Jason Levine, the Center’s executive director, told Jalopnik . “There’s really no other way to describe it.”

Jennifer Bennett, a staff attorney at Public Justice, a nonprofit legal advocacy group which is representing the Center in its motion to unseal records, said it’s common in cases

involving an alleged defect for people to not learn about it for years “because of protective orders that’ve been inserted in lawsuits.

“This case is sort of that on steroids,” she said.

Goodyear has fought the request, arguing it should be left up to NHTSA to decide whether there’s a defect and that unsealing documents would violate the protective order in the case.

As for NHTSA, when Kurtz secured a court order in the Haeger case to send the agency documents for review, he hoped it would initiate a timeliness query, a sort of expedited investigation it has deployed in the past for situations like the GM ignition switch scandal.

NHTSA declined, and instead opted to launch a regular probe.

Still, Kurtz is hopeful. NHTSA couldn’t operate without the necessary G159 data in hand. Now, he says, it can move forward.

“I’m optimistic quite honestly that NHTSA will divulge this stuff to the American public because they are the sole gatekeeper of that truth,” he said. “Their mission is to protect us. They can’t fulfill it

without disclosure. I think they will.”

Call it a dark twist of irony, but 15 years after Kurtz first approached Goodyear about the significant crash involving the Haeger family, the company is still requesting NHTSA to keep certain documents it wants deemed confidential. It’s common for companies to issue confidentiality requests during investigations like this.

The problem? Some of the documents Goodyear’s referencing have been public for years.

“I believe this public information, which is otherwise buried in hundreds of judicial filings should be part of any public filing by NHTSA related to any investigation as it directly relates to a defect determination and Goodyear’s failure to comply with applicable law,” Kurtz wrote in a Dec. 29 letter to the agency.

Kurtz also told Jalopnik he requested NHTSA to refer the case to the U.S. Department of Justice for a possible criminal investigation.

What makes the entire situation so peculiar is how this issue has

festered quietly in courts for so long without any significant regulatory action being taken.

Despite the sprawling legal battles, RV forum discussions, publicity, and a U.S. Supreme Court case, the G159 is still on the road today.

Here’s one driver who bought a motorhome in 2012 with G159s.

NHTSA’s most recent complainant on file relays “three separate incidents” with the tire in 2010 “where the sidewalls blow out.” The G159 is readily available to buy online, if you know where to look.

But Kurtz speaks like the weight of the world’s been lifted off him, now that an investigation’s finally underway. He just wants the world to know about the tire and get them off the road.

“It’s astonishing to me, but Goodyear has done a very effective job of suppressing the truth,” he said. “You can’t have an outraged audience unless it’s an informed audience. And Goodyear’s made damn sure they’re not informed.”

scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene

| clevescene.com | March 21 - 27, 2018

17

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APRIL 25, 2018

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| clevescene.com m | March 21 - 27, 2018

It’s time for you to tell us about 2018’s best people, places and things in our annual Best of Cleveland Readers Poll. This year, a bit of a twist as we seek to settle once and for all which side reigns supreme, east or west. So along with all the citywide categories, you’ll be able to select the best locations, bars, restaurants and more for each side of town. Nominations close March 15. Finalist Voting Begins March 19th

GET OUT everything you should do this week Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art

WED

03/21

SPORTS

Cavaliers vs. Toronto Raptors All season long, the Toronto Raptors have played quality basketball.

The team consistently has had one of the best records in the Eastern Conference and is vying for the top seed for the playoffs. The Raptors blew out the Cavs when the two teams played earlier in the season, but that was before the Cavs traded for younger, better players. Expect tonight’s game to be a tight one.

Tipoff is at 7 at the Q. Tickets start at $32. (Jeff Niesel) 1 Center Court, 216-420-2000, theqarena.com.

COMEDY

Jon Huck Comedian and actor Jon Huck is proof that you really can do it all. He has made appearances on Comedy Central, been in movies and television shows, acted in numerous commercials and hosts a weekly podcast, The Hollywood Anonymous.

In his standup routines, he recounts the sometimes crazy stories from his life, such as the time he was in Munich, Germany, for Oktoberfest and lost his trousers in the midst of a blackout and ended up pantsless, sans underwear, in the lobby of a fivestar hotel. He performs tonight at 8 at Hilarities. Ticket prices range from $13 to $18. (Jane Wight) 2035 East Fourth St., 216-241-7425, pickwickandfrolic.com.

THEATER

Lady Day After an extended run at Weathervane Playhouse, Lady Day, featuring Akron native Marissa Davis as jazz singer Billie Holiday, comes to the Underground at the Holy Trinity Cultural Arts Center for a 10-day run, through March 25. The play also features Cleveland musicians Ed Ridley and Bradford McGhee.

The Underground, the company’s theatrical venue, will be transformed into Emerson’s Bar and Grill, the place that in 1959 hosted one of Holiday’s last performances, just months before her death. Showtimes for Thursday through Saturday night performances are 7:30. Matinee performances are at 3 p.m. on Sundays. Tickets start at $20. (Niesel) 7209 Woodland Ave., 216-417-4571, trinityculturalarts.org.

DANCE

MUSIC

What Do You Do With An Idea?

Inlet Dance Theatre’s adaptation of The New York Times bestselling children’s book by Kobi Yamada, What Do You Do With An Idea?, tells the story of a child who helps bring a “brilliant idea” into the world. Vocally gifted local radio personality Dee Perry provides the narration. The performance takes place tonight at 7 at the Ohio Theatre. Tickets are $10. (Niesel) 1501 Euclid Ave., 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org.

Romantic Rachmaninoff Famous for his unapologetically romantic melodies, composer Sergei Rachmaninoff wrote several famous pieces during the late Romantic period. Tonight at 7:30 at Severance Hall, the Cleveland Orchestra performs his Symphony No. 2. Harpsichordist Jory Vinikoor will join the orchestra for French composer Francis Poulenc’s mesmerizing Pastoral Concerto.

Additional program performances take place tomorrow through Sunday. Consult the website for times and ticket prices. (Niesel) 11001 Euclid Ave., 216-231-1111, clevelandorchestra.com.

FILM

What Happened, Miss Simone?

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame regularly shows music-related movies in its Foster Theatre. Earlier this year, it kicked off its 2018 film series with a screening of the hip-hop documentary Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap. Tonight at 7, the series continues with a screening of What Happened, Miss Simone?, a movie about the famous jazz singer Nina Simone that uses rare archival footage to tell her story. Admission is free for Rock Hall members, $5.50 for non-members and free with paid museum admission (if space permits). Advance tickets can be purchased at the Rock Hall box office or on the Rock Hall website.

(Niesel) 1100 Rock and Roll Blvd., 216-515-8444, rockhall.com.

MUSIC

Wu Man with Huayin Shadow Puppet Band An internationally renowned virtuoso on the pipa — an instrument much like a lute — Wu Man will join the Huayin Shadow Puppet Band for a program of traditional Chinese folk music with shadow puppetry.

The performance takes place at 7:30 p.m. in Gartner Auditorium at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Part of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, Wu Man is probably the world’s most famous traditional Chinese musician playing the concert halls.

She uses her success to shine the spotlight on lesser known artists of Chinese music like the Huayin Shadow Puppet Band. Expect a rousing evening of lutes, gongs and fiddles, full of energy and charm.

Tickets start at $38. (Niesel) 11150 East Blvd., 216-421-7350, clevelandart.org.

COMEDY

Renowned pipa virtuoso Wu Man comes to the CMA. See: Wednesday.

THU

03/22

COMEDY

Dan Cummins In the past several years, comic Dan Cummins has been extremely busy.

He’s released three albums, appeared on all the usual late-night talk shows and toured his ass off. Though his delivery is much more manic, the thirtysomething comic comes off a bit like Jerry Seinfeld as he jokes about the trials and tribulations of getting through everyday life. Cummins performs tonight at 8 at Hilarities, where he has shows scheduled through Saturday. Tickets start at $23. (Niesel) 2035 East Fourth St., 216-241-7425, pickwickandfrolic.com.

SPORTS

Monsters vs. Chicago Wolves The Cleveland Monsters return from a lengthy seven-game road trip to take on the Chicago Wolves. The Monsters lost more games than they won in February, so they’ll be looking to get back on track with tonight’s game. It’s also College ID Night, so students with a valid ID can buy $6 tickets and pick up a $6 College Meal that includes a hot dog, chips and a soda. The puck drops at 7. Tickets for the general public start at $10. (Niesel) 1 Center Court, 216-420-2000, theqarena.com.

Guy Torry Comedian Guy Torry likes to joke that he used to get kicked out of class for telling the kind of jokes he now gets paid to tell on TV. His material ranges from talking about the “standin-line-rage” he experiences when he goes to the bank, to generational differences he sees in the world of sports (“You don’t see any black players in baseball anymore — too many games!”). All the while, he delivers his jokes with frenetic energy. He performs tonight at 7:30 at the Improv, where he has shows scheduled through Sunday. Tickets are $20. (Niesel) 1148 Main Ave., 216-696-IMPROV, clevelandimprov.com.

FILM

Western A thriller set in a remote region of Bulgaria, Western centers on a group of macho German construction workers who come to town to build a dam. They invariably clash with the locals, suggesting that the film is a commentary on the European Union and its treatment of outsiders.

It makes its local debut tonight at 6:45 at the Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque, where it shows again at 8:25 on Sunday night. Tickets are $10, or $7 for Cinematheque members and students. (Niesel) 11610 Euclid Ave., 216-421-7450, cia. edu.

FRI

03/23

SPORTS

Cavaliers vs. Phoenix Suns The Phoenix Suns have had another miserable season of losing despite | clevescene.com | March 21 - 27, 2018

19

CIM@SEVERANCE HALL Wednesday, April 11 at 8pm CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF MUSIC ORCHESTRA Carl Topilow, conductor Aaron Chan, violin, student artist VERDI Fanfare from Act III of Otello (arr. C. Topilow) BARBER Overture to The School for Scandal, Op. 5 KORNGOLD Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35 DVORÁK Symphony No. 6 in D Major, Op. 60 Reserve your FREE tickets today at cim.edu/events or call 216.231.1111.

GET OUT the emergence of guard Devin Booker as a capable scorer. The team continues to play lousy defense and has struggled all season to win close games while getting blown out by teams such as the San Antonio Spurs and the Golden State Warriors. The Suns simply can’t defend. Expect the Cavs to put some serious points on the board tonight against one of the league’s worst teams. Tipoff is at 7:30 p.m. at the Q. Tickets start at $32. (Niesel) 1 Center Court, 216-420-2000, theqarena.com.

FILM

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WE WENT OUT WHEN YOU COULDN’T. EVENT SLIDESHOWS. ONLY AT CLEVESCENE.COM

In Search of Fellini Dayton native Nancy Cartwright (famous as the voice of Bart Simpson) directs In Search of Fellini, a semi-autobiographical film about an Ohio girl who goes to Italy to meet the esteemed director.

The movie shows tonight at 7:30 at the Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque. Tickets are $10, or $7 for Cinematheque members and students. (Niesel) 11610 Euclid Ave., 216-421-7450, cia.edu.

THEATER

In the Heat of the Night Set in 1962 in the small town of Argo, Alabama, In the Heat of the Night centers on attempts by the local police to determine who is responsible for a dead body found on the road on a hot August night. It’s a difficult challenge considering they have no witnesses, no motives and few clues. Students from Cuyahoga Community College present the play tonight at 7:30 at the Simon and Rose Mandel Theatre on the Eastern Campus. A performance also takes place at 7:30 tomorrow night and at 2 p.m. on Sunday. Admission is free for Tri-C students with a College ID. Tickets are $10 for adults and $8 for seniors or students from schools other than Tri-C. Reduced rates also are available for groups of 10 or more. (Niesel) 4250 Richmond Rd., Highland Hills, 216-987-4947, trictickets.com.

FOOD

20

| clevescene.com | March 21 - 27, 2018

Lenten Fish Fry From now until the end of March, Prosperity Social Club hosts its Lenten Fish Fry every Friday from 11 a.m. to midnight. The special Lenten menu includes the Big Fish Fry, a seasonal staple that features a generous portion of haddock in a fluffy beer batter blanket,

complemented by homemade coleslaw, house tartar sauce and old-school-style mac and cheese.

Prosperity received national attention when the home-cooked Big Fish Fry was featured on TV chef Andrew Zimmern’s Delicious Destinations. Reservations are not a bad idea. (Niesel) 1109 Starkweather Ave., 216-937-1938, prosperitysocialclub.com.

SAT

03/24

NIGHTLIFE

Adult Swim: Whiskey & Bourbon Typically suited to people of all ages, the Greater Cleveland Aquarium regularly hosts Adult Swim nights that are only open to those age 21 and up. Tonight from 7 to 10, it presents Whiskey & Bourbon, a tasting event that also provides patrons with full after-hours access to the aquarium. Each $40 ticket comes with a souvenir glass and 20 tasting tickets. There will also be light hors d’oeuvres. (Niesel) 2000 Sycamore St., 216-862-8803, greaterclevelandaquarium.com.

SPORTS

Monsters vs. San Diego Gulls After a subpar February during which the team lost more games than it won, the Monsters look to get back on track tonight against the San Diego Gulls. The game will benefit the American Cancer Society, and the first 10,000 fans will receive a purple game rally towel. The game commences at 7, and tickets start at $10. The two teams face off again tomorrow at 3 p.m. Tomorrow’s game will feature special giveaways for kids 14 and under and will include a postgame skate. (Niesel) 1 Center Court, 216-420-2000, theqarena.com.

MUSIC

North Coast Men’s Chorus Presents Maureen McGovern Now in its 30th year, the North Coast Men’s Chorus celebrates its anniversary tonight with a special show featuring guest Maureen McGovern. The North Coast Men’s Chorus will perform first and then McGovern will sing some of her favorite songs as the men join her.

The concert begins at 8 p.m., and advance sale tickets start at $20.

(Niesel) 1519 Euclid Ave., 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org.

MUSIC

Rock x CPL Rock x CPL, an event designed to build anticipation for the

SATURDAY, MARCH 24 ROCK X CPL 12pm to 4pm, Cleveland Public Library

TUESDAY, APRIL 3

• • • •

New exhibits Bon Jovi album listening Film screenings Rock ‘N Blast Fireworks Show (live audio simulcast on 106.5 FM The Lake).

CLEVELAND CONNECTS: Rock on a Roll a discussion w/CEO Greg Harris, Inductee Martha Reeves and more. Presented by Cleveland.com and Ideastream. 7:30pm

MONDAY, APRIL 9 THROUGH SATURDAY, APRIL 14

FRIDAY, APRIL 6

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11

CIFF: BAD REPUTATION FILM SCREENING Documentary spotlighting Inductee Joan Jett, 7:30pm

AUTHOR SERIES WITH GAYLE WALD Shout, Sister, Shout!: The Untold Story of Rock-and-Roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta.

7pm, FREE with RSVP

SATURDAY, APRIL 7 CELEBRATION DAY 10am to 11pm Sponsored by Greater Cleveland Partnership, Downtown Cleveland Alliance and Medical Mutual.

• FREE Admission • Live music including Wesley Bright & Honeytones

STORIES OF ROCK, INDUCTEE & ALBUM SPOTLIGHTS

THURSDAY, APRIL 12 CITY CLUB Silent No More: #MeToo and the Music Industry, 12pm, City Club FILM SCREENING: DAYS OF FUTURE PASSED LIVE all day, included with Rock Hall admission HALL OF FAME SERIES INTERVIEW WITH THE MOODY BLUES 8pm, FREE with Rock Hall admission (limited capacity)

SATURDAY, APRIL 14 RED CARPET LIVE STREAM 5:30-7:30pm 33rd ROCK & ROLL HALL OF FAME INDUCTION CEREMONY, Presented by KLIPSCH AUDIO 7:30pm, Public Auditorium INDUCTION SIMULCAST PARTY 7:30 pm (Doors at 6:30pm) Sponsored b byy Fat Head’s Brewery, Great Lakes Brewing Company, Magic Hat Brewing Company, Tito’s Handmade Vodka, Pepsi, Medical Mutual and Downtown Cleveland Alliance.

INDUCTION AFTER-PARTY WITH DJ QUESTLOVE 11pm Doors, House of Blues

Visit for event times & details rockhall.com/rockweekcle

Events at Rock Hall unless otherwise noted

What’s going on downtown and around Cleveland LIVE MUSIC SATURDAY, APRIL 7 Music Box Supper Club • E5C4P3: Journey Tribute

Music Box Supper Club • Nitebridge w/Colin Dussault: Van Morrison Tribute • A Tribute to Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Inductees Past & Present w/ Chris Allen and Friends Wild Eagle Saloon • Dueling Piano Party – Inductee edition SATURDAY, APRIL 14 Public Square • Songs of Nina Simone w/Afi Scruggs • Songs of Sister Rosetta Tharpe w/ Diana Chittester • Moving in Stereo: The Cars tribute band

Agora • The Darkness Touch Supper Club • A tribute to Nina Simone Music Box Supper Club • Stevie Wonder Tribute – The Reid Project

EVENTS & OFFERS Great Lakes Science Center • America’s Musical Journey in the DOME Theater Hilton Cleveland Downtown • Inductee-themed specials in all bars and restaurants SM

Photos by Janet Macoska

THURSDAY APRIL 12 Flats East Bank • Punch Bowl Social Diana Chittester • Big Bang Dueling Piano Bar Free cover!

• Beerhead Bar & Eatery – Inductee BINGO & beer tap takeover • Aloft • Coastal Taco • Lago • Magnolia • Collision Bend • Dante’s Inferno • Thirsty Dog

FRIDAY APRIL 13 E. 4th Street Party Presented by Tito’s Handmade Vodka - 3 Outdoor Live Bands - Specials at Participating Venues • Pickwick and Frolic • House of Blues • Society Lounge • Flannery’s • Corner Alley • Erie Island • Zocalo • Butcher & Brewer • Wonder Bar • Chinato House of Blues Restaurant & Bar Stage • Blues Chronicles

| clevescene.com | March 21 - 27, 2018

21

GET OUT

Wednesday

Darts and $1 Sliders

Upcoming Events:

Thursday STAND-UP COMEDY OPEN MIC Hosted by Gary Graham Sign-up at 7:30pm Show Starts at 8:00pm

3/19 Madi’s Psychedelic Dance Party w/Huck 03/23 Garage Bar Birthday Party

Friday AYCE FISH FRY

38107 Second Street Willoughby, OH 44094

(440) 602-9780 Monday:

Jamo, Pizza Mug Specials after 7PM Wednesday:

20¢ Wing Night March 22nd:

FAT’s Got Talent - Talent show Thursday:

Lyric Master

ANDERSON’S Sports Pub & Eatery

6082 Andrews Rd., Mentor-on-the-Lake, Ohio | 440-290-7805 visit us at: www.Andersons.pub

TUESDAY HOPPY HOUR- $2 TACO, TALLS, & JAMO, $1 OFF CRAFT 22

| clevescene.com | March 21 - 27, 2018

upcoming Rock Hall Inductions, takes place today from noon to 4 p.m. at Cleveland Public Library.

The free event will include live performances, hands-on crafts and interactive programming. You’ll be able to create your own album cover and write letters in support of March for Our Lives. Local acts such as the Brent Kirby Trio, singer-songwriter Marcus Alan Ward, Hey Mavis, Chris Allen, and Doug McKean & Tom Prebish will perform. (Niesel) 325 Superior Ave., 216-623-2800, cpl.org.

SUN

03/25

COMEDY

Chris Franjola Best known for his appearances on late-night’s Chelsea Lately, where he’s known to take abuse from host Chelsea Handler, or in the scripted comedy series After Lately, comedian Chris Franjola also regularly works the standup circuit.

“My material is basically anything I can’t say on TV,” he once said.

Expect a raunchy show when he performs tonight at 7 at Hilarities.

Tickets are $13 to $18. (Niesel) 2035 East Fourth St., 216-241-7425, pickwickandfrolic.com.

BOOKS

Sunday Beat As part of a Sunday Beat promotion at Visible Voice Books, if you purchase a New York Times at the store, you’ll receive a free cup of coffee or tea and a Jim Alesci’s Place pastry. A jazz, Americana, samba or bossa nova band will perform from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m.

Show a Sunday receipt from Music Box, Prosperity Social Club or any of the Tremont restaurants that offer brunch and be entered into a same-day drawing for a $30 Visible Voice gift certificate and a $25 Visible Voice Loyalty Card.

You’ll also receive 10 percent off Visible Voice book purchases. The bookstore is open today from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. (Niesel) 2258 Professor Ave., 216-961-0084, visiblevoicebooks.com.

MON 03/26 COMEDY

Cleveland Comedy Awards Hilarities and ComedicCle present tonight’s inaugural Cleveland

Comedy Awards. Organizers will bestow awards upon local comedians, sketch comedy groups, comedy venues and podcasts. It all starts at 7 p.m. at Hilarities.

There will be live performances and guest presenters. Tickets are $20 to $25. Proceeds benefit LifeAct and Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital. (Niesel) 2035 East Fourth St., 216-241-7425, pickwickandfrolic.com.

NIGHTLIFE

Shit Show Karaoke Local rapper/promoter Dirty Jones and Scene’s own Manny Wallace host Shit Show Karaoke, a weekly event at the B-Side Liquor Lounge that allows patrons to choose from “an unlimited selection of jams from hip-hop to hard rock.”

Participants are encouraged to “be as bad as you want.” Fueled by drink and shot specials, it all goes down tonight at 10 p.m. (Niesel) 2785 Euclid Hts. Blvd., Cleveland Heights, 216-932-1966, bsideliquorlounge.com.

SPORTS

WWE Raw Since it debuted in 1993, WWE Raw has become a flagship program for the professional wrestling organization. Tonight’s edition features “your favorite superstars in action.” Among other attractions, Roman Reigns, John Cena, Braun Strowman and Seth Rollins take on the Miz, Kane & the Bar and Cesaro & Sheamus in a special eight-man tag team match. It all goes down tonight at 7:30 at the Q. Tickets start at $20. (Niesel) 1 Center Court, 216-420-2000, theqarena.com.

TUE

03/27

MUSIC

Classical Cafe Series In conjunction with the current exhibit, Eyewitness Views: Making History in Eighteenth-Century Europe, the Cleveland Museum of Art hosts a free classical performance every Tuesday in March in the beautiful Ames Family Atrium. Today’s concert, which takes place from 1 to 2 p.m., features Cleveland Orchestra violinists Isabel Trautwein and Miho Hashizume. (Niesel) 11150 East Blvd., 216-421-7350, clevelandart.org.

scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene

WE¶RE HIRING Media Star Promotions A national marketing and promotion agency, is seeking energetic individuals.

You will execute promotions for a leading tobacco product within nightlife and retail establishments in the greater Cleveland area. This part time position is ideal for outgoing men and women who are looking for an interesting, challenging position within the nightlife and retail scene that will allow them to make good money and have fun.

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| clevescene.com | March 21 - 27, 2018

23

ART ALL ABOUT THE WOMEN Three exhibitions about women and by women artists you shouldn’t miss this month

By Dott von Schneider IT’S MARCH, WHICH MEANS it’s Women’s History Month, and among the various ways you should and can celebrate is by visiting three worthy exhibitions about and by women artists.

The New Masters: Women Artists of Northeast Ohio, which closes March 23, is a powerful showcase of female artists representing several counties throughout the area. Per the statement issued by the Florence O’Donnell Wasmer Gallery, “As students of art history know, the ‘Old Masters’ were the European painters regarded as the best artists before about 1800. And they were, for the most part, men.”

A prime example of overlooked talent is the great painter Artemisia Gentileschi, who has been pushed aside in the history books despite her magnificent ability and high caliber work.

From the hauntingly dynamic painting by Stanka Kordic to Susan Squires’ exquisite encaustic artwork — as well as Julianne Edberg’s fiber art sculpture and the rad woven art of Deborah Silver — you will be hard pressed to leave this show without wanting more.

Self-described protest painter Laura Dumm’s “A Prisoner No More” (pictured) is probably the most powerful and in-your-face painting in the exhibition. “Being a woman in a man’s world, I decided to use Venus, the goddess of love, as the centerpiece of my painting to show how women, for centuries, have been made to feel less powerful than men, and more like property,” states the artist. She continues, “This painting is not only about the obvious Me Too movement to end sexual abuse, but also about ending the inequality that we as women have fought to get rid of for decades.

I remember the women’s liberation marches in the ’60s. Funny, they marketed to us a cigarette and a slogan, “You’ve come a long way baby!” but our paycheck was still way smaller than a man doing the same job.”

Leslye Discont Arian’s drawing, “See No Evil,” also speaks in response to the Me Too movement.

“It is liberating to be part of a sisterhood of women who will no

24

Photo courtesy of artist Laura Dumm

longer overlook or silence their voice about their emotional, psychological and or physical scars from sexual assault,” she says. With its muted butterscotch yellows, phthalo blues and fleshy pink, we encounter a solemn fi gure standing below what appears to be another, larger fi gure casting its hands over the eyes of a third fi gure. A disembodied hand seems to reach for help or to signal a stop to the madness. Discont Arian drives her point home in this

is “Celebrate Women’s History Month from WOMAN XI. Created by women, of women and about women.” Urbas, who has brought together so many cool and offbeat art shows in the past, has pulled together some wonderful talent from across the nation for this one.

The artist reception and awards ceremony is March 25, and the show runs through March 30.

Then there is Don’t Be Still at Hedge. At fi rst glance I was put off

THE NEW MASTERS: WOMEN ARTISTS OF NORTHEAST OHIO THROUGH MARCH 23 AT THE FRANCIS O’DONNELL WASMER GALLERY, 2550 LANDER RD., PEPPER PIKE, 440-646-8121. TUESDAY TO FRIDAY, NOON TO 5 P.M.; SATURDAY AND SUNDAY, 1:30 TO 4:30 P.M.; CLOSED MONDAY. URSULINE.EDU

WOMAN XI THROUGH MARCH 30 AT THE GALLERY AT LAKELAND COMMUNITY COLLEGE, 7700 CLOCKTOWER DR., KIRTLAND, 440-525-7029. MONDAY TO FRIDAY, 9 A.M. TO 9 P.M.; SATURDAY AND SUNDAY, 9 A.M. TO 5 P.M. LAKELANDCC.EDU/GALLERY

DON’T BE STILL THROUGH APRIL 27 AT HEDGE, 1300 WEST 78TH ST., 216-650-4201. TUESDAY TO FRIDAY, 11 A.M. TO 5 P.M.; EVERY THIRD FRIDAY, 11 A.M. TO 9 P.M.; WEEKENDS AND EVENINGS BY APPOINTMENT. HEDGEARTGALLERY.COM

beautifully understated artwork.

We would be remiss if we didn’t mention Woman XI, the annual exhibition at Lakeland Community College curated by Mary Urbas.

This show, as the title card states,

| clevescene.com | March 21 - 27, 2018

by the whole shebang. Women with bags over their heads? Ugh. Perhaps our lives have been mansplained to us again and again through fi lm and painting. I can’t help but contemplate how Thee Art Gods

have tried to convey the female body and experience, but just can’t quite get it.

The more I learned about this two-person show by the celebrated fi lmmaker Robert Banks and painter John W. Carlson, however, the more I made my own stereotypes take a back seat. This gorgeous show of paintings and fi lm is poignantly divine and the artists are sincerely trying to extend the olive branch. That their models had written about their experiences is deeply moving and one can wholeheartedly applaud the idea and the work.

“Don’t Be Still” features fi lm work by Banks, and a new series of paintings by Carlson, which form an interactive experience in which black-and-white fi lm and large, personal paintings intersect to create a stage for dialogue, as Hedge Gallery has succinctly put it.

“Our belief is that this exhibit will open doors for men and women to more openly discuss gender issues and hopefully peel away the many dark layers that have formed major barriers to human interaction.”

The work is defi nitely strong and Carlson’s paintings deliver the jagged pain that truly portrays his collaboration with the models.

Contorted female fi gures each donning the Little Black Dress all wear bags over their heads.

The visual experience evokes both queasiness and fascination.

Banks, known for his fantastic analog fi lm technique, has captured the models as only he can. The artists state, “We believe that if society as a whole can place women and men on an equal level, the value of the female gender will increase, informing both sides of strengths, capabilities and contributions of the opposite sex. We would hope that as education on gender equality grows, there would be a decrease in the pressure individuals may feel to conform to standard ways of thinking, which often leads to oppressive behavior, abuse, and violence.”

We hope so as well.

scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene

STAGE TESTOSTERONE FESTIVAL GOES SOUTH A dead, drunk dad and his two dead-drunk sons dominate a minor Sam Shepard script at None Too Fragile Theater

By Christine Howey Photo by Robert Grant III

FAMILIES! YOU CAN’T LIVE with them and god knows you can’t live without them — but you can mine them for playwriting material.

The history of theater is larded with dysfunctional families of every stripe, providing an apparently bottomless well of frustration, agony and torment. Not to mention the occasional laugh.

The playwright Sam Shepard made a tidy cottage industry out of plays involving various family issues. And The Late Henry Moss, now at None Too Fragile Theater in Akron, is a particularly pungent example. It features a seedy boozer of a father and his two grown sons who are trying to accommodate themselves to the old man’s death.

Indeed, the play begins with old Henry wrapped up in a sheet on a bed while his sons, Earl and the younger Ray, swill whiskey and rage at each other.

Shepard, who died last year, had a passion for trying to work out the relationships and confl icts that men have with their fathers. And brothers. This testosterone-soaked script is no exception, with the sole female role embodied by Conchalla, a mystical Mexican life-force goddess who delights and torments Henry both before and after his demise.

The somewhat laborious structure of the play is built around Ray’s incessant questioning of people who were around when his dad died, including Earl, a neighbor named Estefan, and the taxi driver, dubbed “Taxi” by Ray, who gave Henry his last lift. There’s a lot of intense interrogation going on, but the only trouble is it’s hard to see what anyone has at stake. After all, the old man’s dead and his sons are clearly on their way to detox centers or early dirt naps themselves.

Ray brutally intimidates his targets, eventually kicking hapless Earl under the kitchen sink, repeatedly putting Taxi in his place (literally, next to the front door) and hectoring helpful Estefan for cooking Mexican dishes that “stink.” Even with all that surface confl ict, there’s a strange vacuum

Robert Hawkes (left) and Brian Kenneth Armour.

at the heart of this play that even the superb director Sean Derry can’t quite overcome.

Perhaps part of the problem is that Derry cast himself as Ray. This is a scuzzy character type that Derry, an accomplished actor, could do in his sleep. Or even in a prolonged coma. As a result, there’s a lack of freshness to his performance that a director could have helped him with, if the director wasn’t occupying the same skin sack as the actor.

As brother Earl Moss, Bryant Carroll drinks, curses and rages at all the appropriate times, but it all seems like an act we’ve seen before.

gazes he gives his sons. But his character is revealed so early on, there’s never a chance to fi nd any nuances that might contribute to an understanding of why Henry is the prick that he is.

This lack of subtlety extends to Conchalla, a part written in such an over-the-top manner (she strips her clothes off, she eats a live fi sh, she screams manically) that it only reveals one thing: The playwright, at least in this play, is totally befuddled by women and stuffs the one female character into a magical realism corner where she can’t get out. Even so, Diana Frankhauser gives the role a sharp edge, and she

THE LATE HENRY MOSS THROUGH MARCH 31 AT NONE TOO FRAGILE THEATER 1835 MERRIMAN RD., AKRON, 330-962-5547 NONETOOFRAGILE.COM

No doubt most of this has to do with the script that lands in a familiar groove and never strays far from that comfort zone.

The trifecta of Moss-y misbehavior is completed by Robert Hawkes as Henry, and he can truly put a shiver up your spine with some of the deadeye

is often the most interesting thing to watch on stage.

The same could be said for Brian Kenneth Armour who plays Taxi with an amiable good humor. While Ray is going off on him during his interminable questioning, Armour’s Taxi rolls with the verbal punches and actually comes out on top.

Armour, a long-time member of the None Too Fragile company, has never been better.

While several characters fail to land with the desired impact, only one falls completely off the grid.

As Estefan, the mild-mannered neighbor who brings Henry soup, Christopher Fortunato’s line deliveries are fl at. He never registers as a dimensional character with any back story; he is merely a punching bag for Ray. And Fortunato’s Hispanic accent is, to put it kindly, a work in progress (with very little progress made to date).

If you’ve seen other Sam Shepard plays such as Buried Child, True West and Fool For Love, you know that he is capable of crafting surprisingly involving works that resonate long after the fi nal curtain.

But Henry Moss is a less successful example of this playwright’s work, and it’s given a production that doesn’t reach the high bar of quality that None Too Fragile has set for itself.

So, pass the whiskey and let’s see what they do next.

scene@clevescene.com t@christinehowey

| clevescene.com | March 21 - 27, 2018

25

INVITE YOU TO A SPECIAL ADVANCE SCREENING OF

TUESDAY, APRIL 3 7:30PM CINEMARK VALLEY VIEW For your chance to win an admit-two pass to the advance screening, visit tinyurl.com// y8oj38fa NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. While supplies last. One entry per person. Duplicate entries will be deleted.

Seating at the screening is first-come, first-served and is not guaranteed. Please arrive early. Winners will be chosen at random. Winners within the past 30 days are ineligible.

IN THEATERS APRIL 6

SCHEDULE

ALL FILMS START AT 7 PM | ROCK HALL’S FOSTER THEATER

3/7 3/21 5/2 5/16 5/30 6/6

WED.

WED.

WED.

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Lady Gaga: Five Foot Two 2017 • 1 hour, 40 minutes • TV-MA

What Happened, Miss Simone?

2015 • 1 hour, 41 minutes • Not Rated, Courtesy of Eagle Rock Entertainment

Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World 2017 • 1 hour, 43 minutes • Not Rated Who the F**k is That Guy? The Fabulous Journey of Michael Alago 2017 • 1 hr, 25 minutes • TV-MA

Head 1968 • 1 hour, 26 minutes • G

Purple Rain 1984 • 1 hour, 51 minutes • R

Members FREE w/RSVP • Non-Members $5.50 1100 Rock and Roll Boulevard, Cleveland, OH 44114 | rockhall.com | 216.781.ROCK

26

| clevescene.com | March 21 - 27, 2018

MOVIES THE FREEWHEELIN’ ITZHAK PERLMAN Documentary film tells the renowned violinist’s remarkable story

By Jeff Niesel IN THE OPENING SCENES of Itzhak , a new documentary about violinist Itzhak Perlman, Perlman wheels his way through the bowels of Citifield prior to the start of a 2016 Mets game. Wearing his Mets cap backward and sporting a jersey with his name on the back, Perlman, who uses an electric wheelchair, is clearly a baseball fan. Prior to playing the National Anthem, he goofs around with the players during batting practice and unleashes an impromptu rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”

It’s a great opening scene.

Credit director Alison Chernick with endearing Perlman to us before she even introduces us to his remarkable story. The feel-good fi lm opens on Friday at the Cedar Lee Theatre.

Perlman’s parents emigrated from Poland to Israel and nurtured their son’s musical talent. And yet, Perlman struggled to be taken seriously as a music student because a bout with polio had left him disabled. “People heard me play and said, ‘Oh yes, very nice, but he’s disabled,’” Perlman recalls. Perlman says even his parents were close to giving up on him. An appearance

on The Ed Sullivan Show changed everything, and in the wake of that performance, Perlman would gradually receive the acclaim he deserved.

Most of the fi lm centers on Perlman’s current life. At the White House, President Barack Obama introduces him to an audience, saying he “makes the world a little more beautiful” with his playing.

In another scene, he rehearses with pop star Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden. Joel defers to him and lets Perlman rearrange his hit “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” turning it into what Joel describes as an Irish jig. In an informal conversation that takes place over a glass of wine and a bowl of soup, Perlman and actor Alan Alda compare notes on how they approach their respective crafts.

Perlman’s wife Toby fi gures prominently in the fi lm too, and we see how deep the connection between the two is. “Marriage was a most natural thing,” she says in one interview when asked about how their friendship turned into something romantic. She and Perlman share a love of music and even run a charity designed to

help children appreciate music and develop the kind of skills that will help them in all aspects of life. “You have to have the ability to evolve,” Perlman says as he describes the program’s goals.

And, of course, there’s the music.

Chernick captures Perlman in many contexts and settings and includes plenty of scenes that show him playing. In one of the most poignant scenes, Perlman performs on violins from the Holocaust that Israeli violinmaker Amnon Weinstein has restored. Through it

all, Perlman’s ability carries with it an enormous amount of personality.

Whether he’s performing in a sports arena or in a concert hall, he plays with a great deal of passion. Be sure to sit through the credits to hear more of the music and watch Perlman walk his dogs through Central Park while riding in his electric wheelchair.

jniesel@clevescene.com t@jniesel

SPOTLIGHT: LUNAFEST THE 10TH ANNUAL LUNAFEST Film Festival comes to Tri-C Corporate College East this Saturday afternoon. It’s a oneday cinematic event showcasing the work of female fi lmmakers worldwide. “Short fi lms by … for … about women” is the tagline of the traveling festival created by the female-owned Luna Bars company in 2000 as a platform for new female voices and to increase the opportunities for women in the industry.

Hosted locally by the Cleveland chapter of Chums Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to the educational success of students in poverty or other economic hardship, the event will

begin with a one-hour champagne reception at 11 a.m. Nine short fi lms will then screen, followed by a Q&A, via videoconference, with some of the festival’s featured fi lmmakers.

More than 1,000 short fi lms were submitted to this year’s festival. The nine that will appear in Cleveland include Funa Maduka’s Waiting for Hassana , a story of girls being kidnapped from a school in Africa, a story that should resonate after the recent news that 110 girls were abducted by the terrorist group Boko Haram in Nigeria.

Emily Sheskins’ Jessyilla , which chronicles an adolescent girl who dreams of becoming a boxer, and

Anna Edgar’s Girls Level Up, which explores a camp for girls interested in math and science, are also part of the slate.

“Lunafest has really raised our impact on students in Cleveland communities,” said JoAnn Wallace, president of Cleveland Chums, in a press release. “Beyond exposure to stories by these extraordinary fi lmmakers, we have been able to increase our annual scholarships program from one or two a decade ago, to eleven today. Our students return to Lunafest year after year, even after graduation, to volunteer and participate.”

Tri-C Corporate College East is at 4400 Richmond Rd. in

Warrensville Heights. Tickets are $40 and include the champagne reception at 11 a.m. and free parking. The screenings should conclude by 1:30 p.m. Proceeds from the event will benefit the programs of the Cleveland Chums (especially the scholarships for local students mentioned above), as well as the Breast Cancer Prevention Partners and Lunafest’s primary national beneficiary, Chicken & Egg Pictures, a fi lm company supporting female documentary fi lmmakers.

— Sam Allard

sallard@clevescene.com t@scenesallard

| clevescene.com | March 21 - 27, 2018

27

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| clevescene.com | March 21 - 27, 2018

Photo by Douglas Trattner

EAT FIRST LOOK Landmark, opening in the old Clifton Diner spot, will bring an all-day menu of scratch cooking to the corner of West 117th

By Douglas Trattner From left, Constantine Katsaros, Jim Messer, Thomas Parker and Jack Messer.

“IT’S TAKEN US A MINUTE to get here, but we’ve done a lot as you can see,” says Constantine Katsaros, in what might be the understatement of the year.

We’re seated in the dining room of Landmark, which for many years was home to the Diner on Clifton. That eatery closed its doors two years ago in advance of a comprehensive building renovation project that saw the entire space gutted and rebuilt. Katsaros and partner Jack Messer also operate the adjacent Twist Social Club and the team gained some valuable lessons during recent improvements at that space.

“After experiencing with Twist what it’s like working with an older building, we decided that we were going to do this only once and at an excellent level,” Messer says.

Few signs remain in this sun-soaked corner property of the prior tenant. In addition to all new plumbing, electric and HVAC, not to mention bathrooms up and down, the space grew by nearly 100 percent. The owners appropriated some space from Twist to greatly enlarge the restaurant’s footprint — and then set about outfitting it with custom-built tables, banquettes and counter seating to produce an attractive and flexible 55seat eatery. While unearthing the original terrazzo floors, the owners discovered a logotype for Tastyburger Systems, a local chain of burger joints that thrived during the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s.

When it opens in mid-April, Landmark will blur the lines between fast-casual and what is

often called fine-casual dining.

Fine-casual spots typically combine high quality food and environment with quick-serve ordering and service. It’s a formula that Katsaros and Messer, two business school grads who argue that running a restaurant is more science than art, have spent years devising.

“There does seem to be a need for another category,” Katsaros asserts. “We are this other category because there is no way when someone comes down here and experiences what we’re putting out that they’ll think, ‘This was a fast-casual experience.’”

Guests will walk in, peruse a paper menu, place their order and pay at the counter. Beverages like craft draft beer, wine and even cocktails after 4 p.m. will be handed over along with an order number that fits neatly into a tabletop caddy. Staffers will deliver food, and then bus tables after diners depart.

“Our food runners are going to take a little more time to make sure you have everything you need and they’ll be checking on you,” Katsaros explains. “It’s limited service, but we’re also going to make sure that nobody leaves here dissatisfied.”

Executive chef Thomas Parker, most recently at Adega, will run a 100-precent scratch kitchen that serves breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week. The menu offers a broad but deliberate selection of foods that were chosen after two-plus years of

debate and analysis.

“We felt, looking around this neighborhood, there was a need for diverse, high-quality food that you could get at a reasonable price,” states Katsaros. “For us, it was having a diversity of foods so that people could come on a regular basis and get a range of items that fit their lifestyles.”

Initially, Katsaros and Messer intended to make Landmark a barbecue restaurant. Over the years, the pair graduated from a backyard Weber Smokey Mountain on up to a championship-level Jambo offset pit. In fact, the very first barbecue they sold was on the sidewalk in front of this building during an arts festival. While the owners deviated from their original plans, they still decided to install one of the best commercial smokers in the business. The Model 700 from J&R weighs two tons, burns only wood and can cook 1,000 pounds of product per load.

“This is probably the most authentic all-wood smoker in Cleveland,” Katsaros says. “We were dead set on getting this smoker and we went above and beyond with the city to get it approved. Smoking is our passion; it’s where we came from and how we got into all this.”

Exiting from that pit will be items like house-cured and -smoked bacon, smoked turkey breast, whole pork shoulders, beef shanks and real Texas-style beef brisket. Those items will appear in dishes like a breakfast burrito with eggs and brisket, a Club sandwich with turkey and bacon,

pulled pork tacos, and osso bucco made from smoked and braised shanks.

But the item that will have everybody drooling is the Montreal-style smoked meat, a pastrami-like product that is made by curing and smoking beef brisket.

“Montreal barbecue is a product that we got really excited about,” says Messer. “I went to Schwartz’s and had a ‘holy shit’ moment. We became obsessed with getting it right and we did.

If you want to get this product, the only other place is Montreal because we are truly doing it to form.”

The balance of the menu includes items such as avocado toast, breakfast sandwiches on bagels, chicken and rice bowls, Cobb salads, smoked vegan burgers and Reubens made with Montreal beef and Cleveland Kraut. For dinner there are fried chicken platters, smoked meat samplers, and pan-seared Norwegian salmon.

Very soon, a commanding three-sided blade sign emblazoned with the word Landmark will welcome drivers at the corner of West 117th and Clifton.

“This whole neighborhood is changing and we’re excited to be a part of it,” says Katsaros. “Over time, we do want to become a landmark; it’s almost something to aspire to.”

dtrattner@clevescene.com t@dougtrattner

| clevescene.com | March 21 - 27, 2018

29

Photo by Douglas Trattner

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| clevescene.com | March 21 - 27, 2018

EASTER SUNDAY OPEN 11AM TO 8PM Serving Our Easter Buffet & Regular Menu Now Taking Reservations!

SINCE 2012, THE RIB CAGE (2214 Lee Rd., 216-321-RIBS) in the CedarLee district of Cleveland Heights has been dishing up hearty Southern-style barbecue smoked on site in a custombuilt brick smokehouse. Owner Robert Hill, along with sons Robert, Ronnell and Brandon, has built up a loyal following for his restaurant’s slowsmoked brisket, ribs and chicken, all of which is served up in a relaxed saloon setting.

Next up for Team Hill is an Ohio City outpost.

“We have customers up here that come from Ohio City all the time, and for years they’ve been telling me to come to the westside — and so here we are,” says Hill.

The Rib Cage will take over the spot most recently occupied by Orale Contemporary Mexican (1834 West 25th St.), which closed its restaurant operations a year and a half ago.

Orale maintains a separate kitchen for its catering business and West Side Market stand. The turnkey property could be up and running sometime in April, Hill estimates.

In advance of the opening, Hill says that modifications and improvements will be made to the Cleveland Heights smoker, which currently flies through a cord of cherry wood per week. All meats will be smoked out east, with items destined for Ohio City getting bundled up in insulated coolers for reliable storage and transport.

“Because we’re going to be smoking 24 hours a day, the customer will be getting the exact same thing that they’re getting here,” Hill explains.

In addition to smoked meat dinners

built around brisket, half chickens, turkey ribs, spare ribs, baby back ribs, pulled pork and chicken wings, there are a variety of sandwiches. A range of sauces includes Carolina mustardvinegar, spicy bbq, Jamaican jerk and sweet Thai chili. The Rib Cage also prepares fried, grilled or blackened fish dinners made from tilapia, perch and catfish, and sides like candied yams, red beans and rice, bourbon baked beans, collard greens, mac and cheese, and fresh-cut fries. To start, there are rib tips, alligator bites and fried green tomatoes.

Rib Cage will have a full bar.

Dyngus Day Celebration With St. Patrick’s Day out of the way, it’s time to gear up for Dyngus Day, now in its eighth year. This year’s event, which takes place from 10 a.m. to 2 a.m. on Monday, April 2, at locations throughout Ohio City, Tremont and the Detroit Shoreway, promises to be another wildly good time.

Opening ceremonies take place at 10 a.m., and the Miss Dyngus Day Pageant will begin at 4:30 p.m. at the main festival grounds. After the crowning of Miss Dyngus 2018, the Accordion Parade will follow at 6 p.m.

As part of the day-long celebration, Detroit Avenue will be closed from West 57th to West 59th.

For details, take a look at the website, clevelanddyngus.com.

dtrattner@clevescene.com t@dougtrattner

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MUSIC

STRAIGHT OUTTA ROMANIA Local rapper Kent Archie celebrates his return to Cleveland with a release party

By Emanuel Wallace ON A SUNNY BUT BRISK DAY, rapper Kent Archie sits in Dewey’s, a Shaker Square coffee shop where he once worked, and recalls his time abroad as he reflects on the journey that has prepared him to release his new album, The Thoughts in My Head.

He sports a black jacket with patches depicting the countries he’s been to in his lifetime. There’s the United States, Canada, Austria and Holland among others — then there’s Romania. Romania?

“I was born and raised in Cleveland, but I’ve only been back here for about two years or so,” Archie says as he takes a sip of his drink. “I was living in Romania for about five years on and off. I had a group out there — the Bridge Committee.”

Archie credits an ex-girlfriend for his fi rst exposure to the country.

“I dated a girl from Romania,” he says. “We even went to prom

together. She asked me to come visit and I liked it a lot. I also met some kids from Bulgaria when I was working at Geauga Lake, so I would go out there as well. I just ended up staying out there and doing music. The vibe was really

“When I first moved onto our block near 105th and Superior, there were these kids rapping over there,” Archie says. “I was maybe 8 years old at the time. One of the older guys asked me if I knew how to rap, I said no, and he told me to just rhyme and

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nice. I’ve been to a couple places.

I’m trying to even travel more.”

Archie’s fi rst musical influences were courtesy of his dad, but he would play more than just rap music. The neighborhood kids also held a pivotal role in his gravitation toward this cool and new thing called hip-hop.

don’t try to make sense.”

That was enough to hold Archie’s interest, but it would be the work of a certain author that would prove to be an unlikely source of motivation.

“Eventually, I just fell in love with it,” he continues. “I started to write little poems and songs

for no reason, simply because I enjoy doing them. Dr. Seuss’ Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs & Ham really got me going because he was telling a story and also making sense at the same time.”

Archie’s journey hasn’t been without some struggle, as he’s readily willing to admit.

“Just coming home and trying to get my name out there [has been difficult],” he says. “Especially coming from Romania where I was already established as an artist on the underground level. People knew me and sometimes even asked for my autograph — which I thought was weird, but to come home and it’s like ground zero — starting from the bottom and trying to build my name back up.

So just that whole thing with trying to get on shows and knowing who’s who and what’s what.”

Archie can’t help but laugh as he reveals some of his previous | clevescene.com | March 21 - 27, 2018

33

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| clevescene.com | March 21 - 27, 2018

monikers he considered before decided to rap under his own name.

“When I fi rst started rapping, my name was Pitch Blak,” he says.

“Then I went with Clark Kent because of my name and the whole Superman thing. After awhile, I got tired of making up names and decided to just go with my real name.”

The Thoughts in My Head is the end result of over a year of hard work and dedication. It’s his most personal project to date.

“There were some late nights,” he says. “I was working here and I also had the other gig downtown. Just working trying to push this album out on some 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. type shit. Everything I’ve been through in the past three years or so, I put into the album and I told myself that I would get more personal than I usually do.”

The personal approach is something different for Archie.

“When I was rapping in Romania, we would talk about social problems and issues, and it was moreso a third person kind of thing,” he says.

“But this album is more from my point of view and getting out of my comfort zone — and it’s going to get even more personal with future projects. I got out of that zone as far as beats too. The majority of the project was produced by other people. A large chunk was made by Shatta and some of the other tracks were made by my dudes in Romania, and I made two of the beats. It was my fi rst time doing that.”

One of Archie’s most popular songs early on was “MoneyGoldChains,” but he seems to have another hit on his hands.

“It was one of my biggest songs, but now everyone seems to like ‘Takin Noff,’ and that’s not even on the album,” he says. “That’s going to be on an upcoming mixtape called Fuck Your Comfort Zone Volume 1, so we’re going to do that by the end of the summer. That project will be us working with different artists around the city who we like and vibe with. I let a few people hear some songs on the album and ‘Oh Lord’ was one that a lot of people like. I’m surprised by that because it’s one of my most personal songs.”

In addition to music, Archie also has a clothing line called Lafen Stock. The name is inspired by his experience in Romania.

“Back when I was Pitch Blak and Clark Kent we had this group,

we were doing things differently,” he says. “When we got on stage, people didn’t boo us, but they would look at us like ‘okay, that’s different.’ So I looked at it like we were the laughing stock of all these groups. We were doing a different thing, but we fl ipped it and made it positive. I feel like most of the people who change the world are the laughing stock of the town at the beginning until they succeed at what they do. I was always drawing this ‘LS,’ and it wasn’t until eight years later that I decided to make it a clothing line because the logo was tough.”

When it came time to work on The Thoughts in My Head, Archie really wanted to keep his cards close to his chest.

“I did a lot of the recording with my dude Go Roger,” he says. “He helped me make the first two beats and sat there and went through the process of making everything from scratch. My cousin Tache Akira did vocals on one of the tracks, but it’s mostly just me. I was telling my story, so I didn’t think it was necessary to have too many people on it. I do have my dad’s pictures on the truck now. He’s not a rapper or anything, but he’s definitely an entertainer. He’s almost like the Flavor Flav to my Chuck D.” The release party for Archie’s album coincides with the sixth edition of Glow. The show typically features up-and-coming artists in the city who haven’t had many opportunities to showcase their talent on a big stage.

“We got some dope artists,” Archie says of the lineup. “Wrecking Crew Red Panda Bears is dope. I love Dirty Kicks and Mikal Callow is a raw singer. The show is going to be better than any show I’ve ever done before. People like my style and my energy and stage presence, but I’m preparing this release show to outdo that by a long shot. I’m going to have some backup singers and some horns as well. Bang Messiah is going to be my DJ for the night.”

While Archie loves being a rapper, he wants to take his performance to the next level.

“I want to do some real dope stuff outside of a typical rapper thing,” he says. “I always feel the rappers don’t do as much as they should. When I was younger, and I would see Jay-Z or Snoop Dogg on stage, [I realized] they really don’t do much, they just had their swag. I always wanted to be dynamic like a punk rock kind of guy.”

scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene

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| clevescene.com | March 21 - 27, 2018

35

MUSIC ON A ROLL The momentum from the Dean Ween Group’s debut fueled the making of its new album

By Jeff Niesel BACK WHEN GENE AND DEAN Ween became childhood friends prior to forming the indie rock group Ween in 1984, they benefited from the fact that their parents had eccentric record collections.

“They didn’t have a lot of records, but I found a Dead Kennedys album and Black Flag and stuff like that,” says Dean Ween, who brings the Dean Ween Group to the Beachland Ballroom at 8:30 p.m. on Friday. “[Ween’s] Aaron [Freeman] had some Beefheart and the Mothers and Laurie Anderson, and the Dr. Demento Show was huge. Devo was a massive influence. We would just turn each other on to new stuff.

The ultimate is the Beatles. That’s what it always comes back to for me.

Nobody’s shit stacks up to theirs as far as I’m concerned.”

In the early days, Ween performed with backing tracks that it loaded onto cassette decks. At the time, digital technology was rather primitive, so the guys did the best they could with a cassette deck.

“I had these 10-minute cassettes, and each one had two songs on it,” Ween explains. “We put them in a sneaker box and lined them up in the order we were going to play the set. Getting a DAT machine was our fi rst big technology jump.”

Somehow, the band managed to produce a radio hit in 1993 with “Push th’ Little Daisies,” a song that sounds like a fractured nursery rhyme with a child singing it.

“Not appreciating anything and assuming everything at the time, I didn’t understand that people thought it was weird,” Ween says when asked about the track. “I didn’t know it was weird or think it was as weird as the reaction and the repercussions for years of people thinking we were a novelty band. The radio stations just found it. It wasn’t even a single. It was really funky and had sped-up vocals and drum machines, and we just had a good laugh at the whole thing. We did the MTV Spring Break concert with [comedian] Pauly Shore and played between RuPaul and the rapper Snow and Big Daddy Kane and everyone hated us. We were these two cruds from New Jersey.

36

Photo by Mark Adams

We had a punk-rock fuck-you attitude.”

Ween thrived on being unpredictable. For 1996’s 12 Golden Country Greats, for example, the group went in an entirely different direction and recorded with veteran Nashville musicians.

“We didn’t know that was going to be the record,” says Ween. “We

do with either record. They thought we were fucking with them.”

When the band went on hiatus in 2012, Ween initially struggled to fi gure out his next move.

“I don’t want to revisit [that time period] because it sounds so awful and sounds like I’m trying to lay a guilt trip on Aaron Freeman, which I really don’t want to do,” says Ween.

THE DEAN WEEN GROUP, KEITH KENNY 8:30 P.M. FRIDAY, MARCH 23, BEACHLAND BALLROOM, 15711 WATERLOO RD., 216-383-1124.

TICKETS: $25, BEACHLANDBALLROOM.COM

didn’t tell the label we were doing it. We just went and did it. We were writing songs for The Mollusk, and we had a pile of country songs. It cost us 30 grand for everything to go to Nashville and record [12 Golden Country Greats ]. We just wanted it for the car ride home. So we listened to it on the ride home and decided it was too good to not put it out. The decision was made that quickly. That really pissed the label off. They didn’t know what to

| clevescene.com | March 21 - 27, 2018

“At fi rst, I lost my identity. I had been in this band since I was 14.

Then, it wasn’t there one day. I was fortysomething years old. It took me a while to get started, but once I got started it was fi ne.”

The Dean Ween Group made its debut two years ago with The Deaner Album. Ween says it wasn’t an easy album to make.

“It was really stubborn,” Ween says of the recording experience.

“I was really hard on myself. You

have your whole life to make your fi rst album. I have never been the best editor of my own stuff at anything I’ve ever done. Since it was only me, I was very hesitant and fl aky at fi rst.”

He says the “momentum” from that album carried him into the second album, the just-released rock2. He wrote the tracks during “a very defi ned period of time” and used a new studio he built on a parcel of land that his friend’s father had given him. Per usual, the album shifts from the grunge-y rockers (“Showstopper”) to altcountry ballads (“Don’t Let the Moon Catch You Crying”). Ween creates a rich sonic tapestry by adding horns to the mix on several tracks.

“The new album was written before the fi rst one was even released,” says Ween. “Now, I’m backlogged and I have the third and fourth one done. Everything was clicking when we were recording it, and Ween had even gotten back together. When you’re on a roll, you’re constantly hearing melodies and hearing song titles and when that’s happening, you have to take advantage of it. It might stop. You have to work when you’re feeling it.

I was confident in the song choice.

The band was hot from playing live so much. We just went for it. It wasn’t as awkward feeling as the fi rst one. I wasn’t as insecure as I was with the fi rst one.”

Ween says the Dean Ween Group has provided him with a way to get back into live performance, something Ween only does sparingly these days.

“I have the best of both worlds,” he says. “Ween has so many songs that I will never get bored of playing. We could play three-hour sets five nights in a row and not repeat any songs. I’m not bragging.

We just have that many songs.

The Dean Ween Group is a whole different thing. I’m the guy out front with my Stratocaster, and I’m going to try to kill you with it and get off on the guitar.”

jniesel@clevescene.com scene@clevescene.com @clevelandscene t@jniesel

| clevescene.com m | March 21 - 27, 2018

377

38

| clevescene.com | March 21 - 27, 2018

MUSIC Photo courtesy of MSO PR

AGAINST THE GRAIN Dixie Dregs guitarist talks about the band’s legacy of refusing to fit into a ‘mold’

By Jeff Niesel WHEN GUITARIST STEVE Morse and bassist Andy West formed Dixie Grit, a jazz/prog band that would morph into the Dixie Dregs, back in 1970, they had modest aspirations.

“My brother [Dave Morse] and I always had some kind of band,” says Morse in a recent phone interview. Currently in the midst of a reunion tour, the Dixie Dregs perform at 8 p.m. on Friday at the Kent Stage. “He was a few years older than me. But once I met Andy, he had a lot of energy for making music. We started making our own music. The only gigs were functions like weddings. We put together cover tunes and tried to pretend like we were a cover band even though we would slip in original music. It didn’t go great.

We weren’t a dance band.”

Morse and West might not have been well-suited to playing weddings, but they noticed that people responded favorably when they played their original tunes. That group would splinter, however, leaving Morse and West wondering what their next move would be.

After Morse enrolled at University of Miami’s School of Music in 1971, he and West put together the Dixie Dregs, a group that naturally evolved from Dixie Grit.

“The marketing test for names for us was that if one of us laughed — and especially if both of us laughed — it was a done deal,”

Morse says with a laugh. “We had no idea how unsuitable that name would be for a band in terms of what it projected to people.”

The band played what Morse describes as “experimental stuff.”

“It was a wonderful reception,” he says. “These are kids that didn’t necessarily like jazz. They just wanted to listen. We had our fi rst rehearsal for the album, and [guitarist] Hiram Bullock, one of the musicians down there who later played in the David Letterman band, told me to check [Rod Morgenstein] out. I said, ‘The Rod who plays keyboards in my improv class?’ He said, ‘He plays drums too.’ This guy [violinist] Allen Sloan came to a rehearsal, and we were doing a Mahavishu

distinguished by Southern rockinspired guitar solos, fierce violin and snappy bass riffs. Thanks to Morse’s persistence, the band remained a musical oddity even after signing a deal with Capricorn Records that same year.

“On the first three albums, I tried to exert as much artistic control as possible, to the point of making myself annoying,” says Morse. “I just can’t help it. I wrote almost every note, and I had a bunch of ideas and I would produce the demos. They often didn’t sound great, but I did sort of push myself into it.”

Morse would eventually take over production duties with 1980’s Dregs of the Earth and 1981’s Unsung Heroes.

“Up until those albums, I had

DIXIE DREGS 8 P.M. FRIDAY, MARCH 23, KENT STAGE, 175 EAST MAIN ST., KENT, 330-677-5005.

TICKETS: $40-$75, THEKENTSTAGE.COM

Orchestra cover tune. He knew it and wanted to play with us. He came in and he could read music.

We were playing gigs right away — not paying gigs, but we were out doing it. It was a fertile area at the time.”

In 1976, the band made its debut with The Great Spectacular, a heady instrumental album that instantly won over a cult following with tracks such as the lurching “Refried Funky Chicken,” a tune

been there for every note of every album,” says Morse. “[Producer] Ken Scott [who worked on 1978’s What If and 1979’s Night of the Living Dregs ] was generous with his knowledge and showing me his techniques. He spent so much time with me, and he gave me some advice. He just told me to get a good engineer. He really mentally helped me, and I labored over every note on those albums. The other guys were out having a good time,

and I was doing [the production] for no money. I just wanted to see the project through and have my vision fulfi lled exactly as I wanted.

It was very satisfying.”

After a number of lineup changes throughout the past decades, the original members along with keyboardist Steve Davidowski have teamed up for the Dawn of the Dregs U.S. Tour. The performances will mark the first time in 40 years that this lineup has shared the stage.

A fan poll helped the group determine the bulk of the set list and Morse says that having Davidowski with the group means they’ll play a few selections from 1977’s Free Fall, an album he recorded with the band.

Morse says the band’s unwillingness to compromise has helped ensure a loyal fanbase.

“I think people know there’s no pretentiousness,” he says. “We’re just a bunch of guys who like to play music. I think people can relate to that. They’re just like us.

They do the best they can. I think we have not been able to make it big, but we have been able to do something that matters. That’s just like our fans and their jobs.

And I think audiophiles naturally gravitate to a band like this that doesn’t try to fit into the mold.”

jniesel@clevescene.com t@jniesel

| clevescene.com | March 21 - 27, 2018

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| clevescene.com | March 21 - 27, 2018

FRIDAY, APRIL 27

SATURDAY, APRIL 28

ACE MOLAR

LIVEWIRE

all the live music you should see this week Photo by Jacob Blickenstaff

WED

03/21

10 X 3 Singer Songwriter Showcase hosted by Brent Kirby (in the Wine Bar): 8 p.m. Brothers Lounge.

Bluewater Kings Band: 8 p.m., free.

Brothers Lounge.

Jonatha Brooke: 7:30 p.m., $26.50 ADV, $30 DOS. Beachland Ballroom.

Judah & the Lion: 8 p.m., $25 ADV, $28 DOS. House of Blues.

Ernie Krivda and Generation NeXt: 7 p.m., $10. Bop Stop.

No Vacation/Hot Flash Heat Wave/ Surf Rock is Dead/Fresh Bucket: 8 p.m., $13 ADV, $15 DOS. Mahall’s 20 Lanes.

Gretchen Pleuss/M. Moody/Shetler Jones: 8 p.m., $7. Beachland Tavern.

Richie Ramone: 8 p.m., $13-$23. The Winchester.

THU

03/22

Altan/The Porter Sharks: 7:30 p.m., $30 ADV, $35 DOS. Beachland Ballroom.

Drake Bell / TRYON / Alex Angelo: 8 p.m., $15 ADV, $17 DOS. Grog Shop.

Pete Cavano & Kevin Richards: 8 p.m., $10. Nighttown.

Dreadlock Dave CD Release Party (in the Supper Club): 8 p.m., $10 ADV, $12 DOS. Music Box Supper Club.

Dude Ranch/The Girl at the Rock Show: 8 p.m., $10. Musica.

An Evening with John Moreland and James McMurtry: 8 p.m., $35.

The Kent Stage.

Chris Hatton’s Musical Circus (in the Wine Bar): 8 p.m. Brothers Lounge.

Jam Night with the Bad Boys of Blues: 9 p.m., free. Brothers Lounge.

Moody Blues Tribute by Time Traveller: 7:30 p.m., $15 ADV, $20 DOS. Music Box Supper Club.

Motherfolk: 8 p.m., $10 ADV, $13 DOS. The Winchester.

Murphy’s Law/Gluttons/Basement Boys: 8 p.m., $10 ADV, $12 DOS. Now That’s Class.

Swell Tides/Kruds/Shit Blimp!: 9 p.m., $5. Happy Dog. Yoron Israel Trio: 8 p.m., $15. Bop Stop.

You Bred Raptors?/Reginleif: 8:30 p.m., $4 ADV, $7 DOS. CODA.

7 p.m., $10. Mahall’s 20 Lanes.

Dan Bruce’s Beta Collective: Album Release: 8 p.m., $15. Bop Stop.

Eyehategod/Cro Mags/Fuck You Pay Me: New Orleans sludgemetal masters Eyehategod made a name for themselves in the early ’90s when they released a trio of albums — 1992’s In the Name of Suffering, 1993’s Take As Needed for Pain, and 1996’s Dopesick — which ushered in comparisons to everyone from Black Flag to Black Sabbath. On 2014’s Eyehategod, its first studio release in 14 years, the band shows it hasn’t lost a step.

(Niesel) 9 p.m., $20 ADV, $22 DOS. Grog Shop.

Keith Harkin: 8 p.m., $35-$55.

Fifty years on, the Zombies are still on the road and return to the Kent Stage on Saturday.

Musica.

Nightwish: 6 p.m., $45 ADV, $50.50 That’s Class.

DOS. The Agora Theatre.

Marcus Martin (in the Wine Bar): 6 Rogue Wave: Asleep at Heaven’s p.m. Brothers Lounge.

Gate 10th Anniversary/Dear Boy: Beauty Slap: 8 p.m., $15. Bop Stop.

Travis Meadows/Matt Hectorne: 8:30 p.m., $20. Mahall’s 20 Lanes.

Bruce in the U.S.A.: 8 p.m., $22 ADV, 8:30 p.m., $15. Beachland Tavern.

Tropical Cleveland (in the Supper $25 DOS. Music Box Supper Club.

The Numbers Band (15-60-75): 8:30 Club): 11 p.m., $10 ADV, $15 DOS. Davina & the Vagabonds: Singer p.m., $10. Nighttown.

Music Box Supper Club.

Davina Sowers rightly draws Paper Morning / Frances & The Wanyama Presents: Jungle Boogie comparisons to Etta James, Amy Foundation / The Worn Flints: 9 2018: 9 p.m., $15 ADV, $20 DOS. Winehouse, Billie Holiday and p.m., $4 ADV, $7 DOS. CODA. Beachland Ballroom.

Betty Boop. The group’s latest Shadow of Doubt/Across the Jackie Warren: 10:30 p.m., free. release, 2016’s Nicollet and Tenth, Universe: 8 p.m., $12 ADV, $15 Nighttown. represents Sowers’ eclectic taste DOS. House of Blues.

The Zombies/Don DiLego: When in music and her maturation as a Moss Stanley: 10:30 p.m., free. the Zombies issued their final singer and songwriter too. (Jeff Nighttown. album, Odessey and Oracle, in 1968, the lukewarm response from Niesel) 8 p.m., $20. Musica.

Tracy Marie’s Fourth Friday both critics and the general public Dixie Dregs: 8 p.m., $40-$75. The Concert Series featuring: helped drive a stake into the group, Kent Stage.

Gretchen Pleuss (in the Wine which had had a handful of hits Tinsley Ellis (in the Supper Club): Bar): 9 p.m. Brothers Lounge. prior to its release, causing it to Veteran bluesman Tinsley Ellis Warrant/Jack Russell’s Great prematurely splinter. Now, five inked a deal with Alligator Records White: 8 p.m. Hard Rock Rocksino decades since its release, the album some 30 years ago and has steadily Northfield Park. is considered a classic and the band churned out records ever since.

The Dean Ween Group: 8:30 p.m., continues to tour. (Niesel) 8 p.m., His latest effort, Winning Hand, $25. Beachland Ballroom. commences with the simmering $45-$60. The Kent Stage.

“Sound of a Broken Man.” Ellis effectively alternates between ballads such as “Gamblin’ Man” Appetite for Destruction: 7:30 p.m., and gritty rockers like “Kiss This $13 ADV, $16 DOS. House of Blues. ’90s Block Party with Guy/Jagged World.” (Niesel), 8 p.m., $20 ADV, Edge/112/Ginuwine: 7 p.m., Greg Banaszak Quintet (in the $22 DOS. Music Box Supper Club. $59.50-$250. State Theatre.

Wine Bar): 7 p.m. Brothers Ethers/Swindlella/Ricky Hell & the Advance Base (C.F.T.P.A.)/Greg Lounge.

Voidboys: 9 p.m., $5. Happy Dog. Jamie (in the Apartment): 8 p.m., Bruce in the U.S.A.: 8 p.m., $22 ADV, Fat Night/Uptowne Buddha/Collin $6 ADV, $8 DOS. Mahall’s 20 $25 DOS. Music Box Supper Club.

Miller and the Brother Nature/ Lanes.

Carole King Tribute by Home Again Jessica Yafanaro: 9 p.m., $5 ADV, Joseph Beltram/Gretchen Pleuss/ (in the Supper Club): 7 p.m., $25 $8 DOS. The Winchester.

Brian Straw: 8 p.m., $5. Happy ADV, $28 DOS. Music Box Supper Glow 6 with Kent Archie/Wrecking Dog. Club.

Crew Red Panda Bear / Fresh By Cifika/Fee Lion/Maz: 8:30 p.m., $15.

Richie Cole & Sammy DeLeon Nature Records / Mikal Callow / Beachland Tavern.

Latin Jazz Septet: 8:30 p.m., $25.

Dirty Kicks: 9 p.m., $10 ADV, $15 Elbow Room/Mascots/Theta Waves/ Nighttown.

DOS. Grog Shop.

When/Where/Coldswell/pollen The Commonwealth/Arms and Harvest: 9:30 p.m., $8. Brothers eyes (in the Locker Room): 7 p.m., Armour/MAN: 9 p.m., $5. Happy Lounge. $10. Mahall’s 20 Lanes.

Dog. Horseburner/Pillars/Black Antler/ Sweaty Mammoth: 9 p.m., $5. Now Daddy Issues (in the Locker Room): Fields and Planes/Moira/Danny

FRI

03/23

SAT

03/24

SUN

03/25

| clevescene.com | March 21 - 27, 2018

41

LIVEWIRE

KentStage The

=HGÍM FBLL MA>L> @K>:M LAHPL MB<D>ML HG L:E> GHP

An Evening with

John Moreland & James McMurtry Thu., Mar. 22

Dawn of the Dregs Tour

The Zombies

Fri., Mar. 23

Sat., Mar. 24

Dixie Dregs

Golden/Emily Keener: 7 p.m., $8.

Mahall’s 20 Lanes.

Journeywork: 7 p.m., $10.

Nighttown.

Mike Petrone: 5:30 p.m. Brothers Lounge.

Rock Against Dementia: 2 p.m. Bop Stop.

Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder: 7:30 p.m., $37-$47. The Kent Stage.

Michael Stanley and the Resonators/Donnie Iris: Tonight’s show serves as a birthday celebration as Stanley turns 70; expect a particularly festive atmosphere. (Niesel) 7:30 p.m. Hard Rock Rocksino Northfield Park.

Violent End/Cider/Cadaver Dogs: 9 p.m., $7. Now That’s Class.

Weedeater / Bask / Hybroian: 8:30 p.m., $15 ADV, $17 DOS. Grog Shop.

“Weird Al” Yankovic: A Weird Al Yankovic concert is more than just a concert. It’s an experience. But for tonight’s show, expect something completely different. Dubbed the Ridiculously Self-Indulgent, IllAdvised Vanity Tour, the show will feature a “stripped-down, no-frills production,” and the concert will include Yankovic’s non-parody material. (Niesel) 8 p.m., $69.50$79.50. Ohio Theatre.

MON

Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder Sun., Mar. 25

The English Beat & The TwistOffs

Karla Bonoff

Sun., Apr. 1

Fri., Apr. 6

“54 Below Concert”: Baldwin Wallace Musical Theater Department Senior Class: 7 p.m., $10. Nighttown.

Skatch Anderssen Orchestra: 8 p.m., $7. Brothers Lounge.

Velvet Voyage (in the Wine Bar): 8 p.m. Brothers Lounge.

TUE Thompson Square Sat., Apr. 7

Asleep at the Wheel Sun., Apr. 15

“Always & Forever – An Evening of Luther Vandross” starring Ruben Studdard

Tues., Apr. 19

Michael Stanley & Friends Sat., Apr. 21 On sale Friday, March 23 ALL SHOWS AT THE KENT STAGE UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED 42

Tickets available at www.kentstage.org or 877-987-6487 GMK [w cw i {{ © a{ B e~ JJHJF | clevescene.com | March 21 - 27, 2018

03/26

03/27

Charlie Hunter: 7 p.m., $20.

Nighttown.

Iced Earth/Sanctuary/Kill Ritual: 7:30 p.m., $25 ADV, $28 DOS. House of Blues Cambridge Room.

Kayos/48/Dubloadz/Gammer/ JSTJR: 8 p.m., $20 ADV, $25 DOS. House of Blues.

Mo Lowda & the Humble: 8:30 p.m., $7.50 ADV, $10 DOS. Beachland Tavern.

Zach (in the Wine Bar): 7 p.m.

Brothers Lounge.

scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene

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BAND OF THE WEEK

DREADLOCK DAVE MEET THE BAND : Dreadlock Dave (vocals, bass, guitar, keyboards, drums, ukulele, piano, woodwinds, brass, sitar, percussion) IT ALL STARTED WITH A UKULELE:

Dreadlock Dave, who grew up in Olmsted Falls, took ukulele and piano lessons at age 5. “Both my parents were musically inclined,” he says. “At that time, it was popular to take piano lessons. I just took lessons from the neighborhood lady. That’s how I got started.” That piqued his interest in music, and he eventually became president of his high school band. “I played three different saxophones in high school,” he says. “I played the flugelhorn and sousaphone too.” He then learned to play woodwind and brass instruments while studying jazz and electric bass at the University of Akron and Cuyahoga Community College. He released his fi rst album in 1999. “I played all the instruments on that album,” he explains. “I just wanted to produce my own music. I can’t remember how many songs are on it, but they were the fi rst songs I had ever written. I put it together and went for it.” As a solo artist, he now regularly plays about 200 shows a year.

A SELF-PRODUCED MAN: For his fourth

album, Shine, he started writing songs in the past year or two. “I’m just continuing on to spread the positive vibes,” he says when asked about his approach on the album, which he recorded at his home studio. “It’s all self-produced. That’s the Prince influence. I want to play and record and engineer and

do everything myself. I wanted to continue with that process.”

WHY YOU SHOULD HEAR HIM: Shine opens with the funky “Come and Get Down.” The frenetic opening number then gives way to “Time Flies” and “Open Your Heart,” mellow tunes with percolating synthesizers and mid-range vocals.

Dreadlock Dave gets back to the funky stuff with “Equilibrium,” a song that about gentrification, and “Lemonade,” a tune with a thick bass riff and distorted vocals. “My influences are so wide ranging,” he says. “My favorite music is funk and jazz and the fusion of that. I like Sly and the Family Stone and all the funk artists. They weigh heavily on my heart, but I record whatever comes out of me at the time. I don’t have a plan. From the other side of the coin, I’m a huge Joni Mitchell fan, and I like folk music.” For the release show at the Music Box Supper Club, he’s put together a three-piece band. “It’s a power trio with bass, drums and keys,” he says. “I think [the release show] will be a one-time event and a special thing. It’s not like we’re a band. I put this lineup together special for the show.”

WHERE YOU CAN HEAR HIM: dreadlockdave.com.

WHERE YOU CAN SEE HIM: Dreadlock

Dave performs at 8 p.m. on Thursday, March 22, at the Music Box Supper Club. — Jeff Niesel

jniesel@clevescene.com t@jniesel

| clevescene.com | March 21 - 27, 2018

43

Photo courtesy of the Cleveland Institute of Music

C-NOTES

FINDING HER MUSICAL ROOTS CIM faculty member to explore her heritage in special recital

By Jeff Niesel

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| clevescene.com | March 21 - 27, 2018

A CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF Music faculty member, pianist Sandra Shapiro traces her familyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s history in In My Fatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Footsteps: A Daughterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Search for Answers.

In the musical program, Shapiro plays music that speaks to her familyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cultural history and how she discovered the story of her fatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life; he served in the Russian army and lived in Argentina and Israel before ďŹ nally moving to the States.

She began working on the composition way back in 2004 as she tried to ďŹ nd out more about her fatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s roots. Because her father died when she was young, she didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know the man very well. She uncovered a clue when she began writing to one of his cousins who lived in East Germany. But her online research had hit a wall.

Then the 2016 presidential election took place, and immigration became a hot topic. That rekindled her interest in ďŹ nding her roots. â&#x20AC;&#x153;When this election came about last year, I was getting very concerned and upset by events surrounding the election,â&#x20AC;? she says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The things that were coming up were very disconcerting. I started thinking about immigration and roots. For me, one of the important things is that I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t believe I would be the musician or person I am today if it werenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t for my cultural heritage and all the musical inďŹ&#x201A;uences Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve had throughout my life that have been incredibly

important. My own personal cultural heritage is signiďŹ cant too. Half of me is Russian and half is Israeli.â&#x20AC;?

Though she had been playing chamber music, she wanted to return to playing piano. But she didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to be just another recital pianist. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I wanted to play solo, but it has to have more meaning,â&#x20AC;? she says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I thought, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Why not try to learn about cultural heritage and musical inďŹ&#x201A;uences and create programs around this idea?â&#x20AC;&#x2122;â&#x20AC;?

She put together a proposal for four programs, the ďŹ rst of which is In My Fatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Footsteps: A Daughterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Search For Answers.

Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll perform it at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, March 21, at Mixon Hall. It features her â&#x20AC;&#x153;twistâ&#x20AC;? on Dvorak and includes compositions

by Liadov, Chopin, Rachmaninoff and Schubert. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I want to bring home the point that weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re all connected, and weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re all inďŹ&#x201A;uenced by so many different things,â&#x20AC;? says Shapiro. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s my response to the elections and what I wanted to say about all of that.

Recitals can be very formal, but I do speak during the recital, and I talk about why I chose each group of pieces and what the relationship is between the music and my father.â&#x20AC;?

Admission is free, but a ticket (which can obtained through the CIM website) is required.

jniesel@clevescene.com t@jniesel

SAVAGE LOVE ACE & THE HOLE

By Dan Savage I’m a 26-year-old cis queer woman. My best friend has identified publicly as asexual for the past two years. She constantly talks about how since she doesn’t “need” sex, this means she is asexual.

She does have sex, however, and she enjoys it, which I know isn’t disqualifying. But she also actively seeks out sex partners and sex.

But, again, she insists that because she doesn’t “need” sex the way she presumes the rest of us do, she is asexual. I have an issue with this. I’ve never had partnered sex and never really felt the need or desire for it. I’m plenty happy with emotional intimacy from others and masturbation for my sexual needs, and I do not particularly desire a romantic or sexual partner.

My friend gets offended if anyone questions her label. I usually defend her to others since she’s my friend, but as a person who is starting to identify more and more as asexual, I’ve grown annoyed at her use of “asexual” as her identifier, to the point that this may be starting to affect our friendship. I’ve kept silent because I don’t want to make her feel attacked — but in the privacy of my own head, I’m calling bullshit on her asexuality. I don’t particularly want to come out as asexual to her, given the circumstances. Am I just being a shitty gatekeeping asexual?

— Actually Coitus Evading Asexuality — it’s a point on a spectrum and it’s a spectrum unto itself.

“There is a spectrum of sexuality, with sexual and asexual as the endpoints and a gray area in between,” says whoever wrote the General FAQ at the Asexual Visibility and Education Network website (asexuality.org). “Many people identify in this gray area under the identity of ‘gray-asexual’ or ‘gray-a.’ Examples of grayasexuality include an individual who does not normally experience sexual attraction but does experience it sometimes; experiences sexual attraction but has a low sex drive; experiences sexual attraction and drive but not strongly enough to want to act on them; and/or can enjoy and desire sex but only under very limited and specific

circumstances. ... Furthermore, [some] asexual people in relationships might choose or even want to have sex with their partner as a way of showing affection, and they might even enjoy it. Others may want to have sex in order to have children, or to satisfy a curiosity, or for other reasons.”

As for your friend, ACE, well, according to the Protocols of the Elders of Tumblr, we’re no longer allowed to express doubt about someone’s professed sexual orientation or gender identity. So if Republican U.S. senator Larry Craig of Idaho gets caught trawling for dick in an airport bathroom — which he did in 2007 — and insists it was all a misunderstanding because, you know, he’s 200 percent straight, well, then he’s straight.

Maybe in the same way Larry Craig is straight, your friend is asexual — or, hey, maybe she’s asexual in the “gray-a” sense, i.e., under certain circumstances (awake, aware, conscious, alert, sentient), she experiences sexual attraction.

Or maybe she’s not a gray-a who identifies as ace but an actual asexual who is having sex for “other reasons.” A person doesn’t have to be celibate to be asexual or to identify as asexual, ACE, and until there’s an asexual accreditation agency — which there never will be and never should be — we’ll just have to take your friend’s word for it.

But just as asexuality is a thing, ACE, so too is bullshit. Denial is a thing, and sex shame is an incredibly destructive thing. Like the guy who has a lot of gay sex but refuses to identify as gay or bi, it’s possible your friend is just a messy closet case — a closeted sexual, someone who wants sex but doesn’t want to be seen as the kind of person who wants sex since only bad people want sex. Some people twist themselves into the oddest knots so they can have what they want without having to admit they want it. But even if it sounds to you (and me) like your friend’s label is suspect, you should nevertheless hold your tongue and allow her to identify however she likes.

mail@savagelove.net t@fakedansavage

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