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Interested in pursuing a career in healthcare? Then don’t miss this opportunity to hear from a dynamic group of healthcare professionals from Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Comprehensive Pain Management Specialists, Judson Park Homecare, The Metro Health System and the Ohio Occupational Therapy Association.
T O R S V P, P L E A S E C A L L 2 1 6 - 4 5 2 - 6 3 4 2 For more information about our graduation rates, the median debt of students who completed the program and other important information, visit www.bryantstratton.edu/disclosures.
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| clev clevescene.com e escene.c . om m | June Jun unee 14 - 20, 20, 22017 0177 01
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*5.% s 6/,5-% .O 50 Dedicated to Free Times founder Richard H. Siegel (1935-1993) and Scene founder Richard Kabat Group Publisher Chris Keating
CONTENTS
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Publisher Andrew Zelman Associate Publisher Angela Lott
Upfront
Editor Vince Grzegorek Editorial Managing Editor Eric Sandy Music Editor Jeff Niesel Senior Writer Sam Allard Staff Writer Brett Zelman Writer-at-large Kyle Swenson Web Editor Laura Morrison Dining Editor Douglas Trattner Stage Editor Christine Howey Visual Arts Writers Josh Usmani, Dott von Schneider Copy Editor Elaine Cicora Interns Johnny Cook, Lawrence Neil, Colton Faull, Julie Ciotola, Kirby Davis Advertising Senior Multimedia Account Executive John Crobar, Shayne Rose Multimedia Account Executive Kiara Davis
Otep
Council responds to city’s lawsuit against itself, Ashtabula police shooting victims remains in ICU, and more
Feature
will be in town on Saturday.
15
A tiny piece of evidence could be the key to setting an innocent Cleveland man free. Why can’t anyone at the Justice Center find it?
'ET /UT
Creative Services Production Manager Steve Miluch Layout Editor/Graphic Designer Christine Hahn Staff Photographer Emanuel Wallace
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All the best things to do this week in Cleveland
Business Sales Assistant/Receptionist Megan Stimac Controller Kristy Dotson
Art
Circulation Circulation Director Don Kriss Euclid Media Group Chief Executive Offi cer Andrew Zelman Chief Operating Offi cers Chris Keating, Michael Wagner Human Resources Director Lisa Beilstein Digital Operations Coordinator Jaime Monzon
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Cleveland mourns the passing of two giants in the arts community
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When Einstein meets Picasso, lame jokes result. Who knew?
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Film
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Trevorrow’s The Book of Henry re-aligns his ‘crazy’ Hollywood trajectory
Cleveland Scene Magazine is published every week by Euclid Media Group. Verifi ed Audit Member Cleveland Distribution Scene is available free of charge, limited to one copy per reader Copyright The entire contents of Cleveland Scene Magazine are copyright 2017 by Euclid Media Group. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher is prohibited. Publisher does not assume any liability for unsolicited manuscripts, materials, or other content. Any submission must include a stamped, self-addressed envelope. All editorial, advertising, and business correspondence should be mailed to the address listed above. Subscriptions $150 (1 yr); $ 80 (6 mos.) Send name, address and zip code with check or money order to the address listed above with the title ‘Attn: Subscription Department’
Dining
37
Collision Bend puts the restaurant back in the brewery
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| clevescene.com m | June 14 - 20, 2017
UPFRONT COUNCIL RESPONDS TO CITY’S TACTICAL Q DEAL LAWSUIT
THIS WEEK
NEITHER SIDE HAS A “SLAM dunk” argument in the Q Deal controversy, Cleveland.com reported last week, in a story that topped the PD Sunday edition’s front page. The case “could hinge on whether Cleveland’s charter is in line with the Ohio Constitution, and whether actions the city has taken after the legislation was approved on an emergency basis can check the right of repeal by citizens.” This is correct. But what’s also apparent is that city leaders (Mayor Frank Jackson, Council President Kevin Kelley, the law department, perhaps others) have worked tirelessly to ensure that the citizens of Cleveland will not have a say on this issue, the proposed arena renovation that will commit otherwise unencumbered admissions tax revenue at the Q from 20232034, along with money from the county, Destination Cleveland, and the Cavs. The city referendum only concerns the city’s contribution. Taking the matter to the Supreme Court is an attempt to legally justify the circumvention efforts. It can only be explained in the context of the city’s desire to prevent a referendum. The city has said the state Supreme Court must decide between two “equally valid” legal arguments, which are as follows: The clerk of council must accept the referendum petitions, per her role as delineated in the City Charter. The clerk cannot accept the petitions, as a voter referendum would impair an already executed contract, per the U.S. Constitution’s Contract clause. Scene invited every city council member to weigh in on the suit last week. Many responded. Those who opposed the deal were, expectedly, critical of the city’s suit. Those who supported the deal claimed
Photo by Eric Sandy
to support both the citizens’ right to referendum and council’s legal authority to pass legislation under emergency ordinance (which was sought, don’t forget, largely if not exclusively to speed up the process and prevent a referendum). Most of the Q Deal supporters, in similarly worded emailed responses, found the suit “wholly appropriate,” “completely appropriate,” or otherwise appropriate. “The parties are in search of an equitable remedy to a constitutional issue with competing legal views,” wrote councilman Martin Keane in a message essentially duplicated by councilman Brian Kazy. “I appreciate
that the law department went straight to the Supreme Court of Ohio in the hopes, for parties to the action and all otherwise interested, of a swift and definitive order. Not being a party to the action I would hesitate to analyze further.” Here’s a refresher on what happened: The Chandra Law Firm sent a letter to city law director Barbara Langhenry on May 26, four days after more than 20,000 signatures had been rejected by the deputy city council clerk, Allan Dreyer. The Chandra letter asked that Langhenry compel clerk of council Pat Britt to accept the signatures (which is her job) or else
face a lawsuit. In response, the city announced that it would sue itself: The city law department filed a mandamus action against Pat Britt asking her to accept the signatures. At a press conference, both council president Kevin Kelley and mayor Frank Jackson (representing the opposing sides?) said that taking the issue to the Ohio Supreme Court would bring about a swift resolution. They described the suit as precisely what the opposition attorneys had requested. The Chandra lawyers disagreed. If the city were serious about asking Pat Britt to do her job, they wouldn’t
FA
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IDEAL CANDIDATE
Browns’ coach Hue Jackson signs with Jay-Z’s Roc Nation Sports agency. Speculation has some believing that Jackson will join the Golden State Warriors next season at small forward.
New 34-story apartment tower planned for Playhouse Square. Each unit will feature a life-size replica of the Euclid Avenue chandelier in the dining room.
Mayor Frank Jackson’s grandson charged with carrying concealed gun. The following day, mayor excitedly announces new public safety director pick in re-election campaign.
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| clevescene.com | June 14 - 20, 2017
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UPFRONT need to file a mandamus action to do so. Subodh Chandra told Scene last week that Kevin Kelley (for whom Pat Britt works) could have merely walked to her office and told her to accept the signatures. That would be that. The current legal tactic can be read in a number of ways. On one hand, it attempts to prevent the Chandra Law Firm from taking part in the case. Frank Jackson explicitly acknowledged that this was so, though Subodh Chandra said that his firm intends to intervene. Additionally, it delays a decision on the issue. Despite Kevin Kelley’s claims of an “expeditious” resolution, one Akron lawyer whom Cleveland.com managed to contact said the process could take “months.” That’s important because both Kelley and Jackson are also increasingly concerned, per opposition council members, about the effect of this case on their electability. “They don’t want this on the ballot in September or November,” said councilman Jeff Johnson, who is an opponent of the deal and is also running for mayor. Johnson, in harsh language, called the lawsuit a “charade” and said it was indicative of “collusion in circumventing the City Charter.” He also said that this is being done at the expense of the project itself. Indeed, the current suit flies in the face of the stated goals of the “emergency” designation: to expedite the county bond sale and the construction at the arena. Zack Reed, another council member who opposes the deal and is running for mayor, said that Frank Jackson, not Kevin Kelley, should be seen as the architect of the legal plot: Kelley was merely the mayor’s “water boy.” “The mayor literally called this the best deal he’d ever seen,” Reed said, referencing a video Jackson made when he signed the ordinance into law. “If it’s so good, why is he afraid to take it to the voters of the City of Cleveland?” Kevin Kelley has told Scene that a legal challenge on this issue was inevitable. That is almost certainly the case. There was always some question about whether or not the Q Deal legislation, passed as an emergency, could be subject to voter referendum. But according to councilman Mike Polensek, that
wasn’t for Kelley or the clerk to decide. “If the boys with the fat checkbooks from Detroit wanted to oppose this then they would have an opportunity to take legal action once the petitions were certified,” he wrote. “For the Council Leadership to tell 20,000+ residents to “stick it” is outrageous.” Councilmen Terrell Pruitt, Matt Zone and Tony Brancatelli all said they supported the deal, but also supported the referendum, provided there was no legal violation. Pruitt and Brancatelli, like Keane and Kazy, reaffirmed that they’d done their homework and genuinely believed the Q Deal was a benefit to Cleveland as a whole and to the neighborhoods they represented. Fair enough, but the “legal violation” the referendum has been said to represent — per Allan Dreyer’s memo — is of the U.S. Constitution’s Contract Clause. It was said that the referendum would impair an already executed and binding contract (the Q Deal itself). And in the words of the taxpayer demand letter: “It is unimaginable that the Contract Clause was intended to give government officials carte blanche to propose new laws against the will of the electorate and then rush into contracts in an effort to void the electorate’s statutory right to repeal those laws.” If that’s not a legal slam dunk, it sounds like a moral one. — Sam Allard
FEW ANSWERS IN ASHTABULA OFFICER-INVOLVED SHOOTING Brendan Hester, 23, remains in critical condition in the MetroHealth ICU after being shot twice by an Ashtabula police officer in the early hours of June 2. The particular sequence of events that led to his shooting and the consequences for those involved are less clear. Police responded to a 911 call that morning at Hester’s Ashtabula home, where he lives with his brother, his brother’s girlfriend and their daughter. Someone had broken into the house, and Hester was holding that person at gunpoint. His brother’s girlfriend called the police. Upon arrival, an unidentified officer shot Hester. According to family members, no orders were given to drop the gun. Ashtabula police originally reported that they ordered Hester to drop his weapon. Police also distributed
Photo by Eric Sandy
messages to local media that insinuated a narcotics operations inside Hester’s home, and attorneys argue that there’s a degree of blame that Ashtabula is hoping to place directly on Hester himself. “The only drugs in the house were a
small amount of marijuana, and not more than would be subject to a simple possession ticket and ďŹ ne,â€? Hester’s attorneys insist. “Further, the money found in the house was a modest amount, like any working person might keep and save in his
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or her home.� Ashtabula police have not communicated with the Hester family in the ensuing week. “Notably, Ashtabula police have not made any statements to suggest that Brendan posed any threat to
them or anyone else at the time he was shot,â€? said Jacqueline Greene, partner at Friedman & Gilbert, the ďŹ rm representing the Hester family. The ofďŹ cer who shot Hester is currently on paid administrative leave. Hester’s cousin, Alex Spangler, spoke with reporters last week and relayed the family’s thoughts. “Brendan is not a criminal, nor did he deserve to be shot,â€? he said. “Brendan is a victim, and his life matters. ... We are devastated, but we are committed to seeing the police department held accountable for their actions. We deserve an apology. We deserve a full and thorough investigation by BCI.â€? Spangler said June 8 that Hester’s health had taken a sudden turn for the worse, though he did not elaborate. Lakeside basketball coach Michael Osborne said that Hester was a very competitive athlete. “He always insisted that he guard the best player on the other team,â€? he said. “He was an excellent student, and he went on to college. He was a very good person with dreams and aspirations of doing some things, and we hope that he will be able to continue to do those things.â€? — Eric Sandy
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Brendan Hester’s cousin, Alex Spangler, right, shares his family’s thoughts on June 8.
| clevescene.com | June 14 - 20, 2017
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UPFRONT THE STATE OF THE GREAT LAKES IS WORRISOME Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reporter Dan Egan recently published The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, and he’s hoping that the conversation it produces is as much a spark as the Cuyahoga River fires were in the nascent environmentalist movement 50 years ago. He spoke at the City Club of Cleveland last week as part of the organization’s annual State of the Great Lakes series. Noting that the introductory speakers had more or less taken all of his big marquee topics — the Cuyahoga fires, which Clevelanders are kind of over these days — Egan literally threw the pages of his speech over his shoulder. “I’m just gonna wing it,” he said. He guided the rest of the proceedings to what he called the most important Great Lakes’ story: the matter of invasive species, like zebra and quagga mussels, wreaking havoc on the food chain
and ecosystem and, ultimately, hurting our water quality. By and large, they’ve invaded our freshwater region through manmade routes — primarily through salty ballast water from outside the continent or through the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, from which Asian carp are currently threatening to enter the lakes. The solutions to manmade problems like those involve a lot of soulsearching and profound costbenefit analyses. One questioner balked at the idea of any sort of shipping reforms on the St. Lawrence Seaway, where massive freighters from across the globe have inadvertently brought our explosion in zebra and quagga mussel populations. But Egan insisted that it’s time to take
a close look at how much money it would cost governments and private organizations to rethink how we do business vs. how much money the devastation of the Great Lakes might cost us in the future. It’s a difficult issue to tackle when things don’t seem so damning and dire right now. Much like Egan’s youth spent along polluted Fox River in Wisconsin, and earlier Clevelanders who considered the Cuyahoga River with outright suspicion, humans generally just get used to the hand they’re dealt. It’s called “shifting baseline syndrome,” and it leads to a tragic cycle that gets in the way of environmental progress. Things are fine enough right now, and that’s fine enough to
During his speech last week, Egan also pointed out that the federal government has sided with the State of Ohio in not declaring the waters of Lake Erie “impaired.”
us. The fires in the 1960s ultimately provided at least one spark that led to the Clean Water Act — some sort of galvanizing force that proved to people that things weren’t so fine — and now it’s time for some new catalyst. “Toledo, to me, is a flashpoint,” Egan said, referencing the 2014 algal bloom crisis that led to the city shutting down its water supply for three days. But as far as the general public discourse goes, the Toledo problem came and went without much introspection. Egan’s hoping that his book will help take care of that before it’s too late. That crossroads may be growing ever closer, with President Trump’s 2018 budget proposal still on the table. He has suggested eliminating the $300-million budget for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, which funds a number of vital programs — some of which work to pare down the impact of invasive species, like the Asian carp. As scientists and engineers and environmentalists try to keep the Asian carp from invading Lake Michigan (and other lakes), it is Great Lakes Restoration funds that have ensured success in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal so far. The
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| clevescene.com | June 14 - 20, 2017
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U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has used some $18 million to maintain a broad electric barrier against the ďŹ sh. Like the mussels, Asian carp feed on plankton and end up decimating food supplies for the spectrum of native species in the water. During his speech last week, Egan also pointed out that the federal government has sided with the State of Ohio in not declaring the waters of Lake Erie “impaired.â€? (Michigan has insisted that its small corner of western Lake Erie is impaired.) Along with the Trump budget proposal and the general inertia of environmental policy, this is a problem. The impairment designation would trigger more federal funds for things like invasive species management and algal bloom remediation. The Ohio EPA and the governor have repeatedly fallen back on the vitality of voluntary incentives; regulations ushered in by an impairment designation, they argue, would only prove to be obstacles to
DIGIT WIDGET 21,000,000 Square feet of new retail space built in Northeast Ohio since 2000, an increase of 21 percent
90,000 The region’s population loss since the year 2000
$165,000,000 Reported sale price (+ fees) of Roy Lichtenstein’s “Masterpiece� by Agnes Gund, to create a fund that supports criminal justice reform in the U.S.
18% Ohio residents aged 60 or over who struggle with food security, placing Ohio among the 10 worst states in the country for senior hunger
really cleaning up the lake. It’s probably obvious to any weekend ďŹ sher that, on a broad scale, Ohio hasn’t really put a dent in that mission. (In Toledo, Lucas County commissioners have vocally insisted that the impairment designation is incredibly important for the health of their constituents and others, drawing a sharp line in the sand against state leadership.) The federal government couldn’t care less. Despite the obvious contradiction in the Ohio/Michigan opinions, the feds have cast their lot with Ohio’s proponents of inaction. The U.S. EPA did not deny Michigan’s claim that its waters are impaired, which makes the decision so much more confusing at face value. Lucas County commissioners, again, pointed out that the feds Mike DeWine “can’t have it both ways.â€? Howard Learner, executive director of the Environmental Law & Policy Center, points out the inherent shortcomings of that budget proposal, asking, “what could be more basic than restoring the Great Lakes and protecting safe, clean drinking water?â€? In the event Congress approves the Trump budget in part or in full, the stash of public resources available to improve the health of Lake Erie will vastly diminish, and the effects will be felt in due time. — Sandy
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ARCO SUIT UPDATE Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine has sued the owners of Arco Recycling in East Cleveland — the Noble Road dump — in an effort to recoup the $6-million Ohio EPA cleanup costs. While the cleanup process will begin later this summer and the budget line item is expected to sail smoothly through the legislature, taxpayers and news media commenters pointed out last week that the state should not be solely footing the bill for this work. This lawsuit will put Arco in the sightlines of the court system as the dump is cleared away, as James McCarty reported. If Arco remains in noncompliance (as the company has in the past), a tiered system of daily ďŹ nes will kick in. This is the second marquee lawsuit DeWine has spearheaded in as many weeks, following his action against ďŹ ve major pharmaceutical manufacturers in Ohio. — Sandy
scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene | clevescene.com | June 14 - 20, 2017
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| clevescene.com | June 14 - 20, 2017
ENJOY RESPONSIBLY
FEATURE
BLACK HOLE A tiny piece of evidence could be the key to setting an innocent Cleveland man free. Why can’t anyone at the Justice Center find it? By Kyle Swenson THE WOMEN DIDN’T SEE THE KNIFE-WIELDING MAN because of the hamster. On the afternoon of Oct. 9, 2000, three women, all classmates at a court-reporting school in downtown Cleveland, were hunting through their parked car for the loose little critter when the assailant approached, flashing a knife and demanding cash. After pocketing the money, he ordered the three women into the car, climbed in the back seat, and ordered them east. Near Central and East 40th, the robber got out. He thanked the women, then disappeared. When the women reported the incident to police, they gave differing accounts of the assailant’s
looks — all three had kept their eyes off his face during the anxious, scary encounter — but agreed on
his clothing: a grey jacket and a green hat with a red Polo logo. When Cleveland officers returned to where the victims had dropped off the stickup man, they found a jacket and hat matching the description. Inside the hat forensics investigators found four hairs — three nonhuman, one human. A lot now rests on that one, tiny hair. Anthony Johnson was a suspect in a series of other robberies — Cleveland had seen a rash of similar stickups in the late months of 2000 — and he was charged in 2001 with the Oct. 9 crime, as well
as two other stickups. Johnson maintained his innocence in court, noting that the human hair found in the hat didn’t match his DNA. Nevertheless, Johnson was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Johnson maintained he’d been put away for something he didn’t do, and, remarkably, while researching his case in a prison law library he met a guy who might have actually been the perpetrator, another alleged Cleveland stickup man named Frederick Norman. Johnson mentioned the circumstances of the Oct. 9 crime and Norman said it sounded familiar. Johnson told him | clevescene.com | June 14 - 20, 2017
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FEATURE more. Oh yeah, Norman confessed, I did that one. So launched a bizarre legal situation that’s grown more complex and baffling with each passing year, as Johnson continued to fight to prove his case, which was eventually taken up by the Ohio Innocence Project (OIP). The attorneys there formulated what sounded like a simple legal strategy to prove Johnson’s innocence: The hair in the hat didn’t come from their client, but if the hair did match Norman, it would firm up Johnson’s claims. Those lawyers could have foreseen any number of problems that could derail their quest to prove Johnson’s innocence, but they probably couldn’t have imagined the problem they are now faced with: The hair, and all the other evidence from the Oct. 9, 2000, crime, are nowhere to be found. OIP has spent the better part of the past year searching for it, pleading their case in front of judges, asking the Cleveland police department where it could be and how it got lost, and getting nothing in return. Meanwhile, Anthony Johnson sits in prison and waits. The search has revealed serious questions about the city of Cleveland’s ability to keep track of the most sensitive material integral to weighing guilt or innocence in the American justice system — another black eye for a police department and city with a long, troubling history in that realm. “The fact that we can’t test the hair is a huge injustice to Mr. Johnson — through no fault of his own,” says his attorney, OIP’s Jennifer Paschen Bergeron.
the green Polo hat, the jacket, and the hair. OIP’s court filings state that one of the law students working with the group called the department asking about the evidence; according to court filings, she was informed “the green hat was located in the property room” and “the hair was probably in the police lab.” Johnson’s lawyers filed an application for DNA testing on the hair in February 2013. The Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office challenged the request, teeing up a contest before the Eighth District Court of Appeals. The higher court sided with the defendant: Johnson would get his DNA test. In preparation for the eventual testing, Mary McGrath, the assistant prosecutor on the case, filed an “Initial Property Report” with the court in October 2014. In the document, the state copped to a newly discovered problem: McGrath wrote that she’d learned from Tom Ward, a Cleveland detective assigned to the property room, that he “had located the sole human hair that was recovered from green ball cap with red Polo detail.” But the green hat and jacket, despite what Cleveland police allegedly told OIP in 2011, were actually . . . missing. McGrath learned the items had been signed out by a detective for Johnson’s 2001 trial. They were never signed back in. Bad? Absolutely. But the hair found at the scene was the critical piece of evidence needed to determine Johnson’s innocence, not so much the jacket and hat itself. Per the appeals’ court order, the prosecutor’s office collected a sample from Frederick Norman, the man who confessed to the crime for which Johnson was serving time. Technically, this was the third hair to enter the situation. The first was the hair collected from the green hat. The second was a hair taken from Johnson as part of the original investigation, known as the “standard” hair, the one that didn’t match the strand found at the scene.
“The fact that we can’t test the hair is a huge injustice to Mr. Johnson — through no fault of his own,” says his attorney, OIP’s Jennifer Paschen Bergeron.
There was trouble with the evidence almost as soon as the Ohio Innocence Project got involved. In 2011, the organization sent letters to Cleveland police asking the department to locate and preserve
With Norman’s sample, all three hairs would be in place and the OIP could corroborate Johnson’s innocence. On Nov. 18, 2015, assistant prosecutor Mary McGrath personally walked to the Cleveland Police property room on the eighth floor of the department’s downtown headquarters to retrieve the crime scene hair. When she asked the clerk for the evidence, she was handed a sealed envelope. The item was labeled. “I saw the word ‘Standard’ and got very angry,” McGrath would later testify. The county prosecutor realized the police — or someone — had made another critical mistake. After misplacing the jacket and green hat, Cleveland police were now telling her they didn’t have the critical crime scene hair either, just Johnson’s hair. “I told him, ‘You must find this hair,’” McGrath testified. “‘I have represented that we have found this hair for years. You must find this hair.’”
OIP spent much of the next year petitioning the court to grant an evidentiary hearing to sniff out
what the hell was going on. “The prospect of testifying under oath and subject to cross examination will prompt evidence custodians to locate evidence that was previously reported to be missing or destroyed,” OIP’s Jennifer Paschen Bergeron argued in a January 2016 motion. An October 2016 hearing in front of Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Carolyn B. Friedland failed to settle the issue and raised more red —Tina flags regarding evidence storage at the Justice Center. As with almost all criminal proceedings in Cuyahoga County, the evidence in the Johnson case — the hat, jacket and hair — orbited between various corners of the police and court system. Each person
handling evidence is supposed to be documented; the log is known as the evidence’s chain of custody, the legal Holy Grail ensuring key pieces are not tampered with, or lost. OIP’s Bergeron sought to feel out where in that chain the items slipped away. The possibilities: the Cleveland police forensic lab; the police property room; in the prosecutor’s office; or in the common pleas or appeals court. The first witness called at the hearing was Tina Stewart, Stewart a scientific examiner with the police forensic lab. Although she never worked the Johnson case personally, Stewart was one of only two staffers still working in the lab who had been there back in 2000. “Have you personally looked for the hair?” Bergeron asked the
“I looked in every possible area that I could think of. I went to the property room. So I did exhaust all areas of storage.”
forensic examiner. “Yes, I have.” “When?” “I looked for it again yesterday, but I believe it was last year sometime I looked in the archives,” the expert replied. “I looked in every possible area that I could think of. I went to the property room. So I did exhaust all areas of storage.” “Where should the hair be today?” “According to the report, it says the hairs were mounted on slides and are stored in the specimen file,” Stewart replied. “Our specimen files used to be inside the laboratory, and at one point in the last 20 years — and it might have been when I was either on maternity leave or laid off — those file cabinets were moved up to the ninth floor. The ninth floor is where the property room stores evidence. So it’s a keyed room and that’s where those specimen files are stored.” Stewart also noted that on the back of the reports, there should be a list of who had access to the file: the chain of custody. If anyone had taken out the files containing the hairs, it would have been noted. “So there’s no record that anybody signed out the hairs that
| clevescene.com | June 14 - 20, 2017
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were mounted on the slides?â€? Bergeron noted of Johnson’s ďŹ le. “Not on this card, no.â€? “So according to this card, should the hairs be in the lab?â€? “It should be in the specimen ďŹ le.â€? “But it’s not? “No.â€? During the next swing on the witness stand, Tom Ward, a Cleveland police ofďŹ cer who had worked in the property room since 2001, told the court he had personally looked for the evidence two or three times. “When you looked through there, did you ďŹ nd any sort of envelope or something containing a hair?â€? Bergeron asked. “No.â€? “What about a gray jacket?â€? “No.â€? “A hat?â€? “No.â€? Ward did, however, bring a plastic garbage bag ďŹ lled with clothing associated with the —Tom case. But, again, the hat and jacket weren’t in the bag. “Why not?â€? Bergeron asked. “They were signed out for court,â€? the patrolman replied. “They were signed out for court?â€? “In 2001.â€? “Who signed them out?â€? “Detective Michael Alexander.â€? Ward explained the department’s records indicated the items were not destroyed. Adding more room for a possible error or mistake in the chain of custody, he also pointed out the police property room had changed locations. “At that time, the property room was located in the Justice Center, in the Cleveland Police headquarters on the fourth oor,â€? he explained. “Since then, we have moved up to the eighth oor.â€? The ofďŹ cer continued, somewhat offhandedly: “If a person would come in, you might think its chaos and disorganized, but there is a method.â€?
techniques available today — were checked out for Johnson’s trial. They were entered as exhibits at trial; so did the courts still have them? Or the clerk of courts? Negative on the latter, according to the chief court reporter Bruce Bishilany. At the October hearing, the supervisor of the 42 reporters assigned to the common pleas court was asked if the hat and jacket were ever in possession of the court. “We have no record of that,â€? Bishilany explained. But the chief court reporter pointed out he wasn’t talking about the Johnson case speciďŹ cally, he was talking about all cases from the time period: After 12 years, all records are destroyed. There was now no way to tell. Similarly, Frank Kost, a deputy clerk at the ďŹ le room at the Court of Clerks, told the hearing that his ofďŹ ce also had no idea where the evidence went. “So it is your conclusion then that you never received anything other than that envelope?â€? Bergeron asked. Ward “As far as I can tell, there’s no indication of it,â€? Kost testiďŹ ed. The only record related to the hat and jacket indicated the items had been checked out of the property room in 2001 by Detective Michael Alexander. When the Cleveland police ofďŹ cer arrived for his testimony, he had little recollection of the case. At the time, Alexander had been a detective in the third district, and he’s since switched to other details. In fact, Alexander admitted at the start of his testimony he’d only learned the day before he needed to appear at the hearing. Bergeron noted the detective had signed out both the hat and another item — a bandana — from the property room. “Where did it go?â€? the attorney asked. “Well, the hat was entered in as an exhibit at trial,â€? the detective said. “The bandana was not admitted.â€? “If there was an item that was not admitted as an exhibit, what would be the standard procedure that you would follow? “It would go back to the property room,â€? the detective said. “But you would agree it never
“If a person would come in, you might think its chaos and disorganized, but there is a method.�
The hair was MIA. The records indicated the hat and jacket —which might still yield some type of DNA evidence with the more sophisticated
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FEATURE went back to the property room?” “I would say it did not according to the log,” the detective answered. “Do you know where it went?” “I do not.” Alexander told the court he actually hadn’t collected the material from the crime scene itself. He just handled the evidence. “And as far as you remember, you did not take the jacket or the hat, which were admitted as exhibits, with you after trial?” the attorney asked.
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| clevescene.com | June 14 - 20, 2017
“I checked our supply unit, got pretty dirty doing it, and I still was unable to locate that particular file,” the detective said. “I can’t locate any of my files from that era.” —Michael Alexander “I did not.” “Do you recall who took them?” “I do not.” Some clue to the evidence’s location might have been in Alexander’s file from the case. But the detective told the court he hadn’t had a chance to look for it. The third district had switched locations twice since the Johnson trial, meaning the old files could be sitting in archives at the other locations. Alexander was actually excused to go hunt down the documents, and the hearing was continued until November. Alexander came back empty handed. “I checked our supply unit, got pretty dirty doing it, and I still was unable to locate that particular file,” the detective said. “I can’t locate any of my files from that era.” The last comment caused Judge Friedland to jump in. “You’re kidding me?”
“No,” the detective replied. “That was some time ago, so.” Alexander went on to describe that in his search through the archive he didn’t see any files from the third district at all. “You found no files from the third district?” the judge interjected again, nonplussed. “I could not find any files,” the detective replied. “I guess I’m kind of wondering how the police department is going to be able to fulfill its public records requests and other duties it has to fulfill if they can’t find any files from the entire district for years.” “I can’t answer that question.”
file front along with Johnson’s. So here it was, the missing case file, which may contain information crucial to proving Johnson’s innocence. But Dietrich wasn’t allowed the look at the file itself, she was told: She’d have to submit a records request through the city. Though they did so quickly, and though the city now knew exactly where the file was, Cleveland has yet to provide the documents to the Ohio Innocence Project. The Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office hasn’t conceded that Norman’s confession actually
means that Johnson is innocent. In her hearing testimony, assistant prosecutor Mary McGrath explained that even if the hair were to be found and matched Norman, Johnson and Norman could have worked together on the stickups. After the May 17 search, the office filed a motion with the court, arguing they had used “reasonable diligence” trying to find the material, and requested that the court dismiss the application for DNA testing. A ruling has yet to be made on that request. The case now sits in limbo, and
Anthony Johnson sits in prison. “It’s not unique for evidence to go missing or be destroyed,” OIP’s Bergeron says. “It is unique that there’s no explanation for where the items went. There’s no real record of them being destroyed. They are supposed to be in certain places, and they are not in those places.” Messages by Scene to the city of Cleveland seeking comment on the case and evidence room procedures were not returned.
scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene
The hair had disappeared. The hat, bandana, and jacket were gone. The case files were missing. No one inside the Justice Center had a good explanation for any of it following the two hearings. OIP’s next move was to request to personally search for the items in the police property room, a request the court granted. But as the details were being hashed out, the city of Cleveland — so far not a party in the case — interjected with a motion asking the judge to reconsider. The city’s attorneys argued a search of the property room by attorneys hoping to find lost evidence that may prove their client’s innocence would “constitute a grave injustice to the City.” Among the city’s arguments was that the search would be pointless: The files from the third district had been destroyed after the various moves. As proof, the city filed undated destruction orders with the court. The judge didn’t exactly buy the city’s argument; she ordered the search be conducted in May with certain constraints on the OIP representatives, mainly that they couldn’t touch anything themselves and attorneys from the city and prosecutor’s office would be present. There was, however, one last surprise awaiting Johnson’s attorneys when they arrived at the Justice Center on May 12, 2017. The searched turned up none of the missing evidence. But one of the officers in the property room presented OIP’s Liza Dietrich with a case file for the Johnson case. The file didn’t belong to detective Alexander but to another third district detective and, directly contradicting the city’s arguments in court, hadn’t been destroyed. Interestingly, Dietrich noted Norman’s name was printed on the | clevescene.com | June 14 - 20, 2017
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| clevescene.com | June 14 - 20, 2017
everything you should do this week
GET OUT
Photo by Emanuel Wallace
WED
06/14
has shows scheduled through Sunday. Tickets start at $20. (Niesel) 82035 East Fourth St., 216-241-7425, pickwickandfrolic.com.
Van Aken Beer Garden returns to Shaker Plaza. See: Friday.
SPORTS
Indians vs. Los Angeles Dodgers At the beginning of the season, many pundits picked the Los Angeles Dodgers to win the World Series. While the Dodgers haven’t run away with the NL West, they’ve played good baseball for the first two months of the season. They have a terrific pitching staff and some guys who hit the crap out of the ball too. They continue a three-game series against the Indians tonight at 7:10 at Progressive Field. The two teams meet again at 12:10 p.m. tomorrow. Tickets start at $13. (Jeff Niesel) 2401 Ontario St., 216-420-4487, clevelandindians.com.
FILM
Pride Month Film Series Cleveland Cinemas’ Pride Month film series continues tonight at 7:30 with Chavela, a film about Mexican ranchera singer Chavela Vargas, an artist whose fame peaked after she returned to the stage at age 71. The series, which continues at the Capitol Theatre through June 27, is intended “to showcase and celebrate the diversity of the LGBTQ community.” Admission is $9.75 for adults, $7 for seniors and children. (Kirby Davis) 1390 West 65th St., 216-651-7295, clevelandcinemas.com.
COMEDY
Aaron Kleiber Aaron Kleiber likes to joke about everyday experiences. He regularly talks about the trials and tribulations of being a father and married man. In one bit, he recalls seeing a young couple at a restaurant and discusses how comfortably they share food. He says he doesn’t understand why anyone would share a meal. He says he doesn’t feel the need to share anything with his wife besides the mortgage. Kleiber performs at 8 tonight at Hilarities. Tickets range from $13 to $18. (Daniela Cacho) 2035 East Fourth St., 216-241-7425, pickwickandfrolic.com. FUNDRAISER
Out of the Shadows Charity Concert for the Homeless Tonight from 7 to 10 at the Homeless Charity in Akron, more than 10 local acts will perform at the Out of the Shadows Charity Concert. All proceeds will go directly to serve the homeless and support efforts such as the Second Chance Store, the Community Garden and the Homeless Charity. Stray Dog Cafe will provide the food, and there will be a silent auction and a few “added surprises.” A $10 donation is requested. Details are on the website. (Niesel) 15 Broad St., Akron, thehomelesscharity.org. FILM
School of Babel In School of Babel, a film from director Julie Bertuccelli (Since Otar Left), a Parisian classroom goes under the microscope. The documentary centers on the school of La Grange
FOOD
aux Belles in northern Paris. It has a program for immigrant children that provides language lessons alongside the core curriculum. The movie makes its Cleveland premiere tonight at 7 at the Cleveland Museum of Art, where it screens again at 7 on Friday night. Tickets are $9, or $7 for CMA members, students and seniors. (Niesel) 11150 East Blvd., 216-421-7350, clevelandart.org. SPOKEN WORD
A Special Evening with Temple Grandin Acclaimed author Temple Grandin has written books and given numerous speeches about living with autism. Tonight at 7:30 at the State Theatre, she will talk about the various “interventions, therapies and supports” that have enabled her to become an activist, a professor of animal science and an autism spokesperson. Tonight’s event serves as a kick-off to the 15th Annual Autism Spectrum Disorder Conference that takes place June 15 and 16 at the Cleveland I-X Center. Tickets are $35 to $250. (Niesel) 1519 Euclid Ave., 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org. FOOD
Walnut Wednesday Walnut Wednesday is one of summer’s great traditions. Today from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at Perk Plaza at Chester Commons — at East 12th and Walnut streets — food trucks gather to serve up lunch to area residents and employees. Follow the Downtown Cleveland Alliance on Facebook for weekly updates on vendors,
entertainment offerings and more. Admission is free, but the food will cost you. (Niesel) downtowncleveland.com.
THU
06/15
MUSIC
Edgewater Live Now in its fourth season, Edgewater Live features local acts performing live each Thursday throughout the summer. The event also boasts food trucks and recreational activities. The weekly beach party commences today at 4:30 p.m. on the Centennial Plaza at the new Edgewater Beach House with performers from the Tri-C Creative Arts program. From 6 to 9 p.m., the Breakfast Club will perform on the RTA Main Stage. (Niesel) 6500 Cleveland Memorial Shoreway NW, 216-635-3200, clevelandmetroparks.com. COMEDY
Jake Johannsen Jake Johannsen has had a long, solid career as a standup comic ever since he dropped out of college in the ’80s. The tall, lanky comedian looks more like a lawyer than a comic, but don’t doubt his ability to make you laugh. He’s got great comic timing and likes to joke about everything from an astronomically high electrical bill he once received to the trouble he’s had with vegetarians. His routine doesn’t usually include references to current events; rather, much like Jerry Seinfeld, he prefers to joke about everyday absurdities. He performs tonight at 8 at Hilarities, where he
A Vincent Price-Themed Dinner Last year, the Good Goat Gallery celebrated the life and work of legendary filmmaker and actor Vincent Price with an art exhibition and special themed dinner at Luxe Kitchen & Lounge. The celebration even brought Price’s daughter Victoria — artist, art collector and author — to Cleveland. Victoria returned to Cleveland last week for her own exhibition at the Good Goat Gallery and a presentation at the Cleveland Museum of Art. This week, she is a special guest speaker at another Vincent Price-themed dinner at Luxe in celebration of the re-publication of Mary and Vincent Price’s Come Into the Kitchen cookbook. The evening begins with a 6 p.m. reception, followed at 7 by a four-course dinner created from recipes from the book. Tickets are $95, including wine pairings, and seating is communual. For an additional $30, guests will receive a copy of the Come Into the Kitchen cookbook for Victoria to sign. Live music is also on the menu. Details are on Facebook. (Josh Usmani) 6605 Detroit Ave., 216-920-0600, facebook.com/LuxeCLE.
FRI
06/16
FAMILY FUN
Avon Heritage Duck Tape Festival The 14th annual Duck Tape Festival returns today to Veterans Memorial Park in Avon for three days of beer, music, food and, of course, Duck Tape. The fest celebrates the home of the original duct tape brand, Duck Tape. The fun kicks off today from | clevescene.com | June 14 - 20, 2017
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THE RETURN OF AN EXTRAORDINARY ART SHOW
Fine Art Festival An Outdoor Art Show in Shaker Heights
June 17th – 18th Sat./Sun. 10am – 5pm
Free Admission
GET OUT 4 to 11 p.m. with performances from Blend, an a cappella doo-wop group; RiverHawk; and Keith Anderson. On Saturday, the parade starts at 10 a.m. at the Avon High School; a full slate of entertainment begins at 11 a.m. with performances from DJ Kenny G, Bill Manspeaker & Green Jello, Blend, Billy Sullivan and Moving in Stereo. The popular Duck Tape fashion show begins at 1:30 p.m. On Sunday, the festival continues from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. with music from the Geeze Cats and Nathan Henry Northeast. The full schedule is on the website. (Adrian Leuthauser) 3701 Veterans Memorial Parkway, Avon, ducktapefestival.com. SPOKEN WORD
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| clevescene.com | June 14 - 20, 2017
A Discussion and Book Signing A week before the 28th annual Cleveland Pride Parade, MOCA Cleveland hosts a discussion and book signing with noted author John Chaich. Chaich will discuss his 192page book, Queer Threads: Crafting Identity and Community, at 7 tonight. Queer Threads was also the title of a traveling exhibition that opened in 2014 at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay & Lesbian Art in New York City. The book features an international, intergenerational collection of 30 artists whose work explores queer identity by “remixing fiber craft traditions as well as tensions between art and craft, masculine and feminine and gay and straight.” During his talk, Chaich will discuss connections between language, material and LGBTQ identity. A book signing will follow. The event is free with museum admission: $9.50 for adults, $6 for seniors and $5 for students with valid ID. Admission is always free for members, children ages 5 and under and active military and veterans. (Usmani) 11400 Euclid Ave., 216-421-8671, mocacleveland.org. SPORTS
Gladiators vs. Baltimore Brigade The Cleveland Gladiators, part of the struggling Arena Football League, go up against the Baltimore Brigade tonight at 7 at the Q. The league has diminished over the last couple of years and only a few teams remain, the Gladiators being one of them. The high-scoring games can be good fun, and tonight’s game features concession specials that include $1 sodas and $2 draft beers. (Niesel) 1 Center Court, 216-420-2000, theqarena.com.
BURLESQUE
Midsummer’s Night Strip Performers such as Bee Awkward, Miss Holly Grail, Noella Deville and Bella Sin will on be on hand tonight for Midsummer’s Night Strip, another production by our local burlesque company. Author Ken Schneck will host and the spring class of the Cleveland Burlesque Academy will perform as well. The show starts at 8:30 p.m., and general admission tickets are $10 in advance, $15 at the door, or — for VIPs — $20 in advance and $25 at the door. (Niesel) 15711 Waterloo Rd., 216-383-1124, beachlandballroom.com. NIGHTLIFE
Paint and Pour Up Paint and Pour Up, a traveling party that “connects music, art and drinks,” originated in Cleveland last year and has subsequently popped up in cities including Cincinnati, Columbus and Los Angeles. Tonight at 7:30, the party will return to Red Space where there will be live DJs, an on-site artist creating a live painting and a photo booth. Patrons have the option to paint too. Tickets are $15 to $25. (Niesel) 2400 Superior Ave., paintandpourup. com. DRINK
Pitchers on the Patio Start the weekend right by joining local authority Joseph DeLuca tonight in Hudson for Pitchers on the Patio, a craft cocktail event. Northeast Ohio’s leading expert on bartending, beverage programs and our growing cocktail culture, DeLuca is also an awardwinning mixologist in his own right, and tours the region with Dr. Drink’s Traveling Apothecary Show, giving mixology classes and demonstration. Tonight he’ll demonstrate how to make Chocolate Milk Punch, Pimm’s Cup, Strawberry Gin Shrub, and Sangrita — yes, that dream combination of sangria and a margarita. Light snacks will be served. The event takes place at the Western Reserve School of Cooking from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Cost is $60. Register on the website. (Cacho) 140 North Main St., 330-650-1665, wrsoc.com. MUSIC
Amanda Anne Platt & The Honeycutters On their new self-titled album, Amanda Anne Platt & the Honeycutters draw from old-school country, rock and folk. Platt has said the songs are “about life and all that that entails, including but not limited to death, strangers, birthdays, money, leaving, arriving, seasons, corruption, and love.” Tracks such as “What We’ve
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Presented by SCENE, RMS Investment & the City of Shaker Hts.
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The third annual Van Aken Beer Gardens returns this summer! This three part, FREE, outdoor event series celebrates summertime with music, food, beer, wine, craft cocktails, local retail vendors, and activities for all ages! The celebrations will be Friday, June 16, July 21, & August 18 from 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM outside in the west parking lot of Shaker Plaza at the corner of Farnsleigh Road & Van Aken Boulevard and inside the adjacent storefront next to The Pearl Asian Kitchen, 20060 Van Aken Boulevard.
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Presented by SCENE
BEST OF CLEVELAND PARTY scenebestofparty.com
You nominated your favorite people and places, where to go for that perfect bowl of pho, the bartender who makes the perfect drink, your favorite sports player and much more. These were then narrowed down, voted upon and now we get to celebrate all of those named the Best Of Cleveland for 2017! Enjoy craft cocktails + music while meeting some of our Best Of winners for this year. Let's celebrate what makes Cleveland the place we call home.
Tickets On Sale Now!
Friday, June 23 7-10:30pm @ FWD Day & Nightclub A SCENE MAGAZINE EVENT
ALEFEST 8C:G ' Â’ ( > %( >
Presented by SCENE
ALEFEST
scenealefestival.com The 9th Annual SCENE Magazine Ale Fest will feature over 100 beers from around the corner to around the globe. The celebration is packed with your favorite porters, stouts, pilasters,ales, wheats, Belgians, ciders, and lagers just to name a few. Ale Fest has live music, interactive games, food booths, local vendors and more.
Saturday, July 29 1p @ Lincoln Park in Tremont
F I N D O U T A B O U T T H E S E E V E N T S A N D M O R E AT C L E V E S C E N E T I C K E T S . C O M
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Got” show off her full-bodied voice and benefit from some subtle pedal steel guitar. The band performs tonight at 8 at G.A.R. Hall in Peninsula. Tickets are $22. (Niesel) 1785 Main St., Peninsula, 330-657-2528, peninsulahistory.org. ART
Third Fridays With the warm summer months upon us, there is certainly no shortage of weekend events. But even with plenty of competition, Third Fridays at 78th Street continue to be one of the busiest nights in the local art community. With so many galleries and artist studios opening their doors throughout the building’s four floors and 170,000 square feet, June’s Third Friday promises another perfect storm of collective efforts. Highlights include local photographer Christina Sadowski’s latest exhibition at E11even2, which she co-owns with fellow local artists Rich Cihlar and Billy Nainiger. The Day Cleveland Stood as 1M showcases Sadowski’s photographs of the Cavs’ NBA Championship Parade. The photos don’t include any images of Cavs players. Instead, Sadowski celebrates the community coming together to celebrate as one. Of course, there’s
plenty more to see throughout the building, including new work by David Masters and Liz Maugans at Hedge Gallery, Matthew Dibble’s Puzzled Bipeds at Tregoning & Company and Word Up at PopEye Gallery, an allfemale, text-based exhibition featuring work by Amber Esner, Erin Guido and Katy Kosman. Hours are 5 to 9 p.m., although individual gallery hours may vary slightly. At 9, head to the building’s third flood for live music, courtesy of Survival Kit. As always, admission is free. (Usmani) 1300 West 78th St., 78thstreetstudios.com. FAMILY FUN
Van Aken Beer Garden The only thing better than a beer garden is an outdoor beer garden. Tonight from 6 to 10, the third annual Van Aken Beer Garden returns to Shaker Plaza. The event takes place outside, in the plaza’s west parking lot at the corner of Farnsleigh Road and Van Aken Boulevard, and inside, in the storefront next to the Pearl Asian Kitchen. The event will feature live music, food, beer, wine, cocktails, retail vendors and children’s activities. The event highlights the development of Shaker’s new downtown, the Van Aken District, scheduled to open in
the summer of 2018. When open, the District will feature a mix of restaurants, retail, residential and office space built around planned public spaces. Admission to tonight’s event is free. (Niesel) 20060 Van Aken Blvd., vanakenbeergarden.com.
SAT
06/17
ART
Artwood Derby You’ve heard of the Pinewood Derby, but do you know about Spaces’ annual Artwood Derby? It takes place from 5 to 8 p.m. today, and is a chance for artists and non-artists (ages 5 and up) to create their own miniature custom cars; kits are included with the entry fee. Register early to pick up a kit and decorate the cars however you’d like; the weirder and more extravagant, the better. All racers are invited to display their cars inside Spaces before the event. The Artwood Derby track is approximately 36-feet long, with a 4-foot drop. Celebrity guest announcers will call the races, cameras will capture photo finishes and results will be tallied live. After the race, trophies will be awarded for Best in Show, Fastest, Corniest and
even Hottest Mess. New this year, Spaces is expanding the Artwood Derby to include a classic car show featuring cars from Artwood Derby sponsor, the Northern Ohio Region Porsche Club of America. Admission is free. Want to join in the fun? A $10 Racer Entry Fee includes a Artwood Derby car kit. Already have a Pinewood Derby Car? Racers can register for $5 without a car kit. Just ask for the “Old Skool Fee” when registering. (Usmani) 2900 Detroit Ave., 216-621-2314, spacesgallery.org. SHOPPING
Beachland’s Rockin’ Flea Market The Beachland Ballroom and Tavern’s annual Rockin’ Flea Market provides a great opportunity to pick up some local arts, crafts and vintage wares. Several vendors will be on hand for the event, which takes place in the club’s large ballroom, and food and beverages will be available in the Beachland Tavern. “DJ” Spoon Bros., the Baker’s Basement and Johnny & the Apple Stompers will perform. Admission is free. The event takes place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Niesel) 15711 Waterloo Rd., 216-383-1124, beachlandballroom.com.
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| clevescene.com | June 14 - 20, 2017
GET OUT FILM
Blade Cleveland Cinemas’ Late Shift series, a program dedicated to the nostalgic cult and camp cinema that we love and cherish even though it’s certainly not Oscar-worthy material, has been a fixture at the local chain of theaters since 2006. The 2017 schedule continues tonight with Blade, the 1998 superhero movie that stars Wesley Snipes as a half-human vampire who protects humans from vampires. The movie screens at midnight at the Capitol Theatre. Tickets are $6. (Niesel) 1390 West 65th St., 216-651-7295, clevelandcinemas.com.
WELLNESS
Sexual Health and Wellness Event The locally based ZED Digital has teamed up with the Cuyahoga County Board of Health and Z107.9 to host the Sexual Health and Wellness event that takes place today from noon to 2 p.m. at Longwood Beauty Supply in Warrensville Heights. Attendees will be able to tour the Sexual Health Clinic at South Pointe, complete a birth control or STD screening, receive food safety information and find out about lead poisoning prevention. There will be giveaways, free food and a chance to win Summer Jam concert tickets. (Niesel) 4042 Warrensville Center Rd., Warrensville Heights, 216-751-2929.
SUN
06/18
BEER
Cleveland Summer Beerfest Fifty breweries, including local favorites Platform, Royal Docks and Market Garden, will be on hand for the second annual Cleveland Summer Beerfest, which takes place today at Jacobs Pavilion at Nautica. There will be food trucks and live music. Session 1 takes place from 1 to 5 p.m. and Session 2 follows from 7 to 11 p.m. The $35 admission includes 25 tickets for 5-ounce samples. Designated driver tickets cost $15, and if you arrive within the first two hours of your chosen session, you’ll receive a $5 food truck coupon, free bottled water and soft drinks. This is a 21-and-over event, even for designated drivers. It takes place rain or shine. (Cacho) Clevelandbeerfest.com. ART
Monothon What do you get when you combine the unique process of monoprinting — a technique of “painting” individual prints on paper using ink on plexiglass — with a 24-hour marathon? Zygote Press’ Monothon, a 24-hour printmaking marathon that runs from 10 a.m. today until 10 a.m. tomorrow. As tonight’s action heats up, Zygote Press hosts a “Peak Party” from 6 to 10 p.m. Tickets to the Peak Party are $25 and include one drink and a beef or vegan hot dog from Happy Dog. For $300, guests can sponsor a local artist and receive the monoprint created by that artist. To celebrate the end of the Monothon, Zygote hosts a Bloody Mary Binger Bar and Donuts from 8 to 10 a.m. on Sunday; admission for that is $15 and includes one drink. Tickets to both events are available through Zygote Press’ website or by phone. (Usmani) 1410 East 30th St., 216-621-2900, zygotepress.com.
FILM
Law & Order To celebrate the 50th anniversary of filmmaker and documentarian Frederick Wiseman, the Cleveland Museum of Art is screening many of his movies. Wiseman, who made 40 feature-length films, would shoot hours of footage and then sculpt the raw material into the finished product. Today at 1:30 p.m., the museum will screen his 1969 movie Law & Order, a documentary about Kansas City policemen who take on the role of social workers as they try to enforce the law. Tickets are $10. (Niesel) 11150 East Blvd., 216-421-7350, clevelandart.org.
Cain Park Presents An 80s Rock Musical
BURLESQUE
Toxic Burlesque The folks at the local burlesque promotion company Toxic Burlesque have thrown a number of events at Brothers Lounge. According to promoter Frank Ian, who runs the company with his wife, there’s been a “packed house every time.” For tonight’s show, they’ve booked Carmen M’Knoxide, Rubi~Nesque, Lavender Bitters, Shrimp Cocktail and a few other performers. Champagne Charlie hosts. The show begins at 8 p.m. and tickets are $15. (Niesel) 11609 Detroit Ave., 216-226-2767, brotherslounge.com.
MON
06/19
FOOD & DRINK
Wing Ding Doodle Blues icon Howlin’ Wolf famously covered “Wang Dang Doodle,” the old blues tune penned by Willie Dixon. Prosperity Social Club in Tremont has adopted that slogan, calling its wing night Wing Ding Doodle. The weekly
June 8-25 Regional Premiere
Book by Chris D’Arienzo Arrangements and Orchestrations by Ethan Popp
cainpark.com 216.371.3000 Cain Park is produced by the City of Cleveland Heights. | clevescene.com | June 14 - 20, 2017
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GET OUT event features specials on Buffalo wings and cold brews. Prosperity will not only serve up substantial, $1 whole wings, but it’ll also offering meatless Monday “wing” baskets for vegans. Discounted drafts and a playlist of vintage-electric blues and soulful R&B curated by local musician Clint Holley will be on tap as well. Wing Ding Doodle takes place every Monday from 6 p.m. to midnight. (Niesel). 1109 Starkweather Ave., 216-937-1938, prosperitysocialclub.com.
FRIDAY, JUNE 16
VELVET SHAKE
TUE THEATER
8P-12A
SATURDAY, JUNE 17
ROCK RADIO
ROCK THE HOUSE
06/20
2-6P
8P-12A
An American in Paris Inspired by the 1951 Academy Award-winning film, the Tony Awardwinning musical An American in Paris tells the story of an American solider traversing a daunting European city. When he falls for a mysterious French girl, the two pursue a fresh start after World War II. Acclaimed director/choreographer and Tony Award-winner Christopher Wheeldon captures the magic and romance of Paris and brings the two into perfect harmony. An American in Paris opens tonight at 8 at the State Theatre and runs through July 9. Tickets range from $10 to $95. (Leuthauser) 1519 Euclid Ave., 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org. MUSIC
SUNDAY, JUNE 18
DISCO INFERNO DJ LARRY 2-6P
8P-12A
Classical Revolution Cleveland Classical Revolution Cleveland helps tear down the wall between classical music and the masses, and once again bring great chamber music to the people. On the third Tuesday of every month, CRC brings its chamber music to the Happy Dog at the Euclid Tavern. Performers like the Trepanning Trio, Anime Duo, students of Cleveland Institute of Music and even Cleveland Orchestra members grace the stage in these exciting concerts. Tonight’s free, all-ages performance starts at 8. (Patrick Stoops) 5801 Detroit Ave., 216-651-9474, happydogcleveland.com. MUSIC
Open Turntable Tuesday Tonight from 6 to 9, Goldhorn Brewery hosts its weekly Open Turntable Tuesdays. DJ Kris Koch will offer time slots to people who want to bring their own vinyl and spin their favorite songs or deep tracks. Each person will be able to play three
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| clevescene.com | June 14 - 20, 2017
to five songs (20-minute slots), and there will be a mic available to talk about the selections; signup begins at 5:30. The Northeast Ohio Vinyl Club and the locally based Gotta Groove Records serve as the sponsors, and turntables will be provided. Along with theme nights, there will be giveaways, drawings and contests. (Niesel) 1361 East 55th St., 216-465-1352, facebook.com/goldhornbrewery. COMEDY
The Mike Polk Jr. Show Live If you’ve seen local comedian Mike Polk Jr., the man behind the Hastily Made Cleveland Tourism Video, the Factory of Sadness video (parts one and two), Last Call Cleveland comedy troupe and his very own show on Fox 8 (aptly called the Mike Polk Jr. Show), perform live, you know he really thrives on having an audience at his disposal. He hosts the Mike Polk Jr. Show Live tonight at 8 at Hilarities. Tickets are $5. (Niesel) 2035 East Fourth St., 216-241-7425, pickwickandfrolic.com. FILM
Pride Film Series The Pride Film series at the Capitol Theatre continues tonight at 7:30 with Spa Night, a “portrait of forbidden sexual awakening,” set in the world of spas and karaoke bars in Los Angeles’ Koreatown. The series, which continues through June 27, aims “to showcase and celebrate the diversity of the LGBTQ community.” Admission is $9.75 for adults, pr $7 for seniors and children. (Davis) 1390 West 65th St., 216-651-7295, clevelandcinemas.com. ART
Queer Art Show With the 28th annual Cleveland Pride Parade taking place this Saturday, Twist Social Club hosts its second annual Queer Art Show. Curated by local artist Benji Diaz, this year’s show includes work by 10 local artists. Designed to raise awareness for free expression through art, Twists hosts a reception for the the show from 7 to 11 p.m. The show includes a variety of media, from paintings and illustrations to photography and even self-published ’zines. Twist’s event also includes a small silent auction, with all proceeds going to the LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland. Admission is free. (Usmani) 11633 Clifton Blvd., facebook.com/ TwistSocialClub.
Find more events @clevescene.com t@clevelandscene
| clevescene.com | June 14 - 20, 2017
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Photo via Facebook
ART LASTING LEGACIES Cleveland mourns the passing of two giants in the arts community By Dott von Schneider
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and luminosity. They are positively striking. I’m sure I speak for many when I say that we hope there will be an exhibition of those last paintings. Karen St. John-Vincent was a collaborator, and I was privileged to be one of the models for her work. Her photographs are deeply saturated with color and atmosphere. Her ability to create tableaus through her subjects, whether they be equine or human, was astounding. As a result, dreamscape qualities emerged. Her master use of color was evident in everything she created. A film still from the yetunfinished oeuvre Vacancy, “Dottie Mae: 4 AM” is a story within a story. A woman in her pastel pink and yellow pajamas crouched awkwardly next to a window at twilight. The hunter green drapes pulled to the right. What is the mechanism that exposes us to Dottie Mae’s crepuscular state? According to the blog associated with it, the film portrays the story of two women who become conscious of the rigid and hegemonic cages that they have put themselves in — based on a desire to conform to patriarchal and heteronormative embodiments of what it means to be an acceptable female. Cinematographer Robert Banks and St. John-Vincent spoke during her last weeks, and an agreement was struck to complete the film posthumously. Unfortunately for us all, these two mentors, colleagues, and peers have moved on from this mortal coil. However, they leave us with legacies through their teaching and their artwork. Truly, that is immortality. Donations in honor of Dan Tranberg can be made to the Dan Tranberg Memorial Scholarship Fund at the Cleveland Institute of Art online at cia.edu; donations in honor of Karen St. John-Vincent can be made at angelshavenhorserescue.com.
scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene
| clevescene.com | June 14 - 20, 2017
Dan Tranberg Photo by Robert C. Banks
A FOG DESCENDED UPON THE city on June 2, 2017. It brought the funeral of one friend and dear member of the Cleveland arts community and the reception of another, on her birthday no less. The two deaths dealt a blow to the gut of the community that was made all the better for the excellent creators’ lives. I knew Dan Tranberg from working with him at the Cleveland Free Times. In addition to writing for the alt-weekly, he also documented and wrote for daily and national publications in more than 750 articles, including the wonderfully written “Art Matters” column in the Plain Dealer’s Friday! Magazine. Needless to say, it was a huge deal to have Dan review your show. He was a deeply respected arts journalist, not just an arts writer. Here was a guy who really knew his stuff to the core. When he wrote about your show, he gave balanced critique. If the review didn’t come to the conclusion that you were as awesome as you thought you were, you took notice. He wrote think pieces, stuff you could really masticate, and wrote them on everyone’s level. His interview with the great Julian Stanczak, who passed earlier this year, was one of my favorite reads. I ingested nearly article he wrote. It is easy to detect what an excellent professor he was by the comportment of his interviews, and for that his readers and students were lucky. The last I saw of Dan was a post on social media of him working in an ad-hoc studio at University Hospitals. He was busting out so many paintings, it was hard to believe that he was even ill, a fact that shocked many in the arts community. His dedication and love of painting was obvious in that post and one can only respect him more for working until he couldn’t work anymore. His paintings were expertly and painstakingly crafted. “Tilework,” created in 2016, was the image on his memorial card. The blocks of color, along with his choice of media, have movement
Karen St. John-Vincent
STAGE ALBERT AND PABLO’S NOT-SO-EXCELLENT ADVENTURE When Einstein meets Picasso, lame jokes result. Who knew? IS THERE SUCH A CONDITION as “premature premise ejaculation”? If not, there should be, and it should be used to describe Picasso at the Lapin Agile by comedian Steve Martin, now at the Blank Canvas Theatre. Just pondering the premise of this show is enough to make your brain get moist. Suppose that, in 1903, Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso meet at a tiny bar in France called the Lapin Agile, and brilliance ensues. This concept bodes particularly well since Martin, a former standup comic and accomplished actor, has always been known for a wit as quick as the agile rabbit referenced in the bar’s name. So given the intriguing premise, you settle in for a treat, hoping this 80-minute one-act will be filled with a mixture of orgasmic intellectualism and clever musings. And indeed, there is some of that. But those moments are often overwhelmed by a script that too often defaults to the easiest and most adolescent humor. It’s possible a tightly tuned production that deployed a quirky, over-the-top style might have helped lift the material out of the banal. But it’s doubtful. In fact, the premise is more interesting than most of the actual script, which is not the fault of director Jonathan Kronenberger or the cast. It just leaves you wishing Martin could go back to the beginning and find a way to bring his writing, and everyone, to a fitting climax. And not just leave them with a wet spot. It all starts off with promise as 23-year-old Einstein enters the small boite and orders an absinthe. After some banter with Freddy the bartender (a mordantly observant John Busser), we learn that Albert has entered too early — a fact Freddy establishes by going into the audience and refering to the program where the cast is listed “in order of appearance.” This is one of several meta moments in the play that signal Martin’s desire to have fun with the theatrical form. And that’s fine, as far as it goes. Trouble is, Martin stops short of pursuing that line of comedy and instead deploys a scatter-shot arsenal of punch lines that would have been
Photo by Andy Dudik
By Christine Howey
much funnier had he been on stage to deliver them. For instance, the elderly Gaston comes in to have a drink, but his visit is often interrupted by his need to pee. Rich Stimac, usually a fine performer, often substitutes volume for a more eccentric attack on his character, leaving some jokes laying in the dust. There are other folks in the overcrowded bar who also vie for attention. Freddy’s main squeeze Germaine (Carla Petroski) is helping him serve drinks and break the balls of the clientele, while Suzanne (a sultry Becca Ciamacco) swoops in to
not even recognizing he had bedded Suzanne before, much to her distress. Playwright Martin certainly understands the resumes of the pathological womanizer Picasso and the math genius Einstein. The playwright’s best scene is when the two giants of the 20th century face off in a High Noon-style confrontation, with both of them showing off their prowess with pen and paper in hand. Their brief interchanges about the relative benefits of science and art are indeed appealing. If only the play would have focused more on them and less on the other habitues of the
PICASSO AT THE LAPIN AGILE THROUGH JUNE 24 AT BLANK CANVAS THEATRE, WEST 78TH STREET STUDIOS, 1300 WEST 78TH ST., 440-941-0458, BLANKCANVASTHEATRE.COM
lie in wait for Picasso, with whom she recently shared a bed. Then an art dealer named Sagot (Greg Mandryk) occupies a table to pontificate amusingly on the unfortunate use of sheep and Jesus Christ as subjects for paintings. Finally, 25-year-old Picasso (Roderick Cardwell II) arrives on the scene and he immediately begins cruising the ladies in attendance,
bar, the play might be much more intriguing. Let’s face it, this ain’t exactly Cheers. In a vain attempt to mine more laughs, Martin introduces a third “genius” to the fray, a guy named Schmendiman who has invented a highly questionable new building material. Even with Ronnie Thompson’s best efforts in playing this fellow, it’s too little too late. As
is an even more desperate attempt at scoring giggles when The Singer (Evan Martin) appears from the future to comment on the nature of genius and such. Robert Kowalewski looks like the young Einstein and provides a quirky take on this budding icon. Unfortunately, he’s often difficult to hear and should pay more attention to this voice-projection formula we’ve just devised: E&mc2 . (Or, a good Einstein does not equal mumbling conversation, squared.) Unfortunately Steve Martin, like that singer mentioned above, figuratively “left the building” with regard to this show. After developing a killer premise, he kicked back, wrote up a bunch of easy gags, and distributed them amongst an excessive number of characters. Maybe he didn’t want to seem pretentious, dealing with more substantive thoughts. In any case, after more than an hour of this, you may want a Steve Martin arrow through the head. Make that a real one.
scene@clevescene.com t@christinehowey | clevescene.com | June 14 - 20, 2017
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| clevescene.com | June 14 - 20, 2017
MOVIES THE MOVIE OF COLIN Trevorrow’s The Book of Henry re-aligns his ‘crazy’ Hollywood trajectory By Sam Allard THE BOOK OF HENRY, THE THIRD film from director Colin Trevorrow (Safety Not Guaranteed, Jurassic World), opens Friday in wide release. It’s a $10-million drama set in upstate New York about a precocious preteen (Jaeden Lieberher) who, after witnessing the abusive behavior of a powerful neighbor (Dean Norris), takes matters into his own hands. He sets an elaborate path for his mother (Naomi Watts) to follow when he’s no longer able to pursue his plan on his own. The film might be seen as a strange followup to Trevorrow’s 2015 smash hit, Jurassic World. But on a trip to Cleveland last week, where The Book of Henry made its debut public screening, Trevorrow said that this was the film he was supposed to make earlier in his career. “To me, it’s a very natural followup to Safety Not Guaranteed,” he said. “When I got offered Jurassic World, I thought if I could do that well, it would open up other opportunities in the future, and it did. One of them was to go back and make this film.” (Another one of those opportunities, of course, was
being offered the chance to direct Star Wars, Episode IX. Trevorrow lives outside London now during production of that film, which is slated for release in 2019.) Trevorrow said that a common trajectory for talented young filmmakers these days — they make an indie darling and are then immediately tapped for a franchise installment — “robs audiences” of the films those directors might have made on their way up the ladder. “If a boxed set of my films ever comes out,” Trevorrow said, “you
can put them in the right order [with Henry preceding Jurassic World].” Trevorrow described Henry like the Grimms’ fairy tales: “They deal with the fears and dangers of childhood and are extremely dark. They’re also very sweet at times. It’s just like this movie. At times, it can be very sweet. Then at other times, you’re like, ‘This is some dark shit.’” That sweetness — and that darkness too — are enhanced by the performances of its child stars. Lieberher (from last year’s
Midnight Special) is joined by Jacob Tremblay (the runaway star from last year’s Room) and Maddie Ziegler, the ballet wunderkind from the Sia music videos. The script for the fi lm is nearly 20 years old, but Trevorrow connected its themes to today’s Hollywood climate. Speaking about the Star Wars universe and fans’ intense relationship with it, he said, “There’s this sense of nostalgia and of, ‘Don’t mess with my childhood. My childhood is valuable. My childhood matters to me.’ And that inspired [ Henry] in a lot of ways. I would hear that idea, that ‘don’t ruin my childhood,’ so I thought, let’s make a movie about what a ruined childhood really looks like.” And because its themes are so universal, so elemental, The Book of Henry is a movie, Trevorrow said, that “can and should appeal to people from all around America.” And if they’re not into the kids, there’s always Naomi Watts singing a lullaby later performed by Stevie Nicks.
sallard@clevescene.com t@scenesallard
SPOTLIGHT: CARS 3 MICHAEL COMET, A CHARACTER supervisor for the Pixar film Cars 3, says he always had an interest in computers, drawing and art. “I loved the traditional Disney movies from Snow White to Bambi and 101 Dalmatians up through Warner Bros. cartoons like Bugs Bunny,” says Comet, who grew up in Beachwood and attended Case Western Reserve University, via phone from his office at Pixar Animation Studios. “At the same time, I was a bit of a nerd. I went to computer camp at a young age.” His father picked up an old Apple computer, and Comet started teaching himself some basic programming. His aunt bought him a book about how to create animation, and he learned how to do 3-D animation at home. While
at Case, he became a computer science major and took a computer graphics programming class. “I was originally thinking of going pre-med, but I realized my passion was computers and programming and computer animation,” he says. “At the university, I created some graphics for the brand-new website pages we had for our first-ever site of the university.” A chance meeting with Doug Kelly, who worked at the Case library at the time and has written books and articles on 3-D animation software, led Comet to want to become an animator. He got his first gig at a video game company in southern Illinois before landing the job at Pixar. He came on board at Pixar just as the first
Cars film was released in 2006. “For Cars 3, the biggest thing for us was to get the next generation of racers and make them look as amazing as we could,” Comet says when asked about the latest installment of the series, which opens area-wide on Friday. “The story of Cars 3 is about [the stock car] McQueen getting older and facing these new challenges as the next generation appears on the scene. [McQueen rival] Storm is the anti-thesis of McQueen. McQueen is rounder and softer. Because he’s so round and soft, the art department designed Storm to be sharper. Our job is to take the artwork and translate it. We wanted to increase the level of detail and realism.” Comet says an updated
rendering system allowed the animators to go into more detail. For example, some of the cars have metallic paint and even “micro scratches.” Stellar animation aside, Comet says the Cars films appeal to viewers on a few different levels. “For me, cars are a passion of mine,” says Comet. “My dad was big into cars. I have fond memories of being in one of my dad’s old Jaguars. And Pixar movies talk about emotions and things that transcend cultural and national boundaries. Cars 3 is no exception.” — Jeff Niesel
jniesel@clevescene.com t@jniesel | clevescene.com | June 14 - 20, 2017
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ROOMS WITH A VIEW Collision Bend puts the restaurant back in the brewery By Douglas Trattner WE WERE SEATED AT THE BAR in Collision Bend. To our left, through a wall of windows, was that incredible post-industrial maritime view filled with rushing water, gritty bridges and wee kayaks dwarfed by passing freighters. Directly in front of us was an array of creative small plates and a flight of house-brewed beer. And beneath us were sturdy, substantial and smartly upholstered stools with backs. “I’m too f-ing old for those hard metal stools,” a pal said, getting no argument from me. Despite being billed as a brewery with food, Collision Bend, if we’re being honest with one another, is more of a restaurant that happens to brew beer. From the high-end finishes and expansive menu to the Zack Bruell School of Service-graduated staff, little about this glitzy new Flats-based eatery functions like a brewery. In fact, if you didn’t crane your neck to spot a few bright tanks through a small window, you might never even know. Not that anybody is complaining. While breweries are great for craft beer lovers, they tend to be lousy for wine aficionados, fans of fine food and service, and those above a certain age who prefer to be comfortable. Guests who can manage to find the proper front door will be greeted, not only by that spectacular river view, but also an impressive dining room that makes
the most of its 150-year-old brick warehouse setting. With a nod to the building’s original use as a marine supply company, there are subtle nautical design elements like thick-rope chandeliers, brass post lamps, sailcloth awnings and dock-cleat side lights. Ease your way back toward the drink and you’ll pass through a fourseason patio before landing on one of Cleveland’s sweetest perches. With a couple hundred feet of frontage, this riverside space is outfitted with a bar, casual soft seating areas and tables for full-service dining. On a recent sunsoaked Friday happy hour, when the veranda was operating at full capacity, it was all I could do to pry myself away from the rail when our indoor table was ready. That breezy seaside scene was quickly replaced by a waterfall of
number of items, but by the seemingly random arrangement of those items on the menu. Over the course of two visits we sampled an assortment of more than 10 dishes and only one or two was less than special. The lamb tamales ($7) knocked our socks off, with flavorful ground lamb tucked inside perfectly steamed masa dough, which itself is nestled inside corn husks. They’re garnished with lively salsa verde. That beachy Latin flair extends to the killer San Diego-style fish tacos ($9) comprising freshly battered and fried cobia that’s topped with crunchy cabbage slaw, salty queso and creamy crema. If you don’t mind a little lamb fat dripping down your chin, order the lust-worthy lamb ribs ($14). The kitchen smartly sets the rich, supple, pleasantly gamey bones against tart
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memorable, creative, delicious and shockingly affordable food. Bruell’s menus are notoriously lengthy, and the one here is no exception. It careens from Buffalo-style tofu to Moroccanspiced lamb ribs. A roster of 25 small plates joins salads, a handful of wood-fired pizzas, and a dozen or so main dishes. Deciding how to proceed is complicated not only by the sheer
and crunchy pickled vedge and cool, creamy cucumber-yogurt sauce. One of the few small plates that fell flat was the “Country Fried” chicken livers ($7), which seemed to melt and collapse beneath the heavy beer and fig sauce. Even the Buffalo-style tofu ($8), I have to admit, was surprisingly savory, with “meaty” triangles tossed with crunchy celery in a buttery hot
sauce and garnished with crumbled blue cheese. Step up to the larger plates and you’ll enjoy thin and chewy-crusted pizzas with the requisite char and crunch. There are seven in all, but you shouldn’t miss the salami and green olive ($14), a nifty merger of sliced salami, bright and briny olives, pickled peppers, and a handful of cheeses, including fragrant raclette. In addition to a burger, a steak, and a salmon dish, the main course department offers Asian-stuffed chicken legs ($15), an immensely satisfying dish of thin but juicy dark meat rolled around shredded veggies and glass noodles. The rolls are paired with steamed rice and dressed with a sweet but mild chili sauce. Back at the bar one evening, we finally worked our way through most of the house beers thanks to a pair of four-beer flights ($10). Brewed by Luke Purcell, a 20-year vet of Great Lakes Brewing, they are roundly and rightly praised. Those crisp Germanstyle lagers go great with a bowl of salty, zesty and savory bacon fat-tossed popcorn. Tack on an order of the gourmet sauerkraut balls ($6), another flight of beer, and relax in the comfort of your very own cushy stool with a view.
dtrattner@clevescene.com t@dougtrattner
| clevescene.com | June 14 - 20, 2017
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EAT UNCORKED Four great local wine stores with more By Billy Hallal
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| clevescene.com | June 14 - 20, 2017
FROM DATING TO DINNER parties, wine is a nearly inescapable part of adulthood. Knowing just a little about one’s own preferences can help make any number of social and dining experiences smoother and more enjoyable. That’s what makes specialty wine retailers so important. But some Cleveland area shops go the extra mile by offering shoppers a place to sit and enjoy that purchase with a little something to eat. Situated in a Broadview Heights strip mall, Cantine Bottle Shop (1100 West Royalton Rd., 440-8779399, cantinebottleshop.com) strives for the Ohio City, industrial-chic aesthetic. The wine selection, housed on tall shelves arranged by style, country and region, is impressive. The high bar stools and loud rock soundtrack don’t scream “wine bar,” because Cantine isn’t one in the classic sense. A full liquor license and a more-than-respectable beer selection make it more of a hopping suburban bar that happens to sell wine. “There’s no theme here,” says manager Frank Kulman. “It’s just cool. If you build something cool, people will come.” Grab a bottle and enjoy it with some nibbles from a nice selection of starters, sharable platters, and even some modest entrees. On Mondays, they even waive the corkage fee. Dine on some house-baked focaccia, spice-dusted calamari or a bowl of steamed mussels with crispy fries. With its train station architectural motif, Olmsted Falls is one of the quainter small towns in Northeast Ohio. Just a short walk off the main drag, The Olde Wine Cellar Bistro and Bottle Shop (7932 Main St., 440-427-1222, oldewinecellar. com) eschews the dominant old-timey kitsch without losing the small-town charm or beautiful scenery. Mike Jacobs, a lifetime Olmsted Falls resident, owned the shop for seven years when it was just a wine store. He sums up his corporate philosophy as “Just be nice,” which is reflected in the Cellar’s attentive service and your-neighbor’s-cabin feel. Last September, the Cellar moved down the road to its current, larger
digs. The most significant part of the move was the addition of a kitchen, which is headed by young chef (and pro snowboarder) George Gazdick. At 26, the chef already has earned acclaim as a consulting chef at Nora in Little Italy. At the Cellar, he’s able to fully spread his wings with dishes like baby lamb ribs over caramelized purple cabbage or the obscenely addictive Brussels sprouts. “I like having control over a dish,” says Gazdick. “It’s why I’m working out here and not with 400 people downtown.” But you don’t have to go all the way to the outer ’burbs for a great wine retailer experience. The Wine Spot in Cleveland Heights (2271 Lee Rd., 216-342-3623, thewinespotonline. com) strikes a nice compromise between the loud now-ness of Cantine and the down-home feel of The Olde Cellar. “It’s a good place to go if you’re not looking for a sports bar,” says Elan Hoenig, the bar’s events director. They pride themselves on being an approachable venue for the winecurious of all (legal) ages: “We like to take the mystery out of wine.” Just down the street from the Cedar Lee Theatre, the Wine Spot presents a fresh, minimalistic space that keeps the focus on its bottle selection. Like Cantine, the Spot has a full liquor license, but its wine selection will appeal to true aficionados. Near weekly wine tastings offer deep dives into various regions. While the food leans more toward traditional “wine bar” offerings like olives and nuts, meat and cheese boards, and other finger foods, the fare pairs splendidly with the by-the-glass pours or bottles. Out west, in Detroit Shoreway, Banter (7320 Detroit Rd., 216-8010305, bantercleveland.com) offers a curated selection of wines by the bottle, including chilled whites, bubbles and rose. Sure, you can pay for those bottles and run, but consider grabbing a seat, pulling that cork, and enjoying that bottle alongside a heaping platter of poutine.
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MAMA’S BOY REOPENS Which means Fun in a Box is back By Douglas Trattner FOLKS OF A CERTAIN AGE WILL recall with fondness sitting on a low brick bench on Lee Road in Cleveland Heights hunched over a small white cake box layered with fried chicken wings, french fries and tangy barbecue sauce. The menu item’s name — “Fun in a Box” — was an apt descriptor to be sure, but the flimsy plastic fork that came with it seemed like a cruel joke played on the drunk post-bar crowd by the owners. As for the small stack of tissue-thin paper napkins: They never stood a chance. Mama’s Boy, the low-key carryout shop that dispensed those boxes of bliss right alongside ChineseAmerican gems like egg rolls and fried rice, lasted for close to 30 years. After a brief but ill-fated attempt to reopen in the Flats a few years back, Mama’s Boy faded into the history books. Until this week, when Mama’s Boy (34840 Vine St., 216-932-3144) reopened in Eastlake. “Mama’s Boy was my parents’ creation, which they started back in the early ’70s,” says Andrew Johnson. “I grew up in the business peeling potatoes, cutting french fries and cleaning up.” Johnson, who ran Mama’s Boy during its last decade, has been
making and selling that shop’s beloved Carolina-style sauce through a website. He’s been looking for a spot for years, he says, so that he could get back in the business of making customers smile. For those sad souls who never experienced the gastronomic greatness that was Fun in a Box, Johnson describes it as, “three breaded, crunchy whole chicken wings drizzled with our homemade famous barbecue sauce, fresh-cut fries, more sauce, and it all comes in the traditional white cake box wrapped with a red rubber band.” He’s even brought back the flimsy plastic fork and paper napkins. In addition to that iconic dish, he’s added house-smoked barbecue dishes like ribs, pulled pork and beef brisket, plus sides like mac and cheese, potato salad and braised greens. He swears his new sweet potato fries go better with Mama’s Boy sauce than the original spuds. There’s still that fried rice and those egg rolls will soon make their debut. When it comes to the main event, Johnson says that longtime customers should taste a vastly improved product. “We double-dip the fried chicken for extra crunchiness and we fry it in peanut oil,” he says. As for the old
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| clevescene.com | June 14 - 20, 2017
APTLY NAMED ALL ACCESS CAFE OFFERS QUICK-SERVE, CHEF-DRIVEN FARE TO ROCK HALL VISITORS Given that the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has more than 50 live concerts, shows, events and themed happy hours planned for the main plaza, All Access Cafe could not have come at a better time. The brandnew operation replaces and vastly improves upon the original quickserve food stand on an upper level of the museum. “Our cafe originally was on the third floor but we shifted it down to the main plaza level,” explains Jordan Cudney with Aramark, the food service company that oversees the operation. “We moved the ticket booth downstairs by the main exhibit hall and built a whole new cafe and partnered with three chef partners, Jonathon Sawyer, Fabio Salerno and Rocco Whalen, who each have their own unique items on the menu.” The aptly named All Access Cafe is open to the public, even those who have not paid admission to enter the Rock Hall. That means everybody onsite for plaza events can pop inside for one of Whalen’s pizzas, Sawyer’s pork miso ramen bowls, or Salerno’s meatball panini. The new cafe soon will be augmented by two new topof-the-line food trucks that will park on the plaza and dispense food out of
one and beer, wine and booze out of the other. Come July, a new full-service kitchen will come online at the Rock Hall (they currently partner with FirstEnergy Stadium to share their facility), which will facilitate even bigger improvements in the Hall’s food service operations.
END OF THE LINE FOR B SPOT, ROSIE & ROCCO’S AT JACK CASINO Five years ago last month, Jack Casino (formerly Horseshoe Casino) opened its doors in downtown Cleveland. And ever since then, diners could count on reliable quickserve meals at Rosie & Rocco’s, chef Rocco Whalen’s Italian concept, and Michael Symon’s B Spot. Those two options closed at the tail end of May when their contracts expired, explains Samatha Chyette, communications manager for Jack Entertainment. Those two eateries will be replaced this summer by Nonna Pazza and Stack’d. Nonna is described as “a quaint Italian joint that serves made-toorder pasta dishes and create-yourown flatbreads, with all homemade ingredients and sauces made from scratch.” Stack’d will offer guests “outrageous hot sandwiches, street tacos, burgers and all-day breakfast options,” among other things. That menu will be served 24/7 Corky & Lenny’s and the buffet are both still operating.
dtrattner@clevescene.com t@dougtrattner
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MUSIC
Photo via Tim Smith of Steel Yard Sound System
AMPED UP Steel Yard SoundSystem launches its warehouse parties By Colton Faull JAMAICA’S SOUND SYSTEMS were the forebears of modern-day DJ and hip-hop culture. Sound engineers like King Tubby and Lee “Scratch” Perry came onto the scene and pioneered a new genre known as dub. They twisted and manipulated pre-recorded sound in a way that had never been done before, often removing the vocals (known as the dub side) and just leaving the percussion, which in turn would be a huge influence on hip-hop. “Hip-hop came out of Trenchtown [a neighborhood in Kingston where Herc grew up],” DJ Kool Herc, one of the godfathers of hip-hop, once told Jeff Chang, author of Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation. DJ Kool Herc experienced this sound system culture first-hand and brought it with him to the Bronx where he developed his “Merry-GoRound” technique. DJs switched from break to break creating a seamless unified mix. In the early 1970s, hip-hop DJs focused on the vocal-less breaks of funk and soul records to keep dancers moving. Sound systems not only influenced music, but they also impacted politics and reflected the
strife Jamaica was facing in the ’70s. They were essential to a politician’s success. “All any prime minister had to do was to listen closely to the week’s 45 rpm single releases, they were like political polls set to melody and riddim,” Chang writes. Steel Yard SoundSystem, a new monthly event coming to Cleveland this month, will offer a glimpse into the sound system culture that originated in Jamaica back in the 1960s and 1970s. Cleveland has “[seen] a new rebirth built on the back of arts and culture,” the team behind the sound systems says. “A city born from the struggle of the working class peoples. Sound system culture is the music of the people, fighting for truth and rights.” How are you planning to pull the SoundSystem parties off? It’s totally DIY, but we’re doing it as legit as we can. We’re getting as much support from the community and we’re getting all the necessary permits and we’re going to have off-duty cops. We’re doing all the things that we need to make it a safe space for people to come and have fun. As far as how much of a reach it has, reggae and dub have never
been a widely popular music. But everyone can like reggae because it’s a positive message. It’s an uplifting vibe, but it’s kind of always been an underground music because it doesn’t get a lot of radio play. So I’d like the reggae community in Cleveland to grow; that’s kind of why I’m doing my part to help that. Do you think dancehall has seen a resurgence in recent years with big-name artists like Drake using that style on records? Definitely. You see it in a lot of pop culture with acts like Diplo and Major Lazer. They are a huge factor in that — not just dancehall, but they go around the world and pick up little bits and pieces and pull all of that together to make it a little bit more palatable for the masses. It’s a sound that has hit a resonance with the youth. I think that’s because we find ourselves in a position right now that’s very similar to the culture that happened in the 1960s and the 1970s when reggae first started to pick up. You’ve got a youth culture that is politically and socially minded. So they are recognizing the injustice that’s happening in the world and they want to change it. Reggae and
dub have always been that voice of revolution. Do you hope your SoundSystem parties have that same outreach? Yeah, definitely. For dub shows, we call them sessions because it’s not a party [and] it’s not a concert. It’s community engagement, it’s uniting everybody under this one sound to raise a message and raise a voice. I’d like to see it carry and push forward that message because it’s something we really need right now — especially in the U.S. We’re actually taking steps to evolve beyond just throwing shows and start to increase our community involvement and activism. As a SoundSystem runner, you’re more than just throwing parties and sessions, you really need to be involved in promoting what you’re speaking. We’re looking into the viability of actually filing a 501(c)3 and becoming a nonprofit ourselves. Is there anything special about your equipment? I’ve got a lot of friends who are professional sound engineers and they look at what I’m doing and they think I’m freaking crazy. They | clevescene.com | June 14 - 20, 2017
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Photo via Tim Smith of Steel Yard Sound System
MUSIC
think I’m nuts, ’cause I’m using all of these older box designs and they’re really heavy and they’re like, “Man, you can do this for half the weight and half the size of the box!” It’s like, yeah, but it’s not the sound. These are all very traditional style box designs that were used in some of the original sound systems. The baseband designs we’re using are called scoops — because it looks like a scoop in the bottom. They were very popular in the ’70s and ’80s because they were dealing with really low wattage speakers and trying to get as big of a sound out of them as they could. So the physics of the way the box works is to try and amplify the wavelength is just ... you don’t get that sound in anything else. There’s a reverb chamber on the inside where the sound coming
come back? We’re opening up different areas in the warehouse each time. For this first time we’re doing it in one of the larger spaces. It opens up to this really nice outdoor courtyard where people can hang out too. The second one we’re going to do will be on the beautiful rooftop patio, which has a nice view of the lake and downtown. There’s 45 to 50,000 square feet of other spaces in the warehouse that we can just keep opening up more and more spaces. Who is playing at the Launch Party, and is anyone going to have a residency? The Steel Yard crew will be the only real residents of the system, which is me and a couple of friends. For this first one, we’re bringing
STEEL YARD SOUNDSYSTEM LAUNCH PARTY SATURDAY, JUNE 17 FACEBOOK.COM/STEELYARDSOUNDSYSTEM
from the back side of the driver hits this back wall, drops down, comes back up, then comes back, so it kind of does this big S-curve through there and stretches the bass note — stretches the wavelength — so you’re able to hit a much lower frequency range. Everything is chosen very specifically to maximize the frequency range for this type of music. It’s very tuned for this type of music. Tell me about the warehouse you’re using to throw these events. It’s a warehouse in Gordon Square where a buddy of mine runs his motorcycle company. I’ve been working on this for years — teaching myself sound engineering — and he said, “Look, whenever you get it finished we’ll do a party here.” What’s going to be different from each show to make people
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| clevescene.com | June 14 - 20, 2017
in Fundamental Sound, three guys from Roots Records in Columbus. We’re also bringing in Werd2jaH from New Orleans; he’ll be our toaster emcee for the night. And then we’re bringing an artist from L.A., called Roommate, the headliner, which is somebody I am so excited about because I’ve been wanting to bring him to Cleveland for almost 10 years. And to finally be able to make it happen and have it happen on the system is a dream come true. Steel Yard SoundSystem has already tested out their system and venue, but the official Launch Party takes place on June 17, with early bird tickets going for $15. Find more info at facebook.com/ SteelYardSoundsystem/events.
scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene
| clevescene.com | June 14 - 20, 2017
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MUSIC THE PEOPLE HAVE THE POWER Otep has carefully crafted a special set list for its Resistance World Tour By Jeff Niesel POLITICALLY MINDED OTEP singer Otep Shamaya says she never thought highly of bullies (so you can imagine what she thinks of President Trump). “To me, that’s the root of all my activism,” she says in a recent phone interview from an Atlanta tour stop. The band brings its Resistance World Tour to the Agora Ballroom on Saturday, June 17. “I was the wrong mark for bullies to choose. [Bullying] made me want to stick up for my brothers and friends. As I got older, I understood that there are other things to fight for and for creatures who have no voice, like animals. To me, that’s the last bastion of pure unfiltered bullying.” She says a sense of activism permeated her writing from the very first time she picked up a pencil. “I was always fighting for the underdog,” she says. “I grew up pretty poor, but my mother was an archaeological scholar. She wanted to be a field worker and researcher. We were surrounded by books and literature, and we happened to go to school with other kids who were more affluent but not nearly as well read or well behaved. Yet, they had nicer things than us and thought they were better than us, but it doesn’t make you any better than anyone else.” Shamaya describes herself as diehard working class and says that “what happens in our country filters through me as an artist.” When the band first formed in 2000, she took aim at George W. Bush when he was in office and has now directed her attention to Trump. “Here we are now almost 140 days in on Trump, and I would take George W. Bush back, and I hated that guy, and I’m a liberal,” she says. For the current jaunt, dubbed the Resistance World Tour, the band will focus on “social activism, equality and political awareness.” The group has even curated a special set for the show that will feature songs that relate to the current political climate. Produced by Howard Benson (Papa Roach, Flyleaf), the band’s latest album, Generation Doom, features a compelling mix of hip-hop, metal and spoken word — its songs clearly advocate fighting the powers that be. Album opener “Zero” features
parched vocals and pounding drums as Shamaya screams, “I don’t give a fuck.” “I had gone through a pretty gnarly breakup, and some of that filtered into the writing,” she says when asked about the themes on the album. “There was a poem I was writing and that’s my process whether I feel joy or anger or pain. I like to put it on the page. The chorus to ‘In Cold Blood,’ ‘Something’s wrong with me/For thinking something’s right with you,’ was a direct line from
have to be held accountable for one goddamn thing he says. Everything he says is a lie. It normalizes a level of idiocy that we haven’t seen. George W. Bush is doing a dance in the shower, saying, ‘I’m not the dumbest president.’ He had all these things. He was going to defeat Isis in 30 days. He hasn’t done that. In fact, he’s polarized us in the region. These aren’t things I want to write about. Artists need to reflect their times, as Nina Simone once said. That’s what I do.” Benson helps the band achieve
OTEP, THE CONVALESCENCE, ONE DAY WAITING 6 P.M. SATURDAY, JUNE 17, AGORA BALLROOM, 5000 EUCLID AVE., 216-881-2221. TICKETS: $15 ADV, $18 DOS, AGORACLEVELAND.COM.
a poem. Police shootings of unarmed black kids and that racial profiling that still goes on today inspired other songs.” And then, there’s Trump, whom she calls Cheetos Hitler. “Through the Trump candidacy, we were seeing this rise of hate speech,” she says. “The thing that makes me so angry is that he doesn’t
its most sonically satisfying release to date. The band’s cover of Lorde’s “Royals” turns the pop tune into a hard-rocking anthem with chugging guitars and call-and-response vocals. “I was listening to the radio and a Hendrix song came on that was a cover of the Dylan song,” she says. “They were contemporaries. That’s cool. You don’t see that a lot. I thought
there was this song I like by artist Lorde. It’s a celebration of the working class. She was 15 when she wrote it. It’s this brilliant insight from this 15-year-old about being proud of yourself no matter where you come from. I wish I would have written it. We want to honor it. We played it for Howard [Benson], and he heard the big guitar opening and heard the vocals come in, and he said we did it. We play that song on this tour to remind people of the working class.” Shamaya says she doesn’t have an agenda other than that she simply wants people to “pay attention” to the current political climate. “Things don’t happen overnight,” she says. “They gradually happen. If you put a frog in boiling water, he jumps out. But if you put a frog in water and slowly heat it up, he’ll stay in it until he dies. That’s been in the back of my mind. I understand people have families to raise. People need to be reminded that they truly have the power.”
jniesel@clevescene.com t@jniesel | clevescene.com | June 14 - 20, 2017
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MUSIC HAIR TODAY World’s only all-female Iron Maiden tribute act to make local debut at the Beachland By Jeff Niesel DURING HAIR METAL’S GLORY days, the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles was the place to be. At that time, Linda McDonald (aka Nikki McBurrain), who currently plays drums with the allfemale Iron Maiden tribute act the Iron Maidens, played in the Los Angelesbased metal act Phantom Blue. She has fond memories of that time period. “That was, gosh, that was like such a high point of life because it was the ’80s, c’mon,” she says via phone from her Los Angeles home. She brings the Iron Maidens to the Beachland on Sunday for their first-ever Cleveland show. “You can’t relive that. The ’80s were a class of its own, and the hair metal scene was so huge. Everything you hear about it is true. It was crazy. With all the big hair, you didn’t know who was a man or a woman. Everyone was beautiful. It was like Times Square on New Year’s Eve every weekend at the Sunset Strip.” McDonald says she started out on the “pretty instruments” like piano and violin in elementary school. She also learned to play acoustic guitar. She saw Iron Maiden on its Number of the Beast tour in 1982 and knew she wanted to pick up the drums. “Back then, they didn’t do all these overdubs when you did live recordings; and just to hear something that tight and that powerful, live, in one take — that was it,” she says. “I was really, really happy to be able to see, well, of course, Iron Maiden live, but I was really happy to see [drummer] Clive Burr because that was his last tour. And he was the one that really inspired me to not just wish I played drums but to actually get off my butt and do it.” In 2001, Phantom Blue was looking for a bass player. The band received an invitation from an Iron Maiden tribute act that had a female singer and bass player who were potentially available. McDonald met with the group because “any bass player that can play Steve Harris won’t have any problem playing the Phantom Blue stuff.’’ “So, we went down there hoping to, you know, pick up a bass player, but they turned the table around on me and one of my guitar players and asked us if we wanted to join their band that they were trying to put together,” McDonald says. “They had
50
been looking for players for over a year and they just needed a guitar player and a drummer and, of course, we accepted because why wouldn’t we?” They got together at a local studio to rehearse, and people who walked by kept peeking in the window to check them out. “I think people wanted to see what these five girls were doing playing Iron Maiden in this small rehearsal studio,” says McDonald. The band’s first-ever concert created a buzz too. “There was a line wrapped around the building,” says McDonald. “We
arms crossed and expecting failure. I guess that kind of energy just really pushes you to give it your all.” Back then, the group only knew about nine songs. Now, it has mastered tracks from all eras. Some songs even feature different singers as Maiden has gone through numerous lineup changes over the years. “For drums, the earlier material with Clive Burr is my favorite material to play and learn just because that’s what got me starting to play drums,” McDonald admits. “It’s generally more raw and requires a
THE IRON MAIDENS, CHEMIKILL 8:30 P.M. SUNDAY, JUNE 18, BEACHLAND BALLROOM, 15711 WATERLOO RD., 216-383-1124. TICKETS: $17 ADV, $20 DOS, BEACHLANDBALLROOM.COM
were completely shocked because we didn’t know what to expect. We played for people in the rehearsal studio, but we had no idea it was going to carry over to the venue. The people at the club told us we have no idea how many phone calls they had gotten about the show. And wow, when we showed up that night the place was packed and there were people there with their
| clevescene.com | June 14 - 20, 2017
lot more energy and I love it. I love all the eras. I think Kirsten [Rosenberg, aka Bruce Chickinson] would also agree there’s a big difference with [singers] Paul Di’Anno versus Bruce Dickinson.” The Iron Maidens live show even includes Maiden’s zombie-like mascot Eddie. “Eddie was there since Day One,”
says McDonald. “The Devil and sometimes even the Grim Reaper make appearances too. Over the years, the monsters have gotten better looking.” The band’s fanbase has continued to grow. It now boasts more than a million Facebook followers. “We are really shocked, thrilled and honored to actually have over 1.3 million followers on our Facebook page, and that’s insane!” says McDonald. “Wow! Yeah, we’re a cover band; we’re not, like, an original band. But, hey, people just want to be entertained and this is entertainment, and Iron Maiden is still going strong right now. They’re so strong even after so many years that they’re reaching all generations, and so are we. We have people coming and bringing their kids. So, Iron Maiden has become a family event and that is the same with this tribute band audience as well. It’s pretty amazing. I would never dream of bringing my parents or going with my parents to Iron Maiden when I was a kid. No way!”
jniesel@clevescene.com t@jniesel
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| clevescene.com | June 14 - 20, 2017
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LIVEWIRE WED
06/14
B.o.B.: Hailing from Decatur, Georgia, Bobby Ray Simmons Jr., better known as B.o.B., comes to town tonight for the Elements tour. Best known for his hit songs “Airplanes,” a tune that features Haley Williams of Paramore, “Magic” and “So Good,” B.o.B. draws from pop, rock and hip-hop as his heavy-hitting lyrics combine with smooth, yet fast-paced, rhymes. The tour will showcase many of his songs as well as his newest album Ether, his first independently released album. (Adrian Leuthauser) 8 p.m., $22 ADV, $27 DOS. House of Blues. Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds: Among a certain set, Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds’ Live at Luther College is a seminal album, one that followed young men and women as they danced into adulthood. This year, in lieu of the typical DMB tour, Dave and Tim have been hitting summertime sheds to revive this onagain off-again duo, and tonight is their one Ohio date of the year. The set lists have been looking pretty great so far, with all the classics packed in alongside deeper cuts. (Eric Sandy) 7 p.m., $40.50-$95. Blossom. 10 X 3 Singer Songwriter Showcase: Hosted by Brent Kirby (in the Wine Bar): 8 p.m. Brothers Lounge. Bad Boys of Blues: 9 p.m., free. Happy Dog. Birth: 8 p.m., $12. Bop Stop. Bluewater Kings Band: 8 p.m., free. Brothers Lounge. Faces of the Bog/Sparrowmilk / The Great Iron Snake: 9 p.m., $6. Grog Shop. Carlos Jones & The P.L.U.S. Band (in the Supper Club): 6 p.m., free. Music Box Supper Club. Philippe LeJeune: 7 p.m., $15. Nighttown. Myth & Company/M. Moody: 8:30 p.m., $8 ADV, $10 DOS. Beachland Tavern. Reverend Horton Heat/Agent Orange/Flat Duo Jets: $20. Musica. Womantra/The Old Paints/House of Wills (in the Locker Room): 9 p.m., $5. Mahall’s 20 Lanes.
THU
06/15
Chon/Tera Melos/Covet/Little Tybee: Rapid-fire arpeggiated melodies are often the name of the game in CHON’s world, and that’s evidenced
52
all the live music you should see this week Beachland Tavern. Zvada/John Patrick Halling/Bethany Joy/Billy Campbell: 9 p.m., $10. Musica.
The veteran punk act AFI comes to House of Blues. See: Tuesday.
SAT
on the band’s debut, Grow. The prog-rock trio weaves in and out of a number of instrumental moods, even in the same song. “Story” flits from frantic, bass-heavy explosion to latenight lounge-rock groove city before dissolving into a more ethereal space. All along, drummer Nathan Camarena keeps the song pulsing forward into fresh and uncharted territories. The band’s second fulllength will drop June 16, so keep an open ear for at least several new tunes tonight. (Sandy) 6 p.m., $18. Agora Ballroom. Raquy Danziger’s DÜM (in the Supper Club): 7:30 p.m., $15 ADV, $18 DOS. Music Box Supper Club. Dear Tatiana/LBEZ/Wrecking Crew Red Panda Bears/Toby/Theta Waves/Joey Aich (in the Locker Room): 7 p.m., $8. Mahall’s 20 Lanes. Druids/All Dinosaurs/Pillars: 9 p.m., $5. Now That’s Class. Esto Jazz: 8 p.m., $12. Bop Stop. Chris Hatton’s Musical Circus (in the Wine Bar): 8 p.m. Brothers Lounge. Nikki Hill: 8:30 p.m., $12 ADV, $14 DOS. Beachland Tavern. Doc Hopper/Cheap Clone/Public Squares: 9 p.m., $5. Happy Dog. Jam Night with the Bad Boys of Blues: 9 p.m., free. Brothers Lounge. Joe Lovano “Hometown Sessions”: 8 p.m., $30. Nighttown. Rooftop Drum Circle Hosted by Raquy Danziger: 9:30 p.m. Music Box Supper Club. Scarface/Kent Archie/JAMS Davis: 9 p.m., $25 ADV, $30 DOS. Grog Shop. Al Stewart Performs Year of the Cat/ Gary Wright/The Empty Pockets: 8 p.m., $35-$55. The Kent Stage.
| clevescene.com | June 14 - 20, 2017
The Venus Flytraps/The Florists/ Fascinating/The Controversial New ‘Skinny Pill’: 9 p.m., $5. The Euclid Tavern.
FRI
06/16
Saliva/Devilstrip: 7 p.m. House of Blues. Black Violin: 8 p.m., $35. Cain Park. Chamberfest Cleveland: Messin’ ’Round At BOP STOP: 6:30 p.m., $15/$35/$40. Bop Stop. Dohm/Free Jack/Skull ‘RZ Bane/ Urban Misfit: 8 p.m. Agora Ballroom. The Element: 9:30 p.m., $5. Brothers Lounge. Johnny Fay & the Bel-Aires/David Loy & the Ramrods: 9 p.m., $5. Happy Dog. In Training: June Edition with Alex Falk/Worker/Parasite/Unikove/ Mx. Silken: 9 p.m., $8. Now That’s Class. Indigenous (in the Supper Club): 8 p.m., $20 ADV, $22 DOS. Music Box Supper Club. Jazz Jam Session: 11 p.m., free. Bop Stop. Jason Lescalleet/Street Gurgler/ Aunteater/Knife in a Cage: 9 p.m., $5. Happy Dog. Joe Lovano Quartet: 8:30 p.m., $30. Nighttown. Bill March (in the Wine Bar): 8 p.m. Brothers Lounge. Scarface/BKA WATTS/DJ Iceberg: 9 p.m., $25 ADV, $0 DOS. Grog Shop. Moss Stanley: 10:30 p.m., free. Nighttown. Chris Wild/Hamilton Handshake/ White Buffalo Woman/DJ Teddy Eisenberg: 7:30 p.m., $10.
06/17
Miike Snow: The indie pop act Miike Snow’s latest album, iii, has been its biggest breakthrough to date. The album includes the hit singles/videos “Genghis Khan,” “My Trigger” and “Heart Is Full.” A true hybrid, the album draws from both indie rock and electronica. With its falsetto vocals and jazzy synthesizer riffs, “Pull My Trigger” sounds like a cross between Steely Dan and Marvin Gaye. Other tracks such as “Heart of Mine” and “For U,” a hiphop number that features a cameo from Charli XCX, sound more like what passes as contemporary pop music these days. (Jeff Niesel) 7 p.m. Goodyear Theater. The Werk Out Competition: Each year, the Werks host a fantastic jam festival in central Ohio. And each year, the band holds regional competitions to pick up-and-coming bands for the bill. Tonight, Red Rose Panic, Treespeak, Psychic Relic, Ebb n Flow and Coup De Grace will each perform a set in the ballroom, hoping to get a Werk Out spot in early August. Bands tend to pack the house with their adoring fans; there’s a lot on the line here, and the audience has a huge hand in deciding who makes the cut. (Sandy) 8 p.m., $10. Beachland Ballroom. A 70s Art/Prog Rock Show with the Music of Yes, Genesis, King Crimson and David Bowie: 8 p.m., $10 ADV, $14 DOS. The Kent Stage. Come Wind/Brideshore/Heavy Things: 8 p.m., $10. Musica. The Dark Side of the Moon: 9:30 p.m., $5. Brothers Lounge. Anne E. DeChant (in the Supper Club): 8 p.m., $18 ADV, $20 DOS. Music Box Supper Club. Dune/Day Creeper/Paper Morning: 9 p.m., $5. The Euclid Tavern. Fizzed/Flipcoin/You’re Among Friends: 9 p.m., $5. Now That’s Class. Jen Mauer Duo (in the Wine Bar): 8 p.m. Brothers Lounge. Archie McElrath Quartet: 8 p.m., $15. Bop Stop. Nicolas Meier: 8:30 p.m., $20. Nighttown. Moon Rocks Album Release/Mister Moon/Garbage Greek: 9 p.m., $7 ADV, $10 DOS. Beachland Tavern.
LIVEWIRE Otep/The Convalescence/One Day Waiting: 6 p.m., $15 ADV, $18 DOS. Agora Ballroom. Ouster/Early Girl: 9 p.m., $5. Happy Dog. Pop Punk Pizza Party with The Promise Hero/Years Before/Stella Park/Dead Ringer: 9 p.m., $6 ADV, $8 DOS. Grog Shop. David Sanborn Electric Band: 8 p.m. Cain Park. Seeress Release Show/Above This Fire/Significant Loss/Jenna Fournier: 8 p.m., $5. Mahall’s 20 Lanes. Jackie Warren: 10:30 p.m., free. Nighttown. Ann Wilson: 8 p.m., $45-$75. Packard Music Hall. The Wrecks/Call Your Shot/Trusting Obscurity (in the Locker Room): 7 p.m., $10 ADV, $12 DOS. Mahall’s 20 Lanes.
SUN
06/18
Westside Gunn/Conway/DJ Green Lantern: Rust Belters Westside Gunn and Conway may be Eminem’s newest signees to Shady/Interscope, but these two rappers are neither from Detroit nor bushy-tailed newbies. The 30-something brothers (like, they’re actual brothers) perform together as Hall’N’Nash, and are the first rappers out of chilly Buffalo to get inked to a major label. With a sound reminiscent of New York’s boom-bap golden era, accompanied by gritty street imagery and weirdo wordplay, Conway’s yin and Westside’s yang are this era’s Raekwon and Ghostface Killah. Named to Complex Magazine’s 2017 Artists to Watch, the pair plans to release projects with iconic New York producers Just Blaze and The Alchemist. Meantime, give a listen to Westside Gunn’s Flygod and Conway’s Reject On Steroids for a taste of their prowess before they grace the Grog stage tonight. (Lawrence Neil) 9 p.m., $15 ADV, $17 DOS. Grog Shop. Eddie Baccus Sr. & Jr.: 7 p.m., $20. Nighttown. The Giving Tree Band/The Cerny Brothers: 8 p.m., $10 ADV, $12 DOS. Beachland Tavern. Golden Pelicans/Obnox/Dollar Drafts: 9 p.m., $7. Now That’s Class. The Iron Maidens/Chemkill: 8:30 p.m., $17 ADV, $20 DOS. Beachland Ballroom. Mike Petrone (in the Wine Bar): 5:30 p.m. Brothers Lounge.
Sex Scene/Joey Sprinkles: 9 p.m., free. Happy Dog.
06/19
MON
Skatch Anderssen Orchestra: 8 p.m., $7. Brothers Lounge. Banks: 7 p.m., $25 ADV, $30 DOS. The Agora Theatre. Los Jacks: 9 p.m., $5. Now That’s Class. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart/ Frankie Rose/Ablebody: 8 p.m., $15 ADV, $17 DOS. Grog Shop. Shit Show Karaoke: 10 p.m. B-Side Liquor Lounge & Arcade. Velvet Voyage (in the Wine Bar): 8 p.m. Brothers Lounge.
TUE
THE RETURN OF AN EXTRAORDINARY ART SHOW
06/20
AFI/Nothing/Souvenirs: Following the release of its new self-titled album (also referred to as The Blood Album), AFI embarked on the Blood Tour to promote it. The group is known for the 2006 hit songs “Miss Murder” and “Love Like Winter.” Unlike many bands that tend to go through constant lineup changes, AFI has done the impossible, keeping the same lineup since 1998. (Leuthauser) 7:30 p.m., $25 ADV, $30 DOS. House of Blues. Tigers Jaw / Saintseneca / Smidley: The indie rock band Tigers Jaw formed in Scranton in 2005. After Charmer, thought to be the last of Tigers Jaw as three of the five members announced their departure, the band didn’t seem to have a chance of continuing. But singer-guitarist Ben Walsh and singer-keyboardist Brianna Collins have carried on, and their latest effort, Spin, came out earlier this month. The bill also includes Foxing singer Connor Murphy’s side project, Smidley. (Leuthauser) 8:30 p.m., $16 ADV, $18 DOS. Grog Shop. Selwyn Birchwood/Austin Walkin’ Cane: 8 p.m., $16 ADV, $18 DOS. Beachland Tavern. Joe Morris/Ben Hall Duo: 7 p.m., $20. Bop Stop. Outlab: Experiments In Improvised Music: 9 p.m., free. Bop Stop. Surfer Blood/Winter/Bummed Out/ Slug Fest: 8 p.m., $13 ADV, $15 DOS. Now That’s Class. Telekinetic Yeti/Black Spirit Crown/ Space Goblin: 9 p.m., $8. Mahall’s 20 Lanes. Two-Set Tuesday featuring: Gina Brooklyn (in the Wine Bar): 7 p.m. Brothers Lounge.
Fine Art Festival An Outdoor Art Show in Shaker Heights
June 17th – 18th Sat./Sun. 10am – 5pm
Free Admission
Hathaway Brown School - 19600 North Park Blvd., Shaker Heights, OH
ArtFestival.com A Howard Alan Event
(561) 746-6615 Media Partners
scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene | clevescene.com | June 14 - 20, 2017
53
C-NOTES clevescenetickets.com
WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM THEIR FRIENDS FIND OUT ABOUT SCENE MAGAZINE EVENTS ALL YEAR LONG
KentStage The
=HGÍM FBLL MA>L> @K>:M LAHPL MB<D>ML HG L:E> GHP
Al Stewart performs “Year of the Cat” Thu., Jun. 15
JJ Grey & Mofro Thu., July 6
Steve Earle & The Dukes Sun. Jul 23
ProgNation & Diamond Dogs present a 70’s Art/Prog Rock Show Sat., Jun. 17
Jonny Lang Fri., Jul 7
The Quebe Sisters Fri., Jun. 23
The Gin Blossoms Wed., July 12
Jerry Douglas presents Jimmy Herring The Earls Of Leicester & the Invisible Whip Wed, Aug. 2
Thu., Aug. 3
JUST ANNOUNCED! Y~ Isaak Sun., Aug. 13
h~ w Giddens Sat., Nov. 9
Tickets on Sale June 16 @ 10am
ALL SHOWS AT THE KENT STAGE UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED Tickets available at www.kentstage.org or 877-987-6487 GMK [w cw i {{ © a{ B e~ JJHJF
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Sweepyheads release a new music video By Jeff Niesel THE LOCAL INDIE ROCK BAND Sweepyheads recently recorded a few brand-new songs at Bad Racket Studios, and the guys from locally based Black Valve Media helped them shoot a music video for the Weezer-like tune, “I Am Not Me.” The music video stars members of the band along with friend James Kananen and his dog Dorothy “Frog Dog” Furface. “The idea is that we illegally break into the studio to record a song in the middle of the night,” says singer-guitarist Andrew Yadon. “We thought it was funny because of the loud nature of recording a rock song. There’s lots of overacting and funny moments; we had a great time shooting it. Everyone involved with the shoot are good friends of ours.”
SEERESS RELEASES ITS FULL-LENGTH DEBUT The locally based, self-described “post-rock/instrumental/atmospheric metal” band Seeress has self-released two EPs, 2015’s Self-Titled and 2016’s Many Worlds. The group also contributed a song to the vinyl compilation Heavy Haze released by the local record label Wax Mage. Now the band has announced it’ll release its first full-length, Great Void, this month. Dave Piatek (Above This Fire, Light Years) engineered the album and Brad Boatright (Sleep, Obituary) did the mastering. The band hosts a release party at 8 p.m. on Saturday at Mahall’s 20 Lanes. Locals Above This Fire, Significant Loss and Jenna Fournier will also perform. Admission to the show is $5. Seeress’ two previous EPs are currently available to stream or as name-your-own-price downloads on the group’s Bandcamp page.
SERVING UP ANOTHER PLATTER Co-founder of the local art-punk act Pere Ubu, Allen Ravenstine played on some of the band’s most famous tracks, including “30 Seconds Over Tokyo/ Heart of Darkness” and “The Modern Dance/Heaven.” He’s recorded with David Thomas & the Pedestrians, David Thomas & the Wooden Birds, Red Crayola and Robert Wheeler and performed with acts like John Cale, the Cramps, the Dead Boys, 15-60-75 (the Numbers Band), Destroy All Monsters, Devo, Gang of Four, the Human League, the Stranglers, the Styrenes, Tin Huey and X. In September, as part of its Platters du Cuyahoga series, Smog Veil Records will reissue his instrumental album Terminal Drive on CD and vinyl. It will also be available digitally. The label is currently accepting preorders. “Terminal Drive’s significance in terms of Cleveland underground music cannot be [overstated],” says Smog Veil archivist Nick Blakey in a press release. “Ravenstine gained recognition for his unusual and inventive synthesizer work in Pere Ubu, which he would also contribute to other groups such as Red Crayola and David Thomas & the Wooden Birds as well as his solo work.” The album has never been officially released in its entirety, and no complete recording of the piece could be located for many years. Ravenstine, who currently lives in New York City where he works as a commercial airline pilot, recorded it in 1975 at Cleveland-based Motion Picture Sound. SUMA Studios in Painesville handled remastering for the Smog Veil reissue.
jniesel@clevescene.com t@jniesel
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| clevescene.com | June 14 - 20, 2017
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AN EARLY BLOOMER: Brooklyn, who grew up in Wadsworth, a town she says is more oriented toward sports than music, started singing when she was only 5 years old. Her parents played in a local band and regularly exposed her to new music. “I grew up with music,� she says. “Once I heard my mom sing, I wanted to be a singer too. My whole family is musical.� She started writing her own songs when she was 13. By the time she was 15, Brooklyn had recorded at well-known studios such as Studio City Studios in Los Angeles, 515 Studios in Nashville and Lava Room Recording Studios here in Cleveland. She plays a bit of everything — piano, guitar, ukulele and cajon. When multiplatinum producer and artist developer Kevin DeClue heard some of her demos, he signed her to a development deal and started to find opportunities for her to write with other artists. So far, she has co-written a song with songwriting legends Mike Shimshack and Stephanie Lewis who have sold over 40 million albums combined. “It was fun to work with them,� says Brooklyn. “I had never co-written with anyone before so I went to Grammy camp a few weeks before
I went to Nashville to work them. After that, it was easier.�
WHERE YOU CAN HEAR HER: ginabrooklyn.com WHY YOU SHOULD HEAR HER: Her husky vocals on tunes such as the Alessia Cara-like “Faceless� and the gentle piano ballad “Supposed to Be� make her sound much older than she is. “People tell me I sound older than I am because my voice is much deeper than what you’d expect,� she says. “The way I sing is much different than other 16-year-olds.� The EP features both new and old tunes. “Some of the songs have been around for a while,� she says, adding that she wrote “Beauty All Around� when she was in seventh grade. “I recorded some of them in studios and some in my house. I enjoyed the process. It was fun to do.� Brooklyn says her goal is to get a publishing deal and then get signed to a label, but at the moment, she just wants to perform as much as she can. WHERE YOU CAN SEE HER: Gina Brooklyn performs at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, June 20, at Brothers Lounge.
jniesel@clevescene.com t@jniesel
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| clevescene.com | June 14 - 20, 2017
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SAVAGE LOVE VIRGIN TERRITORY by Dan Savage Dear Dan, I’m almost 30 and I’m a virgin. I’m an overweight, straight-ish guy. I’ve also gone through an absolute hell life thus far, losing a testicle to cancer and having an abusive father who threatened a teenage me into celibacy by invoking the phrase “penile lobotomy” should I have sex with any girlfriends. I’ve barely dated in 10 years, and while I’m free from my father and the aforementioned mortal dick terror, I’m also INCREDIBLY scared about putting myself out there. I’m disabled, I’m not conventionally attractive, my whole zone down there is scarred up from surgeries, and, to top it all off, I’m on the small side. The last time I had the opportunity for sex, I went for it, but I was so terrified that I couldn’t keep it up. The woman I was with said something to the effect of “Well, I can’t do anything with that, now can I?” after which I asked her to leave because, seriously, that’s kind of an asshole thing to say. I’m notionally on Tinder and Bumble, but more often than not, I feel like the right thing for any theoretical partners would be for me to just stay in hiding and not inflict my grotesque presence on them. I’m scared of another humiliation, and I’m at an age where my complete lack of experience and physical deformity are (I would have to imagine) major issues for anyone I might encounter. I truly want romance, sexuality, and companionship in my life. I haven’t fought through poverty, disability, physical and emotional abuse, and my genitalia trying to kill me to stay entombed in my office alone and unloved. I just do not know where to even begin. — The Virgin Who’s Been Fucked A Whole Lot Just Never In The Good Way Off the top of my head … Hire a sex worker. It will allow you to separate your anxieties about finding romance and companionship from your anxieties about being sexually inexperienced. A kind, indulgent, competent sex worker can relieve you of your virginity and help restore — or instill — confidence in your dick’s ability to get and stay hard in the presence of another human being. Be totally honest about your concerns. If you get the sense during negotiations — which should be brief and to the point — that the woman you’re talking to is impatient or uncaring, thank her for her time and start over. There are kind, caring, compassionate sex workers out there.
Presumably you’ve got a computer in your office. Use it to find one. Get out of the house. Go places, do things — as much as your disability and budget allow. You’re likelier to meet someone if you’re out of the house and moving through the world. Even if you don’t meet someone right away, you’ll feel less isolated and less alone. Even if you never meet someone (I’m not sugarcoating things — some people don’t), going places and doing things means you’ll have a rich and active life regardless. You’re not alone. Okay, you’re alone — but you’re not alone alone. Meaning, there are women (and men) out there who feel just as paralyzed as you do — because they’re 30-year-oldor-older virgins, because they’re not conventionally attractive, because their first/only sexual experiences were just as humiliating, because they had traumatic childhoods and bear emotional scars. You want a woman to come into your life who is patient and accepting and kind and willing to look past your disability and your inexperience and your difficult history. Be patient, accepting, kind, and similarly willing. Get over those scars. I had a boyfriend a long time ago who had significant scarring on his balls and taint. He was a farm boy (sigh), and he fell on a piece of farm machinery and wound up straddling a scaldinghot pipe. Ten years later, we started going out — and guess what? I didn’t notice his scars. And not for want of opportunity: He was my first serious boyfriend, and I spent the better part of three months with my face in his crotch. The scars that were so obvious to him and left him feeling self-conscious about his genitals? They were invisible to me until he needlessly apologized for them. If you’re worried your scarring is noticeable, mention that you’re a cancer survivor and lost a ball but gained a sick (as in cool) scar. Good luck, TVWBFAWLJNITGW. We’re rooting for you.
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