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Dedicated to Free Times founder Richard H. Siegel (1935-1993) and Scene founder Richard Kabat Publisher Andrew Zelman Editor Vince Grzegorek

CONTENTS Upfront

Editorial Music Editor Jeff Niesel Senior Writer Sam Allard Staff Writer Brett Zelman Web Editor Laura Morrison Dining Editor Douglas Trattner Visual Arts Writer Dott von Schneider Copy Editor Elaine Cicora Interns Alexandra Sobczak , Evey Weisblat

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| clevescene.com | September 11 - 17, 2019

UPFRONT CLEVELAND DESERVES BETTER THAN MAYOR FRANK JACKSON Photo by Sam Allard

MONDAY, THE 22-YEAR-OLD grandson of Cleveland mayor Frank Jackson pleaded not guilty to four charges stemming from a violent attack on an 18-year-old woman in June. Frank Q. Jackson, the mayor’s grandson, is being held at the Cuyahoga County Jail on a $25,000 bond. If he posts 10 percent of the total, he’ll be released but will be required to wear an ankle bracelet. Additionally, he has been forbidden by Judge Ashley Kilbane from having any contact with his victim or those who witnessed the beating. A pretrial date has been set for next Monday, Sept. 16. A county grand jury indicted the younger Jackson last week, only days after Cleveland.com first reported on the June beating. The explosive story found not only that the city of Cleveland had failed to prosecute the mayor’s grandson, despite an abundance of evidence, including the availability of officers from the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority (CMHA) who were willing to testify; the city had also failed to hand over the case to county prosecutors, who handle felonies. Jackson was charged with four felony counts: felonious assault, abduction and two counts of failure to comply. Witnesses told CMHA police that Jackson had punched and choked an 18-year-old woman in a truck at a gas station on East 40th. He then drove her to an apartment building at East 49th, where he dragged her out of the truck and continued beating her and choking her. He then retrieved a truck hitch from his vehicle and beat her with that as well. Police were called and arrived after Jackson had fled. But as they questioned the victim, who identified Jackson as her attacker, he returned to the scene and drove slowly down the street. He sped away when police gave chase. His mother later did the same, driving slowly and threateningly by the victim as police questioned her. Officers noted that members of Frank Q. Jackson’s family began to drive around the area, in what was perceived as an intimidation tactic. The victim declined to press charges, having

said that she expected to be retaliated against. Mayor Frank Jackson’s statements on the incident have been contemptuous in the extreme. He dismissed Channel 3’s Mark Naymik’s questions last week. “What happens at my house, my family, is really not up for discussion or any of your business,” he said. But that’s simply not true. It is our business. Journalists have a right to demand an explanation from the mayor about conditions in his household — both his grandson and his great-grandson have had brushes with the law this summer; a gang member was photographed with a gun bulging from his pocket in Jackson’s driveway last month; his family members are evidently prowling the streets, striking fear into the hearts of abuse victims — and the public has a right to know what the hell is going on. Frank Jackson is the Mayor of Cleveland, a reality that is becoming

more embarrassing by the day. The perpetrators of the crimes in question are not distant relatives. These are members of his household. Whether or not Jackson views these matters as private, he is obliged to address them. If he were even remotely concerned about leadership, about setting an example for the constituents over whom he ostensibly presides, he would’ve denounced violence against women and vowed to prosecute abusers regardless of their connections to him. Instead, he pleaded ignorance. You’d find more attentive, courageous leadership from a pile of slag. The Plain Dealer’s Philip Morris touched on the point in a column this weekend: “Why does a mayor who has publicly made fighting crime and getting guns off the streets a priority continue to find himself defending violent criminals in his own family?” Morris asked. That’s a good question, though it’s stated imprecisely. Jackson finds

himself in positions where he should be defending, or at least providing comment on, the violent criminals in his own family. But he does not, in fact, defend them. Even in the one instance Morris cites, when Jackson publicly testified on behalf of his nephew, the mayor’s comments are breathtakingly void of substance. “As Nicky’s uncle, I spent a lot of time with him from infancy through his teens,” a letter from Jackson to Judge Christopher Boyko read. “As a family member, of course, I see him from those innocent times and see his best qualities. So, I am writing from that perspective. I’m not going to go into details about anything in particular, I just know he is my family, not who his record would indicate, and I love him.” Not going into details about anything in particular might as well be emblazoned above Jackson’s press office, or tattooed on the arms of every member of his administration. In matters where the city of Cleveland | clevescene.com | September 11 - 17, 2019

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UPFRONT demands leadership, and in matters that morally necessitate a response, Jackson’s response is to wave them away. He knows if he waits 48 hours or so, everyone will forget and move on. He’ll face zero consequences from his colleagues, the city council or the public. Lest we forget, the mayor hired the violent abuser Lance Mason in 2017, only months after Mason had been released from prison for a savage attack on his then-wife Aisha Fraser, having served only nine months of a two-year sentence. The hiring scandal was revealed shortly before the 2017 election but had marginal, if any, effect on the electorate. Even after Mason murdered Fraser, a year later, Jackson astonishingly stood by the hiring. No one had the decency to issue a statement critical of Jackson’s response. No one had the guts then, and no one has the guts now, to lambaste Jackson for the utter contempt he has demonstrated by his silence: contempt for women, contempt for the press, and contempt

for the voters who continue to put him in office. — Sam Allard

U.S. Attorney Justin Herdman’s Remarks on the Indictment of a White Nationalist, In Full The Feds recently unsealed a complaint against an Ohio man named James Reardon, a selfdescribed white nationalist who posted various anti-Semitic messages on the internet, for making threats against a Jewish community center. In a press conference, Justin Herdman, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, issued a direct, eloquent and welcome rebuke to those with similar beliefs in a speech that is wholly deserving of your time. We reprint those remarks in full here, because they are needed, and because this is what leadership sounds like. — Vince Grzegorek “Good morning. Thank you for coming today and thank you to all of the local police chiefs who are here. Special thanks to Chief D’Egidio who drove here from New Middletown. “We are here to announce the unsealing of a federal complaint against James Reardon, age 20, of

New Middletown, Ohio. He is charged with one count of making threats using a facility of interstate commerce. “Federal rules give us a few weeks before seeking an indictment in the Grand Jury and we will continue to use that time to further our investigation of Mr. Reardon’s conduct and to determine if others were involved. In just a moment, Special Agent Eric Smith of the FBI will detail the facts uncovered in our investigation thus far. “I want to start by thanking the community. This case is the result of a concerned citizen who took the time to point out Mr. Reardon’s social media activity to a New Middletown Police Officer. This case is just one of several over the past few weeks that are the product of our friends and neighbors seeing something, and then saying something. “For example, a few weeks ago, Timothy Ireland was indicted on firearms and threat charges after a private citizen alerted law enforcement. And at the beginning of this month, Vincent Armstrong pleaded guilty to charges related to a planning an attack on a bar in Toledo. That case started with a tip from a concerned citizen to Toledo police. There are several more examples and they illustrate the fact that these type of

cases rely on very two important people — a concerned citizen and a responsive law enforcement officer. Fortunately, we have both of those in abundance in northern Ohio. “I want to thank the men and women who make up our police departments, and some of their leadership are here today. As I said, tips only matter if police officers take them seriously and investigate them thoroughly. The presence of our local law enforcement highlights the message that police officers are trained to be responsive to information from the public, and the officers assigned to these departments — and many others — will do just that when confronted with credible and specific threats. I also want to thank the FBI and ATF agents who joined with the police in each of these cases and bring outstanding expertise to these investigations. “Now let me speak generally to those who are advocates for white supremacy, or white nationalism. I am talking directly to you. The Constitution protects your right to speak, your right to think, and your right to believe. If you want to waste the blessings of liberty by going down a path of hatred and failed ideologies, that is your choice. “Democracy allows you to test

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those ideas in the public forum. If you want to submit your beliefs to the American people and get their reaction, please be my guest. Keep this in mind, though. Thousands and thousands of young Americans already voted with their lives to ensure that this same message of intolerance, death, and destruction would not prevail — you can count their ballots by visiting any American cemetery in North Africa, Italy, France, or Belgium and tallying the white headstones. You can also recite the many names of civil rights advocates who bled and died in opposing supporters of those same ideologies of hatred. Their voices may be distant, but they can still be heard. “Go ahead and make your case for Nazism, a white nation, and racial superiority. The Constitution may give you a voice, but it doesn’t guarantee you a receptive audience. “Your right to free speech does not automatically mean that people will agree with you. In fact, you have an absolute God-given and inalienable right to be on the losing end of this argument.

DIGIT WIDGET 43 PERCENT Amount of the annual serious accidents and fatalities involving bicyclists or pedestrians that occur on just 15 of Cleveland’s streets.

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“What you don’t have, though, is the right to take out your frustration at failure in the political arena by resorting to violence. You don’t have any right to threaten the lives and well-being of our neighbors. They have an absolute God-given and inalienable right to live peacefully, to worship as they please, to be free from fear that they might become a target simply because of the color of their skin, the country of their birth, or the form of their prayer. “Threatening to kill Jewish people, gunning down innocent Latinos on a weekend shopping trip, planning and plotting to perpetrate murders in the name of a nonsense racial theory, sitting to pray with God-fearing people who you execute moments later — those actions don’t make you soldiers, they make you criminals. Law enforcement doesn’t go to war with cowards who break the law, we arrest them and send them to prison. “As I said, this case was made by a concerned member of the public and a responsive police officer. That’s all it takes to stop you. The men and women of our community are allied with law enforcement. And every single member of law enforcement took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Many of us have taken that oath several times — as police officers, federal agents, prosecutors, military members, and elected officials. “Together, we represent the absolute best of what America has to offer. Our skin is every color you can imagine, our families come from a hundred different countries and a hundred different faiths. What makes us different doesn’t split us apart, though. Those differences are insignificant compared to what is the same about us — we are united in our commitment to each other, to our families, and to our communities. We are the living embodiment of everything you say is impossible. “Together, we are united to ensure that you commit no further acts of violence in the name of your beliefs. When you wake up tomorrow morning, no matter what time, I want you to remember something. You can’t set your alarm clock early enough to beat us out of bed. The men and women of law enforcement don’t wake up. We never went to sleep. We are always awake. And arm in arm with the public, when your hatred leads you to break the law, we will do everything we can to be there to stop you.”

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here are but two qualifications to merit inclusion in our annual People issue. One, you’re a Clevelander (or, more generally, a Northeast Ohioan). And two, you’re a good person doing good things in the city. That’s it. Which doesn’t help us narrow down the list, of course, because this damn fine city is overflowing with candidates, but narrow it down we do, year after year.

This year’s batch of 12 Clevelanders is as impressive as we’ve ever put together, we’ll humbly admit, not because of anything we did but because of everything they’ve done and plan on doing. From activism to hospitality, from art to alterations, from longtime Clevelanders to relative newcomers, these dozen folks make us proud, and they should make you proud too. Dig in and get to know them.

| clevescene.com | September 11 - 17, 2019

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Adam Miller BY SAM ALLARD

DAM MILLER STILL listens to the Today Show on the radio every morning as he commutes to work from the eastside suburbs. The Orange native was a producer at Today for nearly a decade, having lucked into an internship with the Beijing Olympics team in 2008. And while he worked at the show and lived in New York City, he says he never recognized the value of the live simulcast on Sirius XM. Now, as the director of content at Cleveland’s WKYC Channel 3, he gets it. “It was a fantastic business move,” he says. “I’d always started my day with the Today Show, even before I worked there, and now I realize: So many people are able to experience the show in their cars. It gives you everything you need to start the day.” The daily car commute has been one of several adjustments for Miller, who returned to Northeast Ohio with his wife and two young children in 2018. On the plus side, he says, his kids have learned the word “backyard,” and he’s once again enjoying the storied meats of Corky & Lenny’s, which he says he’d take over any deli in New York City. Miller still speaks admiringly of the Today Show and what it taught him about news and teamwork. He’s brought that experience home, alongside an appetite for experimentation, collaboration and innovation. It’s an appetite borne of a belief in the power of journalism and a monkish trust in the durability of TV news. “It’s not going anywhere,” Miller says confidently. “I truly believe that. We need deep reporting and rich storytelling now more than ever. And while that’s true across all formats, my feeling is that when breaking news happens — when terrible things happen — there’s something about turning on the television and getting the

Photo by Tim Harrison

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information you need from a trusted, credible, comforting source.” That’s why staffing WKYC with reliable reporters and anchors — faces and names that people in the region can come to know and love — is so critical, Miller says. In the past several months, WKYC has made a number of key hires as they explore new programming and continue to build their audience. “I’ve spent most of this first year listening, quite honestly,” Miller says. “And it was obvious

| clevescene.com | September 11 - 17, 2019

right away that we have a rocksolid foundation at Channel 3, a phenomenal team. There may have been just a couple of puzzle pieces that needed moving around. But now we’re really getting underway.” Among the hires announced this summer was ESPN veteran and Northeast Ohio native Jay Crawford. He’ll be piloting a new show at noon in the fall and transitioning to a 5 p.m. program in 2020, trying to collect some of the evening audience — “building those relationships,” in Miller’s

words — even earlier. Miller says that when it comes to local TV news, every station is likely going to lead with some version of the same major story every day. It’s after the lead story where stations distinguish themselves. “We diverge and pivot from there,” he says. “And for us, it’s about having the most interesting, dynamic, intelligent, relatable people presenting the news. It’s not just about doing the news differently. It’s about doing it better.” ■

Gabi Mirelez BY LAURA MORRISON

Photo by Tim Harrison

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OMETIMES LATE AT NIGHT, when she has Netflix blaring and the darkness seeps in through the shop windows, she wonders why she continues with this work of pins and thread. Exhaustion wins out over the caffeine and she worries a dress or jacket won’t be done in time. “But then first thing the next day there will be someone who is so happy to have something that fits them,” says Gabi Mirelez, the owner of Sweetlime Alterations in Tremont. “Especially when I have my trans folks come, who never thought they’d have the experience where they felt comfortable to say how they wanted to have something fit, be heard, and then have that executed. There have been a lot of tears in this space.” Sweetlime Alterations is a queer tailoring shop, which looks to provide the safest space for anyone in need of feeling comfortable in clothes that reflect who they are, Mirelez says. Although 70 percent of her clientele wouldn’t identify as queer, she says she works with many differently sized people and those who feel marginalized and may not feel completely comfortable taking off their clothes in a dressing room surrounded by mirrors. The business took shape organically after she moved to Cleveland 10 years ago from her hometown of Chicago. “I was working in alterations while I was coming out,” the 32-year-old says. “I was meeting other queer folk who would say, ‘I want to wear this; oh, you sew? Would you be able to make this vest look good without bubbling around my breasts?’ Or, ‘Can you make this catsuit super tight?’ Anytime I would say I was a seamstress, these things would keep coming up. Then someone suggested I be a queer tailor, and I said, ‘That’s not a bad idea.’” Following a slapdash education into how to start a business, along with a successful Kickstarter

campaign, she opened in March 2016. Sewing came naturally to Mirelez. She says it’s in her blood. Her grandmother and greatgrandmother sewed, but it wasn’t until taking a fashion class in high school that she learned how. There, the teachers saw her potential. “They told me I should go to school for this,” Mirelez says. “They made me see I could do this.” Summer is the height of wedding season and already this year a steady stream of brides and bridesmaids have come through the shop door. Most need at least the hemline taken up, others need

fabric around the middle tightened or let out. With each client, Mirelez has them put on the dress with the shoes they’re wearing for the event and then, before pinning what needs to be altered, she asks them how the garment makes them feel. She wants people to know they don’t have to starve themselves for weeks to look perfect for a special occasion. Her job is to make the garment fit correctly, and she takes that seriously, as well as keeping the service affordable. “I want to keep things accessible,” she says. “We have this idea that alterations have to be a luxury or we get them only for

special occasions. But the reality is most people don’t sew anymore.” In the future, Mirelez hopes to expand her business by hiring a couple more workers — she currently has some part-time help — and wants to host more inclusive community events in her shop. “It’s proven more often than not that I’m doing something that matters, even if it seems small,” Mirelez says. “For me, to have these one-on-one sessions and find out what people’s needs are even though this is just a tailoring shop … . People come through and we chat and catch up; I feel like I’m part of their life.” ■ | clevescene.com | September 11 - 17, 2019

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Cannaday Chapman BY VINCE GRZEGOREK

Photo by Tim Harrison

Y THE TIME YOU READ THIS, Cannaday Chapman will already be in Berlin where he’ll fulfill a long dream of living abroad for a year. A few days before he left, as he was still trying to unload furniture on Craigslist, deciding what he wanted to store at his parents’ house in Rochester, New York, and figuring out how to pack everything he wanted to take in two suitcases, the illustrator talked about the preparing for the trip at Rising Star. “You start saying goodbye to people, and then it really hits,” he says. “It’s really hard to leave. I left New York, and that wasn’t hard. But leaving Cleveland for now, for some reason, is really hard. I’ve had it really good here. And now, it’s even hard because I’m leaving right as I feel like the city has embraced me and my work. But there’s a good chance I’ll come back.” Chapman landed in Cleveland after an American Greetings recruiter talked to students at the Pratt Institute in New York, where he went to college. It took five years before that American Greetings recruiter got back in touch with an offer, but Chapman was happy to accept — he’d visited Cleveland four or five times a year growing up because his grandmother lived here. “But, like, I didn’t even know the west side existed,” he says. “I only knew what it was like where she lived.” He spent the first of his seven years here in Lakewood before getting a loft in Asia Town. While working his full-time day job designing greeting cards — a job and a company about which Chapman has nothing but good things to say — he found himself getting the itch to do other creative work. His connections were in New

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York, so while he wasn’t getting much work locally (most visibly, he did a mural in Ohio City), he was landing prestigious gigs doing creative for places like The New York Times and small publishers, even a coveted cover for The New Yorker. When an art director he’d worked with at the Times took a new job at Google, there came an invitation to do something bigger than he’d ever done before — a Google doodle for MLK day. “At first, my agent said I was too busy to do that one,” Chapman says. “Of course I was like, no, of course I’ll do it.” And the guidance he got, for one of the most visible doodles of the calendar year, presented a challenge. “He wanted me to do it without showing Martin Luther King, because all the previous ones used his image and he wanted this one to be different. And of course because it’s Google, I couldn’t do anything about Black Lives Matter or showing police brutality or anything. But I was looking at photos from protests and I saw one of a girl sitting on her father’s shoulders. And I saw a photo from

| clevescene.com | September 11 - 17, 2019

a different angle and seeing her, it was just powerful. And I thought if I could tie that imagery into the project, it’d be powerful too.” And the resulting image — showing a crowd of faces on the National Mall with a young black girl sitting on her father’s shoulders with clouds and the Washington Monument in the background — was indeed just that. Chapman is obviously proud of the gigs he’s done for big-time publications, but humping a day job and pounding out freelance creative work after hours was a recipe for an over-worked illustrator who wasn’t exactly in a rut, but felt like he was ready for something new. “It was fun, but I started to get burned out,” he says. “And then, there’s this thing where, once you do one project, other art directors basically co-sign you — ‘Oh, you did something for the Times, so now you can do something for us’ — and sometimes they just want what you did before, basically. Sometimes they just want you to rehash old concepts and styles. When you do one thing and it’s good, sometimes they just want

you to do it again and again and again, and your portfolio just becomes that. And I got so busy that I really didn’t do any personal work any longer.” That’s what he plans to do in Berlin, which was a destination picked quickly after he visited and some friends told him about a yearlong visa he could get as a working artist. In Berlin, he’ll be living in a funky, artsy neighborhood not unlike Brooklyn where he’ll be surrounded by creatives doing not just commercial work but off-beat performance art and more. He’ll get to scratch the itch of living abroad while, he says, focusing on gaining more international clients and surrounding himself with an entire community of creative artists. “My life here lately has been very chill, everything’s put together,” he says. “So this will be an interesting transition, immersing myself in a different culture for a long period of time, and hopefully being inspired and satisfied. I’m kind of interested but a little worried what this is going to do to my work, but it’s something I just need to do.” ■

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Anthony LaMarca BY JEFF NIESEL

NOWN FOR HIS ROLE AS guitarist in the indie rock act the War on Drugs and as the drummer in St. Vincent and Dean & Britta, multi-instrumentalist/ songwriter Anthony LaMarca has recently embraced his Youngstown roots. He grew up there before moving to New York to study music. Two years ago, he came back to Youngstown and has just finished recording his new album, Petra, at Peppermint Productions, the vintage recording studio where polka superstar Frank Yankovic has recorded. “I had known about Peppermint because everyone who is from here knows about this place,” he says one morning from the recording facility. “I had never recorded here. I booked a couple of days to see if it would be cool or not. I thought I should record something here because I live here. I didn’t know what to expect. It was pretty clear pretty quick that it was a good fit.” Since then, LaMarca’s grown to love the space and has even helped its owners organize their equipment. He’s done it all while overcoming tremendous adversity. While recording his first album, Reconciliation, at Peppermint in 2015, he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma. He received treatment, and it went into remission, but the condition flared up again during the recording of Petra. Many of Petra’s songs address the issues of dealing with illness. He often tracked songs with an IV drip still in his arm. “It’s more of a bigger scope,” he says when asked about how his health issues influenced Petra. “It’s about these larger cycles that have repeated in my life. Reconciliation was about my dad, who found out he had MS when he was 28. All of a sudden, I found out I have multiple Myeloma at around the same age. These weird parallel worlds are happening. Petra was,

Photo by Tim Harrison

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in a way, similar. I started writing and recording the album and half way through, my disease became active again. To me, the two records share a lot of the same idea space. Reconciliation is about finding peace, as is Petra, whether it’s within your own turmoil and trauma happening to you and your family or even in the larger sense of trying to find and put out peace in the country. We’re living in such fucked-up times. Everything is conflict. I want to be anti-conflict.” The album comes out on Oct.

| clevescene.com | September 11 - 17, 2019

11 via Concord Records, and LaMarca will kick off a North American tour on Nov. 2 with a send-off at Youngstown’s Westside Bowl, where he’s been doing DJ sets, spinning rock ’n’ roll that’s come out of Youngstown. “It’s great,” he says of his DJ gigs. “Me and a couple of other buddies of mine have been obsessively collecting the old records that were done here in the ’60s and ’70s. We thought it would be fun to hang out one night and play them and make

our friends listen to them. At the end of it, people are shocked that they’ve heard four hours of mind-blowing garage and psych rock that was recorded in Youngstown. There’s a deep history here. The dream is that I’ll be a part of it, and it’s why recording here is such a cool thing. I really love early Blue Ash records or Glass Harp stuff, and it’s all the same mics. It’s the same engineer. When I was recording in New York, that was cool, but it wasn’t my thing like this is.” ■

Jeannette Sorrell O

BY LAURA MORRISON

Photo by Tim Harrison

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T’S ONE THING TO BE NOMINATED for a Grammy. It’s a whole other thing to win. At the Staples Center in Los Angeles in February, exhausted from travel and wearing a dress from a concert the night before, Jeannette Sorrell got to experience, much to her surprise, the latter as she heard the name Apollo’s Fire Baroque Orchestra called from the stage. “I almost didn’t go to the ceremony because I was totally sure that we weren’t going to win,” Sorrell recalls outside her company’s Cleveland Heights office last month. “I even thought I knew who was going to win, as that artist had a lot of promotional backing behind him.” That night, Sorrell and her Apollo’s Fire team took home the Best Classical Solo Vocal Album award for Songs Of Orpheus. For weeks afterward she was bombarded with messages of congratulations, she says. “I never imagined this,” Sorrell admits. “I never imagined that we would play at Carnegie Hall or the BBC Proms, which we’ve done in the past few years.” For the past three decades, Sorrell has quietly built Cleveland’s baroque orchestra, which currently has six full-time employees, pulls musicians in from all over the country and offers many outreach programs. Thanks to Cleveland’s strong support of the arts, the artistic director says the group now has one of the three largest audiences in the country for baroque music. Sorrell first heard baroque music played on period instruments while in high school. The wooden flutes and gut-stringed violins sounded like a breath of fresh air. She says at 17 she decided she wanted to be the conductor of her own baroque orchestra. “Period instruments are more organic; they’re closer to the earth,” Sorrell says. “They’re not round and perfect and smooth. I think they’re more rustic, and in a sense, more

human.” At the time she was a piano player, but it wasn’t until attending Oberlin College that she switched to harpsichord as well as conducting. These days during concerts she’s often seen playing the harpsichord while simultaneously conducting, something common for the baroque time period (1600-1750). “As a student, I was self conscious about conducting,” she recalls. “I grew up as a dancer, so there’s a lot of dance in my conducting, and I was shy about it as a student especially. There were hardly any female conductors then and I wasn’t going to imitate male conductors. I had to be true to who I am.” But doing things her own way has paid off. Sorrell is currently a sought-after guest conductor,

lending her skills to orchestras all around the country, including the Pittsburgh Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and Seattle Symphony. There’s even an upcoming documentary, directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Allan Miller, all about Sorrell. “I had nothing to do with this title or designing this,” she says about Playing With Fire, making its debut in Manhattan this October before it’ll be shopped to festivals. “[Miller] caught one of our shows at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He came backstage and said that although he was retired, he felt he had one more film in him and wanted to make a film about my work as a conductor.” So last year, Miller and a film crew followed Sorrell around to various gigs.

“I’ve seen a quasi-final draft, but I have no input,” she says. “I do think the film is an honest portrayal of me and Apollo’s Fire.” Yet despite the acclaim and upcoming programs and plans to take another European tour with her orchestra, Sorrell says the music is what remains the most important. “As a conductor you’re working with a group of people from diverse backgrounds who have their own ideas of the music and their own aches and pains and annoying things that happened to them this morning,” she says. “And you have to bring them together and inspire them and tell them that this is the mood we’re going to reflect here. It all has to be unified and full of passion and energy. It’s a lot of hard work, but so worthwhile.” ■ | clevescene.com | September 11 - 17, 2019

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Julien Bruell BY DOUGL AS TR AT TNER

Photo by Tim Harrison

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IKE MANY KIDS GROWING UP, Julian Bruell spent summers working at the family business. In his case, that business was Parallax, the Tremont restaurant that opened during his freshman year at Shaker Heights High. Instead of backpacking through Europe, dogeared “Let’s Go” guidebook in hand, the straight-A student ran food, bussed tables, polished wine glasses and suffered abuse at the hands of the owner. “He was definitely harder on me than anybody else, by far,” Bruell says of his demanding dad, Zack. “But that was good, because it taught me discipline. I would not have the work ethic that I do today if it wasn’t for him.” Bruell the younger had a future in mind — and it had nothing to do with restaurants. He was accepted to Tulane University, where he would study landscape architecture in pursuit of a career in golf course design. But he was also admitted to Cornell University, “the Harvard of hospitality programs,” an eventuality even he considered out of reach. “I decided that I really loved hospitality and I couldn’t see myself doing anything else,” Bruell says of his decision to ditch tipsy New Orleans in favor of chilly Ithaca, New York. There, he immersed himself in coursework covering marketing, management, operations and human resources. To satisfy his 800 hours of practical work experience, Bruell spent summers in Argentina and Italy, working at two very different vineyards. Upon graduation, Bruell had his pick of job offers, but one opportunity rose to the top: It was a management training program with Myriad Restaurant Group, which includes Tribeca Grill, Nobu, Bâtard and others operated by uber-restaurateur and, ahem, fellow Cornell University alum Drew Nieporent. “I could have taken a restaurant

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management job right out of school, but I had to throw my ego out the window because I knew this would set me up for the future,” Bruell says of the ostensibly entry-level position. In seven months’ time, after touching every position in the house, Bruell was managing the Tribeca Grill, one of the most respected, enduring and profitable restaurants in Manhattan. He parlayed that experience into an even more estimable position, that of service manager at Jean-Georges, a temple of gastronomy on the receiving end of two Michelin stars and a four-star review from The New York Times. He was just 24 years old. “I thought I was going to get fired during the first couple weeks,” Bruell admits. “You have to be insane a little bit. It is psychologically tough working at a place like that. It’s

| clevescene.com | September 11 - 17, 2019

militant.” As prestigious as that position was, it did not tick all of Bruell’s boxes in terms of job requirements. His next move, which occurred after two years at Jean-Georges, would not only come with higher pay and an elevated title, but also the opportunity to be part of a restaurant opening. Sauvage, a painfully hip Parisian bistro in Brooklyn, came with all that and more, Bruell relates, such as 90hour work weeks, kidney stones and an all-encompassing rage. “I was drowning,” Bruell confesses. It was his father, Zack, who provided the life preserver. While he never pushed his son to come back to Cleveland, he was clear that the door was always open. By then, Bruell Restaurant Group had

grown to a collection of eateries that included L’Albatros, Table 45, Chinato and Cowell & Hubbard. Julian’s restaurant management experience would be invaluable, so a new position was created for him: director of service. In that role, Bruell seeks to elevate the standard of service at all of his father’s restaurants. “Why make excuses like, ‘It’s Cleveland,’ or ‘There are a lot of restaurants and not enough employees’? That’s bullshit to me and it’s a bullshit excuse,” he argues. “You just have to work harder to train people. I want people to travel to New York or Chicago or San Francisco and say, ‘I can get that in Cleveland. I can get better with nicer people who are just as qualified.’ I do believe we can do it.” ■

Lydia Munnell BY VINCE GRZEGOREK

OW THAT SHE’S IN CHARGE of Brews and Prose, the free monthly literary series in the basement of Market Garden Brewery in Ohio City, Lydia Munnell is absolutely content to keep it running the same way it’s always run, for the same reason that she first fell in love with the series years ago. “I actually started going right away,” Munnell says about the event, which was founded in 2012 by Dave Lucas, Matthew Stipe, Michael Croley and Jeff Draeger. “I was an early attendee, and in those two years after I finished college, it felt like the MFA program I wished I was going to at the moment. I knew I wanted to attend all the time. I got to hear some of the best writers from around the country for free and drink a beer and linger late with friends and talk about the work and say hello to the writer. That felt thrilling, and it still feels thrilling.” Munnell took over the reins as artistic director from Lucas in 2017, which was a natural if challenging transition: She’d been a loyal fan, and had become friends with Lucas thanks to similar interests — they’re both writers and share a similar sense of humor. “It turns out, somebody like Dave who starts a series, most of the institutional knowledge lives in his head,” she says. “Even though I had experience running reading series at Bowling Green, where I did my MFA, learning the ropes took time.” The success, then and now, comes from leveraging relationships and the good will of everyone who makes it happen — Market Garden donates the space for free, Munnell doesn’t take any pay, and former interns continue to help running the show. (“It would be disrespectful to even call them interns. They are experts, and they donate their time,” she says.) Every bit of fundraising goes toward paying writers and a photographer who shoots the monthly event. She grew up in Mercer, Pennsylvania, and came to Cleveland

Photo by Tim Harrison

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to attend John Carroll. After graduating, she stuck around, drawn both by the fact that her brother lived in Lakewood and that Cleveland offered a whole bunch of stuff that rural Pennsylvania did not. She wanted to pursue an MFA but decided to take some time off after graduating, first doing a program called Northeast Ohio Literacy and then landing a job in after-school programming and volunteer coordination at Lake Erie Ink, a local nonprofit that serves children and teens interested in writing. “I got to get my feet wet with teaching in a real way there, because after-school programs are no joke,” she says, “and I fell in love with Cleveland Heights.” Growing up, Munnell thought teaching was the last thing she

wanted to do. Both of her parents are teachers, and it simply wasn’t on her radar, or near it. But a few experiences at Bowling Green and her experience at Lake Erie Ink shifted her views toward an eventual moment when she fell in love with the idea. So when the job opening for a creative writing and film teacher at St. Ed’s came up for the 2016 school year, and a friend who was a few years ahead of her pointed her in the direction, it was a perfect fit. As Brews and Prose barrels toward its 10th anniversary, Munnell isn’t interested in scaling the series. She simply wants to keep the quality high while further using Brews and Prose to build relationships and success in the broader Cleveland literary scene and empowering diverse voices. “I feel pretty passionately about

keeping the thing simple,” she says. “We don’t want to compete with the library — we can’t replicate what they do, and we wouldn’t want to try. And we wouldn’t want to compete with the other literary nonprofits that are doing different, amazing things. We have our niche. If you want to experience the whole literary community in Cleveland, you have to attend library events and Lake Erie Ink events and Gordon Square review events and Twelve Literary Arts events and Barnhouse Journal events and so many others. When I think about why I liked to attend Brews and Prose, it was the atmosphere, it was the quality of readers, it was because it was free, it was because it felt like an organic place to chat with readers and writers. I don’t want to change anything about that.” ■ | clevescene.com | September 11 - 17, 2019

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Omar McKay O

BY DOUGL AS TR AT TNER

Photo by Tim Harrison

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MAR MCKAY IS PERCHED on a stool at Stevenson’s Bar, where he’s picking at a plate of fried clams. It’s a Monday, so his restaurant, Irie Jamaican Kitchen, is closed, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty to do. In just a few weeks, he will open a second outpost of his popular restaurant on the west side of town, and he’s already deep into negotiations for locations Nos. 3 and 4. To the casual observer, McKay might look like an overnight sensation, but that simply illustrates how challenging his path has been to get here. McKay’s first bite at the foodservice apple was an undiscovered joint called Irie Patties, a stall in the food court of Richmond Town Square, formerly known as Richmond Mall. The bill of fare was Jamaican food, which proved a disappointment to what few shoppers there were because most people assumed that “Patties” referred to hamburgers. Those brave enough to sample his jerk chicken or braised oxtails were rewarded with an authentic taste of the Caribbean and more than enough reason to return. “I was surviving, but not making any money,” McKay says of his tenure at the mall. “Eventually, I packed up and said, I gotta go.” McKay traded in the gloomy mall scene for a joyful spot on East 185th Street. After he got done with it, the 700-square-foot corner space, formerly a Royal Castle hamburger shop, was a Rastafarian dream done up in red, yellow and green. In addition to changing the name to avoid future confusion, McKay completely reinvented the menu and dining experience in an attempt to appeal to a broader clientele. “Most Jamaican spots weren’t

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friendly, weren’t inviting,” he explains. “I was thinking about the fast-casual concept, because I didn’t see anybody doing it at the time. Food is like anything else: People want different.” McKay took a cuisine that is exciting and delicious, but often intimidating, and made it approachable, accessible and even vegetarian-friendly. The jerk chicken is still like a firecracker going off in the mouth, but now it’s served off the bone. Classic stews like curry chicken, curry shrimp and braised beef

| clevescene.com | September 11 - 17, 2019

oxtails can be enjoyed with the customary warm cabbage, rice and peas and plantains, but now diners can elect to go the wrap or bowl route. Vegetarians can tuck into a flavorful bowl of curried vegetables, “Rasta” pasta is topped with a spiced Alfredo sauce with Jamaican flair, and creamy mac and cheese is crowned with boneless jerk chicken, the restaurant’s topseller. McKay grew up in Trelawny Parish, just outside Montego Bay, Jamaica. After relocating to

Northeast Ohio and graduating from high school, he received a culinary arts degree from Tri-C. Following gigs at Nauti Mermaid, Cleveland Chop and Paladar, the chef made the decision to strike out on his own. Judging by his success and future growth plans, it looks like the gamble is paying off. “I got a good thing going, that’s why I want to jump on expansion,” says McKay. “One day, I want Irie Jamaican Kitchen to be a household name — and I think it can be.” ■

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Lynn Tramonte BY SAM ALLARD

Photo by Tim Harrison

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LEVELAND HEIGHTS RESIDENT Lynn Tramonte has been sounding alarms on the injustices of the American immigration system for years, long before President Donald Trump’s militarized ICE units began rounding up families in the streets. When she moved from D.C. to Northeast Ohio, back in 2007, she began what today is called the Ohio Immigrant Alliance. In a volunteer capacity, she has been tirelessly raising awareness about specific immigration cases and directing folks to volunteer opportunities. “People have been coming to me, outraged about what’s happening at the border,” Tramonte says, “and then I tell them what’s happening in our backyard. And they’re like, ‘Wow, I had no idea.’” What’s happening in our backyard is a slew of what Tramonte calls “gratuitous deportations.” Ohio has been a hotbed for aggressive immigration enforcement in large part because of the ICE field office based in Detroit, led by a woman named Rebecca Adducci. “She’s really good at her job,” Tramonte says. “You see so many national articles on Ohio deportation cases because of how ridiculous the decisions are. She just doesn’t have any qualms. They go above and beyond to be cruel.” Tramonte mentions the case of Jimmy Aldaoud, an Iraqi living in Detroit, who was deported with nothing but the clothes on his back. He spoke no Arabic and suffered from diabetes, and died in Baghdad two months later. Aldaoud’s story received national attention, but many others have flown under the radar. Tramonte references Goura Ndiaye, a 60-yearold Mauritanian man who’d been living in the Columbus area for 20 years when he was detained by ICE, days before he was expected to have surgery on his necrotic hip. “Instead, they kept him for eight months with no treatment,”

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Tramonte says. “And when they deported him, they told him they were taking him to surgery. Instead, they drove him to a chartered jet.” Tramonte has been at the forefront of raising awareness about the deportations of Mauritanians living in Ohio. Through the advocacy of Mauritanian activists and lawyers, more than a dozen have been released from detention. “There’s still more to get out,” Tramonte says. “And now, we need to focus on getting people back. It’s not too soon to be thinking about the next president, and bringing home the hundreds of people who have been deported unjustly.”

| clevescene.com | September 11 - 17, 2019

Speaking of the system’s ills in general, Tramonte say that you can no sooner lock up the immigration problem than you can enforce your way out of any humanitarian crisis. And thanks to the ravages of climate change, the number of the world’s refugees and displaced persons — currently the highest ever — will only increase. “There will be many more civil immigration violations. That’s just the reality. And Americans need to decide, what is the appropriate consequence? Is death appropriate? Is permanent banishment from your family and children appropriate? Is that right?” All Tramonte can do is continue

fighting. Next up for her is a joint effort with a number of lawyers and volunteer groups to get lawyers at every detention facility in the state. The presence of lawyers drastically improves the outcomes for detainees, Tramonte says, many of whom speak limited English and have difficulty navigating the system on their own. Other than that, she says, “Rebecca Adducci usually picks what I work on.” “The big question,” she says, “is, are we going to help people or not? Are we going to welcome them? I don’t know about you, but I see plenty of vacant and abandoned houses in Cleveland.” ■

Ricardo Leon BY SAM ALLARD

ICARDO LEON IS THE youngest CDC director in the city of Cleveland. At only 27, he’s a ball of energy and ambition. His curly jet-black hair and James-Hardenesque beard glisten in the summer heat at Cafe Social, a new coffee shop temporarily housed in the rear of Las Dos Fronteras Mexican restaurant. Cafe Social was born in an incubator for Latino businesses and is now hunting for a permanent space. Leon rarely pauses to sip his coffee because he’s got so much to say. He wants to talk about community engagement, housing and economic development in the westside neighborhoods of Stockyards, Clark-Fulton and Brooklyn Centre — areas served by the MetroWest CDC he oversees. And he wants to talk about his vision for organizations like his. First and foremost, he says, community development corporations need to ensure that residents are centered in conversations about the future of their communities. “Yes, we want to open ourselves up to investment,” he says, referencing MetroHealth’s $1 billion campus overhaul that will produce myriad investment opportunities in Clark-Fulton. “But we have to ensure that families who have been here 20 or 30 years aren’t pushed out. We’ve got prosperous neighbors to the north [in Tremont and Ohio City] and a very stable neighborhood to the south [in Old Brooklyn], but this is a working-class neighborhood, and we want to help people stay here and build wealth.” Leon grew up in the Stockyards neighborhood, having moved with his family from Puerto Rico when he was a baby. Unlike many of his friends, he ventured to the east side for high school — to Early College High School — and graduated when he was only 16 years old. He attended Baldwin-Wallace, and then, after a few fortuitous encounters, enrolled almost by accident in CSU’s renowned Levin School of Urban Affairs.

Photo by Tim Harrison

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Leon’s life has been marked by tragedy too. When he was 11, his older sister died in a car crash; Ricardo was in the car. More recently, his father passed away after multiple strokes. But his life and work is a tribute to his family. He says his commitment to the neighborhood stems in large part from the fact that it is now, and has always been, his home. Leadership at MetroWest has been, at times, bumpy. In 2018, new councilwoman Jasmin Santana “basically zeroed out” the Community Development Block Grant funding for the neighborhood organizations that her predecessor, Brian Cummins, had funded. “She basically said, ‘I want to help you, but you need to prove to me that you provide a service to the neighborhood.’”

MetroWest, which was then under the fiscal agency of Detroit-Shoreway Community Development Corporation, slashed its staff from 13 to five. Leon had been handed the executive director job and was suddenly tasked with cultivating important relationships with community stakeholders while also managing an office with limited resources. This year, though, they’ve had a huge increase in funding, which has allowed them to replenish the staff. Five new hires, Leon said, are all from the neighborhood. They’re young and animated by the desire to improve their community. “They live here, their parents own small businesses here,” he says. “It’s not just a job for them, or for me. We have roots.” (His relationship with councilwoman Santana, by the way:

“Super dope.”) Leon’s current work includes a $250,000 Community Master Plan, funded by MetroWest, MetroHealth and the city of Cleveland. He’s also shepherding as many as 200 new affordable housing units in his service area and encouraging the growth of new small businesses like Cafe Social. Leon won’t be in his current role forever. He’s not shy about his ambitions. He is conscious of himself as a young Latino leader and has set his sights on executive leadership in philanthropy. “How many Latino executive directors can you name?” he asks. But that’s still a few years away. For now, he’s laser-focused on MetroWest, and continuing to build a safe, healthy, happy community for residents. ■ | clevescene.com | September 11 - 17, 2019

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Trinidad Snider BY JEFF NIESEL

Photo by Tim Harrison

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HEN HER MOTHER picked up stakes and moved her kids from the Bronx to Cleveland, Trinidad Snider, Near West Theatre’s talented new artistic director, admits it came of a bit as a culture shock. She was only 12 at the time. But Snider quickly acclimated and enrolled at the Cleveland School of the Performing Arts. She and a classmate successfully auditioned for roles in the Near West Theatre’s production of Fame, initiating a relationship with the community theater that would continue for decades. “I sang and danced and acted and got cast in the show — that was 31 years ago,” she says one afternoon from the Near West Theatre’s basement, an undeveloped space she hopes to turn into an area for black box performances. “Performing in the musical here was so different from what I was used to at the Cleveland School of the Performing Arts. It was a much freer opportunity to collaborate with individuals I didn’t know. In a school setting, you see the same people every day. It was eyeopening because it was kids from all over the Cleveland area.” Snider studied musical theater at the Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati. Upon graduating, she moved back to Cleveland, rejoining Near West Theatre for a production of Children of Eden, a role she took on even though she was eight months pregnant. She started rehearsals, had the baby, and then came back two weeks before the play opened and was ready to go by opening night. Snider most recently served as a teaching artist with the Musical Theater Project, where she taught in both the Kids Love Musicals and intergenerational programs. She also helped create and facilitate the Creative Aging program focused on seniors and the arts. “They do work in schools,” she says of the Musical Theater Project. “I started in the

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two-day residency program and then extended into the intergenerational programming. We partnered a senior living facility with an elementary school and do intergenerational programming. That was really cool.” At Near West Theatre, she’s spearheading its recently adopted three-year strategic plan that involves expanding its productions, programs and events while “improving organizational infrastructure.” Upcoming Near West Theatre plays include a

| clevescene.com | September 11 - 17, 2019

youth production of The Addams Family and an intergenerational production of Big Fish. The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Parade and Bare round out the 2019-2020 season. “I’m in a unique position because I started here when I was 14,” she says. “Here I am thirtysomething years later in a leadership position. My goal is to have year-round programming. I would love to see classes and residencies and intergenerational programming. I would love to do some things with

neighborhood seniors and find a way to have programming yearround.” And Snider, who’s Puerto Rican, loves the diversity that the Near West Theatre brings to its productions. “You’ll see individuals of all ethnic backgrounds and social backgrounds, and they’re all working to put together an experience you can see on stage,” she says. “It’s what we’re known for. Hopefully, I can continue those types of traditions here with the next generation.” ■

| clevescene.com | September 11 - 17, 2019

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Yvonka Hall BY SAM ALLARD

Photo by Tim Harrison

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N 2015, YVONKA HALL WAS abruptly informed by former mayor Michael White that her professional services were being terminated. Hall was working as an assistant for White at the time as part of a local leadership initiative. But after she’d organized a community meeting in response to the 2014 DOJ report about police brutality, White showed her the door. This was a position that Hall had been in before. From 2008 to 2012, she served as the city of Cleveland’s director of the Office of Minority Health. But she was let go, she believes, after raising hell about the closure of Huron Hospital on the east side. Now, she says, she can’t find a job in Cleveland. And she doesn’t expect that she will. “I’m blocked out,” she says. “That’s what happens in Cleveland. If you raise hell, if you want to make change, you’re not allowed to participate. They figure if they don’t let you work, you’ll just leave. But fuck them. This my city.” Hall has been one of the most vocal and omnipresent Northeast Ohio activists over the past several years. She has been a leader with the Cuyahoga County Progressive Caucus and a prominent spokesperson for Cleveland Lead Advocates for Safe Housing (CLASH), though her work on lead, and on health issues in minority communities, reaches much further back. Now 54, Hall grew up on Cleveland’s southeast side. She watched her father brutally murder her mother when she was only 6 years old. Her mother died from stab wounds on their kitchen floor, in the arms of Hall’s 18-year-old uncle. She says she has watched the ravages of that trauma affect his life deeply ever since.

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She moved in with her grandparents on Cleveland’s border with Warrensville Heights and soon came to recognize that she had a voice and could use it to improve her community. She attended John Marshall High School on the city’s west side, shortly after court-ordered desegregation, and went on to Notre Dame College, where as a black student she says she felt like a statistic and a throwaway. She decided she might like to become a teacher. While not in a classroom, Hall says that her current activism often feels like a kind

| clevescene.com | September 11 - 17, 2019

of instruction and important education for the city’s young and idealistic. What’s one important lesson, Scene wants to know? “All the kids love to talk about Dr. King,” she says. “Dr. King! Dr. King! He had a dream! He had a dream! You know what else he had? A strategy.” If you want change, she says, you have to organize. To that end, she has dabbled in electoral politics but experienced the same marginalization that she experienced in her professional life, the same allergic reaction to change

and challenge. She speaks with disdain about the local Democratic machine. “In this town, they don’t care about you if you don’t play the game,” she says. “To them, that’s what it is: just a game. But to me, I see people dying. I see our neighborhoods literally burning.” And so she’ll continue to raise hell, she says. She’ll continue to fight the region’s most important fights in the trenches, making personal sacrifices for the betterment of the region. “If speaking the truth makes me the enemy,” she says. “I’ll be the enemy.” ■

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| clevescene.com | September 11 - 17, 2019

Photo courtesy the Cleveland Museum of Art

GET OUT everything you should do this week

The annual Chalk Festival returns to the Cleveland Museum of Art. See: Saturday.

WED

09/11

SPOKEN WORD

Cleveland Stories Dinner Parties Cleveland Stories Dinner Party is a weekly series that pairs fine food with storytelling. Through it, the folks at Music Box Supper Club hope to raise awareness of the mission of the Western Reserve Historical Society’s Cleveland History Center. The goal is to “bring to life some of the fun, interesting stories about Cleveland’s past — from sports, to rock ’n’ roll, to Millionaires’ Row,” as it’s put in a press release. Admission is free, with no cover charge, although a prix fixe dinner, designed to complement the night’s theme, is $20. Tonight, Rebecca McFarland, who currently works in marketing for both the American Library Association and Estates Landscaping, speaks about the days when Elliot Ness served as Cleveland’s safety director. Doors open at 5 p.m., dinner is served at 6, and the storytelling starts at 7. (Jeff Niesel) 1148 Main Ave., 216-242-1250, musicboxcle.com.

COMEDY

Jim Tews Comedian, writer and former Clevelander Jim Tews, the man behind The New York Times’ bestselling Felines of New York, is a stalwart of the comedy world. He made his standup television debut on Last Comic Standing and was featured in an episode of Louie. Tews recently created, co-wrote and starred in The Undone Sweaters web series about “a sociophobic Weezer cover band.” Funny or Die and Nerdist.com posted the series. As if that weren’t enough for his resume, the prolific Tews also created the HBO Labs’ web series The Opener and recently directed Make Fun, a feature-length documentary about Cleveland’s independent comedy scene. Tews performs tonight at 8 at Hilarities. Tickets are $13 to $18. (Niesel) 2035 East Fourth St., 216-241-7425, pickwickandfrolic.com. MUSIC

Uptown Out to Lunch Series This is your last chance this season to catch an Out to Lunch concert on Toby’s Plaza, in the Uptown District, where you can grab lunch from your favorite Uptown eatery and have a

seat at the great picnic table while listening to local bands. Today, the Gretchen Pleuss Trio performs from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. It’s free. (Niesel) 11440 Uptown Ave., universitycircle.org.

THU

09/12

ART

33rd Annual Fine Print Fair This weekend, the Cleveland Museum of Art hosts the Print Club of Cleveland’s 35th annual Fine Print Fair in its Ames Family Atrium. The Print Club of Cleveland is a nonprofit group founded in 1919 to enrich the museum’s permanent print collection. Art dealers from around the country will exhibit and sell fine art prints and drawings, ranging from classical masters to contemporary, living artists, at this annual benefit for the CMA’s Department of Prints. This year’s Fine Print Fair begins with a benefit preview party tonight from 6 to 9 p.m.; it continues from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. tomorrow and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. Additionally, curator Heather

Lemonades, curator of prints and drawings at the Cleveland Museum of Art, will discuss the history of printmaking at 2 p.m. on Sunday at the museum’s Gartner Auditorium. (Niesel) 11150 East Blvd., 216-421-7350, clevelandart.org. PARTY

Around the Corner 45th Anniversary Weekend Celebration Around the Corner, one of Lakewood’s most popular watering holes, celebrates its 45th anniversary this weekend with a series of special events. The weekend-long party kicks off today at 3 p.m. with a free T-shirt giveaway to each guest who purchases food and drink. Tricky Dick takes the stage at 9 p.m. Tomorrow, the place will serve up mini burgers and wings for 45 cents, and there will be a drawing on Saturday to win a trip for two to Mexico. The drawing takes place at 9 p.m. A portion of the weekend’s profits will be donated to the Muscular Dystrophy Association on behalf of Lakewood’s firefighters. (Niesel) 18616-20 Detroit Ave., Lakewood, 216-521-4413, atccafe.com. | clevescene.com | September 11 - 17, 2019

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GET OUT FILM

Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes This documentary about the storied jazz label, Blue Note Records, includes footage of iconic artists such as Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk. It screens at 8:45 tonight and at 6:30 on Sunday night at the Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque. Tickets cost $10, or $7 for members and students. (Niesel) 11610 Euclid Ave., 216-421-7450, cia.edu.

about three suburban families with “bad hair, loud clothes, and too much time and money on their hands.” It stars Guy Pearce and Kylie Minogue. The movie screens at the Cleveland Cinematheque tonight at 6:45 and Friday night at 9:25. Tickets cost $10, or $7 for members and students. (Niesel) 11610 Euclid Ave., 216-421-7450, cia.edu.

tours of the studio from 5 to 6 p.m. followed by live music and “other festivities” lasting into the evening. Groups such as Time Cat, Oregon Space Trail of Doom, Peachcurls, Leaf Borbie and the Family Tree, King Buu, the Beyonderers and Roid Rage will perform. Local vendors and sponsors Art of Matt Miller, Cleveland Print Company, EarthQuaker Devices, Seberg and

WINE FEST

Crocker Park Wine Festival The two-day Crocker Park Wine Festival will feature various wine growers, makers and vendors as well as craft beer and spirits, live music and a “social vibe.” Proceeds will benefit the University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital. More than 150 local, national and international wine producers will be on hand. It takes place today from 4 to 10 p.m. and tomorrow from 2 to 10 p.m. Tickets cost $30, or $35 at the door. Weekend passes will set you back $60. Tickets include 10 tastings and a souvenir wine glass for each day attended. (Niesel) 189 Crocker Park Blvd., Westlake, crockerpark.com.

COMEDY

Chad Daniels Babyfaced comic Chad Daniels likes to joke about how immature he was as a kid — and how immature he continues to be as an adult! He says that when his son became a teenager, his wife asked him what to do. He says he told her that they need to knock on their kid’s door because “teenage boys are the most disgusting creatures on the planet.” That’s just one of many bits that he’s come up with based on personal experience. He performs tonight at 7 at Hilarities, where he has shows scheduled through Saturday. Consult the website for ticket prices. (Niesel) 2035 East Fourth St., 216-241-7425, pickwickandfrolic.com.

SEPTEMBER 20, 2019 • STATE THEATRE

MUSIC

New Soft Shoe Nine years ago, on what local singersongwriter Brent Kirby calls a drunken dare, a group of Cleveland friends and musicians showed up at the Happy Dog to play a couple sets of tunes by the late, great Gram Parsons. Dubbed the New Soft Shoe, the group has been at it ever since, spreading the gospel of what it refers to “Gram’s Cosmic American Music.” Anything that Parsons played, the New Soft Shoe covers. As a result, the group plays tunes from the International Submarine Band, the Byrds and Flying Burrito Brothers. It also plays songs from Parsons’ solo album GP/Grievous Angel. Tonight at 8, the band performs in the Waldorf Hall at Forest City Brewery. Admission is free, but a donation is requested. (Niesel) 2135 Columbus Rd., 216-228-9116, forestcitybrewery.com. FILM

Swinging Safari Stephan Elliott, the director of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, helms Swinging Safari, a film

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today and concluding on Sunday, Nelson Ledges Quarry Park will host eight different artists and tribute bands, all paying tribute to classic rock. The Fleetwood Mac tribute band Tusk will perform along with Eaglemania and Classic Stones Live. The other classic rock tributes on the lineup include Into the Mystic, a Van Morrison tribute, and ProgNation, playing the music of Yes, King Crimson, ELP, Genesis and the Moody Blues. Consult the Nelson Ledges website for ticket prices and a complete schedule. (Niesel) 12001 State Route 282, Garrettsville, 440-548-2716, nlqp.com.

1999 Inductee Mavis Staples - Live In Concert Join us for a night of soulful song featuring Mavis Staples, whose breathtaking voice powered one of America’s most celebrated family bands, the Staple Singers.

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SPORTS

Indians vs. Minnesota Twins As the MLB regular season winds down to its final month, the Indians and Minnesota Twins are duking it out to see who wins the American League Central. The Twins come to town tonight for a key three-game series. First pitch is at 7:10 — and it’s Dollar Dog Night, so be sure to come hungry. Tickets start at $15. (Niesel) 2401 Ontario St., 216-420-4487, clevelandindians.com. OPERA

VIP packages with special Rock Hall experiences available by contacting development@rockhall.org or 216-515-1201

FRI

09/13

MUSIC

ARC’s One Year Anniversary Party Starting at 5 p.m. today, Akron Recording Company (ARC) celebrates its one-year anniversary, along with the vinyl release of Where the Hell is Akron, OH?, with a party at its studio There will be

| clevescene.com | September 11 - 17, 2019

WKSU will also be there. Various Akron music scene items will be raffled. Admission is a suggested $5 donation. (Niesel) 243 Furnace St., Akron, 330-802-1054, akronrecordingcompany.com. MUSIC

Classic Fest As part of Classic Fest, beginning

La Bohème Puccini’s La Bohème centers on a group of young bohemians who find friendship and true love while they struggle for their art and try to fulfill their dreams. Featured in the Academy Award–winning film Moonstruck and the inspiration for the Tony–winning musical Rent, the opera resonates with contemporary sensibilities. The Cleveland Opera Theatre presents it at 7 tonight and at 3 p.m. on Sunday at the Ohio Theatre. Tickets start at $10. (Niesel) 1501 Euclid Ave., 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org.

MUSIC

ART

The Little C Music Festival Hosted by Canton indie rockers Hey Monea, the annual Little C Music Festival features two days of music (today and tomorrow) at the Auricle, a club in downtown Canton. This year’s lineup includes Anna Rose, Steve Everett, the Woovs, Ethan Sak, Paul Pfau, More Than Me and many other local acts. Additional Cantonbased artists performing include Mark Leach, Broken Transmitter, Jean P the MC, Matt Corey and My Buddy Josh. It all kicks off at 7 tonight. Tomorrow’s show will feature a performance by Hey Monea. This year will also include the Little C Backscratch Session, an event that’ll give attendees an opportunity to come early tomorrow to see several of the artists cover each other’s songs, adding their own unique spin. That event begins at 4 p.m. There will also be food and games. Two-day festival passes are $20, while Friday and Saturday individual passes are $10. All passes can be purchased at littlecmusicfestival.com/tickets. (Niesel) 601 Cleveland Ave. NW, Canton, 330-353-8694, theauricle.net.

Walkabout Tremont Walkabout Tremont, which takes place on the second Friday of every month from 5 to 10 p.m., showcases the best of this smart neighborhood, with art openings, extended hours at galleries and shops, restaurant and bar specials, street performers, live music, pop-up vendors, neighborhood walking tours and much more. This month, the theme is Walkabout Like a Pirate. See the event’s Facebook page for more info. (Niesel) facebook.com/WalkaboutTremont.

MUSIC

My Violin Weighs a Ton Local hip-hop hero Archie Green teams up with Lexington-Bell Community Center (LBCC) to present My Violin Weighs a Ton, a unique concert experience devoted to “engaging, educating and inspiring a new generation.” The performance takes place at 7 tonight at Reinberger Chamber Hall in Severance Hall. Tickets cost $22. (Niesel) 11001 Euclid Ave., 216-231-1111, clevelandorchestra.com. COMEDY

Sommore From countless film and television appearances to a successful national standup career that spans the course of 20 years, comedian Sommore has surely earned her title as one of the “Queens of Comedy.” In her standup act, Sommore regularly speaks to the masses by criticizing what it means to be a man and woman in a modern relationship (something I’m sure we can all relate to). She performs tonight at 7:30 and 10 at the Improv, on the East Bank of the Flats, where she has shows scheduled through Sunday. Tickets start at $25. (Niesel) 1148 Main Ave., 216-696-IMPROV, clevelandimprov.com.

SPOKEN WORD

When Andy Met Lou: Andy Warhol, Lou Reed, The Velvet Underground and The Exploding Plastic Inevitable When Andy Met Lou: Andy Warhol, Lou Reed, The Velvet Underground and The Exploding Plastic Inevitable, a new talk from local writer Thomas Mulready, explores the period in the 1960s when Andy Warhol, the king of Pop Art at the height of his career, decided to quit painting and devote himself to film and multi-media. After he’s introduced to the Velvet Underground, he offers to be their manager and produces their first album. Mulready’s talk traces the rise of Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison and Maureen Tucker as they form one of the most influential outfits in contemporary music. It will also document Warhol’s ascent from Pittsburgh wunderkind art student to advertising illustrator to the top of the visual arts world in New York City. The presentation includes rare video, photos, trivia, games, contests and needle drops. It’ll also include a performance by local rockers Vanity Crash. It all goes down at 8 tonight and tomorrow night at the Bop Stop, with slightly different material planned for each night. Tickets cost $25. (Niesel) 2920 Detroit Ave., 216-771-6551, themusicsettlement.org.

SAT

09/14

DANCE

Barefaced … Inspired by C.S. Lewis’ ‘Till We Have Faces’ A unique retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche, the dance piece Barefaced … Inspired by C.S. Lewis’ ‘Till We Have Faces’ follows two sisters as they “traverse the frontier of truth, trust and devotion.” Elu Dance Company and local artists bring this epic story to life. Tonight’s performance takes place at 7:30 p.m. at the Hanna Theatre. (Niesel) 2067 East 14th St., 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org.

| clevescene.com | September 11 - 17, 2019

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GET OUT FAMILY FUN

Chalk Festival Over the past 28 years, the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Chalk Festival has become one of the museum’s most highly anticipated community art events. This weekend, the fun returns. The concept is based on a Renaissance tradition from Italy in which beggars copied paintings of the Madonna by Raphael and his contemporaries in chalk on the plazas outside cathedrals. Large squares (approximately 3-feet-by-4feet of sidewalk) can be reserved for $20 (which includes a 24-color box of chalk); small squares (approximately 2-feet-by-3-feet) are $10 (and include a 12-color box of chalk). It all takes place from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. today and tomorrow, rain or shine. (Niesel) 11150 East Blvd., 216-421-7350, clevelandart.org. DANCE PARTY

Daddy Issues What started as a small dance party in a sweaty basement club in East London has grown into a full-on international queer brand. Dubbed Daddy Issues, the group hosts dance parties all around the world. It comes to the Winchester tonight for an event featuring music from Ryan Doubleyou and Scott Howard. It all starts at 10 p.m., and tickets cost $10 in advance, or $15 at the door. (Niesel) 12112 Madison Ave., Lakewood, 216-600-5338, facebook.com/ TheWinchesterMusicTavern. MASQUERADE PARTY

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Eyes Wide Shut, The Event Billed as “summer’s most intriguing experience,” Eyes Wide Shut, The Event will feature living art installations, burlesque performances, live music, food, drink and much more at the Ravencrest mansion in Hunting Valley. Inspired by the Kubrick film Eyes Wide Shut, the intrigue begins at 8 p.m., and tickets cost $85 to $125. (Niesel) eventbrite.com/e/eyes-wide-shut-theevent-tickets-64690163019. THEATER

Into the Breeches! Set in 1942, Into the Breeches! centers on a group of passionate yet inexperienced performers who rally together to produce an all-female version of Shakespeare’s Henry IV and Henry V. The press release for the performance proclaims that it’s “a hilarious and moving story about

what happens when we’re all in it together.” Tonight’s show takes place at 7:30 at the Allen Theatre, where performances continue through Oct. 6. Tickets start at $20. (Niesel) 1407 Euclid Ave., 216-241-6000, playhousesquare.org. FUNDRAISER

Moondance Featuring live music by Fireside, Moondance is an annual BAYarts benefit which also features restaurants/breweries such as B Spot, Cabin Club, Euro Fine Wines, Pier W, Taki’s Greek Kitchen, Taste of Excellence Catering, Thyme x Table and Vento la Trattoria. There will be a silent auction — but you can bid on the items digitally, on bayarts. net Moondance page, if you are not attending in person. The evening will honor BAYarts supporters and community leaders Gary and Pam Ebert. Caricatures will be drawn by Eric Dull, an award-winning artist and BAYarts faculty member. There will also be a photo booth with a social sharing function. Tickets start at $125 and are available on the website. It all starts at 6:30 p.m. (Niesel) 28795 Lake Rd., Bay Village, 440-871-6543, bayarts.net. MUSIC

Shai Wosner and Orion Weiss Widely acclaimed for his “exceptional artistry, musical integrity and creative insight,” Shai Wosner teams up with Orion Weiss, an Ohio native who studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music, for tonight’s concert featuring works by Lang, Shubert and Brahms. The two pianists will perform at 8 p.m. at Reinberger Chamber Hall at Severance Hall. Tickets cost $47. (Niesel) 11001 Euclid Ave., 216-231-1111, clevelandorchestra.com.

SUN

09/15

COMEDY

Nemr Critics credit Nemr, a Lebanese/ American standup comedian, with establishing the standup comedy scene throughout the Middle East. Nemr actually grew up in San Diego but then moved back to Lebanon with his family, where he sought to “break down barriers.” He performs tonight at 7 at Hilarities. Tickets are $30 to $50. (Niesel) 2035 East Fourth St., 216-241-7425, pickwickandfrolic.com.

FILM

The Organizer Marcello Mastroianni and Renato Salvatori star in The Organizer, a film set in late 19th-century Turin. It focuses on a professor who organizes a workers’ strike at a local textile factory. The screenplay received an Academy Award nod. Today’s screening at the Cleveland Museum of Art is co-sponsored by the United Labor Agency and North Shore Federation of Labor. Admission is $10, or $7 for CMA members and card-carrying union members. (Niesel) 11150 East Blvd., 216-421-7350, clevelandart.org. DRINK

Sloppy Sundays in the Sun On select Sundays throughout the summer, Now That’s Class will host Sloppy Sundays in the Sun, an event that appeals to day drinkers. Bartender Juliet will serve up her special Aperol Spritz and Pimms cocktails, and both patios will be open. The club will even set up an outdoor basketball hoop. The bar opens at 3 p.m., and happy hour takes place from 5 to 8 p.m. It’s free. (Niesel) 11213 Detroit Ave., 216-221-8576, nowthatsclass.net.

MON

09/16

FILM

Movie Mondays Every Monday, Cleveland Cinemas hosts $5 Movie Mondays, where film fans can catch up on the latest Hollywood flicks for significantly reduced prices. Bring your friends and family and make Movie Mondays a weekly tradition — many theaters even offer discounted concession stand items. Participating theaters include Apollo Theatre, Capitol Theatre, Cedar Lee Theatre, Chagrin Cinemas and Tower City Cinemas. Unfortunately, additional charges apply for 3-D movies. (Alaina Nutile) clevelandcinemas.com.

TUE

09/17

FILM

Hampstead Hampstead stars Diane Keaton and Brendan Gleeson as two very different individuals living in the same idyllic London neighborhood. They decide to put their differences aside to work together to fight developers. The movie screens at 1:45

p.m. today at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Tickets cost $10, or $7 for CMA members. (Niesel) 11150 East Blvd., 216-421-7350, clevelandart.org. SPORTS

Indians vs. Detroit Tigers The Indians get a break this week as the lowly Detroit Tigers come to town. The Tribe needs every win it can get to make the playoffs and this sad excuse for a MLB team gives them a good opportunity to pick up a few key wins. The game begins at 7:10 p.m. at Progressive Fields. Tickets start at $15. (Niesel) 2401 Ontario St., 216-420-4487, clevelandindians.com. FILM PROMO

John Wick Promotional Road Trip One of the year’s top grossing movies, the critically acclaimed John Wick: Chapter 3: Parabellum, arrives on DVD on Tuesday. In order to promote the home video release, the iconic Mustang from the first two installments of the film, as well as the motorcycle from John Wick: Chapter 3: Parabellum, will travel across the country to visit select Best Buy stores, including the one in Mayfield Heights. As part of this special John Wick Road

Trip promotion, fans will have the opportunity to take a photo with the Mustang, escape an army of assassins on a John Wick motorcycle green screen and check out real props from the films. The promotion takes place from 3 to 7 p.m. today. (Niesel) 1417 Golden Gate Blvd., Mayfield Heights, johnwickroadtrip.com. FILM

Moonlight Sonata Moonlight Sonata, a deeply personal memoir about a deaf boy, his deaf grandfather, and Ludwig van Beethoven in the year he was struck by deafness and wrote his iconic sonata, screens tonight at 7:30 at the Capitol Theatre as part of the Cleveland Cinemas Fall Doc series. Director Irene Taylor Brodsky focuses on her deaf parents and her 11-year-old deaf son, who has cochlear implants and hears for the first time. There will be a post-film discussion hosted by the Cleveland Hearing and Speech Center. Regular admission rates apply. (Niesel) 1390 West 65th St., 216-651-7295, clevelandcinemas.com.

scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene

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ART ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: SAMANTHA BIAS By Dott von Schneider IT USED TO BE STANDARD etiquette that an artist would send out a press release in order to present new and exciting exhibitions or ideas that they were working on. These are the days of social media, however, and in a matter of an afternoon one can easily fall into the rabbit hole and stumble upon an artist’s work via platforms such as Instagram. This is where I found Samantha Bias, who creates powerful portraits directly on leaves. Bias employs what is called a chlorophyll process, a technique first created by the British installation artists Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey and then famously evolved by the Vietnamese artist Binh Danh, who printed war photographs onto leaves, using resin to preserve the images. There are various alternative photography methods out there to be explored. Anthotype is a format where an artist will use plant juice or plant matter and then expose the image to light to develop the image. The chlorophyll process employs the leaf’s natural photosynthesis to process an image in direct sunlight. Bias lives and works in the Cudell neighborhood of Cleveland. “I work with the city, teaching art through a government funded program, so I work across the street in the house that was built and owned by the Cudells; and this house was the farmhand house,” the artist explains. This “farmhand house” is now her residence and studio. It’s a very unassuming place: tidy and with a wonderful aroma. There is a cheerful aura about it, with a daybed and tiny lights stung around the room. It’s a warm, welcoming space that lends inspiration to anyone who enters. “Cyanotype would be the closest to what I’m doing and where I got the idea from,” she says. “It’s not my original idea, but rather one that I found out was the one of the first processes in photography. Cyanotype (a two-chemical process) came after that. It was more cost efficient, it

36

Photo courtesy of Samantha Bias

was faster.” The chlorophyll process is time-laden. “It is definitely weather dependent,” explains Bias. “You have to have full sunlight.” The artist was only able to create work during July

the leaves just like pressing live flowers into a book to preserve them. “I thought about putting archival spray on them, but I like the idea of biodegradable art; it would be great to just put it back into nature.” To use chemicals in

SAMANTHA BIAS / ANTHOTYPE PROCESS WORKSHOP NOON TO 3 P.M., SATURDAY, SEPT. 14 THE CLEVELAND PRINT ROOM 2550 SUPERIOR AVE., 216-802-9441, CLEVELANDPRINTROOM.COM

and August due to the need for the perfect conditions. Then, the work needs to dry flat for weeks. In order to keep her artwork from deteriorating, Bias presses

| clevescene.com | September 11 - 17, 2019

the end would defeat the purpose. Bias concludes that, “If it’s a temporary piece, that’s okay.” Bias is not formally trained, but she certainly has the

discipline needed to succeed. “This process took many fails. I was about to give up, but then I figured it out and then I was like, ‘Yes, I can do this!’ I do think it’s important to know the rules in order to break them. It’s frustrating, at times, because I don’t have anyone to tell me how to do things or to give me direction, but figuring it out is also fun and challenging. That’s the beauty, though. Trial and error is what it is to be an artist.” The Cleveland Print Room reached out and offered her a residency for their summer program. She was inspired by the space and created a large cyanotype. She left it in the sun, and then the rain, and even went so far as to throw it into the lake — to see what would happen. “I wanted to experiment with the medium and see what I could do, and it helped me branch out more and become more daring with my artwork.” On the wall of her studio hangs a large format portrait of one of her students on an elephant leaf from her yard. In fact, most of the leaves she uses are found around her house. Bias explains her approach regarding creating portraits of her students: “I didn’t want my students to have a pose, per se, but rather to be themselves, which is hard with younger kids, because they want to pose, but I finally got the image of them.” The result is stunning. The fragility of the leaf and the student’s strength of character are a divine combination; Bias captures the bold fragility that is housed within the youth, which is especially poignant when we reflect on the tragedy that befell Tamir Rice in this very neighborhood. Says Bias on the permanence of her work, “You have to keep the work out of direct sunlight, otherwise it continues to develop and eventually will fade.” Surely, these portraits deserve preservation.

scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene

STAGE QUOTH THE SEAGULL, NEVERMORE Dobama soars with delightfully daring Stupid F**king Bird by Roman Macharoni Photo by Steve Wagner Photography

THE INAUGURAL PRODUCTION of Dobama’s 60th season is a perfect fit for the theater’s experimental, risktaking approach of Off-Broadway entertainment, and those arriving for this production of Aaron Posner’s acclaimed Stupid F**king Bird should expect to leave with laughs, shock, some sorrow and a twinge of bewilderment: in essence, everything that makes contemporary theater so poignantly passive-aggressive and marvelously mature. An astute student of the theater landscape, with experience in teaching, directing and writing for the stage, Posner takes Chekhov’s The Seagull and distills it into its most essential pieces for a coherent story, then takes those elements, puts them in a metaphorical blender and shakes things up for an experience that not only acknowledges the fourth wall, but obliterates it. And all this with source material that was already theatrically meta to begin with. It’s a novel idea that adds another level to the performance, as even in the script it states that the actors must accept that there is simply “more than one reality” happening at the same time. What results is sort of the Drunk History of transformative theater. Believe us when we say that it’s a lot more intriguing than it may sound on paper. Director Nathan Motta embraces the self-referential nature of this play with plenty of subtle nods to the original material as well as pacing that can be best described as controlled chaos. And, in a physical example of that narrative gambit, Chekhov himself is present for the evening, his mug plastered on a gargantuan pin-up, one of the many pieces by scenic designer Laura Tarantowski and props designer Vanessa Cook. The massive face moves in the background of the action with each passing act, almost taunting the characters distilled from his work. Speaking of the characters, there are enough similarities to Chekhov’s original story — Conrad (Joseph Lyne Dunn), ‘Con’ for short, struggles as an aspiring playwright in a one-sided relationship with the

flippant Nina (Sarah Durn). Success and pride loom over Con’s head as his mother Emma (Laura Perotta) disapproves of his pretentious attitude and dour demeanor, which is partly due to Con’s resentment of her and the advances on his girlfriend by Emma’s lover Doyle Trigorin (Josh Innerst), a more successful writer who embodies what Con wishes to be. Helping Con through his relationship and life problems is his oddball friend Dev (JP Peralta), who is going through his own issues with his partner Mash (Sara Young), who has unrequited feelings for Con. Trying to keep the peace is Emma’s

Like the characters in Stupid F**king Bird, the script has some flaws. Oftentimes when a story focuses on someone questioning the meaning of existence, “deep thoughts” come off as anything but, and this script is no exception. By no fault of the cast, the conversations arising from this struggle ride dangerously across the line between being thoughtful and preachy. Nonetheless, the ensemble cast does an amazing job of keeping these scenes from being solely sanctimonious. Dunn himself feels picture-perfect for the neurotic lead with a presence that demands

STUPID F**KING BIRD THROUGH SEPT. 29 DOBAMA THEATRE, 2340 LEE RD., CLEVELAND HEIGHTS 216-932-3396, dobama.org

brother Eugene (Michael Regnier), an aging doctor who never ceases to be astounded by the constant pandemonium. As Con anguishes over events both justifiable and frivolous, he asks himself— as do other characters throughout in out-of-body monologues— what the point is of moving on with life and existence in general.

attention. Alongside Perrotta, their moments together as a bickering mother and son are some of the most relatable and engaging scenes in the production. Perrotta herself also commands adoration with an irresistibly sensuous appeal. Another impressive pairing is Peralta and Young, playing off each other’s respective awkwardness and passive-aggressiveness. Even at her

age, Young carries herself with poise well beyond her years, while Peralta is instantly likable from his first moments on stage. Innerst excels at portraying the middlebrow writer, smarmy yet approachable with an air of cockiness that steals several scenes. Regnier shares this showmanship as Eugene with an impeccable sense of comedic timing. Durn, meanwhile, fills the position of a generic ditz with surprising depth and warmth. Suffice to say, those with varying degrees of theater knowledge will find different things to enjoy in Stupid F**king Bird. Those coming in with fresh eyes will enjoy the engaging love triangle and dark humor juxtaposed with equally dark subtext. Those familiar with Chekhov’s work will appreciate how Posner has taken The Seagull and turned it on its head. It’s a reimagining that’s hard to imagine being better handled than by the folks at Dobama, who take this wild idea and roll with it. For those looking for something fresh and different, Stupid F**king Bird promises to take its audience on a ride that they’ll never f**king forget.

scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene | clevescene.com | September 11 - 17, 2019

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MOVIES IRAQ THE BOAT Official Secrets dramatizes story of British whistleblower Katharine Gun Sam Allard SOUTH AFRICAN ACTORdirector Gavin Hood most recently helmed 2015’s Eye in the Sky, a taut fictionalization of modern warfare and its fraught moral landscape. The characters in that film were military personnel grappling with complications in a proposed drone strike. It was an edge-of-your-seat political drama. The characters in Official Secrets, Hood’s latest film, which opens Friday at the Cedar Lee and Chagrin Cinemas and elsewhere, are not fictional. The film dramatizes the case of Katharine Gun, an analyst with Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), who leaked a confidential memo in 2003 that exposed the U.S. plot to pressure U.N. Security Council members to secure a vote greenlighting the invasion of Iraq. The Iraq War is one of the 21st century’s largest-scale humanitarian crimes. As many as a million people were killed as a result of U.S. aggression, launched under false pretenses: that Saddam Hussein harbored so-called Weapons of Mass Destruction. Everyone knows by now that the WMDs never existed, that they were pure propaganda, and the film illustrates just how overwhelmingly the public disapproved of military operations in

Photo by Nick Wall / IFC Films

Iraq, especially in Britain, the United States’ principal shill and minion in the war effort. Gun (Keira Knightly), who worked primarily as a translator, received a memo from the NSA asking British spies to surveil countries on the U.N. Security Council who’d be likely to bend under pressure. This was a request that Gun could scarcely believe. She was a political junkie and can be seen spouting off at TVs through the early part of the film, baffled at the boldfaced lies of Britain’s Prime Minister, Tony Blair.

The film chronicles the London Observer’s publication of the NSA memo — with trench-coated reporter Martin Bright (Matt Smith) and outspoken American correspondent Ed Vulliamy (Rhys Ifans) leading the charge — and Gun’s eventual legal representation by Liberty, a firm specializing in human rights abuse and civil liberties. Ben Emmerson (an even-keeled Ralph Fiennes) is the lead lawyer on the case. Though it deals with a weighty moral question — Gun’s decision to expose an illegal war and prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths

— the film lacks the dramatic structure and urgency of Eye in the Sky, which takes place in something like real time. The film works better as a history lesson, reinforcing the audacity of the American war enterprise in defiance of public sentiment, than as a political thriller. The climax, for example, is a major letdown in strictly narrative terms. Weird moments like the Drudge Report’s questioning of the authenticity of the Observer’s memo, due to its publication with British spellings, are true to history but confusing in context. What was that scene for? The waifish Knightly is all trembling lips for much of the film, so her metamorphosis into a principled activist prepared to surrender her life to take on the government is a bit of a surprise. But by and large, the film is a necessary depiction of whistleblowers as a just and positive force. No person with their head screwed on can watch this film and sympathize with the liars and plunderers who duped the world that they might more efficiently conquer it.

sallard@clevescene.com t@scenesallard

SPOTLIGHT: LINDA RONSTADT — THE SOUND OF MY VOICE IN THE PAST YEAR OR SO, A slew of terrific but unrelated music documentaries (David Crosby: Remember My Name, Echo in the Canyon) have captured what Los Angeles was like the ’60s. Add to the list Linda Ronstadt — The Sound of My Voice, a well-researched, touching film about how Ronstadt fought great odds to become a successful rock/pop singer. The movie opens on Friday at the Cedar Lee Theatre, Chagrin Cinemas and Cinemark Valley View. It opens with vintage footage of Ronstadt performing on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and on The Midnight Special. It’s readily apparent from these clips that Ronstadt had a potent voice from the start. Her success would stem from

the fact that she capably straddled the pop and rock worlds with songs such as “You’re No Good” and “When Will I Be Loved.” In a voiceover, a very humble Ronstadt says she just “popped out into the world” without any idea of “inventing” herself as a singer. Her parents met in Tucson, where her father courted the woman who’d become Ronstadt’s mother by serenading her. Ronstadt grew up on a cattle ranch where there was “a lot of music going on in the house.” “We had amazing music in Tucson because it was really close to the border,” she says in the film. “When I was growing up, I thought people sang in Spanish and spoke in English.” She and her sister started

a band together, but after her sister had kids, the band dissolved. Ronstadt moved to Los Angeles in 1964 when she was only 18, forming a folk group called the Stone Poneys. They inked a record deal pretty quickly and scored a hit with “Different Drum.” The song established Rondstadt as a star, and the Stone Poneys broke up as the record label sought to develop Ronstadt. She acclimated to L.A. nicely, falling in love with singersongwriter JD Souther and collaborating with guys like Don Henley and Glenn Frey. When Henley and Frey roomed together on one of Ronstadt’s tours, they became friends and would form the Eagles in the wake of that tour. Ronstadt gave

them a boost by covering their track “Desperado” on her 1973 album Don’t Cry Now. She dated governor Jerry Brown for a spell and befriended singer-songwriter Jackson Browne. The first artist to top the pop, country and R&B charts simultaneously, Ronstadt, a Rock Hall inductee, would go on to win 10 Grammy Awards. Her 1987 album Canciones De Mi Padre remains the biggest-selling non-English language album in American recording history. Not bad for someone who got her start singing Mexican songs at the family dinner table. — Jeff Niesel

jniesel@clevescene.com t@jniesel | clevescene.com | September 11 - 17, 2019

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EAT FUFU FOR ALL At Choukouya, a taste of West Africa in Warrensville Heights By Douglas Trattner Photo by Emanuel Wallace

I SPENT MUCH OF MY TIME AT Choukouya restaurant struggling to learn about the cuisine. Over the course of two dinners I peppered our servers with questions, probed nearby diners about their selections, typed menu items into Google and even asked to speak with the chefs, owners or whomever it was doing the cooking in the back of the house. In the end, the only strategy that proved successful was to allow the aromas, flavors and textures of the food to do all the talking. As one of Cleveland’s only West African restaurants, Choukouya can and should do a better job of indoctrinating inexperienced diners about the cuisine. Are the dishes Senegalese, Liberian, Nigerian or a more general collection of West African specialties, I wondered. Don’t get me wrong, the servers could not be more friendly, accommodating and downright charming, but their knowledge of the food seemed only slightly more comprehensive than mine, which is nonexistent. Fortunately, I was armed with a few suggestions from a well-traveled friend who had dined there previously, and his guidance was invaluable. Before eating, guests are encouraged to wash their hands at a modest server station-like area near the dining room. Utensils are provided, but so much of the food simply is easier to eat with your hands than by knife and fork. From savory pastries to grilled meats to bone-in chicken to the inscrutable fufu, it’s all finger-friendly food. Over the course of two dinners, I’ve hardly become an expert on West African cuisine — and barely made a dent in the lengthy menu — but I did thoroughly enjoy almost everything I ate. If you enjoy Cornish pasties, Jamaican beef patties or Mexican empanadas, you’ll love the meat pies ($3) served here. Inside the crispy, flaky half-moon pastry is a warmspiced filling of ground beef and vegetables. The hand pies are served with a ranch-like dipping sauce. French influence is evident in the pomme lyonnaise ($5), a large platter of french-fried potato slices garnished with sweet sauteed onions and fresh herbs.

I passed on the “Choukouya Fav” appetizer on my first trip because of the $18 price tag, but was persuaded to order it on a return visit with a hungry companion. “Fav” indeed, the dish is piled high with expertly grilled lamb, both riblets and chops, topped with sauteed onions and peppers and drizzled with a creamy yogurt-based sauce. On the side sits a “secret” spice blend for sprinkling that managed to make the juicy, well-

spice. Versions are available starring chicken, beef, lamb, goat and fish ($15 to $19). The recommended side for this dish and other saucy stews is fufu, a bland, starchy mash made from cassava that looks like a mashedpotato snowball. Pieces are pinched off by hand and used to scoop up the food in much the same way that injera is used in Ethiopian cuisine. Chicken yassa ($17) is another stew-like dish with complex and

CHOUKOUYA RESTO-BAR 4620 RICHMOND RD., WARRENSVILLE HTS. 216-245-6660 CHOUKOUYARESTOBAR.COM

charred meat rise to new heights. The only thing missing was an ice-cold beer, which the restaurant does not carry. Peanut stew, one of West Africa’s most familiar dishes, resembles an Indian or Thai curry, but it manages to summon absolutely nothing from my taste-memory banks. The exotic, aromatic and intoxicating flavors strike a balance between sweet and savory, with earthy peanut notes buoyed by moderately aggressive

beguiling flavors, this one combining tender bone-in chicken with heaps of green olive, melty onions and bright citrus. It all comes together in a comforting, mildly spiced medley that goes great with rice. At Choukouya, most dishes come with a choice of rice dishes that range from plain to the popular jollof, a version fortified with tomato and pepper. If you love spicy food, and they don’t automatically bring it, request the housemade hot sauce, a screaming-hot paste made

with scotch bonnets that goes to 11. Order the whole fried snapper ($24) and you’ll net a delicately cooked head-on specimen with sweet meat that slides right of the bone. Served on a large silver platter with creamy plantains and rice, the meal is too large to finish, but too delicious to stop trying. Whole fish fans can also opt for a grilled preparation. The designation as “Resto-Bar” is an accurate one. The dining room is designed to host large crowds, with massive built-in tables capable of accommodating entire extended families. There is a full bar, but no beer license. We ordered glasses of a South African Bordeaux ($8) that arrived straight from the fridge, but tasted fine after they warmed. As dinner winds down on weekend nights, bands, DJs and other live entertainment takes the stage. Shots of Ciroc and Don Julio are downed like cold water and minty smoke emanates from colorful glass hookahs with serpentine hoses. We didn’t stick around for the fun, but we will be back for the food.

dtrattner@clevescene.com t@dougtrattner

| clevescene.com | September 11 - 17, 2019

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EAT BITES Karen Small to open breakfast and lunch diner at former Jack Flaps spot in Ohio City

a new menu every day.

By Douglas Trattner

undergo some interior changes to make it feel less industrial and slightly “funkier,” adds Small. The hope is to acquire a liquor license for the space. Small says that neighbors can look forward to an early December opening. “It would be really easy to just waltz in there and start cooking, but this is likely the last restaurant I’m going to open — and the first one that I will open completely on my own,” she says. “I just want to do it right.”

16 N. Main Chagrin Falls James Balchak, Executive Chef 440.600.7770 aureliabistro.com

Photo by Karin McKenna

LUNCH DINNER BRUNCH HAPPY HOUR FRESH & LOCAL

Oak and Embers Tavern is One of the Best Bourbon Bars in America, Says Bourbon Review THERE IS A SILVER LINING TO the sudden closure of Jack Flaps, a popular breakfast diner in Ohio City. Chef Karen Small has announced that she will take over the space and open a diner of her own. “I’ve had my eye on that space for a bit, and when Jack Flaps closed I contacted the landlord right away,” explains Small. “I always loved the space, loved the location, loved the size. It was hard to pass up.” Small, who opened the venerated Flying Fig (2523 Market Ave., 216-241-4243) in the same neighborhood 20 years ago, was motivated to grab the space because of what she believes is a gap in the marketplace. “I think that as a city we don’t have enough breakfast places and variety for stuff like that,” she says. Small envisions the as-yetunnamed cafe to serve breakfast, breakfast-all-day and lunch items until the early afternoon. The menu, she reports, is still a work in progress, but it will reflect her cooking style and respect for ingredients in whatever form it takes. The 30-seat restaurant will

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Oak and Embers Tavern may be better known for its barbecue, but the local restaurant chain has always carried one of the largest bourbon lists around. Now the original spot in Chesterland has been named one of the 100 best bourbon bars in the country, as selected by the good people over at the Bourbon Review. For this year’s list, judges were looking not only for a long whiskey menu, but also for restaurants that offered creative bourbon cocktails and food items that incorporated the spirit well. They also judged places on how knowledgeable the staff was and also private barrel offerings. When all was said and done, only two Ohio places made the cut, including the Century Bar in Dayton. Oak and Embers was started five years ago by Marc and Gretchen Garofoli, and has since opened a spot in Hudson with plans to open at Pinecrest soon. — LAURA MORRISON

dtrattner@clevescene.com t@dougtrattner

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UKE SPILLER, THE CHARISMATIC frontman of the glam rock band the Struts is known for his Freddie Mercury-style moves and onstage bravado. By the end of each show, he’s usually drenched in sweat. In a recent phone conversation, the Bristol, U.K. native promises to bring every ounce of his theatrics to House of Blues when the Struts return to the venue on Sunday. In fact, he’s always brought star power, even when he was playing to 10 people. “It was always like that from Day 1, just the costumes had a lot less quality to them cause they’re not cheap,” he says. “It started when I was a teenager, tearing up clothes,

sewing, trying to make my own outfits ... Someone sent me a video of my first-ever show — I had three costume changes.” Spiller has always approached his shows with an endless pool of energy. The biggerbudget productions for a couple thousand fans have made him take himself a bit more seriously; however. Spiller now performs “a bit more sober” than he did when no one knew his name. In recent months, the Struts have managed to spend some time recording at the Foo Fighters’ Studio 606, tossing around ideas for the next album. These sessions resulted in six finished tracks. “We have no idea what will come of those,” says Spiller. “[When shaping an album] | clevescene.com | September 11 - 17, 2019

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@masoniccle @hobcleveland

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In Real Life Cambridge Room Will Reagan + Andrea Marie Cambridge Room Dark Star Orchestra – Tribute to Grateful Dead Electric Feels – Indie Rock DJ Dance Party Sonny Digital – Sonny Digital’s Black Goat 2 Tour w/ Black Boe Cambridge Room CANCELLED Hardy w/ Hunter Phelps Cambridge Room SOLD OUT Less Than Jake & Bowling For Soup w/ Authority Zero Dermot Kennedy SOLD OUT PnB Rock w/ NoCap, Rylo Rodriguez CANCELLED All That Remains & Lacuna Coil w/ Bad Omens, Eximious, Uncured

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MASONIC CLEVELAND: 3615 Euclid Ave, Cleveland OH 44115 HOUSE OF BLUES: 308 Euclid Ave, Cleveland OH 44114 masoniccleveland.com / houseofblues.com | clevescene.com | September 11 - 17, 2019

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there are no rules. I have no idea how this is going to come together. It could be something we’ve never done before, or it could be what we always do. We just do it, rather than thinking too deeply into it. We know what we like, and we know what we don’t, and it’s just a simple case of that.” But some songs come together quicker than others. “In Love with a Camera,” the quirky, guitar-heavy 2018 single from Young & Dangerous, about a girl more interested in posing for the perfect shot than in developing her love life, was one of the most difficult songs to complete. “That song was an absolute bitch,” says Spiller. “I think it had about five or six different rewrites, different versions; it was a real pain in the ass. At first, I was like, ‘Is that too onthe-nose?’ But it became a neat little song. It’s not my favorite, but it’s definitely coming across really well live. The fans enjoy it, so I’m happy.” Spiller’s favorite live song is the fast-paced diva anthem “Primadonna Like Me,” a song that comes complete with tongue

30-year-old’s most recent business endeavor, a glitter line that goes by the name Spiller Glitter. “It’s something I’ve wanted to do for ages,” says Spiller. The line was initially available exclusively at the band’s recent Pier 17 show in New York, but Spiller — who was wildly impressed by the sale of over 100 cases in the first five minutes that the pop-up store put it on sale — is working on distributing the product elsewhere. For the time being, Spiller is laser-focused on the shows that the Struts have booked in Australia, Japan, Canada and the U.S. through the end of November, followed by some studio time at the end of the year. The Struts came to the U.S. knowing that rock ’n’ roll could not compete commercially with

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rolls and carefully placed percussion. He likes it because it gets the crowd the most excited. “I jump up on stage, and everyone’s going mental,” says Spiller. “I associate it with all the shows we’ve played in the last year, so it’s kind of sentimental.” The Struts wrapped up June by releasing a cover of David Bowie and Mick Jagger’s “Dancing in the Street.” The band put its glam-rock spin on the track, replacing the horns with calculated guitar riffs. Spiller’s dramatic vocal runs made the interpretation easily recognizable. Some modern acts shy away from filling the shoes of legends, but not Spiller. “Nothing intimidates me,” says Spiller. “I’ll give anything a shot.” That motto goes for the

pop, EDM, rap or country. The four-piece started playing shows in the States when they gained a bit of alternative radio traction or because “nowhere else would have us,” in Spiller’s words. “As far as genre, it’s been like that for the past 10 years, so it really doesn’t make any difference where you go. We’ve definitely given ourselves a large challenge.” Spiller says that he believes the Struts just might be the only band that can keep rock ’n’ roll alive. “As long as I’m alive, it’s not dead,” he says.

scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene

| clevescene.com | September 11 - 17, 2019

49

27 YEARS! G IN T A R B E CEL

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THE MISSED

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NEW PRESERVATION SOCIETY POLARS BELLA DONNA RACHEL SHORTT

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FRI 9/20 FISH GREASE: A JUKE JOINT TOUR WITH

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WEDNESDAY 9.11 FOREST CITY MUG NIGHT (7pm) Feat. CHOPGOD LIVE PODCAST EVENT (7PM) The Last of a Dying Breed presents “DOING HOODRAT SHIT WITH MY FRIENDS” THURSDAY 9.12 BROKEN KEYS (6PM) w/WILL BLAZE aka SONNY SOL THE HOOK UP (10pm) Top 40 Club Night w/DJ MIKE FILLY FRIDAY 9.13 MARY WARD COMEDY FUNDRAISER (7pm) LIVE FROM THE BASEMENT (9PM) SATURDAY 9.14 GUMBO (10pm) DJ WALK +LOVEMUZACK with a LIVE BRASS BAND! SUNDAY 9.15 SERVICE INDUSTRY SUNDAY (7PM)

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MONDAY 9.16 SHITSHOW KRAROKE (9pm) w/WALLACE + MANNY

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| clevescene.com clevesccenee.com m | September Sep e tem ep mber e 11 - 17, 177, 2019

THE GROG SHOP PRESENTS AT

AGORA

THU 11/7

EARTHLESS MAGGOT HEART

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PRESENTED BY ANHEDONIA

TUE 11/5

SUN 10/6

AGNOSTIC FRONT PRONG LACERATE

GLAMGORE MONTHLY DRAG SHOW

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SUN 9/22

50

P-LO

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TUE 9/17 WITH THE

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THE GROG SHOP PRESENTS AT

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MON 11/4 WITH LOW THU 11/7

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THE GROG SHOP PRESENTS AT

HOUSE OF BLUES

SUN 11/10

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THE GROG SHOP PRESENTS AT

CMA GARTNER AUDITORIUM TUE 1/28

COURTNEY BARNETT SOLD OUT

Photo by Rowan Daly

BAD SUNS’ STORY IS A FAMILIAR one. Frontman Chris Bowman met bassist Gavin Bennet and drummer Miles Morris in high school, and they jumped from band to band, all the while keeping tabs on each other. But it wasn’t until guitarist Ray Libby came into the picture that things started to come together for the California boys. “When you’re trying to figure out the sound of your band, there’s a lot of different guitar players that want to play a lot of different ways,” says Bowman in a recent phone interview. The indie rock band performs with Liily and Ultra Q at 8 p.m. on Tuesday at House of Blues. “When we started playing with Ray [Libby], we had such similar styles and influences and ideas about the kind of music that we wanted to make that when the four of us came together, it felt like it had never felt before. There was total cohesion.” That chemistry led to three fulllength albums and a national fan base. “We were really fortunate to have a song like ‘Cardiac Arrest’ that paved the way for what we were able

to do. We were also able to grow over the years because of our reputation as a live band.” The catchy, riff-heavy track from the band’s 2014 debut represents Bad Suns’ early sound, but the band has since evolved and its most recent album, Mystic Truth, captures a bit more grit than the indie band had previously tapped into. With Mystic Truth, Bowman says the band wanted to create something that broke out of the ordinary. In order to achieve this,

L.A., the band was armed with two new concepts, which evolved into Bowman’s favorite tracks on Mystic Truth: the trippy, moody “Starjumper” and the drum-heavy alternative anthem “Hold Your Fire.” “The house was pretty much all windows and it was dome shaped. And you could just see desert for miles around you,” Bowman says of the cabin where they band wrote the tunes. A time capsule of the trip’s stunning visuals is captured in the

BAD SUNS | LIILY | ULTRA Q 8 P.M., TUESDAY, SEPT. 17 HOUSE OF BLUES, 308 EUCLID AVE., 216-523-2583. TICKETS: $22-$35, houseofblues.com

the foursome had to get out of contemporary studio sessions and out of L.A. So they packed their bags and drove up to a cabin they had rented in Palm Springs, hoping the change of scenery would bring a new kind of inspiration — and it did. When Bad Suns returned to

imagery, lyrics and overall vibe of “Starjumper,” Bowman says. “Hold Your Fire” came out of a late-night jam session during the Palm Springs getaway. “That song would have never come to us if we had not put ourselves in that element,” says

Bowman. “That’s why we put ourselves in that situation: We wanted to do something different than we normally do.” Much of Bad Suns’ catalog, however, does come about in a conventional manner. Bowman sometimes crafts demos and brings them to the studio to be toyed with by his bandmates. The band also comes up with melodies and riffs that excite each of them while freestyling in studio sessions, Bowman says. “They’re both pretty exciting ways of working for us,” he says. On tour, the band still gets along swimmingly and focuses on its musical chemistry. “It’s about building a reputation as a live band that people want to come see,” says Bowman. “We get along better as time goes on. We’re ultimately just super glad to be stuck with each other as opposed to anyone else.”

scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene | clevescene.com | September 11 - 17, 2019

51

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| clevescene.com | September 11 - 17, 2019

LIVEWIRE

all the live music you should see this week Photo by Henry Diltz

WED

Gud Vibrations, Seven Lions and the Glitch Mob: 5:30 p.m., $29.50$54.50. Jacobs Pavilion. Pelican/Bloodiest/Sixkillsnine: 8:30 p.m., $14 ADV, $16 DOS. Grog Shop. School of Rock: 12 p.m., free. Beachland Ballroom. Neil Slobin’s Fall Dance Party: 6:30 p.m., $10. Nighttown. The Struts/JJ Wilde: 8 p.m., $30.50 ADV/$35 DOS. House of Blues. Tischler Klezmer Orchestra (TKO): 5 p.m., $20. Nighttown. Tropical Fuck Storm/Swisher: 8 p.m., $10 ADV, $12 DOS. Now That’s Class. Rufus Wainwright: 7:30 p.m. Music Box Supper Club.

09/11

Empath/Cereal Banter: 8 p.m., $8 ADV, $10 DOS. Now That’s Class. Hot Snakes/Des Demonas/The Missed: 8:30 p.m., $23 ADV, $28 DOS. Grog Shop. Julian Lage Trio: 7 p.m., $30. Nighttown. Bob Mould: 8 p.m. Music Box Supper Club.

THU

09/12

The Buffalo Ryders/Psycho Men/ Anaconda Vampire Bats: 8:30 p.m., $5. Happy Dog. Duster/Living Hour/The You Suck Flying Circus: 9 p.m., $18 ADV, $20 DOS. Grog Shop. Michael Glabicki: 8 p.m., $25-$30. The Kent Stage. Amy Helm: 7:30 p.m. Music Box Supper Club. Honeysuckle: 8 p.m., $10. Beachland Tavern. MoKo BoVo/Jared Goldweber & the Park Brothers: 8 p.m., $10. Beachland Ballroom. Pulse Plays Pascoal: 7 p.m., $15. Bop Stop. Therapy Thursday Featuring Taylor Lamborn: 8 p.m., free. CODA.

FRI

09/13

D.R.I./Death Wish/Grin and Bear It/ Punching Moses/Weed Whacker: 7 p.m., $15 ADV, $18 DOS. Now That’s Class. The Honeytones: 8 p.m., $7. Happy Dog. Mannequin Pussy: 9 p.m., $12 ADV, $15 DOS. Mahall’s 20 Lanes. Raveena/M/\Z/JAZZ: 9 p.m., $20 ADV, $25 DOS. Grog Shop. The Selecter, 40th Anniversary Tour/DJ Rhoda Dakar: 8 p.m., $30 ADV, $35 DOS. The Kent Stage. Smiley Baldazar: 8 p.m., $10. CODA. The Starting Line/Microwave: 7 p.m., $29.50 ADV, $35 DOS. Agora Theatre. Sugar Candy Mountain with Mollo Rilla and Zip Zapp: 9 p.m., $8. The Winchester. Twin Peaks/Slow Pulp/Dehd: 8 p.m., $18 ADV, $20 DOS. Beachland Ballroom. Jackie Warren: 10:30 p.m., free. Nighttown. Michael Wolff Trio + Eddie Henderson: 7:30 p.m., $30.

L.A.’s Long Ryders come to the Beachland. See: Sunday.

Nighttown.

SAT

09/14

Adam Ant/Glam Skanks: 8 p.m., $35-$45. Masonic Auditorium. Am Samstag/Avo/The Battle/ Dayoldhate: 8 p.m., $8. CODA. Luke Bryan/Cole Swindell/Jon Langston: Replete with narratives about drinking beer on the front porch and heading out to do some “huntin’ and fishin’,” country singer-guitarist Luke Bryan’s music seems tailor-made for summer. Though it’s starting to feel like fall, tonight’s show at Blossom will undoubtedly retain a summertime vibe as Bryan plays tunes from his back catalog alongside “Knockin’ Boots,” a poppy track from a forthcoming studio album. (Jeff Niesel) 7 p.m., $30-$99.75. Blossom. Luke Temple/Meernaa/Jacob Boarman: 9 p.m., $10 ADV, $12 DOS. Now That’s Class. An Evening with Donnie Iris and the Cruisers: 8 p.m., $37.50-$55. The Kent Stage. Rebirth Brass Band: 8 p.m., $250. Beachland Ballroom. C.W. Stoneking/The Torments: Southern American music has always figured heavily into singersongwriter C.W. Stoneking’s music, a blend of American roots, blues, and New Orleans jazz with elements of early rock ’n’ roll, country and calypso. Following an Australian tour last year with Queens of the Stone Age, Queens’ singer Josh Homme teamed up with Stoneking for a Christmas

charity duet of “Silent Night” and interviewed him on Episode #36 of his Beats 1 show, The Alligator Hour. Jack White also featured Stoneking on his 2018 album Boarding House Reach. Stoneking continues to tour in support of his 2014 LP Gon’ Boogaloo, an album of primitive blues tunes that sounds as if it were recorded in another era. (Niesel) 9 p.m. Grog Shop. The Sunrise Jones (in the Supper Club): 8 p.m. Music Box Supper Club. Jackie Warren: 10:30 p.m., free. Nighttown. Michael Wolff Trio: 8:30 p.m., $25. Nighttown.

SUN

09/15

Ralph Alessi And This Against That: 7 p.m., $20. Bop Stop. An Evening with Bill Frisell: 7:30 p.m., $22-$32. The Kent Stage. The Long Ryders/Joe Nolan: A psychedelic country band that was popular in its Los Angeles hometown in the early ’80s, the Long Ryders put out a couple of influential albums before disbanding in 1987. The group has reformed on occasion since its dissolution and recently reissued Psychedelic Country Soul, its first album of new material in 33 years. The disc kicks off with the Byrdslike “Greenville,” a foot-stomping song that features harmony vocals and driving guitars and serves as a solid return to form. (Niesel) 8 p.m., $20 ADV, $22 DOS. Beachland Ballroom. NGHTMRE + SLANDER present

MON

09/16

Morgan Heritage/Jemere Morgan: 8 p.m., $25 ADV, $30 DOS. Beachland Ballroom. Periphery/Veil of Maya/Covet: 7 p.m., $27.50 ADV, $30 DOS. House of Blues.

TUE

09/17

Bad Suns/Liily/Ultra Q: 8 p.m., $22 ADV, $27 DOS. House of Blues. The Electric Mud/Vulgar Devils/ Golden God: 8 p.m., $7. Now That’s Class. An Evening With Ken Stringfellow: For his current tour, veteran singer-guitarist Ken Stringfellow decided to play small clubs that had access to a piano, so that’s why he’s playing tonight at the Bop Stop, a club that usually books jazz acts. The show is centered on Stringfellow’s 2001 album Touched, a collection of midtempo indie pop tunes; but over the course of two hours, he’ll also play tunes from his other bands, notably the Posies and Big Star. (Niesel) 7:30 p.m., $25. Bop Stop. The Ghost Wolves: 8 p.m., $10 ADV, $12 DOS. Beachland Tavern. Kristin Hersh Electric Trio: 8 p.m. Music Box Supper Club. Jenny Lewis/The Watson Twins: 7 p.m. Agora Theatre. The Hu: The Gereg Tour: 8:30 p.m., $18 ADV, $20.50 DOS. Grog Shop.

scene@clevescene.com t@clevelandscene | clevescene.com | September 11 - 17, 2019

53

BAND OF THE WEEK RAVEENA AURORA By Jeff Niesel

Photo by Kelia Anne

MEET THE BAND: Raveena Aurora

(vocals) A CUTURALLY RICH CHILDHOOD: R&B/ indie pop singer Raveena Aurora grew up in Queens, New York, where her parents immigrated from India after the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. She was raised in a traditional Sikh household but still managed to absorb healthy doses of R&B, soul, jazz and folk music.

Puthli. Directed by Danica Kleinknecht with creative direction by Aurora, the music video for the single “Stronger,” a song that features echoing vocals and trippy synthesizers, provides a visual metaphor detailing Aurora’s journey to “healing and self-love.” The video presents a “physical story” in which Aurora is “expressively fighting against the forces holding her back.” WHY YOU SHOULD HEAR HER: Lucid opens

OUTSPOKEN AND PROUD OF IT: Four

years ago, Aurora started working with record producer Everett Orr and self-released her first EP, Shanti, in 2017. The album received rave reviews, and Aurora’s career picked up steam. Last year, she was included in ModCloth’s Say It Louder campaign, which aimed to “celebrate individuality and strong female icons in music.” She was featured alongside other outspoken female musicians like Lizzo, Awkwafina and Hayley Kiyoko.

with the flinty “Hypnosis,” wherein Aurora adopts a near-falsetto and experiments with her vocal phrasing. Sensual songs such as “Nectar” find her seductively cooing over soul/R&B grooves. On tracks such as “Stronger,” a song that has her effectively singing without any accompaniment at its start, and the soulful “Salt Water,” Aurora writes openly about sexual assault and abuse. WHERE YOU CAN HEAR HER:

raveenaaurora.com. PUSHING BOUNDARIES: Earlier this year, Aurora released her fulllength debut, Lucid. With Lucid, she experiments with her vocal and emotional range more than ever before. On it, she takes inspiration from artists like D’Angelo, Bjork, Outkast, Erykah Badu and the legendary Indian singer Asha

54

| clevescene.com | September 11 - 17, 2019

WHERE YOU CAN SEE HER: Raveena

performs with Jazz and M/\Z at 9 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 14, at the Grog Shop in Cleveland Heights.

jniesel@clevescene.com t@jniesel

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

The Selecter

An Evening with

Michael Glabicki

40th Anniversary Tour (1979 - 2019)

DJ Rhoda Dakar

Thu September 12

Donnie Iris And The Cruisers

Fri September 13

Sat September 14

An Evening with

Bill Frisell Sun September 15

Beatles vs Stones Wed September 18

Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band Thu September 19

WE OFFER EXCLUSIVE GROUP RATES! Groups of 10 or more may receive EXCLUSIVE FREEPLAY ® incentives & discounted ticket rates! For more details contact the MGM Tour & Travel Team. Email tour-travel@mgmnorthfieldpark.com or call 330-908-7761

9/20

GORDON LIGHTFOOT 80 Years Strong Tour

10/5

LEWIS BLACK The Joke’s On Us Tour

10/11

GEORGE THOROGOOD & THE DESTROYERS Good To Be Bad Tour: 45 Years of Rock

10/12

JOHNNY GILL & RALPH TRESVANT

10/13

TOTO 40 Trips Around the Sun

10/17

KENNY WAYNE SHEPHERD The Long Goodbye Tour

9/27

HOTEL CALIFORNIA A Salute to the Eagles 8 P.M.

10/16 DEEP PURPLE

The Long Goodbye Tour 7:30 P.M.

10/20 HERB ALPERT & LANI HALL 10/26 RODNEY ATKINS Michael Kelsey Friends of Lasa Sanctuary Fundraiser Lasa Sanctuary

Fri September 20

An Evening with

Iris DeMent

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

Sat September 21

Sun September 29

Kim Richey Radney Foster

Martha Davis & The Motels

Fri October 4

Sat October 5

10/29 TRAVIS TRITT

10/18 DANE COOK

11/1

PAUL ANKA Anka Sings Sinatra

9/27 9/28

THUNDER FROM DOWN UNDER

10/12

9/20

MATT JOHNSON’S DUELING PIANO FIASCO 8 P.M.

10/18 ZYGRT

Tell It Like It Is 8 P.M.

Special EFX All-Stars Feat: Chieli Minucci, Elliott Yamin, Eric Marienthal, Lao Tizer, Karen Briggs

Sun October 13

Steven Page

3.2

(Formerly of Barenaked Ladies)

feat Robert Berry Wed October 16

Tue October 15

Mat Kearney City of Black & White Revisited Acoustic Tour

Sun October 20

JUST ANNOUNCED!

7 P.M. & 10 P.M.

10/4 LARRY REEB 10/5 FEATURING KEITH MCGILL 7 P.M. & 9:30 P.M.

Dec 19

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CRACKER Up Close & Acoustic 8 P.M.

THE ULTIMATE TRIBUTE TO ZEPPLIN, YES, GENESIX, RUSH & TOTO 8 P.M.

10/19 CAPTAIN FANTASTIC THE MAGIC OF ELTON JOHN 8 P.M.

BOX OFFICE IS OPEN DAY-OF-SHOW ONLY, THREE HOURS PRIOR TO DOORS. FOR ALL OTHER PURCHASES, VISIT TICKETMASTER.COM. ALL TICKET SALES FINAL.

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| clevescene.com | September 11 - 17, 2019

55

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SAVAGE LOVE OPEN WIDE by Dan Savage My roommate is a gay man who is into getting fisted. A lot. We were FWBs until he moved into my place, at which point we agreed it would be better for us to not have sex anymore. It’s worked out fine, and he’s been here for a year. Here’s the problem: About two years ago, he got into fisting and he has someone over every night to fist him. As soon as he comes home from work, he spends a good hour in the bathroom cleaning out, and then some guy comes over to fist him. Every single day. My roommate is a very attractive guy who doesn’t think he’s attractive at all. I’ve talked to him a few times about whether he’s being sexually compulsive, but he just laughs and says, “Well, you suck a lot of dick.” (I have a healthy but moderate sex life.) I am concerned that all this ass play is not healthy. As a friend, I want him to seek help for his sexual compulsion, his low self-esteem, and his social isolation. As a roommate, I am tired of all these strange men coming into my home and the high water bill. — Frequent Insertions Sincerely Trouble Someone “Fisting is a healthy and safe sexual activity so long as the participants are sober,” said Dr. Peter Shalit, a physician and author who works with many gay men. “There is a misconception that fisting damages the anal sphincter, loosens it, and causes a loss of bowel control over time. This is absolutely false.” Devin Franco, a gay porn star who’s been getting fisted on a weekly basis for many years, backs up Dr. Shalit. “People who are only used to vanilla intercourse are sometimes shocked,” said Franco. “People will leave comments on my videos asking if I was in pain, even though I’m clearly always enjoying it. Fisting is actually the most pleasurable sexual act I’ve ever experienced — and seven years in, no negative health consequences and everything down there works just fine, thanks.” But exactly how does that work? How does someone like Franco get a fist and/or a ridiculously large sex toy in his butt? “A skilled fisting bottom can

voluntarily relax the anal sphincter in order to accommodate a hand up to the wrist or further,” explained Dr. Shalit. “A skilled fisting top knows how to insert their hand — it’s actually fingertips first, not a clenched fist — and how to do it gently, taking their time, and using lots of lube. And, again, after the session is over, the sphincter returns to its normal state.” Which is not to say that people haven’t injured themselves or others engaging in anal play with large sex toys, fists, or even perfectly average cocks — people most certainly have. That’s why it’s crucial to take things slow, use lots of lube, and go at it sober. “Fisting isn’t for everyone,” said Dr. Shalit. “In fact, most people are unable to relax their sphincter in this fashion.” But to figure out whether fisting is for you — to determine whether you’re one of those people who can relax their sphincter — first you gotta wanna, and then you gotta try. “It actually took about two years for me,” said Franco. “That’s from the first time I did anal play thinking, ‘Maybe I can get his whole fist in there,’ to the first time I actually got a fist in my ass. Two years.” And while fisting isn’t for everyone, FISTS, like Dr. Shalit said, it’s very clearly for your roommate. But enjoying the hell out of a particular sexual activity — even one that seems extreme to those who don’t enjoy it — isn’t by itself evidence of low self-esteem or sexual compulsion. “If FISTS thinks his roommate has low self-esteem,” said Dr. Shalit, “he’s done the right thing by telling him he should seek help. But that’s the end of his responsibility. Whether or not his roommate seeks help is up to his roommate. And it’s hard for me to agree that his roommate is being sexually compulsive based on what’s in the letter. Many men have sex every day, and the roommate’s sex life doesn’t seem to have any negative consequences except that FISTS doesn’t like it.” While Franco also doesn’t think getting fisted daily is proof that

your roommate is out of control, fisting isn’t something he does every day. “Doing it daily sounds exhausting,” he said. “The act requires a lot of physical exertion. I personally need a little recovery time between sessions. But I do know guys who do it every day — maybe not a fist every day, but they play with large toys every day. But I couldn’t and I don’t.” All that said, FISTS, two of your cited reasons for not liking what your roommate is up to — strange men in and out of your apartment (and your roommate) and all that douching driving up your water bill — are legitimate complaints that you shouldn’t be shy about addressing. “To not have a lot of strangers in and out of the apartment is a reasonable ask of a roommate,” said Dr. Shalit. “But if the roommate sees a steady stream of FISTS’s hookups coming over, it could seem like a double standard. And I suppose he could ask for extra help with the water bill, but I’m skeptical that ‘cleaning out’ for fisting would actually cause a significant increase in the bill.” Dr. Shalit recommends Anal Pleasure & Health by Jack Morin to anyone who wants to learn more about anal intercourse, fisting, and other forms of anal play. “It’s the bible of anal sexuality,” said Dr. Shalit. Follow Devin Franco on Twitter @devinfrancoxxx, and check out his work at justfor.fans/ devinfrancoxxx.

*** My husband of nearly 20 years came out to me as bisexual about two months ago. He assured me he has no intention of looking outside our marriage for other sex partners. We’ve always had a kind of barrier sexually, and it seemed to fall away after he came out. We’ve since done all manner of things, including my using a dildo on him. (Thanks for all the tips over the years about anal!) It has been a fun and empowering experience overall. There is one thing I am having trouble with. He

mentioned that he’d like me to peg him using a strap-on. I mean, of course he would, right? He’d like to actually feel my body against his. That would doubtless make the whole experience better for him. But I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around it. Does this require me, even if temporarily, to change my body? I’m feeling really vulnerable and insecure about it, like it means there’s something wrong with my body. I get panicky just thinking about it. (My husband has not done or said anything to make me feel bad about my body.) Using the dildo is no big thing, and I don’t understand why this feels so different and difficult. — Pegging Feels Different You don’t have to do anything about this right now, PFD. Your husband only came out to you as bisexual two months ago! Your husband’s honesty pulled down that barrier you’d always sensed but could never name, and that’s wonderful and exciting. And you’re already exploring anal penetration with him on the receiving end, which is something many straight men also enjoy. If covering your genitals temporarily with a strapon makes you feel awkward or unwanted, you don’t have to do it — not now, not ever. But I can’t imagine you think there’s something wrong with the bodies of lesbians who use strap-ons with their female partners, just as you don’t seem to think holding a dildo means there’s something wrong with (or inadequate about) your hands. If covering your vulva with a strap-on makes you feel negated or undesirable, there are dildo harnesses that strap on to your thigh, not your crotch, and could provide your husband with body-to-body closeness during penetration while still leaving your vulva and clit accessible for digital stimulation.

On the Lovecast, are people actually using dental dams? (Spoiler: No): savagelovecast.com.

mail@savagelove.net t@fakedansavage

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