The Matrimonials Rage into Canton June 22 “Usually our songs are about drinking, having a good time, prostitutes, our current celebrity obsession and occasionally Matt decides he has feelings and writes something gay.” I first met The Matrimonials when my band was finishing up a particularly brutal 30-day tour. We pulled into Baltimore on day 28, completely beat and in dire need of a night off from partying. We didn’t get it. Not even slightly. From the first chords of a glorious 45-minute set we connected with these drunken clowns like long-lost brothers. Since then, we regu...
Listen, I don’t have a lot of time Mac! I need you to take this review and get out of here! Keep it safe! This week I’m taking Christian Moerlein’s OTR Ale to “Sleep With the Fishes,” if you catch my meaning. That’s right, I’m going to drink it. The perp opens with a very grainy aroma with strong citrus notes. The beer pours a very tangerine orange and has a thick, sudsy white head. The head, brief, is followed up by some slight lacing but continuous carbonation. The beer itself is very mild on the front, tasting slightly fruity with a touch of caramel. The hop ...
Over the past few years, we’ve written quite a few features and interviews about the amazing artists, galleries and venues in Northeast Ohio. And while the articles have (hopefully) offered insightful views into the sometimes peculiar, always entertaining minds and methods of these hardworking individuals, we felt as though it might be about time that we started pulling our own weight a bit. Beginning, well, now, we’re going to be doing some down-and-dirty, roll-up-your-sleeves-and-slap-on-a-smock interviews where — you guessed it — we work alongside local artists while they g...
“Everybody has their own style in this band and when it came together it made its own sound.” —Aaron Novak The thing with punk rock is that many bands attempt to pull off something original but instead sound like a carbon copy of what we’ve heard before. The success of the DIY scene in recent years has been a breath of fresh air — and a melting pot for some truly great acts. Worship This! have only been together for six months, but already sounds like they’ve been around far longer. Comprised of Aaron Novak (vocals, guitar), Jeremy Provchy (vocals, guitar), Josh Taylor (bass, s...
Alright filmmakers out there, do you have that killer short film you have been dying for a large crowd to see? Wanna chance to screen it in Canton’s landmark theater house? The Canton Palace Theatre will host the Canton Film Festival 2011 in downtown Canton on October 13th, 14th, and 15th. During this three-day Film Forward event, the public will get the chance to see short films of independent directors from across the country. Film Forward is a chance for up-and-coming filmmakers to showcase their work. After the entries of each category are screened, there will be an awards cer...
Comprised of Brian Lake on vocals and guitar, Sayer Payne on bass and Travis Kuhlman rounding out on drums, Buildings is a forced to be reckoned with. With influences ranging from the likes of The Melvins, Unwound, Fugazi and Jesus Lizard, Buildings have constructed a unique sound all its own. Buzzbin Magazine caught up with singer Brian Lake as the Minneapolis natives prepared to head out on the road with a planned stop at Akron’s Annabell’s this Thursday. How did the formation of Buildings first come about? Travis (the drummer) and I met at a These Arms Are Snakes show. He looked me up...
Sure, you love Twitter, but sometimes coming up with 140 characters all by your little self can be taxing. (Actually, maybe just coming up with a thought is the taxing part.) Anyway, we have the solution for you at yes.thatcan.be/my/next/tweet, a site that uses phrases and words from your past tweets to generate entirely new ones. It can either be hilariously nonsensical or eerily appropriate — and be warned, it’s addicting. (A remixed @buzzbin tweet: “Check out TODAY!”) The endless hipster quandary: You love music, but you hate paying for it. You want to support the artists, but yo...
Need a little opera in your life? Fear not, the Brecksville Theatre on the Square has just the answer. Producer Don Albainy and stage director Matty Sayre are bringing opera back to the Greater Cleveland area with The Telephone and Edison Invents - two one-act operas that will be presented at the Brecksville Theatre on the Square on Friday, May 20 and Saturday, May 21, at 7:30 PM. Located on the corner of Routes 21 and 82, Brecksville Theatre on the Square was founded in 1975 by Jeannette Winter and is a theatre for all ages, located in Brecksville’s historic Old Town Hall. The ...
Three years ago, Canton law director Joe Martuccio was sitting in the Akron Canton Airport waiting for his wife. To pass the time, he was reading the script of “Twelve Angry Men,” and considering the possibility of staging the play with a cast of local attorneys to celebrate Law Week in early May. Then Ed Begley, Jr. walked by. Begley, the “St. Elsewhere” actor and environmentalist, who was passing through town. Begley, whose father, Ed Begley, Sr., played Juror 10 in the famous 1957 film version of “Twelve Angry Men.” “I thought, ‘Well, this is a sign,’” laughed Mart...
Ever watch those crazy Comedy Central Roasts of washed up stars and end up on the floor from laughing so much? Most of the time you are not laughing your ass off at the stand up routines by the big name people but instead those no-buddys that you can never remember the name of by show’s end. Quite possibly one of the funniest of those ‘no name’ comedians is Jeffrey Ross, who is making a welcoming stop at Cleveland’s own Hilarities this weekend. Ross's hilarious performances at such roasts as Joan Rivers, Hugh Hefner, Pamela Anderson, Donald Trump, Jerry Stiller, Drew Carey, Shaquill...
Headed by Bonnie Manello, director of the Canton Jewish Community Center, the second annual Jewish Film Festival is about to get underway at Canton’s landmark Palace Theatre later this month. Dale Sklar, a member of the Canton Palace Theatre Art Film Committee and a fellow organizer of the event, sat down to tell us a little bit about the festival. While most festivals house between 50 to 100 films, the Canton Jewish Film Festival excels on a much smaller scale. “Since we’re a small festival, it’s important to have a good mix of films. We want a balance of drama, comedy and histo...
A writer takes his metaphors and similes to an unknown painted world — and, after hours of work, he has captured the story behind the canvas. It’s now 6 p.m. on May 6 at Anderson Creative, and the writer waits with baited breath for the artist — who’s similarly anxious — to read his interpretation. With an awkward shuffle of greeting, they discuss the blind date that has led them to this interlude. Craig Joseph, curator of Anderson Creative, brings together the nervous tension and eager anticipation felt between two paired creative minds in this month’s Blind Date: The Romanc...
How do you make a Victor Hugo penned 1862 masterpiece turned international musical box-office classic more Victor Hugo like? How about using re-imagined scenery based on Hugo’s own paintings with the some modern projection for starters. That is only one of several reasons the 25th anniversary Cameron MacKintosh production of Les Misérables performed at the Playhouse Square’s Palace as a part of the Key Bank Broadway Series is simply brilliant. Even in the five years since it last was staged at The Allen Theatre, the play has seemingly gotten younger with updates. As much as the reno...
What would you do for a beer? Help a buddy move? Send your eight-year-old to the corner convenience store? Buy admission to an industrial park in Munster, Indiana? For those willing to do the last — and there are thousands — there’s Dark Lord Day, a festival celebrating the release of Munster-based brewery Three Floyds’s acclaimed Dark Lord Russian imperial stout. Now in its third year, Dark Lord Day began as a way to dispense the wildly in-demand brew: Would-be drinkers purchased “golden” tickets that permitted them a number of bottles. Those lucky few attended the fes...
The Canton Museum of Art will present the second, annual Canton National Art Show, with a preview event scheduled for April 29 and the art show on April 30 and May 1, 2011. The Canton National is a juried fine art show and sale which features 72 professional artists from across the United States. A photo gallery of exhibiting artists can be found at www.CantonNational.com. The Canton National is unique for the quality and variety of artists, as well as the elegant ambiance of the indoor setting in the Cultural Center for the Arts in downtown Canton. Show director, Ron Beahn, bala...
Little Fish Records announced that Carlos Jones and members of his P.L.U.S. Band (aka The Peace, Love, Unity Syndicate) are heading off to Washington D.C. where they will team up with Norman Jones (Carlos’ brother) and his Rhythm Child band to perform at the 133rd Annual Easter Egg Roll at The White House, on Monday, April 25th. This year’s theme is “Get Up and Go!”, which focuses on promoting health and wellness, while encouraging children to lead healthy and active lives. This is a central part of the First Lady’s Let’s Move! Initiative, which is a national effort to ...
Some of my fondest memories of actor Steve Martin aren’t moments when he’s acting at all. Don’t get me wrong: I love watching him gyrate around like a “wild and crazy guy”, and I get sucked into TBS every time “Father of the Bride” comes on Sunday afternoons, which is pretty much a weekly occurrence. But, though he’s a prolific and varied actor, Martin’s most endearing work of late for me is his work on the page — and, on occasion, from the page to stage. This month, the Beck Center for the Arts (17801 Detroit Ave., Lakewood) will be the latest theatre to present “T...
“Certified Copy” is no copy at all. Everything about it is real. Recent films such as the fantastic “Blue Valentine” and the exceptional “The Freebie” have captured painstaking romances in decline in such pristine detail that viewers are left in awe by film’s end. “Certified Copy” encompasses more of the same, but in an entirely different fashion. To say the film is one of the best in recent years to take a snapshot of a relationship in flux would be a near-perfect description, but it all comes down to how one conceives its structure. Like a painting, “Certified Copy” can...
The Akron Aeros recently rolled out their new concessions lineup for 2011. To put it mildly, they are geared towards the more, let’s say, advanced, more invested hot dog consumer. The 3 Dog Night is a hot dog stuffed with a bratwurst stuffed with a kielbasa. The Nice 2 Meat You is two pounds of hamburger, hotdog, and bacon, and then whatever the cheese and onions weigh on top of that (I can’t help but wonder if the onions can conscionably be referred to as a vegetable in this context). The WonderDog is a 14 inch, half pound hot dog with your choice of 40 different toppings ranging...
Akron rapper Burudi’s newest release “Based on a True Story” is half sweaty, lusty pseudo-urbano club songs and half pissed off, cocked-and-loaded midwestern gangster rap.The first three songs on the album are the aforementioned club songs. They aren’t very catchy and they’re pretty forgettable, using tantalizingly sexy female vocals between Burudi spouting flirtatious lyrics in possibly the most apathetic, out-of-breath tone used in a dance song about loving women. “Passport”, however, is different. It has an awesome hard NRG beat behind it, glitchy vocal effects and Right...
