Get Out of Jail “Free”
Isn’t this a hoot? The Observer reported that ex-House speaker and convicted felon Jim Black wants to serve his sentence giving eye exams to the poor!!?! Some might say it takes an exceptional amount of arrogance, not to mention desperation, to suggest that Black’s debt to the voters of this state could be best repaid…
Belmont and City Council
Cartoon by Jim Hunt
Another Concert Announcement …
People say that a lot of bands sound like Nickelback, but this band REALLY does: Nickelback. That’s right, Nickelback is headed to Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre along with Finger Eleven and Puddle of Mudd. The show will be on Aug. 25. Tickets go on sale on July 14 at 10 a.m.
Alvin!!!
I have such fond memories of Alvin and the Chipmunks while growing up. I mean, who doesn’t love that holiday song where he “just wants a hula hoop”? When I heard that Hollywood was planning a live-action film about the trio, I had a lot of hesitation. The first thing going through my head was,…
Dixie’s Tavern, June 23, 2007
The Deal: Gym Class Heroes was out capitalizing on its nearly overnight success, while Brooke Hogan tries to hold on to her last bit of stardom. The Good: Opening cover band Charity Case got the entire crowd into the show before the big names came out by covering hit songs from Kid Rock, Guns N’…
The Great Scape
Kitchen Witch
Oddly Charming
“Love and Marriage, Love and Marriage, Go together like a horse and carriage.” Peg and Al Bundy were America’s favorite dysfunctional couple, but even they ain’t got nothing on Oscar and Felix. Neil Simon’s divorced duo famously brought to the stage, screen, animation, and TV, is ushered into Pease Auditorium for an intimate look at…
El Cartel: The Big Boss
Interscope; Release date: June 5, 2007
High and lonesome
Two Aussies and a Brit walk into a baseball stadium and start playing bluegrass. It’s no joke. Willie and Bob took the trio seriously enough to carry them around the country opening for them on their small (baseball) stadium tour a couple of summers ago. But The Greencards, Brit fiddler Eamon McLoughlin, and down under…
Playing the Dozens
Bounce music. Y’all. That’s extra-large and bouncy funk for the layperson. N.C.’s Yo Mama’s Big Fat Booty Band’s multi-hued funk can get even the most lethargic bystanders to shake their, well, you know what. The band will perform at the Center City Alive After 5 Concert series today beginning at 5:30 p.m. It’ll be a…
Karma cleanser
Dear Karma Cleanser: I consider myself to be a very safe driver. I always try to obey the rules of the road, and it really ticks me off when I see someone driving like a maniac, which is easy to spot in a city like ours. Anyway, I have this habit of wishing ill will…
New news is good news
The Daily News ends five years of silence for Donnie Johnson, one of the most talented artists to emerge from the international underground soul music scene. His 2002 Motown debut, The Colored Section, summarized years of understudy amid Atlanta’s soul conclaves, in particular the near-legendary Yin Yang Café (which also birthed artists like India.Arie). He…
Listen and Learn
Want to hear great music and “get your learn on” in the meantime? The Neighborhood Theatre and Charlotte Friends of Live Earth will be holding a free event in coordination with the Live Earth music event. The event aims to raise awareness about global warming by having 24 hours of music across seven continents including…
Letter to the Editor
Empty Echoes Amen! I especially appreciate you pointing out WBT’s echo chamber (very funny) giving the impression of more anti-transit sentiment than really exists (Boomer With Attitude: “Transit Tax Smackdown” by John Grooms, June 27). I too hope the light rail work continues, without the inexcusable cost overuns. Unless the “burban warriors” want to live…
Music plumps up Penguin for pig pickin’
The Penguin Drive-In has been serving up great food all day and all night in Charlotte for more than 50 years. This year, they celebrate their 7th Annual Pig Pickin’ Day on Saturday, July 7. The family event takes on the life of a big block party as people from the surrounding neighborhood get together…
Sweet Thangs
Yes, yes, I like my G-chords dripping with a vanilla-chocolate swirl of summertime fun. Give me ice cream and a jam session with some old-time acoustics and Heaven is no longer a myth. Stocked with children’s toys and games, free museum admission, plus the aforementioned delectible frozen treats and classic chords, the Charlotte Folk Society…
Things to do in Charlotte for $5 or less
LEARN TO MEDITATE Take it from loyal practitioners of meditation: There’s nothing like it to take the stress of your workday off your shoulders. That’s why the Pain & Rehab Institute is offering a free class in the breathing techniques and imagery used in ancient qi gong meditation (betcha didn’t know there was more than…
CL Previews Upcoming Shows
WEDNESDAY 7.4 RED LIMO Red Limo cranks out psych-rock in the garage, taking pages out of the T. Rex, Ramones and Cheap Trick textbooks, and then tosses it all out onto the Brooklyn streets. It’s more like listening to a cheap boom box in the subway at full volume, than cranking the jukebox in a…
A Financial Facelift Awaits You!
Raise your hands if you’re living paycheck to paycheck. Consider my hand firmly raised. If you’re anything like me, then you, too, could use some lessons in money flow (flowing in, because let’s face it, we all know how to make it disappear, right?) Does your financial life need an extreme makeover? Financial Peace University…
Say yes to NODA nightlife
Last weekend, my uptown girls opted to venture a few blocks out of Uptown to NoDa, Charlotte’s established, yet continually budding, Historic Arts District. But turns out, it’s also a party district with a budding nightlife. We made our own little NoDa bar crawl, starting with dinner at Solstice Tavern. The place was packed with…
A Shootout Summer
Here’s something to do this summer the kids will love. Kids: imagine, if you will, watching a school bus, that big yellow monstrosity that takes you to the worst place on earth, hurtling towards another one on a one-way collision course. Sounds good, huh? The rundown: 10 races over nine weeks (June 16-Aug. 8) with…
Calling all Charlotte media types … again
If you’re a member of the local media workforce — and that includes newspapers, magazines, TV stations, radio stations, public relations firms, Web sites, freelancers and more — you need to check out Mixed Media. What is Mixed Media? It’s Creative Loafing’s official media mixer. And honestly, we just want to give folks in the…
Carrying the Jazz torch
Beth Chorneau has called Charlotte home for nearly three decades, and made a living here doing something few others succeed at anywhere: singing jazz. It helps that she’s quite good at it. The former California native moved here in the ’80s, and soon after found she was able to indulge her jazz passion and get…
On and Poppin’
Charlotte nightlife sucks? Well, yeah … sometimes it does. To remedy that, the folks at Creative Loafing and The Sol Kitchen present: Pop Life. What the hell is Pop Life? It’s a weekly, multimedia nightlife event featuring art, fashion, live performances and a host of DJs playing the most eclectic blend of music in the…
Word of the Week
Suigeneris: adj. Being unique of its kind. Example: Creative Loafing is a suigeneris newspaper because of our use of fucking profanity.
Stargazer
For All Signs: Mercury, planet of communication and travel, turns direct on the 9th. Projects and decisions which have been delayed or set aside can now be resolved, and the routine business world will resume its usual hectic pace. Hopefully, the past three-and-a-half-week period of the retrograde will have done its job, that of encouraging…
Blaze Of Story
Greetings From Israel 38Arts Agenda 41Savage Love 44
Darnell Brown’s Top Five
Culture Surfing
Conscious Shopping in the Crown Town
Mark Englander heats his home with corn. His hot showers come courtesy of solar power. His toilet flushes — like the whoosh of an airplane lavatory — with less water than the standard low-flow commode. When he drives, he leaves in his wake not the stench of exhaust but the aroma of food, via his…
The Blotter
READY FOR THE BIG LEAGUES: A man was struck in the face several times while playing ball. He told police a guy got mad at him because he kept taking the ball. So the guy knocked him down, got on top of him and punched him in the face several times. He wound up with…
Postcard from Jerusalem
Travel
A History of Layoffs
North Carolina, unfortunately, has a rich history … in outsourcing. With Phillip Morris recently announcing plans to close its Concord plant, the feeling is all too familiar; our state is known for waving “bon voyage” to our original cash crops as companies move production overseas. Furniture, textiles, tobacco — our livelihood for generations — where…
Big Things
Moodswing
Dennis Darrell
Profile
A secret undercover paper mission
Breaking the Sound Barrier
Kids’ Disappearing Right to Roam
Citizen Servatius
Five for the Fourth
Forget illegal immigration or the war on terror or any other faddish domestic crisis that regularly tops the polls: It’s long been clear that health care ranks as the number one problem in America, and only a complete moron — or a well-to-do Republican — would believe that there’s nothing wrong with our current system.…
The Press and John Edwards
Boomer With Attitude
Film clips
Current Releases EVAN ALMIGHTY My parents may have been the ones to plunk down the dough to purchase the classic comedy album Bill Cosby Is a Very Funny Fellow… Right!, but as a child, I think I was the one most responsible for wearing out the vinyl via repeat listens to the famous “Noah” skits…
‘Fer el Vermut’
Kitchen Witch 52Corkscrew 54Good Eats 57
The Jesus Lizard
MVD Visual; Release date: June 5, 2007
Booze news
Corkscrew
Back for more
Hit & Run Reviews 74Music Menu / Soundboard 77On MySpace: myspace.com/clcharlottemusic
