Back Porch Princess
Danielle Howle and the Tantrums’ latest album, Skorborealis, would seem to be a work of imposing cosmic ruminations, judging from the title alone. Upon closer inspection, the celestial yin/yang cover art actually depicts a mirror-image dog with a goofy expression, and the disc itself is loaded with rollicking Southern gothic tales. “We can’t ever think…
Dish
Dish It Out Eatery offers warm, neighborhood feel and good food, too BY TRICIA CHILDRESS Dish is a disarmingly unpretentious kind of joint you immediately warm to as though it were your mama’s or grandma’s kitchen. The menu is one you can afford with food you grew up on. Best of all, if you are…
Breaking The Chains
Guitarist Jerry Cantrell has spent most of this year doing the one thing he couldn’t always do with his former band Alice in Chains — he’s touring. Since March, Cantrell has been out on the road with a new band touring with acts like Nickelback and Creed, and now he’s in the midst of a…
Thai Grill
Thai That Binds Bangkok cuisine in Cornelius BY TRICIA CHILDRESS You don’t have to twist my arm very hard for me to visit a Thai restaurant. Recently, I even went through the most dangerous and deadly part of town, the construction zone on I-77 north, to reach the Thai Grill, located on Main Street in…
All That Jazz
Bill Frisell The Willies Nonesuch Each new release by Frisell transcends expectations, frequently in mysterious and engaging ways that make the label “jazz guitarist” tough to attach to this fretboard genius. On The Willies Frisell fronts a trio with Danny Barnes on banjo and bassist Keith Lowe, and the disc dances between bluegrass/folk influences and…
Music Menu
WEDNESDAY 11.6 Yohimbe Brothers — After several years in apparent seclusion, guitarist Vernon Reid is finally going public again. His rock band Living Colour is preparing a new CD and tour, and he’s been working a lot lately with old friend DJ Logic. He toured with Logic’s band Project Logic earlier this year, and now…
Sound Board
Wednesday, Nov. 6 Bankers Raw Bar 24-Jam-22 Cajun Queen 7th Street Gator Band Charleston Chops, Cornelius Kent Steel Double Door Inn Jump Jenkins The Evening Muse Dulcie Taylor, Brian Doyle & John McKay Fat City WCRO Down: Heywire & What The Funk Founders Hall Beth Chorneau (11:30am) JB’Z The Sweaty Head Band Lynn’s Jenny Farmer…
See & Do
NOVEMBER 6-WEDNESDAY Struggling actors frequently survive by working “temporarily” in the restaurant biz. Well, the hero of Charlotte Rep’s Fully Committed has the dream temp job — that nightly transforms into an overbooked nightmare — handling reservations at a posh Upper East Side eatery. Here the super-rich and the showbiz bigwigs who shun him by…
Swing Time
It must be the webs in my head, but an eagerly awaited motion picture made its home debut last week, yet for the life of me, I can’t recall its title. Maybe it’ll come to me soon; in the meantime. . . Still one of this year’s best films, Y Tu Mama Tambien (1/2 out…
Strip and Tip
The strip club scene in Charlotte has always had a kind of mysterious aura. For those who’ve never been, whether you’re male or female, these places are actually quite festive. They play great music, have a hip atmosphere, and some even double as fine dining establishments. Where else can you get a full filet mignon…
Film Clips
NEW RELEASES CHARLOTTE FILM SOCIETY Movies begin this Friday at the Manor and continue the following Friday at Movies at Birkdale. Call 704-414-2355 for details. * THE BELIEVER The winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival (beating out, among others, Memento, In the Bedroom and Hedwig and the Angry Inch),…
Stargazer
For All Signs When you read your horoscope in the newspaper or in a magazine, do you ever wonder how “they” write those words of advice? Do you question whether someone with a creative mind simply invents 12 scenarios for each day, week or month? Genuine astrological writers are actually interpreting the current map of…
Sniper School
Tom Fitzpatrick, a burly, tattooed ex-Marine who still wears his hair “high and tight,” had long regretted not qualifying for the Corps’ elite sniper unit. The program, which trains soldiers to fire a bullet into an enemy’s brain from more than a mile away, discriminates against smokers like Fitzpatrick. Instead, the military taught him to…
Karm Cleanser
Dear Karma Cleanser:I met this girl on a chat line. We talked for several months … without seeing each other. There was always some problem on her side. I should have seen the signs that this was wrong, right? Of course not, I’m an idiot. I let this ride until my birthday. She stood me…
The Breast Cancer Money-Go-Round
They’re good girls and boys. Racing for the cure. Crying for the cameras. Sharing their pain. Wearing that crown of thorns like a halo. Nice folks. And aren’t they “better people” for just having “survived” breast cancer? Or. . .are they being played for suckers? Taken in by a clever marketing strategy that makes heroes…
High C Errors
Backstage misadventures have been a perennial source of comedy and farce — probably dating back to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Ken Ludwig’s Lend Me a Tenor takes us backstage in the world of opera, and once we arrive, it’s natural for us to wonder why so few farces journey there. The pretension of opera…
Goal In Sight
When Neil Roberts was an assistant coach to UNC Chapel-Hill’s Anson Dorrance, it was like taking a course in psychology — learning the right approach to produce a winning women’s soccer team. Roberts obviously was a good student. His team is favored to win the Conference USA tournament that runs November 6-9 at Transamerica Field.…
The Heroic Clerk
In 1971 Daniel Ellsberg, a highly respected, veteran Cold Warrior who conducted classified defense research for the Defense and State Departments, engineered the unauthorized release of over 7,000 pages of classified documents on the history of American involvement in Vietnam. These historic documents came to be known as “The Pentagon Papers.” The ensuing controversy generated…
Letters To The Editor
Jones Clones Tara Servatius, thanks for bringing to light the failure of the Judicial Standards Commission which has made the unbelievable a reality: Judge Bill Jones’ return to the bench! (“Along Came Jones,” October 2) Folks who’ve been following this saga from early spring 2001 when the SBI became involved and conducted their investigation into…
The Revolution Will Be Advertised
Feeling Groovy: Rock and Roll Graphics 1966-1970 is a show of a hundred posters and handbills from America’s favorite cultural revolution, now on exhibit in the Main Library’s Gallery L. Warning: exposure to this work may cause flashbacks, debilitating nostalgia or black-hearted, eye-rolling cynicism. Different strokes for different folks. These posters, the first popular commercial…
Castro and Heads On Sticks
Halloween’s not one of my favorite holidays. It’s doesn’t have food and football going for it, like Thanksgiving, nor does it have the promise of a bounty of presents, like Christmas. Fireworks? Nope. Grilling out under the stars? Nada. Halloween has two things going for it: candy and costumes. The first I’m not fond of,…
Arts Agenda
* indicates critics’ picks. Classical Music Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Featuring Josh Bell, violin. Bell performs with England’s Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, the world’s most recorded chamber orchestra. Belk Theater. Tue., Nov. 19, 8 p.m. $25-$75. Blumenthal Performing Arts Center, 130 N. Tryon St. 704-348-5800. Brentano String Quartet The…
Bang Bang
The chap in front of me carried three semi-automatic rifles to the airport check-in. Three. I find it bizarre that a human being would want even one of these killing machines, let alone three. They were obviously well used, with scarred and scratched stocks and well-oiled mechanisms. With a bored gesture, the airline clerk asked…
Dish It Out
Dish is a disarmingly unpretentious kind of joint you immediately warm to as though it were your mama’s or grandma’s kitchen. The menu is one you can afford with food you grew up on. Best of all, if you are lucky enough to live in this neighborhood, Dish is a place you can walk to,…
Fear Not, Granny
Moses may have talked the pharaoh into letting the Israelites go, but he’d never have gotten anywhere with the AARP. The American Association for Retired People has big plans for Generation X, and they have no intention of letting us wander off into the desert. The reality is that while 20 and 30-somethings may have…
Desperately Seeking Wine Knowledge
In cyberspace, anything goes. If you search long and hard enough, you can find or buy pretty much anything ranging from a cadaver on eBay to a hammer on walmart.com. There’s also a whole helluva lot of useless info on wine. But since there’s no SAT test or wine certification required to put up a…
The Blotter
Sunk by the Sink: Last week a local inn found itself immersed in a watery mess. One of its irresponsible guests checked out of the inn and, either by mistake or out of malice, left the water running in the sink of the vacated room. It is unclear as to how long the water was…
Good Eats
All Around Town Anntony’s Caribbean, 400 S. Tryon St., 704-339-0303; 2001 E. 7th St., 704-342-0749. All locations have different owners. A hint of the tropics; rotisserie chicken with Jamaican jerk sauce, ribs, Paradise Island fish special, curries, and Caribbean styled greens. $$ Azteca, 116 Woodlawn Rd., 704-525-5110; 9709 Independence Blvd., 704-814-9877; 1863 W. Franklin Blvd.…
News of the Weird
Holy holey: The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission concluded in May that Costco Wholesale Corp.’s firing of Kimberly M. Cloutier for refusing to stop wearing an eyebrow ring at work constituted religious discrimination in that Cloutier is a member of the Oregon-based Church of Body Modification. The church says piercings and tattoos “are essential to…
