Sep 14-20, 2010

Sep 14-20, 2010 / Vol. 24 / No. 29

Lady Gaga goes all out on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell

Lady Gaga came to Charlotte Saturday and wowed a sold-out Time Warner Arena. At one point in the show, she continued her high-visibility campaign to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, asking audience members to call a U.S. Senate phone number, which was shown on the huge screens next to the stage. Yes, she did. I…

John Grooms

More Homebrew release party details

The release party for Jeff Hahne’s Homebrew Vol. 4 will be held at the Neighborhood Theatre on Oct. 15 at 8 p.m. Here’s the schedule: 8 p.m. – Bubonik Funk 8:30 p.m. – Electric Coma 9 p.m. – Mike Strauss Band 9:30 p.m. – Matrimony 10 p.m. – Isaac Spiveys 10:30 p.m. – Wiggle Wagons…

Jeff Hahne

Live setlist: Black Crowes

Black Crowes Road Runner Mobile Amphitheatre Sept. 18, 2010 Setlist Acoustic Set Remedy Soul Singing Hotel Illness Downtown Money Waster Good Friday Do Right Woman, Do Right Man (Aretha Franklin cover) How Much For Your Wings? Bring On, Bring On Roll Old Jeremiah Welcome to the Goodtimes Thorn In My Pride She Talks to Angels…

Jeff Hahne

CMS goes all police-state on us

O boy, yet another great idea for turning our public schools into repressive hellholes. Drug dogs are on the way to Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools – isn’t it exciting? And it’s about time, too, because, according to CMS, a whopping 4 one-thousandths of all CMS students were involved in a “drug incident” last year! Four one-thousandths!…

John Grooms

Tonight’s Top 5, 09/17/10

The top five nightlife-related events going down tonight, Sept. 17, as chosen from the folks at Creative Loafing. • Strike City Olympics • Free Fridays at Bentley’s RSVP • 1/2 way to St. Patty’s Day party at Whisky River • ELimeINation Foosball Tournament Tour at Town Tavern • Open bar at Tilt

Kimberly Lawson

Accused murderer in N.C. 7th finally scrapes bottom of GOP barrel

Once upon a time, we thought the Republican Party couldn’t possibly put up a worse candidate for public office than George W. Bush. Then we heard about Rick Santorum, so he became the “worst possible.” Then Patrick McHenry and Virginia Foxx joined North Carolina’s “already the worst” member of Congress, Sue Myrick, in the right-wing…

John Grooms

Livin’ la Vida loca: A look at Uptown’s newest spot

Vida Mexican Kitchen y Cantina opens at the EpiCentre Uptown on September 30. The restaurant, which will be Uptown’s only Mexican joint (besides Salsarita’s), serves up “authentic Mexican cuisine and handcrafted margaritas.” Vida’s bar is stocked with over 50 tequilas and they offer a “Skinny Margarita” which only weighs in at 100 calories. Guacamole gets…

Priscilla Tsai

Harry Jones’ problems keep piling up

On the heels of yet another report detailing yet more lax management and poor oversight by the county, additional damning information has now come out about Harry Jones’ reign as county manager. Today’s Observer reveals a series of e-mails that offer a distressing peek inside county management, this time related to Jones’ dealings with a…

John Grooms

Upcoming: Lights! Camera! Action!

LIGHTS! CAMERA! FASHION!” is a Junior League Charlotte fundraiser, sponsored by Belk, which will premiere this weekend. Turn this lazy Sunday into a fashionable day filled with clothes, prizes, diamonds, champagne and more. Check out the hottest fall fashions from Belk in the runway fashion show as well as multiple other storewide fashion events for…

Lauren Blake

Yoko Ono “sings” at the Museum of Modern Art

Much like a giant canvas that’s painted a single shade of blue and labeled as “untitled,” I might need someone to explain to me the artistic talent that it takes to create the following “song” by Yoko Ono. Howard Stern likened it to a “3-year-old having a tantrum.” I’d say it’s more like “hey, listen…

Jeff Hahne

Smashing Pumpkins release “Spangled”

Smashing Pumpkins have released the sixth song from its Teargarden by Kaleidyscope project. “Spangled,” clocking in at two-and-a-half minutes, is more of a ballad with an organ backdrop and softer vocals from Billy Corgan. You can download it along with the other five tracks at the band’s Web site.

Jeff Hahne

Poor nuclear evacuation plans offset KI pills’ benefits

A lot of good it’ll do them. A brief announcement, a barely audible one amid the overall media din, was made yesterday, regarding an issue that deserves a certain degree of screaming.  Health departments in five counties, including Mecklenburg, will hand out potassium iodide (aka KI) to folks living within 10 miles of our area’s…

John Grooms

MUSIC: Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers

Arguably Tom Petty has to stretch his vocals a bit now, unlike in younger days when his wail could rise above the guitars. But that’s a minor complaint for someone who has written countless no frills American rock anthems and ballads over the past 30 plus years. The gents are on the road for the…

Samir Shukla

Nightlife profile: Gabe

  Growing up in the turbulent 1970s with a family that loved music helped motivate one particular Dilworth native to be a lifelong music fan. Gabe, a 12-year veteran inside Tremont Music Hall’s cinder-block walls, has seen it all and done it all, from working the door and security to bartending and managing the classic…

Chris Triplett

FILM: The 5th Annual Charlotte Film Festival

The 5th Annual Charlotte Film Festival will light up Queen City screens for a seven-day run beginning Monday. The event kicks off at the Park Terrace Cinema with a pair of Opening Night pictures: Soundtrack for a Revolution (6:30 p.m.), a documentary about the music that permeated the Civil Rights Movement, and Night Catches Us…

Matt Brunson

Bess Rogers teeters between solo career, handful of bands

There are those people who have a solo career and spend all of their time and energy trying to grow it into something that’s self-sustaining and, in some ways, a machine. There are others who aren’t content with simply one project and try to get involved in as many different things as possible. You can…

Jeff Hahne

COMEDY: Mitch Fatel

Mitch Fatel may have the power to make folks laugh, but that by no means makes him a wizard. This New York comedians only magic seems to spring from a combination of his boy-like wonder and a perverted obsession over sex and women’s breasts. Disturbing, right? His most recent Comedy Central DVD, titled Live, Extended…

Anita Overcash

Exhibit: School of Paris

It’s not every day you’re able to gaze your eyes on artwork (like Gustave Singier’s “Provence Soleil Mer Froide,” pictured) created in Europe during the late 1940s through the early 1960s. Bechtler’s exhibition School of Paris: European Abstraction Post World War II takes its viewers on a journey, with more than 60 works that emerged…

Anita Overcash

THEATER: Annie

Theatre Charlotte makes room for orphans — well, one in particular — during Annie performances. Based off of author Thomas Meehan’s famed book, this popular musical tells the story a runaway redhead named Annie, who escapes an NYC orphanage and heads out on an adventure to find her biological parents. Sept. 22-24, 7:30 p.m.; Sept.…

Anita Overcash

A syllabus to get you through nightlife

  While those in the workforce celebrated Labor Day by not laboring, the kids all went back to school. And while college is synonymous with partying, those in the workforce are on a graduate level of nightlife — they don’t have to allocate their liquor money to buying books. I went to Virginia Tech for…

Book Review: Carl Hiaasen’s Star Island

Many fans of Carl Hiaasen’s satirical novels have worried that he’s lost his mojo. Recent books have seemed strained, even formulaic, and simply not as funny as earlier novels. I’m happy to be here to tell you that the man has regained his mojo in a big way, and in Star Island, his prodigious talents…

Starcrash,The Square among new DVD releases

PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME (2010). To say that this isn’t as bad as other films adapted from video games is a bit like saying that day-old roadkill doesn’t smell as bad as week-old roadkill: It isn’t praise so much as it’s looking for the silver lining in an otherwise unfortunate situation. Certainly,…

Matt Brunson

Comic review: iZombie No. 5

The Deal: It’s the latest issue of Vertigo’s quirky horror/humor series, iZombie. (That said, I’ve noticed that I read and/or review a lot of horror/humor comic books these days. I never noticed how much product is out there until now. Interesting.) The comic chronicles the adventures of a female zombie who must eat a human…

Carlton Hargro

Machete cuts to the chase

It’s an intriguing grudge match: The taciturn star of Machete vs. the motley crew of The Expendables. Even with the odds against him, I’d put my money on the dude who speaks softly and carries a big slice-and-dice stick. More fun than a barrel of Sylvester Stallone DVDs, Machete is gleeful trash that delivers on…

Matt Brunson

Theater review: Theatre Charlotte’s Annie

“The sun will come out tomorrow” has never been stop-the-presses news, but sung by a plucky little orphan girl, the cliché has been melting the hearts of theatergoers ever since Annie hit Broadway in 1977. For generations of pre-teen girls, the first bite of the theater bug was prepping to audition for the title role,…

Perry Tannenbaum

Interest flags in The American

The title of George Clooney’s latest would suggest that here’s a film reminiscent of Mom and apple pie. In truth, the picture has more in common with Padre and panna cotta. Deliberately paced and artfully rendered, The American frequently feels like an Antonioni knockoff whose prints ended up at the nation’s multiplexes instead of its…

Matt Brunson

Exhibit: Faculty Exhibition & Ewan Gibbs: America

Check out two worthwhile shows at Davidson College. A faculty exhibit consists of Cort Savage’s “Canons,” Nathaniel Rogers’ paintings based on Grimms’ fairy tales, and Rebekah Tolley’s “Carapace.” Ewan Gibbs: America features grisaille drawings of iconic skylines by a noted British artist. Free. Both through Oct. 6. Belk Visual Arts Center, 315 North Main St.,…

Barbara Schreiber

CL previews upcoming concerts (Sept. 15-21)

WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 15 THE INCREDIBLE SANDWICH The name sounds like an amazingly awesome lunch, but this jam band from Athens, Ga., hopes to feed your appetite for rock as they hit the stage in the Queen City. Subtle guitar riffs over a glowing keyboard put you in the mood for fun times in the Fall…

Cajun spot popular with Saints fans

A warm, two-bite, Cajun-styled fried boudin ball is a prerequisite for a place devoted to New Orleans Saints fans. The ones served at Creole’s Louisiana Kitchen are shipped in from Louisiana along with the spunky Andouille sausage. Creole’s, which opened last July, has the trappings of an extreme kings cake: purple, green and gold walls;…

Tricia Childress

Where to find it: High-end Fin Fish

A few years ago, a television producer from Manhattan called me to find out about the best fish markets on the wharf. I told her reports of the flooding here had been exaggerated, and that perhaps she meant that other CH Southern city, Charleston. Not being near the water or having a good fish market…

Tricia Childress

Bizarre crimes from Charlotte police files

Counterfeit Bombs: A 19-year-old employee at a local Walgreens called police after receiving a bomb threat over the telephone. She said that an unknown person called one afternoon and told her that there was a bomb in the register she was operating. The business was evacuated but no bomb or bomb material was located. Fair…

Ryan Pitkin

3 questions with Kizito Wademi, collard greens maker

Kizito Wademi is a man of many talents. A seasoned marketing and sales executive turned successful entrepreneur, he is also a Christian minister with a gift for cooking tasty and health-conscious collard greens. KW Collards is the trademark name for a vegetarian- and vegan-friendly collard green product that was created by Wademi in 2009, and…

Capsule reviews of films playing the week of Sept. 15

DESPICABLE ME When James Stewart offers to lasso the moon for Donna Reed in Frank Capra’s classic It’s a Wonderful Life, it’s purely a romantic gesture. When Gru (Steve Carell), the star of the 3-D opus Despicable Me, plots to shrink the moon to a size small enough so that he can make off with…

Matt Brunson

Esperanza Spalding talks music, fame and more

Not too long ago, it seemed like only serious music fans — and maybe the National Public Radio crowd — were familiar with bassist/vocalist Esperanza Spalding. Her early solo work — which fused jazz with pop, world music, soul and more on the albums Junjo and Esperanza — was gobbled up by aficionados across the…

Carlton Hargro

Are androids possible?

Do you personally think creating a perfectly humanlike robot is possible? If so, how many years might it take? — Debbie, Jakarta, Indonesia Anything is possible, Debbie. The question is whether it’s likely. My guess: no. Here’s why. What’s the point? We’ve already got a proven method of making self-propelled homunculi that realistically simulate a…

Cecil Adams

CD REVIEW: Jenny and Johnny’s I’m Having Fun Now

THE DEAL: Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis teams up with boyfriend/singer-songwriter Jonathan Rice for 11-song, 35-minute album. THE GOOD: Lewis and Rice offer these songs in the truest sense of the word duet ­— sharing vocal duties on all tracks and usually offering them in a playful back-and-forth style. Some are more ballad-based and others are…

Jeff Hahne

Weekly horoscope (Sept. 15-21)

Virgo The Virgin (Aug. 22-Sept. 22): Your mind and heart are clearly in sync at this time. You are likely at peace with yourself. There is a solid and practical solution at hand and you do not have to quarrel with yourself over it. Activities involving your children and/or other creative products of your being…

Vivian Carol

Book Review: Rich Bozett’s Sex, Drugs and Bon Jovi

THE DEAL: Former tour manager Rich Bozzett shares an inside look at the early years of Bon Jovi. THE GOOD: Bozzett starts at the beginning and shows how the band started out small and took things one day at a time on their way to selling millions of albums and rocking arenas around the world.…

Jeff Hahne

THEATER: Trainspotting

Junkies reign supreme in Citizens of the Universe’s latest theater stunt. The group will present performances of Trainspotting — Harry Gibson’s adaptation of the novel by Irvine Welsh. The storyline follows a fella by the name of Mark Renton (played by Berry Newkirk, who you may recognize from his recent leading role in Queen City…

Anita Overcash

Literary activist organizes “grassroots” Novello

When Mecklenburg County officials told the library system it had to gut its budget — practically at the last minute of the budget process, no less — that was bad enough. When the library responded by drastically slashing its branches’ hours, it got worse. But when the Novello Festival was put on hold, it was…

Profile: Luke Richards with Project Go

Luke Richards wants to save the world. And, at age 27, he’s taking steps do just that with the Charlotte-based Project Go Inc., a global relief organization he founded to help poor communities. With projects in places like the Ukraine and Brazil, Project Go (www.projectgoworld.com) is striving to change lives (and will soon be featured…

Cheris Hodges

SPECIAL EVENT: Sip & Stroll

Art, music and wine go together well, which is why the EpiCentre came up with Sip & Stroll. The two-day event will feature a set up of booths by artists who are both displaying and selling their works, live jazz (from Uniq’blend and Fifth & York) and more than 20 representatives of wine vineyards that…

Anita Overcash

America’s anti-Muslim debate skips the Q.C.

In my travels, when I tell people that I live in Charlotte, I receive mixed responses. Some people say, “Everybody’s trying to move to Charlotte.” Others say they could never live that far in the South because people are racist. Some people are even rude enough to suggest that people in the South are “dumb,”…

Nsenga Burton

MUSIC: The Black Crowes

Currently on their ‘Say Goodnight to the Bad Guys’ Tour, The Black Crowes make a stop in the Q.C. for a performance at Road Runner Mobile Amphitheatre tonight. Having released Croweology — a double album with acoustic versions of their popular songs — the band is also working a stripped down segment into their live…

Anita Overcash

Who’s already peeking in the drug database?

You thought it was between you, your doctor and your pharmacist. Now it turns out that when you get a prescription in North Carolina, it’s also between you and dozens of bureaucrats and law enforcement officers you don’t know. The next time a doctor writes you a prescription, sheriff’s deputies — or Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police officers…

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