Comic Review: Jeff Lemire’s Royal City

By E.A. Henson

Reading comics is just like consuming any other kind of media for me. You consume what you’re presented with on a weekly basis and there’s a certain baseline enjoyment you derive from it. Spider-Man duking it out with Doc Ock again? Cool. Batman solving a crime while being dark and brooding about it? Right on.

For comic book fans that’s pretty much it. I’m not saying that it’s boring or it’s really even that bad. I’m sure I’ve written before that comics are (for me and I’m sure others) escapism. That’s great, but it can also get stale pretty quickly.

When something truly good comes along it’s easy to notice but you also have to be paying attention. I know how easy it is to get your weekly pull from your LCS (Local Comic Shop), plow through your books, and finish them in time for Arrow to start on Wednesday night. I do it all the time and it’s super easy (is that a super hero pun? I can’t tell anymore).
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Music Review: Honeybeat: Groovy 60s Girl-Pop

By Melissa Bratcher

There is no better mood raiser than a girl-group compilation. This is a scientific fact (that perhaps I have just made up). Finding long-lost girl groups, hearing those sweet harmonies, losing yourself in that “falling in love feeling”: it’s the best kind of bliss. A new compilation from ChaChaCharming and Real Gone Music, Honeybeat: Groovy 60s Girl-Pop, is an instant happy maker, with groups that are unfamiliar, groups that really should have made it, and some names that are a delightful surprise.
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The Best Cult Movie You’ve Never Heard Of: “Thou Shalt Not Kill… Except”

By Jeffery X Martin

There are plenty of people who love bad movies, the ones where the budget is low and aspirations are high. The kind of films where the creators do whatever they can to tell their story. These are the movies that inspire rabid cult followings, titles like Troll II or Miami Connection.

With that in mind, it’s time to talk about Thou Shalt Not Kill… Except.
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Movie Review: Rites Of Vengeance

By Tim Murr

As a far-left liberal I have long since opposed the death penalty. I find it barbaric and rigged by class war. When it comes to child molesters and abusers, though, the only justice I find suitable is to publicly hang them and leave their bodies to be picked over by birds. Fuck you if you think I’m being hypocritical in my views. And fuck you if you disagree with me. These crimes against children are inexcusable, indefensible, and unforgivable. And it keeps happening!
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Music Review: Cait Brennan, Third

By Melissa Bratcher

Cait Brennan’s follow up to her critically acclaimed debut, Debutante, is a stunner. Where Debutante felt like the incredibly talented bastard daughter of Harry Nilsson and ELO, who fell asleep while listening to AM radio in the 1970s and made an album about it, Third lives and breathes where it was born: Ardent Studios in Memphis. Third is muscular and fierce, but it can break your heart with a word.
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Werewolves In Siberia Return With Two Perfect Releases

By Tim Murr

I’ve never met Chris Cavoretto in person, but I’m intimately familiar with his music. If the name doesn’t ring a bell with you, Chris is the man behind the synth-wave project Werewolves in Siberia. Every time I’m listening to his music, the image I have is of a man in a dark basement, surrounded by computers and synthesizers, getting all garage-Frankenstein.
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Podcast: TV or GTFO Episode 14, “Dinosaurs”

By Sachin Hingoo

On TV or GTFO, we try to keep things pretty light, and never expect that things will take as dark a turn as they do on this week’s episode. If we’re not mistaken, this is the first show we’ve covered in which a baby dies! Is it another gritty police drama? No, it’s Dinosaurs, a “high” (because you pretty much have to be) concept sitcom about a family of prehistoric lizards, by way of Archie Bunker. It was the final project from Muppeteer Jim Henson, before his death in 1990. What were you smoking at the end there, Jim Henson?

For a show that delves into such heady topics as steroid abuse and body dysmorphia, racism and xenophobia, masturbation, corporate crime, and of course, environmental destruction, it’s easy to forget that these are actors in giant rubber suits, being voiced by the likes of Jessica Walter and Sally Struthers. Regardless, none of the heaviness of those episodes is adequate preparation for the pitch-black non-humor of the show’s final scenes.

And let’s talk about the Baby, shall we? My goodness, this creature makes Steve Urkel look like Don Draper. If you don’t want to strangle him by the end of this episode, I’ll eat my hat. And at the time of the show’s peak, such as it was, this fucker was everywhere. You could barely walk through a mall in the early 1990s without hearing the incessant wail of “NOT THE MAMA!”

So strap in and up your dosage of antidepressants, because things are about to get rough for a family of prehistoric predators as TV or GTFO does Dinosaurs!

Don’t forget to like and subscribe to TV or GTFO in iTunes, on your favorite podcast app, or check out the episode right here!

Theatre Review: Torquil Campbell’s “True Crime”

By Sachin Hingoo

“I am not my art, and he is not me,” says Torquil Campbell. It ends up being the least truthful line in True Crime, a new one-man show by the Stars frontman. In the piece the musician tells of his uneasy obsession and growing relationship with the “he” in that statement, the very real con man and alleged murderer, Christian Gerhartsreiter. The work is fiercely honest, but perhaps it’s only honest about being a lie.

But if you want to see it, you’ll have to hurry: True Crime only runs until Saturday at the Streetcar Crowsnest Theatre in Toronto’s east end.
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Music Review: Chris Milam, Kids These Days

By Melissa Bratcher

While the centerpiece of Chris Milam’s Kids These Days is a trio of breakup songs, focusing on before, during, and after a breakup, there’s so much more going on here. Milam has questions that he would like answered, memories he’d like to share. He also has the heart of a philosopher. Kids These Days could easily fall under the catch=all of Americana, but it’s more than just that. It’s gritty guitars and incredibly tasteful strings, and Milam’s versatile voice that easily sweeps to an elegant falsetto from ragged emotion.
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Concert Review: Bryan Ferry at Playhouse Square

By Julie Finley

March 26, 2017
Cleveland, OH

I am happy to say that I had heard about Bryan Ferry returning to Cleveland through Ferry’s Facebook page. There was so little publicity through any regional entertainment outlet that were it not for Facebook, I would have never even known about the show. I covered Ferry’s performance last time he played in Cleveland, and to be quite honest, I thought that was going to be the first and only time I would ever get to see him perform live. So I am very surprised (and elated) that he came back!
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