* Something created by humans for a practical ... - Artefakt Magazine

ar’t -fakt 

Arts and Events of the Eastern Great Lakes 

October/November, 2006 

Volume VI Issue III 

e 

* Something created by humans for a practical purpose 

October/November 2006 artefakt. magazine. pg. 

* 

e 

5years 

celebrating life and the arts

a rtefakt new york. pennsylvania. ohio. 

Features 

Cover Story: 

October/November Events of the 

Eastern Great Lakes 

Grab your calendar and pack your bags! We’re 

sending you on a tour of the Eastern Great Lakes 

Region! 

7-20 

Local Color: 

Mary E. Davis teaches 20th-century music at 

Case Western Reserve University and serves as 

the University Liaison and Advisor to the Rock 

and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. 

3-4 

The Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards; 

National Book Awards in Cleveland, established 

in 1953, focuses on works that attempt to narrow 

the gap of races. 

Ingredients for Success: 

Master Pastry Chef Christian Thirion now makes 

sweet confections in glass. 

On the cover: Top row from left: Fall for the Circle Celebration, Cleveland OH; Zappa Plays 

Zappa, UBCFA Amherst NY; Haunted Halloween Tours, Cleveland OH; Balloons Over 

Letchworth State Park, NY: Row two from left: Haunted Halloween Tours, Cleveland OH; 

Rockwell Museum, Corning NY: Joan Jett, Agora Theatre Cleveland OH; Row three from 

left: Trans-Siberia Orchestra, Civic Center, Erie PA ; Barnum & Bailey Circus, Erie Civic 

Center, Erie PA; Roy Orbison, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Cleveland OH; Neil Sedaka, Kleinhans 

Music Hall, Buffalo NY; Row four from left: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the 

Forum, Great Lakes Theater Festival, Cleveland OH; Blue Man Group, Quicken Loans Arena, 

Cleveland OH; Rockwell Museum, Corning NY; Ponch, The World’s Largest Disco, Buffalo NY 

pg. 1 October/November 2006. artefakt magazine. 

5 

Out West Back East: 

Exploring the great Western Art Museums in the 

Western New York Region. 

15 

17 

Publisher 

Jeanine Zimmer 

716-860-0118 

publisher@artefaktmagazine.com 

Contributing Editor 

David Budin 

popcycles@sbcglobal.net 

Sales Manager 

Martha Pashley 

716-450-0897 

Ohio Representative 

John Schepley, 216-385-8280 

Finger Lakes Regional Manager 

Dennis Howard 

607-569-2952 

dennishowardstudios@earthlink.net 

Ann Salladin 

607-583-2391 

Contributing Writers: 

Douglas Max Utter, David Budin, Zachary 

Lewis, Maria Stenina, John Schepley, 

Paul Wachowisk, Greg Sterlace, 

Gweniviere Bush, Chad Felton, Kirk House 

Artefakt Magazine 

is printed six times a year. 

We publish every other month. All content 

© Artefakt Magazine 

and can not be reproduced unless given 

permission by the publisher. 

Artefakt Magazine 

www.artefaktmagazine.com 

www.thevillagerny.com 

PO Box 178 

Ellicottville, NY 14731 

Phone: 716-860-0118 

Fax: 866-345-3740 

For Advertising Needs Call: 

716-860-0118 

Representatives Needed. 

Send Resumes to 

Sales@artefaktmagazine.com

Publisher’s Word 

Achieving Success Through Regionalism 

A wise man once said: “Build bridges 

instead of walls and you will have 

friends.” 

How true this is, both in our personal 

and professional lives. Success comes 

from building partnerships – one 

needs to look no further than the 

regional cooperation and collaboration 

we currently enjoy in the Rust Belt 

cities in which we reside. The liaison 

between culture and tourism leads to a 

synergism that we all can benefit from. 

Whether you are interested in the arts 

– both visual and performing – historic 

places, scenic attractions, culinary 

finery, sports, or anything else you can 

imagine, our region is rich in diversity 

and offers the cultural tourist many 

wonderful venues to enjoy. 

Regionalism should appeal to all 

parties concerned, as it offers the visitor 

a chance to enjoy fantastic cultural 

We Want You. 

Outgoing, independent sales people needed. 

Positions available in Cleveland OH, Erie PA, 

Buffalo NY, and the Finger Lakes Region. 

Send Resume to: sales@artefaktmagazine.com 


e 

experiences while giving greater 

earned income to those involved in this 

partnership. In this day of decreased 

corporate giving and federal grants, 

artists and arts organizations need to 

revisit traditional revenue sources, vis 

a’ vis – patrons who visit and purchase 

artwork, or buy tickets for the theatre or 

symphony. In this age where travelers 

have much to see but not much time 

to spend, regionalizing makes so 

much sense. Culture and tourism from 

Cleveland to Erie to Buffalo benefit so 

much from regional cooperation. 

And that’s what Artefakt Magazine 

is all about – giving the populace a 

view of what our three-state region 

has to offer. Enjoy this issue and 

make a commitment to visit some of 

the events, people and places written 

about within these pages. You won’t 

be disappointed! 

2

artefakt new york. pennsylvania. ohio. 

Local Color: Mary E. Davis 

By David Budin 

You just never know where life is going 

to take you. Look at Mary Davis, a music 

professor, pianist, and coordinator of the 

Case Western Reserve University Music 

Department’s keyboard programs, and 

whose book, Classic Chic: Music, Fashion, 

and Transatlantic Modernism, comes out in 

November. 

After moving from her childhood 

hometown of North Canton (less than an hour 

south of Cleveland) and collecting several 

degrees from some of the most prestigious 

institutions of higher learning in the world, 

performing classical music, working in 

government in the nation’s capital and 

writing about a cool, groundbreaking early- 

1900s French composer – and with the 

opportunity to live just about anywhere in 

the world – where did she decide to settle? 

Cleveland. 

Why? The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 

and Museum. And, of course, Case Western 

Reserve University – where she teaches 

courses in 20th-century music, world 

music, and American popular music – and 

the university’s proximity to the dense 

concentration of world-class cultural 

institutions in University Circle. Davis 

also serves as the University Liaison and 

Advisor to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 

and Museum. 

Davis began taking piano lessons as a 

child from the nuns at her Catholic School, 

and, apparently it’s not a myth, but, Davis 

says, “I’m here to tell you it’s true: They 

hit your hands with a ruler when you played 

wrong notes.” 

When her parents asked the nuns if they 

should buy her a piano, Davis says, “The nuns 

said unanimously, ‘Your daughter has no 

talent. Save your money.’” But, fortunately, 

her parents bought one, anyway. 


Mary E. Davis teaches 20th-century music at Case Western Reserve University and serves 

as the University Liaison and Advisor to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. 

After graduating from St Mary’s College 

in Indiana, Davis was accepted into one of 

the most highly esteemed music schools 

in the world, the Peabody Conservatory 

in Baltimore, where she earned a Masters 

degree in piano performance. 

It was 1984 and she’d been playing piano 

for nearly 20 years. But, she says, “I was 

at the point where being alone in a room, 

practicing piano for seven or eight hours a 

day was not workable. So I just left music 

entirely.” 

Contemplating law school, Davis 

worked in an escalating series of jobs 

in Washington, D.C., beginning as a 

paralegal, then eventually working as a 

writer for the President’s Commission on 

Organized Crime; then at the Architectural 

Cleveland’s Spot for Fun! 

5718 Mayfield Road (next to the Greens of Lyndhurst) 440-442-3577 

and Transportation Barriers Compliance 

Board; then at a high-powered law firm, 

working with the National Trust for Historic 

Preservation (where she got to work on the 

Union Station renovation). 

All the while, she had continued to play 

piano, a little, at home. But everywhere she 

worked, she says, “I heard a lot of people 

saying, ‘I love playing the piano, but I gave 

it up when I was 13 and I wish I’d continued.’ 

So I started saying to those people, ‘I can 

help you out. I can give you lessons.’ So 

I ended up having a studio of adult piano 

students, most of whom were government 

officials, or working in law firms or doing 

something completely different; and 

everything from people who were almost 

virtuosic to people who couldn’t read 

Live Bands Upstairs Every Weekend! 

DJ Downstairs Every Weekend! 

Food Until 2 am. 9 Wing Sauces. 

LADIES NIGHT: 

Ladies Drink Free Thursday 10:30 pm -12:30 pm 

Courtesy of Homestar Mortgage. 

Check out our Monday & Thursday 

Night Football Specials!

music. It was eye-opening for 

me, coming from a pretty heavyduty, 

rigorous musical training, it 

allowed me to see that it could be 

more fun, that it wasn’t so serious 

all the time.” 

So she moved to Boston 

to attend the New England 

Conservatory of Music, where 

she got a Masters in Musicology, 

writing about French composer 

Eric Satie. “It turns out,” she says, 

“that the largest trove of Satie’s 

manuscripts outside of Paris is in 

Boston. There’s this tremendous 

collection of Satie materials at 

the rare book library at Harvard.” 

That led her to Harvard, where 

she wrote a dissertation about 

Satie and earned her Ph. D. in 

Musicology in 1997. “I got into the 

Satie collection when I was at the 

New England Conservatory, and 

I haven’t stopped working with 

those materials.” In fact, she’s 

been asked to write a biography 

of Satie for a British publisher, 

for a series called Critical Lives, 

and she has a fellowship to go to 

Harvard to work on that for two 

months next spring. 

Meanwhile, she had gotten 

married in 1995, to a man she had 

met when they worked in offices 

next to each other at a Washington 

law firm. But because she kept 

moving around for school and 

work, they lived together only 

sporadically, commuting back 

and forth, until she came to 

Cleveland. 

Oh, yes: Cleveland. 

“This was the last place I ever 

expected to work,” Davis says. 

“But when I came here to talk 

about the possibility, it seemed 

like the perfect situation: a serious, 

pretty rigorous musicology 

program at Case, plus a thriving 

conservatory at the Cleveland 

Institute of Music. And those two 

institutions have a joint music 

program, so there’s constant 

interaction between them. Plus 

University Circle blew me away. 

Like the fact that the Cleveland 

Museum of Art is outside your 

door - and you could make your 

students go there, because it’s 

free - you could create learning 

experiences for them that were 

interdisciplinary, using the 

institutions that were all around 

you. Out of my window you can 

see Severance Hall [home of the 

Cleveland Orchestra]. I mean, 

the possibilities, it seemed, were 

unmatched anywhere else.” 

She began at CWRU in 1998 as 

an assistant professor and in 2004 

she became an associate professor. 

“And the other thing that really 

compelled me to come here,” 

she says, “was the Rock and Roll 

Hall of Fame and Museum. I was 

thrilled that it was a ten-minute 

drive away. I loved the idea of 

being able to collaborate with that 

institution.” 

So now she also teaches rock 

history-related classes, which 

may seem odd for someone so 

steeped in classical music. “I 

never studied rock music history 

formally,” she says, “because until 

recently there were no classes in 

it at most schools. But I loved the 

music since I was really young. 

Continued pg. 20 

Coming to Salamanca, New York? 

Call 716-945-2034 

for Information 

on Lodging Near the Casino, 

Local Attractions, Restaurants and More. 

www.salamancachamber.com 

American Music Masters series: 

“Only the Lonely; 

The Life and Music of Roy Orbison” 

October 30 - November4, 2006 

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Cleveland Ohio 


e 

The annual American Music Masters series has happened in 

Cleveland every autumn for the past 11 years. It’s a week or so of 

events – exhibitions, lectures, panel discussions, films, and a daylong 

conference leading up to a culminating star-studded concert 

– that takes place at both Case and at the Rock and Roll Hall of 

Fame & Museum. 

The series began in 1996 with a tribute to Woody Guthrie that 

established the model for the program, with a special exhibit 

and the screening of a movie about Guthrie at the Rock Hall and 

a conference at Case that included several panel discussions 

featuring authors, scholars and journalists, and musicians and record 

industry executives representing several generations. To close the 

event, concerts were held at two locations on successive nights, 

featuring artists ranging from Pete Seeger to Bruce Springsteen 

to Ani DiFranco. Since then, the program has expanded to include 

even more lectures and panel discussions at Case during the week 

preceding the conference. 

Nearly 150 artists and groups have performed at AMM concerts, 

including: Aretha Franklin, B.B. King, the Allman Brothers Band, 

Elvis Costello, Alison Krauss, Bo Diddley, Gavin DeGraw, Robert 

Plant, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Ricky Skaggs, 

Taj Mahal, Bonnie Raitt, Dave Pirner (of Soul Asylum) and John 

Mellencamp. 

This year’s AMM event, running October 30 through November 4, 

is “Only the Lonely: The Life and Music of Roy Orbison,” a tribute 

to Orbison and an examination of the life, career, influence and 

legacy of the singer and songwriter who was not only a rock music 

pioneer, starting out with Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis on Sun 

Records in the early 1950s, but was still going strong at the time of 

his sudden death, at age 52, in 1988, as a member of the Traveling 

Wilburys (with Bob Dylan, George Harrison and Tom Petty), and 

with solo hit records as well. 

“Only the Lonely” will feature films, interviews, lectures, an exhibit, 

a conference with speakers and panel discussions by people who 

knew and worked with Orbison, as well as music-history authors and 

other experts – at the Rock Hall, CWRU and other locations – and a 

big, star-studded concert at Playhouse Square. For information call 

216-515-8444 or visit www.rockhall.com. 

October 13-15, 2006: 

Falling Leaves Festival 

Food, Hot Air Balloon Rides, 

Music, Parade and more. 

December 8 -10, 2006: 

Silver Balls Festival 

Ring in the Holidays in Salamanca! 

Food, Crafts, Holiday Parade, 

Theatre Performance, and more. 

4



National Book Awards in Cleveland 

By Chad Felton 

The Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, established in Cleveland in 1935, 

focuses exclusively on works that attempt to narrow the gap of misunderstanding 

between races and cultures. Ronald Richard, left, president 

and CEO of The Cleveland Foundation, stands with the 2006 Anisfield-Wolf 

Book Award winners, Jill Lepore, Zadie Smith, and William 

Demby September 7, 2006 at the Bolton Theatre in The Cleveland 

Playhouse. 

Cleveland’s literary roots may not run as deep in America’s cultural 

soil as, say, New York’s or New England’s, but dig deeper and you 

will unearth the discovery that Cleveland boasted its own numerous 

unsung artists, one of whom was Edith Anisfield-Wolf (1889-1963), 

a published poet, philanthropist and civic activist. 

Anisfield-Wolf, who had an active presence with the Cleveland 

Public Library for 20 years, established the book awards in 1935 

to honor her father and husband and to reflect her family’s undying 

commitment to social justice. 

“This event is significant because it is the only major book award 

in the nation that focuses exclusively on new works of fiction and 

non-fiction that attempt to narrow the gap of misunderstanding 

between races and cultures,” says Ronald Richard, president and 

CEO of the Cleveland Foundation. “These awards and what they 

represent are a highly visible way to demonstrate the foresight of a 

single individual.” 

Dr. Henry Louis “Skip” Gates, Jr., the W.E.B. Du Bois Professor 

of the Humanities at Harvard University, chairs the juried event’s 

independent panel of nationally recognized scholars, which also 

includes Joyce Carol Oates, Steven Pinker, Simon Schama and 

former U.S. poet laureate Rita Dove. 

The awards, endowed through a fund at the Cleveland Foundation, the 

nation’s oldest and second-largest community foundation with assets 

of $1.5 billion, are given each year to books published the previous 

year. The 2006 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award winners, announced in 

April, were Zadie Smith, for On Beauty (fiction) and Jill Lepore, for 

New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery, and Conspiracy in Eighteenth- 

Century Manhattan (non-fiction). Novelist, translator and filmmaker 

William Demby received this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award. 

Winners carry a $10,000 gift from the Anisfield-Wolf Fund.

Only books written in English and published in the preceding 

calendar year are eligible. With 325 book submissions this year, the 

literary celebration also garnered 600 RSVPs (one-third being firsttime 

visitors) in 2006, its largest audience to date. The event sold out 

in early August. “Our beautiful little secret is leaking out,” Richard 

says. “This is a 100 percent meaningful, engaging and pleasurable 

event taking place in Cleveland.” 

The awards appeared as a blip on the pop culture radar, testifying 

to the importance of writing as an art of expression for social causes 

and human issues, when they received even more national attention in 

Oprah Winfrey’s eponymous magazine’s October edition in an article 

titled “The Coolest Prize You’ve Never Heard Of.” Indeed; none of 

this year’s recipients had ever heard of the prize. 

Jill Lepore, historian and professor at Harvard University, was hailed 

by Gates as a “public intellectual with no sacrifice of scholarly chops.” 

New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery, and Conspiracy in Eighteenth- 

Century Manhattan chronicles episodes of history in which slaves 

were executed due to fear of sedition. “Recovering our past is a way 

to reconcile it,” Lepore says. “The best history allows us to imagine 

what might have been.” 

Zadie Smith’s On Beauty, follows two racially and culturally 

variegated families and is, by Smith’s own admission, an homage to 

E.M. Forster’s Howard’s End. The soft-spoken Brit extolled Zora 

Neale Hurston, saying “she stretched the world of blackness to more 

than just music and sport.” 

William Demby, who defies categorization, flew in from his villa 

in Florence to accept the lifetime achievement award for his artistic 

contributions spanning decades on two continents. Demby, playful 

and intense, and who once housed American novelist John Steinbeck, 

lamented the era of inescapable pop culture minutiae, but saw hope in 

the awards and in the collage of artists it rewards annually. With the 

booming, melodic voice of a preacher, Demby read from one of his 

works titled The Catacombs, a stream-of-consciousness reflection on 

race relations, including an episode surrounding the panic of school 

integration in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Cleveland. 

All three winners were delighted to join a class of writers that 

includes Toni Morrison, Alex Haley, Alan Paton, Jonathan Kozol, 

Langston Hughes and Martin Luther King, Jr. 

The 71st-annual Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards took place Thursday, 

September 7, beginning with a reception and book signing and ending 

with the awards ceremony at the Cleveland Play House. 

“It’s an amazing legacy,” Richard says. “Edith Anisfield-Wolf’s 

memory shines bright once again. She valued thinking deeply and 

differently, to read, think, debate and act.” 

Dr. Henry Louis “Skip” Gates, Jr., The Anisfield-Wolf Book Award jury 

chair, addresses the audience in his introduction of the 2006 winners. 


e 

6


An Unlikely – and Popular – Place for a Party 

by David Budin 

The most famous person buried at the cemetery 

is of course James A. Garfield. In The 

Garfield Monument is a larger-than-life statue 

of the President. 

I recently attended a very cool party, a 

surprise birthday bash. It was held on a 

Sunday in the middle of the day. It couldn’t 

have been at night because the place where 

it happened is closed at night – at least to the 

living. It’s Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland, 

and it’s one of the nicest places you’ll never 

hear about unless you live here (or are privy 

to a regional publication). 

It’s actually in Cleveland and in two suburbs, 

Cleveland Heights and East Cleveland. 

Besides being huge – 285 acres – and hilly, 

the 137-year-old cemetery also contains a 

wealth of things, natural and human-made, 

that you might not expect to find in most 

graveyards. 

Like a dam. Built in 1978 by the Northeast 

Ohio Regional Sewer District at a cost of $7 

million, the Lake View Cemetery Dam is 500 

feet across, 60 feet above grade and 30 feet 

below grade. When it was built, it was said 

to be the largest concrete filled dam east of 

the Rocky Mountains. It can hold back 80 

million gallons of water. 

And a chapel with an interior designed 

by Louis Tiffany. Finished in 1901, Wade 

Memorial Chapel was built in honor of 

Jeptha Wade, founder of the Western Union 

Telegraph Company (who is also buried in 

the cemetery). It’s open daily from April 1 

through November 19 from 9:00 a.m. to 

4:00 p.m. and is staffed with a guide. Across 


the road from Wade Chapel are a couple of 

picnic benches and a pond (where the party I 

attended took place). 

Which reminds me of all the animals 

there. (The pond, that is, not the party.) The 

cemetery has dozens of kinds of animals, 

including deer, fox, geese and ducks – plus all 

the usual ones: squirrels, rabbits, chipmunks, 

skunks, and all kinds of birds. One time when 

I was there, I saw a red fox standing on top of 

a six-foot-high pile of wood chips, howling 

and barking at a giant flock of crows, who 

were endlessly circling and cawing 30 feet 

above him. I was only about 20 feet away, 

and the fox didn’t care that I was there at 

all. These animals’ ancestors were probably 

there before the land became a cemetery. 

Lake View also features hundreds of kinds 

of plants, flowers and trees, including some 

rare ones. The cemetery has a full-time 

horticulturist, who maintains the collection 

and creates educational programming for the 

many groups and individuals of all ages who 

come there to study the plant life. Some of the 

trees are said to be 200 years old. And every 

spring since sometime in the 1940s a section 

of Lake View called Daffodil Hill bursts into 

bloom with more than 100,000 bulbs. 

But what’s really cool about the place is the 

graves – or, actually, what’s on top of them – 

and, in many cases, who’s inside them. There 

are 102,000 people buried there, going back 

to 1870, so, obviously, you can see some 

pretty old graves. But you can also see some 

really huge, ornate and beautiful headstones, 

statues and other markers and monuments. 

There are dozens of small mausoleums as 

well. 

Among the many historical figures buried 

there are John D. Rockefeller, Elliot Ness 

(of Untouchables fame), inventors Charles 

F. Brush and Garrett Morgan, Sherwin- 

Williams founder Henry Sherwin, Cleveland 

Indians baseball player Ray Chapman, the 

only player ever to die as a result of an injury 

in a Major League game (in 1920), and lots 

of names you see on buildings and street 

signs all over Cleveland. 

The most famous person buried there, of 

course, is the 20th President of the United 

States, James A. Garfield. The Garfield 

Monument, built in 1890 on the highest 

point in the cemetery, stands about three 

stories tall. Inside are some artifacts and 

newspapers relating to his assassination, 

elaborate mosaic tiles, marble columns, 

colorful leaded glass windows, a larger-thanlife 

statue of President Garfield, and a crypt 

below the Memorial Hall with the bronze 

caskets of President Garfield (draped with 

an American Flag) and his wife Lucretia. 

You can climb the stairs to a balcony to view 

the hall from above and get a better look at 

the windows, and you can also go out to the 

observation deck to get a great view if the 

cemetery and the city – and Lake Erie (which 

is how the cemetery got its name). The James 

A. Garfield Monument is open daily April 1 

through November 19 from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 

p.m. and is staffed with a guide. 

Lake View Cemetery’s entrances are at 

12316 Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, and at 

Mayfield and Kenilworth roads in Cleveland 

Heights. Hours: grounds: 7:30 a.m.-5:30 

p.m. daily; Garfield Monument and Wade 

Chapel, April 1 - October 31, 9 a.m .- 4 

p.m. For more information, call 216-421- 

2665 or visit www.lakeviewcemetery.com 

Lake View Cemetery presents a variety of tours 

and other events throughout the year. Upcoming 

in the near future are: 

Full Moon and Searching for our Four Legged 

Friends (Deer), 

Friday, October 6, at 6:00 p.m. 

A joint venture with the Nature Center at Shaker 

Lakes, a naturalist will discuss the habitat of the 

deer and red fox as you search for signs. You’ll 

need reservations and there’s a $5.00 fee. Call 

216 421-2665, ext. 0. 

All Saints Day Service 

Wednesday, November 1, at 3:00 p.m. 

All Saints Day starts with a walking tour 

discussing the many special people buried at 

Lake View. There’s also a non-walking tour of 

Legendary Personalities at Wade Chapel, and 

at 4:00 p.m., a service of remembrance of All 

Saints. Reservations are required. Please call 

216-421-2665, ext. 0.

Visit Some Local Haunts 

by Daniel Baxter 

Sometimes a close friend might tell you: 

“Our business is dead.” But who would want 

to use that as their company’s slogan? 

There are not one, but two separate companies 

in Cleveland who both seem to think that slogan 

will help their businesses. They’re probably 

correct. They both give tours of potentially 

haunted sites in the area. 

One is called Haunted Cleveland and the 

other is called Haunted Cleveland Tours. It 

seems that the similarities stem from the fact 

that one spun off from the other. 

Haunted Cleveland, which was founded 

by Chuck Gove in 1999, offers six different 

tours at different times of the year, including 

Ohio City & Beyond, Homicide Cleveland- 

Style and The Torso Murder Tour. They all 

incorporate a lot of cool history information 

along with the paranormal aspects, including 

stops at museums, and even the coroner’s 

office, to hear from experts. 

Right now, they’re offering the Rock Bottom 

Ghost Tour, Fridays (plus Wednesday, October 

25) through November 3, from 6:00 to 10:30 

p.m. Tickets are $45.00. 

This 4-1/2-hour guided bus tour starts at 

the Rock Bottom Brewery on the west bank 

of the Flats, and visits some of Cleveland’s 

supposedly most-haunted locations, including. 

Gray’s Armory, one of Cleveland’s oldest 

historic landmarks, where you get a private 

guided tour inside and hear firsthand stories 

from the employees about hauntings they have 

witnessed. 

You also go to Cleveland’s theater district, 

Playhouse Square, where you’ll hear stories 

of the ghosts that haunt the old and beautifully 

restored theaters; you’ll get a private tour of 

one of Cleveland’s oldest cemeteries, Riverside 

Cemetery, where you can see if you have what 

it takes to become a paranormal investigator, 

testing your skills using dousing rods; and visit 

other sites as well. 

One of them is the Cleveland Police Historic 

Society and Museum, where you’ll hear the 

details of the country’s first serial killer from 

Cleveland author Dr. James Badal. Then you’ll 

end up back at Rock Bottom Brewery, where 

you’ll learn about the haunted past of that 

building. 

Guests are encouraged to dress for the 

weather and wear comfortable shoes, and to 

bring a camera to try to capture a haunting. 

Complimentary soft drinks, bottled water and 

snacks are provided by Haunted Cleveland. 

To reserve your seat call 216-251-0406. For 

more information visit www.hauntedcleveland. 

net. 

Then there are the Haunted Cleveland Tours, 

which are hosted by Psychic Sonya. Sonya 

Horstman, who used to work for Gove and his 

Haunted Cleveland, is a paranormal researcher, 

spiritualist, ghostbuster and radio psychic. 

She describes herself as a naturally born 

intuitive, clairvoyant, Native American Hand 

Trembler, dream interpreter, Tarot card reader, 

paranormal investigator, and ghostbuster. 

The Classic Cleveland Ghost Tour with 

Psychic Sonya, her original tour, on Thursdays; 

and the Cleveland Ghost Tour 2006, with 

new locations, on Fridays, run from October 

6 through November 3, from 6:30 to 10:30 

p.m. They’re chartered bus tours of authentic 

(according to Horstman) haunted Cleveland 

locations, including a private tour of Grays 

Armory. This tour costs $45 per seat, with 

prepaid reservations only. The tours are 

restricted to those 13 and older 

A new tour this year is the Cuyahoga Valley 

History and Urban Legend Tour, on Saturdays 

from 2:00 to 6:30 p.m. through November. 

It explores the Cuyahoga Valley from the 

viewpoint of a paranormal investigator, with 

Horstman’s Native American background 

adding insight into the Valley’s historical 

mysteries. The tour focuses on the myths and 

legends surrounding the valley, its Native 

American burial sites and villages, and the 

impact the building of the canal had on 

Northern Ohio. 

One that runs all year is the Medina County 

Cemetery Tour, Sundays from 11:30 a.m. to 

4 p.m. It’s a private tour for groups of six or 

more, to various cemeteries and “spooky” 

locations in Medina County, including a visit 

to a witch’s gravesite. This one costs $60 per 

person (and must be reserved in advance). 

Horstman recommends wearing comfortable 

shoes, dressing for the cold weather and 

bringing flashlights, raingear, and cameras, 

and audio and video recorders (to possibly 

catch a ghost on film or tape), bringing your 

own food and non-alcoholic beverages and 

reserving seats early. Tour locations are not predisclosed, 

to discourage would-be pranksters. 

Call to make reservations at 440-775- 

1217. For more information visit www. 

hauntedclevelandtours.com. 


e 

The Buffalo and Erie areas have their own haunted 

tours, too. Here are some examples. 

BUFFALO 

Mason Winfield’s Ghost Walks 

Walking tours with local paranormal expert 

Mason Winfield include conversations on the 

paranormal, such as UFOs, mystery monsters, 

hauntings, earth energies, ancient anomalies, 

magical societies, old-fashioned ghostlore and 

more. (716) 655-6663 

Haunted History Ghost Walks, Inc. 

(Founded by Mason Winfield), in partnership with 

the Museum of Wayne County History. Tours of 

East Aurora, Buffalo, and Lewiston include 

history, architecture, mystery, parapsychology, 

occultism and ghosts. Also offered are 90-minute, 

mile-long tours of haunted village sites around 

Lyons, New York. For more information, visit 

www.MasonWinfield.com or call the Museum of 

Wayne County History at 315-946-4943. 

ERIE 

Ghost & Legends Tour 

Explores the eerie side of Erie, presented by 

the Erie County Historical Society. Horse-Drawn 

Mystery Tours depart from the Watson-Curtze 

Mansion (356 West Sixth Street) and take a 

journey through downtown Erie, pausing at sites 

of spiritual unrest and bizarre happenstance, 

October 13, 20 and 27 at 6:30 and 7:30 

p.m. Call 814-454-1813, ext. 0 or visit www. 

eriecountyhistory.org. 

8


Around Town: Autumn Arts in Cleveland 

By Zachary Lewis 

The Cleveland Public Theatre starts out the season 

with an all-male version of Shakespeare’s Measure 

for Measure. Actors left, Rob Mayes and right, Michael 

Mauldin. 

It’s good to be back, isn’t it? Back into 

the swing of things with the return of fall, 

jacket weather, and a full schedule of visual 

and performing arts events. 

Start out the season on the near West 

Side, at Cleveland Public Theatre (see 

story pg. 14), where a new, all-male version 

of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure 

opened in late September. Director Craig 

George presides over a modern take on a 

tale brimming with contemporary issues 

concerning the abuse of power. The 

production runs Thursday through Sunday, 

through October 14. 


If that’s not enough altered Shakespeare 

for you, you don’t even have to leave the 

West Side to see more. Beck Center for the 

Arts in Lakewood is staging a new version of 

Hamlet, directed by David Hansen, in which 

Hamlet is actually a woman posing as the 

notoriously indecisive Prince of Denmark. 

The production runs through October 22. Get 

tickets at 216-521-2540 www.beckcenter. 

org. 

Mid-term elections will be right around 

the corner by that point, which is a perfect 

reason to head back to CPT for Hot Topics, 

a set of new-play readings centered around 

relevant political and social issues. Even if 

the plays don’t get you worked up, the panel 

discussions afterwards definitely will. Check 

those out every Thursday through Sunday 

starting October 20. Tickets, $10 to $15, are 

available at 216-631-2727. 

More politically-themed theater arrives at 

the Cleveland Play House in November in the 

form of RFK. This one-man, off-Broadway 

play, written and performed by Jack Holmes, 

portrays Robert F. Kennedy struggling 

to uphold the values championed by his 

late brother, President John F. Kennedy. 

Associate artistic director Seth Gordon 

directs. Performances begin October 27 and 

continue almost daily through November 19. 

Tickets start at $39. For more information, 

visit www.clevelandplayhouse.com. 

No fall season would be complete without a 

musical. For that, turn to Near West Theatre 

in Cleveland’s Ohio City neighborhood at 

3606 Bridge Avenue. Starting November 

17 and continuing through December 3, the 

community troupe will mount a production of 

Meredith Wilson’s The Music Man. Tickets 

are quite reasonably priced and are easily 

ordered by visiting www.nearwesttheatre. 

org or calling 216-961-6391. 

For something even lighter, but still artsy, 

consider attending an early Halloween party 

to benefit Art House, Inc., a nonprofit art 

center in the Old Brooklyn neighborhood. 

The party takes place Friday, October 20, 

at Lava Lounge in Cleveland’s Tremont 

district. Tickets are $25 to $30, with all the 

proceeds supporting Art House’s many art 

classes, professional development services, 

and outreach programs. Order tickets at 216- 

398-8556. Art House benefits even more 

if you purchase your costume from nearby 

Jinxed Costume Shop. 

But downtown is the place to be this 

autumn if classical music and dance are your 

preferred art forms. 

First up, the afternoon of Sunday, October 

8, is the season-opening concert by Red {an 

orchestra}, Cleveland’s alternative orchestra, 

resident at the Masonic Auditorium, at East 

36 th Street and Euclid Avenue. Director 

Jonathan Sheffer isn’t wasting any time 

getting right back to his mission of eventually 

presenting all nine Beethoven symphonies. 

On this particular concert, called “Assembling 

Beethoven,” he’ll focus on the monumental 

Symphony No. 7 and its famously entrancing 

second movement. 

But that’s not all. He’ll also present 

avant-garde composer John Cage’s unique 

percussion-and-recording take on the Seventh, 

a work called Credo in Us. And by way of 

compositional comparison, there’s Fantasia 

on an Ostinato, an orchestral showpiece by 

John Corigliano, composer for the film The 

Red Violin. Visit www.redanorchestra.org for 

details. 

Just a few days later, on October 12, in 

the Palace Theatre at Playhouse Square, the 

Continued pg. 19 

The Winchester Tavern & Music Hall 

12112 Madison Avenue, Lakewood/Cleveland OH 

216-226-5681 • www.thewinchester.net 

October/November Music Highlights: 

Oct. 26: Jason Ross, from “7Mary3”; Oct. 20: “Carey & Lurrie Bell Blues Band” 

Oct. 21: “Naked Eyes”; Oct. 27: “The Strawbs”; Oct. 28: “The Kennedys”; 

Nov. 4: Stephen Pearcy & Band; Nov. 7: Lloyd Cole; Nov. 10: Bruce Katz; 

Nov. 11: “Johnny A”; Nov. 17: “Helix”; Nov. 22: JiMiller Band 

CHECK OUT FULL LINE UP ONLINE!

ar’t -fakt 

and eArts Events of the Eastern Great Lakes 

October • November 2006 Preview 

Gusto @ The Gallery: Free Fridays 

Fridays beginning October 1, 2006 

Albright Knox Art Gallery • Elmwood Avenue• Buffalo, N.Y. 

www.albrightknox.org 

Beginning in October the Albright-Knox Art Gallery will open to the public at no charge each 

Friday from 3pm - 10pm. The gallery’s collection is always growing and changing. Every day offers 

a new experience and they invite you to be a part of it! Every Friday they will offer something 

new. Check out their website for schedule of events. 

Great Lakes Theatre Festival 

Ohio Theatre, Cleveland OH 

Now - October 20, 2006 

www.greatlakestheater.org 

It’s “Comedy Tonight” as Great Lakes Theater Festival’s resident acting company 

presents Sondheim’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Broadway’s 

greatest musical farce, to open the classic theater company’s 45th season. The production 

runs in repertory with Love’s Labour’s Lost at the Ohio Theater, Playhouse Square 

Center through October 21. (Photograph by Mastroianni) 

Fall for the Circle 

October 13 - 15, 2006 

Wade Circle, Cleveland OH 

www.universitycircle.org 

Three days of fun, scarecrows, arts, changing leaves and discovery await you in University Circle. There 

will be live music, strolling entertainers, hands-on activities and 10 foot tall scarecrows. Participating institutions 

include: Case Western Reserve, Cleveland Botanical Gardens, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland 

Museum of Natural History, Cleveland Orchestra, Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland Institute of 

Music, Western Reserve historical Society, and University Circle Inc. 

Zappa Plays Zappa 

University at Buffalo, CFA • Amherst, N.Y. 

October 23, 2006 

www.ub.cfa.org 

Dweezil and the Zappa Family Trust Present The Music of Frank Zappa starring Dweezil Zappa 

with Special Guests Steve Vai, Terry Bozzio, Napoleon Murphy Brock and others. This is the 

first Official presentation of Frank Zappa Music since the Composer himself departed for his 

final tour in 1993. 


e 

10


Kleinhans Music Hall Events 

www.KleinhansMusicHall.org 

1-716-888-3560 

Upcoming Events with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra 

October 27, Kleinhans invites you to come dressed in costume for a festive Masquerade Ball and enjoy 

timeless pieces such as The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and waltzes by Johann Strauss, Jr. October 29, 

celebrate Halloween with the BPO and some of Halloween’s most ghoulish dance music. Children are 

encouraged to come in costume and join a parade across the stage. November 10, platinum and gold 

recording artist Neil Sedaka will join the orchestra. 

Shag & Stripes: SPACES annual benefit party and auction 

November 4, 2006 

SPACES Gallery, Cleveland OH 

216-621-2314 

www.spacesgallery.org 

SPACES’ annual benefits are renowned for their costume parties, where the city’s artists and creatives come out in locks 

with flamboyant, and often racy, costumes. They will also be shagging some amazing art: this benefit is known for being 

one of the most affordable silent art auctions in the region with over 100 local and national artists donating all types of 

works. Proceeds benefit SPACES. 

Trans-Siberian Orchestra 

November 10, 2006 

Erie Civic Center, Erie PA 

www.erieevents.com Phone: 814.452.4857 

Trans-Siberian Orchestra was founded in 1996 in New York City by composers Paul 

O’Neill and Robert Kinkel, and Savatage lead singer Jon Oliva. O’Neill had 

managed and produced rock bands including Aerosmith. The concept for a band 

playing Christmas carols in a rock opera style was not received warmly by the industry, but quickly proved a success with 

adults as well as young people. As of 2004, their touring band included 14 vocalists, 14 musicians, and 2 narrators. 

October/November Concert Highlights: 

10.05.06: Average White Band 

@ Turning Stone Casino, Verona NY 

10.06.06: Elton John 

@ Mellon Arena, Pittsburgh PA 

Barbara Streisand 

@ Schotteistein Center, Columbus OH 

10.7.06: Blue Man Group 

@ Quicken Loans Arena, Cleveland OH 

Eric Sardinias 

@ The Winchester, Cleveland OH 

10.08.06: Alice Cooper 

@ Tower City Amp., Cleveland OH 

10.09.06: Catch 22/Less Than Jake 

@ House of Blues, Cleveland OH 

Aerosmith/Motley Crue 

@ Riverbend Music Center, Cincinnati OH 

10.11.06: Bruce Hornsby 

@ Allen Theatre, Cleveland OH 

10.12.06: New Found Glory 


10.13.06: Anthony Gomes 

@ Wilbert’s, Cleveland OH 


10.17.06: The Indigo Girls 

@ State Theatre, Ithaca NY 

10.18.06: Paul Simon 

@ Hummingbird Centre, Toronto ON 

Anthony Gomes 

@ Dinosaur BBQ, Rochester NY 

10.21.06: Joan Jett & The Blackhearts 

@ Agora Theatre, Cleveland OH 

Roomful of Blues 

@ Wilbert’s, Cleveland OH 

10.20.06: Roomful of Blues 

@ Lafayette Tap Room, Cleveland OH 

Wilco 

@ Carey Center, Latrobe PA 

10.25.06: Poppa Chubby 

@ Beachland Ballroom, Cleveland OH 

David Allan Coe 


Barenaked Ladies 

@ Blue Cross Arena, Rochester NY 

Alice Cooper 

@ Auditorium Theatre, Rochester NY 

10.26.06: Godsmack 

@ Wolstein Center, CSU, Cleveland 

10.27.06: Smokin’ Joe Kubek Band 

@ Lafayette Tap Room, Buffalo NY 

Bill Miller 

@ Cornell University, Ithaca NY 

Bob Weir & Ratdog (10.27 & 10.28) 

@Town Ballroom, Buffalo NY 

Los Straitjackets 

@ Beachland Ballroom, Cleveland OH 

10.28.06: Barenaked Ladies 

@ Wolstein Center, Cleveland OH 

Dixie Chicks 

@ Air Canada Centre, Toronto ON 

10.30.06: Lionel Richie 

@ Thomson Hall, Toronto ON 

10.31.06: Red Hot Chili Peppers 


11.02.06: Gary Allan/Rascal Flatts 

@ HSBC Arena, Buffalo NY 

Legendary Shack Shakers 

@ House of Blues, Cleveland OH

Upcoming Concert Highlights: 

Hootie and the Blowfish 


11.03.06: Reverend Horton Heat 

@ Icon, Buffalo NY 

11.04.06: Johnny Lang 


Alice In Chains 

@ Dome Theater, Niagara Falls NY 

11.04.06: Hamell on Trial 

@ Milestones, Rochester NY 

11.05.06: Misfits 

@ Agora Theater, Cleveland OH 

Ziggy Marley 


11.06.06: Black Crowes 

@ University @ Buffalo CFA, Amherst, NY 

Trans-Siberian Orchestra 

@ Erie Civic Center, Erie PA 

Los Lobos 

@ Massey Hall, Toronto ON 

11.07.06: Jewel 


The World’s Largest Disco 

November 25, 2006 (9 pm - 1 am) 

Buffalo Convention Center • Buffalo, N.Y. 

www.worldslargestdisco.com 

The largest dance floor in New York State with 500,000 watts of sound and lights. Be part of the largest 

Retro party in the world as seen on VH-1’s “Where are they Now?” “CBS This Morning,” The 

Travel Channel’s “Secrets” & the front page of The Wall Street Journal. Voted “The Greatest Event 

on Earth” by Festivals.com. Listed as one of the top 50 events in the U.S. in the book “America Bizzaro.” 

Special Guest this year Erik Estrada, a.k.a. “Ponch” for the TV series Chips. 

Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus 

November 1 - 5, 2006 

Erie Civic Center • Erie, P.A. 

www.ticketmaster.com Phone: (814) 452-4857 

The intimate, interactive experience of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey 

Circus brings families close to elephants, horses, and clowns and leaves them 

with an unimaginable experience. Aerialists walk, fly and jump through the air and 

an Upside Down couple leaves the audience questioning the forces of gravity. 

Ohio Independent Film Festival 

November 5 - 12, 2006 

Cleveland Public Theatre’s Gordon Square Theatre, Cleveland O.H. 

www.ohiofilms.com 

The Ohio Independent Film Festival (OIFF) is one of the leading independent film events in Ohio. 

This year’s festival will mark the organization’s 20th festival in 13 years. The Ohio Independent 

Film Festival presents an internationally recognized line-up of first-class independent films from 

around the world. 

11.09.06: Alice in Chains 


11.08.06: Mike Seegar 

@ Eastman School of Music, Rochester NY 

11.10.06: Neil Sedaka 

@ Kleinhans Music Hall, Buffalo NY 

11.12.06: Ben Folds 

@ SUNY Fredonia, Fredonia NY 

11.13.06: The New Cars 

@ The University at Buffalo, Amherst NY 

11.15.06: Gary Allen 


11.16.06: Ann Rabson 

@ Night Town, Cleveland Heights OH 

Kansas 

@ Warner Theater, Erie PA 

11.17.06: Original Stars of Jazz Fusion 


11.18.06: Vicki Lawerence 

@ Warner Theater, Erie PA 

11.19.06: Bruce Hornsby 

@ University at Buffalo CFA, Amherst NY 


e 

11.21.06: Elton John’s & Tim Rice’s AIDA 

@ Warner Theater, Erie PA. 

11.24.06: Jewel 

Seneca Niagara Casino, Niagara Falls NY 

11.19.06: Gov’t Mule 


11.25.06: The Grassroots w/ Rob Grill 


Rob Zombie 

@ Tower City Amp., Cleveland OH 

The Who 

@ Wachovia Center, Philadelphia PA 

11.28.06: Between the Buried and Me 

@ Icon, Buffalo NY 

11.27.06: Between the Buried and Me 

@ Peabody’s, Cleveland OH 

12.01.06: Trans-Siberian Orchestra 


12.04.06: Oak Ridge Boys 

@ Warner Theatre, Erie PA 

12.12.06: Kenny Rogers 


12


Filmore Midwest: 

The Winchester Club 

By John C. Schepley 

It’s the “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” 

thing. When you keep hearing from music 

fans and even rock bands that a certain club 

offers a staggering variety of national acts at 

ticket prices that are easy to handle, you want 

to check the place out. One place, lately, is 

the Winchester Club in Lakewood, Ohio. 

The club – opened in the former Goth cave, 

Tyr, by Jim Mileti – will celebrate its fourth 

anniversary at around the same time you are 

reading this. 

Prog rock is heavily accented on the club’s 

musical menu, but the bill of fare is by no 

means limited to that genre. Blues, folk-rock, 

classic and rock-jazz fusion are all there to be 

tasted. The spectrum has included Lisa Loeb, 

Wishbone Ash, Sophie B. Hawkins and the 

truly great Leon Russell (sing to yourself: “I 

am alone now and I’m singing this song to 

you”), who have all had multiple appearances 

there. The Strawbs and the virtuoso guitarist 

Al DiMeola have also played the Winchester 

recently. (Tickets to that concert, by the way, 

were a very affordable $10.) 

pg. 13 

October/November 2006. artefakt magazine. 

Up ahead soon are prog rockers Von Frickle 

and Tunnels, featuring bassist Percy Jones, 

whom Bass Player Magazine described as 

the “best bass player in America.” 

Haven’t heard of them? Jim Mileti is not 

surprised. “These are incredible bands that 

you can really only hear live.” He favors 

Sirius over XM satellite radio for music 

variety, but wonders why there is a dearth of 

prog rock, in which you can hear the roots 

and the newness at the same time. Like so 

many other sub-genres now and in the past, 

this music, for the most part, can only be 

heard in clubs. 

The legendary Pat Travers said between 

songs last month, “You have no idea how 

lucky you are to have a club like this here.” 

The Winchester – along with the six-year-old 

Beachland Ballroom, on Cleveland’s East 

Side – are the closest things to the Filmore 

(Bill Graham’s famous music clubs of the 

late-‘60s in San Francisco and New York) 

that Cleveland has had since before most 

readers of this magazine can remember. 

Country Joe MacDonald (of Country Joe and 

The Fish, who played the Filmores) has also 

played the Winchester. He’s the one who, as 

a joke, began the myth of smoking banana 

peels as a way to get high. The British folk- 

rocker Donovan was pinned with it, when he 

referenced it in his song “Mellow Yellow,” 

but years later, MacDonald ‘fessed-up at 

the Rock Hall here in Cleveland at an event 

attended by both artists. 

The comfort level at the Winchester is 

also an attraction: There are ample tables 

and chairs for all, as opposed to the “mostly 

stand” mode at most concert clubs. The 

Winchester Club just feels good. 

Jim Mileti has an exhaustive knowledge of 

music and has the guts to go out on a limb 

to book new acts. “The only bands I won’t 

book are ones who spew or perpetuate hate 

in their lyrics,” he says. “I’ll never book 

those bands.” 

He seems to favor virtuosity in guitar 

playing, mentioning the upcoming 

appearance of Eric Sardinas: “A ferocious 

blues guitarist.” Also ahead is the firstever 

Cleveland appearance of Naked Eyes 

(“Always Something There To Remind 

Me”) from the ‘80s. A typical evening of 

sitting comfortably, listening to national 

acts from now to as far back as the ’70s can 

costs a couple as little as $20. 

Jim Mileti built it. They came. 

Contact the Winchester at 216-226-5681 

or thewinchester.net

Cleveland Theater – 

The Next Generation 

By John C. Schepley 

Contemporary theatre companies always 

need to do a dance around the dual motifs of 

popularity and startling artistic expression. 

Those are almost always located at the 

opposite ends of the dance floor, even if the 

dance floor is at a club where no one is over 

29. The plays that sell tickets and the ones 

that get accolades from theatrical literati 

often glance at each other from far across the 

room. 

A few companies in Cleveland are doing 

an exceptional job of balancing the duality 

of income production and breakthrough 

experiences for their patrons. None does it 

better than Cleveland Public Theatre. Around 

for 30 years, the theater has, along the way, 

not lost a single step in the sharpening of 

theatrical experience for its patrons. 

CPT’s founder, James Levin, co-founded 

Cleveland’s Ingenuity Festival, which, after 

its second year, seems to be growing in 

breadth and depth and scope, and may be on 

its way to becoming the predominant arts and 

technology event in the eastern U.S. 

Raymond Bobgan, CPT’s new executive 

Tina Dillon 

Licensed Real Estate Associate 

716.474.5646 

www.TinaDillon.com 

Cleveland Public Theatre’s new executive artistic 

director, Raymond Bobgan. 

ELLICOTTVILLE: Always wanted to be a restauranteur? 

This spacious establishment is situated on 

NYS Route 219 where all of the traffic flows into the 

Village. Upstairs features 2-3 bedroom, 2 bath apartment. 

All of this on 8 acres with paved parking. 

$395,000 

“Thinking of investing in Ellicottville real estate? I specialize in vacation properties and working with second home buyers and investors. Whether 

it’s a castle or a cabin, you deserve the best! With over 17 years experience in the real estate industry, my professional, proven techniques and 

tools will help you to make the best decision. Call me to discuss your real estate wants and investment needs”. 


e 

artistic director, has unveiled an innovative 

new season that includes the best of new 

theatre and remixes of neo-classics. “Artistic 

expression is defined by budget,” says 

Bobgan, echoing what everyone who is 

honest about art knows, but is not always 

ready to admit. 

The central jewel in the promising new 

season is The Stars Fell All Night by Mike 

Geither, whom Bobgan calls “an astonishing 

playwright.” In this premiere, a mortician 

comes to terms with the death of his sister 

by interaction with the corpses who are his 

clients, an exploration of grief and death and 

the universal rumination of loss within the 

context of being alive. The ever-active Jaqui 

Loewy will direct. 

Bobgan will re-fashion Thornton Wilder’s 

Our Town, an enduring American classic that 

was a hot ticket in New York a few years 

ago with Paul Newman. Look for CPT’s 

production to hone the edge on a decadesold 

play. 

At Christmas, instead of warmed-over 

gruel, David Sidaris’s The Santaland Diaries 

joins a stage version of the legendary Rocky 

Horror Picture Show for those who celebrate 

Christmas with love and black fingernails. A 

woman will portray the famous transvestite 

ELLICOTTVILLE: NEW BUILD: Ready and Waiting! 

Spacious 3+ bedroom, 3 bath home on picturesque 

1/2 acre lot. Full, finished walkout lower level 

is ideal for game/familyroom. Minutes to the slopes 

and golf! Buy Now-Decorate for the Holidays! 

$325,000 

14


at Corning Community College Commons and Gymnasium. 

Saturday, November 18, 2006: 10 am - 4 pm 

Sunday, November 19, 2006: 10 am - 3 pm 

$5.00 Admission, Children Under 12 Free. Lunch Available. 

For More Information: 

1-866-463-6264 

www.corningartsandcrafts.com 

Sponsored by: 

Steuben County Conference 

& Visitors Bureau 

1-866-WINE FUN 

www.CorningFingerLakes.com 


Out West Back East 

by Kirk House 

The first thing you notice is the buffalo, breaking through the brick 

wall onto Cedar Street. All around the world, people who have never 

watched a deer or an antelope play are crazy about the American 

West – the romantic West of “cowboys and Indians,” or the real 

West of big sky, broad plains and rugged mountains. In a way, we 

each make our own West, however we want it to be. 

Artists from Albert Bierstadt to Norman Rockwell to N.C. 

Wyeth have thrown themselves into the West, along with Frederic 

Remington, George Catlin and Charles M. Russell. Bob Rockwell, 

who owned a department store in Corning but spent as much time 

as he could in Colorado, built a collection of Western art so large 

and so fine that he finally decided it really needed a museum. So 

the Rockwell Museum of Western Art (111 Cedar St., Corning, NY; 

607-937-5386; www.rockwellmuseum.org) was born. 

Bob Rockwell built a collection of Western art so large and so fine, 

he finally decided it needed a museum. Hence, the Rockwell Museum 

of Western Art in Corning, NY, was born. 

Since it’s in Corning, it’s no surprise, of course, that the first 

object you meet is a large glass Indian. The museum’s Trading Post 

sports life-size cutouts of John Wayne, Matt Dillon and Hopalong 

Cassidy, but the short entry corridor introduces us to the twin 

genres of fine art and illustration art. Thomas Hill’s large and lovely 

oil Yosemite dominates the space, and yet it’s a painting by N.C. 

Wyeth that arrests the heart. The young husband in The Way West 

slouches forward at the reins of the covered wagon, face averted 

and shadowed, gazing on the distant horizon. But the lovely welldressed 

wife, drenched in sunlight and bathed in tears, turns her face 

toward the trail behind. 

The West is a big place, chock-full of variety, and Western art 

is the same. In The Bighorn Country by Carl Rungius is a huge 

canvas, on which pale sky shades into snowy peaks and then to gray, 

rocky ledges patched with moss-like felt, through which a herd of 

bighorns picks its way. A trompe l’oeil On the Cabin Wall shows 

off stereotype Western icons: tomahawk, carbine, pictures of Sitting 

Bull and Buffalo Bill. N.C. Wyeth’s Bronco Buster, decked in stars 

and stripes, fires off six-guns as firecrackers sizzle around him.

But the art of the West begins with traditional 

Native American art, such as a buffalo-hide robe 

painted with a huge star surrounded by concentric 

circles of geometric design. A scalplock warshirt 

from the plains, with long fringes on the arms, is 

decorated with four long locks of hair. An 1850- 

60 Sioux hairpipe breastplate is adorned with a 

German medallion honoring, with considerable 

irony, someone named Jacob Laurenz Custer. 

Southwestern art is another feature, and the 

museum restaurant, the Cantina, has an authentic 

southwestern taste – try its honest-to-goodness 

tacos. Rockwell also collects toys, and a few are 

scattered about, including a 1949 Marx windup 

Lone Ranger (riding his horse, Silver) in 

lithographed tin. 

But although art of the West is long on tradition 

and nostalgia, it’s anything but static. Modern 

artwork (much of it quite edgy), including work 

by contemporary Native American artists, also 

finds its place in the Rockwell. 

Judith Lowry’s 1995 triptych Family: 

Love’s Unbroken Heaven, blends features of 

Southwestern art, Native American art, and 

Italian Renaissance art with a certain postmodern 

flair. The artist’s little brother dances in an Indian 

outfit made by their mother for Christmas, as the 

father snaps pictures and the haloed mother, with 

cigarette and winged high heels, looks proudly 

on. Off by herself, the artist (as a young girl) 

beats time on a tom-tom, the focus of no one’s 

attention, including her own. “For the first time,” 

her label informs us, “I realized that I came from 

a racially mixed family.” 

James Fenimore Cooper has a lot to answer 

for. America’s first novelist introduced the world 

to a mythical West, teeming with noble savages, 

bloodthirsty barbarians, treacherous Frenchmen 

and untutored but innately wise woodsmen. 

In Cooper’s old stomping grounds at 

Cooperstown, New York, the Fenimore 

Art Museum (State Highway 80, Lake Rd., 

Cooperstown; 888-547-1450; www.nysha. 

org) paints a far more honest picture of the first 

Americans. Here is the real thing, influenced only 

recently by European culture. Here, an entire 

wing showcases 20 centuries of Native American 

art from across the continent. 

It started with four flags on a moosehide pillow 

sham. Eugene Thaw found it in Santa Fe after a 

lifetime dealing in art, liked it, bought it and soon 

added more. American Indian art as art, not as 

ethnography, became his passion, at least at first. 

The Eugene and Clare Thaw Collection – 

which recently celebrated its 10th anniversary at 

Fenimore – now welcomes visitors with 700 art 

objects. In its museum home, Thaw’s collection 

became more complete, representing the 

entire continent from prehistory to today, with 

treasures from each of the continent’s major 

cultural regions. 

What’s on exhibition varies, of course, but 

the Thaw Wing is a quiet, thought-provoking 

place. Precontact wood, stone and ceramic 

speak eloquently of a world that used to be, 

even as later work increasingly shows signs of 

the European invasion. 

Special Exhibits at Fenimore (through 12/31/06): 

Reveal Conceal: 

The Transforming Power of Masks 

Heartbeat and Harmony: 

The Art of American Indian Women 

Glories of the Landscape: 

The Hudson River School 

The Flower of Youth: 

19th-Century Folk Portraits of Children 

Special Exhibitions and Events at Rockwell 

Fields and Streams : Hunting and Wildlife in the 

American West (10/21/06-1/31/07) 

El Dia de los Muertos Student Exhibit: 

(10/06-11/06) 

Junior Sparkle: (Dec. 2) 

Free Community Days 30th Anniversary 

Celebration: (30th of each month) 

Also worth seeing in New York state: 

Frederic Remington Art Museum 

(303 Washington St., Ogdensburg; 

315-393-2425; www.fredericremington.org) 

Dedicated to the life and work of the famed painter 

and sculptor who specialized in the American 

West. 

New York State Museum 

(Cultural Education Center of the Empire State 

Plaza, Madison Ave; Albany; 

518-474-5877; www.nysm.nysed.gov) 

Includes a full-size recreated Iroquois longhouse 

and dioramas of paleoindian life in New York 

State. 

Ganondagan Historic Site 

(1488 State Route 444, Victor; 585-924-5848; 

www.ganondagan.org) 

Seneca longhouse on grounds of Ganondagan 

town, fired by French invaders in the 1600’s. Interpretive 

nature trails as well. 

Seneca-Iroquois National Museum 

(Salamanca; visit Web site for directions; 

716-945-1738; www.senecamuseum.org) 

operated by the Iroquois Nation. 

e 

Open 7 Days a Week 

Events at The Tavern: 

October 28, 2006: 

Halloween at The Tavern 

Come in Costume! 

Sat. Dec. 30 - Mon. Jan. 1 

New Years Eve Weekend 

Special Room Package: 

• 2 Nights Deluxe Stay 

• $25 Certificate towards Dinner 

• “Sparkling Wines Bus Tour” 

• Maloney’s New Year’s Eve 

Ball Drop (Watch Out NYC!) 

• New Years Day Brunch 

$195/Person 

(based on double occupancy.) 

• AAA Diamond 

Restaurant 

• Central to 

Shops & Wineries 

• Awarded 

“Restaurant of the Year” 

by the NYS Wine & 

Grape Foundation 

HAMMONDSPORT, N.Y. 

607-569-2528 

www.VillageTavernInn.com 

• Over 130 Domestic & 

Exotic Beers, 

15 Draughts 

• Wine Spectator 

“Award of Excellence” 

Yearly Since 1995 

• Lodging Available 

• Live Music 

Don’t Miss The Village Tavern’s 

Mardi Gras 

Weekend Celebration & 

Costume Party! 

TBA, Thurs. -Sun. 

October/November 2006 artefakt. magazine. pg. 16


Snug Harbor 

Restaurant & Inn 

607-868-SNUG 

9068A Snug Harbor Drive 

Hammondsport, NY 

www.snugharborrestaurantandinn.com 


Ingredients for Success 

Master pastry chef Christian Thirion 

now makes sweet confections in glass 

by Pat Worrell, AMERICANSTYLE, Fall 1999 

“If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” That’s an 

apt saying for many people, but not for Christian Thirion. He 

left the kitchen, and a career as a master pastry chef, for the 

hot shop and a new career as a glassblower. “Chocolate,” he 

explains, “is liquid and then becomes hard. Glass is a similar 

concept.” 

Christian Thirion equates the similarities between his current and previous 

careers. Trained as a master pastry chef in his native France, 

Christian explains “Chocolate is liquid and then becomes hard, glass 

is a similar concept.” 

But the family business dictated that Thirion follow in the 

steps of his grandmother and father, both bakers. So, at the age 

of 14, Thirion began an intensive three-year apprenticeship in 

Belfort, France, to become a pastry chef. Up at 5 a.m. every 

day, he took inspiration from a huge stone lion, several stories 

high, built by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, sculptor of the 

Statue of Liberty, to commemorate French resistance fighters 

who fought so tenaciously for the town. Only 17 in his class 

of 36 graduated. 

The loss of his mother in 1978 made him realize how 

important it is to take a chance and follow your heart. So 

when he saw an advertisement in the local newspaper for a 

pastry chef in Chicago, he thought he would go see what it 

was all about. “The address in the paper was in the next town, 

which only had about 15 houses,” Thirion remembers. 

He couldn’t miss it, he says, because the American flag was 

hanging on the front. To him, the man who answered the door 

“looked like Davy Crockett in a suede jacket and red hair.” 

He handed Thirion a business card to call the States. Thirion 

didn’t speak English but somehow managed, and two months 

later he had his immigration papers as part of an international 

exchange between two chambers of commerce.

Thirion moved to California in 1980. He started a restaurant, 

then worked in construction, plumbing and landscaping but 

never lost his interest in glass. 

“I started to work with stained glass in 1984 and found myself 

spending hours watching a well-known glassblower” in his 

neighboring studio, he says. In 1987, he decided to sign up for 

a course in glassmaking advertised at the city college in Santa 

Barbara. “The moment I handled the pipe with molten glass 

and placed the glass on my block, I said ‘This is it. This is what 

I want to do.’ “ 

He left pastry to pursue glass-blowing full time. He convinced 

the teacher to let him attend extra sessions, then became a 

teaching assistant so he could have studio time. 

After blowing glass for two years in Seattle, Washington, 

where he refined his technique and learned as much as he could 

by watching and helping other artists, such as Martin Blank 

and Dante Marioni, he relocated to the Finger Lakes region 

of New York in 1992. That year he received a commission to 

create several large pieces for a restaurant in Toyko. When 

one piece broke in packing on the way to a show, a friend in 

Corning offered his studio to remake the piece. For the first 

time, Thirion visited the Corning Museum of Glass, and he 

decided to stay in the area. 

“Glass is a learning process. I continue to discover new ways 

to apply color, textures and techniques to enhance my work,” 

he says. “I’m always learning.” So it’s no coincidence that 

his studio and hot shop are located in a 1930s brick building, 

formerly the village elementary school, on the banks of 

Catherine Creek in Millport, New York. 

If there’s a thread to his life and his work, it’s movement. His 

friends call him the “gypsy glassblower,” he says, because he 

has moved around so much. His art glass is a blend of classic 

elegance and fluid forms. Early vessels were enhanced with 

wings, spirals of color or flame-shaped stoppers flicked to 

one side as though blown by the wind. Then he began moving 

toward larger pieces. 

In his most recent work, long stoppers gently rock back and 

forth inside large, curved two-tone vessels he calls the Wave 

Series. Topped with an extra dot of color, “the fun pieces on top 

add another element of color and movement,” he says. 

Where will he be moving next? Thirion’s newest idea is 

to create small glass vessels filled with his own chocolate 

truffles. 

e 

UNION BLOCK CAFE _ 

• Full BreakFasts and lunches 

• Soups • Salads • Sandwiches • Pastries • Personal Gourmet Pizzas 

• Espresso • Cappuccino • Chi Teas • Smoothies 

• BYOB Friendly • Wireless Internet 

Open Daily 7am-5:30pm; Friday & Saturday 7am-6:30pm 

31 Shethar Street. Hammondsport, N.Y. (607) 569-2244 

Have Fun Browsing Through 2 Floors of Great Gifts and Sportswear 

for Ladies & Gents. Gifts for the Wine Lover. Largest Selection 

of Regional Souvenirs, T-shirts and Sweatshirts in the area. 

Open Daily 9am-5:30pm; Friday & Saturday 9am-5:30pm 

33 Shethar Street. Hammondsport, N.Y. (607) 569-2497 



composer Greg D’Alessio. And don’t worry 

about tickets; this concert happens to be 

free. 

acclaimed Israeli modern dance company The big news on the East Side of town is 

Batsheva makes its long-awaited return to the opening of a major new exhibition at the 

Cleveland, after an absence of nearly 15 Cleveland Museum of Art, which has been 

years. 

closed since January undergoing significant 

Batsheva was founded in 1990 in Tel Aviv renovation and expansion. The show, which 

by Ohad Naharin, a former student of dance opens October 15, is called Barcelona & 

legend Martha Graham. Naharin remains Modernity: Picasso, Gaudi, Miro, Dali. 

the company’s director and its principal Drawn from the CMA’s permanent 

choreographer, and has brought the company collection, in association with Barcelona’s 

to the attention to the world. Patrons should Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, the 

get a good picture of the entire troupe that exhibition is the first in North America to 

evening with Deca Dance, an evening- examine Barcelona’s rise as a European 

length compilation of his work at Batsheva. capital of modern art in the late 19 

For tickets, visit www.playhousesquare. 

org. 

Art from a completely different culture 

arrives in Northeast Ohio October 23, when 

Philadelphia’s Dali String Quartet performs 

at Cleveland State University’s Drinko 

Recital Hall. The Dali Quartet specializes in 

the music of Brazil and Argentina, even as 

they also play more traditional repertoire. 

That Monday, though, everything’s from 

Spain and Latin America on a program 

including the first String Quartet by Heitor 

Villa-Lobos, Four, For Tango by Astor 

Piazzolla, String Quartet No. 1 by Arcangel 

Castillo, and La Oracion del Torero by 

Joaquin Turina. The only exception is a 

new work by Cleveland State University 

th and early 

20th specifically for this show. This should help 

enliven the days of November through 

December 30. 

And CMA isn’t the only building 

in University Circle showing off its 

renovations. The Cleveland Institute of 

Music, too, is about to unveil its brandnew 

Lennon Education Building, at the 

corner East Boulevard and Hazel Drive. 

It’s the first major milestone in CIM’s 

ongoing expansion project. Public tours and 

demonstrations are taking place October 13 

and 14. Call 216-795-5000 or visit www. 

cim.edu for details. 

Once you see the new facility, you’re 

probably going to want to come back. An 

centuries. The exhibition features nearly ideal occasion would be the November 29 

300 pieces, including paintings, sculptures, concert celebrating – perhaps for the last 

photographs, designs and textiles. Catch it time this year – Mozart’s 250 

and check out the renovations for yourself 

by January 7. Also during this period are 

three events on the new season of CMA’s 

Viva & Gala Around Town performing arts 

series. 

Homegrown talent, as opposed to European, 

is the subject of a new that show opened 

September 29 at Cleveland’s Museum of 

Contemporary Art. Dana Schutz, a graduate 

of the Cleveland Institute of Art, has gone 

on to an international career with portraits 

leaning toward the bizarre and grotesque. 

Now she’s getting a major solo exhibition of 

her recent work, some of which was created 

th Around Town, continued from pg. 9 

birthday. 

Acclaimed faculty pianist Sergei Babayan 

joins the CIM Orchestra under guest 

conductor Lucas Waldin in performances of 

Mozart’s Piano Concertos No. 23 and 24, 

the haunting Fantasy in D Minor, and the 

ever-popular Variations on “Ah, vous diraije 

Maman.” The concert is free, but because 

it’s bound to be well-attended, ticket passes 

are required. 

These are just a few of the arts events to 

look forward to as Cleveland settles into fall 

during the next two months. If none of these 

is up your alley somehow, it won’t be hard to 

find something that is. 

Exclusively brewed and available at: 


The Wildflower Cafe 

The Crooked Rooster Brew pub 

www.roosterfishbrewing.com 

223-301 North Franklin Street 

Watkins Glen, NY 14891 

607.535.9797 

‘ 

Check Us Out Wednesdays, 6pm for 

Chicken ‘n’ Pickin’ 

Olde Time Acoustic Night 

Hosted by Vinnie and the Vinenots. 

www.roosterfishbrewing.com 

Live music weekends this summer. 

Fresh craft ale tastings. 

Brewery tours available.

Cleveland Public Theatre, continued from pg. 14 Local Color, continued from pg. 4 

Dr. Frank N. Furter. 

Cleveland’s Tremont area has hit two And I studied ethnomusicology at Harvard. 

Maybe the most exciting CPT adventure consecutive creative grand slams with But I mostly educated myself in it. And 

is the Not Quite Theatre series that includes Poona the Fuckdog last season and A I’ve benefited tremendously from the Rock 

quick plays, dance and musical works, Murder of Crows this season. It will be Hall, and from the generosity of people there 

and features SAFMOD (Sub Atomic interesting to see what they bring us next. – from the senior staff being willing to come 

Frequency Modulation), the always- There is also the splendid Ensemble in and talk to classes, from Terry Stewart, 

percolating dance and percussion troupe Theatre, driven by the twins Lucia and the CEO there, opening up the building to 

art-directed by the amazingly talented Licia Columbi, with a season that includes our students to come and have classes there. 

Alexandra Underhill. She will incorporate The Hobbyist, about Paul Gauguin, who To work with the artifacts and objects there 

some of the same black-light and neon- chucked his successful job as a stockbroker – that’s something you can’t do anywhere else 

enhanced costuming that was showcased to live and paint in Tahiti and re-defined but here. “ 

at the Ingenuity Festival in July. Their 20th-century style in painting. And As the University Liaison and Advisor to 

percussion instruments include suspended Tennessee Williams’s The Rose Tattoo.” the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, 

clay flowerpots and frying pans and even “Every time that Dobama and Ensemble Davis has lured Rock Hall staff members to 

their own bodies, slapped in rhythmic does a new play,” CPT’s Bobgan says, “it teach classes at the university on a regular 

orchestration with Ms. Underhill’s expands horizons for us and Convergence- basis. And CWRU hosts some educational 

eye-candy costumes and choreography Continuum, and for them.” 

events co-sponsored by the Rock Hall. By far 

sketched-out in a rich tableau of motion. Levin and Bobgan have a shared vision the biggest of these is the American Music 

The series also includes 10-minute plays, of their theater and of the neighborhood Masters Series, an annual event, this year 

some involving audience interaction and that nurtures them. The Detroit-Shoreway taking place Oct. 30 - Nov. 5. (See sidebar.) 

movable performances within the theatres, area will be growing in scope and vibrancy Davis’s book Classic Chic: Music, Fashion, 

a theatrical version of tapas (the Portuguese thanks to CPT and the acquisition of the and Transatlantic Modernism, will be 

cuisine that offers appetizer-sized portions old Capitol movie theater a few blacks published in November, too. It examines 

of a meal). 

away. The renovation of that theater into the connections between music and other 

But CPT does not have a total lock on a modern art cinema house will create cultural phenomena, especially fashion, in 

theatrical innovation. Dobama Theater the same feeling of a creative village early 20th-century France. The book will 

– which will present its plays at various that 100,000 people felt at the Ingenuity most likely spawn a sequel, about the rest of 

sites around town – offers The Pillowman Festival a few months ago. 

the 20 

in October, a play that demands a wicked A new generation is stepping onto the 

sense of humor and connects with new stage to connect with new friends and make 

theatergoers. 

new fans. There is a future to celebrate in 

Convergence-Continuum Theatre in that. 

Schedule: 

Marietta Cheng, Music Director and Conductor 

Schedule: Saturday, September 30, 2006 

Saturday, 8 pm, Clemens September Center, 30, Elmira 2006 N.Y. 

8 Sunday, pm, Clemens November Center, 5, 2006 Elmira N.Y. 

Sunday, 4 pm, Corning November Museum 5, 2006 of Glass, Corning N.Y. 

4 Sunday, pm, Corning December Museum 17, 2006 of Glass, Corning N.Y. 

Marietta Cheng, Music Director and Conductor 

Sunday, 4 pm, Clemens December Center, 17, 2006 Elmira, N.Y. 

Season Subscription: 

4 Sunday, pm, Clemens March Center, 2, 2007 Elmira, N.Y. 

Season $75/adult; Subscription: 

$25/fist student, additional students are free 

Sunday Sunday, 4 pm, Clemans March 2, 4, Center, 2007 Elmira, N.Y. 

$75/adult; $25/fist student, additional students are free 

4 Sunday pm, Clemans May, 7,2007 Center, Elmira, N.Y. 

(607) 936-2873 • www.osfl.org • info@osfl.org Sunday 4 pm, Corning May, 6, 7,2007 Museum 2007 of Glass, Corning N.Y. 

(607) Individual 936-2873 Tickets Available: • www.osfl.org Clemens Center Box • Office info@osfl.org 

(607) 734-8191 

4 pm, Corning Museum of Glass, Corning N.Y. 

th century. “And it all goes back to my 

work on Satie,” Davis says. Sometimes those 

unanticipated things bring you to places you 

hadn’t expected to wind up. Like back where 

you began. 


e 

20


Artifact Spotlight from the Curator’s Desk: Revolution of Rock: The Story of the Clash 

Opening at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame October 20, 2006 

Jim Henke, Curator for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 

explores their upcoming exhibit. 

The Clash was one of the most explosive 

and exciting bands in rock and roll history. 

The group took the raw anger of British punk 

and transformed it into a political and aesthetic 

agenda. As a 1980 Rolling Stone cover story 

put it, they were rebels with a cause – in 

fact, with many causes, ranging from anti- 

Thatcherism to racial unity to Nicaragua’s 

Sandinista movement. Musically, the Clash 

evolved from a DIY punk unit, playing 

aggressive but relatively simple songs, into a 

sophisticated rock band that incorporated rap, 

reggae and funk into its music. 

Formed in London in June 1976, the initial 

lineup of the Clash included Mick Jones and 

Joe Strummer (born John Graham Mellor), 

both on guitar and vocals, Keith Levene 

on guitar, Paul Simonon on bass and Terry 

Chimes (a.k.a. Tory Crimes) on drums. The 

band played its first gig that summer, opening 

for the Sex Pistols. Levene left shortly 

thereafter, and the Clash hit the road with 

the Pistols, serving as the opening act on the 

Anarchy in the U.K. tour. In February 1977, 

CBS Records signed the group for a reported 

$200,000. Their debut album, The Clash, was 

released in Britain that spring and entered the 

charts at Number 12. The album included such 

punk-rock anthems as “I’m So Bored with the 

U.S.A.,” “London’s Burning” and “White 

Riot.” CBS’ American arm, Epic, considered 

the album “too crude” and refused to release 

it in the U.S. In response, the Clash recorded 

“Complete Control” with Jamaican producer 

Lee “Scratch” Perry. (As an import, the album 

sold more than 100,000 copies in the States, 


making it one of the biggest-selling import 

records of all time.) 

In late 1977, Chimes quit the group and 

was replaced by Nicky “Topper” Headon. 

The following year, at the insistence of their 

American label, the Clash hooked up with U.S. 

producer Sandy Pearlman (best known for his 

work with Blue Öyster Cult) for their second 

album. More polished than the debut LP, Give 

‘Em Enough Rope hit Number Two in the U.K. 

but failed to chart in the U.S. The Clash toured 

the U.S. twice in 1979. By this point, they had 

become one of the most compelling live bands 

around. Critic Lester Bangs described the 

group onstage as “a desperation uncontrived, 

unstaged, a fury unleashed on the stage and 

writhing upon itself in real pain that connects 

with the nerves of the audience.” Strummer 

himself said, “It was like a fireworks display. 

It was like, ‘Bang!’ as soon as that first tune 

came in, it seemed to us like three seconds 

before we hit the last chords or the last tune. It 

was like a psychedelic, kinetic blur.” 

The Clash’s masterpiece, London Calling, 

was released in the U.K. in December 1979 

and in the U.S. in January 1980. The double 

album, produced by Guy Stevens, earned 

the group its first U.S. hit, “Train in Vain 

(Stand by Me),” which reached Number 23. 

The album made it to Number 27 in the U.S. 

The Clash followed London Calling with the 

sprawling three-record set Sandinista! The 

album included such Clash standards as “The 

Magnificent Seven,” “Police on My Back,” 

“The Call Up” and “Washington Bullets” and 

made it to Number 24 in the U.S. 

In December 1981, as the band was beginning 

to record its next album, Headon was arrested 

for heroin possession. He eventually left 

the band, and Chimes rejoined. Before his 

departure, Headon wrote “Rock the Casbah,” 

which became the Clash’s biggest hit, 

reaching Number Eight. Combat Rock, mixed 

by veteran producer Glyn Johns, was the 

Clash’s most commercially successful album. 

In addition to “Rock the Casbah,” it included 

“Should I Stay or Should I Go,” which was 

a Top 50 hit. The album itself reached the 

Top 10, and it found the group expanding 

musically, as the band incorporated rap and 

funk into its sound. One song featured poet 

Allen Ginsberg. 

In the fall of 1982, the Clash toured the U.S. 

extensively, playing several stadium dates 

with the Who. In spring 1983, they headlined 

the US Festival in California. By that point, 

Pete Howard had replaced Chimes on drums. 

But the band members were feuding, and 

in the fall of 1983, Simonon and Strummer 

kicked Jones out of the group. He was replaced 

by two guitarists, Vince White and Nick 

Sheppard, and this new version of the Clash 

recorded Cut the Crap. The album, released in 

1985, was poorly received by critics and fans 

alike, and the group disbanded in 1986. 

Jones went on to form Big Audio Dynamite. 

Strummer pursued a career in film, as a 

songwriter, scorer and actor. He also made 

occasional appearances with the Pogues, 

formed a short-lived band called the Latino 

Rockabilly War and then fronted the 

Mescaleros. Simonon briefly played with the 

band Havana 3 A.M., then went on to pursue 

a career in art. Strummer died of a heart 

attack on December 22, 2002. 

The Clash was inducted into the Rock and 

Roll Hall of Fame in 2003.

Clash Concert Poster, 1981 

London, England 

Collection of Mick Jones 

The Clash had a seven-night residency at the Lyceum 

Ballroom during the Radio Clash U.K. tour. 

“Lost in the Supermarket” 

Written by Joe Strummer and Mick Jones 

Recorded by The Clash 

Released on the album London Calling, 

December, 1979 

Collection of Lucinda Mellor 

This manuscript, handwritten by Joe 

Strummer, is an early draft of “Lost 

in the Supermarket.” It became the 

(Opposite Page) 

first verse of the finished song, which 

Clash Set List 

was sung by Mick Jones. 

Friars Maxwell Hall 

Aylesbury, England, 

January 5, 1980 

Collection of 

Lucinda Mellor 

This set list was written by Joe 

Strummer for the Clash’s gig in 

Aylesbury, England, during the 

16 Tons tour. Ian Dury and the 

Blockheads opened the show. 

Mick Jones Electric Guitar 

Gibson Les Paul TV Junior, c. 1959 


Mick Jones played this guitar extensively 

during the London Calling tour 

and through the early 1980s. 

e 

Mick Jones Shirt 


Mick Jones wore this “do-it-yourself”-style silkscreened 

T-shirt onstage in 1977. 

Joe Strummer Electric Guitar 

Fender Telecaster, c. 1965 

Collection of Lucinda Mellor 

This was one of Joe Strummer’s favorite 

guitars. He played this guitar 

extensively during various tours 

with the Clash. Several set lists are 

still attached to the guitar, one taped 

over the next. 



pg. October/November 2006. artefakt magazine.

* Something created by humans for a practical ... - Artefakt Magazine

Sie wollen auch ein ePaper? Erhöhen Sie die Reichweite Ihrer Titel.

Template löschen?

Als Template speichern?