Courtyard Music Series: Pete Cavano
May 18, 2012 | 7:30-10pm
As a professional guitarist for close to 40 years, Pete is no stranger to the local music scene. He has performed with artists as diverse as the late Robert Lockwood Jr., and local legends Anne E. Dechant, Wallace Coleman, Mr. Stress, and Colin Dussault, to name just a few.
In addition to his local work, he has been an annual performer at the Chet Atkins Appreciation Society Convention held in Nashville. This is a showcase of the best solo guitarists from around the world and he is humbled to be in their ranks.
Barbara Verkuilen: The Tale of Zen Master Bho Li: Book Presentation & Signing
May 19, 2012 | 2-4pm
The Tale of Zen Master Bho Li is an original, beautifully illustrated, winsome Zen fable that imparts three essential lessons for an awakened life. The reader meets a cast of endearing characters that assist an 8-year old orphan on his journal to become a beloved Zen Master. The fable format conveys nuanced wisdom without minimizing impact. The story engages the reader with themes as diverse as our human relations to nature, impermanence, coping with difficult situations - including death - and the triumph of compassion. Despite these mature themes, the book is accessible to readers as young as ten years of age.
Barbara Verkuilen began her career as an elementary teacher, followed by 20 years as a psychotherapist, and then embarked on career as a writer. She is a long time Zen practitioner and Zen priest who is also the author of Dokusan with Dogen: Timeless Lessons in Negotiating the Way and Tending the Fire: An Introspective Guide to Zen Awakening.
Courtyard Music Series: Trepanning Trio
May 19, 2012 | 7:30-10
Trepanning Trio is an instrumental, avant-chamber ensemble which performs and records using only classical, traditional and handmade instruments (i.e., viola da gamba, kalimba, guzheng, pan lids screwed onto sticks and played with violin bows, etc).
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Discount Day!: Bob Dylan's Birthday!
May 24, 2012 | all day
Happy Birthday, Bob Dylan! Explore our great selection of Music books today. 15% off Dylan books; 10% off other music books.
Courtyard Music Series: Bill Fox
May 25, 2012 | 7:30-10pm
Bill Fox is joining us again! We're looking forward to another night of throaty emotional guitar strumming, allegorical lyrics, and unique sound.
Courtyard Music Series: Katianne Timko
May 26, 2012 | 7:30-10pm
Katianne Timko is an acoustic, folk/pop singer/songwriter who blasted into the Ohio music scene in 2011. She grew up performing in musical theatre, but soon became unsatisfied always performing other people’s songs. She began studying the guitar and writing her own lyrics as a way to express herself while making sense out of life’s messy situations. She soon caught the attention of venues, musicians and fans alike.
In her first year of performing her own original material, she has already performed at Ballyhoo Music Festival, LemonRock Presents, Mojo’s ShamRock 2011, and been featured on Clear Channel radio’s “The Homegrown Show” and Rookery Radio. Katianne has played with such notable acts as Grammy Award nominated Jann Klose, Vermont’s Heather Maloney, Woodson, and national touring bands The Zou and The Robbie Jay Band. The first lady of the Americana Rock Co., Katianne has just finished her first release - the “What I Wanted” EP produced by Pete Drivere of the Deadbeat Poets and the Infidels.
Monthly Public Poetry Workshop
May 30, 2012 | 6-8pm
The Public Poetry Workshop comes to the West side on the fourth Wednesday of each month. Poets of all ages and backgrounds are welcome to bring a work-in-progress and receive recommendations for improving it. Our goal is friendly, yet serious critiques by emerging and experienced writers. Improvement of craft through reading, writing, and workshopping with Instructors Claire McMahon and a guest host.
Claire McMahon has an MFA in Writing & Poetics from Naropa University (Boulder, Colorado) and a Ph.D. in 20th Cent. American & British Poetry from Kent State University. She is co-editor of MoonLit poetry journal (Drag City Press, Chicago) and the author of a book of poems entitled, Emergency Contact (Van Zeno Press, Cleveland). She has taught English writing courses locally at Lake Erie College, Baldwin-Wallace College, Cuyahoga Community College, and Chancellor University. Currently, Claire is an Adjunct Professor of Humanities at Bowling Green University’s Firelands campus.
Cynthia Ellingsen: The Whole Package: Book Reading
May 31, 2012 | 6-8pm
Starting over is never easy, unless you have your best friends to turn to...
About to turn forty, three best friends are stunned to see their lives unraveling. Jackie's lost her fortune, Doris has lost her husband and Cheryl has lost her beloved marketing job. Together, they embark on a saucy business adventure - they open the world's first restaurant exclusively staffed by scantily clad men. Mixing business with pleasure isn't always easy, but these women learn that starting over isn't impossible, especially with the help of good friends.
Cynthia Ellingsen is an author and screenwriter based in Lexington, KY. Her first novel, The Whole Package was released by Penguin-Berkley in August, 2011 and her second novel, Marriage Matters will be on the shelves April, 2013.
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Mary Doria Russell: Doc: Book Reading and Signing
June 1, 2012 | 7-8pm
Born to the life of a Southern gentleman, Dr. John Henry Holliday arrives on the Texas frontier hoping that the dry air and sunshine of the West will restore him to health. Soon, with few job prospects, Doc Holliday is gambling professionally with his partner, Mária Katarina Harony, a high-strung, classically educated Hungarian whore. In search of high-stakes poker, the couple hits the saloons of Dodge City. And that is where the unlikely friendship of Doc Holliday and a fearless lawman named Wyatt Earp begins— before the gunfight at the O.K. Corral links their names forever in American frontier mythology—when neither man wanted fame or deserved notoriety.
MARY DORIA RUSSELL was born in suburban Chicago in 1950. Her mother was a Navy nurse and her father was a Marine Corps drill sergeant. She and her younger brother Richard consequently developed a dismaying vocabulary at an early age. She learned discretion at Sacred Heart Catholic elementary school; how to diagram sentences at Glenbard East High; cultural anthropology at the University of Illinois; social anthropology at Northeastern University in Boston; and biological anthropology at the University of Michigan.
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Courtyard Music Series: Ashley Brooke Toussant
June 1, 2012 | 7:30-10pm
Toussant’s music puts her beautiful high-register vocals front and center over sweet melodies, with subtle country and Americana-style instrumentation. It’s a sound that is both old and new, and it draws in the listener.
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Leslie Anne Mcilroy : Poetry Reading
June 2, 2012 | 7-8 pm
Leslie Anne Mcilroy won the 2001 Word Press Poetry Prize for her full-length collection Rare Space and the 1997 Slipstream Poetry Chapbook Prize for her chapbook Gravel. She also took first place in the 1997 Chicago Literary Awards Competition judged by Gerald Stern. Her second full-length book, Liquid Like This, was published by Word Press in 2008. Leslie's work appears in numerous publications including American Poetry: The Next Generation, Dogwood, The Emily Dickinson Award Anthology, The Ledge, The Mississippi Review, and the Nimrod International Journal of Prose & Poetry and Pearl. Leslie works as a copywriter in Pittsburgh, PA, where she lives with her daughter Silas, and writer/guitarist, Don Bertschman, with whom she also performs poetry.
"Leslie Anne Mcilroy’s Rare Space is a stunning collection of poems, daring, taut, sexually alive, and politically astute. A myriad of familiar themes becomes incandescent under her unflinching gaze. We’re invited to look closely at family, sex, race, physical disability, psychic pain and what it is to be a young American woman at the beginning of a new century facing down old ills like racism, classism, and misogyny armed with little more than a laptop and an indomitable will. Rare Space is a new American poetry at its absolute best." — Sapphire
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Susan Greene: Pregnancy and Birth event
June 3, 2012 | 2-3:30
Join local midwife Susan Greene for a showing of the classroom version of "The Business of Being Born". She'll also answer questions and share some of her favorite titles about pregnancy and birth.
Classic Radio Night
June 6, 2012 | 6-7:45pm
Visible Voice Books is a wonderful Independent Book Store, with a wine selection you can order by the glass. We'll be upstairs in their very nice meeting area.
If you aren't familiar with Classic Radio it's more or less what TV is today-but with you needing to listen a bit more and fill in the scenery with your own thoughts. Episodic Dramas and comedies, except you have to use your mind to fill in the scenery.
It's a lot of fun, please join us.
Courtyard Music Series: New Wave Power Babes (Shaun Kedir)
June 7, 2012 | 7-9pm
What do you get when you mix the sensitivity of bad boy G.G. Allin, the sexiness of Roy Orbison, and a Nilsson-esque ear for melody and singalong good times? You get The New Wave Power Babes. Bring your sweetie.
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ArtWalk: Photography by Greg Murray
June 8, 2012 | 6-10pm
Courtyard Music Series: Front Porch
June 8, 2012 | 7:30-10pm
In a musical landscape that can seem dominated by pomp and circumstance, the success of a “mountain music” band might seem unlikely. But don’t tell that to the members of Front Porch. They have evidence to prove otherwise.
The group, comprising four Baldwin-Wallace College teachers, has been forging its own brand of traditional music for about nine years now, and it is finding broad appeal. What started as a project to just have some fun has put the group on stage at venues as diverse as county libraries and student “cause” parties, to the Beachland Ballroom and Tavern in Cleveland’s Waterloo neighborhood and even churches.
Courtyard Music Series: Crooked River Blues Band
June 9, 2012 | 7:30-10pm
The Crooked River Blues Band is a modern take on a traditional string band. If you can find us you'll be mesmerized by agile banjos, wanderlust fiddle tracks, wicked guitar licks, driving rhythm and soulful singing. Come dance, come drink, and come back again and again!
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Comic Book Night with Box Brown
June 14, 2012 | 7-8:30pm
Cartoonists Sally Madden, Josh Bayer, Box Brown, Pat Aulisio and Matt Wieigle will do a live reading and signing of their comics! Please visit Retrofitcomics.com for more information on their work!
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Courtyard Music Series: Nate Jones
June 15, 2012 | 7:30-10pm
Fans of ’70s singer-songwriters and soft-rockers like James Taylor, Jim Croce, Paul Simon, the Eagles and Crosby Stills and Nash don't want to miss Nate Jones. His melodic, relationship-oriented songs and earnest vocals recall artists like Taylor, as well as contemporaries like John Mayer.
Jones accompanies himself on acoustic guitar, and his playing is surprisingly aggressive, dense and complex but still frames his gentle songs effectively.
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Boys & Girls Club of Cleveland: Wine Tasting Fundraiser
June 15, 2012 | 5:30-8:30p
Come enjoy a variety of wines, delicious hors d'oeuvres, and live music in the courtyard to support the Boys & Girls Club. Tickets are thirty dollars and are available the night of the event at the store, or click on the link below to pre-order.
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Courtyard Music Series: John Kalman & Chris Anderson
June 16, 2012 | 7:30-10pm
John Kalman truly became a part of Cleveland’s undeground music scene as bassist for off-kilter howlers Roué. As that band dissolved, John then added guitar to his musical mix, becoming one of the guitarists for shoegazers Founding Fathers. While John still plays bass for the likes of heavy acid-rockers Terminal Lovers, he will occasionally do solo sets stripped down to only voice and guitar (well, he will wear a shirt, shoes, and the like). On this night, he’ll be taking turns playing songs with his friend Chris Anderson. Chris is an excellent multi-instrumentalist who plays with the duo Crave when he isn’t running sound and holding touring bands’ hands at the Grog Shop.
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Courtyard Music Series: Polina Kourakina
June 22, 2012 | 7:30-10pm
Polina Kourakina has been developing a sound. She masterfully combined jazz stylings with soulful vocalizations with the intimacy of a folk singer. Either alone or with accompaniment, she has the power to grasp hold of the present moment and shape it like a sculptor does to clay.
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Courtyard Music Series: Corissa Bragg
June 23, 2012 | 7:30-10pm
When Corissa was young she made up little melodies. She discovered the windswept loneliness at her core in the tiniest grains of songs sung to let go her anger, her sadness, the chime-like breaking of her child's strong heart. Her songs, now, are different only by measure of experience, of a life lived living. Her songs are neither negation nor affirmation. They are the plaintive admission of life as is, kept somehow pure as a child's whispery cadence. Corissa's songs, and her heart-string voice, come from a place of pain and loneliness not to stand and accuse, not to castegate nor swear, but to bring us as close as possible to the eventide gondola of melody.
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Courtyard Music Series: GS Harper
June 29, 2012 | 7:30-10pm
He lives in Cleveland, but G. S. Harper's sound is pure Texas. That's because Harper's from the great Lone Star State and takes many of his musical cues from Townes Van Zandt. But there's so much more to Harper's blend of honky-tonk and southern rock. His sound has been built from years upon years gigging in and around town, in addition to playing with Cleveland cow-punks California Speedbag, Professor Leatherpants and the Binge Brothers, and Code Blue, among others. No one can quite hit that sweet country spot like G. S. Harper can, elicting belly laughs one song, nostaglic tears the other. Don't get a chance to have a real country music experience at Visible Voice Books!
Courtyard Music Series: The Luckey Ones: CD Release Party!
June 30, 2012 | 7:30-10pm
More boot-stompin' folksy good times will ensue with The Luckey Ones back again!
Poetry Reading: Nick Courtright
July 10, 2012 | 7-8pm
Join Akron poet Nick Courtright for a poetry reading from his new book, Punchline, a National Poetry Series finalist called by the Boston Review "nothing short of a knockout."
Here’s what Nicky Beer, author of The Diminishing House and co-editor of Copper Nickel, has to say about the book:
“By turns elliptical and aphoristic, macrocosmic and microcosmic, timeless and contemporary, Punchline is not a book of poems for those who merely want to be diverted or amused; this work is for readers who consider poetry the natural sibling of philosophy...”
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Uno Lady: July Artwalk
July 13, 2012 | 7-9pm
One woman ghost choir, Christa “Uno Lady” Ebert grew up in the rural outskirts of Cleveland Ohio, chasing chickens and serenading cows. Never classically trained but always exploring her wide range, songwriting was a favorite hobby. Independent in nature, Uno Lady chose the lone road, relying only on her voice for musical accompaniment. Living in the Cleveland neighborhood of Ohio City, finding i...nspiration through weather and relationships, 2007 became the year of the lady. Layers and layers of vocals were created to entrance, articulate and explore true potential. With only a microphone, small mixer and loop pedal perched upon a DIY lit up podium, Uno Lady tells you tales about living, love and fun. This one woman wonder sings strong, distinctively and almost operatically. In a genre of her own, Uno Lady creates spell like looping, spinning you into her musical web.
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Rough & Tumble
