Why he’s interesting … Smalc has been part of Q104’s Wilde and Fee show as Producer Nick for six years. He also lends his voice and writes music for the band Vitium, which he got signed to Japanese label Goon Trax by using MySpace and communicating solely via e-mail.
On taking your calls … “There’s a lady who calls in at 5:30 every day who tells me she loves me. It’s nice to know people are listening, and you’re building relationships with them over the radio.”
Three songs he could go without hearing again … “All Summer Long” by Kid Rock, “Single Ladies” by Beyonce and “How to Save a Life” by the Fray
Turning Japanese … You can get Vitium’s album, Oxygen Planet, at the Japanese record store nearest you (or online), and when the album was released in October, posters of the band hung at Tower Records in Tokyo.
Man with a message … “Appreciating and understanding what we have in this free country is something I think we painfully neglect.” He addresses this in “Oxygen Planet”: “It’s real life here/ It’s a dream out there/ People do anything just to breathe our air.”
See him … Vitium plays Smalc’s favorite Cleveland venue, the House of Blues, for the second time Jan. 13. ”
Choir boy … Long before Vitium, the Parma native was singing classics such as Carmina Burana in the Cleveland Orchestra Children’s Choir. “I can’t sing like that anymore.”
Beth Stallings
Carly Toyzan
Jim Vickers
Colleen Smitek
Erick Trickey
Kim Schneider
Christina Ipavec
Brittany Moffat
Emily Garvey
Katie Dragga
Lauren Hennen
by Jennifer Bowen
Meet your neighbors and the faces behind some of Cleveland's favorite haunts through the curious camera lens of the Cleveland Public Library's chief of special projects and collections. By John Skrtic
