Holiday Cheer
Lots and lots of holiday concerts over the next couple of weeks to tell you about. Since there's no CityBeat next week, we here at Spill It HQ thought we'd give you the low-down on many of the gigs, from X-mas benefit concerts to New Year's Eve extravaganzas.
· The Pavilion Music Company will host a Big Band holiday concert at the 20thCentury in Oakley on Thursday. Showtime is 8 p.m.
· The Steve Schmidt Organ Trio hosts its fifth annual Christmas show at The Comet on Thursday. The trio will be joined by singer Bill Caffie, and they will be performing music from their forthcoming Merry Christmas Baby CD which will also be available for purchase at the show.
· Friday at Top Cat's, it's a benefit for Freestore/FoodBank, featuring local acts The Black and Tan Carpet Band, The Attic Down, Mulley Graves and Jason Ludwig. The show is being hosted by Buzz of Camp Buzz fame, and there will also be giveaways for tattoos and piercings.
· Porcelain Udderbuddy will host a holiday benefit concert on Friday with special guests Betraying Judas and Filthy McNasty, at the Mad Frog in Corryville. Proceeds from the gig will go to Over the Rhine's Drop-Inn Center, and the band will give away door-prizes for the "sexiest elf," including a grand prize of $100. You are encouraged to donate items of warm clothing (for an admission discount) to be given to the center.
· On Saturday at Top Cat's, it's another benefit, this time for both the Freestore FoodBank and the Neediest Kids of All. This show will feature the eclectic Rock/Indie/Punk lineup of El Gigante, East Arcadia, Frantic Romantic, Hoodoo Caminos, Saturday Supercade, No Good Heroes, Scallywagon, The Messengers, Blank Line and Chapter 11. The show also will be a release party for the locally-produced Punk X-mas compilation Who Spiked the Egg-Nog. Get there early -- the first 50 people through the door get a free copy. Cover charge is $5 and two cans of food.
· Saturday at the Mad Frog there will be a benefit for the Shriners' Hospitals for Children featuring an impressive line-up of local Hard Rock talent. Scheduled to play are Dub-P, Hailshaft, None the Wiser, Dinasty, Dropshadow, Bloodline 4:20, Afterall, Fetish, Skin Curtain and The Drow.
· Local band Thistle, who put out their latest release, Sea Legs, on Jan. 1 of 2000, will kick in the New Year a night early with a show at the Southgate House on Dec. 30 (think of it as "liver conditioning" for the big night). The show will also feature excellent bands East Arcadia, Ampline, No Good Heroes and Readymaid.
· The ever-touring Kelly Richey Band return home for the holidays to play a show at the East End Café on New Year's Eve.
· Have fond memories of spending New Year's Eve at Sudsy Malone's and jamming to some of the city's best, most cutting edge music? Well, Sudsy's is back, and Dec. 31 will feature music from Jackass, Candy Afterlife and Holy Crap.
Rumors, Lies and General Misunderstandings
· With guitarist Marc Melzer returning home from San Francisco for X-mas, the late Radiolaria will reunite for a brief set on Saturday at The Comet. The group goes on around 9 p.m., followed by the mighty Wolverton Brothers. While the band has officially ceased to be, it lives on in cyberspace: Check the Web site radiolaria.com.
· Blues musician and historian Steve Tracy has been enlisted by British Blues label Catfish Records to compile tracks for a collection of early Cincinnati Blues. The two-disc set is set for a March release and will also feature liner-notes written by the Cincinnati native, who now lives in Massachusetts. Tracy previously compiled the track listing for the Catfish release, The Roots of Canned Heat, which featured the original cuts from the Heat's influences.
· Adrian Belew -- having completed the next Bears album (release date TBA) -- will return to Northern Kentucky on Friday for a reunion show with The Denems, his Beatles-heavy Rock band from the '60s. The show, which also features reunions from other bands from that period -- The Wanted, The Dingos, Bad Seeds -- will take place at The Drawbridge Inn's London Room. For more info on "Flashback 2000," call 513-871-1500.
· Congrats to Buckra, who walked away with first prize in the Mad Frog's Battle of the Bands competition. Second prize went to 4 Ohms and the runner-ups were Lazy Rocket, Ricky Veeneman and Drop Shadow.
· The loss of local Jazz radio station WNOP will be lamented with a "wake"/concert on Wednesday at the 20th Century Theater. The show, which starts at 8 p.m., will feature great Jazz, Blues and R&B talent including Lomax, Cal Collins, Mike Wade, Bill Caffie, Big Joe Duskin, Deborah Locke and also many WNOP staffers and friends.
