When people are confronted with my ridiculously voluminous music collection, they are most often struck with its distinct lack of commonality. Growing up within 70 miles of Detroit in the ’60s will do that; anything you can imagine between and beyond Motown and The Stooges will generally light...

Tonight at MOTR Pub in Over-the-Rhine, relative local newcomers Homemade Drugs begin their June House Band residency, which has them performing free shows every Monday this month. Homemade Drugs is the trio of Brian McCabe, Chris Patoka and Tyler Stacey, who collectively make a trippy and...

In Glee, Kurt Hummel may have graduated from Lima, Ohio's McKinley High, but actor Chris Colfer will return his character's home state this summer while promoting and signing his new children's book, The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell.Colfer, a 22-year-old Emmy nominee and Golden Globe...

On this day in 1994, the MTV Movie Awards paid tribute to The Beatles with a special performance by the band that recorded the Beatles songs (or rather, the songs The Beatles covered in their early days) for the soundtrack to the film Backbeat. As seen in the clip below, the band included...

Hamilton County has been killing people more often than Ohio counties of similar size, despite actually asking for the death penalty less often. Today's Enquirer takes a look at the growing opposition to the death penalty in other states and recent legislation and task forces aimed at either...

By now, you’ve probably seen Isaac Lamb’s masterfully choreographed routine/marriage proposal to Amy Frankel. The Portland, Ore. couple reached cyber stardom with YouTube video “Isaac’s Live Lip-Dub Proposal” — just one week after being posted, it's approaching 12 million views. It...

New York City Indie group School of Seven Bells has been added to the lineup for the 2012 MidPoint Indie Summer series (kicking off tonight at 7 p.m.!). The project sprouted in 2007 when guitarist Benjamin Curtis split from The Secret Machines and joined forces with singer Alejandra Deheza. The...

Cincinnati is loaded with Blues talent. Always has been. Yet it is still a rare and noteworthy occasion when a Cincinnati Blues artist releases an album with primarily original music. Brad Hatfield has long been considered one of the area’s premier harmonica slingers. With his new release,...

There’s more theater and performance than you can shake a stick at in Over-the-Rhine this weekend, thanks to the 2012 Cincinnati Fringe Festival. (In fact, if you stand on a corner in OTR and shake a stick, you could be mistaken for a Fringe act …) You can read about all the Fringe...

It’s a three-day weekend that’s more about being outdoors and kicking off summer fun. That being said, if you’re looking for a theater production that will give you some laughs for your weekend, I recommend catching a performance of see The Second City 2: Less...

If I were you, I’d to my best to catch a performance of Titanic: The Musical before it closes on Saturday at the Aronoff Center’s Jarson-Kaplan Theater. The show puts you in the midst of dozens of characters as they board the ship, overflowing with great expectations — of success,...

I was at the Tuesday night opening of a one-week run of the tour of the 25th anniversary production of Les Misérables. You might be saying, “I’ve seen that before — more than once.” But this is a new version — no more turntable or pirouetting barricades. Now we have some...

If this week’s theater offerings sound familiar, it’s because we’ve seen some of these shows (or their inspirations). The best choice, for my money, is Keith Glover’s Thunder Knocking on the Door at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, a revival of sorts from 1999 — but...

Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati, sporting a slightly abbreviated name and a half-painted façade, today announced most of its 2012-2013 season. As usual at ETC, it’s a work in progress: That how things are when you’re on the cutting edge of contemporary theater. But Artistic Director D....

Cincinnati Playhouse just opened Thunder Knocking on the Door, a show it staged in 1999 and sold a boatload of tickets — the most for any musical it’s presented in the past two decades! I was there on Thursday night for the opening, and this is a drop-dead gorgeous production —...

In case you haven’t been paying attention, the Carnegie Center in Covington has been producing some ambitious theater and following a course that others haven’t tried: It’s called collaboration. Joshua Steele, the managing director of theater for the arts center in a one-time Carnegie...

Napoleon Ridge Farm is hosting “Dinner on the Farm” on Friday, June 1 at their farm in Gallatin County. The fundraising dinner is part of this year’s Farmers’ Fair: Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food series. The event will raise funds for Community Farm Alliance, a 26-year-old nonprofit...

The "Best of Taste" awards — a precursor to the Taste of Cincinnati food fest later this month — were doled out today. Eighty dishes from 30 restaurants were served to judges — "celebrities, foodies and the epicurious" — and they awarded the Crab and Shrimp Dumpling with Noodle from Arloi...

Cincinnati has a rich brewing history, plain and simple. And if you haven’t been living in a hole for the past couple of years you know that. So it should be of no surprise that someone would take a piece of that history back home with them. That’s exactly what 25-year-old Daytonite and...

It’s almost here, Cincinnatians — Opening Day 2012 takes place Thursday. The beginning of the Reds’ season is one of several cultural celebrations that the Queen City does bigger than most other places (is it really possible that another city gets down like our triumvirate of Opening...

Congratulations to Chef Daniel Wright of Senate and Abigail Street! Wright won Food & Wine’s People’s Choice competition for Great Lakes Region’s Best New Chef. Wright’s work is wowing locals and filling his two hip Over-the-Rhine eateries out the door with eager diners. Nice to...

Food & Wine magazine has named two of Cincinnati’s finest young chefs as runners-up for the title of "Most Talented New Chef in America." Daniel Wright of Senate (and Abigail Street) and José Salazar of The Palace are both outstanding, talented chefs who do Cincinnati proud and can truly...

The grilled cheese-n-tomato soup gods at Tom + Chee are no strangers to the spotlight. Since its inception in 2009 as a food tent on Fountain Square, the comfort food joint has gone on to expand to two permanent locations and has been featured on Man vs. Food Nation and Amazing Eats. They even...

My mom always told me that nothing gets a man’s heart like good cooking. After two sticks of butter, one quart of heavy cream and a half-gallon of milk, my date might have thought I was trying to clog his arteries rather than “steal his heart.” Instead, we discovered each other’s love for...

When people are confronted with my ridiculously voluminous music collection, they are most often struck with its distinct lack of commonality. Growing up within 70 miles of Detroit in the ’60s will do that; anything you can imagine between and beyond Motown and The Stooges will generally light...

Tonight at MOTR Pub in Over-the-Rhine, relative local newcomers Homemade Drugs begin their June House Band residency, which has them performing free shows every Monday this month. Homemade Drugs is the trio of Brian McCabe, Chris Patoka and Tyler Stacey, who collectively make a trippy and...

On this day in 1994, the MTV Movie Awards paid tribute to The Beatles with a special performance by the band that recorded the Beatles songs (or rather, the songs The Beatles covered in their early days) for the soundtrack to the film Backbeat. As seen in the clip below, the band included...

New York City Indie group School of Seven Bells has been added to the lineup for the 2012 MidPoint Indie Summer series (kicking off tonight at 7 p.m.!). The project sprouted in 2007 when guitarist Benjamin Curtis split from The Secret Machines and joined forces with singer Alejandra Deheza. The...

Cincinnati is loaded with Blues talent. Always has been. Yet it is still a rare and noteworthy occasion when a Cincinnati Blues artist releases an album with primarily original music. Brad Hatfield has long been considered one of the area’s premier harmonica slingers. With his new release,...

According to The Weather Channel, showers are tapering off and it'll be overcast today with a high of 63. Perfect "cool new jacket" weather (even if you did just pack it away after temps reached into the 90s). And a perfect night to enjoy the first MidPoint Indie Summer concert of 2012. The free,...

On this day in 2000, Scottish Indie Pop giants Belle and Sebastian made their first appearance on the British show Top of the Pops. With a gorilla (see video below).Some of the band members also almost made their first appearance in jail after reportedly breaking onto the set of hugely popular...

Forget the Grammys, a mugshot posted on The Smoking Gun or a re-tweet from Lil Wayne — in the celebrity world, the greatest honor is to have a sandwich named after you. If you use that yardstick, Jesse Ebaugh, the bassist for the locally-spawned, nationally-acclaimed, Austin, Texas-based...

Hamilton County has been killing people more often than Ohio counties of similar size, despite actually asking for the death penalty less often. Today's Enquirer takes a look at the growing opposition to the death penalty in other states and recent legislation and task forces aimed at either...

The FBI has been investigating the long-stalled Kenwood Towne Place development for the past year, and a grand jury will determine whether crimes were committed involving the improper use of funding for the project, according to The Enquirer. CityBeat on May 16 reported that Nathan Bachrach,...

Some contain blatant spelling and grammatical errors, some are offensive and others just don't make any damn sense. From major gaffe to minor slip-up, tweet aggregator Politwoops has created a Twitter feed-like stream of every tweet deleted by a politician —it's all in the name of transparency,...

The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston ruled today that the 16-year Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional for banning federal benefits for married same-sex couples. The Court's three judges ruled unanimously that DOMA is discriminatory because it denies equal rights to...

The Enquirer today offered a dramatic headline on its front page story, asking the figurative question, “Who will blink first on Music Hall deal?” Although Mayor Mark Mallory is able to literally blink, such involuntary action will not directly affect his stance on giving away Music Hall,...

Ohio received a No Child Left Behind waiver yesterday, and the state is now expected to evaluate its schools with a more stringent assessment plan suggested by Gov. John Kasich.The state released district-by-district data showing how each school district would fall under the new system, which...

Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel has already had a rough week, having to give back more than $100,000 in campaign contributions in response to an FBI investigation. Today The Cleveland Plain Dealer's Politifact website looked into one of the five claims made in Mandel's new 30-second...

The Ohio Supreme Court late last week dismissed a legal challenge by the Campaign to Protect Marriage, which had filed a motion challenging the attorney general’s authority to verify a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow same-sex marriage. The Freedom to Marry coalition is...

When Reds pitcher Mike Leake hit his first career home run Monday night off Braves starter Mike Minor at Great American Ballpark, it landed directly in the lap of 20-year-old casual-turned-hardcore fan Caleb Lloyd, who was sitting at the edge of the left field bleachers. It was also Lloyd's first...

The Reds are on a roll. They haven’t lost any of their last six series — discount the two-game series against Chicago. Despite all the successes the Reds have had there are still some things that need to be addressed.Numero uno: When is Mike Leake going to get off that fat goose egg in the...

No matter how many times Pete Rose makes an appearance at a casino, it still just screams, "INAPPROPRIATE!" in light of his place in baseball history (the bad stuff, not the greatness). Guess a guy's gotta make a living somehow. Next weekend you can once again hang with the Hit King and play the...

Maybe what Joey Votto said after the Reds' latest victory rings true: “I think a losing record early in the year can be a good thing."The Reds have reeled off three straight series wins and a fourth is not out of the question as the last-place Cubs come to the Queen City. Votto ended a...

With all the talent the Reds have on their roster the bats just aren’t blazing like we all suspected they would. The Reds rank 27th or lower in four major offensive categories, including runs scored — a woeful 31 runs in 10 games. Luckily for the Reds, outside their current opponent — St....

When Jose Canseco last month offered his sincere concern over the world’s energy consumption and various global warming issues that have resulted, we at CityBeat were quick to report such thoughtful commentary. In a story titled “Ranking Jose Canseco’s Global Warming Tweets” we provided...

Anyone who misses the days of Eric “The Helicopter” Hicks jamming on people’s heads for the University of Cincinnati basketball team will have a chance to see Hicks suit up for another local team later this month, but this time he’ll be playing football. Hicks signed a one-day contract...

With Opening Day fast approaching, you now have 225 million reasons to go watch the Reds this year. Bob Castellini opened up the checkbook and Walt Jocketty busted out his best persuasive vocabulary and Joey Votto accepted; to the tune of a 10-year, $225 million contract extension — the fourth...

In Glee, Kurt Hummel may have graduated from Lima, Ohio's McKinley High, but actor Chris Colfer will return his character's home state this summer while promoting and signing his new children's book, The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell.Colfer, a 22-year-old Emmy nominee and Golden Globe...

By now, you’ve probably seen Isaac Lamb’s masterfully choreographed routine/marriage proposal to Amy Frankel. The Portland, Ore. couple reached cyber stardom with YouTube video “Isaac’s Live Lip-Dub Proposal” — just one week after being posted, it's approaching 12 million views. It...

Cincinnati’s annual seasonal art celebration, Summerfair, returns for the 45th year at Coney Island this weekend. The festival includes 300 crafters and fine artists from around town, the country and Canada as well as performers and food vendors. Peruse photography, glass and wood works,...

Streetfilms Film Festival takes over Emery Theatre tonight for a party and showcase of films from locals and creatives from around the world. Since 2006, Streetfilms has been producing short films about how smart transportation design and policy can result in better places to live, work and play....

In celebration of City Council’s repeal of the breed-specific language in Cincinnati’s vicious dog ordinance, Cincinnati Pit Crew invites pups of all sorts to strut the streets tonight. Pitties on Parade is a chance for pit bulls and other breeds to show off their sweet side and display why...

Sometimes good things happen where you least expect them.Mac’s Pizza Pub is a pizza joint renowned by college kids for its greasy fare, noisy neighborhood bar feel, late hours and a good 'ol happy hour. The walls are splattered with offbeat photos and paintings, and its karaoke nights are...

The 2012 Fringe Festival kicks off tonight! Performances don't begin until Wednesday, but the Fringe folks start this celebration of freaky performance art with a party at Know Theatre tonight. Doors open at 7 p.m., and guests will enjoy live music from local Rockers (and house band for the...

Summer doesn’t officially begin until June 20, but it’s Memorial Day weekend and Cincy’s signature mugginess is in full effect — the season is upon us! Stay hydrated, slap on the sunscreen and get ready to make the most of this three-day weekend. It’s tradition to fire up the grill and...