In the past, CityBeat has presented BRINK: A New Music Showcase, a multi-venue event that put the spotlight on some of our town’s newest music-makers. BRINK was loosely tied into the Cincinnati Entertainment Awards, often featuring some of the nominees in the “New Artist of the Year” category, as well as a handful of other acts that caught our ear.
This year, we’re streamlining and reinventing BRINK as a one-venue, one-night-only concert designed to showcase all of the “New Artist of the Year” nominees.
This Friday at Bogart’s in Corryville,
the Cincinnati Entertainment Awards’ first New Music Showcase takes
place, featuring CEA nominees Heavy Hinges, Public, The Natives, Ohio
Knife, DAAP Girls and Jeremy Pinnell and the 55s.
(Fellow New Artist
nominees R. Ring were unable to perform.) (Click the links above for features from this week's issue about each CEA New Artist Nominee.)
Usually the winner of the “New Artist of the Year” category is one of three (along with “Artist of the Year” and “Album of the Year”) chosen by the CEA nominating committee (the rest of the categories are up for public vote). For the first time this year, the New Artist winner will be partially determined by audience vote. The catch is — you have to be at Bogart’s Friday to cast your ballot. The scores from the audience vote will be weighted against the nominating committee’s votes to determine the winner. It’s the only CEA category that requires listening to (and watching) the nominees before voting (instead of just picking your buddies’ band because they asked you to on Facebook).
On the following pages, each of the “New Artist of the Year” nominees is profiled. This year’s crop of “newbies” includes several bands consisting of members from more established acts, plus a Hip Hop band that has been building buzz in clubs and online gradually over the past couple of years, along with probably the “newest” of the new artists, Rock trio Public, whose members are relatively recent high school grads.
Tickets for Friday’s New Music Showcase are $7 at the Bogart’s box office (you can also order them through ticketmaster.com, though there are additional fees). Proceeds from Friday’s show benefit the Cincinnati USA Music Heritage Foundation.
The “New Artist of the Year” winner —
who, along with the CEA trophy, will receive a prize package that
includes a Bogart’s show of their very own and an audio/video recording
session courtesy of The All Night Party — will be announced at the 16th
annual Cincinnati Entertainment Awards ceremony on Sunday, Jan. 27, at
Madison Theater in Covington. Check out the lineup of CEA performers in
Spill It here. The CEA show starts at 7 p.m. Visit
CincyTicket.com to purchase tickets ($20 or $50 for special VIP
tickets). — MIKE BREEN
