Veteran ace Jazz pianist/organist Steve Schmidt returns to The Comet in Northside to launch his Christmas-themed two-night stand at the venue.

Schmidt's annual Christmas Jazz "Spectacular" has become a local holiday tradition. Schmidt whips out his organ (a Hammond B3; get your mind out of the gutter!) for the occasion and, as always, brings along some top-shelf special guests for the shows. Schmidt is joined by Brad Myers on guitar and Mark Wolfley on drums, plus two amazing singers — Eugene Goss (known for his work with Billy Larkin as Triage) and the great Mandy Gaines.

The Steve Schmidt Organ Trio Christmas Spectacular runs 8:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m. tonight and tomorrow at The Comet. There is no cover charge.

Voting for Greater Cincinnati's annual celebration of our amazing local music scene, the Cincinnati Entertainment Awards, is now open. Vote for your faves or, even better, do some research online, check out all of the nominees and THEN pick who you think is most deserving.

Click here to get started on your ballot.

The 16th annual CEA ceremony will be held at Covington’s Madison Theater on Jan. 27, featuring more live performances than ever and first-time host Ted Clark, known for his monthly “live chat show” Ted Clark After Dark. Ted will present a special edition of Ted Clark After Dark at the after-party, this year held at The Loft, just around the corner from the Madison and above Tickets (the former home to the Rock club Radio Down). The after-party will also include the annual “Fashion Trashies,” presented by members of local Indie Pop legends The Fairmount Girls and honoring the best/worst/weirdest-dressed CEA attendees.

Tickets to the Jan. 27 ceremony/party will go on sale this coming Wednesday through CincyTicket.com. Proceeds from ticket sales are being donated the Cincinnati USA Music Heritage Foundation.

Another new aspect of this year’s CEAs involves the “New Artist of the Year” nominees. The acts nominated in that category will perform at the first-ever CEA new music showcase at Bogart’s on Jan. 18 (confirmations pending). Audience votes at the event will help determine the winner of the category, along with votes from the nominating committee (who also choose the Album and Artist of the Year winners).

Tickets for the new music showcase will go sale soon through Ticketmaster.

Now, a few words on "the process." Since the nominees were announced on Wednesday, I've received several queries asking "How do I get nominated for a CEA?" from various artists and/or their representatives.

It's the same answer found in the old joke, "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?"

Practice. And also work hard and keep spreading the word about your awesome music.

As has been the case in the entire the 16-year existence of the CEAs (and as has been noted every year in our coverage of the event, including this year), a nominating committee is assembled each year to determine the CEA nominees. These include writers, promoters, club owners, local-music radio hosts and others whose opinion on local music-makers we trust. This year's committee included approximately 40 such people. We try our best to include those whose expertise is either wide-ranging or specific to a particular genre represented in the CEA categories. (Judges do not have votes counted if they're cast for an artist with whom the judge directly works.)

This year, invitations to participate in the nominating process were sent out to nearly 70 people, so obviously certain experts declined to participate, missed the deadline for nominees or just ignored our request.

The committee is asked to nominate up to three artists per category who caught their eyes and ears this past year. The only guidelines are that the artists should have been active in the past 365 days, the nominees should be largely original (though certainly talented, straight-up "cover bands" are generally not eligible) and the judges are also instructed to give special consideration to any act that has released new recorded material in that same time-frame.

The CEA nominating judges are listed in the CEA "program" annually. I will not release their names here because I've personally received many rude or stupid emails telling me what an idiot I am for not nominating "fill in the blank." The nominating committee was kind enough to participate; I don't want to open any of them up to such haranguing and harassment.

Finally, I'd just like to say that every year there are TONS of really great acts that deserve a nomination but don't get one. It's not personal. It's not "political." It's not "who you know." It's simply a matter of time and space. If every artist who deserved a nomination got one, the CEA show itself would run 16 hours — and that's just to read the nominations for each category.

I agree to some extent that award shows like these are a little frivolous and that the process for nominations isn't perfect. It never is, for any awards show. We have thought about letting the public nominate the artists (a la the long-gone "CAMMY" awards presented by The Enquirer), but ultimately feel that the way the CEA process is set up works best. Because, ultimately, whoever wins their category is going to deserve it.

Though we take the process seriously, we've always thought of the CEAs as more of a celebration than a contest. I invite you to think of it the same way and join us for the show, whether you were nominated or not. The CEAs are for the ENTIRE Greater Cincinnati music scene. The awards are just a good excuse to get everyone together. Instead of being a sore sport about your lack of attention, come out and congratulate and party with your fellow nominees.

Fans of live, homegrown American Roots music will want to keep their Thursday nights free for the next few weeks. Two strong, weekly events featuring several of the city's best musicians in the field (many of whom were recently nominated for 2012 Cincinnati Entertainment Awards) will continue (at least) until the end of 2012.

Mark Utley (nominated for the best Singer/Songwriter CEA) of local Americana ensemble Magnolia Mountain (nominated for best Folk/Americana act) is December’s “artist in residence” at The Crow’s Nest in Price Hill, which has become something of a local clubhouse for area Americana artists. Utley performs solo (and with bandmate Renee Frye) every Thursday this month, each night joined by some top-shelf guests.

The residency continues tonight as Utley is joined by David Rhodes Brown’s Kentucky Timbre and Kentucky Struts’ Todd Lipscomb join Utley, while Ed Cunningham of the Comet Bluegrass All-Stars and Amber Nash of Shiny and the Spoon are the guests Dec. 20 and Sassy Molasses’ Moriah Lawson and Wussy’s Chuck Cleaver join Utley and Frye for the Dec. 27 showcase.

All Thursday shows at The Crow's Nest are free; music starts at 9:30 p.m. each night.

Meanwhile, Country troupe Jeremy Pinnell and the ’55s have been hosting "Honky Tonky Thursdays" every week around the area for the past several months. The free event — currently held at Japp's on Main St. in Over-the-Rhine — has also showcased a plethora of special guests from the local Roots scene.

Tonight is an especially strong lineup — the 55's will back up 500 Miles to Memphis frontman Ryan Malott (who just announced a Kickstarter campaign to finance his band's fourth LP) for a set of Country classics (and perhaps a few Malott gems) and fellow CEA best Country act nominee Tex Schramm and the Radio King Cowboys open up the night at 8:30 p.m.

Pinnell and Co. today leaked a recording from the band's pre-production rehearsals for their debut album. Look for the LP next year. Here's the demo for "The Way Country Sounds." You can also, for a limited time, download the track from Soundcloud here.

Cincinnati Entertainment Awards voting begins tomorrow at noon.

Tonight in Northside, Mayday presents its monthly new local band showcase, "Unsung." This month's newcomers aren't entirely "new," but they are new to Cincinnati. The Brothers Devine, a quirky and eclectic AltRock two-piece (guitar/drums) featuring bros Andris and Erik Devine, recently moved to town from Milwaukee. The duo takes avowed influences like Green Day, System of a Down, Bad Religion, and the Goo Goo Dolls and concocts a wild-eyed blend of Punk, Indie Pop, Metal, Folk and whatever the hell else they feel like exploring at the time.

Tonight's Unsung show is free and kicks off at 9 p.m. Here's a playlist of the Devine's music to get your ready. Click here for more on the group.

• Fuzzy, Pumpkins-esque AltRock crew Silversun Pickups pulls into Corryville tonight for a show at Bogart's. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. Tickets for the all-ages show are $30 at the door.

Click here to read a show preview from this week's CityBeat, then check out the band performing on WNYC's Soundcheck. Audio of the full appearance follows.

Click here for even more live music options in Greater Cincinnati tonight.

On this date in 1979, 11 music fans died when trying to see The Who perform at Riverfront Coliseum. Check out this video for "Feel The Holes" about the tragic event, by Toronto Hard Rock duo The Shanks.

The video was made in Cincinnati and directed by David Markey. The Shanks (who released the Feel the Holes EP just a couple of weeks ago on German label Broken Silence) work with local music promotions org The Counter Rhythm Group and are set to appear in Cincinnati on Saturday, Dec. 15, at Northside's Comet as part of the free release party concert in honor of a new "split LP" release (on area label, Phratry Records) by local acts Knife the Symphony and Swear Jar.



R.I.P. Peter Bowes, Teva Ladd, David Heck, Connie Burns, James Warmoth, Bryan Wagner, Karen Morrison, Jacqueline Eckerle, Walter Adams, Jr., Stephen Preston and Phillip Snyder.

Those Guys have emerged as one of the more impressive up-and-comers in Cincinnati Hip Hop, both via their digital/CD releases (a handful of singles and a trio of excellent mixtapes) and their live show, which incorporates a three-piece live band. Those Guys features MC's J.Al and Jova, who met as high school freshmen and started the group upon graduation in 2008. Citing influences like Kanye, The Clipse and Kid Cudi, the duo issued Greater Than the Mixtape Volume 1 in 2009.

The most recent in their Greater Than the Mixtape series (Volume 3) was released late last year, kicking off with the monster track "You Ain't Know," which showcases the duo's telepathic back-and-forth, superb lyricism and a fat and funky musical approach.

The duo has been garnering extra attention with their just-released video (Those Guys' first) for "You Ain't Know," which was filmed in Monroe just prior to Halloween and features some spectacular scenes of the crew blowing up a car. Who says you need a big budget for action-movie-like special effects? (The group thanks the City of Monroe's parks, fire and police department as well as the Butler County Bomb Squad in the video description on YouTube, so the fiery shoot was on the up-and-up.)

The video has been creating major buzz on social media, even drawing praise from Hip Hop legend Redman, who tweeted "Dope ass video … thats wut Im talkn bout … sumtn different … hard shit."

Check the clip below, then visit the duo's Bandcamp site to download the latest mixtape and other Those Guys material for free. You can find more about Those Guys at their official site, Facebook page and on Twitter here.

Right around Thanksgiving time, CityBeat began to receive several queries via email, Twitter and Facebook, all essentially asking, "What the hell happened to the Cincinnati Entertainment Awards?"

CityBeat's annual celebration of Greater Cincinnati's best original music had been held for 15 years on the Sunday before Thanksgiving. The reasoning was that musicians who tour a lot would hopefully be home for the ceremony and regular weekly giggers might be less likely to have an every-Sunday residency. Also, we thought, perhaps the holiday timing would allow us to nab a few of the city's favorite sons and daughters (Jerry Springer? SJP? Any Lachey we could get our hands on?) as presenters.

In the end, the timing of the ceremony never really had much effect. We did have Jerry Springer — via video tape from Chicago — at the very first CEAs (held at the old Sycamore Gardens in Over-the-Rhine), but the video malfunctioned. Maybe it was an omen. We also spent many years attempting to lure the Isley Brothers to perform and be inducted into the CEA Hall of Fame, but the Isleys haven't been "local" in almost half a century, so the Thanksgiving timing was irrelevant (and the Isleys would have cost a fortune to bring to town).

We also discovered those hard-touring musicians tour so hard, having an off day the Sunday before Thanksgiving is hardly a given. Last year, for example, Artist of the Year winners Walk the Moon were on the road and unable to attend (though they still created one of the show's better moments by having their mothers accept on their behalf).

Having the ceremony in November was also a hassle once CityBeat acquired the MidPoint Music Festival, which occurs annually in late September. The CEAs bumped up a little too close to MPMF, making the organization of the awards a hectic endeavor.

So, starting with the 2012 Cincinnati Entertainment Awards, the ceremony will now be held in January. This change allows our staff to fully focus on the CEAs without battling MPMF fatigue. And it creates an easier-to-track window for nomination consideration. In the future, the Album of the Year category's eligibility timeframe will be anything released that year. Previously, the timeframe was approximately October of the previous year to October of the current year. (This year, eligibility will be extended to anything released in 2012, but also includes releases that came out October-December 2011.)

The 16th annual Cincinnati Entertainment Awards ceremony will be held at Covington's Madison Theater on Jan. 27. This year's host will be the very funny Ted Clark, who is also making plans to do his popular "live talk show" at the after-party (read more about Ted here). And there will be more live performances at the CEA ceremony than ever before. Ticket info, the lineup of performers and more details will be released soon.

(Let's get this out of the way right up front, since the Northern Ky. locale always gets mocked every year — yes, the "2012" "Cincinnati" Entertainment Awards will be held in Covington in 2013. How odd!)

Another new wrinkle for the CEAs this year will be a live showcase of the "New Artist of the Year" nominees; the winner of the category (normally decided by the nominating committee) will be largely determined by audience vote at the showcase, which is scheduled for Friday, Jan. 18 at Bogart's. More details to come.

The 2012 CEA nominees — determined by a large pool of local music experts, including writers, bloggers, club owners, radio show hosts and others (this year's committee is the largest yet) — will be announced Dec. 12. The ballot will go live at citybeat.com and then it's up to you. Fan voting determines all categories except for the "Critical Achievement" ones — Artist of the Year, Album of the Year — which are voted on by the committee.

Stay tuned for many more CEA announcements to come. And visit citybeat.com's CEA page here for a look at past nominees, winners and more.

Deft local MC Buggs Tha Rocka, who balances his excellent solo work with performances and recordings with the group Gold Shoes, has become the first Hip Hop artist to participate in the ongoing "Emery Sessions," a series of excellent music videos, filmed in one-shot by world-class photographer Michael Wilson at the restored classic Cincinnati venue, The Emery Theatre. Audio was handled once again by local musicians Cameron Cochran and Henry Wilson.

The series not only celebrates local music but also showcases the grand old theatre, a century-old Cincinnati treasure that fell into disrepair but has recently returned to "active venue" status thanks to the work of The Requiem Project.

Buggs and DJ Ghost performed "Stephanie's Song" for their Session. Unlike previous clips (which have spotlighted a host of local artists, from Over the Rhine to Jeremy Pinnell and the 55s, as well as Bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley and many others), Buggs and DJ Ghost don't perform on the theatre's stage, but in another nook and cranny elsewhere in the building.

"Stephanie's Song" is from Buggs Tha Rocka's fantastic The Wrath of Zeus mixtape, which is available for free download here.



Take a look at some of the other Emery Sessions here.