If you're looking for something cool to do tonight — and especially if you're a huge fan of the falltime MidPoint Music Festival — head to the Contemporary Arts Center at 8 p.m. for a MidPoint "Reveal" showcase featuring the stellar, textural Indie Rock of local faves Pomegranates, nationally-acclaimed foursome Aloha (pictured) and Cleveland's The Buried Wires.

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• Downtown at Arnold's tonight (Friday), catch influential cult hero Paleface, a man who has been on the cutting edge of contemporary music's continual fascination with traditional Folk music and an influence on some of the more adventurous musicians who seek to translate that vintage spirit into their own voice. Over the past 20-plus years, the singer/songwriter has been an Anti Folk torchbearer and an Indie Folk mentor, first learning songwriting and lo-fi recordings from underground legend Daniel Johnston in the late ’80s. From there he went on to teach a few tricks to roommate Beck (pre-fame), help the so-called "Freak Folk" scene grow freakier and folkier and collaborate frequently with pals The Avett Brothers. Whether directly or indirectly, if you dig today's "Indie Folk" — or any brand of slanted or subversive Americana — you've likely heard the results of Paleface's unique influence. Click here to read more.

Paleface's show tonight at Arnold's is free and — icing on the cake — great local Folk Pop group Shiny and the Spoon opens the show at 9 p.m. The gig will also be the first one for which Arnold's has commissioned a special concert poster. Crafted by talented local artist Keith Neltner (who has done commissioned poster art for Alice in Chains, Modest Mouse, Hank Williams III, The Avett Brothers, Cake, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and many others), the prints (pictured above) are available for $25 while they last (only 50 were pressed).

Here's Paleface's video for his ode to NYC, fittingly titled "New York, New York."

UPDATE: Arnold's just announced this afternoon that Paleface has cancelled due to illness. A rescheduled date is in the works. Shiny and the Spoon is still performing.

• After the best summer series yet, the final MidPoint Indie Summer concert on Fountain Square goes down tonight at 7 p.m. And the every-Friday series is going out with a bang, featuring a flawless triple bill of local acts. Things get started with superb modern Soul translators The Guitars, who will be followed by the duo R. Ring, featuring Dayton, Ky.'s Mike Montgomery (longtime local engineer ad musician, currently with Ampline) and Dayton, Ohio's Kelley Deal (The Breeders). R. Ring spoke with CityBeat's Brian Baker about the project in this week's paper. Read it online here.

Headlining tonight's Fountain Square concert is Wussy, the now-veteran four-piece that is gearing up for some huge happenings on the horizon, including tour dates with The Afghan Whigs and Heartless Bastards and a trip to the U.K. by co-frontpeople/singer/guitarists Lisa Walker and Chuck Cleaver (playing as a duo) for several shows in support of the band's first U.K. release, Buckeye, a retrospective that came out to glowing reviews this summer. Read more about Wussy's many goings on here.

Here's the skate video by Kristian Svitak that R. Ring helped re-soundtrack. After DEVO's record label removed the video because it used the group's song "Mr. DNA," Svitak got together to record a new version with Deal and Montgomery. The song in the re-edited video was so popular, R. Ring released it as a limited edition single and local label Phratry Records released it digitally. (Click here to get your own copy.)


 
• Popular local Gypsy Jazz favorites and Django Reinhardt devotees The Faux Frenchmen celebrate the group's 10th anniversary tonight with a show at downtown's Blue Wisp Jazz Club. A decade ago this fall, the band (which features esteemed local musicians George Cunningham, Brian Lovely, Paul Patterson and Don Aren) made its debut, starting an every-Monday residency at former Clifton restaurant Tink's. Over the years, the band has only gotten more popular, drawing attention from outside of Cincinnati and performing numerous road dates (this fall they return for their sixth appearance at the annual Jazz at Chautauqua Festival in New York).  

The band's anniversary show begins at 8:30 p.m. and admission is $10. Here's a clip from the Frenchmen performing on another anniversary — Reinhardt's birthday (taken from one of their annual appearances on WNKU in honor of Django).



• The performers for the weekly "Friday Flow" concerts at Washington Park are always a bit of a surprise because the lineups have been announced within only a week or two of the performances. It's also a surprise because the featured act is usually something pleasantly unexpected. Dayton Funk greats Lakeside ("Fantastic Voyage") popped up one week and Neo Soul star Dwele launched the series this summer.

Tonight's free Friday Flow concert is another cool, unanticipated treat. Just announced earlier this week, the show will feature R&B singer Chrisette Michele, a Hip Hop hook-singer extraordinaire (with Jay-Z, Nas, The Game and others) who has also had a successful career on her own, releasing a handful of acclaimed, charting albums for Def Jam.

The other headliner is Rob Base, a Hip Hop artist most know from his 1988 hit with DJ E-Z Rock, "It Takes Two."

Because of the volleyball tournament in Washington Park tonight, gates for the concert won't open until 7:30 p.m. Another change from the usual Friday Flow flow (also due to volleyball) — no food, drinks or coolers will be permitted (this weekend only). Extra food vendors will be on hand to feed the masses.



Click here for even more live music events going on tonight in Greater Cincy.

Indie/Psych Pop crew Elf Power will be screening Major Organ and the Adding Machine, an artsy, long-awaited film featuring numerous members of the influential Elephant 6 collective (a sort of less pretentious/glam version of Andy Warhol’s Factory, but with more of a music focus), before the band’s 12:30 a.m. performance on Sept. 25 at the Blue Wisp, part of the MidPoint Music Festival.

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Four beers, a couple of brats and one regrettable weekend at Oktoberfest later, I’m ready to see what else Cincinnati has to offer in terms of merrymaking. Midpoint Music Festival is supposed to be the real deal, and my hopes are high. I’ve had my fill of jacked-up prices on warm keg beer and German interpretations of musical blunders such as the chicken dance song.

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The news reports all called for possible rain and low temps in the evening, but that Babylonian weather deity we blew last year apparently threw in a freebie as a tenth anniversary present because the nastiness stayed away for at least one more night. And what a night.

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At first blush, a pro tennis tournament named for a financial corporation and a music festival all about indie music and culture might seem like awkward bedfellows — not quite “oil and water,” but more “banana and helicopter.” But last year, organizers of the Western & Southern Open tennis tournament — featuring top players from around the world and matches viewed by a global audience — and the MidPoint Music Festival joined forces to make the combination a “chocolate and peanut butter” teaming that would make Reese’s proud. The cross-promotional efforts were designed to spread the good word of Cincinnati’s biggest music festival (coming up Sept. 22-24) to music lovers who might be unaware it exists. This year, the partnership seems more solidified, with a designated MidPoint Stage providing tennis fans with acoustic sets by MidPoint-approved local, original artists consistently throughout the tournament.

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This evening is the kick-off of the free MidPoint Indie Summer series on Fountain Square — starting at 7 p.m. with The Trouble with Boys and also featuring Paper Airplane, The Love Language and Camera Obscura — and it’s also the first time you can buy tickets for this September’s MidPoint Music Festival … at a greatly discounted rate.

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It seems like only yesterday that we were running all over Downtown trying to see a bazillion bands perform for the 2008 MidPoint Music Festival. Now it’s time to start preparing for a bigger, badder, better MidPoint in 2009.

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As the weather reports began to shape up for the end of this week, I was almost convinced that we would be breaking the current drought by doing the reliable MidPoint rain dance, which apparently consists of scheduling the weekend and saying the word "MidPoint." But, miracle of miracles, it did not piss down rain on the first night of MidPoint (although it was hot enough to feel as though we’d been rained on). After doing the Australian crawl from the Lodge Bar to the Blue Wisp last year, however, I’m not complaining. At all. It was a glorious night, and Thursday’s bands provided the perfect soundtrack.

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The MidPoint Indie Summer series — showcasing local and national Alternative and Indie bands each Friday on Fountain Square — kicks off this evening at 7 p.m. The show starts with eclectic Neo-Soul/Jazz group iolite. Indie Pop dream-team The Fairmount Girls (whose ever-shifting lineup now includes ex-Sistern mainman Steve Girton on bass) go on at 8 p.m., and fanastic singer/songwriter Peter Adams closes the night with a 9 p.m. set.

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