On this day in 1981, The Survivors Live, an album featuring Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis, was recorded in West Germany. The story goes that the three artists — who all started out together on the trailblazing Sun Records — were touring Europe at the same time and Lewis and Perkins joined Cash at a concert on their day off. The trio reportedly played the concert without rehearsing, performing several of each others well known tunes and covers like the finale, "I Saw the Light," a Hank Williams standard (listen below). The threesome were 3/4 of the "Million Dollar Quartet," named for a legendary recording session in 1956 that featured Perkins, Lewis, Cash and some fella named Elvis Presley (The Survivors name, obviously, a reference to Presley's absence; he died four years earlier).

The trio would get together one last time for a recording. The 1986 album Class of ’55 also featured Roy Orbison (who, coincidentally, would have turned 76 today).



Born This Day: Musical movers and shakers sharing an April 23 birthday include early Boogie Woogie piano pioneer "Cow Cow" Davenport (1894); Rock legend Roy Orbison (1936); violinist for the ’70s version of Prog aces King Crimson, David Cross (1949); musician/writer/producer (Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Aretha Franklin) ‪Narada Michael Walden‬ (1952); late, longtime Def Leppard guitarist Steve Clark (1960); stylish former bassist for Interpol, Carlos "D." Dengler (1974); and singer and guitarist for Icelandic Post Rock group Sigur Ros, ‪Jónsi‬ (1975).

‪Jónsi‬ provides the bowed guitar and falsetto vocals for Sigur Ros (among other things), which has been an internationally acclaimed band for the past decade or so with their enrapturing, cinemascopic sound. The band's new album, Valtari, is due May 28 and, this July, Sigur Ros is embarking on a very brief North American tour.

If you are unable to make it to one of the nine North American dates announced thus far, this Friday you will be able to experience an artsy, quality approximation of the Sigur Ros live show right here in Cincy. Earlier this month, as part of the auxiliary programming related to its current Spectacle music video exhibition, downtown’s Contemporary Arts Center welcomed in award-winning singer/songwriter Feist and music video director Martin de Thurah for a special screening and talk. This Friday, the CAC welcomes another music video auteur, Vincent Morisset, who will present a screen of the widely acclaimed black-and-white Sigur Rós concert film titled Inni (Morisset also made the Sigur Rós flick Heima.)

The movie screens at 6:30 p.m., followed by a discussion with Morisset about the Sigur Rós projects, as well as his stunning music video work, including Arcade Fire’s riveting “interactive” video, “Sprawl II.” The screening and chat are free to attend with regular gallery admission ($7.50; free for members). Click here for more details.

Below, you can check out the trailer for Inni and also register to win a signed Inni poster (the drawing for the winner will be done at the screening). Just enter your email address below.

Tomorrow is Record Store Day and local shops Everybody's Records, Mole's Record Exchange, Phil's Music and Memories and Shake It Records are all getting in on the action. If you're unfamiliar with "record stores," here's the Wikipedia page. If you're unfamiliar with Record Store Day, it's essentially an annual "holiday" where tons of artists and labels issue limited released goodies in an effort to get music lovers away from their computers and into independent retailers to buy their tunes. Here are a few of the things going on locally related to RSD.

• Everybody's Records in Pleasant Ridge is having a day's worth of live music going on for Record Store Day, as well as the usual deals and fun. Graham Weber, a former local now living in Austin, Texas, kicks things off at noon (he performs a show later tomorrow night at Neon's in OTR), followed by local acts The Newport Secret Six, Jack Logan and Midnight Riders, Strangetunge, The ClaZels and Playfully Yours. Chicago Soul/Funk band The Right Now (performing Saturday night at MOTR Pub in OTR) closes out Everybody's RSD (the live music part, at least) at 6 p.m.

• Phil's Music and Memories in Cold Spring, Ky., got a jump on the RSD action and has been offering deals since Wednesday (and continuing through Sunday) — 20 percent off used vinyl and 30 percent off used CD's and used DVDs. The store apparently has even better deals lined up for Saturday.

• Athens, Ohio-based Indie Roots band The Ridges are releasing a limited edition release and poster that will be available at most local indie retailers. The release, The Insomniac's Song (Live with The Sleepless Singers), features a special live version of the lead-off track from The Ridges self-titled debut album. The exclusive features a download card (encased in a 12-by-12 poster/packaging) that'll get you the live version of the song (with a choir of 20 singers from area bands like The Happy Maladies and Young Heirlooms, as well as Brian Olive Band vocalist Molly Sullivan), a video of that version and the studio version.

• Northside staple Shake It’s Record Store Day events have a lot of local music ties. The label arm of Shake It is issuing a special vinyl version of the debut album from the imprint’s franchise players, Wussy. The remaining copies of the colored-vinyl version of Funeral Dress (including a download card and special LP insert) go on sale via mail order or www.shakeitrecords.com on April 24. (Shake It is also again offering shoppers 10 percent off their entire purchases if they bring canned goods to donate to Churches Active In Northside’s food pantry.)

• Awesome local Indie duo Bad Veins is making its stunning sophomore album, The Mess We’ve Made, available at Shake It for RSD, ahead of its April 24 national street date. The band will perform a short set at the store at 5 p.m. before heading to Taft Theatre for the official release party Saturday night. 

• At 7 p.m., potential “next big things,” Cincinnati’s Alt/Dance/Pop troupe Walk the Moon, will be at Shake It to perform a sort set. The band’s debut album for RCA Records now has an official release date — June 19 — but WtM is offering fans a special Record Store Day exclusive in the form of a 7-inch single (pictured) featuring the songs “Anna Sun” and the previously unreleased “Anyway I Can.”

• If you want a little warm-up to bridge the gap between 4/20 and 4/21 (advice: leave your bong at home), head to Northside Tavern on Friday for a special Record Store Day eve party hosted by Salina Underground, an Indie Rock radio show on WVQC (95.7 FM; www.wvqc.org). The free show is headlined by Brian Olive and his band, which recently announced a national tour kick-off at the Ballroom at the Taft for May 25. (Olive is also coming off some promo dates with the legendary Dr. John, on whose new Dan Auerbach-helmed album the local musician also appears). The 9 p.m. show will also feature Indie Rock group The Sweep and rootsy newcomers The Chance Brothers (releasing their debut album, Growing Concern, that night, as well). 

• The downtown main branch of the Public Library is getting in on the Record Store Day action. A turntable will be set up for anyone to drop the needle and sample the library’s music catalog (including lots of locally produced tunes) and there will be free live music all afternoon. Experimental guitarist Pete Fosco performs at noon, Art Gore and the Jazz Knights play at 2 p.m.; and Jarrod Welling-Cann from local band The Sleeping Sea plays at 4 p.m.

• Downtown's Arnold's Bar and Grill is reaching out the Record Store Day revelers and, on Saturday, will be offering 10 percent off your bill if you bring in a receipt proving you bought something from a local, independent record store that day.

Click below for a list of many of the Record Store Day exclusives being made available (or here for your own complete copy).

Read More

There are oodles of live musical options tonight all over our area tonight. Here's a quick rundown.

• Dayton/Columbus band The Werks — self-described as a "Psychedelic Dance Funk Rock Improv" group — celebrate the release of their new self-titled album, the band's third, a self-issued full-length. Opening up the 10:30 p.m. show at Covington's Madison Theater is Freekbot, the dance-inducting duo project of Chris "Freekbass" Sherman and Tobe "Tobotius" Donohue. Below, check out the Freekbot track "Get Up" from a recent Rock Against Cancer benefit album (which also includes a track from locals Skeetones). Tickets for tonight's show are $10.


• Inventive banjo genius Bela Fleck has reconvened the original lineup of his Bela Fleck and the Flecktones band. The progressive/Jazz/Roots/World/experimental troupe got back together to record Rocket Science (released around this time last spring), the first recording by the original four Flecktones in nearly two decades. They're touring behind the album and coming to Millett Hall on the campus of Miami University in Oxford tonight for a 7:30 p.m. concert. Tickets range from $20-$50. (Read more here.)

Here's a behind the scenes look at the recording of Rocket Science:



• Much buzzed about singer/songwriter and Garage/Rock/Blues explorer Hanni El Khatib performs a free show tonight at around 10 p.m. at MOTR Pub. Sundelles open up. Check out our interview with El Khatib in this week's CityBeat here and then check out the video for his song, "Loved One," below.



• Elsewhere tonight: Eclectic local label Grasshopper Juice celebrates its third anniversary with a two-floor party/show at downtown's Mainstay featuring the diverse lineup of Revenge Pinata, Sometimes, Playfully Yours, The B.E.A.T., Blastronauts, Dub Lock and DWB. (9 p.m.; $5); a great display of fresh local Hip Hop can be found at Mayday in Northside. Valley High, Trademark Aaron, Zoo Crew, DJ Sinceer and DJ Benigma perform. (10 p.m.; free); acclaimed local Celtic Rock crew Roger Drawdy and the Firestarters perform at a benefit for the Keegan's Spirit Foundation, which assist families affected by heart disease. The show is this evening at Molly Malone's in Covington. (7 p.m.; $10); radio show Salina Underground hosts a free "Record Store Day Eve" bash at Northside Tavern tonight at 10 p.m. featuring the great lineup of The Sweep, newcomers The Chance Brothers and Brian Olive. (10 p.m.; free); great local Americana ensemble Mangolia Mountain presents its album release party at the Ballroom at the Taft Theatre tonight (read more here). (8 p.m.; $13); get your 420 on at Stanley's Pub tonight as the club hosts a "420 Party" with Reggae band The Cliftones and the Grateful Dead-lovin' Jerry's Little Band. (9:30 p.m.; $7); and — where I know MOST of you will be — schmaltzy singer/songwriter Barry Manilow turns the Bank of Kentucky Center in Highland Heights into the Copacabana when he performs at 7:30 p.m. tonight ($34.99-$124.99).

We kid the Barster, of course. I mean, have you heard the dude rap?



Click here for even more local live music events tonight.

Singer/songwriter Griffin House comes back to Cincinnati tonight for an 8 p.m. show at the 20th Century Theatre in Oakley with local guests, the Folk Pop duo Ellery. The Springfield, Ohio, native (currently living in/working out of Nashville) has long received critical acclaim for his albums and his numbers commercially go up with each new release. He's coming to town as part of his spring/summer tour, just two days before his 32nd birthday. House turned down a golf scholarship to attend Ohio University and instead went to Miami University in Oxford, where he first taught himself to play guitar and write songs.

Here's the video for House's Tom Petty-esque song about the Nashville floods, the Gulf oil spill and war, "Head for the Hills." The song was recent spotlighted in a Huffington Post story titled "When Art and Activism Spill Over in Nashville," in which House discusses what led him to write the song and make the video.



• Indie Rock band Cursive — from Omaha and recording artists on Saddle Creek Records, home to Bright Eyes — pull into Bangarang's of Covington tonight for a 7 p.m. show. Opening up are Conduits and Cymbals Eat Guitars. Tickets are $16.

Here's a track, "Wowowow," from Cursive latest album, February's I Am Gemini. Read more here and click here for a free download of the song (and another, "The Sun and Moon").



• Columbus born/Chicago based Avant/Indie foursome Loyal Divide play a free, 10 p.m. show at MOTR Pub tonight in Over-the-Rhine. Way Yes opens. Check out this groovy video for "Vision Vision."

• Other solid bets: The Comet has Buffalo Killers and Alabama-based labelmates Lee Bains III and the Glory Fires (10 p.m.) for free; Ugly Radio Rebellion pays tribute to Zappa at Stanley's Pub at 9:30 p.m. ($5); area band Sohio plays the All Night Party's first Third Thursday concert, bringing local original music to Mt. Adams' AliveOne bar (free; 9 p.m.); and two of Cincy's finest Folk acts — The Tillers and Shiny and the Spoon — play the Cincinnati Zoo's free Tunes & Blooms show tonight, starting at 6 p.m.

Click here for all of tonight's live music options.

This Friday night, Cincinnati's finest Americana outfit, Magnolia Mountain is set to celebrate the release of its fantastic new LP, Town and Country, easily one of the best locally-produced albums of the year. Frontman Mark Utley and his bandmates will party in Town and Country's honor by performing tomorrow at the Ballroom at the Taft Theatre. The all-ages show kicks off at 8 p.m. with guests Jeremy Pinnell and the 55's, Chuck Evanchuck and the Old Money and Chuck Cleaver and Lisa Walker from Wussy performing a duo set.

Click here to read this week's CityBeat feature on Magnolia Mountain. Below is the full interview with Utley.

CityBeat: Tell me about the new album. What was your mindset going into it — did you have a good sense of what you wanted to do right away? Did it end up as you planned?

Mark Utley: I think the goal with all the Magnolia Mountain records has been to document where we were as a band and where I was as a songwriter at those specific times. The two years since we released Redbird Green have been a real rollercoaster ride for me personally — really high highs and very low lows — and I think that shows up in the songs. I tend to write fairly literally. It was a difficult record to make but it feels great to have made it.  They’re the best songs I’ve ever written and it’s the best record we’ve made yet.

We didn’t do a Magnolia Mountain album in 2011, mostly because of how long (the benefit project) Music for the Mountains took to put together. So we had a ton of songs written and I was anxious to get back in the studio. I wanted to expand on what we did on Redbird Green in almost opposing directions. The song “Hellbound Train” from that record was a huge audience favorite, but it wasn’t really like any other song on that album. So I wanted to write some more in that direction, but I was also writing songs on the banjo where it seemed like all I wanted to do was keep stripping things off until I got to the bare essence of them.

CB: What's the significance of calling the album "Town and Country"?

MU: It’s a nod to that dichotomy, the rockier stuff set right alongside the folkier songs. It’s interesting to me, because the original template for this band was something along the lines of Neil Young’s Live Rust record, where we would start out a show almost whisper-soft with folky acoustic stuff, and by the end of the night we’d be playing riff-heavy rock songs on electric guitars. But the earlier MM lineups didn’t have all of that in them. This lineup does, and I love it.

CB: You mentioned that you had at least a twinge of concern that perhaps Town and Country was almost too varied. That's something I've always loved about Magnolia Mountain, yet it annoys me sometimes when other bands do it. I think the key is you have the ability to make it still sound like Magnolia Mountain; you never lose context when you're listening. Is it fair to say you had those concerns?

MU: I don’t think I was afraid it would be too varied, but I did (and do) have concerns that the record might alienate some earlier fans by incorporating too many different styles and sounds. But I’m hoping that other people will feel like you do, that it all still feels like part of a legitimate whole. Because I don’t write in different styles as some sort of genre exercise, I write like this because all these styles of music are just part of what I love and who I am.

Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers made a name for himself and his band by exploring “The Southern Thing,” meaning all the contradictions and the dynamic of growing up in the modern South and how other people see that and how you see yourself. Well, it hit me a while ago that so much of the music that gets termed “Americana” or “AltCountry” or whatever, is kind of “The Midwestern Thing.”

I mean, think about it, I grew up in southern Indiana and I’ve lived here in southern Ohio for over 20 years. We’re on the border of north and south, our ears hear a mixture of Rock and Pop and Country and R&B every day growing up.  We hear phrases like “world’s biggest small town” tossed out as compliments and as urban as we try to be sometimes, our backgrounds are often very blue collar, very working man, very rural, even.

I think Magnolia Mountain is very much about all that, and I couldn’t be prouder of it.

CB: This one will be on vinyl as well, correct? What's with your dedication to the vinyl release? Do you personally feel your own music sounds better on vinyl than, say, a CD or digital file?

MU: I think pretty much everything sounds better on vinyl. I’m so happy vinyl records are coming back and I’m on cloud nine that all three of our records are available in that format. There’s nothing like that sound, that feel of the album in your hands, dropping the needle in the groove and looking at the artwork and the liner notes while you listen. It’s a ritual. It’s magic.

CB: When someone asks you what your band sounds like, and it's someone who might not have a great grasp on musical styles beyond the surface ones, what do you say?

MU: It kind of depends on if they have any grasp at all. I usually start with words like “rootsy” or “Americana” and if their eyes gloss over I’ll default to “Folk” or “Country."  Or change the subject. I accepted long ago that the vast majority of the population doesn’t live or die by music the way I always have, so I don’t hold it against people for not catching obscure musical references or being well-versed in sub-genres. I’m just trying to find words or chords that people respond to no matter what their musical pedigree.

CB: Do you often say you play Country music, or is it just not worth the hassle of explaining that it's not THAT kind of Country music?

MU: I do use the term, although sparingly, and usually with a lot of hyphens. A lot of people associate Country music with a laundry list of negative connotations, and sometimes you can’t overcome that. But that’s kind of their problem and I try not to make it mine.

As far as the curse of “New Country,” yeah, I hate most of it as much as the next guy, but I also know that a lot of people listen to it because they don’t really have the time or the inclination to dig any deeper. But I also think that most people, no matter what their background or their musical preconceptions, tend to recognize honesty, real emotion, and lack of bullshit when it’s presented to them and that’s what I want to present to an audience.

CB: So how many musicians are currently in Magnolia Mountain? It seems you have had a fairly steady revolving door of co-players in the group with you, though, again, there's never a huge difference from lineup to lineup. Tell me a bit about who you’re playing with now?

MU: We’re still at eight, where we’ve been for a long time, but there are four new faces joining four original members in the Town and Country line-up:  Renee Frye on vocals, Jeff Vanover on guitar, Todd Drake on drums, and Kathy Woods on fiddle, joining me, vocalist Melissa English, bassist Bob Donisi, and Bob Lese on mandolin and harmonica.  All four of the new folks came in at roughly the same time, and fortuitously enough, right at the beginning of the Town and Country recording sessions, so they all had the opportunity to put their stamp on the record, and boy, did they ever.

I couldn’t be happier with how they’ve all worked out. They’re such incredible players and singers and great people to know and spend time with. For whatever reason, this version of the band feels the most comfortable in its own skin and I love that. The audiences seem to sense it, too. The new stuff is going over great live.

CB: How do rehearsals work? How frequently do you all get together? it would seem to be a logistical headache, at the very least.

MU: We rehearse once a week at my palatial Price Hill estate. We move the dining room table out of the room and set up in a circle. Some of us amplified, some of us not. It’s pretty low key, kids and dogs and cats coming and going. Usually everybody’s there every week. That’s how we learn so many new songs all the time, originals and covers. The process never really stops.

CB: The video for “The Hand of Man” and the Music For the Mountains benefit compilation have gotten the band and the cause of stopping mountaintop removal mining a lot of attention. Do you have more plans related to that or another cause in the works?

MM: Assuming the new location of the Southgate House is up and running by then, I’d like to do another multi-artist “Music for the Mountains” benefit concert in the fall. I don’t have the energy for another compilation album right now, but maybe down the road. The bad guys don’t sleep, you know, and neither can we. It’s just my little thing that I feel like I can do to help the folks that fight it day in, day out.

CB: Why was it important to you to become involved with the mountaintop mining campaign? Did the success the music had on getting the cause more attention give you a new perspective of the power of music?

MM: It just hit me as wrong on every conceivable level. It’s environmentally wrong, horribly short-sighted, and what it’s done to the residents of those areas is nothing short of criminal. It amazes me how well the coal companies have been able to use their corporate, political and financial muscle to hide it or dance around it for so long. 

I do generally find, though, that once people become aware of what’s happening, either through a book or a speaker or a song, that they want it to stop, and that’s encouraging.

CB: The way people make and share and listen to music has changed a ton since your days with (Utley's late ’80s AltRock band) Stop the Car. Do you think Stop the Car would have been able to take things further if they had the resources you have now?

MU: Yeah, I do. For a couple of years there, at least, I would’ve put (Stop the Car) up against anybody, but we were so isolated back then, living in southern Indiana. It felt like we were playing in a vacuum. The kind of connections that the internet made possible were unheard of back then. I’m very thankful to have them now.

CB: When did you start listening to roots and Americana music, and start becoming a serious fan?

It was incremental. My dad listened to what you’d now call classic Country when I was growing up, but I couldn’t change the station quick enough. I’ve always been one to seek out the heroes of my heroes, though, and through bands like X, I started digging through older American Country and folk music. Hank Williams hooked me immediately. Woody Guthrie.  Lead Belly. The Carter Family. You go deeper and deeper and deeper. It just never stops.

CB: What do you make of the (for lack of a better word) "trend" of a lot of musicians who would have fronted Punk Rock or Metal bands 10 years ago turning instead to Folk and Roots music these days? What do you think the draw is, particular to our times? Or do you think it's because kids are exposed to so many different styles nowadays?

MU: Well, they say that religion is the last refuge of a scoundrel, but perhaps it’s really Country music. 

I don’t know, really, other than the fact that people can sense the authenticity of some of this music and perhaps they want to discover it more deeply, or co-opt it to their own ends, or try it on like a new suit of clothes. Whatever it is, and however the trends cycle in and out, I think people can tell who plays these kinds of music because it’s part of them and who’s just trying on the suit.

CB: Along those same lines, what do you think it is about American roots music that has given it such a fervent fan base overseas?That cult following for Americana in Europe and elsewhere seems to have been going strong for a long time now. I'm sure you've probably had more than a few nice reviews from the "foreign press."

MU: Europeans have always had an insatiable appetite for American musical forms. The British Invasion was nothing but them taking our music, making it their own and shooting it back at us.

Again, there’s the attraction of a sense of an authenticity, of something foreign and exotic, of times and places and people either long gone or vanishing inexorably. Our world is getting more and more controlled, more homogenized, more corporate, soulless and these Roots music forms are the antithesis of that.

CB: What's next up for the group? Is touring a possibility? Have you done radio campaigns and things like that in the past? Shopped music for licensing?

MU: We recently signed with a digital label from down south called This is American Music (TIAM). They’ll be handling the digital sales for all three of our records and we’ve contracted them to do promotion for Town and Country, as well. So we’ll finally have someone to take what we do and try and get it in front of people, which we’ve never had before. 

We’re also working with a booking agent out of Nashville who’s setting up some tour dates for us, and we’ll be doing some trade off gigs with some of the other TIAM bands. It’s difficult with the size of our group, but we’re going to go out on the road as much as we can. I’m also doing more stripped-down gigs with Renee and Jeff as a trio, and we’re looking at touring with that configuration as well.

• Veteran Indie Rock cult heroes Low pull into town tonight to play the new Ballroom at the Taft Theatre. Formerly known for their "slow-core" approach, the Duluth, Minn., trio has expanded its sound greatly in recently years. Check out a clip from last month, filmed at The Guardian offices in the U.K., of Low explaining and performing the song "Witches." 

Opening the 8 p.m. show is R. Ring, featuring Dayton, Kentucky's Mike Montgomery (thistle, Ampline) and Dayton, Ohio's Kelley Deal (The Breeders, The Kelley Deal 6000). The band is getting ready to release a full-length album, but here's a live clip of them performing the song "Hundred Dollar Heat" in Austin, Tex., during the recent SXSW fest.

R.Ring - Hundred Dollar Heat from Be Lie All on Vimeo.

• Santa Cruz, California-based Psych Rock band Sleepy Sun performs a free show tonight at MOTR Pub at 10 p.m. The band recently released its third album, Spine Hits. Check out what our Jason Gargano has to say about Sleepy Sun here. Space rockers White Hills, which recently issued Frying On This Rock through Thrill Jockey, open the show with their own brand of "fuzzed out psychedelia."

Here's the trailer for Sleepy Sun's Spine Hits, followed by a video for White Hills' "Pads of Light."

Sleepy Sun - Spine Hits trailer from ATP Concerts & Recordings on Vimeo.

White Hills - Pads of Light from Thrill Jockey Records on Vimeo.

Click on for more info on shows tonight by The Fray and Lucy Wainwright Roche.

Read More

It's looking like the historic Emery Theatre on the border of Over-the-Rhine and Downtown is back in business as a full-time functioning venue. Bands like Magnolia Mountain and Pop Empire have been using the Theatre to film music video projects and, next Saturday (April 28), the Emery hosts the "Rock This Town" benefit concert for CityLink, which helps resident "break the cycle of poverty" by providing employment training and other assistance. The event's music will be provided several groups of business people who can play instruments or sing (modeled on the "Suits That Rock" concerts that benefit the Carnegie Arts Center in Covington).

On April 27, the Emery will host a dual album release party/concert in honor of two new releases from the label Ol Kentuck, run by SubPop recording artist and Northern Kentucky native Daniel Martin Moore. One of the albums is a vinyl release of producer/guitarist/composer Ric Hordinski's Arthur's Garden (read more about the album here).

The other is the first release from a duo project consisting of Moore and singer Joan Shelley (pictured) titled Farthest Field. The event will also feature readings from authors Silas House and Marianne Worthington (who wrote one of the most engaging press releases for the album I think I've ever laid eyes on for the duo's debut; click the "Bio" pdf link on this page to read it).

It's a great time to check out the Emery circa 2012 because the concert is also free and open to the public. (Rock this Town's tickets range from $35-$100 — for a great cause, of course.)

Here are two video clips (shot by photographer Michael Wilson with help on the audio side from Pop Empire) promoting the concert, with music from Moore and Shelley's Farthest Field (officially available May 8).

Rockin' Cincinnati group The Kickaways have taken to Kickstarter for some assistance in completing the band's sophomore long-player, currently titled Show Yr Teeth, the follow-up to the excellent (and free) debut LP, America! America! The Cincinnati Entertainment Awards' 2011 winners for Best Rock Band have songs at the ready and even picked out a studio – Michigan's Key Club, where Indie duo The Kills recorded its first two albums. The band hopes to start recording in June.

The Kickaways are offering several pledge perks for those who donate to the Kickstarter drive, including handmade art from the band members, special T-shirts, CDs, a B-sides and rarities collection and your very own private concert from the band (within 130 miles of Cincinnati and, per Kickstarter, "if the cops show it's not on us please"). If you're a deep-pocketed Kickaways fan and you wanted to donate, say, $5000, the band will "pretty much do anything you could think of as long as (it's) not illegal or (could) get us or someone else hurt." The Kickaways are aiming to have Show Yr Teeth ready by this October.

Here is the official Kickstarter video for the project. Click here for ways to donate.

Tonight downtown, Arnold's host a free show by Hope For Agoldensummer at 7 p.m. The Athens, Ga., ensemble has been making beautiful Indie Folk music for nearly a decade, winning numerous awards from their hometown scene's Flagpole and Creative Loafing papers — they've scored five Best Folk/Americana awards in just the past seven years. The band has also received glowing press from non-Athenian sources, including the Washington Post, The New Yorker and NPR's All Songs Considered, which said HFA "has a knock for crafting gorgeous and often complex refrains, supported by utterly captivating arrangements.

The group — a sister act fronted by Claire & Page Campbell — has a new album, Life Inside the Body, due May 1. Check out Hope For Agoldensummer's video for the tune "4th Night," which won the group another local music award — for Best Music Video. And check out the groovy new tune, "Daniel Bloom," here via Philly radio outlet WXPN.

• Excellent local Indie Rock crew Sohio celebrates the birth of its new baby, the solid full-length Sonuminous, with a free release show/party at MOTR Pub tonight at 10 p.m. The album is an enjoyably eclectic release that features some of the finest Sohio songs yet, from Pixies-esque Indie Pop to New Wavy Rock and even some twangier, rootsy moments. You can download the great new album track "Painted Bird" here for free. Give it a listen below if you're the noncommittal type.

Read More