The fruitcakes have been throw away, the eggnog is spoiled, the big ball dropped, the champagne is gone and we’ve all had time to reflect on 2008. Now, chin up, sport — it’s time to start looking ahead to 2009 and what lies ahead for Cincinnati’s local music scene.

If the first release of 2009 (well, the first to cross my desk anyway) is any indication, we’re in for another great year for locally crafted CDs. The “New Year’s Eve baby” of the local CD world comes from newcomers Hazle Weatherfield, a promising trio that celebrates its debut release with a show this Saturday at The Mad Hatter in Covington.

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Stevie Nicks has truly enhanced and defined the role of women in Rock & Roll. She is the gold standard by which female lead singers in Rock bands will forever be measured against.  The defining voice behind Fleetwood Mac since the mid ’70s, she has also been able to separate and create a wonderful solo career, recently releasing her seventh album, In Your Dreams, which launched with great success, debuting in the Top 10 of the Billboard album chart. Nicks is currently on the road to promote her latest record and she comes through Cincinnati on Saturday night for a show at Riverbend's PNC Pavilion. We caught up with Stevie via email this week to discuss her upcoming tour stop in Cincinnati, the inspirations for her new album and what a typical day looks like for an iconic Rock star.

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OK, so which Babylonian weather deity did we collectively blow like a $5 crack whore to assure us of an entire weekend without getting firehosed by the kind of precipitation generally associated with tropical monsoons? Because I want to get his number in our rolodex for next year. Another absolutely gorgeous night for another spectacular evening of musical diversion and awesomeness. That’s right, awesomeness.

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Music Tonight: Tonight’s the last time you’ll be able to catch Cincinnati-based trio The Rubber Knife Gang in town for a while. But it’s not for any kind of hiatus — no rehab or plastic surgery or whatever it is bands do on such breaks. Quite the opposite. It’s because the band is jumping on a plane in a few weeks and heading overseas to spread RKG’s soulful Americana/Roots/Bluegrass sound. Tonight, the Gang joins Nashville’s Grace Adele and the Grand Band for a free, 10 p.m. show at MOTR Pub. The two acts reteam for a Columbus show this weekend, then RKG hops on a plane for Belgium, where the threesome will play two weeks’ worth of dates through mid-September (with a few shows in Germany and the Netherlands sprinkled in).

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Music Tonight: Rootsy Connecticut-based trio Plume Giant performs at the Rohs Street Cafe in Clifton Heights with Columbus, Ohio's Deadwood Floats and Cincinnati's own Molly Sullivan (check out Sullivan's lovely, unique track "Bad Weather" here). Plume Giant released its self-titled debut EP last year, drawing praise from Seattle to New Haven, and travelled up and down the east coast in support. The Indie Folk trio — built around timeless songs, amazing three-part harmonies and pure, naked acoustic guitar/viola/violin backing — is taking on the Midwest this month, touring in advance of its first full-length, due this coming spring. Click here to listen to the EP and enjoy the Plume Giant song "Old Joe the Crow," performed live below.

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Anthrax has shaped the heavy metal movement in America. The band recently released its 10th studio album, Worship Music, which brings back the band’s early sound with the re-emergence of lead vocalist Joey Belladonna. I love heavy metal guitars, so it was a privilege to speak to one of the all time metal guitar greats, Scott Ian, to preview their performance at Mayhem Fest Tuesday at Riverbend Music Center.

CityBeat caught up with Ian to discuss the highlights of Mayhem so far and how being a father has changed his perspective on life and music.

CityBeat: What has been the highlight of Mayhem Fest so far for you?

Scott Ian: For me personally it is just the overall vibe. This is the first time we have done a U.S. festival traveling tour in the summer. We kind of knew what to expect since we are friends with Slayer, Slipknot and Motorhead, but it has been so much fun to hang with our friends. The crew and everyone who works with Mayhem have been great and it really is a big family vibe out here. It is a really great place to show up for work.

CB: What has it been like having Joey back the past few tours with the band?

SI: It’s been like two and a half years already. Hopefully that answers the question. It is obviously been going great. We couldn’t be happier with the record we made. We couldn’t be happier with the way shows have been going. I think this is by far the best version of Anthrax that we have ever had. 

CB: You became a father last year for the first time. Has this changed your perspective on writing music or life in general?

SI: I haven’t really written yet since he was born because we have been in touring mode. One way that my perspective overall has changed is now having this person in my life that I love beyond anything I can comprehend. It makes me hate the human race even more because of all the pressure that comes with raising a child and wanting to protect him. People ask what do you have to be angry about and there is plenty to be pissed off about now. Look at what happened in Colorado last night with the guy shooting people in a movie theater. It sickens me to the pit of my stomach for a million reasons. What if that was my child in the movie theater?

CB: It is terrible and it is beyond my comprehension how that can happen.

SI: Up until he was born, I had my wife and close family but they are adults and are responsible for themselves. Now we have this person that is 100 percent helpless and relies on us to take care of him, so there is this protective instinct that showed up as soon as he was born. I think that will have a big impact on my writing in the future when the time comes.

CB: Do they come visit you on the road?

SI: Yes they are here right now and have been with me for 10 days.

CB: What is the longest you have gone without playing guitar?

SI: Probably way back in 1977 when I broke my wrist at a skateboard park and I couldn’t play guitar for two months because I had a cast on. I was so bummed that I couldn’t play guitar that I pretty much gave up any type of fancy skateboarding on ramps or pools. The guitar was definitely more of a priority. 

CB: What is the biggest difference for you touring versus in the 1980s?

SI: Sometimes we sit around and talk about how did we ever get anything done before we had cell phones and laptops? In the ’80s no one even knew what a cell phone was. I remember the first time a tour manager had that big briefcase thing with a phone in it and it was something like $18 a minute to use it. The idea that we were able to do stuff back then and everything got done is amazing. I try to think about how it got done and I have no idea how we made it through one day let alone a whole tour without the technology.

CB: What habit would you like to break?

SI: I don’t know. I don’t smoke. I don’t drink excessively. My wife is saying talking with my mouth full so I guess I will go with that as a born and bred New Yorker.

CB: What adjectives do you hope describe you at 75?

SI: I hope when I am 75 no one has anything to say about me. I hope the only thing they say is “What ever happened to that guy?” because I am so far off the grid by that point.

CB: I doubt that will happen.

SI: No, we will probably still be playing music and people will say “I can’t believe he is still banging his head.”

CB: What has been your craziest fan story over the past few years?

SI: The craziest audiences in the world are in South America in Chile with the craziest fans overall. We do a signing every day at the Rockstar Energy Drink tent and we get to meet a lot of fans every day on this tour. Anyone who would get anything Anthrax related tattooed on their body is amazing to me. I can’t really call it too crazy because I have Gene Simmons and Angus from AC/DC tattooed on me. I understand that point of view of being such a fan that you would be willing to make that commitment but being the guy in Anthrax and seeing an Anthrax-related tattoo makes you feel great because I know the commitment and I know how much Anthrax must mean to them. 

CB: What is the best guitar solo of all time?

SI: Eddie Van Halen “Eruption.”

Anthrax performs July 24 at Mayhem Fest at Riverbend Music Center. More information: rockstarmayhemfest.com.

Motörhead are Metal gods. They’ve been rocking arenas and stadiums for 37 years and are currently out on the Mayhem Tour with Anthrax and other major acts of Heavy Metal and Hard Rock. They’ve released 21 albums and have played in front of millions across the world with the loyal support of their super-fans, the Motörheadbangers.

CityBeat spoke with guitar player Phil Campbell to preview their set today Riverbend. They spoke about how life in the band continues to thrive on the road after so many years and his impressive collection of guitars. Mayhem Fest will rock Cincinnati Tuesday and will also feature Anthrax, Slayer, Slipknot and The Devil Wears Prada.

CityBeat: What has been the craziest story from Mayhem so far for you guys?

Phil Campbell: We had a good party the other night. It was a costume party. All our band and crew went dressed pretty strange. There were quite a few strange costumes there. I think Lemmy and his assistant went as the Blues Brothers. I dressed as a clown. Mickey dressed as a frog. One of our crew dressed as Larry King. That was pretty good. It was a good party anyway. We are just too busy to get wild at the moment. 

CB: You guys are famous for your pranks on the road. Have you played any pranks on any of the other bands yet?

PC: No not yet. We leave that for the end.

CB: What is the best and worst part of being out on the road now? You guys have been touring for 30 years. 

PC: You are home for three weeks and then you are ready to come on the road for two months. You are dying get back home. We are not really complainers. One of the worst parts obviously is not having your family there, home comforts and your dogs and things like that. The food can be tough because you really don’t have much choice. That’s not particularly good. The best part is you don’t have to get up early in the morning anymore. We sleep in until really late so that’s very cool.

CB: What is your favorite guitar to play?

PC: My favorite guitar? I just bought a 1957 Les Paul a couple weeks ago so that is probably my favorite now.

CB: I know you have over 260. Do you rotate them in during the shows or do you pretty much stick with the same ones for the live performances?

PC: No I have about 12 on the road at any given time, so sometimes I rotate a couple. Some of the real amazing ones I don’t really want to take on the road. They are safer in different storage locations, but I have plenty to choose from.

CB: Any regrets through the years?

PC: No, not really, none. It has been pretty good. It has been a privilege to be able to play music for people who enjoy our music. No, no major regrets, no.

CB: Supergroups are very popular right now with bands like Chickenfoot and musicians doing side projects. If you could put together a dream supergroup who would you want to play with from any band?

PC: Elton John, Adam Jones from Tool, David Bato on the drums and Victor Wooten on bass.

CB: That’s pretty good. I know your children are also in bands. Have you thought about recording with them anytime in the future?

PC: Yeah, they are doing really good. I have some children in a band called Straight Lines. They have their second album out and they are doing lots of shows. They have great reviews in all the magazines and everything. Hopefully they will be doing the Warped Tour next summer. Another is in a band called Inside the Trees but they changed their name to The People’s Poet and they are recording their new album now, as we speak. It’s a quite different kind of music. They have their own sound as well. They are all doing really well.

CB: Do you ever play with them?

PC: I used to when they were younger but they won’t let me play anymore. I’m not good enough. 

CB: They tell me you are a Lord. How did that process come about to become Lord Axesmith? 

PC: I applied. The title goes back 500 years, Lord of Axesmith. It’s on my credit cards now and everything. I am an honorary member of the Knight’s Templar of Brittannia. It is a bit of fun when the crew has to call me “My Lord.”

CB: I was going to ask you what the best part is of being a Lord but that’s probably it, people have to address you as Lord. 

PC: When we are at restaurants and they ask for the name of the party, if you say Lord Axesmith then you know they will give you a good table. Even before I became Lord Axesmith, I was told it did the trick. 

CB: What can the fans look forward to from the Motörhead show in Cincinnati on Tuesday?

PC: Just another killer Motörhead show. It is only going to be about 50 minutes long because we have to have all the other bands on. So it will be loud and nobody will be disappointed.

The Cincinnati-born, Brooklyn-based members of Indie Rock sensations The National recently announced details about their first new album since 2010's High Violet, Trouble WIll Find Me. The album is due in the U.S. on May 21 on the 4AD label. (Click here for the album cover, track listing and more National news.)

Today, The National unleashed the first song from Trouble, the warm, crawling "Demons." Check the tune and a video for it below.

UPDATE: Today (April 11), The National released audio of the first single from Trouble Will Find Me, "Don't Swallow the Cap." Check it out:

The National perform a homecoming show on July 14, headlining the final night of the three-day Bunbury Music Festival at Sawyer Point Park. For tickets and more info, click here.

The National has been previewing the new album on its current global tour. Here are a handful of new songs from the LP performed live in Berlin last week.

The avant chamber music festival, MusicNow, returns to Memorial Hall on March 11 and March 12. The "big get" this year is the Kronos Quartet, a brilliant, legendary string troupe that hasn't played in Cincinnati in 20 years. Kronos plays both nights of the event, performing music by Jim Thirwell and Glenn Branca, as well as a new piece by Richard Reed Parry of Bell Orchestre and Arcade Fire.

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Music Tonight: Ohio musical pioneers Rocket From the Tombs perform at the Southgate House with local greats Buffalo Killers and SS-20. Formed in 1974 in Northern Ohio, the pre-Punk legends might not get the credit of some of Punk's other earliest engineers, from New York and the U.K, but their importance in shaping the music (and the New Wave/Alterntaive/Indie music that followed) cannot be overstated. Like many great artists (Van Gogh, Poe, Kafka, etc.), RFTT weren't appreciated in their time, something not surprising considering they existed for only about a year and never released a lick of music. The band's split spawned two other wildly important bands — Dead Boys, featuring Stiv Bators and TFTT's Cheetah Chrome, and Pere Ubu with RFTT's David Thomas and Peter Laughner (who passed away in 1977). Both "new" (and distinctively different) bands took some Rocket tunes with them — Dead Boys claimed songs like "Ain't It Fun" and "Sonic Reducer," while Pere Ubu took with them "Final Solution" and "30 Seconds Over Tokyo" — all "Punk" classics. In the ’00s, RFTT compiled live and archival recordings so the band would finally have something in the record stores and, in the process, reconnected and, in 2009, the band convened to record its official "debut album" nearly 35 years after originally forming. Read Steven Rosen's interview with frontman (and Art Rock icon) David Thomas for this week's CityBeat here. Showtime tonight is 9 p.m. and admission is $15. Click below to listen to Rocket From the Tombs' rendition of "Sonic Reducer."

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