Another solid free show tonight in Over-the-Rhine at MOTR Pub as Brooklyn band Milagres returns to perform with local heroes The Fairmount Girls. Milagres was last at MOTR just after the release of their latest album, Glowing Mouth, through Kill Rock Stars Records. The album came after songwriter Kyle Wilson seriously injured his back in a Canadian rock climbing adventure. While laid up, Wilson (who was considering quitting "the biz") found himself re-inspired and he reassembled his bandmates when he recovered to recorded Glowing Mouth.

Interview magazine has compared Milagres to everyone from Prince and Peter Gabriel to Bon Iver and Radiohead. It's a fair assessment of the band's eclectic collection (but, mostly, it's probably because there's falsetto singing on the record). Check out some of the group's glistening Indie Pop here, then enjoy a couple of video clips below, including a recent appearance on NPR's Tiny Desk Concert series.

Huge in the U.K. and Europe, Irish Pop/Rock band Snow Patrol has been gradually catching on in the U.S. since its first album release in 1998. The band's 2003 album, Final Straw, went Gold stateside, but five-times Platinum in the U.K. But 2006's Eyes Open notched Platinum sales in the States (thanks in part to the hit single, "Chasing Cars") and the band's most recent album, Fallen Empires, debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard album charts last year.

Final Straw was an eclectic release that was reminiscent of everyone from American Indie rockers Sebadoh to superstar acts like Coldplay and U2. Wisely (in terms of their career, at least), the band members went in the epic Coldplay direction on subsequent releases, which has surely helped them break bigger.

The band performs tonight at Bogart's at 8 p.m. with British singer/songwriter Ed Sheeran opening up. Tickets are $40.86. Read more here.

Here's Snow Patrol's great early single, "Spitting Games," the band's latest, "New York," and Ed Sheeran's recent single (and funny video), "Drunk."

After Lollapalooza created the "package tour" craze in the ’90s, most of the tours collapsed, faded away or adjusted, including Lolla itself. But the folks behind The Warped Tour figured out how to make it work (mostly by not overpaying bands or treating anyone like prima donnas) and Warped is by far the most consistent and longest running big package tour around. It returns to Riverbend this summer.

The fest brings its usual eclectic lineup of Punk, Metal, Hip Hop and Indie acts back to Cincinnati on July 31. Tickets go on sale April 6 at 10 a.m. (a week from today) and are just $35 (plus ticketing fees). Click here for more on tickets.

The lineups change throughout the Warped jaunt as acts come on and off the tour. Here's who's on board for the Riverbend stop. (Lineup is subject to change.):

Main Stage: Taking Back Sunday, All Time Low, New Found Glory, Streetlight Manifesto, Yellowcard, Piece The Veil, Four Year Strong, Of Mice and Men, We The Kings, Breathe Carolina, Miss May I, Falling In Reverse, Blood On The Dance
 
TBD Stage:  Every Time I Die, Mayday Parade, blessthefall, Chelsea Grin, For Today, Memphis May Fire, Motionless In White, Rise To Remain, Sleeping With Sirens, The Ghost Inside, Vampires Everywhere!, Title Fight
 
Tilly's Stage: Senses Fail, Vanna, Polar Bear Club, We Are The Crowd, Man Overboard, A Loss For Words, Funeral Party, I Fight Dragons, Machine Gun Kelly, Oh No Fiasco
 
TBD Stage: Echo Movement, G-Eazy, Stepdad, The Constellations, Ballyhoo!, Champagne, T. Mills, Tomorrows Bad Seeds, Mod Sun, The Green, Amyst
 
Ernie Ball Stage:  iwrestledabearonce, Born Of Osiris, Chunk! No Captain, Fireworks, Transit, Cold Forty Three, The Scissors
 
Kevin Says Stage:  Make Do And Mend, Matt Toka, Tonight Alive, Skip The Foreplay, Sick of Sarah, Mighty Mongo, Captain Capa, I Call Fives, Hostage Calm, The Silver Comet, Twin Atlantic, The Darlings, Dead Sara
 
Acoustic Basement:   A Loss For Words, Koji, Brian Marquis, Rocky Votolato, Transit, Owen Plant, Anthony Raneri
 
Ourstage.com is also sponsoring a stage this year and local bands are encouraged to sign up for a chance to play their hometown Warped (and possibly even join Ourstage.com's stage for 22 dates). Click here for details.

Local Pop/Punk band Mixtapes is gearing up for its debut full-length release for the No Sleep label, a West Coast-based imprint that has put out records by successful and on-the-rise acts like I Call Fives, Balance and Composure, Aficionado and The Wonder Years. The album is expected out as early as May, but a brand new Mixtapes song has surfaced as part of a compilation album featuring 16 songs performed by bands chosen by Lookout Records founder Larry Livermore. The compilation, The Thing That Ate Larry Livermore, is due May 29 on Adeline Records, but Absolute Punk has just posted a stream of Mixtapes' track, "Right Where to Find Me." Click here to give it a listen (scroll to the first comment for the stream).

Earlier this month, Alternative Press posted a video clip from Mixtapes performing the song "Russian House DJ" live in Louisville. Check it below.



Late last year, AP also posted this Mixtapes appearance on "The Pink Couch Sessions."



The band isn't waiting for the album to come out to hit the road hard, something the members are no doubt used to by now, having spent a ton of time touring up until now. The band is currently in the midst of dates on the Set Your Goals/Cartel tour (they play Seattle tonight) and they start another tour with Hit the Lights the day after the current jaunt ends, April 4. That tour brings Mixtapes home for an April 5 show at Madison Theater.

After previously teasing its inaugural lineup by announcing performers like Jane’s Addiction, Weezer, Death Cab for Cutie, Airborne Toxic Event, Manchester Orchestra and Gym Class Heroes, the Bunbury Music Festival today announced most of the remaining acts for the July 13-15 festival along the riverfront at Yeatman's Cove/Sawyer Point. There will reportedly be over 100 acts on six stages over the three days, so more acts will be announced.

Here's who's playing:

Friday, July 13
: Jane’s Addiction, 
Airborne Toxic Event, Minus the Bear, O.A.R., Foxy Shazam, Ra Ra Riot
, LP, Matt Pryor, Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band, Ponderosa, 
All Get Out
, The Minor Leagues, Lauren Mann, She Does Is Magic,  Bo & the Locomotive, Tristen and Pet Clinic.
 
Saturday, July 14: Weezer, 
Gym Class Heroes, Manchester Orchestra, Grouplove, RJD2, Dan Deacon, 
Jukebox the Ghost, The Bright Light Social Hour, Kevin Devine, 
The Silent Comedy, Graffiti 6, 1,2,3, Secret Music
, Messerly & Ewing, 500 Miles To Memphis, The Lions Rampant, 
Jeremy Pinnell & the 55’s, Wheels on Fire and Hotfox.
 
Sunday, July 15
: Death Cab for Cutie, 
City and Colour, Motion City Soundtrack, 
Guided By Voices
, Margot & The Nuclear So & So’s, Good Old War, Lights, Will Hoge, Maps & Atlases, YAWN, Now, Now
, Wussy, The Seedy Seeds and The Tillers.

Tickets are $46 for one day or $93 for a three-day pass. Click here for more details.

On this day in 1973, wishful thinking channeled through a Pop song paid off for rootsy New Jersey Rock group Dr. Hook when they appeared on the cover of the Rolling Stone. The band formed in 1967 and, in 1970, Dr. Hook was asked to cut a couple tracks for a film that featured songs written by poet/illustrator Shel Silverstein. Those songs led to a record contract and the group continued its collaborative partnership with Silverstein. After modest success with its debut, Dr. Hook's second album, Sloppy Seconds, was completely written by Silverstein and featured what would become the band's signature song, "The Cover of the Rolling Stone."

The song was a lighthearted, ironic take on the amateurish idealism of young musicians who believe that if they could only make the cover of a major magazine, they'd finally be successful. (It reminds me of my grandmother who once suggested to me that if my garage band could just get on that David Letterman show, maybe we would be more popular and successful.) The smart-asses at Rolling Stone put them on the cover in caricature form under the caption, "What's-Their-Names Make The Cover."

Dr. Hook indeed became Rock stars after that and continued to have hits into the ’70s with Soft Rock material like "When You're in Love with A Beautiful Woman" and "Sexy Eyes." The band broke up in the mid-’80s.

Here's the band's first big hit.



Born This Day: Musical movers and shakers sharing a March 29 birthday include star actress/singer Pearl Bailey (1918); Brazilian Bossa Nova singer ("The Girl from Ipanema") Astrud Gilberto (1940); Greek musician/composer (Chariots of Fire soundtrack) Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou, better known as Vangelis (1943); singer for soft rockers Toto, Bobby Kimball (1947); late smooth Jazz taxman Michael Brecker (1949); master Blues harmonica player William Clarke (1951); late original lead singer for Ohio-spawned New Wave band The Waitresses ("I Know What Boys Like"), Patty Donahue (1956); singer/harmonica player with ’90s hit makers Blues Traveler, John Popper (1967); and Jane's Addiction frontman Perry Farrell (1959).

Born Peretz Bernstein in New York City, Farrell grew up to be one of the leading generals of the Alternative music revolution of the ’90s. Besides being the engine behind one of the leading bands of Alt music's eventual mainstream takeover, Farrell created the Lollapalooza traveling festival in 1991 (the first year also served as Jane's "farewell" tour). The fest, itself a kind of traveling Woodstock, paved the way for like-minded tours like Lilith Fair and H.O.R.D.E.

The traveling package tour trend petered out and, after a failed attempt at another touring fest in 2004, Lollapalooza became a stand-alone "destination" festival in Chicago's Grant Park in 2005. It remains one of the more anticipated events of its kind alongside Bonnaroo in Tennessee and Coachella in California.

Farrell has reformed Jane's Addiction yet again and this summer the band is touring extensively, playing several music festivals around the world that undoubtedly owe some debt to the success of the initial Lolla tours. Jane's comes to Cincinnati to headline the opening night of the inaugural Bunbury Music Festival on July 13.

Check back later today for news on Bunbury's lineup. An announcement is expected at noon.

Here's some raw footage from that very first Lollapalooza in 1991, with Jane's playing "Classic Girl."

The seventh annual MusicNOW festival begins tonight, but not at the fest's usual headquarters. And you don't need a ticket for tonight's opening festivities.

For last year’s MusicNOW, the festival ventured outside of its usual home, Memorial Hall, but not very far — organizer Bryce Dessner’s band The National played Music Hall, right next door. This year’s opening MusicNOW concert is a tad further away, at Christ Church Cathedral (318 E. Fourth Street), but the setting is perfect for the night’s programming. And it’s a rare free event for MusicNOW. Showtime is 7:30 p.m. (doors open at 7 p.m.).

Performing is James McVinnie, the Assistant Organist at Westminster Abbey in London (where he performed last year for the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton; read his account here). Besides his work at the grand cathedral, McVinnie also teaches, performs throughout the U.K and beyond and has had pieces composed for him by Graham Ross, Robert Walker and Mr. MusicNOW 2012, Nico Muhly.

The setting was no doubt chosen because of the Cathedral's vintage organs and acoustics. Read more about the instruments here.

Joined by in demand violist Nadia Sirota (a founding member of MusicNOW regulars yMusic), McVinnie will work his organ magic on new compositions by Richard Reed Parry (a member of Arcade Fire and also a MusicNOW vet) and David Lang, a member of MusicNOW alumni Bang on a Can and winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for music for his “The Little Match Girl Passion” piece. McVinnie’s performance will also include pieces by Muhly, the other Mr. MusicNOW 2012, Philip Glass, Bach and Estonian composer Arvo Pärt.

Also on the bill is Sam Amidon, an Avant Indie Chamber Folk singer/songwriter who drew acclaim for his performance at the Contemporary Arts Center last year. Amidon takes deep American roots music and doesn’t so much cover it as remix and mold it into something more modern and totally unique.

Read more of our MusicNOW preview coverage, including interviews with Muhly, Dessner and eighth blackbird, in this week's CityBeat. Tickets for Friday's performance are sold out; for tickets for tomorrow's performance by 8bb, Philip Glass and Sandro Perri (the MusicNOW site says there are only limited tickets left, so hurry), click here.

Don't stay in and watch NCIS tonight. Head to Covington's Molly Malone’s and check out David Wax Museum. The Museum is accurately self-described as “Mexo-Americana.” They draw much of their musical stylings from Mexican Son music. Son, which translates to “sound,” has distinct dialects dependent on its area of Mexican origins. The instrumentation includes accordions, drums, guitars and often the rattling jawbones of animals. The Museum utilizes the jawbone of a donkey. Yes, it’s hard to imagine Mexican music sounding like anything other than a Mariachi band, but try. The Museum also draws from their Missouri roots to add in a dash of Americana.  

The combination is sexy and fun. “Born with a Broken Heart” (listen below) may sound like another sad love song, but it’s guaranteed to have you dancing around the floor, instead. DWM's latest album, Everything is Saved, should to be the soundtrack to your summer. See them live now before everyone else. Local singer/songwriter Serenity Fisher opens the show up at 8 p.m. Tickets are $12. (Read more DWM here.)

Georgia-spawned Alt/Doom/Sludge Metal/Shoegaze band Jucifer returns to The Comet in Northside tonight for a free, 10 p.m. performance, something that, if you live within a mile of the club, you'll likely know about without ever leaving your house. Together since 1993, Jucifer is known for its needle-past-the-red volume and humongous amplifiers, which seem custom-built for stadium concerts and not relatively tiny rooms like the one at The Comet. Area residents who go to the club to investigate will probably be shocked to learn that Jucifer is only a duo (Gazelle Amber Valentine on guitar and vocals and Edgar Livengood on drums).

The music is as dirty, raw and heavy as they come, but the band explores a non-stereotypical vision of "Doom Metal," with atypical structures and Valentine's vocals, which range from whispered to depths-of-the-soul growling. As a live band, Jucifer is rock solid, which is understandable given the amount of time spent on the road. The duo does so many tour dates (across the globe) that its Facebook page lists the members' hometown as "Nomads" and declares "Always on tour! January to December ever year!"

Signed to esteemed Metal label Relapse Records since 2006, Jucifer has since formed its own label — fittingly called Nomadic Fortress and distributed through Relapse — home to its most recent release, 2010's Throned In Blood. Here's the Throned track "Contempt."

Tonight at the 20th Century Theatre in Oakley, two MidPoint Music Festival alumni team up for an 8 p.m. show, opened by Brooklyn duo and Secretly Canadian recording artists Exitmusic. Tickets are $17.

Welsh-bred, London-based AltRock trio The Joy Formidable were one of the big attractions at last year's MPMF, headlining the big tent stage at Grammer's. Like a lot of MPMFers, the band was on the brink of breaking through in the States and has since been doing pretty damn well — the band's current cross-country tour of America kicked off with four sold out shows (Cincy is the eighth stop on the jaunt). The trio is still doing dates in support of last year's debut LP, The Big Roar, which notched a No. 8 chart position on Billboard's Top Heatseekers charts. Here's a clip of the threesome performing its single "Whirring" at South By Southwest last year.



Another trio that played MidPoint (in 2010) holds down the middle slot tonight. Brooklyn's Post Punk/Noisegaze group A Place to Bury Strangers were also a highly anticipated band at the MidPoint at which they performed. Though their show didn't go exactly as planned (playing the Contemporary Arts Center, the band's light display and legendary volume kept knocking the power out during their set), the group still ended up putting on a stellar performance and didn't lose their cool. In this week's CityBeat, Reyan Ali talks to Oliver Ackermann, singer/guitarist for APTBS, about that CAC show and whether he thinks his band's violent, aggressive sound has helped him release any violence or aggression that may lurk within him. Check it out here. The band is currently working on its third full-length.

Check out the clip for "Keep Slipping Away" from APTBS's last album, 2009's Exploding Head:



• Even more MidPoint vets are playing together at downtown's Mainstay Rock Bar tonight. My absolute favorite show at last year's MPMF was a relatively small gathering at the Main Event club featuring tour-pals Vanity Theft (who originally hail from Springboro, Ohio) and Canada's Hunter Valentine. While some of the other MPMF shows might have had better sound or a dazzling light show, these two all-female groups put on a brilliant display of Rock & Roll, with an impassioned Punk drive, slanted Indie Rock riffs and some New Wave/Post Punk undertones. Both groups were funny, charming and incredibly fun to watch and rock out with, even though they were at the tail-end of a massive North American tour. If Sleater Kinney, The Buzzcocks and Blondie got together for a timewarped jam in 1979, it might have sounded like what you'll hear tonight at Mainstay. Like-minded Indy Pop Punk band Neon Love Life opens the show.

Showtime is 9 p.m. Cover is just $5. Here's Vanity Theft's video for the song "Trainwreck":

• I'd never heard of "Christian Crunk Rock" before I started reading about Atlanta's Family Force 5, but it is definitely now in my Top 10 list of all-time favorite favorite genre hybrids, just behind the Dance/Electronic/Emo mesh EmoDM but a few slots ahead of Doom Jazzcore. Like a good Christian band name, there's honesty in their moniker — there are five members, they are certainly a force in AltChristian music circles and the band contains three brothers. The Olds bros (Solomon Jerome, Jacob and Joshua) are the son of Jerome Olds, who was a popular Christian music performer in the ’80s.

FF5 transcended the Christian tag by experiencing success in the mainstream with their first full-length, Business Up Front/Party in the Back, and the group didn't do a lot of the things many Christian acts go through when trying to appeal to a wider chunk of the populace. There were no denials and vagueness about their religious beliefs, nor have they ever gone out of their way to specifically target a Christian audience that might want "The Message" a bit more prominent in FF5's music and at live shows. The band wears crazy, colorful outfits, makes songs about partying and having a good time and has a sound that's a blend of Hip Hop's Crunk stylings (as popularized by Lil Jon), Dance-demanding beats and an Emo-y vibe to the melodies and hooks. It's what EMF would be doing if they came out today.

Fortunately or unfortunately (depending on your opinion of Crunkcore, I suppose), tonight's show in Corryville is an acoustic one. The band's Rise Up! Acoustic Tour invades The 86 Club in Corryville, the youth-friendly club on Short Vine (where Top Cat's used to be) that has been presenting modern Christian acts (as well as others) for the past year. The all-ages show starts at 8:30 p.m. (SameState opens) and tickets are $15.

FF5 is premiering an uplifting documentary film on this tour, screening Isaac Deitz's Vital Sign short about FF5 bassist Joshua Olds' battle with kidney failure during a holiday tour in 2009 that almost killed him. Here's the trailer for the flick:



• Always excellent local Rock foursome Messerly and Ewing are playing tonight at The Avenue Lounge in Covington with a pair of cool special guests. New band Hello Mayday has begun kicking around the local club scene in recent months. The group features a quartet of veteran local players — Brian Halloran (formerly of Clabbergirl) joins ex-Crosley members Paul DeNu (also a Clabbergirl for a spell) and Vince and Joel Knueven in the band. The group is currently working on its first recordings with former Moth and The Virgins guitarist Bobby Gayol. Halloran says they hope to have an album this summer and a teaser EP this spring. Opening things up will be a solo acoustic set from singer/songwriter Kevin Nolan, former frontman for the awesome local group Saving Ray.

The show is free and starts at 10 p.m. Click the arrow below to hear M&E's "Living on Lies" from the recent full-length, Every Bitter Thing.


• Great French Jazz guitarist (and Woody Allen collaborator) Stephane Wremble is at the Blue Wisp Jazz Club downtown tonight for two shows — at 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Admission is $15-$20 (and, don't forget, you can now have a great dinner at the Wisp, as well). Read more here. Here's some of Wremble's work on the score for Woody Allen's acclaimed Midnight in Paris:

Click here for even more live music events tonight.