Dan Williams and Uncle Dave Lewis helped create the WAIF show 'Art Damage' about experimental music, and it eventually led to the creation of The Art Damage Foundation and Lodge. This outlet for experimental music is undergoing some changes, as The Lodge hosts its last shows this weekend. Lewis talks about 25 years of 'Art Damage' in Cincinnati.  

In April 1985, I got a phone call from Dan Williams, my collaborator in the group 11,000 Switches. He said, "Man, turn the radio to WAIF, I'm doing a show." I have no idea how we were able to build a following at such an hour, but 'Art Damage' thrived. As far as I know, it was the only radio show where you could hear President Reagan talking about poisoned meat, Elvis Presley's "Jailhouse Rock" played backwards, Ricardo Montalban warning against marijuana use, Cabaret Voltaire and Bob Braun in the same 10-minute brace.  

Kristin Hersh is a known quantity in the Alt-Rock orbit as a solo artist and through her role in the groups Throwing Muses and 50 Foot Wave. Given her extraordinary productivity, perhaps it is not too surprising to see Hersh author a book, and 'Rat Girl' is actually her second of three, starting with 2007's children's book 'Toby Snax' and succeeded by the hardcover book edition of her album 'Crooked' that appeared the day after 'Rat Girl' hit the stands.  

Back in the 1980s when I was working at the Jockey Club, Newport was in a cultural and financial tailspin. Bereft of its status as a wide open mecca of entertainment and vice, yet still burdened with the sex industry, Newport looked like it was going down for the last count. Newport has since come back in a miraculous way; nevertheless, such transformation never really assuages one's curiosity about the "bad old days."  

Standing outside the practice space used by Cincinnati's legendary mainstays of underground Rock, The Wolverton Brothers, I reminded them it was their 25th year in brotherhood. "The Wolverton Brothers is a sonically all over the place, pretty 'out there' kind of music," Tim Schwallie says. "We're kind of getting rediscovered."