Cincinnati band Over the Rhine is celebrating going into its 20th year of music this Friday and Saturday at the Taft Theatre. Check out this cool little hub of info tributing the band with photos, video and links to past stories CityBeat has run about them.
Watching OTR turn 20 is one of those moments that makes me feel a little nostalgic and very old. The band and I both dove headfirst into the local music scene around the same time (me as a writer covering local music for former local weekly Everybody’s News and a few other outlets and OTR as a band playing their first shows at Sudsy Malone’s in Corryville).—-
I’ve had various encounters with OTR over the years. My first major national magazine piece was an article I wrote for the briefly-revived Creem magazine (now re-revived as a Web site). The article appeared as a sidebar to a bigger piece on The Afghan Whigs and the Cincinnati music scene in general (I wrote another sidebar about various other local bands making strides at the time). This was around the time that major media outlets and record labels started sniffing around the Queen City, wondering if it was the “Next Seattle” (this when geographical “scenes” were seen as marketing angles).
Of course, Cincinnati wasn’t the next Seattle, and those articles were a good representation of why. Over the Rhine, The Afghan Whigs, The Wolverton Brothers, The Ass Ponys — if you can find a unified “sound” amongst those bands, I’ll give you my dog-eared copy of Till We Have Faces.
I interviewed the band at Kaldi’s (R.I.P. … soon), which seemed to be the band’s unofficial headquarters. I believe singer Karin Bergquist was working there then. Karin, Linford Detweiller, Ric Hordinski and Brian Kelley (Ric and Brian would eventually depart from the fold) were all incredibly gracious. And I was incredibly green. Still, I could tell there was a maturity level there already that far surpassed most other bands I would interview. To this day, they remain one of the most thoughtful, thought-out and careful interviewees I’ve ever chatted with.
Through the years, I’ve maintained at least some sort of contact with the band, these days mostly via e-mail. And they’ve maintained this carefully constructed “non-image,” which actually suited their personalities (always sweet and generous) very well. They have grown tremendously over the years as artists, but whenever I come in contact with them, they still retain this sort of intimate, personable vibe.
The only conflicts I remember came through second-hand information. At one point, we printed a couple of “rumors” about the band (and they were presented as just rumors). Once, we wrote that we had heard the band was close to singing a deal with I.R.S. Records. Through a friend of one of the band members, we were told that some of them were none too happy about that. Same with the time we said that it looked like Ric Hordinski was leaving the band.
Both times, of course, we were right. Those things came to fruition within about six months of us mentioning it. But, if they actually were peeved, I think it was just that we had screwed with their own presentation of these facts. This has truly always been a band with a plan.
Early on, we’d sometimes poke fun at the pretentiousness we (and others in the local music community) would perceive. The “Imaginary Apple Orchard” was a favorite topic to riff on. But through the years, Over the Rhine’s music has continued to move me and I’m always eager to hear what they come up with next.
That “plan” the band is based on has, obviously, worked out pretty well for them. Record deals, movie and TV show placement, sold-out tours and many accolades have come their way since I first sat down with them all those years ago. Like The Smiths or Emo bands or Cowboy Junkies or any other music that connects with people on an internal, soul-tickling level, Over the Rhine’s songs have touched people so deeply that they have maintained a huge fanbase all over the country. And it’s been consistent, certainly a rarity in these times.
So I wholeheartedly raise a toast to Over the Rhine, saluting their accomplishments and thanking them for their music and allowing me the occasional peak inside their Imaginary Apple Orchard. Here’s to another 20.
This article appears in Dec 17-23, 2008.