Jan 27 – Feb 3, 2016
Where the Animals Go in Winter: The Cincinnati Zoo Prepares its Menagerie for Winter Long Before Cold Weather Hits
Iowa Caucus: Razor-Thin Victory for Clinton, Cruz Takes GOP Win
It was a photo finish this morning for the Democratic candidates with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton squeaking by with an apparent victory over Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) with a 0.3-percent lead in the Iowa caucus. Some in the media such at the Associated Press aren’t ready to declare a victor. The final results…
Morning News and Stuff
Good morning, Cincinnati! Here are today's headlines. Cincinnati Police Chief Eliot Isaac unveiled a new crime reduction strategy that would target certain high crime locations in the city. Isaac presented the plan called Place-based Investigations of Violent Offender Territories, or PIVOT, Monday to the City Council's Law and Public Safety Committee. The idea is law…
Council Set to Pass Anti-Wage-Theft Ordinance
Employers who don’t pay their workers might have new penalties to worry about after Cincinnati City Council’s Feb. 3 meeting. Council is poised to approve a new ordinance that would allow the city to rescind tax agreements and force repayment of incentives such as grants if a company is caught committing wage theft. The city…
Judge: Third Party to Take Control of Neglected Apartment Buildings
Tenants of several Cincinnati low-income apartment complexes will see relief from the starkly sub-standard conditions found in those buildings after a court decision today. Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge Beth Meyer ruled that five buildings with more than 600 units of affordable housing owned by New Jersey-based PF Holdings company will be placed in…
Cincinnati Entertainment Awards 2016: The Winners
Last night at the Madison Theater in Covington, CityBeat hosted the 19th annual Cincinnati Entertainment Awards, honoring Greater Cincinnati’s rich music scene. Check out this week’s CityBeat for a full wrap-up. In the meantime, here’s who won what: World Music/Reggae: The Cliftones Jazz: Cincinnati Contemporary Jazz Orchestra Singer/Songwriter: Kate Wakefield Country: Taylor Shannon Punk/Post Punk:…
Morning News and Stuff
Good morning all. With the Iowa caucuses today, it seems like a good time to talk politics, and we’ve got a bunch of local political stories to touch on. Let’s get to it. Cincinnati City Councilman and U.S. Senate hopeful P.G. Sittenfeld is running neck and neck in with an opponent in the upcoming March…
Stage Door
There are so many things happening on local stages it’s a bit of a challenge make recommendations. But every one of these productions has some sort of conflict at its heart. Grounded opened Wednesday night Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati. George Brant’s a one-woman script is about a fearless fighter pilot whose career is cut short by…
Your Weekend To Do List (1/29-1/31)
FRIDAY ART: ART AFTER DARK: WINTER WILDERNESS The Cincinnati Art Museum’s Art After Dark: Winter Wilderness celebrates art and nature with an after-hours party. There will be live Folk music by local band Wilder and guided tours of the exhibit Field Guide: Photographs by Jochen Lempert. Lempert is a German photographer who studied biology and…
Morning News and Stuff
Hey hey all! Here’s what’s going on around town today. The University of Cincinnati is hosting a two-day national conference on race and policing starting today. The conference comes in the wake of the July 19 police shooting of Samuel DuBose by UC police officer Ray Tensing. DuBose was unarmed when Tensing stopped him for…
Watch the 2016 CEA Live Stream Here
If you can’t make it out to this Sunday’s Cincinnati Entertainment Awards ceremony at the Madison Theater, you can still watch the performances and see which local musicians won by watching this year’s live stream, brought to you again by the folks at ICRC-TV. Starting at 6:45 p.m. the show, featuring performances by The Slippery…
Primary Cheat Sheet: Marco Rubio
Sen. Marco Rubio (Republican) Fun Fact: It took a book deal and 16 years for the Florida senator to pay off his student loans. In a 2012 speech, Rubio revealed he just paid back his school loans: “When I graduated from law school, I had close to $150,000 in student debt.” Rubio graduated from the…
Morning News and Stuff
Hey all. Here’s the news today. In the wake of a big municipal water scandal, Cincinnati officials are pushing for tests on some of the city’s water. You’ve probably seen the huge headlines about Flint, Michigan, where a change in water sourcing triggered the corrosion of pipes and caused some of the city’s residents to…
Cruisin’ with Rockers
CityBeat was on-board for all the fun of the seventh annual ShipRocked cruise, sailing from Miami to Costa Maya, Mexico last week. The cruise provides a unique experience for diehard rock fans to get up close and personal with their favorite bands on the high seas. ShipRocked is made up of a tight-knit group of…
Slice of Cincinnati: WNKU
From a dark studio strung to the brim with Christmas lights comes a music that seems as if it could have originated in an Indian temple, yet it resonates with the charm of American Folk music. A barefoot guitar player taps his foot on a pedal as he strums along flawlessly next to his bandmate,…
Onstage: The Wizard of Oz
Yes, it’s a stage rendition of Dorothy’s 1939 cinematic dream of Oz, with every bit of music you will recall — plus a number you won’t (it includes “The Jitterbug,” deleted from the film) — performed lushly by the Kentucky Symphony Orchestra. This is a rather ambitious undertaking for The Carnegie, given the rather small…
Music: Tanya Tagaq
T anya Tagaq, the extraordinary Inuit throat singer, will provide vocal accompaniment to a screening of the silent film Nanook of the North at Cincinnati’s Woodward Theater this weekend. Her unusual background and performance style need introductions. Tagaq grew up in far northern Canada, at the small Arctic Archipelago town of Cambridge Bay in the…
Onstage: Salome
There's a heat wave coming Friday in Corbett Auditorium. The University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music concludes its “Great Decade” festival with a concert performance of Richard Strauss’ Salome, an opera that packs enough obsession, erotic sensuality and dysfunction to fuel an entire reality-show season for E! — in 90 minutes. Oscar Wilde based his…
Nonprofit Issues Grants to Aid Local Schools
A recently formed Cincinnati education-focused nonprofit announced today that it will hand out its first two grants — totaling more than $1.4 million — to aid two different projects at Cincinnati Public Schools and two local Catholic schools. Accelerate Great Schools, a nonprofit made up of business leaders, educators and philanthropists, will be giving a…
Kung Fu Panda 3
Unlikely hero Po (Jack Black) has proven that even a cuddly and loveable panda has the potential to be a great warrior. But now, with a threat returning from the spirit world to take over our realm (J.K. Simmons), he must rally his motley crew — Tigress (Angelina Jolie), Monkey (Jackie Chan), Mantis (Seth Rogen),…
Jane Got a Gun
Jane Hammond (Natalie Portman) is a typical frontier woman, a hardened wife willing to stand by her man (Noah Emmerich), a reformed outlaw with his former gang — under new leadership (Ewan McGregor) — breathing down his neck. So when things heat up, Jane solicits assistance from old flame Dan Frost (Joel Edgerton). As a…
The Finest Hours
Director Craig Gillespie (Lars and the Real Girl) takes audiences into the eye of a horrific natural disaster as the crews of a pair of oil tankers, broken and stranded off the coast of Cape Cod, prepare for the worst while a small Coast Guard squad sets off on an implausible rescue mission. This true…
Fifty Shades of Black
The spoof-tastic creative team behind A Haunted House and its sequel (director Michael Tiddes, co-screenwriter Rick Alvarez and screenwriter/star Marlon Wayans) explores shades of off-color humor in its skewering of the Fifty Shades of Grey phenomenon. Wayans plays Christian Black, a shady billionaire with a confounding sexual appetite who attempts to woo an innocent college…
Bigger and Better Breweries, Plus New Beers
Cincinnati area breweries are poised to make 2016 bigger and better, and the accolades keep coming: BeerAdvocate’s January issue named Taft’s Ale House and Braxton Brewing Company as two of the 33 best new breweries from 2015. And with winter in full force, it’s a good time to huddle inside with some local brews —…
Empanadas for Everyone
Along with charcuterie, I file empanadas under: “Things that are fun to eat and fun to say.” Which was all the excuse a friend and I — plus our tiny, dependent, car-seat-riding plus ones — needed to venture down to Ché during its grand-opening weekend to check out the restaurant and its selection of empanadas. Located…
O.J. Simpson Trial Captivates Viewers 20 Years Later
As true crime media amass a growing following, Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk look to replicate their American Horror Story formula (anthology storytelling + killer cast) while capitalizing on the popular genre by exploring real cases of wrongdoing from U.S. history. Created and written by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, American Crime Story: The People…
The Motion Picture Academy’s Rush to Diversity
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has heard the grumblings, and now it seems it’s letting the opposing voices know that it’s prepared to take action. The response comes, apparently, from the top down: Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs, the first African-American to lead the organization, has not shied away from expressing her…
CCM’s ‘Salome’ Should Sizzle
There's a heat wave coming Friday in Corbett Auditorium. The University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music concludes its “Great Decade” festival with a concert performance of Richard Strauss’ Salome, an opera that packs enough obsession, erotic sensuality and dysfunction to fuel an entire reality-show season for E! — in 90 minutes. Oscar Wilde based his…
Raising the Bars: Nerd Night
Some bars just know how to bring a little intellectual fun to a night out. From classic trivia nights to unique arcade games, these places have it all. So pull up a chair, order a drink and get geeky. The Famous Neons Unplugged – For trivia nerds This eclectic place has one of the best…
Fantasies — Fanciful and Mundane
People do a lot of dreaming, and their emotions are often tied up in those dreams. That’s the case with two very different stage productions currently available at local theaters. The more excessive of these is The Carnegie’s presentation of The Wizard of Oz. Yes, it’s a stage rendition of Dorothy’s 1939 cinematic dream of…
CAC to Begin Free Admission
As important as today’s announcement is that the Contemporary Arts Center will start free admission on Feb. 13 for at least three years, the story of how the museum is underwriting it is also impressive. Needing $250,000, mostly to make up for lost revenue and a possible membership dip, the CAC didn’t turn to a…
Music with Motivation
As a case manager for homeless youth, Ryan Hall chats with minors in homeless camps about all sorts of topics. Sometimes that includes popular rapper Young Thug. “If I can connect with someone over music, it’s perfect,” Hall says. “It’s a good, non-threatening way to bridge connections.” Hall does outreach through Lighthouse Youth Services, talking…
Where the Animals Go in Winter
It’s a relatively warm January afternoon at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden, but snow leopards Renji and Nubo are visibly built for the impending winter weather. The zoo’s curator of mammals, Mike Dulaney, points out their thick white coats and sprawling tails, which the animals wrap around their faces like scarves so they can…
Stuck in Park
Sixty-nine-year-old Georgia Keith has lived in Over-the-Rhine for 51 years. She currently resides in affordable housing on Republic Street, a narrow stretch shaded by the historic three- and four-story buildings sitting between wider, bustling Race and Vine streets. Republic is at the center of a development boom in OTR that has longtime residents like Keith…
In God She Trusts
“When God’s hand is on you, it always is.” — Tracie M. Hunter, 2014 The last time I laid eyes on Tracie M. Hunter, she was somewhere in the morass of a battle royale — a July 15, 2014, packed-room, pre-trial hearing before Judge Norbert Nadel. Her sixth attorney, Clyde Bennett II, was trying then…
Worst Week Ever! Jan. 20-Jan. 26
John Kasich Stands Zero Chance of Earning Nomination, Comes up with Rad Idea Anyway Most people who have great dreams eventually give up on them and write for weekly alternative newspapers and perform other menial tasks while pondering how and when they’ll meet their maker. Other people keep on pursuing things they imagine they were…
Music: Alan Doyle
It’s not much of a stretch to claim that the current crop of sea-shanty Celtic/Folk Rock floor-stompers couldn’t have risen to the heights they’ve achieved without those boards first being softened by Great Big Sea. The Canadian band dispersed in 2013 after its 20th-anniversary tour and the subsequent departure of founding member Sean McCann, but…
Sound Advice: Alan Doyle and the Beautiful Gypsies
It’s not much of a stretch to claim that the current crop of sea-shanty Celtic/Folk Rock floor-stompers couldn’t have risen to the heights they’ve achieved without those boards first being softened by Great Big Sea. The Canadian band dispersed in 2013 after its 20th-anniversary tour and the subsequent departure of founding member Sean McCann, but…
Morning News and Stuff
Good morning all. Here’s what’s up in the news today. Could downtown get a grocery store? It’s looking more like a possibility after the Greater Metropolitan Housing Authority’s board voted yesterday to negotiate a potential partnership to redevelop a former CMHA office building on Central Parkway between Race and Vine streets. The developers, Kingsley +…
Music: Scott H. Biram
Scott H. Biram is an acclaimed singer/songwriter who performs unaccompanied. But those going to his show expecting to see a laidback, unplugged troubadour are in for a rude (and often rowdy) awakening. While his music shows the influence of Roots/Americana, Biram injects his songwriting with a broad range of inspirations, calling his sound “the bastard…
Sound Advice: Scott H. Biram with Strahan & The Good Neighbors
Scott H. Biram is an acclaimed singer/songwriter who performs unaccompanied. But those going to his show expecting to see a laidback, unplugged troubadour are in for a rude (and often rowdy) awakening. While his music shows the influence of Roots/Americana, Biram injects his songwriting with a broad range of inspirations, calling his sound “the bastard…
Music: Keeps
If you thought “Nashville” and “Stoner Rock” were the most incongruous words to show up in the same sentence (see my All Them Witches preview from last year’s MidPont Music Festival), replace the latter with “Dream Pop” and prepare to have your mind blown by the two-man-with-help Psychedelic Indie Rock orchestra known as Keeps. Gusti…
Sound Advice: Keeps with The Yugos and Orchards
If you thought “Nashville” and “Stoner Rock” were the most incongruous words to show up in the same sentence (see my All Them Witches preview from last year’s MidPont Music Festival), replace the latter with “Dream Pop” and prepare to have your mind blown by the two-man-with-help Psychedelic Indie Rock orchestra known as Keeps. Gusti…
Music: Jake Shimabukuro
The ukulele — that small, stringed instrument with a light and pretty tone — has seen a resurgence in recent years and is being played by musicians in many different genres. It initially took off as an instrument of choice in Hawaii. Brought to the islands by Portuguese immigrants in the late 1880s, it was…
Sound Advice: Jake Shimabukuro
The ukulele — that small, stringed instrument with a light and pretty tone — has seen a resurgence in recent years and is being played by musicians in many different genres. The Beatles’ George Harrison traveled with two ukuleles in a suitcase wherever he went, giving him the ability to find somebody to jam with…
Cincinnati Entertainment Awards Party on Sunday
The Cincinnati Entertainment Awards program was created by CityBeat 19 years ago as a way to celebrate our city’s sometimes underappreciated original local music-makers (and, initially, the work done on the local theater scene, before the theater awards split off into its own program and then was eventually retired). The event has moved to various…
Northern Light
Tanya Tagaq, the extraordinary Inuit throat singer, will provide vocal accompaniment to a screening of the silent film Nanook of the North at Cincinnati’s Woodward Theater this weekend. Her unusual background and performance style need introductions. Tagaq grew up in far northern Canada, at the small Arctic Archipelago town of Cambridge Bay in the largest…
Galapagos Island in the Sun
HOT: Galapagos Island in the Sun Guns N’ Roses is reportedly selling “VIP experience” packages for upcoming shows that cost $2,500 and doesn't even include a meet-and-greet (though VIPs do get to take a photo on the empty stage!). Weezer was probably poking fun at such practices when it offered a $25,000 “Weezer Experience Bundle”…
