Jan 11-18, 2017
The Return of Bryce Dessner: MusicNOW festival welcomes back its founder after a year’s absence
City moves closer to purchasing King Records building
Cincinnati City Council took a new step toward saving the embattled former King Records building in Evanston Jan. 17. Council’s Budget and Finance Committee passed a measure that would allow the city to use eminent domain to purchase the building. The measure, which could get final approval from Council as soon as Jan. 19, comes…
The Devil Makes Three examines duality on most recent album, ‘Redemption & Ruin’
For nearly 15 years, The Devil Makes Three has blended Bluegrass, Folk, Country, Blues, Rockabilly and whatever else bubbles to the surface and applied them liberally to its songwriting ethic. The resulting incendiary cross-pollination of old-time tradition and contemporary invention has been translated by the trio — guitarist Pete Bernhard, upright bassist Lucia Turino and…
MLK Day celebrations highlight Civil Rights leader’s radical side
As the country, and Cincinnati, continue to wrestle with deep divides around race, law enforcement and economics, and just days before the inauguration of president-elect Donald Trump, this year’s celebration of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King felt more urgent, centering around King’s radical beliefs and the calls to action around racial and economic…
Morning News: MLK events highlight King’s more radical side; new prosecutors in Tensing trial; are we at the end of Ohio’s presidential election importance?
Good morning all. Today’s going to be a busy one around the city as thousands come downtown to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Here are some of the things going on throughout the day. The Cincinnati MLK Coalition will hold a series of marches and events themed around King’s more radical messages of economic…
A ‘Sleepless’ Foxx
I wish more audiences had been exposed to 2011’s Sleepless Night, Frédéric Jardin’s gritty French B-movie about a corrupt cop named Vincent (Tomer Sisley) attempting to rescue his son from the clutches of insidious and pervasive criminal elements, some even more institutionally entrenched than Vincent. It is not often that we get thrown into the…
Morning News: Cranley is polling, but is it trolling?; local faith leaders hit Sen. Portman on ACA rollback; Millennials making less than Boomers did
Good morning all. If you're reading this, you probably know what time it is. (It's about ten minutes after my deadline, but that's beside the point). What I mean is that it's news time. As Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley gears up for his re-election race, his campaign has been making some calls around town. About…
Stage Door: Get out your calendar…
I’m sorry to tell you that there’s not much of anything on local stages yet, but some good things are coming that I’ll mention that are worth considering next week, one per day! The Broadway Series opens a touring production of Disney’s The Little Mermaid on Tuesday (it’s onstage at Downtown’s Aronoff Center through Jan. 29).…
Your Weekend To Do List (Jan. 13-15)
FRIDAY 13 MUSIC: AESOP ROCK Ian Bavitz is a man in transition. The rapper better known as Aesop Rock turned 40 last year. He moved to Oregon from his beloved New York City a couple years earlier. And he dropped his seventh studio album, The Impossible Kid, this past April, just his second full-length effort…
Morning News: Cranley grabs state Dem endorsement; city budget shortfall looms; GOP chips away at ACA
Good morning all. Here’s a few news bits for you on this balmy Thursday. It’s like, 60 degrees out there right now, so make sure you take a smoke break or something and soak it up while you can. Mayor John Cranley last night grabbed the Ohio Democratic Party’s endorsement as he seeks re-election this…
What a Week! Jan. 4-10
WEDNESDAY, JAN. 04 Bernie Sanders is the gift that keeps on giving. The senator spoke on the Senate floor Wednesday, calling for Donald Trump to veto any cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — something the president-elect promised in a May 2015 tweet. Sanders came prepared with said tweet printed on a poster that…
Obama, Portman and Anti-Propaganda
Ohio’s Rob Portman introduced the bipartisan “Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act” in May, and Barack Obama signed it Dec. 23. Whether it nationalizes American news media or recreates American Cold War propaganda initiatives depends on who you hear/read. Starting with a kernel of truth, conspiracy-obsessed Alex Jones told his readers at infowars.com, “Breaking: Obama bans…
‘The OA’ joins ‘Stranger Things’ on Netflix
On the heels of the wildly popular sci-fi mystery Stranger Things comes another dark and fantastical Netflix original. In the vein of a surprise Beyoncé album, The OA (Netflix) debuted last month with little promotion. And for fans of filmmaking duo Zal Batmanglij and Brit Marling, the new series was just as intriguing as new music from Queen…
Being awed by Isabelle Huppert’s talent
As her superb Things to Come opens at the Esquire Theatre on Friday, let the record show that Isabelle Huppert is ready for her moment in the spotlight. In the 2016 awards season, she is the dark horse — a performer who wanders into the frame and finds a way to hold our gaze long enough to…
A singular ‘McCabe & Mrs. Miller’
The first time I experienced Robert Altman’s McCabe & Mrs. Miller was via a well-worn VHS copy I rented from my local video store in the early 1990s. Despite the less-than-ideal format projected through my old-school 27-inch Zenith, it was a revelation — an introduction to a unique cinematic universe that remains fresh in my mind…
Stripped-down music from The Skivvies
Nick Cearley and Lauren Molina have Broadway acting careers and they joke about spending time onstage wearing very little: She was a stripper in the Broadway production of Rock of Ages; he wore not very much in the Elvis musical All Shook Up. So dressing down for their “alt-cabaret” musical act The Skivvies, in which they…
A new ‘Underground’ gallery in OTR
I had heard of Cincinnati Art Underground, an Over-the-Rhine commercial gallery that opened in late 2015, but not yet visited it when I received a press release in November announcing the current show, Khalilah Birdsong’s Amalgamation. It impressed and surprised me because it came with a photo of a colorfully abstract painting that had a…
A Covington strip club becomes a modern bar
When my friend told me that in the span of one year a Covington strip club called Club Venus had become The Globe, a slick modern bar serving high-end cocktails, I didn’t believe her. I had to walk into the minimalist and rustic space and see it with my own eyes. The meticulously clean bar…
Explorative new restaurant Please tests the waters with small, inventive plates and prix-fixe menus
Tucked away on Clay Street in Over-the-Rhine, a new restaurant called Please is serving modern and artful small plates — multiple courses of food you might not immediately recognize when you look at them. Thankfully, the helpful staff explains each dish as it arrives — for instance, spaghetti squash with cured egg yolk. And at…
Veteran Hip Hop artist Aesop Rock gets reflective and personal on his latest album release
Ian Bavitz is a man in transition. The rapper better known as Aesop Rock turned 40 last year. He moved to Oregon from his beloved New York City a couple years earlier. And he dropped his seventh studio album, The Impossible Kid, this past April, just his second full-length effort since 2007’s None Shall Pass.…
Sound Advice: Whiskey Daredevils with The Krank Daddies and Saint Pickle (Jan. 13)
If you were lucky enough to see/survive a gig by Northern Ohio’s The Cowslingers in the ’90s and early 2000s, you were witness to one of the rawest, most unhinged examples of Garage-stained Cowpunk/Americana madness available at that point in musical history. The Cowslingers had a committed local following, mostly because their live show was…
Sound Advice: Muuy Biien with Leggy (Jan. 15)
Muuy Biien is one of those rare bands that somehow forces its listeners to remember and revel in the past while simultaneously planting them firmly in the ever-present now and also making them think furtively about a future that seems to have been revealed only to them. It would be a pretty impressive feat for…
Sound Advice: The Hottman Sisters with ADM and Brianna Kelly (Jan. 16)
Music history is littered with popular bands featuring siblings, and the duality of that faction of groups has the makings of an interesting psychological case study. The innate chemistry between brothers and/or sisters often becomes more intense when coupled with a deep, shared passion for music, resulting in a natural and sometimes fruitful creative relationship.…
Heavy Hinges ‘Cause a Scene’ with new EP
Entertaining Cincinnati Rock/Soul/Roots quintet Heavy Hinges is set to issue its latest recording, the six-track Cause a Scene, this weekend in conjunction with a release party performance. Saturday’s free event at Northside Tavern (4163 Hamilton Ave., Northside, northsidetav.com) begins at 10 p.m. Local singer/songwriter/cellist Kate Wakefield also performs. Heavy Hinges came together five years ago and honed its…
Bob Weir reunites with The Campfire Boys
Though Bob Weir worked with some popular contemporary artists on his latest album, Blue Mountain, the material within was in no means a ploy to win over a new, young, hip audience. In fact, the songs on Blue Mountain go back to a time before Weir himself was a young, hip artist creating one of American Rock…
New 20-week abortion bans in Ohio and Kentucky raise ire from pro-choice groups and tough choices for women
When Lexington's Heather Hyden and her partner found out they were pregnant, they were overjoyed. But now, 14 weeks into the pregnancy, they’re facing a potentially heartbreaking situation. During a routine screening, Hyden’s doctor found fetal cystic hygroma, a condition in which extra fluid builds up as the fetus develops. The condition can go away…
MusicNOW festival welcomes back founder Bryce Dessner after a year’s absence
“Bryce is Back!” appears nowhere on any advance publicity for MusicNOW, the annual festival exploring a vast spectrum of new music that is now an annual event presented by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. However, there’s obvious pleasure and relief that Bryce Dessner — the now-Paris-based Cincinnati native who has found international success as a member…
Wanted in Kentucky, seemingly immune to arrest in Ohio
More than a year after a Kentucky judge ordered the arrest of high-profile former lawyer Stan Chesley, it appears less and less likely that the Ohio criminal justice system will have anything to do with his apprehension. The arrest warrant, issued Oct. 29, 2015, by Boone County Circuit Judge James Schrand, has become something of…
