Comedy: Kooks
In the past few years many have observed that comedians, not journalists or the media, are a more trusted source of information on current events, politics and societal issues. Humorists such as Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Jimmy Dore and Will Durst delve into the issues of the day and enlighten while also making us laugh.…
Onstage: CSO Out On the Town
We’re down to Paavo Jarvi’s last two weekends with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and following this Saturday night’s performance, the CSO presents its eighth annual Gay Pride event, dubbed “Out on the Town.” The LGBT community, along with friends and supporters, are invited to the after-party in Music Hall’s Grand Foyer. The Maestro will be…
Art: Douglas Cramer
Just before our phone interview, Cincinnati-raised collector Douglas S. Cramer — who will be given the Cincinnati Art Museum’s second annual Cincinnati Art Award at a Thursday gala — was talking with Wonder Woman. Actually, it was actress Lynda Carter, who starred in Wonder Woman, the late-1970s hit TV series that Cramer produced. She was…
Music: The Redettes
It only takes a few biographical bullet points to understand the musical evolution of Sycamore Smith. The singer/songwriter from Marquette, Mich., fell under the spell of Punk in the late 1980s and formed The Muldoons with a couple of classmates from Marquette Senior High School. In the early ’90s, The Muldoons became a steady presence…
Events: Crafty Supermarket Spring Show
This ain't your granny's craft show. If you're interested in decking yourself out with only the finest of handmade jewelry, accessories and random hipster decorum, make it a point to check out the Crafty Supermarket. Expect droves of local and visiting vendors peddling their impeccably fashionable indie crafts. “But wait,” you ask. “What on earth…
Art: Jolie Harris and Valery Milovic
This Friday, Miller Gallery opens two new exhibitions featuring the abstract paintings of Jolie Harris and the Emo stylings of Valery Milovic. Harris’ writing about paintings reveal the activity as an expression of spirituality: “As I immerse myself in the process, the color, rhythm and flow of each work, the rest of the world begins…
Events: Beehive Karaoke Contest
U.S. Bank and Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park have teamed up to present the Beehive Karaoke Contest. There will be a $500 Grand Prize to one lucky person who can pay tribute to the music that dominated an era and sing your favorite song from the hit 60's musical, Beehive! The contest starts Tuesday at…
Events: A-Line Magazine and CFW Warhol Factory Launch Party
Bring your A-game Monday from 8 p.m.-midnight at the MCA Events Center (the old CAC building at 115 E. Fifth St., Downtown) for the A-Line Magazine and Cincinnati Fashion Week Launch Party. Before the valet ushers you away with A-list accommodations, take note from Cincinnati's first women's magazine and grab your honeysuckle circle-rim sunglasses to…
Music: Ronnie Baker Brooks
If you think it’s difficult for legends to live up their legacies, imagine their children following them into the family business and finding their second-generation work being measured by the first-generation yardstick of their parents’ achievements. Ronnie Baker Brooks knows every chapter in that book. The guitar-slinging son of Blues icon Lonnie Brooks has opened…
Events: MoBo Bike Co-op’s Fundraiser Party
Party like you’ve got a pair (of wheels). The good people of the MoBo Bicycle Cooperative in Northside are rockin’ neighborhood club Mayday (4231 Spring Grove Ave., Northside, 513-541-0999) with a night of music, local brews and hipster hijinks. The madness kicks off at 6:30 p.m. Saturday with the Busted Bike Build-Off, where area gear-heads…
Music: Kelly Richey
Legend maintains that Robert Johnson gained his talent by trading his soul to the devil at the crossroads. That crossroad has become a powerful metaphor for the paths ahead and no one knows that better than Kelly Richey. The Blues singer/songwriter/guitarist arrived at that divergence in 2008. After a 25-year career, seven studio albums, five…
Art: Frank Duveneck Memorial Art Show
Duveneck lives! Well, not quite, but the northern Kentucky artist who made an international name for himself more than 100 years ago is remembered at the 43rd Annual Duveneck Memorial Art Show, noon-5 p.m. Sunday at George Rogers Clark Park in Covington. An innovator in his time, Frank Duveneck was also an inspired teacher, here…
Music: The Prohibitionists
Contrary to any implications of temperance or a mild-mannered Friday night, The Prohibitionists are commissioned to lay down their debut EP at Northside Tavern this week, providing the always-thirsty masses with a soundtrack certain to guide them down the long, rugged Trail of Beers. Featuring songs like “No Love” and “All Tied Up,” The Prohibitionists’…
Events: Cinco de Mayo Cantina Crawl
It just makes sense to surrender control of drinking festivities to journalists. Why else would Mark Twain have a brand of bourbon named after him? So don’t fret when planning how to spend your Cinco de Mayo 2011 — we at CityBeat have you covered with our second annual Cantina Crawl. Kick off the celebration…
Onstage: 25 the Musical
Musicals are not Ensemble Theatre’s bread and butter. But after 25 years, ETC has produced enough to excerpt selections for a thoroughly entertaining evening celebrating the theater’s anniversary. Big name shows — the Tony-nominated Grey Gardens and Mack and Mabel as well as the twice-presented Rock show Hedwig and the Angry Inch — are represented…
Morning News and Stuff
Pakistan today pledged to fight Islamist militancy after Osama bin Laden was killed in Abbottobad on Sunday. Senior officials from both the United States and Pakistan have said the slaying of the elusive terrorist was a “shared achievement,” despite speculation that Pakistan was aware of bin Laden’s location and had failed to act. "Who did…
Judging the Best of Taste of Cincinnati
Food gluttony usually occurs on the last Thursday of November or maybe Jesus’ B-day, but at 9 in the morning on a Monday in May? However, food gluttony is exactly what I just experienced. I had been asked to represent CityBeat as a judge at the annual Best of Taste of Cincinnati competition. Never mind…
Nicholson Baker Speaks!
Just a reminder for the discerning literary types out there: Ace wordsmith and impressively bearded Nicholson Baker stops by the Mercantile Library tomorrow (May 3) at 7 p.m. to read from and discuss his work. The 54-year-old New York City native has tackled a number of topics and genres — from nonfiction to fiction, from…
MidPoint’s One Day Bargain for Submissions
Bands and solo performers interested in being considered for a performance slot at this year’s MidPoint Music Festival will have a chance to do so at a discounted rate this Thursday. If you can get your entry in sometime within Thursday’s 24 hours, MidPoint and Sonicbids are offering a one-time return to the cheaper “early-bird”…
The Redettes
It only takes a few biographical bullet points to understand the musical evolution of Sycamore Smith. The singer/songwriter from Marquette, Mich., fell under the spell of Punk in the late 1980s and formed The Muldoons with a couple of classmates from Marquette Senior High School. In the early ’90s, The Muldoons became a steady presence…
Ronnie Baker Brooks
If you think it’s difficult for legends to live up their legacies, imagine their children following them into the family business and finding their second-generation work being measured by the first-generation yardstick of their parents’ achievements. Ronnie Baker Brooks knows every chapter in that book. The guitar-slinging son of Blues icon Lonnie Brooks has opened…
Fast Five (Review)
After a quick rise on the indie scene with Better Luck Tomorrow, Justin Lin helms his third outing in this fast-paced franchise and brings together an all-star team of players from the past installments to pull off a ludicrous job in Rio. Big Poppa Dom (Vin Diesel) settles in nicely as a gruff B-movie Danny…
Beehive (Review)
I’m no expert on pop culture, but I was a teenager in the 1960s. So the 40 or so tunes by “girl groups” and women singers that constitute Beehive are front and center in my mental jukebox. Watching the show at the Cincinnati Playhouse, I knew the words to most of the songs. It feels…
Hoodwinked Too! (Review)
Movie audiences are fast approaching the days of teams of superheroes eager to takeover multiplex screens like an army seeking the hearts and minds of oppressed peoples. The Avengers, X-Men: First Class, The Breaking Dawn Legion of Vampires, you catch my drift, right? Well, the D-League gets animated in Hoodwinked Too, the follow-up to the…
Dylan Dog: Dead of Night (Review)
Post neo-noir meets — what shall we call this? — Shaun of the Dead with the intention of producing something that might approach the inspired fanboy reverence that Guillermo Del Toro brought to Blade and his two Hellboy outings. That's a hell of a lot to ask for, especially from Kevin Munroe, the writer-director of…
Beyond the Myth: A Look at Dog Breed Discrimination
Hearing the police knock on your door never gives anyone the warm fuzzies. It’s nerve-wracking. But imagine opening your door to a police officer who’s come to take away a member of your family. They’ll be locked in confinement until a) you can permanently relocate him or her, or b) time runs out and your…
Morning News and Stuff
Osama bin Laden, the Al-Qaida leader who planned the September 11 attacks, was killed by Navy Seals on Sunday in Abbottabad, Pakistan. President Barack Obama addressed the nation late Sunday night to confirm the success of the special operation. The body of the terrorist was buried at sea and DNA testing to confirm his death…
ETC Announces 2011-2012 Season
Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati (ETC) has turned over a new leaf, at least for its 26th season. Producing Artistic Director D. Lynn Meyers has typically spent much of the summer making last-minute arrangements for the shows she’ll offer starting in September. In good years, she’s been able to announce her choices around the time of…
Friday Movie Roundup: Summer Starts Now
As a child weaned at the entertaining teat of 1980s blockbusters like The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ghostbusters and Back to the Future, I have a soft spot in my movie-snob heart for a good summer popcorn movie. The key word there is “good,” an adjective that doesn't often describe modern…
Winter in Wartime (Review)
Updated for a skeptical age, this new World War II movie comes impeccably groomed in period-attentive tans and grays; is written in non-heroic dialogue to suggest ambiguities in the good-evil dichotomies of war stories past; and is sufficiently hopped-up with thrills to warrant the interest of a U.S. distributor. Based on a semi-autobiographical novel by…
Music Clubs Host Weekend Birthday Bashes
Two very different venues are celebrating anniversaries this weekend with two-day blowouts. But they do share at least one quality. Both are very supportive of local music, with schedules dominated by acts from the Cincinnati area. Clifton Heights’ Rohs Street Café, an intimate coffeehouse space, turns 8 years old, while downtown’s Rock & Roll bar…
Prom (Review)
Disney teams up with Joe Nussbaum (Sydney White) to celebrate prom season in what amounts to a Disney Channel television movie that lacks even the broad laughs one might expect from a kid’s dramedy. Prom follows a group of cardboard cutouts preparing for the big night (does any teen these days feel like prom is…
Morning News and Stuff
The New Hampshire Democratic Party today filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission against Republican Mitt Romney. The complaint alleges that Romney is using political action committees set up across the country in order to pay for his presidential campaign.—- Romney, the con artist formerly known as the Republican Massachusetts governor, is currently the…
Stage Door: Food For Thought
Work a little harder and see something unexpected. That's my theme for this weekend. Theater shouldn't always make you laugh or even smile. Sometimes a playwright sets out to make you uncomfortable or to portray characters who are thoroughly unlikeable. Harold Pinter (pictured) did that a generation ago, and Adam Rapp does it today. Pinter's…
Walk the Moon Is Exploding!
The accelerated speed of tech developments over the past decade has changed the world in innumerable ways. The impact it has had on music is glaring, completely readjusting how the worldwide music industry operates and affecting everything from the way the sounds are created, recorded and distributed to the way they are experienced by listeners.…
ArtsWave Meets Goals
ArtsWave, formerly Fine Arts Fund, bucked the recession, the introduction of its new name and the expansion of its mission to meet the 2011 campaign's goal of $11 million, Edgar L. Smith Jr., campaign chairman and CEO of World Pac Paper, LLC. announced April 27. —- (Read my recent story on ArtsWave here.) The campaign…
Top Local Actors Unite for Challenging Play
You have the chance this weekend to see two of Cincinnati's best professional actors onstage — but you'll have to work at it a bit, since it's at an out-of-the-way location (and a bit pricey). The show is Harold Pinter's Ashes to Ashes, a one-act play that portrays an emotional conversation between Devlin and Rebecca,…
Morning News and Stuff
Today’s big Obama news is that the president of the United States was born in Hawaii. Obama yesterday presented a copy of his birth certificate after getting permission from the state of Hawaii to make it public. Obama hopes to put an end to all the talk about his eligibility to be president, which became…
Ohio Takeover Tour Diary, Part 2
Hip Hop artist Ill Poetic, who developed his MC and production talents in the Cincinnati scene (and writes the montly Hip Hop (Un)Scene column for CityBeat) before becoming a bit of a journeyman to pursue his career, recently completed a stint performing on the Ohio Takeover Tour, which showcased some Ohio's top talent, including headliner…
Twilight Singers Do Letterman, Unveil New Video
Southwestern Ohio native Greg Dulli and his band The Twilight Singers can cross "Play Letterman" off of the To Do list of promo duties for the group's new album, Dynamite Steps. Just as they did on Jimmy Kimmel's late-night show in February, the band played the elegant rocker "On the Corner" on The Late Show…
Lollapalooza Announces 20th Anniversary Lineup
Lollapalooza celebrates its 20th anniversary Aug. 5-7 at Chicago's Lincoln Park. Twenty years? Wow. My young, impressionable self actually attended the second-fourth editions (as well as numerous others over the years) at Riverbend when it was still a traveling festival. The Jesus and Mary Chain! Lush! Sebadoh! Beastie Boys! Befitting the milestone, this year's lineup…
Season’s Greetings
L et’s face it — we need summer movies. Hollywood’s annual shucking of superheroes, Pixar and Pixar-wannabes, boy wizards and sequels to the aforementioned are a necessary fixture of the yearly slate. The money they take in is a positive sign of life in a movie business that’s been on the proverbial landslide for the…
Joshua Steven Campbell [Chef, Mayberry]
Chef Joshua Steven Campbell of the Mayberry restaurant (915 Vine St., Downtown, 513-381-5999) and the Mayberry Foodstuffs grocery store/market (203 Seventh St., Downtown, 513-621-5555) is a native Cincinnatian, but his culinary travels have taken him to far-away places like the Royal Thai Culinary Academy in Bang Saen, Thailand, and Graycliff in Nassau, Bahamas. Most recently,…
A Colony in Crisis
O n a farm in Spring Grove Village, on a windy spring morning, a group of Baby Boomers, artists and organic farmers gather in a small structure known as the “puppet barn.” They swap stories of royalty over cups of coffee sweetened with local honey. They have come to hear the teachings of a master…
My Cincinnati State of Mind
Some weeks ago in this column I wrote “The Best is Yet To Come,” in which I said I’m thinking of moving to Covington. Currently, that notion is still very much alive. I’m looking at an apartment at 10th and Madison. With some fixing up, I think this small studio setup would be a good…
Lavomatic (Review)
T he dining scene in the Gateway District is getting better all the time. Senate is a huge hit and the owners are opening a second destination next door. A Tavola Pizza is opening any day now, and I’ve heard rumors of more plans in the works. Lavomatic Café put the first fork on the…
Bitching About an Unsustainable Lifestyle
A n acquaintance of mine who is a “friend” on Facebook recently has gotten into the habit of snapping a photograph with her cellphone while she’s filling up the gas tank to her SUV every few days, then posting the photo online with some snarky comments. In one instance, it cost her $72.28 to fill…
The Secret at Schwartz’s Point
Learn about Cincinnati's authentic Jazz club at Schwartz's Point.
Camp Washington and Jean Schmidt
[LOSER] JEAN SCHMIDT: There they go again. To justify their attempts to pull federal funding from Planned Parenthood, some GOP lawmakers have resorted to spreading outright lies about what the group does. First, U.S. Rep. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) said on the House floor that abortions are “well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does,”…
Kasich Proposes Library Cuts
S quaring off with Ohio’s $8 billion deficit, Gov. John Kasich unveiled his first budget plan March 15 that pleased supporters of tax breaks for the wealthy while causing deep concern for librarians, among many others. After a few shout-outs to his compadres in the town-hall style State of the State Address, Kasich thanked the…
The Lost Supermarket
My qualifications to write about food are limited. But I did once have successful careers as an Associate Desserts Technician and a Pre-Certified Delicatessenal Culinarian. At the same time. At least, that’s what it says on my résumé. In layman/non-bullshit terms, I worked behind the counter at the deli/bakery combo station at the Kroger store…
April 20-26: Worst Week Ever!
WEDNESDAY APRIL 20 There probably aren’t many types of businesses worse to live next to than a garbage dump — maybe some kind of apartment building filled with dudes who play in Jam bands? (Even that would be funny if they were wearing the right types of hats.) The latest news out of Colerain Township…
Morning News and Stuff
President Barack Obama is reportedly shuffling the military’s big names, starting by nominating Gen. David H. Patraeus to replace Leon Panetta as CIA director and naming Panetta as secretary of defense. This is all coming at an important time for Obama’s foreign policy with the U.S. in the midst of a war with Libya, turmoil…
A-Line Alive and on the Scene
Births are excellent occasions to celebrate and reflect on how we got here and where we're going. One moment it/he/she doesn't exist, the next moment it/he/she does and instantly you can't imagine what life was like without the new arrival. Today we at CityBeat are celebrating the birth of a new publication, A-Line, and web…
