Tennis (and Local Music), Anyone?
If you’re headed out to the Lindner Family Tennis Center near Kings Island in Mason for the big Western & Southern Financial Group Masters men’s semifinals Saturday evening and you are a fan/supporter of local music, be sure to arrive early and stay late. The tournament has teamed with the MidPoint Music Festival to bring…
In the Know: Know Theatre’s 2010-11 Season
Just as the 2010-11 theater season is about to kick off, Know Theatre of Cincinnati has shared plans for its 13th season. They'll offer four mainstage productions (there were five in 2009-10), the eighth annual Cincy Fringe Festival and a new family of programs dubbed the "Jackson Street Market." The season begins in earnest after…
Theater Answers Human Need For Stories
I recently traveled to New York City where I saw six Broadway shows. If you read my column occasionally, you’ve heard me extol the virtues of Cincinnati’s theater scene, so you might ask why I need to travel to one of America’s most expensive cities, where tickets for shows in Manhattan’s theater district routinely top…
Art: Paperwork at Taft Museum
Last year, the Taft Museum of Art embarked on a new series of exhibitions called Keystone Contemporary. The goal is that each exhibition would feature one local emerging artist who's been invited to respond — directly or abstractly — to the Taft’s collection, the historical house, its interior décor or perhaps even other special exhibitions…
Webb Wilder with Mic Harrison & the High Score
Nearly three and a half decades ago, Webb Wilder and R.S. Field lit out of their native Hattiesburg, Miss., homesteads and headed for the bright lights and smoky bars of Austin, Tex, and nothing has been the same since. Wilder and Field formed The Beatnecks in 1985 after a move to Nashville and counted themselves…
Music: Webb Wilder
Nearly three and a half decades ago, Webb Wilder and R.S. Field lit out of their native Hattiesburg, Miss., homesteads and headed for the bright lights and smoky bars of Austin, Tex, and nothing has been the same since. Wilder and Field formed The Beatnecks in 1985 after a move to Nashville and counted themselves…
MidPoint Indie Summer featuring Bad Veins
The MidPoint Indie Summer free concert series continues Friday on Fountain Square with newcomers Low Hanging Wires kicking the show off at 7 p.m. followed by fellow locals The Harlequins and Michigan’s Lightning Love. Local heroes Bad Veins, coming off of a massive cross-country tour, wrap up things with their first hometown show in a…
Autolux with This Will Destroy You and Mallory
Two albums in 12 years is hardly the standard in the music business, but Autolux has defied description from the outset. The trio assembled in 1998, a year after Ednaswap drummer Carla Azar and Failure bassist Greg Edwards had met on a package tour, became friends and got together after their bands dissolved. Azar brought…
The Dust Feel (Profile)
Not even a rough night slows down Mike Schalk’s music wave. Here’s a one-man-music-thought-pool: Attached to one hand an iced coffee, the other a cigarette. Outside Starbucks on a sweltering Sunday, everyone around needs a bath, but Schalk is on a mission, sharing about projects nonstop, yet he’s still weirdly laid back. As if chillin’…
Theater CEAs on Aug. 29
The 14th annual Cincinnati Entertainment Awards for local theater will be held Sunday, Aug. 29 at Know Theatre of Cincinnati, 1120 Jackson St., Over-the-Rhine (map here). Admission is free. Doors open at 6 p.m., with a social hour running until 7 in Know's "Underground" space. Washington Platform will provide free appetizers, and Know staffers will…
The Nerd (Review)
Most theatergoers don’t want to see anything too challenging in the summertime. If you’re looking for that kind of amusement, you’ll find it aboard the Showboat Majestic where the current production is Larry Shue’s The Nerd. There’s nothing groundbreaking in this sitcom-styled script about Willum, a guy who’s visited by someone he’s been eternally gratefully…
Rooney with Hanson
Named for a character in an ’80s movie (the inept principal in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off), you might assume that the band’s music has an old-school New Wave twinge to it. While that's correct, their influences run much deeper. Listen closely and you can also hear the Power Pop of the ’60s. “Yeah, I think…
Bombay Brazier (Review)
Critic's Pick I've eaten at many Indian restaurants in town and I enjoy them all, but Bombay Brazier is different. This is a dining experience. The owners, G. and Rip, bring style and class to a cuisine popularized by buffets, Americanized dishes and rushed, over-crowded dining rooms G. and Rip aren't newcomers to the restaurant…
Music: Autolux
Two albums in 12 years is hardly the standard in the music business, but Autolux has defied description from the outset. The trio assembled in 1998, a year after Ednaswap drummer Carla Azar and Failure bassist Greg Edwards had met on a package tour, became friends and got together after their bands dissolved. Azar brought…
Turntables ‘n’ Snares
A short description of this probably isn’t going to do it justice, but I’ll try. Turntables ‘n’ Snares is on four stages Friday at Grammer’s in Over-the-Rhine, with 10 local bands and 10 local DJs playing 10 separate sets each combining one band and one DJ into an onstage mash-up. In case the groundbreaking musical…
Kristine Donnelly: Paperwork (Review)
Last year, the Taft Museum of Art embarked on a new series of exhibitions called Keystone Contemporary. The goal is that each exhibition would feature one local emerging artist who's been invited to respond — directly or abstractly — to the Taft’s collection, the historical house, its interior décor or perhaps even other special exhibitions…
Just Getting Started
Steve Driehaus was one of many Democratic challengers to grab Barack Obama's coattails in 2008 and sweep into Washington, D.C., handing the party large majorities in both houses of Congress. Driehaus defeated longtime 1st District incumbent Steve Chabot, whose ties to the discredited Bush administration finally caught up with him. As Driehaus points out, 2008…
Eat Pray Love (Review)
During a summer season that has given us a duplicitous warrior woman (Salt), a normal teen girl torn between two monstrous lovers (Twilight: Eclipse) and the rise of The Girl (Stieg Larsson’s Millenium Trilogy and the serialized adaptations), the end arrives and its time for us to settle down for a more relaxed, meditative film…
Tom Jones: Praise & Blame
If there was any justice, the panties thrown at Tom Jones these days would be the size of parachutes, but the fact is that Jones, who turned 70 in June, has built an audience populated with the granddaughters of his original fans. He covered Prince’s “Kiss” with Art of Noise in 1988, and his 1999…
Stanley’s Summer Music Festival
Stanley’s Pub (323 Stanley Ave., Columbia-Tusculum) has been one of the best and most-enduring clubs in the area for original music, with bookings that range from local and regional faves and up-and-comers to national touring acts. This Friday and Saturday, the club presents its ninth annual Summer Music Festival with a lineup that showcases the…
Sean Daly [Hugo Restaurant]
The Southern-sophisticated style and flavor of Sean Daly’s restaurant Hugo (3235 Madison Road, Oakley, 513-321-4846) stem from the time he spent in Charleston, S.C., attending Johnson & Wales University. “It was either there or Rhode Island, so I picked the one with the better beach,” he says. Like most restaurateurs, Daly keeps busy. With Hugo…
Crowded House: Intriguer
When Crowded House began two and a half decades ago, they were a minor offshoot band from the quirky and cultish Split Enz and, by industry standards, a dead certainty to attract even less of an audience than the group that spawned them. Still, Capitol signed them (when they were calling themselves The Mullanes) but…
Taste This: Kid Kuisine
Raising children can be the most rewarding experience you’ll ever have. It’s also the most difficult. Technological advances have made it easier (computers and video games have joined TV as cheap babysitters and help with homework can now be limited to yelling, “Google it!”), but you still have to feed them. Food companies have done…
Onstage: The Nerd
Most theatergoers don’t want to see anything too challenging in the summertime. If you’re looking for that kind of amusement, you’ll find it aboard the Showboat Majestic where the current production is Larry Shue’s The Nerd. There’s nothing groundbreaking in this sitcom-styled script about Willum, a guy who’s visited by someone he’s been eternally gratefully…
Man of Steel Visits Cincy
Cincinnati has had many famous visitors over the years including Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde and John F. Kennedy. Now we can add Superman to the list. As part of an ongoing storyline in DC Comics' Superman title, the Man of Steel will visit the Queen City in issue #703, on sale in September.—- The famous…
Race Car Productions’ (Almost) Birthday Gift
In honor of its approaching fifth anniversary, locally-based label/collective/promo crew Race Car Productions — specializing in progressive Electronic/Dance forms like IDM, Techno, Ambient and Electro — has released a new compilation/retrospective spanning its releases so far. And they are offering the download for free via its Web site.—- The label began as a promotional company,…
Music: Stanley’s Summer Music Festival
Stanley’s Pub (323 Stanley Ave., Columbia-Tusculum) has been one of the best and most-enduring clubs in the area for original music, with bookings that range from local and regional faves and up-and-comers to national touring acts. This Friday and Saturday, the club presents its ninth annual Summer Music Festival with a lineup that showcases the…
A New Challenge for the Media: ‘Unpublishing’
As clueless as a Pennsylvania case sounds, it identifies perennial tensions among individual desires for privacy and the news media and old thinking versus new media. I’m grateful to Sara Ganim of The Centre Daily Times for the facts. The conflict involves orders for government agencies to expunge five defendants’ criminal records. Such orders are…
Events: Roar of Thunder Powerboat Regatta
Rev your engines! The 12th annual Roar of Thunder Powerboat Regatta is back to make waves on the placid Ohio River. Come down to scenic Aurora, Ind., for a fun-filled two days of powerboat racing. On Saturday make sure to stay for the Bill Stein Air Shows from California and the Kevin Coleman Aerosports show…
Events: Women of Over-the-Rhine
Every year, a group of women are honored for the advancements that they have made and continue to make for their community. These women are seen as leaders and role models in the city. They are The Women of Over-the-Rhine Stories of Success. This sixth annual luncheon and program will take place in honor of…
Art: SeeSawSeen at UnMuseum
Rick Mallette’s wall drawings are the hyperactive cousins of the prehistoric cave paintings at Lascaux. They are bodily and sci-fi doodles crowded into whirring, bobbing visions across the walls of galleries. For SeeSawSeen at the Contemporary Arts Center’s UnMuseum, Mallette has pushed the work further, offering two grand works — one in invisible ink and…
Comedy: Dan Cummins
Though he was an admitted class clown, Dan Cummins never had a burning desire to become a stand-up comedian. “I was more like back-of-the-room smart-ass,” he says. “I have one memory in the fourth grade of some classmate saying, ‘You’re like Bill Cosby.’ I didn’t even listen to (Cosby), which was funny.” Ironically, this past…
Onstage: Big River
Is there any writer more American than Mark Twain? Is there any tale more iconic than that of Huckleberry Finn and his adventures on the Mississippi River with his friend Jim, a runaway slave? If your answer to these questions is “No,” then you need to line up quickly for tickets to Big River, the…
Music: Rooney with Hanson
Named for a character in an ’80s movie (the inept principal in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off), you might assume that the band’s music has an old-school New Wave twinge to it. While that's correct, their influences run much deeper. Listen closely and you can also hear the Power Pop of the ’60s. “Yeah, I think…
Sports: Florence Freedom vs. Gateway Grizzlies
It’s bush league (Frontier League, to be exact) baseball at its best as our Northern Kentucky team takes on the fellas from St. Louis (at least its suburb, Sauget, Ill.). Freedom games have a lot to offer in way of old-school baseball. Fans can get right down at field level and easily interact with players…
Music: MidPoint Indie Summer Featuring Bad Veins
The MidPoint Indie Summer free concert series continues Friday on Fountain Square with newcomers Low Hanging Wires kicking the show off at 7 p.m. followed by fellow locals The Harlequins and Michigan’s Lightning Love. Local heroes Bad Veins, coming off of a massive cross-country tour, wrap up things with their first hometown show in a…
Music: Turntables ‘n’ Snares
A short description of this probably isn’t going to do it justice, but I’ll try. Turntables ‘n’ Snares is on four stages Friday at Grammer’s in Over-the-Rhine, with 10 local bands and 10 local DJs playing 10 separate sets each combining one band and one DJ into an onstage mash-up. In case the groundbreaking musical…
Tom Jones, Crowded House, Judy Collins and Steve Poltz
If there was any justice, the panties thrown at Tom Jones these days would be the size of parachutes, but the fact is that Jones, who turned 70 in June, has built an audience populated with the granddaughters of his original fans. He covered Prince’s “Kiss” with Art of Noise in 1988, and his 1999…
Maps & Atlases
When Maps & Atlases coalesced six years ago, they were four young art students steered by contemporary musical thought and informed by their parents’ record collections. In some ways, they’re not far from that model now but time and experience have brought the Chicago quartet into much clearer focus. “When we first started, we were…
Music: Maps & Atlases
When Maps & Atlases coalesced six years ago, they were four young art students steered by contemporary musical thought and informed by their parents’ record collections. In some ways, they’re not far from that model now but time and experience have brought the Chicago quartet into much clearer focus. “When we first started, we were…
Maps & Atlases & Great Music
When Maps & Atlases coalesced six years ago, they were four young art students steered by contemporary musical thought and informed by their parents’ record collections. In some ways, they’re not far from that model now but time and experience have brought the Chicago quartet into much clearer focus. “When we first started, we were…
Event Set for Homeless Animals
Two local animal welfare groups are joining forces to commemorate International Homeless Animals Day on Aug. 21. The United Coalition for Animals and Cincinnati Pet Food Pantry will hold an event at Twin Lakes in Eden Park. It will include music, a blessing of the animals and a candlelight vigil at dusk.—- The event, scheduled…
Lions Rampant Debuts New Video Tonight
If you attend tonight’s free MidPoint Indie Summer show on Fountain Square, you’ll not only have a chance to check out some excellent local bands (Buffalo Killers, The Guitars, Soapland and The Lions Rampant), but you’ll also be among the first to see the brand new Lions Rampant music video for the song “Crazy or…
Stage Door: Beware Who You Let It
No bad luck for this Friday the 13th: The Showboat Majestic is presenting The Nerd, a great 1981 comedy by Larry Shue, who also wrote The Foreigner. —- I'm going tonight with a few guests — some out of town nieces who I know will get a laugh out of this one. It's the story…
Flesh Vehicle
If singer/songwriter/guitarist John Davis is the face and voice of Knoxville’s criminally underrated Pop Rock heroes Superdrag, then Tom Pappas is the pulsing vein, the bouncing stage presence and, most definitely, the unruly hair of the band (Pappas is kinda Bootsy to John’s George Clinton). Pappas was Superdrag’s original bassist, but left the band in…
MidPoint Indie Summer Featuring The Buffalo Killers
Well, well, well — what do this weekend? Maybe some summer cleaning? I’ve been putting that off successfully for about two months now. Go to the pool? It is going to be 90 degrees outside but I’m not gonna shell out $8 to wade in urine while a bunch of tots scream their heads off.…
Elephant 6 Film to Screen at MidPoint
Indie/Psych Pop crew Elf Power will be screening Major Organ and the Adding Machine, an artsy, long-awaited film featuring numerous members of the influential Elephant 6 collective (a sort of less pretentious/glam version of Andy Warhol’s Factory, but with more of a music focus), before the band’s 12:30 a.m. performance on Sept. 25 at the…
The Greenhornes Return With New Album, Shows
Cincinnati Garage Rock heroes The Greenhornes seemed headed for big-time success, a gradual build-up that ultimately found them recording for the V2 label with Power Pop cult fave Brendan Benson producing, having songs placed in Jim Jarmusch movies and playing to gigantic arena/stadium-sized crowds touring with The White Stripes. But the band’s momentum was halted…
Rebeck Redux
Theresa Rebeck's hilarious comedy The Understudy kicks off the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park's Shelterhouse season next month (Sept. 23-Oct. 17). The Cincinnati native is a frequently produced playwright nationwide — her show Bad Dates was a big hit for the Playhouse and other regional theaters some years ago. I learned yesterday in a conversation…
Hiring of GOP Chairman’s Wife Smells Odd
Most people are familiar with the old proverb “If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, then it must be a duck.” In other words, if something has all the telltale characteristics of being a particular item, then it probably is and there's no need to strain for…
Did You Know?
• The Art Academy of Cincinnati is one of five museum schools in the United States (the academy actually predates the Cincinnati Art Museum). It was founded in 1869 as the McMicken School of Art, an early department of what would become the University of Cincinnati in 1873. • Praised by national magazines and even…
Wild Grass (Review)
At one point in French filmmaker Alain Resnais' latest effort, a character looks at another and says, exasperatedly, “This is absurd.” No doubt. Of course, Resnais, now 88 and showing no signs of slowing down, has always been one to fuck with viewers' perceptions (this is the same guy who gave us one of cinema's…
Hip Hop (Un)Scene: Be Here Now
The word dharma is a term used in Eastern Philosophy, primarily in the Hindu faith. Its most literal meaning is “to act in accordance with one’s duty.” Over the years, I’ve learned to live by this ideal. The most successful people I meet involved with music, or any industry for that matter, are the ones…
The Most Dangerous Man in America (Review)
Released just in time to (no doubt coincidently) synch with WikiLeaks' recent publication of the U.S. Military's Afghanistan war logs, the DVD release of co-directors Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith’s Oscar-nominated documentary looks at the events that compelled Daniel Ellsberg, a former Marine and defense department staffer, to leak the Pentagon Papers to The New…
Too Many Goodbyes
It has been a very sad summer in terms of losing some of our finest local musicians. Bassist Christopher Walker and guitarist Skip Chavis passed away last month and now two more charismatic artists have died, both succumbing to cancer. • Legendary Funk guitarist and Cincinnati native Phelps “Catfish” Collins passed away Aug. 6. Collins…
Hardy Lake Hike
Key At-A-Glance Information Length: 3.1 milesConfiguration: LoopDifficulty: EasyScenery: Woods, fields, and lakeExposure: Shaded and full sunTraffic: ModerateTrail Surface: Soil and mowed pathsHiking Time: 1.5-2 hoursDriving Distance: 2 hoursAccess: Sunrise-sunsetMaps: USGS Deputy; Hardy Lake State Recreation Area mapWheelchair Accessible: NoFacilities: Restrooms and water at picnic areaFor More Information: Hardy Lake State Recreation Area, (812) 794-3800 Special…
Campus Caring
When it comes to campus trends in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, all eyes are turning to the student as an individual. Be it the inevitable awareness that students, in particular, are struggling with the startling fallout of this challenging economy or simply an acknowledgment that higher education is being forced to evolve away from…
Rent-A-Book
Neither a borrower nor a lender be, unless you’re faced with the high costs of the college campus. In the case of classroom textbooks, college students are often finding renting can beat out owning by a mile. “A growing national trend is renting college textbooks as opposed to purchasing,” says Betheny Herr, communication manager for…
The Expendables (Review)
During the closing seconds of The Expendables, Thin Lizzy's 1976 iconic rocker "The Boys Are Back in Town" provides a nostalgic send-off for Sylvester Stallone and his crew to ride off into the moonlight on their chrome-polished hogs. It's a ceremonial toast to a boy's club of the biggest action stars of the last 35-years,…
Onstage: Gala of International Dance Stars
Galas mean celebrations and this year’s ninth annual Gala of International Dance Stars brings not only a thrilling evening of dance for the audience but also excitement for the classically trained professional performers. Presented by ballet tech cincinnati at the Aronoff Center, the Gala offers a powerhouse pack of extraordinary dancers hand-picked from top companies…
Parking Rate Increase Bumps City to Top
If you work, do business or have come downtown for dinner in the past few days you've probably noticed you need some extra change to park on the street. In the past week, the city began phasing in its new parking rate structure, doubling the cost for street parking downtown from $1 to $2 per…
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (Review)
In Edgar Wright’s adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s cult favorite Scott Pilgrim graphic novel series, the visuals pop with jagged panel-break split-screens and straight-outta-Batman on-screen sound effects. Key lines of dialogue and every significant plot point are snatched precisely from O’Malley’s text, and the Toronto setting is retained. The flashback sequences even incorporate O’Malley’s distinctive…
Step Up 3-D (Review)
Much like The Fast & The Furious franchise, this dance series seems to drift further away from the original concept and players – particularly Channing Tatum, the breakout star of the first movie — but it must be said that director Jon Chu (Step Up 2: The Streets) and his visual-effects team found ways to…
The World of Wayward Comic Book Artist (Review)
Sandy Plunkett reverses the normal order of things. Instead of languishing through youth somewhere in Ohio, longing for New York, he did his languishing in New York’s Upper West Side and came to southeast Ohio to find his creative home. The World of a Wayward Comic Book Artist reflects sketchbook/journals Plunkett has kept since 1992,…
August 4-10: Worst Week Ever!
WEDNESDAY AUG. 4 If you were asked to write a caption underneath a photo of an old, overly tanned guy swinging a golf club, it would be perfectly reasonable to write something along the lines of “Cialis saved my marriage, but now I never get to golf.” That's not what's printed on a new billboard…
Kanye Tweets, Wyclef and a Classical Critic
[HOT] Tweeting of the Minds Kanye West is at that level of “tabloid celebrity” where joining Twitter is such a huge event that it makes headlines. The bizarrely hilarious star’s adventures in Twitterland have yet to disappoint. While he has over a half million followers, he chose to “follow” only one random Tweeter, a teenage…
Out of the Mountains (Review)
A benefit of our shortened attention spans is the re-emergence of the short story. That pleasurable form of fiction, sliced thinner than a novel but at its best equally compelling, for a decade or two languished out of fashion but returns full of ginger. In Out of the Mountains, Meredith Sue Willis gives her characters…
