Aug 2-9, 2017
Food Feats: Local eating challenges for the adventurous (and ravenous)
Minimum Gauge: Trump may have killed Journey
HOT: Trump May Have Killed Journey The members of recent Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Journey are currently squabbling, and if the group breaks up over it, they’ll only have themselves to blame. Oh, and Donald Trump. After photos of three current Journey members visiting Trump in the Oval Office surfaced, guitarist (and…
Council votes to approve Children’s Hospital’s $550 million expansion in Avondale
After facing a procession of neighborhood opponents, Cincinnati City Council voted 6-3 this morning to remove final obstacles for a hospital expansion that would serve hundreds of young patients and represent the city’s biggest development deal since the turn of the millennium. But not everyone loves a $550-$650 million plan by Cincinnati Children’s Hospital to…
Morning News: Council to vote on Children’s expansion; MLK interchange to open soon; Trump’s DOJ backs Ohio’s voter roll purges
Good morning Cincy. Here’s what’s going on in the news today. Cincinnati City Council is poised to vote this morning at its 9:30 meeting on a zoning change Cincinnati Children’s Hospital needs to move forward with a massive, half-billion dollar expansion. That project, which would build a 10-story patient tower with a helipad and expand…
Jeremy Pinnell Unveils ‘Ties of Blood and Affection’
While Country music’s mainstream is still littered with disposable Pop pap (do not google “Trap-Country” unless you are looking for a stomach-pump alternative), it has been refreshing to see the rising success of so many artists who’ve allowed their traditional Country influences to shine through and don’t water down their music with overproduction or gimmicks.…
Morning News: Library holds session on potential building sale; councilmembers propose more money for Avondale tied to major hospital expansion; CPD begins testing Shotspotter technology
Good morning all. Here’s some news today. The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County Board of Directors is holding a public forum today to discuss the possible closure and sale of its downtown location’s north building. The Board approved that proposal earlier this month, but it’s drawn ire from some local groups. About two…
MidPoint Music Festival announces more Greater Cincinnati performers
Some local bands — like headliners Walk the Moon — were previously announced for next month’s MidPoint Music Festival (marking the event’s 17th anniversary), but the latest batch of performers released includes numerous artists from the Greater Cincinnati area. The festival returns Sept. 23-24, this year taking place on four stages — two at the…
Shop Talk: The Diggingest Girl
Emily Howard, an Erlanger-based printmaker and illustrator, digs into the surfaces of wood and linoleum. Ink fills the spaces and creates thick, black and graphic lines. Through each new print, Howard creates a new story through visual means. She calls her work feminine and narrative, and it’s often drawn from a story — be it one…
Sound Advice: Ronnie Baker Brooks (Aug. 12)
Chicago has spawned its share of Blues legends, including Willie Dixon, Buddy Guy, Luther Allison and the late, great Lonnie Brooks, who passed away just four months ago at age 83. Brooks left behind a legacy of 16 amazing albums, a press kit bulging with glowing praise for his searing yet soulful style and an…
On Screen: A New Lady Macbeth
Directed by William Oldroyd and written by Alice Birch, Lady Macbeth is adapted not from Shakespeare but rather Nicolai Leskov’s 19th-century Russian novel Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District and transplanted to Northern England in 1865. It is a film that explores the treachery of dominance and oppression, concepts that are laced into each character. The film opens to Katherine…
Food Feats
So you love food. Like, you really love food. The thought of trying something new entices your foodie cravings and warrants constant ventures to new and eclectic restaurants. But how far does your fascination with food really extend? A host of local eateries pose a question to the city’s most adventurous diners: Can you consume a humorously…
Blue Ash eatery Through The Garden serves up local garden-to-table fare
There is a very short distance between the farm and table — or at least garden and table — at Through the Garden Restaurant in Blue Ash. Offering casual American and Mediterranean fare, Through the Garden’s patio is flanked by 2,000 square feet of local produce that is tended by restaurant patrons and served to…
Grifters and Thugs
Since January, we have had our first grifter presidency. Sure, you might argue that Warren Harding came close. But the grifting, though done on a colossal scale, was by his underlings, the “Ohio Gang.” Harding himself probably didn’t benefit. He was too busy foreshadowing a future president’s antics in the oval office. Grant, too, wasn’t…
Stage Door: Chaperones, Monsters, Beasts and… Girl Power?
George Gershwin’s song “Summertime” tells us that the “livin’ is easy.” Onstage it can also be entertaining. And that’s what’s happening at the few theaters that currently have productions onstage. The final production of the Warsaw Federal Incline Theater’s summer season, The Drowsy Chaperone, is a frothy musical with an unusual twist. It’s framed with narration…
Your Weekend To Do List (Aug. 4-6)
FRIDAY 04 ONSTAGE: THE DROWSY CHAPERONE How to raise your spirits when you’re feeling blue? A musical-theater lover might listen to a favorite cast recording. That’s what a “Man in a Chair” does in this send-up of a jaunty, made-up Jazz Age musical. As he listens, the show comes to life around him with a…
Sound Advice: Future Thieves with Hello Luna and Talk Mouth (Aug. 12)
Some musicians are born in Nashville, but the overwhelming majority of the ones there are drawn in. And so it was with the four talented members of Future Thieves. Guitarist Austin McCool (by birth or imagination, that is a name destined for Rock & Roll greatness) and bassist Nick Goss grew up in Evansville, Ind.…
Morning News: Consternation on Council; Keep Cincinnati Beautiful overbilled city, audit finds; Ohio leads in student debt
Good morning all. Here are some quick news hits. In case you missed all the fun Wednesday, Cincinnati City Council got a little intense. A major and somewhat controversial development project by Cincinnati Childrens Hospital that needs a city zoning change to move forward, but it was put on hold — along with more than…
Sound Advice: American Acoustic featuring Punch Brothers, I’m With Her and Julian Lage (Aug. 12)
Rarely has the name of a tour more accurately described what you’re getting when you go to the show than American Acoustic. Featuring sets from — and collaborations between — Punch Brothers, I’m with Her and Julian Lage, the tour's name actually kind of undersells what's in store. Avid fans of Bluegrass might already be…
Cincinnati AltPop band Harbour gets ready for a possible breakout album and its debut music festival
As I descend the concrete staircase behind an American Family Insurance building in Lebanon, Ohio, sunny melodies and sweet harmonies dance around me, then float up toward the soft afternoon sky. With each step I take, the music gets louder and the air gets colder. Finally at the bottom, I pause with my hand resting…
What a Week! July 26-Aug. 1
WEDNESDAY, JULY 26 While Uber offers food delivery in many cities, Lyft has changed the ride-sharing game by teaming up with Taco Bell. Much like how many Lyft users request service after a night of drinking, T-Bell’s consumers are largely made up of intoxicated individuals. Available for a limited time in Orange County, Calif. the…
Ranting Against Reality
It is a traditional August-type of story; that is, something when nothing else is happening. That annual summer doldrum, which can trace its lineage to ancient Romans, blew up in 2016 with the presidential race. Nothing in recent weeks suggests any kind of quiet will be resumed in the world of journalism. But in the…
‘Bachelor’ franchise struggles to get woke
When The Bachelorette (Season Finale, 8 p.m. Monday, ABC) selected Rachel Lindsay — Texas attorney and third-place finalist on Nick Viall’s season of The Bachelor — as its 13th leading lady, it was significant for a show with a longtime lack of diversity. Rachel is the first black Bachelorette, and with that comes the most diverse cast of men,…
What we mean when we talk about ‘Detroit’
“A real conversation starter” is one of the phrases likely to be used in discussions of Detroit, the new feature from director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal, who previously collaborated on The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty. It opens here Friday. In fact, many viewers will go into Detroit with heightened expectations, thanks to the procedural-like approach of Zero Dark…
Growing Ambitions for Price Hill Creative Festival
As the free Price Hill Creative Community Festival returns this Friday and Saturday for a second year, its scope has broadened. It will again be hosted by Price Hill’s MYCincinnati youth orchestra, but this year the festival occurs in partnership with the Contemporary Arts Center and will feature performances by MYCincinnati’s five artists-in-residence, who work…
Minimum Gauge: MTV makes VMA “Moonman” trophy gender unspecific
HOT: VMAs Remove Gender Did you know that, after years ago turning its back on music videos, MTV still does an “MTV Video Music Awards” program? Presumably to celebrate the music clips you can’t see on MTV anymore (therefore making it basically a commercial for YouTube), the show returns this month with a tiny progressive…
New gallery weaves its vision in Westwood
The new Basketshop Gallery in Westwood found the perfect icebreaker for its opening: Maker’s Mark with a generous slice of (Home Depot) orange. The bourbon bottle, part of an exhibit titled How to Make Enemies Friends, sits empty now, but gallery founders Eli Walker and Kelly Kroener pledge that they’ll keep the conversation and hospitality flowing in…
Girl Power in Sherwood Forest
Every year around this time, Know Theatre gets a head start on the local theater season with light-hearted summer entertainment. In 2015 and 2016, the Over-the-Rhine company that produces the annual Fringe Festival staged contemporary musicals. This month, it’s offering a show that’s rooted in a traditional tale, but has very contemporary values. While what…
PUBLIC brings home some ‘Sweet Lemonade’
Since forming near the beginning of the decade, Cincinnati Pop Rock trio PUBLIC has been on a gradual upward trajectory, opening shows for the likes of Walk the Moon and Young the Giant, playing festivals like Bunbury and Forecastle, releasing a steady stream of increasingly finessed, radio-ready songs and EPs and amassing an adoring fanbase and growing…
Sound Advice: Royal Blood (Aug. 3)
Royal Blood’s rapid rise from broke blokes in Brighton, England to commercially successful rockers seemed almost too easy. The duo of bassist/vocalist Mike Kerr and drummer Ben Thatcher formed in early 2013. A year later, the twosome released its self-titled debut, which came on like Queens of the Stone Age by way of Death from…
Morning News: Children’s expansion primed for Council approval; city to rebuild Music Hall walkway; Sessions DOJ to investigate college affirmative action
Good morning all. Here’s a quick news rundown to get you through the middle of the week. As we’ve talked about before here in the morning news, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital has some big expansion plans that are nearing final approval at City Hall. Cincinnati City Council could vote on the project today — or not…
Shadeau Breads Gets New Owners
Now 24 years removed from baking his first baguette in Over-the-Rhine, Shadeau Breads owner and baker Bill Pritz is trading in his apron for a long-overdue break with his wife, Charlotte. Parting ways with his only location at 1336 Main St., flour and all, Pritz recently sold Shadeau Breads to his accountant of 10 years,…
A Tensing trial legacy: strains between Cincinnati’s police union and reform efforts
A chain of events stemming from the Ray Tensing trial has put efforts to strengthen the city’s much-lauded 15-year-old police reform efforts on thin ice with one of its major players — Fraternal Order of Police Queen City Lodge 69. The controversy has the potential to hobble the historic Collaborative Agreement that has made Cincinnati a…
Summermusik: Bagpipes, Beethoven and Bowie
Last October, shortly after the conclusion of its popular Summermusik programming, Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra announced the appointment of Eckart Preu as its fifth music director. Days later, Preu (pronounced “proy”) began planning for the CCO’s third year of Summermusik, which offers Classical music with a contemporary twist. The results of that effort begin Saturday and…
