Sound Advice: : Limbeck, Mustard Plug and Sah
Mitch Ranger Mustard Plug Mustard Plug Friday · The Orange Cat "(Fill in the blank) is dead" chatter in musical circles is as cyclical as the seasons, so it shouldn't come as any surprise that the latest rumored demise is Ska. The Reggae/Rock hybrid has gone through plenty of lean times in the past…
Art: Review: Julian Stanczak
CAC Julian Stanczak's "Costellation in Green" Julian Stanczak, accompanied by his wife Barbara and their son Krzys, was in town for the recent opening of Julian Stanczak at the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC). When I talked to Stanczak there was still a flutter of excitement from the opening the night before. The exhibition celebrates…
CEAs 2007 coming up Monday night
Andy Houston Jack Louiso will be inducted into the Cincinnati Entertainment Awards Hall of Fame on Monday. If you care about local theater — or simply want to know more — you need to show up at Patricia Corbett Theater at UC's College-Conservatory of Music on Monday at 8 p.m. for the 11th annual…
Music: Behind the Scene
Evan Scott Simply Smashing: Evan Scott has been a guiding force in the local Techno scene. Techno's home is not Cincinnati. But Cincinnati has come a long way. When one thinks of ambient, stripped-down, bass-heavy Dance music scenes, his or her eyes might rove to Eastern Europe or South Africa. But if Evan Sharfe…
WLW Lashes Out Again
Margo Pierce Porkopolis TIP LINES: 513-665-4700 (ext. 138) or pork(at)citybeat.com You can lead a horse's ass to water, but you can't make him think. Or so it seems with WLW (700 AM) and its irrepressible need to belittle Latino immigrants. Having won a modicum of goodwill from the Latino community by taking down its…
Music: Sweet Release
Hacktone Records Mark Olson made the best of bad situation, traveling the world and writing his new album after a divorce from longtime partner, Victoria Williams. While it's true that everyone leaves their home eventually, one way or another, whether out of necessity or desire, it's equally true that not all journeys bring you…
Robert Duncanson’s Cincinnati
Joe Lamb The Taft Museum of Art's second floor hallway features landscapes by Robert Duncanson. Time-honored landscape paintings aren't my forte, as far as art goes. But art with a story is. Landscape painting in the Hudson River School tradition and a riveting tale come together in the second floor hallway of THE TAFT…
News: Fernald: Area’s New Nature Preserve
Stephen Carter-Novotni Various exhibits at the Fernald Preserve will help visitors learn the site's history, according to Sue Walpole, community relations manager. This toxic waste disposal canister, signed by Fernald employees, will be on display. It sounds like a joke: Fernald, formerly home to the Feed Materials Processing Center — a uranium foundry for…
Tempers flare, as Maurice Mattei celebrates another CD release
Maurice Mattei, the hardest working man in Cincinnati show biz. It's become somewhat of a playful tradition for me that every time local singer/songwriter Maurice Mattei puts out a new release, I make some mention of his prolificacy. For a while, Mattei would put out CDs each year, each containing an overflowing tracklisting. While…
MainEvent: Serious Comedy Showcase
Kristi Lee Humming Along "I don't get to talk much," says Kristi Lee (pictured), news director of The Bob & Tom radio show. "There's a reason for that. Tom (Griswold) says my best talent is (that) I know when to shut up. You may not know that if you know me off-air, but on…
Living Out Loud: : Pretty in Pink
It's a hot August morning. I'm waiting at the bus stop where Warsaw Avenue meets St. Lawrence Avenue in Price Hill. A young girl walks up to me and pulls up her low-cut blouse to show me the rest of her breasts. I'm not that surprised. I've been warned it might happen. "Wanta think?" she…
Cover Story: Jack Louiso Is Theater’s Pied Piper
Jack Louiso knows kids. Maybe that's because he's kind of a big kid himself. His joyful sense of fun has, for many years, enabled him to get inside the heads of kids he's mentored and entertained. Louiso has taught kids to sing, dance and act at the School for Creative and Performing Arts (SCPA) for…
Earlimart: Mentor Tormentor (Majordomo)
EARLIMART — MENTOR TORMENTOR On Earlimart's last album, 2004's Treble & Tremble, Aaron Espinoza and his rotating band of alt-gypsies (including constant bassist Adriana Murray) mollified the frantic strains of their previous Pixies worship, tapped into their inner Nick Drake and produced a quiet gem that shivered with a whispered passion. During the tumultuous…
News: No One But Qualls
At least two factors nearly kept Cincinnati Vice Mayor Jim Tarbell and the Charter Committee from delivering the first shock of the city council campaign. The first obstacle to the Aug. 8 announcement that former Mayor Roxanne Qualls would return to City Hall was that Tarbell — who can't run again due to term limits…
Onstage: Review: The Last Five Years
In its very first season (2003), New Stage Collective presented the area premiere of Jason Robert Brown's song-cycle, The Last Five Years. In its fifth season, NSC is again offering the two-actor song cycle about a marriage that comes apart — as an opportunity to review its own "last five years" for the young company,…
Diner: Review: Allure
Joe Lamb Allure Allure: "To entice by charm or attraction." That's what the dictionary says anyway. And I must admit that Allure — the restaurant — certainly hit the mark when I visited. Set off the main drag in an area of Montgomery that conjures a cross between Cape Cod and a Japanese tea…
News to Use
What's God Got to Do with It? Hundreds of Tri-state residents are expected to participate in a lively, interactive event called "One Nation Under God? A Day of Dialogue on Religion, Government, and Public Policy." Sponsored by the Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center (IJPC), the program is from 2-5 p.m. Sept. 9 at the Church…
Cover Story: CEA Run of Show
Click Here for the 2007 Theater Nominees 7 p.m. Doors open. Reception in Corbett Theater lobby 8 p.m. Cincinnati Entertainment Awards for Theater Performance: "Putting It Together" by the League of Cincinnati Theatres Host: Jen Dalton and Bob Herzog, WKRC Local 12 Awards: Supporting Actress in a Play; Supporting Actor in a Play; Visiting Actress;…
10,000 Pitches Left to Separate Playoff Teams from Also-Rans
Jerry Dowling When they fall right, the final six weeks of the Major League Baseball season are the best competition of any sport's late-season stretch. It's no mere matter of six games to go, or even a dozen. Of the remaining contenders with 40 games left, more than half will look up at the…
The Section Quartet: Fuzzbox (Decca)
THE SECTION QUARTET — FUZZBOX The Section Quartet's Fuzzbox comes with advice: "TSQ recommends playing this album at an inappropriately LOUD volume because rock and roll sounds better that way." This comment aptly represents the album as a whole: an attempt at Rock & Roll that tries too hard to prove that it really…
BROKEN ENGLISH (MAGNOLIA)
BROKEN ENGLISH 2007, Rated R Parker Posey is perpetually thirtysomething — for many an age when reckless youth comes crashing into the realities of adulthood. Early in her career, Posey harnessed the dualities of mature worldly awareness and youthful arrogance and innocence to create characters with unique depth. She's grown more mature with age,…
SPACE: 1999: 30TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION MEGASET (A&E)
SPACE: 1999: 30TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION MEGASET 1975, Not Rated Once you get past the rather dopey premise, this was a great science fiction series. A nuclear explosion on the moon sends our only natural satellite hurtling through space, where the crew of Moonbase Alpha encounters all sorts of strange creatures and phenomena. OK, it…
Building Awareness With the Enneagram
The Enneagram has been my preferred method for self-study and spiritual growth during the past few years. It's a psycho-spiritual personality assessment tool that shows the roadblocks that get in the way of experiencing wholeness with myself, others and God. The nine personality types help you understand hidden beliefs as well as habitual patterns that…
Art: Review: Reel Sites
Andy Houston Katie Koda's "The Spectator" plays with viewers' perceptions. Reel Sites, the new exhibition at Focus Gallery in Covington, contains objects of every kind, and the participating artists have used all kinds of materials and methods. The result is schizophrenic, with each wall of works feeling like it was taken out of a…
Film: Review: No End in Sight
Magnolia Pictures No End in Sight The shatteringly riveting, makes-your-blood-boil documentary No End in Sight plays like expert witness testimony at a trial of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz for their planning of the Iraq War. And what might the charges be? Criminal negligence, resulting in great loss of…
Huzzah, Huzzah: The Heirlooms Are in!
I've learned to ignore the shiny things at the market. I walk past perfect bright red globes and head straight for the heirloom tomatoes settled into cardboard containers like angry little purple and yellow fists. Respect for the heirloom tomato's path from dirt to table is long overdue. As we worry more about seafood from…
It Isn’t Right
As a registered sex offender for something I did when I was 20, I have to thank you from the bottom of my heart for Margo Pierce's well-researched and truthful cover story ("Next Comes Burning at the Stake," issue of Aug. 15). I had consenting sex with a minor who I believed to be older…
Locals Only: : Shawna James
Keith Klenowski Shawna James Think of the smooth, yellow ooze. Honey. Picture it dripping slowly from jars, spilling, sticking to fingertips, the sides of lips, the backs of throats. One slight drop is enough to wake a tongue. A little liquid sugar goes a long way. Singer/songwriter Shawna James speaks like a sure woman,…
Penny-Ante Book
With the school season upon us, the last opportunities to spend some time at the pool relaxing with a good book are slipping fast. I suggest beating the heat and soaking up some Vitamin D with two fresh Rock & Roll reads. Go easy on the Coppertone as not to smudge up the second edition…
Mirah and Spectratone International: Share This Place: Stories and Observations (K Records)
MIRAH AND SPECTRATONE INTERNATIONAL — SHARE THIS PLACE: STORIES AND OBSERVATIONS Praises be: at long last an album all about insects. Curtis Mayfield's Superfly fooled me once, the "Jitterbug" twice, but Mirah and Spectratone International answered my prayers with "Gestation of the Sacred Beetle" and "Love Song of the Fly." As an avid entomologist,…
Onstage: Review: Grease
When Grease was first performed in New York City back in 1972, it received mixed notices. "Mildly amusing" was about the highest praise it earned. But it was a hit with Baby Boomers who grew up in the 1950s, and the show's Doo-Wop score kept audiences coming back until 1980. It's 3,388 performances set a…
Natural Hormone Replacement
If you're feeling constantly exhausted, it might not be all in your head. According to Dr. Bruce Worrell of the Center for Optimal Vitality in Mason, symptoms of energy drain, poor focus, depression, decreased exercise tolerance, weight gain in spite of exercise, osteoporosis and decreased libido could be a hormonal imbalance. Hormone shifts can also…
BLADES OF GLORY (PARAMOUNT)
BLADES OF GLORY 2007, Rated PG-13 Will Ferrell inhabits yet another ego-inflated, sports-loving letch in first-time feature directors Josh Gordon and Will Speck's fast-paced, often hilarious comedy about a pair of rival figure skaters. Ferrell is Chazz Michael Michaels, a "tsunami of swagger" in the early-Van Halen-era David Lee Roth mold: a womanizer in…
News: The Banks: Bigger, More Costly
Matt Borgerding The Hamilton County Board of Commissioners is expected to approve changes in the master plan for The Banks. Shown are commissioners Pat DeWine (L), a Republican; and Todd Portune (R), a Democrat. Taxpayers likely will foot more of the bill to build the long-stalled Banks housing and shopping district along Cincinnati's riverfront.…
