Over the Rhine Celebrates 20 Years of Music
Like fine wine, local legends Over the Rhine have gotten better with age. From their first show at Sudsy Malone’s (about 20 folks showed up to see it) to their various record deals (I.R.S. and Virgin/Backporch) and back to their DIY roots (which has given them some of their biggest successes yet), OtR is marking…
Onstage: Divine Performing Arts
Interest in Chinese culture is burgeoning, and the world tour of Divine Performing Arts (DPA) brings some of the country’s ancient artistic forms — such as dance, music and elaborate set visuals — to eager audiences. The New York-based group comes to Music Hall Dec. 23 for a single performance. Speaking by telephone from a…
Onstage: Jesus Christ Superstar
The Carnegie in Covington has spent several years in search the best way to present musicals on the small, tight stage in its renovated Otto M. Budig Theatre. With this month’s minimally staged but aggressively choreographed production of Jesus Christ Superstar the formula now seems evident: Put the energy into the performance, keep the production…
Art: Talk to Me: Text/Image at the Banner and Ross Gallery
If you haven’t been to Visionaries & Voices’ exciting new exhibition venue, the Banner and Ross Gallery in Northside, you should. And you’ve not much time left to see the inaugural exhibition Talk to Me: Text/Image, on view until Dec. 23, which presents V&V artists’ work in conjunction with artists curated by Matt Distel. This…
Dance: Cincinnati Ballet’s The Nutcracker
When you see dancing mice, Sugar Plum fairies, a flying sleigh bed and a host of international dolls springing to life, you know it’s Nutcracker time. Once again, the delightfully extravagant production returns to the Aronoff Center’s Procter & Gamble Hall (after decades in Music Hall, it switched venues last year.) The lavish sets, elaborate…
Music: Matt Baumann
Matt Baumann does not look like a wild-eyed, avant garde Jazz experimentalist. The 28-year-old St. Louis native who moved here two and a half years ago has the intense, contemplatively quiet demeanor of a bassist, a tall anchoring presence grounding a loud Indie Rock band’s chaos. But the music of the alto/tenor saxophonist reflects many…
Comedy: Joe Starr
Sometimes comedy skips a generation — at least it did in the case of comedian Joe Starr. “My grandfather was in vaudeville in the 1920s. He passed away when I was 9, but before he passed away he made me promise I would get on stage at least once trying anything, because my father wanted…
Sports: SEC/Big East Challenge
Mick Cronin was an assistant coach at UC and then he moved on to work for Rick Pitino at Louisville. Andy Kennedy was an assistant coach a UC who took over the program for a year and then left because UC hired Cronin. Now Kennedy coaches Ole Miss, which will be in Cincinnati Thursday to…
Art: Pixels: Painting by Jimi Jones at the Weston Art Gallery
Jimi Jones, a longtime active member of the Cincinnati arts scene, discovered he could incorporate pixels — the building blocks of computer graphics — into his paintings. Results of that breakthrough can be seen in the vibrant works in the exhibition Pixels: Painting by Jimi Jones at the Weston Art Gallery. Jones’ paintings defy you…
Lit: Leon Reid IV
Cincinnati native Leon Reid IV returns to talk about his exploits as a noted NYC-based graffiti artist at Feralmade Gallery. Inspired by his mid-’90s excursions to Scribble Jam, Leon (also known by his street names VERBS and Darius Jones) moved to Brooklyn where he used his interests in advert manipulation and graffiti writing to create…
Music: Over the Rhine
Like fine wine, local legends Over the Rhine have gotten better with age. From their first show at Sudsy Malone’s (about 20 folks showed up to see it) to their various record deals (with I.R.S. and Virgin/Backporch) and back to their DIY roots (which has given them some of their biggest successes yet), OTR is…
Music: Los Honchos
Maybe it’s fitting that in the city that spawned King Records’ legendary recordings, including Mr. James Brown, Soul music still sweats and pulses in our Queen City. Los Honchos are the new Soul contenders on the block, and this six-piece combo bring plenty of heat and horns to the party. Nominated for a Cincinnati Entertainment…
Onstage: concert:nova
concert:nova best describes its cross-disciplinary mash-ups of music, theatre and art as “conversations.” For the upcoming Friday night performance, bits of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot will be performed by Julianna Bloodgood against video work by Trinidad Mac-Auliffe and a revival of Oliver Messaien’s chamber piece Quartet for the End of Time. These works, when…
Holiday: Holidays on Ludlow Avenue
A common refrain of many visitors to Cincinnati over the years is that the Clifton Gaslight District, centered around Ludlow Avenue, is about the only neighborhood in the Queen City that feels like it could belong in a much larger metropolis like New York or Chicago. After all, it contains everything you need for a…
Conversing About Schools
The Cincinnati Public Schools levy passed. The Superintendent search is still going on. Want to know more about what cuts are in the works to address the budget short-fall and what Mary Ronan, the interim superintendent, is up to? CPS is hosting a “Community Conversation” in two parts on Jan. 13. The first part is…
Synergizing Hobbies and Career for Greater Personal Success
Since reading Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (and reviewing it), the concept of what makes an individual exceptionally successful in a particular area has been heavy on my mind. In the book, Gladwell mostly argues that exceptional success is the result mostly of factors outside of our control: demographics, genetics, and so on. However, he does…
Hank Williams, CityBeat and Music History
The efforts to erect a plaque at the site of the old King Records facility (as well as myriad events related to the past and future of the ground-breaking record label, including this year’s Cincinnati Entertainment Awards) hopefully turned a lot of people on to the fact that Cincinnati’s music history is as rich as…
2,000-Year-Old Computer Resurrected
Jacques Cousteau described then Antikythera mechanism, a First Century B.C. computer, as being more valuable than the Mona Lisa. The device has been reconstructed a number of times. This video is the latest and illustrates the device's gearing and clockwork that was more than a millennium ahead of its time.
Week 14 – April Fann
You are the winner of tonight's Bud Light Bolo toss game. How does it feel to be a champion? Any advice for Carson Palmer? Like a top shelf drink! Carson should let his brother play. Now that you are in the spotlight, you are a role model. Any words of wisdom for all those aspiring…
Striking 12 (Review)
As an anti-traditional, anti-sentimental entertainment, New Stage Collective’s Striking 12 zips right along — at least it does when the six singer-musicians are making, as they do, some fine and fascinating music. When they set their hands to acting the meager semi-script, the show proves something less than zippy. It becomes self-conscious, self-referential and clumsy,…
Many to Blame for Fantasy Football Losses
Fantasy football can make you feel like George W. Bush did when that guy threw shoes at his face. I think the only way to deal with not winning any money again this year is to blame the players on my team, the firearms they misused and my own draft day shortcomings.—- Fantasy football is…
Impressive Hair: More on Supplemental Ornament
I got to downtown's Weston Art Gallery in the Aronoff Center for the Arts on Saturday and was deeply impressed with one of its three shows, Supplemental Ornament: Sculpture and Prints by Althea Murphy-Price. I know Matt Morris gave this a strong review in a recent CityBeat, but I wanted to add my voice, too.…
Kaldi’s Closing at Current Location
Rumors have been circulating for most of this year, but the official press release came out today. Here's is what it said: Kaldi’s Coffeehouse & Bookstore, “the living room of Over-the-Rhine,” has announced that it will permanently close the doors at its current location at the end of December 2008. Although owner Jeremy Thompson has…
The Cuts Continue, NPR Cancels Programs
National Public Radio announced Wednesday that they were cutting their workforce by 7 percent. This in an effort to made their budget, which was projected in July to create a $2 million deficit but, after the steep downturn in the economy, was projected to reach $23 million. Day to Day and News & Notes will…
A Plan for Giving
It’s no secret the economy is on a down slope. Jobs have been cut and the stock market is constantly in flux, leading people to focus more on their savings accounts than on what gifts to buy for the holidays. But just because the economy is poor doesn’t mean your holidays can’t be rich in…
Friday Movie Roundup: Oscar Talk
Oscar season kicks into high gear this week as two of the year’s most talked-about films finally open here: Gus Van Sant’s Milk and Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire. —- Fresh off its best-picture win at last week’s National Board of Review and yesterday’s Golden Globe nomination, Slumdog is gaining momentum as an unlikely Best Picture…
County Politics, Republican Style
Anyone familiar with Hamilton County government knows that a large segment of the jobs are essentially political appointments, given to cronies of whichever party controls the particular office doing the hiring. Still, the political quid pro quo is usually kept somewhat discreet and hidden from public view. Not his time.—- In a letter distributed today…
Onstage: Santaland Diaries
Tis the season, and those jolly holiday elves at New Edgecliff Theatre (NET) have arranged for us to revisit Mrs. Jocelyn Dunbar of haute suburbia. She comes complete with a $1.98 blonde wig and a razor tongue, telling her merry tales of an overachieving older son, an underachieving younger son, a flame-tattooed, drug-devoted daughter, a…
Movies: Milk
Harvey Milk had a large nose, funny hair and a grating New York accent. He was fiercely loyal to his friends and allies but often ruthless toward those who questioned his motives. He was also the first openly gay male elected to public office in the United States. As such, he knew he would die…
Matisyahu’s Stirring Performance
I must admit that I haven't been to Bogart's since high school close to seven years ago. The last time I went, I could see some people (less accustomed to small venue concerts) struggling for breath in the smoke-filled venue only to find that they could not escape the building because their shoes were glued…
Grammys Better But Still Pretty Sucky
Let me start by saying that I know complaining about the Grammys is about as effective as complaining about Grandma’s driving at night. And I know it’s about as tired as bitching about people driving while talking on their cell phone. —- Still, when the Grammy nominations are announced every year, I just cringe. There…
Fashion Forward
Cincinnati's getting pretty fashiony these days with the quarter ending at DAAP and all. Stop by Suki in Hyde Park from 6-9 p.m. tonight to check out "Made in Cincinnati," a sort of meet-and-greet viewing of the best work by fashion students as judged by FDSA officers. There's going to be snacks from Take the…
Sick of Unemployment? Try Humana
Humana announced Wednesday that they'll be adding 700 jobs to their Cincinnati operations by 2010. With the struggling economy, this is welcome news.—- Some Quick Humana Facts: • The new Humana regional headquarters, which employees around 700 people currently, will be located at the corner of Eden Park Drive and Gilbert Avenue. • The Louisville-based…
The Most Listiest Time of The Year
Every year come December, the CityBeat arts and music writers get all wistful as we begin to mentally compile our "Top 10" lists of the finest moments of the past 365 days. To warm up around the office, we just start ranking everything — "Top 10 Office Smells" ("microwave" has been No. 1 for the…
Tree Planting, Not Cutting
Not worried about freezing your ninnies off to help the environment? Then the Friends of the Great Miami have a job for you!—- “There will be another Friends of the Great Miami tree planting this Saturday along the banks of the Great Miami River at the Oxbow Wetland,” says a press release about the event.…
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Sixty years ago today, Dec. 10, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), became the standard for of our modern-day human rights principles. Many of those rights are bargained away or trampled on the way to achieving some other objective.—- “Created following the atrocities of World War II, the UDHR enumerates the fundamental human rights…
Sheriff’s Spending Finally Scrutinized
Dictionary.com defines “synchronicity” as “the coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality.”—- Or maybe people just sense when something smells wrong. This week’s issue…
More Layoffs at The Enquirer?
As recently as last week, The Cincinnati Enquirer’s top editor said he wasn’t sure whether to expect more layoffs in the New Year, but executives at the newspaper’s parent company all but confirmed additional pink slips are on the way.—- This week’s issue of CityBeat features an article about the most recent layoffs at The…
Ra Ra Riot with So Many Dynamos and Princeton
The great clichéd conceit, advanced by the fiction of Spinal Tap, is that drummers are inconsequential and as interchangeable as automobile parts. Ra Ra Riot stands in stark contrast to this assertion, living proof that nothing could be further from the truth. John Ryan Pike, the band’s original drummer, was also their lyricist, frequent musical…
Iron Horse Inn (Review)
Nothing beats dinner in the cozy dining room of a restaurant located in an historic house when the weather turns cold. As I waited for my step-dad outside the Iron Horse Inn, the smell of a fire burning in a distant fireplace and melted candle wax stirred up images of Christmas dinners and drinks by…
Crazy Simon’s Year-End Tank Sale
When individuals and families are facing a tight budget because of job layoffs or rising costs, the first thing they usually do is cut luxuries like going to the movies or eating out. They might even sell unneeded items at a yard sale or on eBay. With that spirit in mind, it’s time for Hamilton…
Rage Against the Machines
With synthesizers, guitars and drums substituting for holy books and dystopian scripture, the electronic prophecies of The Faint forewarn of a time when hyper-realistic technology will have consumed human society. While technophobia might be a cliché concept at this point, this five-piece turns charged dance riffs into machine-like rhythms evoking 21st century nightmares, delivering their…
Twelfth Night (Review)
Critic's Pick Of all Shakespeare’s comedies, Twelfth Night seems especially transportable to later time periods. Cincinnati Shakespeare Company’s holiday season production travels to the Jazz Age, the decade of the 1920s, using period costumes, lots of popular music and cultural references to add texture to an amusing story of mistaken identities, cross-gender confusion and uproarious…
The Binarians (Review)
Critic's Pick Andrew Au is a fellow of infinite jest who takes infinite pains to commit his jests to paper. His show, the binarians, at Clay Street Press through Jan. 17, takes on a controversy that's been in local news as recently as last week when the Cincinnati Zoo, a scientific institution, caught heat for…
Looking for the Joy
On that early Christmas morning in 1993, I had just turned onto Interstate 75 heading to Cincinnati. I was living north of Dayton in Springfield at the time and needed to pick up my kids and my not-yet-ex-wife back at my former place of residence. We were going to my parent’s house in Vevay, Ind.,…
All Aboard … or End of the Line?
As the financial world churns and tosses, you might hear someone offer a warning against businesses becoming too complacent. “What the railroads failed to understand,” this person will say, “is that they weren’t in the railroad business.” The saying is a bit hokey, especially to a generation that’s never ridden a train, but the premise…
Milk Still Matters
Harvey Milk had a large nose, funny hair and a grating New York accent. He was fiercely loyal to his friends and allies but often ruthless toward those who questioned his motives. He was also the first openly gay male elected to public office in the United States. As such, he knew he would die…
Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s
Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s must be so relieved that we’ve elected a president in office who can pronounce their name. But there are other things the band has to be thankful for. Hailing from Indianapolis, the So and So’s are making their way into the hearts of unsuspecting fans. Though their name…
iZen (Lunch Review)
With its window display of brightly colored plastic entrées, a la Japan, Clifton Heights' iZen (212 W. McMillan, 513-381-5905) puts the play back into food — something most of us haven’t done since we were young enough to hurl our Gerber peas across the kitchen and watch them fly. That’s not to say they don’t…
Enquirer and Daily Papers Down but Not Out
Enquirer Editor Tom Callinan is a veteran print journalist trying to reconfigure his “paper” and staff under awful conditions in the Internet Age. Success will include keeping older, affluent readers and attracting younger, increasingly affluent readers. He doesn’t need my advice, and I’m glad I’m not in his position: Casualties (staff losses) are mounting; ammunition…
We’re Winning the Culture War
We’re Winning the Culture War Statement of fact: Cincinnati Zoo = Good, Creation Museum = Evil. Let’s be clear: It’s evident to anyone with a brain that the Creation Museum is a horrible joke told by some seriously unfunny people, and the Cincinnati Zoo is a place of happiness, truth and light. Wouldn’t it be…
Holiday Shows Are Cause for Hope
At least a dozen holiday productions are onstage this week and next. Some are long runs (the Playhouse’s Shelterhouse show I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change began back on Nov. 6 and runs at least through New Year’s Eve), while some are offered for one night only. But every theater hopes to sell tickets…
Brush, Clay, Wood (Review)
Ed and Nancy Rosenthal haven’t technically opened their home to the public, but the Brush, Clay, Wood, exhibition at downtown’s Taft Museum of Art allows us a peek into their life just the same. The exhibition documents an art collection that began in 1980 with a 3-foot-tall Chinese vase. From there, the Rosenthals — not…
Another Seven Days of Bad Words and Good Candy
WEDNESDAY DEC. 3A local judge put the smack down last week after a defendant mumbled that it was bullshit that he’d have to stay in jail until his Feb. 2 court date. According to The Enquirer, Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Robert Ruehlman thought that an alleged Northside Taliband gang member saying "bullshit" in his…
Holiday Music on the Radio, Children’s Music in Norwood, Messerly & Ewing Return and More
• Tune into WAIF (88.3 FM on your radio dial; listen online at waif883.org) this and next Thursday for a couple of special holiday editions of the talk/music program The Curved Air Show. Hosted by veteran local musicians Roger Yeardley and Marcos Sastre, the next two editions of the show will feature a variety of…
Week 13 – Brittany Ball
You are the winner of tonight’s Bud Light Bolo Toss game. How does it feel to be a champion? Any advice for Carson Palmer? Wonderful! Tell Carson not to get hurt. Now that you are in the spotlight, you are a role model. Any words of wisdom for all those aspiring Bud Light Bolo Football…
Really Old School
Matisyahu, the 29-year old Hassidic Jew MC, is an artist who thrives on innovation. He sprang into American consciousness in 2004 with his debut album Shake off the Dust … Arise, an intriguing blend of spirituality and raw power. His Torah-inspired lyrics have mainstreamed Reggae while giving audiences exposure to the dynamism of the Jewish…
Super-Massive (Profile)
Recently I met up with the members of local Reggae giants Super-Massive at The Mad Frog in Corryville, where they play every Thursday. The band is wrapping up a year that’s included many successes and milestones, including the release of their self-titled debut CD in September and, just last month, winning their first Cincinnati Entertainment…
Paper Cuts
Readers will be getting less news and locally produced content in their morning copy of The Cincinnati Enquirer beginning later this month, as the newspaper scales back both its size and the number of people it employs. Prompted by the troubled U.S. economy, Greater Cincinnati’s only remaining daily newspaper laid off several employees Dec. 2…
UC Is on the Way Back at the Crosstown Shootout … Xavier Never Left
Less than a month old, the college basketball season is so new that it doesn’t begin to add up. Among the names to be found on top of the RPI listings (by realtimerpi.com) are Butler, Evansville, Clemson and Northwestern. But one highly placed name that doesn’t read like a sampling error is Xavier, which is…
What Teachers Teach Us
Few people have a bigger impact on those they work with than teachers. I know that for certain now, as if I needed any further proof. On Dec. 7 I was invited to speak to a group of retired teachers from Colerain Elementary, where I started kindergarten in 1979 and wrapped up — right on…
The Women (Review)
Critic's Pick Manhattan women of wealth but no particular purpose: Stephen Sondheim called them “the ladies who lunch” and saluted their hardihood as “dinosaurs surviving the crunch.” Actress/author/ambassador Clare Boothe Luce called them simply The Women and said she wrote her acid-tongued 1936 comedy to get the scabrous bunch of them out of her mind.…
Grace Potter and the Nocturnals
Grace Potter and her band of gypsies, the Nocturnals, channel the ’70s like they have a psychic on retainer. And yet they’re not slavish retro revivalists with no sense of identity to accompany their sonic inspiration. “There’s a difference between being hokey and nostalgic and conjuring the roots of something,” Potter says. “Hokey nostalgia so…
Milk (Review)
Film certainly has a soft spot for lovable losers. How else can you explain the success of Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp, a young Mickey Rooney, the Little Rascals or the likes of Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino from their 1970s heydays? (Come on, admit that these brilliant actors got under our collective skin thanks to…
Slumdog Millionaire (Review)
Mumbai doesn’t need an introduction to American audiences, thanks to the horrific terrorist attack on civilians there in late November. The particulars of that attack — Pakistan-based Muslim extremists fighting predominately Hindu India’s control of Kashmir, with anti-Israel hatred thrown into the mix — don’t figure into the new fictional movie Slumdog Millionaire. But the…
Charlie Goes to Art Basal
Bienvenidos a Miami… This week CityBeat sent me into the field to cover Art Basel in the beautiful 80-degree Miami, Fla. They opted to spring for the direct first class flight down along with a rented Lamborghini to ride up and down South Beach, but in order to keep my reporting low key I decided…
Remembering Glenn Sample
It's too bad you don't get to see your own funeral, because if you lived a really good life and had a lot of close friends it'd be a good time. Monday night a coworker and I headed over to the Fifth Third Arena for Glenn Sample's memorial service. I met Glenn last year when…
