Live Local Music Overload
This is one of those random weeks where there are so many notable events involving local bands, we could have done an all-music double issue of CityBeat and still not have room for it all. Thankfully, we do have constantly updated Staff Blogs. So here’s what’s up, lightning-round-style; check the blog throughout the week for…
Place Your Bets on HBO’s Luck
A show about horseracing might seem too niche to captivate a wide audience, but HBO’s Luck is entertaining for all types of viewers thanks to the varied perspectives from inside the track. Dustin Hoffman stars as Ace, an organized crime man fresh out of his stint in federal prison. Eager to get back in the…
Feb. 16-21: Worst Week Ever!
THURSDAY FEB. 16 Cincinnati Christian University announced today that Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow will come to Cincinnati on April 25 to take part in the school’s Leadership Initiative 2012. CCU describes “A Talk With Tebow: A Conversation About Faith and Football” as a casual event that includes a speech by Tebow and an interview…
Crowley’s Legacy Lives On
M arch 25 would have been David Crowley’s 75th birthday, and his family is planning an event that day which would bring a smile to his face. For those who didn’t know Crowley, he served on Cincinnati City Council for eight years, from 2001-09, the maximum allowed by term limits. During the last two years…
Cincinnati vs. The World
A woman fell asleep at the wheel and ran into Baba Budan’s Bearcat Café early Monday morning in Clifton Heights. Nobody was injured, but the storefront now matches its battered neighbor, Jerusalem Café, which suffered an explosion last November. The ghost of West McMillan at Clifton Avenue strikes again. CINCINNATI -2 McDonald’s announced that it…
Luck of the (Re)Draw
F ascinating, diverse, progressive — those are just a handful of words that are being used to describe the new 31st Ohio House District. Consisting of Amberley Village, Clifton, Clifton Heights, Evanston, Madisonville, Hyde Park, Northside, Oakley, Silverton, St. Bernard and Walnut Hills, the district contains many walks of life, including a healthy liberal population.…
Miracle or Mirage?
In a Cincinnati neighborhood plagued by high rates of blight, poverty and crime, the new $18.4 million Robert A. Taft Information Technology High School in the West End couldn’t offer a more contrasting narrative. While city police book killers and other suspected felons right next door, Taft students are enriching their minds in nine computer…
Council Proposes Crackdown on Foreclosures
Two Cincinnati City Council members will unveil a proposal Wednesday to require banks to take better care of foreclosed properties. Councilmen P.G. Sittenfeld and Cecil Thomas want city administrators to gauge the feasibility of launching a pilot program to improve vacant and blighted properties, which they said would help stabilize neighborhoods. If ultimately deemed feasible…
Chris Mack Discusses Xavier’s Struggles, Opportunity
As the college basketball season started, many predicted the Xavier Musketeers would finish the season in the Final Four. And that’s still a possibility — but nobody predicted this would be the ride. Winners of their first seven games, including wins at Vanderbilt and Butler, the Musketeers were living up to their billing and were…
Man or a Muppet, Dave Grohl and Whitney Houston
[HOT] The Oscars’ Looney Tunes The Best Original Song category at Sunday’s Academy Awards is turning out to be the Oscars’ most controversial storyline, and not just because Randy Newman was snubbed. The Academy voters deemed only two songs worthy of nomination after being presented with a short-list of 39 perfectly fine movie tunes. Then…
Your (Fat) Tuesday To Do List
Bon Mardi Gras, mes amis (translation: Happy Fat Tuesday, y'all)! Today's To Do list has some cajun flavor to it, since nearly every bar and restaurant will be celebrating in some capacity tonight — even if it's just beer, beads and boobs. Before you make dinner plans, you have to check out Anne Mitchell's guide…
Ride the Wild Surf
F ive surf-rockers, two go-go dancers and a guy in a gorilla suit walk into a bar … That’s either the weirdest setup for a joke ever or it means that Cincinnati’s only Surf Rock band, Doctor Bombay and the Atomic Bachelor Pad, has arrived. The members of the quintet (El Rey on lead vocals…
Review: Mike Doughty at The Redmoor
There are certain musicians that have such unique, stirring voices, sometimes I want to press my fingers to their necks and feel the vibrations. Mike Doughty has one of those voices. He has a natural reverberation that makes every syllable sound like it traveled up through a canyon in his throat. That’s why Soul Coughing…
Gus Van Sant Continues Down His Own Unique Path
Few contemporary filmmakers can claim a career as interesting as Gus Van Sant’s. The 59-year-old director studied painting at the Rhode Island School of Design before shifting his studies to film. He tried his hand at Hollywood after graduation, but soon moved his home base to Portland, Ore., a place where his artier leanings would…
JimmyG’s (Review)
When walking into JimmyG’s, a “traditional steakhouse with a unique twist,” I received the sort of mixed signals I’ve often had to attempt to interpret on first dates. Maybe it’s the fact that it’s next to the panty palace that is Lunar nightclub. Or maybe it’s the entrance of the restaurant — which puts up…
A Great American Sculptor’s Show Visits Columbus
Columbus’ Wexner Center for the Arts makes a bold statement in its current retrospective of David Smith’s work: He’s the greatest American sculptor of the 20th century. If Smith, who died in an auto accident in 1965 at age 59, is ahead of Alexander Calder, Isamu Noguchi or Richard Serra, I’m not sure the general…
Collage Degrees
H aving recently seen a retrospective of Romare Bearden’s artwork at Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte, N.C., his hometown, I wasn’t expecting the Taft Museum’s current and smaller Impressions and Improvisations: The Prints of Romare Bearden to be as impressive as it is. After all, it would be devoid of the great African American…
‘Canstruction’ Comes to Cincinnati
There's been some brilliant art made from some pretty bizarre mediums — hair, push pins, bullets, garbage, chewing gum. Look around downtown Cincinnati beginning next Tuesday and you'll find another unlikely art form — statues made specifically from canned goods and other non-perishable food. Expect to see five jumbo structures scattered around different locations downtown,…
Music: D.R.U.G.S.
Although it’s only been two years since the formation of D.R.U.G.S. (stand down, Million Mom outragists — the name’s an acronym for Destroy Rebuild Until God Shows), the Post Hardcore quintet runs on a wealth of individual experience. Vocalist Craig Owens founded D.R.U.G.S. in late 2009 after he was bounced as Chiodos’ frontman, putting together…
Music: Leo Kottke
Kottke was born to play guitar; he taught himself at age 12 while from both a bout of mononucleosis and his sister’s death. Kottke quickly developed an amazingly percussive style that involved a dazzling flair for fingerpicking and a complex sense of melody, evidenced by some of his beautiful compositions (“Blue Dot,” “Mona Ray,” “June…
Music: Pretty Good Dance Moves
Brooklyn-based Indie/Electronic duo Pretty Good Dance Moves comes to MOTR Pub Sunday, part of a packed lineup at the Over the-Rhine club. That’s packed as in “should be quite crowded” and “full of high quality entertainment” — live music is also provided by R. Ring (the acoustic duo featuring local engineer/musician Mike Montgomery and The…
Music Tonight: Rusko and August Burns Red
For a part of the country often accused of being behind times, Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky have certainly seen more than its fair share of hot Dubstep artists from around the world coming into town to perform. You can give a lot thanks for that to Covington-based Next Era Entertainment, the promoters who have helped…
This Date in Music History: Feb. 21
On this day in 1958, the very first "Flying V" guitar shipped from the Gibson factory in Kalamazoo, Mich. The guitar's distinct body — shaped, as the name suggest, like a "V," and made almost to look like it had aerodynamic qualities — was initially the instrument's downfall. In its first two years available, the…
Coming Distractions: ‘Mad Men,’ ‘Game of Thrones,’ ‘Psych’
Mad Men’s highly anticipated fifth season returns to AMC March 25 with a 2-hour premiere. The episode is titled “A Little Kiss,” spurring plenty of speculations — will Don remarry? Get back with Betty? AMC is airing all previous seasons with an episode each Sunday at 6 a.m. So, unless you’re my grandma, set your…
Event: 20th Century Cincinnati
Calling all collectors! Enjoy the 18th annual 20th Century Cincinnati with a weekend of vintage modern design with plenty of home décor, furnishings, art glass, pottery, paintings, posters, metal wares, textile and more for your shopping pleasure. With 60 dealers filling up 20,000 square feet, find numerous pop culture relics from the 1920s through the…
Morning News and Stuff
If you've ever felt like your car was held hostage by a towing company wanting an exorbitant fee before it would release your vehicle, this will sound like sweet justice. The city of Cincinnati's prosecutor has begun a criminal investigation of Kenwood Towing, based on allegations of overcharging. The firm, which has locations in Northside…
Dance: Pieces
Five’s the magic number for MamLuft&Co. Dance at the Aronoff Center on Saturday. In celebration of its fifth season in Cincinnati, the modern dance ensemble presents Pieces, comprised of five short pieces from as many national guest choreographers, in addition to a five-part namesake work choreographed by the company. Unifying themes revolve around divisions between…
Onstage: Into the Woods
Talk about your mash-ups — that’s pretty much what you’ll find in Stephen Sondheim’s fairytale musical that interweaves the stories of Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, Rapunzel and Little Red Riding Hood with a baker and his wife hoping to have a baby and a witch who’s throwing up roadblocks at every turn. Of course there’s…
Event: A Retelling
When photographer McCrystle Wood looks at a plant she sees a person, in a metaphorical way, and with a digital platform 3D modeling computer program she produces the striking photographs now on view in A Retelling. Equally individual work by Brian Harmon and Billy Renkl complete the exhibition with their own forms of narrative. Harmon,…
Event: Fotofocus Lecture
The Lightborne lecture at Cincinnati Art Museum, featuring internationally recognized photographers, has been renamed the FotoFocus lecture this year in recognition of the upcoming citywide photo exhibition — also called FotoFocus — occurring in October. The lecture features Los Angeles-based Uta Barth, whose work explores the ways photography can explore the realm of painterly abstraction,…
Your Monday To Do List
Having a case of the Mondays is usually a bad thing/really annoying phrase, but not when there's actually fun stuff happening! Forget what your calendar says; tonight is full of weekend-worthy events. Experimental Electro-Pop musician Zola Jesus performs tonight at the Contemporary Arts Center. This one-woman noise machine is known for commanding a room, despite…
Dems, Unions Protest Romney Visit
As Mitt Romney gets ready to attend a $2,500 a plate fundraiser at downtown’s Great American Tower, the local Democratic Party chairman says the presidential hopeful’s economic plan “would do nothing to create jobs now.” Hamilton County Democratic Party Chairman Tim Burke released a statement this afternoon describing why he believes a Romney presidency would…
Music Tonight: Zola Jesus at the CAC
The Contemporary Arts Center hosts a performance tonight by enigmatic, critically acclaimed singer/songwriter/musician Zola Jesus. The stage name of Nika Roza Danilova, Jesus has become a prime force on musical tip sheets as an artist to watch. Her uniquely atmospheric, electronic-based compositions are adventurous and evocative dreamscapes that have deep, philosophical underpinnings and often a…
Community Forum to Discuss New Study on Homelessness
Winter is perhaps the most trying time of year for homeless Cincinnatians; the bitter cold isn't exactly inviting when you're not surrounded by four walls and a heap of blankets or proper clothing. This Thursday, a just-released study from the Family Homelessness and Housing Stability Task Force will be reviewed at the Christ Church Cathedral…
Recorder Accepting Griffin Yeatman Award Nominations
If you know an individual or group that volunteers their time to preserve and promote historic documents or sites in Hamilton County, you can nominate them for an award. The Hamilton County Recorder’s Office is accepting nominations for its annual Griffin Yeatman Award. Created in 1994, the award recognizes people who work to help others…
Review: Heartless Bastards at Madison Theater
It’s been eight and a half years, four albums and an almost entirely new set of members since Heartless Bastards began performing as a new band in Cincinnati's small clubs. This time around, the Bastards came back to their breeding ground as an Austin, Tex., band and played to a packed house at Madison Theater…
Spring (Baseball) Is In the Air
Pitchers and catchers reported to the Reds’ spring training facility in Goodyear, Ariz., over the weekend, which means we are only days away from hearing about how awesome the team’s dudes are looking or how quickly they get hurt and have to sit out, leaving us to wonder if they’ll be ready by Opening Day.…
Music Tonight: Oakhurst
Coming into Stanley's Pub tonight, straight out of the Bluegrass hybridization capital of the world (Denver), is dynamic five-piece Oakhurst, fresh off a tour jaunt with fellow hard-touring Progressive Bluegrass ensemble Greensky Bluegrass. Oakhurst is no "Newgrass" newbie, fine tuning its genre collage of Americana, trad Bluegrass, AltCountry, Rock, Funk, Jazz and "Citybilly swagger" at…
This Date In Music History: Feb. 20
On this day in 2003, one of the deadliest concert/nightclub accidents ever occurred in West Warwick, RI, when pyrotechnics at the start of a show by ’80s rockers Great White sparked the flammable ceiling insulation and engulfed The Station club in less than six minutes. One hundred people died that night and more than 200…
Ohio Presidential Anecdotes
Ohio has sent so many of its own to the White House it’s almost second nature. With local boys like Taft, Grant and Garfield, we’re second only to Virginia in total number of presidents, and they had a 25-year head start. Maybe we don’t have the top spot, but we certainly have some of the…
Morning News and Stuff
Today is Presidents' Day and even though it's a federal holiday, most readers probably don't have the day off from work. You can console yourself about this affront to George and Honest Abe by learning all about the holiday's quirky history. For example, it was the first holiday authorized to commemorate an American citizen (Mr.…
Sense & Sensibility (Review)
Critic's Pick The popularity of Jane Austen continues unabated. A sparkling adaptation of Pride & Prejudice was an audience favorite a year ago for Cincinnati Shakespeare, and another Jon Jory adaptation of the 19th-century author’s stylish novels of romance and domestic intrigue, Sense & Sensibility, is likely to repeat that box-office bonanza. This time it’s…
Broadway Shows In Cincinnati for 2012-2013
The 2012-2013 season of touring productions presented by Broadway in Cincinnati marks a quarter-century of bringing high-quality shows to the Aronoff Center, which the series has called home since it opened in 1995. The shows that will keep the Walnut Street facility humming – not to mention nearby restaurants – were announced today. They include…
D.R.U.G.S.
Although it’s only been two years since the formation of D.R.U.G.S. (stand down, Million Mom outragists — the name’s an acronym for Destroy Rebuild Until God Shows), the Post Hardcore quintet runs on a wealth of individual experience. Vocalist Craig Owens founded D.R.U.G.S. in late 2009 after he was bounced as Chiodos’ frontman, putting together…
Young the Giant with Walk the Moon
When Irvine, Calif., Indie Rock band Young the Giant performed “My Body” at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, they brought 300 of their closest hometown friends with them. The performance crash-landed the band in front of millions of fans and, as a result, Billboard reported a 220 percent sales boost in the week that…
Appeal in Elections Case Could Be Costly
A pending decision about whether to appeal a federal judge’s decision in a disputed election could place Hamilton County taxpayers on the hook for legal fees in the case. The case involves which provisional ballots to count in the Juvenile Court judicial race between Democrat Tracie Hunter and Republican John Williams from the November 2010…
Gaelic Storm
If you are getting anxious to see strangers hugging, hear the sound of finger rolls on a fiddle or taking a few nips of Jameson, don’t panic. You don’t have to wait for St. Patty’s Day. Just try giving Gaelic Storm a listen. At first glance, Gaelic Storm looks like a fairly traditional Irish band.…
Leo Kottke
In the mid-’80s, I saw Leo Kottke at Bogart’s with the intent of getting close enough to assure myself that the 12-string master didn’t have a third arm, nine fingered hands or a magic guitar. In fact, I was hoping there were implausible explanations for how an acoustic guitar could sound like dry waterboarding in…
Riverside Drive Bike Lane Project Postponed
Cincinnati cyclists have been waiting for the arrival of bike lanes on Riverside Drive since summer of 2011, and patience is running thin. Yesterday, Cincinnati's Department of Transportation announced that it was considering "indefinitely postponing" the bike lane project because of possible future construction on I-471. The plan was originally postponed because Duke Energy needed…
Queen City Hoops: Xavier Edition
The Liacouras Center was not kind to the Xavier Musketeers this past Saturday, nor has it been for the past seven years. Xavier hasn’t won at Temple since 2004 and this year squandered an opportunity to jump to the top of the A-10 standings with a win. Temple cruised to an easy 85-72 victory over…
Ohio Executions On Hold
A ruling that resulted in a temporary halt in Ohio executions last week means there are 148 inmates on Ohio's death row with uncertain futures. Ohio's death penalty is currently under scrutiny, largely due to opposition that's been raised from documented failures to follow protocol in state executions. In January, Federal District Court Judge Gregory…
Watch: Walk the Moon on NBC’s ‘Last Call’
Cincinnati's Walk the Moon has been on a roll for about the past year and half but now that the band has a physical release out on its new major-label home, RCA Records, things are starting to move even faster and more and more people are discovering the young Alt/Dance/Pop band's charming sound and great,…
Your Weekend To Do List: 2/17-2/19
If you usually spend February holed up in your apartment with a bottle of whiskey, Adriatco's and the latest season of Always Sunny, you might not know what to do with yourself this time of year now that it's actually decent outside. Don't worry, we've got your back. Put on some pants, open those curtains…
Squeeze the Day for Feb. 17
Music Tonight: With the release of Arrow on Valentine's Day, soulful rockers Heartless Bastards have returned to their home away from home — the touring circuit — and tonight they're back in Greater Cincinnati, their home before their current home (Austin) and the town in which they were birthed. Arrow is the Bastards' finest release…
Stage Door: Transmigration and Several Critic’s Picks
Andrew Bovell’s Speaking in Tongues is a complicated noir-ish tale of marital deceit and cryptic crime that unfolds more clearly because of its accomplished four-actor cast, including local professionals Bruce Cromer (who’s played roles as varied as Ebenezer Scrooge for the Playhouse to King Lear for Cincinnati Shakespeare) and Amy Warner (a regular at Ensemble…
Cincinnati Rollergirls Kick Off Season This Weekend
Roller derby fans won’t be able to catch the Cincinnati Rollergirls’ season-opening contest against Grand Rapids this weekend because it’s taking place in Michigan, but the group will host its second tryout of the season next week, leading up to their March 10 home opener against St. Louis. On Saturday the Cincinnati Rollergirls will get…
Imago to Host ‘Helping Hands Saturday’
The Imago Earth Center will host an event called “Helping Hands Saturday” on Saturday (duh), during which volunteers will break into groups and work outside clearing some honeysuckle, chipping trails and learning about various clean water issues. Volunteers will be taught about local water issues and how to monitor water quality. The event begins at…
Morning News and Stuff
Duke Energy announced Thursday night that it will help fund a campaign to raise private and government money to replace the outdated Brent Spence Bridge. It will cost about $2.3 billion to replace the span, which carries traffic from I-75 and I-71 over the Ohio River. Cincinnati Police Chief James Craig said an audit to…
Transmigration Festival Premieres This Weekend
Think Cincinnati Fringe Festival goes to college. This weekend, drama students from University of Cincinnati's College Conservatory of Music will strut their stuff as they create and execute every aspect of producing a play. The fourth annual Transmigration festival will feature five 30 minute works covering a spectrum of thought-provoking, creative topics. One, Booth, retells…
Who Is Jeremy Lin and What Does He Want?
Cincinnatians don’t generally follow a lot of NBA, but even those of us who would rather spend two hours golfing rocks into the Ohio River than watch 48-minutes worth of NBA hoops have heard about, seen highlights of and come to find interest in this Jeremy Lin dude. “Linsanity” is apparently very real. Here’s the…
Music Doc ‘Re:Generation’ Screens Tonight
If you're a hardcore devotee of the creative Electronic Dance Music (EDM) scene exploding across the world right now, the place you'll most want to be tonight isn't your favorite dance club, but a movie theater. That's because the intriguing documentary film Re:Generation Music Project is premiering simultaneously in theaters across the country, including locally…
Debut Bunbury Music Festival Unveils Headliners
Cincinnati's summer concert schedule got a lot cooler this morning, as organizers announced some of the performers at this year's inaugural Bunbury Music Festival, which will go down July 13-15 across six stages along the riverfront at Yeatman's Cove and Sawyer Point. Bunbury founder Bill Donabedian (who co-founded CItyBeat's MidPoint Music Festival and helped turn…
No Women Allowed (At First)
Two Democratic congresswomen walked out of a hearing today in the House after a Republican colleague blocked a woman from testifying about a new federal rule that will require most employers to provide free birth control. U.S. Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) left the hearing after House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell…
Squeeze the Day for 2-16
Music Tonight: Reggae music emerged in 1960s Jamaica, evolving from earlier Jamaican forms likes Mento, Ska and Rocksteady, and it didn't take long for artists from outside of its island birthplace to begin incorporating elements of the rhythmic style into their own material. American singer/songwriter Johnny Nash is credited with having the first Reggae-influenced hit…
Speaking of Global Biotechnology Corporation PR Troubles…
It has to be difficult writing press releases defending corporations’ PR challenges when dealing with such dubious commodities as chemically enhanced foods, cigarettes, alcohol, the occasional toy that rips little kids’ hair out but doesn’t get recalled because it’s too attractive to kids at the point-of-sale, etc. Reminds us of a Mr. Show clip where…
Monsanto Is Pissing a Lot of People Off
You poison one little French farmer and all hell breaks loose. Giant chemical-maker Monsanto yesterday announced it plans to appeal a Monday ruling that one of its herbicides in 2004 poisoned French farmer Paul Francois, who says inhaling a Monsanto weedkiller led to “memory loss, headaches and stammering”(coincidentally, these are the same symptoms of the…
National Make-Out Session Invades Fountain Square
Was your Valentine's Day lacking in the passion department? You'll have a chance to get hot and heavy — in public — this March during the First National Make-Out Session on Fountain Square. Dayton, Ky., native Shawn Blagg has organized this smooch fest in hope to counter-balance the daily negativity many experience in the news,…
McDonald’s Does Something Kind of Good?
Fast food conglomerate McDonald's isn't exactly known for its do-goodery for asses or animals. Despite the chain's greatest efforts, they just can't seem to catch a stroke of good PR. Just look at what happened when they launched their Twitter campaign, #McDstories, which ended up backfiring so severely that it's become the laughing stock of…
UC vs. Providence Live Blog! (Recap)
It was a late night at Fifth Third arena for our esteemed live bloggers, but the Bearcats came away with a much-needed Big East win. The 'Cats moved to 18-8 overall and 8-5 in the Big East. They're currently tied with No. 18 Louisville for sixth place in the conference. UC will host Seton Hall,…
I Shall Be Released: New Music Reviews
What a strange winter it’s been so far. As I formulate this intro, there is less than an inch of snow on the ground, which raises our total for this season to not quite 3 inches. That’s unbelievable. I grew up in Michigan. You know what we called 6 inches of snow? The first day…
Morning News and Stuff
Greater Cincinnati's index of economic indicators was flat in December, indicating weak job growth in the coming months, The Business Courier reports. The index held steady at 97.5, the same as in November. That indicates "poor employment growth through winter and early spring," said the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, which compiles the…
Spring Restaurant Week Coming Soon
Greater Cincinnati Independent restaurants will present their annual Spring Restaurant Week March 12-21. Each year during this event, local eateries offer diners special deals on a sampling menu. If you've been wanting to check out some new (or classic) area restaurants, this is the perfect chance to taste lots of dishes without dropping major cash.…
Rand Paul to Speak Locally
His father might be busy trying to score the GOP’s presidential nomination, but U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is taking the time to speak at a Town Hall-style meeting in Northern Kentucky next week. Paul is scheduled to attend an event organized by the Northern Kentucky Tea Party on Feb. 24. It will be held…
Squeeze the Day for Feb. 15
Music Tonight: Wayne Static, the finger-in-light-socket coifed frontman of (and braintrust behind) electronic-tinged Groove Metal band Static-X, released his first solo album, Pighammer, late last year. The recording was reportedly delayed due to contractual issues with Static-X's label, Warner Bros., which had dibs on releasing Wayne's solo work. Static ultimately was able to reclaim the…
Morning News and Stuff
In a reaction to economic sanctions pushed by the United States, Iran today stopped exporting oil to six European nations. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the nation would no longer sell oil to Greece, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Portugal. Also, he appeared on TV to announce that an underground bunker complex for uranium enrichment…
Music: Zola Jesus
The sounds that come from the pipes of this diminutive 22-year-old will more than surprise you— her presence is both powerful and savory, with meaningful lyrics and the emotion to match. Nika Roza Danilova — known on stage as Zola Jesus — has always had a passion for music; she began training herself in opera…
Art: Hybrid Structures
Printmaker Jim Williams sets himself strict limitations of size and color range but proceeds to produce a diverse, intellectually stimulating group of mono-prints for his current Clay Street Press exhibition. His artist’s statement describes the new work in Hybrid Structures as his “search for a visual equivalent to the daily dynamic interplay that occurs between…
Taft Theatre Announces New ‘Ballroom’
When the Southgate House in Newport closed at the end of last year, many music fans wondered if it would have any impact on the amount (and quality) of national touring acts coming to town in the future. There have been several encouraging signs that suggest area club owners and promoters not only have the…
Lawsuit alleges Enquirer layoffs driven by age
As The Enquirer staff braces for another reduction in staff, the paper and its parent company might not yet have seen the full fallout of its decision to cut staff last year. Two of the newspaper’s former editors, Joe Fenton and Cathy Ruetter, have filed an age discrimination lawsuit against the newspaper and The Gannett…
Hey, Obama: Mortgage Deal Falls Short
A t first glance, the $25 billion deal reached last week between state attorneys general and five major banks to provide mortgage relief to homeowners sounds like a good thing. In reality, though, it’s a case of bait and switch in which the banks get off too easily. Under the deal, the banks will have…
The C-USA Days Are Here Again
The University of Cincinnati’s conference future is beginning to look a lot like its conference past, and that’s not a good thing. Last week Memphis accepted a bid to the new-look Big East, which is suddenly starting to resemble the old Conference USA. With Memphis, there will soon be six of the original 12 C-USA…
Santorum, Election Playlist, Whitney
[HOT] Metal Misunderstandings Presidential hopeful Rick Santorum does not believe Heavy Metal is the “most dangerous force in America today” and responsible for tragedies like the 9/11 attacks and Obamacare, despite those claims made in a widely-circulated post titled, “Rick Santorum Declares War On Heavy Metal,” on the blog The Tyranny of Tradition. Metal fans’ disbelief…
Kenny Powers Is Coming Back Fucking Soon
Some television characters are so ridiculous, yet somehow so true-to-life, we have a hard time separating the actor from the role. Like Tina Fey’s Liz Lemon or Steve Carell’s Michael Scott, comedian Danny McBride has truly made Eastbound and Down’s Kenny Powers an extension of himself. (Go ahead, make a boner joke — Kenny would.)…
Feb. 8-13: Worst Week Ever!
WEDNESDAY FEB. 8 There are certain aspects of a son’s arrest story that a proud father can focus on rather than considering the fact that his own flesh and blood is potentially a delinquent (“He ran from the cops and it took two hours to catch him? Not surprised — kid’s a great athlete.”). U.S.…
