Music: Daniel Martin Moore
Despite a recent clueless review from the Indie tastemakers at Pitchfork (which should be worn as a badge of honor), Northern Kentucky’s Daniel Martin Moore continues to ride a wave of acclaim for his gorgeous debut for Sub Pop Records, the dreamy, folksy Stray Age. Later this month, Moore should pick up some more fans…
Valentine’s Day: Skyline Chili Romantic Dinner
Valentine’s Day can be a time for reflection. As good old-fashioned, red-blooded Cincinnatians, it might sometimes be difficult for us to decide whether it’s our significant other or our cheese conies we love better. Luckily, the Blue Ash Skyline offers romantically inclined chili lovers the best of both worlds with their seventh annual romantic dinner.…
Art: Surrealism and Beyond at the Cincinnati Art Museum
Museum-goers will get the chance to explore the complexities of enigmatic art movements when Surrealism and Beyond: In the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. While there are a few stellar examples in the CAM’s permanent collection (most notably Joan Miró’s Mural for the Terrace Plaza Hotel, which hangs across from the café), Cincinnati is not a…
Music: Eagles of Death Metal
Jesse Hughes is a self professed “bride of Rock & Roll,” a job I assume is similar to being Satan’s housekeeper: filthy, sweaty and invariably punctuated by the occasion stab of a rogue syringe. Hughes, the lead singer of the Arena Rock breakout sensation, The Eagles of Death Metal, seems to be reinventing the…
Art: The Factory Cats at Loveland Art Studios
Cat Lovers Alert! Loveland Art Studios on Main is hosting The Factory Cats, an art exhibit and auction. The Animal Rescue Art Project repeats its highly successful 2008 show, The Foreclosure Cats Art Project, with a group of cats and kittens found in an abandoned ammunition factory just north of Cincinnati. The cats, along with…
Sports: Broomball Championship
Although dodgeball, ping-pong, bobsledding and countless other obscure sporting events have already been tapped by Hollywood, there is at least one sole survivor that remains unexploited: broomball. Experience it in its organic form and witness the best of the best in action at the 2009 Broomball Championships at the U.S. Bank Ice Rink on Fountain…
Reds Still Look to Be a Year Away from Contending
Bob Castellini went on the radio a couple weeks ago to clarify that he is, indeed, excited about the upcoming Reds season. And who isn’t? The Reds season is baseball season, after all, and someone is going to win even if it isn’t the Reds. Castellini didn’t go so far as to say the Reds…
Push (Review)
Scottish director Paul McGuigan has a way of making even the most clichéd genre excursions reasonably entertaining (see the slick noir Lucky Number Slevin or the slick romantic thriller Wicker Park). Add Push to that list. McGuigan’s latest centers in the sci-fi world of psychic espionage, a place where “paranormal operatives” have the ability to…
Concrete Brunette
Chrissie Hynde moved back to Akron to care for her aging parents and quite possibly begin her own retirement. But, like so many times in her career and life, fate intervened. She opened a vegan restaurant, reabsorbed the Midwest atmosphere that defined her upbringing and then, after a six-year gap since the last Pretenders album,…
Onstage: Blackbird
A provocative play can take you to places you don’t expect, says Michael Evan Haney, assistant artistic director at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. That’s exactly what happened to him and what he expects will grab audiences who come to see David Harrower’s Blackbird. It’s a new work, winner of London’s Olivier Award for…
Onstage: Peter Pan
Staying with the same company for 40 years these days is a rarity. But Cincinnati Ballet Music Director Carmon DeLeone is an exceptional fellow, not to mention a cool, down-to-earth guy. Even he can hardly believe this season marks his 40-year anniversary with the organization. The Ballet’s Aronoff Center production of the all-ages favorite Peter…
Onstage: Dead City
New Stage Collective and Director Alan Patrick Kenny have brightened Cincinnati’s winterscape with a loud, lively, mixed-media production of Dead City that’s a little like watching fireworks. Explosions of words, thoughts, lights, sounds and images surge into view, glitter for a moment and then fade to black, readying the stage for the next explosion. It…
Music: The Pretenders
Chrissie Hynde moved back to Akron to care for her aging parents and quite possibly begin her own retirement. But like so many times in her career and life, fate intervened. She opened a vegan restaurant, began reabsorbing the Midwest atmosphere that defined her upbringing and then, after a six-year gap since the last Pretenders…
He’s Just Not That Into You (Review)
More of a romantic train wreck than a comedy, He's Just Not That Into You is like a moderated game of heartbreak musical chairs. Screenwriting duo Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein turned Greg Behrendt's and Liz Tuccillo's self-help book into whiny little movie about a group of interconnected, spoiled-brat Baltimore twentysomethings who either don't know…
Comedy: Pat Kilbane
“I’m not good-looking enough to be leading man,” says comedian and actor Pat Kilbane. “I’m just good looking enough not to be (cast as) a total dork, and it’s the same thing in life.” The Dayton native, best known for his three-year stint on FOX’s Mad TV, tries to navigate that middle ground on stage.…
Pink Panther 2 (Review)
The first reboot of The Pink Panther franchise with Steve Martin felt nothing like the manic absurdity of the Peter Sellers/Blake Edwards originals, but it made enough money to get a greenlight for a second installment. Besides Martin, who lately has become a comic performer in theory rather than through actual practice, the first film…
Valentine’s Day: Pure Romance Warehouse Sale
If you’re looking to get your significant other something more exciting than flowers or candy for Valentine’s Day this year, a quick trip to Loveland might be in order. Pure Romance is once again holding its annual warehouse sale, timed to coincide with the amorous holiday. The family-owned purveyor of sex toys, massage oils and…
Onstage: The Barber of Seville
Rossini’s comic opera is truly a star of stage, screen and television, from Nike ads to end credit music for the Beatles’ Help! and classic Warner Brothers and Woody Woodpecker cartoons. The original story is just as loony as Bugs Bunny’s take. The lovers Rosina and Count Almaviva enlist the wily barber Figaro to outwit…
Photos: Perkins Pickle Tasting Party with White Girls/Holy Ghost
Click the picture above to be transported to a photo gallery with images from the Perkins Pickle Tasting party at The Comet with White Girls and Holy Ghost on 2/7/09. Photos by Ashley Monk.
Random Ramblings
Another week of sports stories has washed ashore with some (like something or other about Alex Rodriguez but not the Kabbalah) sure to ring through our ears and eyes, ad nauseum like the Brett Favre Retirement Spectacle of last year.—- The Reds brought Daryle Ward and Jacque Jones aboard, which are moves I like. Last…
Reminder: Heartless Bastards on Letterman Tonight!
Set your VCRs or Tivos (or whatever it is you crazy kids are using these days to record TV shows) for 11:35 p.m. tonight, as the Cincinnati-birthed Heartless Bastards make their network television debut on Late Show with David Letterman. —- The band probably won't be on until about 12:25 p.m. or so, but I…
Gov. Sebelius Could Join Obama’s Cabinet
Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, born and raised in Cincinnati, appears to be the frontrunner for Secretary of Health and Human Services. She supported Barack Obama's presidential run early on and campaigned for him, including in Cincinnati. This position was originally to be filled by former Sen. Tom Daschle, who dropped out when it was revealed…
New Reds’ Anthem: What’s That Song?
By now, if you watch television at all, you've likely seen the commercials promoting the upcoming Reds' baseball season. And if you've seen the spot, you've probably thought, "What's that song?"—- I was completely convinced it was an obscure Queen song at first, with the dramatic Freddie Mercury-like vocals and Arena Rock-like bombast. Listening to…
Dead City (Review)
Celebrating New York back in 1928, lyricist Lorenz Hart got all gooey and romantic: “The great big city’s a wondrous toy, just made for a girl and boy. We’ll turn Manhattan into an isle of joy.” Writing in 2000, enfant terrible playwright Sheila Callaghan would have us think she sees only the careless, loveless, disassociated…
Ben Kweller, The Von Bondies, Roger Manning and More
Life displays the wisdom in old adages every day, and the current lesson is “Be careful what you wish for.” Just as the release sheets begin to burst with titles I’d love to cover, I uncover piles of discs I would have loved to have reviewed when they came out last fall. What’s a pathological…
Onstage: 1776
1776 isn't your typical Broadway musical. It’s a re-enactment of the Second Continental Congress in the days leading up to the severing of the formal ties between the U.S. and Great Britain. The cast is comprised of historical characters such as John Adams and Ben Franklin as well as a chorus of lesser-known people. Composer-lyricist…
Shafting the Poor: It’s What We Do
Cincinnati is once again planning to reduce, limit and even eliminate services for the most vulnerable in our community as a time when people with money are struggling. Those people who called “less fortunate” at religious services are supposedly preventing downtown from developing to its full potential.—- Serious limitations for social service providers is the…
PNC Pavilion Announces First 2009 Show
Did you miss out on getting tickets to Jimmy Buffett's annual summer concert at Riverbend Saturday morning? If you didn't get them within the first 10 minutes they were on sale, you were shit out of luck because they once again sold out almost immediately. Of course, you can still pay scalpers or online "resale"…
Locals in the National Spotlight
Yesterday, I came across several things that support the argument that Cincinnati-based music is garnering the most national attention it has in a very long time. I had to go to Kroger to fill some subscriptions, so I fought my way through the obstacle course of elderly people (afternoons at the grocery store is like…
Friday Movie Roundup: Dumpster Diving
February is a shitty month for movies. Apparently spent from months of pimping dozens of Oscar-season hopefuls — several of which were among the Academy’s typically questionable nominees for Best Picture — the big studios try to hide their creatively challenged, largely retread releases in the annual cinematic dumpster known as February. —- Only 11…
Life over Death
The Parole Board issued is recommendation today on the request for clemency in the case of Jeffrey Hill. In the state of Ohio a death sentence stands more often than it is overturned because, they say, it's to give the victim's family closure and a sense of justice. In the case of Hill, his mother…
‘Fossil’ Helps Host Group’s Event
Some people might call it the “Case of the Conveniently Disappearing Blog Item.” In an instance of revising history to suit changing political circumstances that would make old Soviet-style bureaucrats proud, a conservative anti-tax group has deleted a nasty blog item attacking a local official now that the person has agreed to help a fundraiser…
Enchanted Oasis at Krohn Conservatory
The early spring show is in full swing at Krohn Conservatory. An Enchanted Oasis reflects the classical design of Persian gardens. The kid-friendly displays feature activities, games and a fountain for splashing. Get more information about An Enchanted Oasis here.
Coraline (Review)
If you embrace movies as works of art and not just as works of commerce, then here’s why you should embrace Coraline: Not a frame of it looks like it was crafted with a thought to who might actually want to buy a ticket. I mean that as a compliment, and not a backhanded one.…
1776 (Review)
1776 isn't your typical Broadway musical. It’s a re-enactment of the Second Continental Congress in the days leading up to the severing of the formal ties between the U.S. and Great Britain. The cast is comprised of historical characters such as John Adams and Ben Franklin as well as a chorus of lesser-known people. Composer-lyricist…
Charlie’s Corner: 100 Meter Bong Hit
On a cool November night, a glorious freedom-leading individual raised a bong to his lips at a USC party and proceeded to inhale the silly smoke into his dolphin like lungs. As he exhaled after listening to "Battery" by Metallica from start to finish, his eyes watered up and he wondered how weird it would…
Rollergirls Back In Action
Do you like watching the home team win? Have the Bengals driven you to drink? Are the Reds making you fill your Prozac prescription early? Get to a Cincinnati Rollergirls match, one of the only winning sports teams in the 'Nati. In fact, I heard that the Bearcats were given an inspirational speech by the…
Despite Setback, IIN Musters On
The saga about how the city of Cincinnati should distribute taxpayer money to neighborhood groups goes on. Although City Council voted 5-2 Wednesday to not extend the contract for Invest In Neighborhoods Inc. (IIN) and instead begin administering the money in-house using city staffers, IIN still plans on holding a meeting tonight to discuss the…
Gem of the Ocean (Review)
Critic's Pick All too often, August Wilson is termed a great African-American playwright. That’s foolishness. Go see Gem of the Ocean at Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati (ETC) and tell me if you can think of a better script by any American playwright, one with more poetry, emotion or affecting characters. When I saw Gem, created…
Lectures: Dana Priest
Forget fictional characters like Lois Lane and Murphy Brown. Dana Priest is a real-life role model for delivering powerful investigative journalism that shakes the corridors of power. If it weren’t for Priest’s curiosity and persistence, most Americans probably never would have learned about their government’s use of secret prisons throughout the world and its practice…
Baby, It’s Cold Outside!
And the American Red Cross wants to make sure you survive the sub-zero temps and they're offering a number of helpful hints.—- If Your Car Gets Stuck… • Stay with your car. Do not try to walk to safety. • Tie a brightly colored cloth (preferably red) to the antenna for rescuers to see. •…
‘Cats Have Tournament Hope After Win Over Notre Dame
Larry Davis was just trying to act right during his first-ever postgame interview session after UC’s 93-83 win over Notre Dame Wednesday night at US Bank Arena. But Deonta Vaughn and Yancy Gates noticed Davis’ increased perspiration as he leaned across the podium to speak into the microphone, and they couldn’t help but relentlessly laugh…
Snow City
You might think that Dead City is a play about Cincinnati, especially after our second snowstorm in a week. But it's actually the next production coming to New Stage Collective, one of the "Gems of the Neighborhood," those hardy theaters that are, in fact, bringing new life to Over-the-Rhine, as described in CityBeat's cover story…
The Culmination of Corso Fest
The local multimedia festival celebrating of the life and legacy of Beat poet Gregory Corso, dubbed "I Gave Away the Sky," culminates this week with two events. From 7-9 p.m. Thursday is “The Nightest Night: A Reading Honoring the Poetry and Posey of Gregory Corso” at the Reed Gallery in UC’s DAAP building. Among those…
Cornbread Nation
On a recent Sunday night episode of Music from the Hills of Home, the radio show I host with Wayne Clyburn on WNKU (89.7 FM), a listener brought up an interesting and timely question: “How do you season an iron skillet?” The question came from a young man who said he’d just moved into a…
Behave Yourself
Before just about every theater performance I attend there’s an announcement about turning off cell phones and unwrapping candy in crinkly wrappers. (The latter always seems to evoke a chuckle for some reason.) Some of those warnings include beeping watches, pagers (does anyone still have a pager?) and photography, and the most advanced alert: mentioning…
Obama to the Rescue?
The world is screwed. I can’t help but feel that way after listening to Richard Cressey, president of Washington, D.C.based Good Harbor Consulting and a regular NBC News analyst, talk about the state of the world and how things could change under a new Obama administration. Cressey was the featured speaker of the Foreign Policy…
G. Bailey’s (Review)
Named after George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, G. Bailey’s, a new venture by the company that operates the Golden Lamb in Lebanon, carries the tagline “It’s a Wonderful Place.” Given the theme, I half expected to walk in and find TVs streaming “I love you, Bedford Falls” and the opportunity to order a…
Four Exhibits (Review)
It seems possible that the four concurrent exhibitions now presented at Carl Solway Gallery are meant to link abstract artists from the past to two contemporary artists who grapple with abstraction, color, humanity and nature. The full force of an abstract painter exploring the emotive potential of color and mark is exhibited in Joan Snyder:…
Music: Murder By Death
Concept albums have long been considered the kiss of death in Rock, but you couldn’t prove it with the history and catalog of Bloomington, Ind.,’s Murder by Death. When the group first assembled nine years ago under the moniker Little Joe Gould, their ranks included cellist Sarah Balliet and their sound was a blend of…
Murder By Death with The Builders and The Butchers
Concept albums have long been considered the kiss of death in Rock, but you couldn’t prove it with the history and catalog of Bloomington, Ind.,’s Murder by Death. When the group first assembled nine years ago under the moniker Little Joe Gould, their ranks included cellist Sarah Balliet and their sound was a blend of…
Race Is Only Skin Deep
Humans have tried for centuries to define, explain and rationalize racial categories with scientific, anthropological and personal experience influencing the end results. The Cincinnati Museum Center’s new RACE: Are We So Different? exhibition challenges the viewer to consider all of this and then talk among ourselves. “One of the most interesting things I find about…
Another Seven Days of Cincy Pride and Super Bowl Sex
WEDNESDAY JAN. 28The Republican National Committee is looking for a new leader after squandering its power faster than an American car company unforeseen war failures and recession led to the loss of dozens Congressional seats and the White House over the last four years. The Enquirer today reported that local Republican Ken Blackwell believes himself…
Performances of a Lifetime
All the world’s a stage, a famous writer once said, and we’re simply players on it. We have our exits and entrances, taking on many roles throughout our lives. The stage we play on today is Over-the-Rhine, the oldest, most abused and most misunderstood neighborhood in Greater Cincinnati. A cast of thousands awaits. There are…
Moving Music
Recently, I left my hometown of Cincinnati for Northern Kentucky. I’ll spare you the slight melancholic feelings I’ve felt leaving the city in which I was born and spent 95 percent of my life. Suffice to say, I’ll miss voting in Ohio. And I won’t miss Cincycentric things like Simon Leis, the CCV and Time…
A Great and Mighty Ship
Director Ron “OJ” Parsons knows something about playwright August Wilson. In fact, Parsons met Wilson on numerous occasions before his death in 2005. He’s in town to stage Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean at Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati (ETC), a year after assembling a production of Radio Golf for the same theater. One could make…
RACE: Are We So Different?
Take a look at the new exhibit at the Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal and hear from St. Xavier High School students as they experience it. Get more information about the Race exhibiton here.
Violin Man
Steve Lopez, a busy human-interest columnist for The Los Angeles Times, was walking back to his downtown office some years ago when he spotted a homeless man on a street corner who was dressed in rags and playing Beethoven on a battered violin. Homelessness isn’t unusual — sadly — on the streets of Los Angeles.…
Fine Dining on Valentine’s Day
Fine Dining on Valentine’s Day As you might have already heard, Jean-Robert at Pigall’s will be closing on Feb. 28. The four-star restaurant wasn’t making a profit, according to Martin Wade, who owns Pigall’s with his wife Marilyn. The sad part is that the public announcement was made on the same day the restaurant received…
RaceCarProductions (Profile)
In biology class, I learned that evolution was the passing of traits from parent to offspring between specific species. In music, evolution is just good business and might be the difference between success and failure. There’s a reason Lawrence Welk records have the same cultural capital today as Massive Attack CDs, despite their obvious differences.…
Just Do It
Like most great ideas, the RPM Challenge is simple: Write, record and complete an album in the year’s shortest, dreariest month. Begun locally in New Hampshire three years ago, the Challenge became a worldwide phenomenon with little forethought from its founders. “We just thought it would be a fun thing to do,” says Dave Karlotski,…
Art: Isn’t It Great To Be An Artist? at the Cincinnati Art Museum
Almost 15 years after Robert A. Lewis decided to bequest his collection of modern-era outsider/folk and contemporary art to a museum, it finally makes its debut at one firmly committed to keeping it. And, befitting the evolution of popularity of outsider art, what a strange trip it has been for Lewis. Isn’t It Great To…
Gregory Corso: A Note After Blacking Out
Until his death in January of 2001, Gregory Corso was one of America’s greatest living poets, but sadly very few people knew it. And now that he’s passed into the Vast he clearly should be immortal, but instead he’s been mostly relegated — and ever so wrongly — to the bottom of the heap of…
Sundance, The Boss and Phish
[HOT] Making a Spectacle on Sundance Musicians getting into acting is always a sketchy proposition (the opposite is also true: Joaquin Phoenix, please give up Hip Hop and go back to film immediately). But who would have thought that a musician becoming a talk show host would turn out so wonderfully? Elvis Costello’s new talk/variety…
Music: Black Owls
The Black Owls play a brand of ’60s Garage Rock/’70s basement roll. Definite déja vu dating back to the glory days of everyone from The Ramones to The Stones to The Kinks to The Clash. Hailing from Granville, Ohio, home to Denison University, brews and the Whitehead Angus Farm, Black Owls drummer and rear frontman…
The Heart of a Beat
Gregory Corso was a motherless Greenwich Village street kid who transcended his troubled childhood — including a transformative three-year prison stint at age 17 — to become a revered Beat Generation writer. Gustave Reininger’s documentary, Corso: The Last Beat, confirms the poet’s immense impact on his fellow Beat writers — the inner circle of which…
MidPoint Submissions Now Open
It seems like only yesterday that we were running all over Downtown trying to see a bazillion bands perform for the 2008 MidPoint Music Festival. Now, it’s time to start preparing for a bigger, badder, better MidPoint in 2009. Artists can now electronically submit their music for consideration to perform at MidPoint — which will…
Black Owls with Purple No. 7
The Black Owls play a brand of ’60s Garage Rock/’70s basement roll. Definite déja vu dating back to the glory days of everyone from The Ramones to The Stones to The Kinks to The Clash. Hailing from Granville, Ohio, home to Denison University, brews and the Whitehead Angus Farm, Black Owls drummer and rear frontman…
Finally, the Voters Prevail on Issue 5
Whenever Cincinnati Police Chief Thomas Streicher Jr. eventually decides to retire, city officials will be able to look nationwide for the best possible replacement. That doesn’t sound like a radical idea, but some special interests in this city have spent eight years and untold stacks of cash trying to prevent that from ever happening. Last…
Going Behind the Curtain
Forget fictional characters like Lois Lane and Murphy Brown. Dana Priest is a real-life role model for delivering powerful investigative journalism that shakes the corridors of power. If it weren’t for Priest’s curiosity and persistence, most Americans probably never would have learned about their government’s use of secret prisons throughout the world and its practice…
Keeping a Home Base Here
Keeping a Home Base Here I hope you don’t have to be a young dude to read the Living Out Loud column. I’m in my sixties, just like Mick Jagger, but I feel young at heart. I read Larry Gross’ “Stones in the Road” column (issue of Jan. 28) and could relate to it. I…
Is It Just Me or….
…do people in Washington D.C. not get the concept of economic stimulus? —- When money is spent on something like medical insurance for children, the money is not cash into the pocket of illegal immigrants (one popular and misguided PR spin I’ve heard). It goes to doctors and nurses (people who need jobs and spend…
Joaquin Phoenix Turns into Rapping Caveman?
I came across this picture of Joaquin Phoenix today, which triggered a memory of my lone interaction with him. I ran into Phoenix at a film festival party a few years ago. I remember thinking at the time that no one could possibly be less suited for the intense Hollywood glare than this guy. —-…
