Interview with Mayhem Fest’s Trivium
The Mayhem Festival takes over Riverbend July 20 and CityBeat will be featuring bands throughout the week leading up to the festival. Trivium is one of the groups playing this year, represent the new school of Metal at its best. The band, out of Orlando, is signed with Roadrunner Records and its fifth studio album,…
Jac Loves ‘Ice Loves Coco’
Plenty of people have a favorite celebrity couple. You've got Jay-Z and Beyonce, Posh and Becks, Jada and Will Smith and Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie — a couple so famous together, they've morphed into one entity known as Brangelina. Side note: I had a Friends-obsessed high school pal who quite literally slipped into a…
Literary: Donald Ray Pollock
Donald Ray Pollock's debut short-story collection, 2008's Knockemstiff, was something of an unexpected sensation — unexpected in that Pollock was a first-time author at age 53; a sensation in that the stories were driven by a visceral, sharp-edged prose style and an uncommonly artful narrative thrust as sensitive as it was savage. Knockemstiff was rightly praised…
Events: Queen City Sausage Festival
It's summer. Barbeques burn at full bore and the smell of sumptuous grilled food drifts through neighborhoods. Burgers, steaks and chicken sizzle and make mouths water. This festival is part European, part American and all Cincinnatian. It’s about sausage, hot dogs, brats, metts, smokeys, Old Fashion Jumbo Dinner Franks, foot longs, chorizo, Italian Sausage, Leona…
Music: Buffalo Killers
It’s easy to think that Buffalo Killers stopped being a local band after Chris Robinson tapped them to open for the Black Crowes tour five years ago. The Gabbard brothers — guitarist/vocalist Zach and bassist/vocalist Andrew — and their drummer, Joey Sebaali, had recently retooled Thee Shams into Buffalo Killers, and their eponymous 2006 debut…
Music: Death of Paris
In 2009, upon the dissolution of their previous, well-received band This Machine Is Me, singer Jayna Doyle and guitarist Blake Arambula reached a common crossroads almost all artists come to at some point in life. When a band you've invested a lot of time in comes to a halt, it causes a bit of an…
Events: Cincinnati Boutique Sale
Every girl dreams of having a giant closet (at least I do), and a "closet" really can’t get any bigger than the empty former Anthropologie store in Rookwood Commons. The Cincinnati Boutique Sale is transforming this blank space into a three-day boutique binge with independent stores from all over the area coming together to create…
Onstage: Bedroom Farce at Cincy Shakespeare
There is nothing very profound about Alan Ayckbourn’s Bedroom Farce, the British writer’s 1975 play that was a Broadway hit in 1979 and nominated for a Tony Award that year. That’s what makes it a fine offering for Cincinnati Shakespeare Company (CSC), which has stepped up to provide our summer theater scene with light, frothy…
Comedy: Steve White
Steve White will likely talk about anything when he’s doing stand-up. “Anything,” he insists. “Current events, not a lot of politics, but I dabble in it. Male, female, race relationships, hypocrisy, marriage and children. The more I live the more I have to talk about.” An accomplished thespian, White won the best actor award at…
Music: Donald Malloy
To categorize Donald Malloy’s musical expression as eclectic is a bit like calling New York City a quaint little town. Malloy grew up in Cleveland Heights in a household that followed Ifa traditions and African praise music, which introduced him to drumming and singing. Malloy picked up the trumpet in school which inevitably led him…
Music: Lucinda Williams
Sometimes in pop music, they have to invent a new category — a new genre — in order to describe a singular artist’s musical approach. It happened with Elvis (Rock & Roll), Ray Charles (Soul), Bob Dylan (Folk Rock) and The Sex Pistols and their mid-1970s British brethren (Punk). While it would be an overstatement…
Onstage: Eugene Onegin
After years of writing about classical music and opera, I’m actually in an opera as a supernumerary, the operatic equivalent of an extra. My role: a Russian peasant peeling potatoes in the first scene of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. The audition was easy: fill out a form and be photographed next to a measuring stick. Less…
Music: Rock the Boat Part II
Locked and loaded for another depraved American Rock & Roll circus on the great Ohio River, local outfits Suburban Revival and Rootbound will share the stage for round two of Live Loud Industries’ Rock the Boat concert series at Riverside Marina (Dayton, Ky.) Thursday, graciously providing a suitable soundtrack for attendees to hijack an express…
Music: The Get Up Kids
Seven years ago The Get Up Kids imploded after touring their 2004 album Guilt Show in a blow-up that was so well documented it’s natural to wonder what’s kept them together since their 2009 reformation. "We get away from each other," Kids frontman Matt Pryor says. "It was a weird transition, going from guys who…
Art: Wexner Center Exhibits
For a sexy summer day trip, get over to Columbus to see the Wexner Center for the Arts’s trio of erotically charged exhibitions before they come down on July 31. Double Sexus brings together work by Louise Bourgeois and Hans Bellmer. Sculptures, drawings and prints from their respective careers have been curated into sections based…
Events: OTR Pool Party
If you're looking for an adventurous way to top off your weekend, consider dumpster diving in Over-the-Rhine. That's right — Cincinnati is taking cues from other cities' summer celebrations and converting an ordinary dumpster into a certified swimming pool. It's happening Sunday thanks to City Council candidate Chris Seelbach's latest bash to raise campaign cash.…
Art: BookWorks 12
Although the Internet is
Fake Hands Release Debut Studio Effort
Saturday at the Southgate House’s Parlour, area Indie band Fake Hands celebrates the release of its first studio project, the EP Here We Are After Dark, which follows a pair of self-recorded and -released efforts. The five-track release is an excellent introductory calling card for the relatively new band, which features four core members and…
Morning News and Stuff
Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown today accused Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers of employing criminals to obtain confidential information about his private life. Brown’s accusations come a day after questions were raised about how The Sun obtained confidential information in 2006 that Brown’s infant son had cystic fibrosis.—- "This was a culture in both The Sunday…
Squeeze the Day for 7/12
Music Tonight: Orgone was a pseudoscientific concept concocted in the ’30s based on the idea that good mental health was tied to uninhibited sex. Not surprisingly, artists embraced the theory. A collection of musical artists from Los Angeles adopted it as a band name and tonight, the nine-piece Funk/Soul band performs at the Southgate House…
Zookeeper (Review)
Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison production company trots out Kevin James as a zookeeper in charge of a rowdy menagerie of talking animals and two women (Leslie Bibb and Rosario Dawson) battling for his affections. James steps into his usual nice schlubby-guy persona and throws the same slow-pitch game we’ve seen on the big screen and…
Horrible Bosses (Review)
The latest shamelessly vulgar comedy to hit multiplexes opens by introducing its three longtime buddies at their respective workplaces. Nick (Jason Bateman) is a white-collar workaholic who's been slaving away for months in anticipation of a coveted promotion. Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) is a genial employee at a small chemical company whose fortune changes overnight when…
Vice, Black Lips Curate Uncapped Cincinnati
Vice — the cool, ever-emerging media empire that includes a popular, irreverent magazine and record label — and raucous band The Black Lips have curated a mini local music festival set for this Thursday at MOTR Pub in Over-the-Rhine. The Lips (who opened for The Raconteurs for that half-local-band’s debut in Cincinnati a few of…
Morning News and Stuff
President Obama and top lawmakers are meeting at the White House this morning to talk about that whole deficit thing. Both Democrats and Republicans hope to slash the deficit by borrowing more than $2 trillion. Yesterday in a Cabinet Room meeting, Obama pushed for a “grand bargain” in the range of $4 trillion in deficit…
Interview with Goo Goo Dolls’ Johnny Rzeznik
Goo Goo Dolls have come a long way since they started in 1986 in the crumbling rust belt city of Buffalo, NY, where the band was probably started for no better reason than to kill time, make some music and hopefully get a few free beers from the clubs where they were lucky enough to…
Squeeze the Day for 7/11
Tonight’s Shows • A handful of Greater Cincinnati Pop/Punk bands team up at The Mad Hatter in Covington. Don't Wait Up, Boxwine, Fractures, Hello! Jersey, SixYearsLater and The Idiots on Parade are set to perform at the 6 p.m. show.—- • The free music on Fountain Square goes Jazz tonight. Regulars The Chris Comer Trio…
Friday Movie Roundup: Mixed-Bag Summer
It's been a mixed-bag summer at the movie house. Nowhere has that sentiment been more obvious than at the multiplex, where a smattering of offerings have been pretty solid (Bridesmaids, Fast Five, Kung Fu Panda 2, Super 8, X-Men: First Class) and a smorgasbord have been solidly (if not heinously) flawed (Bad Teacher, Cars 2,…
Kearney Hosts Small Business Forum
A state lawmaker will host two sessions later this month designed to give advice to small business owners on obtaining loans to start or expand a business. State Sen. Eric Kearney (D-9th District) is sponsoring the Small Business Credit Access Forum on July 28. The sessions will be held at the TechSolve Business Park, located…
Submarine (Review)
Newcomer Craig Roberts takes at least a pound and a half of inspiration from Bud Cort's romantically inclined misfit in Harold and Maude for his defiantly humorous portrayal of the 15-year-old Oliver Tate. However derivative of Catcher in the Rye Joe Dunthorne's source novel might be, screenwriter/director Richard Ayoade spins it into cinematic gold. Here…
Morning News and Stuff
Rupert Murdoch has decided to close the paper News of the World after the paper hacked into the cellphone of a missing teenage girl. British Prime Minister David Cameron and media tyrant tycoon Rupert Murdoch have since been in the midst of political turmoil. Today, Andy Coulson, a former editor at the paper and the…
Morning News and Stuff
Tim Pawlenty took a few jabs at his fellow GOP presidential candidates yesterday, saying that Iowa voters should examine the field’s accomplishments, not just their rhetoric, using his shift as Minnesota governor as a prime example of action speaking louder than words. “Candidates are going to come through Iowa and they are going to say…
Enquirer Makes More Cuts, ABC Pays Sources
The latest Enquirer purge — ordered across scores of papers by owner Gannett — took good people. So did earlier rounds. Because of her speciality, one victim stands out in last month’s dismissals: Peggy O’Farrell. Management’s decision that readers don’t want or need informed, local medical news leaves me wondering if undiagnosed dementia afflicts Enquirer…
42nd Street (Review)
There’s something elemental about the title song for the musical 42nd Street, currently onstage aboard the Showboat Majestic. “Hear the beat of dancing feet,” the lyric goes, “It's the song I love the melody of, Forty-Second Street.” Of course, the quintessential show about putting on a Broadway show, overcoming obstacles and finding a fresh young…
‘Winter Wonderettes’ Wins LCT Award
In my CityBeat column this week I shared the news that the Acclaim Awards are gone and that the League of Cincinnati Theatres (LCT) have stepped up to create a new awards program. The first two recognitions of the season have been awarded to Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati’s (ETC) Christmas-in-July celebration, Roger Bean’s Winter Wonderettes.…
Westboro Comes to Town
A small group of protestors from the controversial “God hates fags” church in Kansas marched outside downtown's Duke Energy Convention Center this morning to oppose another religious group holding its nationwide meeting there. The group from the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., picketed the North American Christian Convention, the annual meeting of churches, colleges,…
This Little Piggie Gets Tortured
Three years ago, floodwaters engulfed Iowa and swept hundreds of pigs down the Mississsippi River, sparking a rescue effort that moved over 60 survivors to new lives on sanctuaries. Last week Iowa's levees burst again, and its pigs took the national spotlight once more, to tell a different story. A hard-to-watch undercover video from the…
A Tavola (Review)
CRITIC'S PICK Pizza is America’s favorite food. It attracts almost everyone and offers so many possibilities in terms of toppings, crust and preparation. Most pizza places are content to be mundane, and many of those that strive for greatness sadly fall short. Despite the arguments over thick crust vs. thin crust or traditional toppings vs.…
A Bunbury in the Oven
A decade ago, Bill Donabedian and Sean Rhiney made Cincinnati history when they masterminded the MidPoint Music Festival. Four years after stepping away from MPMF to concentrate on his duties programming events on Fountain Square for 3CDC, Donabedian is ready to make history again with the Bunbury Festival, an annual three-day music event that will…
The World Is Watching
In a very alternative and “outsider” way, Raymond Thunder-Sky seems to becoming the next Cincinnati artist — after Charley Harper — to be discovered internationally. Harper, the Art Academy-trained Modernist long popular locally for his streamlined and colorful wildlife imagery, was championed late in life by the designer Todd Oldham. In 2007, he shepherded a…
Literary: Sapphire
Fifteen years after the publication of the powerful Push and two years after its successful screen adaptation, the Oscar-nominated Precious, Sapphire is back with a new novel, The Kid. A sequel of sorts to Push, The Kid gives voice to Abdul Jones, the son of Precious. The novel opens with Abdul at age 9, on…
Kevin Flynn and Robert Mecklenborg
[WINNER] KEVIN FLYNN: We hardily endorse the latest idea from Flynn, the Mount Airy attorney and Charterite who’s making his second run for Cincinnati City Council. Like a few other politicos before him, Flynn proposes that council incumbents forego their usual two-month summer recess and stay in session, working on a plan to avoid the…
More Bounce to the Ounce
Freddie Ross Jr., known to nearly everyone in his native New Orleans as Big Freedia (pronounced Free-da), is an iconic figure in several ways. On one hand, he is a flamboyant, larger-than-life representative of gay pride and member of the city’s Sissy culture, a local appellation denoting men with ambiguous sexual identities. A quick scan…
Music in Motion
This is not the chamber music of yesteryear. It’s hard to imagine a more artfully fun-filled summer evening of collaboration than what Concert:Nova has orchestrated for its season four finale on July 6. Audiences will get to delight in an original dance performance set to live, world-class chamber music in an unexpected space: outside in…
Beginners (Review)
“ Y ou think you’re you,” a man tells a dog named Arthur, before breaking it to Arthur, a Jack Russell, that his personality has everything to do with being bred that way. They’re just starting out — the man has inherited the dog from his dead father — but true beginnings are well-nigh impossible.…
Rumpke Forges Ahead with Landfill Plans
A group of concerned citizens who have been fighting the expansion of a local landfill for over four years insist they have no intention of giving up, despite facing several recent legal setbacks. The group, Property Owners Want Equal Rights (POWER), has been fighting the proposed expansion of Rumpke Consolidation Cos. landfill in Colerain Township.…
When Duty Calls, City Council Takes a Vacation
H ere are some important numbers that everyone who lives or works in Cincinnati should remember: 69, 84 and five. The first number, 69, represents 69 percent . That’s how much of the city’s General Fund budget is allocated to the Police and Fire departments . A mere 31 percent — less than one-third of…
June 29-July 5: Worst Week Ever!
WEDNESDAY JUNE 29 It’s refreshing to hear Cincinnati City Councilpersons discuss forward-thinking concepts — remember when they figured out a way to get the garbage picked up for free so no one had to pay for it? Buncha geniuses. The eight members of council who actually made it to today’s meeting (Cecil Thomas had something…
Art: Hard Knocks: Art Without Art School
In a very alternative and “outsider” way, Raymond Thunder-Sky seems to becoming the next Cincinnati artist — after Charley Harper — to be discovered internationally. Harper, the Art Academy-trained Modernist long popular locally for his streamlined and colorful wildlife imagery, was championed late in life by the designer Todd Oldham. In 2007, he shepherded a…
Remedying the Sound of One Hand Clapping
For the past 14 years, I’ve overseen nominations and public voting for the Cincinnati Entertainment Awards (CEAs) for theater. If you pay attention to such matters, you might recall that last August I announced with high hopes that the CEAs, a program created by CityBeat in 1997, would combine forces with the Acclaim Awards, a…
Summer in the City
First things first. Just to reassure Cincinnati eaters, we are not copying the Los Angeles food bloggers who have put together a cookbook where they pose naked with their favorite dishes. Nudie Foodies is not happening here. There is no benevolent cause good enough for that little adventure, thank you very much. I’m afraid that…
The Ladybug Transistor
The Ladybug Transistor’s sonic path over the past 16 years has typically shifted with the band’s membership. Under the constant tutelage of founder Gary Olson, LT has embraced avant Shoegaze/Pop (1995’s Marlborough Farms), sugary Psychedelia (2001’s Argyle Heir) and varying degrees of baroque Indie Pop (1999’s The Albermarle Sound) and its Folk/Country byproduct (2007’s Can’t…
Lovesick
Last week, I had a little time to kill before an afternoon appointment, so I went to Fountain Square to hang out for a while. Sitting at a table, I listened in on a conversation two young girls were having at another table to my left. “I haven’t seen Paul in over two days,” the…
Delicate Steve
Steve Marion certainly knows how to stir things up, in the studio and in the press. Back in February, David Byrne’s Luaka Bop label reissued Marion’s originally self-released Wondervisions, his debut effort as Delicate Steve, which was accompanied by a “press release” penned anonymously by Rock critic Chuck Klosterman. The renowned author of Sex, Drugs…
Group (Re)Think
Like many of today’s bands, Umphrey’s McGee has found itself debating the question of how to best release new music into the market. Some musicians and industry professionals have gone as far as to declare the album a dying format. Especially with younger music fans, the iPod and similar devices has changed the way they…
Morning News and Stuff
President Barack Obama will field a handful of Twitter queries in the first-ever White House town hall later this afternoon. Officials say the event is the latest attempt by the administration to use social networking to directly communicate with the public, bypassing the media. However, journalists will filter the questions.—- You too can partake in…
