Chesley Shills for ‘Mean Jean’
Prominent attorney Stan Chesley likes to paint himself as a Democrat, but critics say his real affiliation is trying to achieve and keep power. How else can one explain that Chesley is again holding a fundraiser for Congresswoman Jean Schmidt (R-Miami Township), the conservative lawmaker who was one of President Bush’s most loyal supporters?—- Chesley…
CityBeat Podcast 11: Fringe Festival’s ‘Success Show’
For this episode we recorded the Fringe Festival performance Success Show. It's a spoof of motivational seminars recorded by Janet Mitchell. Follow CityBeat's Fringe Festival reviews here. Suscribe to our podcast in iTunes or use our RSS feed.
Music: Little Joy
Drummers get a bad rap. Yes, there are tons of insane ones and the drummer jokes about skinsmen wanting to do their own songs are largely legit. But if Dave Grohl has taught us anything, it is to not underestimate the drummer as songwriter/frontman. Fabrizio Moretti, drummer boy for The Strokes, fights the stereotype with…
Onstage: Side by Side by Sondheim
Broadway musical fans have admired the musical output of Stephen Sondheim for a long time. After all, he wrote lyrics for West Side Story back in 1956, when he was 26 years old. Two decades later, he had notched 10 substantial musicals, and that was enough for a revue to round up some of his…
Events: Newport Gangster Walking Tour
The gangster’s paradise of old Newport sleeps beneath the family-friendly veneer we’ve come to know in recent years. The brothels, speakeasies, wise guys (and girls) and bootleggers are fleshed out in an eight-block walking tour. Expect to learn how Newport almost trumped Las Vegas (nearly becoming the nation’s gambling capital), about the local man who…
Events: Milk Money Release Party
Orson Welles is largely considered to be one of the best filmmakers ever. But what if he was so disappointed in all his work after Citizen Kane that he credited everything to Alan Smithee, the de facto made-up director of such shitty works as in-flight adaptations of Meet Joe Black and the pilot episode of…
Art: Greetings from Cincinnati at CS13
The much-anticipated opening of CS13, a new eclectic arts and performance venue in Over-the-Rhine, is finally upon us. Saturday, starting at 6 p.m., CS13 will celebrate its inaugural exhibition Greetings from Cincinnati, which features more than 150 takes on Cincinnati through homemade postcards. Contributions from all over the country make up the exhibition. Starting at…
Dance: Choreographers Without Companies
Previously, early June meant possible concern that the recent Cincy Fringe Festival might overshadow (if not overlap, as in the past) Contemporary Dance Theater’s always-anticipated annual "Choreographers Without Companies," a selective showcase of top new dance works. But this year the program features busy artists who also performed in popular Fringe shows: Karen Wissel from…
Events: Bomb Prom
Some of us were never cut out for the wild life of the Moped Army: Getting multiple mopeds stolen during a single summer and generally disliking energy beers can get you kicked right out of this social group. Luckily there’s the Bomb Prom, the culmination of the local Moped Army chapter’s annual rally and a…
Events: DAAP Fashion Show
While you get your inspiration fix for every end of the spectrum at the University of Cincinnati’s 58th annual DAAPWorks, make sure you stick around for the 2009 DAAP fashion show. This year’s show will be Web-casted at 8 p.m Friday from UC's Campus Recreation Center where women’s wear designer and DAAP alumni David Meister…
Comedy: Jason Stuart
“Ohio has been so great to me,” says comedian Jason Stuart, who is in town this week to headline Cincinnati’s Gay Pride festival. His career is humming along, working in films and making regular TV appearances. Personally, he admits things could be going better, though his distress does provide a lot of stage material. “It’s…
Events: Unheard Of Anniversary Party
Sneaker culture is a distinctly urban phenomenon, and Cincinnati has its own downtown HQ catering to cool kicks and the lifestyle and apparel that sneaker aficionados hold dear. The centrally located Unheard Of, which owner Nick Accurso likens to an “upscale Deveroes,” advertises itself as a “street pusher of rare goods.” The shop offers an…
Literary: Randy McNutt
The immortal King Records gets another jolt of well-deserved recognition with the publication of King Records of Cincinnati, the latest photo book by South Carolina-based Arcadia Publishing. Randy McNutt has long been immersed in the area’s music scene as both an independent record producer and as the author several music books, including the succinctly titled…
Literary: Carol Tyler
When I visited underground cartoonist Justin Green’s studio last year while interviewing him for our profile of his career and current work, I also had the opportunity to check out a few finished pages of his wife Carol Tyler’s work in progress, a proposed series of books designed to help veterans come to grips with…
Art: Magnitude Seven at Manifest Gallery
“Think small” is the mantra at Manifest Gallery for its annual Magnitude Seven show, tucked tidily into the little gallery. No work exceeds 7 inches in any direction, but there’s no limit on skill or inspiration. This year’s call for entries brought responses from all over the world; 27 artists from 14 states and three…
‘The Hangover’ Movie Review by Charlie
I rarely go to the movies anymore. I’m just too poor to spend $10 to see something I can download for free shortly after the release date. —- Well last night my landlord asked me to go see The Hangover with him for his birthday celebration. I decided it was a worthwhile investment because we…
Poe Classics Get Skewed Rock Opera Treatment
The epic spectacle of the Rock Opera: You either love it or hate it. And while it might not be as grandiose a venue as, say, Red Rocks, for such a majestic performance event, Covington’s Leapin’ Lizard Gallery hosts a one-time-only, Edgar-Allen-Poe-inspired musical/conceptual stage show this Friday, and it’s sure to reach for greatness. It’s…
This Is Why You’re Fat
Over the past several months, Senate leaders have been contemplating imposing an obesity tax on non-diet sugary drinks in an effort to help pay for a renovation of the country’s health care system and lower consumption of a product presumed to be a crucial contributor to obesity in the U.S. Congressional estimates state that a…
Fringe Festival: That’s a Wrap
At last evening’s finale party for the 2009 Cincy Fringe Festival, three “Pick of the Fringe” awards were presented: The Audience Pick, voted by theatergoers, went to Gravesongs (pictured), Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati’s intern showcase, a piece by local playwright Sarah Underwood written for the five actresses who spent this season at ETC (Rachel Christianson,…
Review: The Secrets Project
The Secrets Project is the last to open and among the least effective of 31 shows that have thrilled, delighted, entertained, astounded, irritated, bored, distracted and mystified audiences during the altogether successful 2009 Cincy Fringe Festival. Why Fringe managers allowed this show’s Cincinnati-rooted, Chicago-based producers, The Genesis Ensemble, to drag it into the former New…
Fringe Fest Ends Tonight
The 2009 Cincy Fringe Festival wraps up tonight. Starting today at 2 p.m., 18 different productions are presenting their final shows and both Film Fringe and Visual Fringe are wrapping up at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. Rick Pender reports that ticket sales have already surpassed Fringe organizers' goals, and today's beautiful weather should bring…
Just the Weekend Deets
Tonight The Lions Rampant play Fountain Square with the J. Dorsey Blues Revival and The Mysts of Time. Jake Speed and The Freddies are playing Northside Tavern. Southgate House hosts The Dynamites featuring Charles Walker, J. Dorsey Blues Revival and Daughters and Sons.—- Saturday Night is DANCE_MF: Dance in Disguise at Northside Tavern. Gerald Shell…
Harvard Beats Yale 29-29 (Review)
Veteran documentary filmmaker Kevin Rafferty looks back to his own undergrad days at Harvard in this surprisingly tepid reexamination of a 40-year-old football game. The director interviews 37 players, nearly all of whom recall the “landmark” game with a mix of nostalgia and regret, depending on which side of the ball they resided: Yale, a…
Cage the Elephant: Cage the Elephant
Coolness is an indispensable character trait for bands pursuing real success in today’s world, because if you don’t sound cool enough, the TV-viewing public won’t pay any attention to your crap. If you can’t rock a musically inoffensive yet still swaggerin’ jam that would work as a background track to a slow-mo Gossip Girl scene…
Rudo Y Cursi (Review)
Together for the first time since Y Tu Mamá También, Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna team up as soccer-playing half-brothers in Mexican director Carlos Caurón’s scattershot corn-fest Rudo y Cursi. The gulf between the sensibilities of Carlos and better-known big brother Alfonso Caurón is apparent right off the bat: Rudo and Cursi are the…
My Life in Ruins (Review)
Nia Vardalos, along with husband-and-wife producers Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, hit the big time by accident with My Big Fat Greek Wedding, so they figure let’s try it again with My Life in Ruins. This time, Vardalos is an uptight American with a degree in ancient history who is slumming as a tour guide…
Review: April Fools
Critic's Pick They’re out chatting up the audience before the show begins, the April Fools, natty in costumes derived from Brooks Brothers but veered so far from that decorous house as to be unrecognizable to the source. Summer cord suit jackets, an argyle sweater, a bow tie worn boldly as a chocker. And everybody barefoot,…
Night at the Museum: Battle at the Smithsonian (Review)
I never saw the first Night at the Museum, but there are times when you just know everything you need to know about a movie from a trailer, especially those aimed at the broadest audience possible. And this latest installment looks just as silly, mainly because I’ve come to realize that I just don’t have…
Ryan Bingham, Iggy Pop, Daddy, Elvis Costello and More
Another crazy week in Bakerville and it’s only going to get more hectic as the weeks proceed. My daughter’s last day of school is next Thursday (she’d have been off this week if Hurricane Ike hadn’t devoured her snow days last September) and once she’s home for the summer, my daily schedule gets slightly more…
Friday Movie Roundup: Summer Heats Up
As if rising with the temperature, the second quarter of the movie season is shaping up pretty nicely. After months of stagnation, the Esquire and Mariemont theaters have finally mixed up their bookings in recent weeks, bringing in such worthwhile (if often little-seen) fare as Anvil! The Story of Anvil, The Class, Examined Life, Is…
Tonight’s TA DO’s! KABOOM SHABOOMS!
MidPoint Indie Summer Series is on Fountain Square this evening (7 p.m. start) starring J.Dorsey Blues Revival, Mysts of Time and The Lions Rampant. But you already know this, man. Immediately following, cross the crick to Newport for The Dynamites featuring Charles Walker at the Southgate House. —-Not familiar? Seriously? Well then, it’s time my…
Stage Door: Fringe. Fringe. Fringe!
I have three words for you regarding theater-going this weekend: Fringe. Fringe. Fringe. If you haven't dropped in yet for this stimulating festival of push-the-envelope performances, you're missing out on the greatest dose of annual creativity that we get here in Cincinnati. And a lot of your friends have already caught on: Fringe Producer Eric…
CityBeat Podcast 10: Haunting the Dent Schoolhouse
While Halloween is still months away for most of us, the folks who run the Dent Schoolhouse, one of the area's most popular haunted houses, are hard at work retooling their frights for the crowds this fall. On this episode we'll take a walk on the dark side for a behind the scenes tour of…
Mayor Loves Paris in the Springtime
By now everyone who cares — and many who don’t — know that “she’s not quite an actress but she did have a really bad reality TV show and a popular sex tape” star Paris Hilton was in Cincinnati Wednesday night for an appearance at Bang nightclub.—- Hilton was accompanied by her boyfriend, baseball player…
Band Lineup Announced for Northside 4th Fest
The Northside Rock ‘n’ Roll Carnival and 4th of July Parade and Festival may be saddled with one of the most cumbersome titles imaginable. (Try to abbreviate it and even then it sounds like some kind of nonsensical engineering code: NRRC4JPF—holy shit!) But that’s simply because there’s so much going on that a simpler name wouldn’t capture…
Blues Challenge Results in Familiar Winners
This past Sunday at Germania Park in Colerain, oodles of top local Blues musicians competed in the 11th annual Cincinnati Blues Challenge
The Day the Music Died … Again?!
"AAAANND welcome to 97.3 The Wolf!” Um, what? I wouldn’t preset a Country station on my car stereo if my life depended on it. I flipped around frantically, trying to find The Sound instead of the bumpkin bonanza that was currently wreaking havoc on my speakers. Zilch. Gone. I later found out that The Sound,…
Sheriff’s Request Misses the Boat
This week’s issue of CityBeat, which hits the streets today, features a column about Hamilton County Sheriff Simon Leis Jr. and his request to use a $98,000 federal grant to buy another speedboat. At least two of the Hamilton County commissioners — Democrats David Pepper and Todd Portune — were ready to accept the money…
C&D Record Bar Is Newport Vinyl Heaven
When you say the letters “C&D” to any member of Cincinnati’s hip, bar-going, Shake-It-haunting scene, most people will nod their heads in recognition, knowingly acknowledging the “Complete Dive” on the corner of Hanfield and Witler, a block down from Chase. Now append the words “Record Bar” at the end of “C&D” and quite a few…
Random Sports Ramblings
I went out of town and you wouldn't believe the things I saw! It sure was different! As you can see, I've been working on my leads and intro paragraphs. I spent a week in Maine and had more fun watching the New England Sports Network I ever could have imagined. My little brother went…
Votto Struggles to Get Back on the Field, XU Baseball Struggles Against the Big Boys
Torn ligaments and pulled muscles are everyday fare in sports. Injuries are part of life, especially in baseball, where real life happens every day. It’s often been noted that baseball players take on the strangest injuries. It’s likely, though, that the same physical ailments, if not worse, often strike basketball and football players — the…
The Secret Garden (Review)
At The Carnegie, director Greg Procaccino, producer Joshua Steele and music director Alan Patrick Kenny have devised a Secret Garden that is good looking and difficult listening. Leading performances are fetching — especially Ty Yadzinski as a dour, bedeviled widower and Charity Farrell as the cheeky then cheerful orphan who discovers the locked garden and…
Mead-eorology
Cincinnatians would have to cross an ocean and endure multiple layovers to behold the crippled remains of an authentic Viking mead hall, where epic heroes like Beowulf spent their Friday nights getting hammered and exchanging tales from the Warfield. These halls, which were once roaring with brutish cries of celebration as honeywine flowed like waterfalls…
Caprica
Maybe it’s because the fad hasn’t worn off, but prequels seem to be far less objectionable than sequels. It makes sense in that with a prequel you have to be somewhat loyal to an end point, whereas a sequel has to make up a bunch of new stuff that might or might not live up…
Denim Road (Profile)
A good band reflects its collective influences, a great band transcends them. Denim Road folds its members’ long musical histories into a hybridized synthesis of sounds they love and sounds they’ve already made. As a result, the sextet’s eponymous debut exudes a soulful Pop vibe that is comfortably, classically familiar, like an album you’ve heard…
Ward of the Strings
Ward of the Strings Singer, guitarist and Nashville native Jenny Ward spent a good chunk of her prime braving an often-stagnant life in a series of small Midwestern towns. Hey, a little misery always brings out the best in a singer/songwriter. Luckily, Ward channeled the frustration and ennui of her situation, wrote a bunch of…
June Dining Flings
From the long-awaited opening of Shhhhh to Newport’s Italian Fest, this month promises plenty of dining adventures. On May 15, Mayor Mark Mallory cut the ribbon for College Hill’s Shhhhh Restaurant and Deli (5915 Hamilton Ave.), an opening almost as anticipated as Bootsy’s. Maybe it was the intrigue of the conversion of an old, abandoned…
Best Band Merch, Fees Waived, Fucked News
[HOT] BEST BAND MERCH OF THE YEAR Who doesn’t love a Snuggie? Those ingenious blankets with armholes and sleeves (which we like to call “backwards bath robes”) have become a national sensation, and now one of the world’s premiere Pop/Rock acts wants in on the action. Sure, Weezer could have commissioned its own “Sweater (Song)…
Urban Legends
A couple of weeks ago I was sitting with Tom Wolfe outside his Tom’s Pot Pies restaurant near the corner of Court and Vine streets downtown, and he suddenly pointed his long arm like a basketball center about to dunk. “That’s the dwarf,” he said dramatically, his eyebrows pointed for emphasis. I looked, but just…
Writing Letters
Writing Letters I finally got around to reading Larry Gross’ Living Out Loud column “The Last Real Letter” (issue of May 27). I probably would have sent him a letter if I knew his address! Pen pal groups still exist all across this country. Sure, you can do it the Internet way, but you can…
Buddy Miller Is Everyone’s Buddy
Buddy Miller, the “Buddy” in the upcoming “Three Girls and Their Buddy” concert — with Emmylou Harris, Shawn Colvin and Patty Griffin — that comes to PNC Pavilion at Riverbend this Saturday night, was having a great start to this year’s tour. Until the end of the show in their first city, Baltimore. As he…
CAM’s Plans for Next Season and Beyond
Before discussing the Cincinnati Art Museum’s recently announced plans for its 2009-2010 exhibition season, it’s worth noting that the museum is coming off a high point. The just-concluded Surrealism and Beyond show of work from the Israel Museum in Jerusalem drew more than 40,000 visitors — the most for a CAM exhibition since 2004’s Petra:…
Safe at Home
Cincinnati officials are considering a major policy shift on helping homeless people that could result in many getting their own homes. Based on the recommendations of an advisory group, City Council might reallocate some of its funding into a “Housing First” approach, which focuses on creating individual, temporary and permanent housing units for single homeless…
May 27-June 2: Worst Week Ever!
WEDNESDAY MAY 27Socialist governments that want to mortgage our children’s futures aren’t the only entities finding symbolic messes from protesters on their front steps these days. The Oxford Press today reported that a group of health-care-reform activists delivered a couple of sacks of metaphorical dirty laundry to U.S. Rep. John Boehner’s office to demonstrate how…
Under Full Sail: Silent Cinema on the High Seas
Flicker Alley, a leading curator, restorer and distributor of lost and forgotten cinema gems, digs up a particularly niche bunch for its latest collection. Under Full Sail: Silent Cinema on the High Seas details early celluloid depictions of the grand vessels that sailed the world’s waterways at the end of the 19th and beginning of…
Dillinger Four with Japanther
Should Punk Rock ever lead to growing up? Such is the quandary that the aging delinquents of Dillinger Four have been silently pondering. After letting some fightin’ words free with 2002’s Situationist Comedy, the group spent six years promising a fourth album until Civil War finally made it out in October. If you’ve got loyal…
Getting Schooled
I’m Joe Wessels, HSD. Yeah, that’s right, I have a high school diploma. I earned it in 1992 from Colerain High School. After graduation, I spent a fall cutting grass and shoveling frozen dirt from one pile to another at Maketewah Country Club. Then I took the golf course superintendent’s advice and insistence and enrolled…
Sheriff Goes Overboard Again
I believe in giving credit where credit is due, and this is an instance in which a local Republican is right and his two Democratic colleagues are flat out wrong. Hamilton County Sheriff Simon Leis Jr. wants to spend a federal Homeland Security grant to buy a $98,691 sport cabin boat, which his office will…
The Hangover (Review)
To its credit, The Hangover transfers to the audience the smelly, still-inebriated state that the title promises. Director Todd Phillips (Old School) is nothing if not relentless in his pursuit of a full sack of masculine stupidity at the hand of drink, drugs and the dubious charms of Las Vegas. In the interest of their…
Masters of Puppets
Don Quixote’s tilting at windmills is legendary, but who remembers him attacking a puppet theatre? You’ll find it in Part II, Chapters 25 and 26, of Cervante’s masterpiece, or in its transformation as puppet opera by composer Manuel de Falla. Master Peter’s Puppet Theatre has its regional premiere in a co-production by Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra,…
Mission Accomplished
Fifteen years ago this week I began working on a plan to start a new weekly newspaper in Greater Cincinnati. Tom Schiff agreed to fund my business plan, and I had three months to figure out how to staff, sell ads, produce, print and distribute the paper and to project revenue and expenses for the…
13 Most Beautiful … Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests
Andy Warhol’s “screen tests” — in which he used a stationary 16mm Bolex camera to shoot silent, black-and-white 100-foot rolls of film studying guests to his Factory between 1964-1966 — are among his most mesmerizing and beautiful (and painterly) work. They have been too rarely seen. Plexifilm has partnered with Pittsburgh’s Andy Warhol Museum for…
Gomez with Jason Isbell
When British Psych/Folk/Blues quintet Gomez got started nearly a decade and a half ago, they were all around 18 and the personification of the title of their 2006 singles/B-sides compilation, Five Men in a Hut. They lived in close proximity, writing, rehearsing and recording at the drop of a hat. After winning the Mercury Prize…
Fashion Inspiration: Circular Beauty
Looking at the artwork of a friend of mine, I started thinking about how his work related to the fashion and style around us. Clint Colburn is a Lexington based artist known for using circles of all sizes to create a larger harmony within a larger picture. This works the same within the fashion realm.…
