Comedy: Jeremy Essig
Four days before he was to start graduate school at Miami University, Jeremy Essig dropped out and became a stand-up comic. “I wasn’t that keen on doing more schooling,” he says, “so I started telling jokes.” Prior to that, he had no desire at all to become a comedian. “It’s something that I was kind…
Music: Esme’s Blues Benefit Concert
The murder of young SCPA student and aspiring artist/musician Esme Kenney touched our city deeply, and Cincinnati's arts community took it especially hard, responding with benefits and memorials ranging from a composition named in her memory at the recent MusicNOW festival to the planned sculpture memorial at the new SCPA building to innumerable charity concerts…
Music: Arctic Monkeys
Arctic Monkeys’ latest release, last year’s Humbug, was co-produced by Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme and was the band’s third consecutive UK No. 1 and U.S. Top 25 album, spawning a number of successful singles and EPs (all with quality B-sides, a tactic that's fueled their chart rise), including their latest, My Propellor.…
Lectures: Wendell Berry
Long before the documentary Food, Inc., before the locally-grown organic food movement and before modern omnivores even realized the dilemma they faced, Kentucky farmer and writer Wendell Berry championed sustainable agriculture with The Unsettling of America, a manifesto against the government's “get big or get out” advice to farmers. Now 76, Berry — author of…
All in the Feeling
More than a few mouths fell open when it was announced that Kristen Stewart had been tapped to play Joan Jett in The Runaways, a biopic about the pioneering all-girl Punk/Metal group’s rapid rise and debauchery-fueled fall in the late 1970s. Really? The dopey, perpetually lovelorn girl from Twilight is going to play the leather-clad,…
Sarah Center Is a Hidden Gem
When Sister Jeanette Beuhler arrived in Over-the-Rhine 15 years ago from The Sisters of the Precious Blood in Dayton, she recognized the need for a safe place where impoverished women could go for a reprieve from the harsh realities of their everyday lives in the troubled neighborhood. She quickly helped St. Francis Seraph Church create…
Bacall’s Cafe (Review)
Sometimes I'm in the mood for a dive with cheap burgers and bad coffee where the waitresses lose pencils in their crunchy hair-sprayed updos. Other times I prefer a night out with a leisurely dinner and pricey food, where the cloth napkin is ever so gently placed in my lap by a waiter or waitress…
Art: American Idols at Fabricate
Young artists in Cincinnati can be educated through the renowned art and design programs at a number of our local colleges. But before that, some of our art students are getting a head start at the School for the Creative and Performing Arts. On Saturday, the hip gallery/shop Fabricate in Northside opens a new exhibition…
Art: Breakups R Tough at U.turn Art Space
Failed romantic relationships are the subject of Breakups R Tough, the new group exhibition at the collectively run U.turn Art Space through April 24. The artists featured in the show — from Cincinnati, San Diego, Chicago, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Providence and Columbus — are Shawnee Barton, Stephanie Brooks, Alex Da Corte, Craig Damrauer, Erica Eyres, Lynne…
Cincypunk Fest 9 (Night 2)
We might not have a Bonnaroo or a Lollapalooza, but Cincinnati is pretty rich when it comes to music festivals … especially if you're a fan of local music. Throughout the year, locally-focused, multi-performer fests offer a chance for fans to see all their favorites at one event, but they're also fantastic opportunities for curious…
Music: The Bronx
A few years ago, Matt Caughthran suffered from a particularly potent case of writer's block. During the development of 2006's The Bronx, the second in a line of confusingly self-titled records from his L.A. band, the vocalist was troubled by a song that had bounced around his brain “forever.” The event that shook those words…
Crazy Like a Fox
Foxy Shazam might have signed to super-conglomerate Warner Bros., but they’re not reining in their enthusiasm for unhinged craziness and uniquely eccentric creativity. Witness the recurring lyric from the spasmodically dancable “Bye Bye Symphony” from Foxy’s about-to-be-released eponymous major-label debut, a line at once wildly hilarious, supremely confident and nonsensibly pragmatic: “Life is a bitch,…
Cincypunk Fest 9 (Night 1)
We might not have a Bonnaroo or a Lollapalooza, but Cincinnati is pretty rich when it comes to music festivals … especially if you're a fan of local music. Throughout the year, locally-focused, multi-performer fests offer a chance for fans to see all their favorites at one event, but they're also fantastic opportunities for curious…
Events: Victory of Light Expo
The largest metaphysical convention in the region, the Victory of Light Expo, is back for its 19th year at the Sharonville Convention Center Saturday and Sunday. The biannual body, mind and spirit expo includes 50 different seminars on topics such as patapsychology, intuitive development, holistic healing, past life regression, spirit world and hauntings. The event…
Tempering the Tantrums
A few years ago, Matt Caughthran suffered from a particularly potent case of writer's block. During the development of 2006's The Bronx, the second in a line of confusingly self-titled records from his L.A. band, the vocalist was troubled by a song that had bounced around his brain “forever.” The event that shook those words…
Film: Cincinnati World Cinema: Oscar Shorts
Cincinnati World Cinema returns to save us from another thin week at the movie house. The locally based group with typically discerning fare presents its annual “Oscar Shorts & More” screenings April 11, 12 and 14 with a different lineup of programming each night at The Redmoor in Mount Lookout Square. Of particular interest is…
Music: Jakob Dylan, Neko Case, Kelly Hogan and Three Legs
Jakob Dylan, fighting to regain the long-lost career momentum he had with The Wallflowers’ 1996 multimillion-selling, Grammy-winning Bringing Down the Horse, is showcasing a new Roots Rock album, Women and Country. To show he means business on this disc, the singer/songwriter reunited with Horse producer T-Bone Burnett. The new album prominently features Neko Case and…
Music: Makeing Tents
What would happen if Animal Collective drugged Patti Smith and Bobby McFerrin, dragged them into its practice space and then shook them awake for a hallucinogenic jam session? Well, arrests would likely follow, but tapes of the sessions would totally be worth all the hassle. San Francisco trio Makeing Tents’ sound makes that unlikely collaboration…
Music: The Young Veins With Foxy Shazam
As recent exiles from Panic! at the Disco, Ryan Ross and Jon Walker currently espouse a take on recording music that stands opposed to the overcooked Pop-Punk they left behind. In Walker's case, that view involves urging fellow artists to exercise a greater sense of in-studio ad-libbing. Since he and Ross initiated The Young Veins…
Makeing Tents
What would happen if Animal Collective drugged Patti Smith and Bobby McFerrin, dragged them into its practice space and then shook them awake for a hallucinogenic jam session? Well, arrests would likely follow, but tapes of the sessions would totally be worth all the hassle. San Francisco trio Makeing Tents’ sound makes that unlikely collaboration…
Esme’s Blues Benefit Concert
The murder of young SCPA student and aspiring artist/musician Esme Kenney touched our city deeply, and Cincinnati's arts community took it especially hard, responding with benefits and memorials ranging from a composition named in her memory at the recent MusicNOW festival to the planned sculpture memorial at the new SCPA building to innumerable charity concerts…
Onstage: Bury the Dead
When Irwin Shaw wrote his first play in 1936, he was just 23 — the age of the soldiers he described in his expressionist drama, Bury the Dead, about a group of soldiers killed in battle who refuse to be buried. Shaw was just a little bit older than the drama students from UC’s College-Conservatory…
Date Night (Review)
At first glance, this doesn't seem like the kind of comedy that would succeed or fail on the basis of its stars, but pay close attention to the payoff scenes and consider whether any of it is funny without what they bring to the table. Phil Foster (Steve Carell) and his wife Claire (Tina Fey)…
The Young Veins with Foxy Shazam
As recent exiles from Panic! at the Disco, Ryan Ross and Jon Walker currently espouse a take on recording music that stands opposed to the overcooked Pop-Punk they left behind. In Walker's case, that view involves urging fellow artists to exercise a greater sense of in-studio ad-libbing. “They'd all be enjoying themselves a lot more.…
Joan Armatrading, Barenaked Ladies, She & Him, Frank Black, Holly Golightly and Scott McKeon
Not a lot to pontificate about at the top here this week. I was sick most of last week, which kept me on task, since — thanks to packed sinuses, tissue breaks and an abundance of screen staring — every task took three times as long to complete. A single 800-word story took me nearly…
Arctic Monkeys
In 2001, suburban Sheffield, England teenagers Alex Turner and Jamie Cook learned guitar and formed Arctic Monkeys with high school chums Glyn Jones, Andy Nicholson and Matt Helders on vocals, bass and drums, respectively. Jones departed quickly, and Turner became the Monkeys’ frontman by default. After notching a few gigs in 2003, the Monkeys started…
Angels in America: Millennium Approaches (Review)
Critic's Pick I submit as Exhibit A for the strength of Cincinnati theater the current production at Know Theatre, Part I of Angels in America, Millennium Approaches. This powerful script deserves and demands strong acting, and some of the city’s best performers have risen to the challenge, guest directed by Cincinnati Shakespeare’s Brian Isaac Phillips.…
Back to the Future
“Hope springs eternal,” the old saying goes, but Reds fans have more reason than ever to look forward to the 2010 season. While attending a game at Great American Ballpark has always been a good time, it’s likely to be more enjoyable this summer since the team’s rebuilding plan has started to show signs of…
Jakob Dylan & Three Legs Featuring Neko Case and Kelly Hogan
Jakob Dylan, fighting to regain the long-lost career momentum he had with The Wallflowers’ 1996 multimillion-selling, Grammy-winning Bringing Down the Horse, is coming to town Saturday night to showcase a new Roots Rock album, Women and Country. To show he means business on this disc, the singer/songwriter reunited with Horse producer T-Bone Burnett. The new…
Opening Day Weather, Traffic, Preview [WCPO]
Get up-to-the-minute info on today's Opening Day festivities from our media partners at WCPO.com, including the latest weather forecast, traffic conditions, season preview and a poll asking what makes Opening Day so great. —- CityBeat's Isaac Thorn offers his own overview of the 2010 Reds.
34th Humana Festival of New American Plays
I recently spent three days in Louisville at the 34th annual Humana Festival of New American Plays. Actors Theatre of Louisville annually assembles a lineup of productions that offers a fascinating cross-section of contemporary American theater. I found this year’s array to be an especially pleasing collection of works: It included two excellent comedies, a…
Singin’ in the Rain (Review)
Critic's Pick Singin’ in the Rain, presented at the Covedale Center for the Performing Arts, is a true tribute to the film. Matt Dentino (as Don Lockwood) and Dan Doerger (as Cosmo Brown, both pictured) could have been plucked from the movie. Doerger’s Cosmo is especially a key component, keeping the comedic undertones noticeable. Some…
Friday Movie Roundup: McFly Revisited
The amusing, curiously lo-fi comedic diversion known as Hot Tub Time Machine revisits a moment in time not known for its significant cultural contributions (especially on a mainstream level). Who better, then, to appear in a movie that looks back with a nostalgic eye to the 1980s than Crispin Glover, one of the great, under-appreciated…
North Face (Review)
Writer/director Philipp Stolzl precariously filmed on the actual face of the Swiss massif, the Eiger North Face, to create a nail-biting Nazi-era historic drama so convincing that you'll get chilled to the bone like the mountain climbers on screen. Stolzl tells the 1936 story of skilled German Alpinists Toni Kurz (Benno Furmann) and Andi Hinterstoisser…
The Last Song (Review)
Dear John Takes a Walk to Remember is the mash-up title that best defines this latest Nicholas Sparks adaptation supposedly written specifically for Miley Cyrus. I’m showing my age and intellectual snobbery by laughing at the notion that anyone writes anything specifically for her, especially grown men. With the release of The Last Song, critics…
GOP Leaders Viewed Poorly
The weekly “State of the Nation” poll by Research 2000 found that President Obama is viewed favorably by 56 percent of respondents, compared to 39 percent who hold an unfavorable opinion about him. Five percent had no opinion. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-West Chester) had a whopping 64 percent unfavorable rating, with just 17…
Stage Door: Angels and Supermen
There's a lot of promising theater in town over the next few weeks, so if I were you I'd give serious consideration to getting a head start this weekend. Two good choices await you. Know Theatre of Cincinnati kicks off its presentation of the monumental 1990s classic Angels in America on Saturday evening when they…
New Plays: Tone-Deaf, Award-Winning
Last weekend at the Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville, I saw a piece about five tone-deaf sisters who nonetheless made their mark on the vaudeville circuit: Dan O'Brien's The Cherry Sisters Revisited. More than once I heard the play compared to Steven Temperley's Souvenir, the show about oddball singer…
Ex-Priest: Vatican Knew of Abuse in ’40s
A media furor has erupted over a “newly released” letter to Pope Paul VI that indicates he and the Vatican knew about child sexual abuse by priests almost 50 years ago. News accounts report the 1963 letter was released by attorneys in California who represented sexual abuse victims in the Los Angeles Diocese. In fact,…
Hot Tub Time Machine (Review)
Considering John Cusack produced this lackluster comedy romp wherein three fortysomething buddies travel back to their '80s-era heyday of sex, drugs and Rock '& Roll, Hot Tub Time Machine should at least feature some cool music ala High Fidelity. Instead of the Lords of the New Church, we get Poison and Motley Crue. After their…
Onstage: Angels in America: Millennium Approaches & Perestroika
Part I of Tony Kushner's classic '90s play about AIDS, Roy Cohn, Mormons and an angel finally has its first professional theatrical run in Cincinnati, directed by Cincinnati Shakespeare's Brian Isaac Phillips. Rob Jansen (pictured) plays Prior Walter, the central character, a gay man with AIDS who has premonitions of a world-changing event; Know Theatre…
Events: Fountain Day
Opening Day marks more than the start of the Reds season. It also marks the day when the Tyler Davidson Fountain is activated. Fountain Day gives the "Genius of Water" her own celebration with live music, speeches, food, drink and fireworks. Fourth Day Echo kicks off the event with live music starting at 6 p.m.…
Winner Badges
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Enjoy the Weather and Zoo with Wussy
Today is the most perfect day of 2010 so far weather-wise. Get out and enjoy it with two of the biggest names in local music this evening at the Cincinnati Zoo, where "Tunes & Blooms" takes place each Thursday in April in honor of the explosion of colorful blooming flowers in the Botanical Gardens (aka…
Fountain Square Hosts Chili Wrestling Symposium
UFC? Boring. If we wanted to see two dudes beat the crap out of each other, we’ll take our news editor to a Tea Party rally and slap a big “I Heart Karl Marx” sticker on his back. (Again.) WWE? We have sales staff meetings with more drama and fake blood. Jello wrestling? OK, you’re…
MusicNOW: Day 1
MusicNOW kicked off last night with performances from Fleet Foxes’ frontdude Robin Pecknold, who apparently played a solo acoustic set of new material (I arrived just as he was finishing), and Joanna Newsom, whose intricate songs proved the perfect aesthetic match to the ornate Memorial Hall. —- (Check Emily Maxwell’s photos of Day 1 here.)…
Alice In Wonderland: Classic Film Collection (Review)
Tim Burton’s latest has catapulted Lewis Carroll’s most famous creation back into the cultural limelight. Capitalizing on this, Infinity Entertainment Group has released a bare-bones single-disc assemblage of related shorts and features that span the history of cinema — some adhering closer to Carroll’s vision than others. Though raggedy, the collection contains a few gems.…
Coffee, Tea or Apathy?
The flavor of the Tea Party is likely to be unpalatable for people looking to become politically engaged without wrapping themselves in the American flag and parading around on horseback screaming, “Revolution!” But as of late January, the newly founded Coffee Party serves as an alternative for frustrated Americans to engage their political beliefs within…
Pop’s Last Dive, Ricky Martin, Cokie the Clown
[HOT] Iggy Goes Down (or Reason 3,419 Why Iggy Pop Is the Coolest Motherfucker Ever) In an interview with Rolling Stone, Iggy Pop announced that his stage dive during his recent appearance at a benefit show at Carnegie Hall would be his last. Rolling Stone’s Web site then posted a hilarious account of the ill-fated…
Northern Exposure
If you ever wonder what we’re missing by not having a strong regional film festival here, it’s worth taking a visit to Cleveland in March. There, a festival that does not garner national/ international publicity — in other words, it’s not a rival to Sundance or Toronto — nevertheless seems to captivate the city with…
Shapeshifter (Review)
In Country Club’s current group show, Shapeshifter, much of the work is flat-out beautiful, while what isn’t is still rewarding because it gives you plenty to think about. What’s beautiful is always a personal call, but who wouldn’t find Chris Radtke’s shimmering take on her own twinned form a splendid sight? Personal space and psychological…
Clash of the Titans (Review)
Once the Kraken is unleashed, Louis Leterrier’s retrofitted 3-D remake of the campy myth classic of the early 1980s is supposed to scale the mystical heights of glory and make us believe there's something out there that even the gods fear. The Kraken, as we're told during the introductory voiceover, was the spawn of Hades,…
Police Chief Mulls Officer’s Fate Amid Squabbling
After a seven-month internal investigation, the Cincinnati Police Department finally released its findings last week from a probe into whether Lt. Col. Michael Cureton, an assistant police chief, improperly offered a free police escort for R&B singer Jamie Foxx in exchange for 40 concert tickets. The tickets’ combined value was more than $2,700. Police launched…
March 24-30: Worst Week Ever!
WEDNESDAY MARCH 24Most people don’t venture into Reading unless they made a wrong turn on their way to Wyoming or they’re looking for a cheap used car part (a decent alternator is hard to find). The Enquirer today reported on another reason to visit: local business owner/ creepy dude Kenny Tessel’s scantily clad mannequin in…
Taste This: Gefilte Fish
One of the surprising things I’ve learned writing a column about random grocery store food items that seem “weird” or “gross” is that there's a strong potential for cultural insensitivity. The subjectivity of “ew!” can be touchy ground if you overthink it. I have yet to receive any angry emails from anyone peeved at the…
Art: Shapeshifter at Country Club Gallery
In Country Club’s current group show, Shapeshifter, much of the work is flat-out beautiful, while what isn’t is still rewarding because it gives you plenty to think about. The exhibition, smart and current (everything is 2009 or 2010), is co-curated by Matt Distel, Country Club director, and Linda Schwartz, now consultant to the gallery. Distel…
Music: Weedeater
For the first five years, Weedeater was more or less a side project. That all changed in 1999. With the end of both Buzzov-en and Shake, Weedeater became a full-time proposition and the band began devoting their complete attention to their five-year-old project. Word of Weedeater’s incendiary live shows began to spread which, coupled with…
Tea Party and … Tea Party
[WINNER] Tea Party: Credit must be given to the Cincinnati Tea Party for stepping up to the plate and condemning a suggestion by The Whistleblower online newsletter to stage a protest at U.S. Rep. Steve Driehaus’ home in West Price Hill. The newsletter urged people to show up March 28 and vent their ire for…
Music: Clifton Heights Music Festival
Clifton Heights has been doing what college neighborhoods should, showcasing live music by young musicians at venues like Baba Budan’s and Mac’s Pizza Pub and fueled by artists looking for a sense of community. The neighborhood isn’t quite Short Vine-in-the-’90s level, but the return of the Clifton Heights Music Festival this weekend is another hopeful…
Not Being There
On the afternoon after St. Patrick’s Day I found myself downtown and decided to get on a Tank bus and head over to Newport. I wanted to stop in at Bart’s on York Street and have a few drinks and visit with my friend and bartender Laura. Already there was Donald — or that’s what…
