Morning/Evening News and Stuff
U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan said on Monday that Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich does not fully understand the GOP proposal to turn Medicare into a voucher system. Ryan has received criticism from the former House Speaker that the plan would be a radical change. "I just think he's missing the mark on what our plan…
Events: Spring Swap Hop
Out with the old, in with the newish! If you haven't already started rotating your closet to make room for fresh seasonal duds, you're going to want to get on that. Rummage through your drawers Saturday and bring your unwanted garb with you to The Mockbee (2260 Central Pkwy., Brighton) for an evening of clothes…
Attractions: Zoo Babies
Cute and cuddly, wet and slimy or fat and furry, this year's Zoo Babies are definitely "awww"-worthy. Six-foot-tall pink-and-blue stork statues will lead the way at the Cincinnati Zoo to all the baby faces paired with live performances for your own little ones. This season's most popular Zoo baby is Zuri, the one-month-old giraffe, but…
Onstage: Cincinnati May Festival
We said farewell to Paavo Jarvi and now venerable maestro James Conlon takes the helm for 2011's May Festival, the annual choral extravaganza featuring the CSO, the May Festival Chorus and a host of world-class soloists. The festival opens with Verdi's Requiem, a classic work as dramatic as any of Verdi's operas. Conlon has assembled…
Music: Preservation Hall Jazz Band
To the untrained ear, there might not seem to be any correlation between Dixieland Jazz and Bluegrass, and therefore no logical reason to pair the longstanding and phenomenally acclaimed Preservation Hall Jazz Band with the equally well-established and lauded Del McCoury Band. The fact is that Jazz and Bluegrass are slightly different branches of the…
Onstage: The Pavilion
It’s the time of year when lives are awash in graduations, weddings and reunions. So I expect The Pavilion, opening this week at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, to be a show that a lot of people will relate to. Peter and Kari were the perfect couple 20 years ago, high school sweethearts who…
Events: Fish Toss
"Why not?" That's what you should be asking yourself when presented with the opportunity to fling fish in Fountain Square. The city of Cincinnati isn't really known as a fishing spot, but who cares? Get together a team of four people and make sure they are capable of competitive fish-tossing. Why? Fuck it, why not?…
Music: The Royal Pines
Once upon the '90s, Joe Patt was the adrenalized drummer for the Hairy Patt Band, a batch of Punk crazies that made a big impression on local and regional audiences. The creatively and geographically restless Patt relocated to Columbus and started another acclaimed area band, Them Wranch, which notched a similarly slavish loyalty before Patt…
Art: Two Minute Video Festival
When it comes to Museum Gallery/Gallery Museum (1218 Sycamore St., Over-the-Rhine), I’ve come to expect the unexpected and the thrillingly experimental. One consistent area of inquiry in its space is the search for different ways to present media art within the gallery context. And just as summer blockbusters start rolling out at major cinemas around…
Music: Cold Cave
It's been nearly five decades since Robert Moog figured how to make music on an electronic keyboard that "synthesized" sound. Over the subsequent half-century, many artists have become obsessed with channeling their creative energies down a similar path. A perfect case in point is Wesley Eishold, the sparkplug behind Cold Cave. The Manhattan resident, who…
Events: Bike to Work Day
If the looming $5 price tag on a gallon of regular hasn’t already convinced you to ditch your rusty, rolling cage and hop on a people-powered-vehicle, Bike to Work Day is another terrific reason to commute by bicycle. It’s like an all-day party on wheels kicking off at 7 a.m. with swag, coffee and mechanical…
Comedy: Gabe Kea
At some point after starting a career in stand-up comedy, one realizes that you might have to make some sort of move. For St. Louis-native Gabe Kea, that move was to Cincinnati. He was born to Canadian parents who settled in St. Louis after moving around the U.S. several times. "Everybody says it’s a great…
Art: Fiber Arts
In the crowded confines of Northside's NVISION, the most eclectic shop in the city's most eclectic neighborhood, the current special exhibition is a knockout. Iowa-based mixed-media artist Nancy Gamon makes fabric constructions that hang on the wall like pictures and invite you to imagine your own story lines for what's going on in them. When…
Get Here, Get Heard
After a year that saw record attendance numbers, the MidPoint Music Festival is set to return to clubs throughout Over-the-Rhine and downtown Cincinnati Sept. 22-25. This year’s MPMF marks the event’s 10th anniversary. Between Feb. 25 and May 16 the fest accepted submissions from all bands and solo artists interested in performing this fall. Once…
Preservation Hall Jazz Band w/The Del McCoury Band
To the untrained ear, there might not seem to be any correlation between Dixieland Jazz and Bluegrass, and therefore no logical reason to pair the longstanding and phenomenally acclaimed Preservation Hall Jazz Band with the equally well-established and lauded Del McCoury Band. The fact is that Jazz and Bluegrass are slightly different branches of the…
The Royal Pines
Once upon the ’90s, Joe Patt was the adrenalized drummer for the Hairy Patt Band, a batch of Punk crazies that made a big impression on local and regional audiences. The creatively and geographically restless Patt relocated to Columbus and started another acclaimed area band, Them Wranch, which notched a similarly slavish loyalty before Patt…
Cold Cave
It’s been nearly five decades since Robert Moog figured how to make music on an electronic keyboard that “synthesized” sound. Over the subsequent half-century, many artists have become obsessed with channeling their creative energies down a similar path. A perfect case in point is Wesley Eishold, the sparkplug behind Cold Cave. The Manhattan resident, who…
Minson Tribute Set for Tonight
Local and national leaders working to advance equal rights for LGBT people will gather tonight in Covington to unveil a national award in honor of the late Nancy Minson. The National Gay & Lesbian Task Force and the Cincinnati Women's Political Caucus is co-sponsoring “Light of One, Power of Many: A Night to Honor Nancy…
Morning News and Stuff
The U.S. Treasury is expected to reach its $14.3 trillion debt ceiling today and Democrats and Republicans are still bickering over a way to raise it. House Speaker John Boehner yesterday told Face the Nation that the president needs to get serious about the deficit and the cool, calm and collected crap. Boehner said, "He's…
Friday Movie Roundup: Serious Will Ferrell Edition
Will Ferrell takes a break from his usual comic shenanigans this week to star writer/director Dan Rush's feature debut, Everything Must Go, an adaptation of a Raymond Carver short story. Ferrell in a Carver story, a story in which Ferrell's character is a listless, downtrodden “functioning alcoholic” with straying loins? Apparently. And, according to tt…
Brian Olive: New Album, Then Dr.’s Appointment
Singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Brian Olive — who came into the Cincinnati music scene from nearby southwestern Indiana with his former band The Greenhornes in the ’90s — is set to release his second solo effort, Two of Everything, early next month. The album is being issued June 7 by the Alive Naturalsound imprint, which issued Olive’s 2009…
The Big Uneasy (Review)
The compelling argument that the catastrophic 2005 flooding of New Orleans was caused not so much by Hurricane Katrina but rather by negligence in the construction and operation of levees by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been reported in newspapers and magazines. But because the information has come out in dribs and drabs…
Bridesmaids (Review)
Just because Bridesmaids walks down the box-office aisle a few weeks before the second edition of The Hangover, don’t assume that this is a golden bridal shower before that big event. Of course, there’s an ensemble gang and they are most certainly ready to par-tay. Lillian (Maya Rudolph) chose her best friend Annie (Kristen Wiig)…
Morning News and Stuff
The “intellectual grandfather” of the Tea Party movement, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), on Friday announced on Good Morning America his intent to run for president for the third time. In case you were wondering why, senior writer at libertarian Reason Magazine Brian Doherty says it’s because Paul wants to promote his issues as much as…
MidPoint Submission Deadline Looms
Any musical act interested in performing at this September's 10th anniversary installment of the big MidPoint Music Festival has just a few days left to turn in submissions for consideration if they haven't already. The official deadline is this coming Monday night (May 16) at 11:59 p.m. Miss it and miss out. —- For info…
Press Release of the Day
Deciding which route to take in disciplining children is surely a tough decision. The closest thing I have to spawn is a gang of pets, and they don't know "sit" from "shut the hell up," so I guess training a little human would be even harder. Today, it seems two extreme concepts of discipline stand…
Stage Door: Wake Up!
You'll have to work hard to get a ticket, but if you can get in to see The Drowsy Chaperone, produced by Cincinnati Music Theatre at the Aronoff Center's Jarson-Kaplan Theater, you'll be glad you did. It's a show for anyone who loves musical theater. In fact, it's about a guy who loves musicals.—- Lead…
A Chat with Twilight Singers’ Greg Dulli
Greg Dulli needs little introduction in these parts, but for those who are somehow not familiar, the now-46-year-old Hamilton native came up as frontman for The Afghan Whigs in late 1980s and exploded out of the local scene via a string of visceral, dark-hued albums (the best of which, 1993's Gentlemen, continues to grow in…
The Lowdown on City Hall’s Scofflaws
Cincinnati officials today released an updated list of City Hall employees who have unpaid parking tickets, and the list includes members of the Police and Fire departments. A total of 311 municipal employees have delinquent parking tickets, totaling $30,662 in unpaid fines, as of May 4th. That amounts to about 0.25 percent of the total…
Morning News and Stuff
Ahead of House Speaker John Boehner’s commencement address at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., this weekend, dozens of faculty members from the school and other Catholic universities challenging Boehner’s willingness to “gut” social programs while protecting “new tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.” “Mr. Speaker, your voting record is at variance…
Local Judge Elected Ohio Bar Prez
A local appellate court judge who is a neighborhood activist and a one-time Cincinnati City Council candidate recently was elected as president of the Ohio State Bar Association. Patrick F. Fischer was elected Friday during the Bar Association's annual convention in Columbus.—- Fischer is a former president of the Pleasant Ridge Community Council who ran…
400-Plus City Workers Owe Money
News junkies probably heard about the warnings issued by Cincinnati City Hall this week, reminding citizens of its “ticket amnesty” program: Anyone with unpaid parking tickets should pay now or possibly have their vehicles impounded by police. What City Hall didn't announce was that as of last month, 429 of the nearly 62,000 unpaid parking…
The National Documentary Part of MusicNOW
The annual MusicNOW festival, which runs Friday-Sunday at Memorial and Music halls in Over-the-Rhine, will also have a film component this year. Summer Lovin' Torture Party, a documentary about Brooklyn-based Cincinnati natives and MusicNOW headliners The National, directed by singer Matt Berninger's bother Tom, will have a pair of free “work-in-progress” screenings 1 and 3…
The Envelope, Please?
Several times over the past year I’ve written in Curtain Call about awards recognizing theater performers and productions in Cincinnati. A year ago I wrote a column questioning whether we needed two competing programs — the Cincinnati Entertainment Awards for theater (originated by CityBeat in 1997) and The Acclaims, supported by The Cincinnati Enquirer since…
Onstage: Dreams of Hope
High school is a minefield for anyone who deviates, as any LGBT student will tell you. A 2009 survey conducted by GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian and Straight Educational Network) showed that 61 percent of 7,000 self-identified gay and straight students between the ages of 13-21 felt unsafe at school because of their perceived sexuality. Despite the…
Cincy’s Streetcar Is the Little Engine That Could
Take that, John Kasich. If Ohio’s execrable new governor thought he was going to stop Cincinnati’s long-planned streetcar project by blocking $51.8 million in state funding for the project, he’d better think again. Led by Mayor Mark Mallory and City Manager Milton Dohoney Jr ., city officials last week unveiled a new, shorter Phase One…
Onstage: Two Gentlemen of Verona
Even William Shakespeare had to start somewhere. It’s generally believed that Two Gentlemen of Verona was his first script (it is, at least, the earliest one that has come down to us). But even the Bard’s byline doesn’t guarantee that that this early play is a comic gem. It has a few humorous moments, which…
Events: Bike-In Movie At MOTR
After having the screws turned on him by corrupt record executives, Reggae performer Ivanhoe Martin turns to a life of crime. He soon rises to be Jamaica's most wanted fugitive and an underground hero. This is the plot of the 1972 film The Harder They Come, playing at MOTR Pub (1345 Main St., Over-the-Rhine, 513-381-6687)…
Jailing the Journalists
While American civilians were preoccupied with an onslaught of fear-inducing swine flu headlines during the winter and spring of 2010, civilians of Sri Lanka were engrossed in the final chapters of a 26-year civil war that left nearly 100,000 corpses in its wake — many of which are yet to be found. A frightening percentage…
Music: The Twilight Singers
Two of our area's best musical exports come home on back-to-back nights this week: Brooklyn-based The National headlines MusicNOW Sunday (see feature here), and Greg Dulli brings his Twilight Singers to the Southgate House Monday. Dulli needs little introduction in these parts, but for those who are somehow not familiar, the now-46-year-old Hamilton native founded/fronted…
Homecoming Kings
T he National is finally coming home. The Brooklyn-based band of Cincinnati natives — guitarists Aaron and Bryce Dessner, bassist Scott Devendorf, drummer Bryan Devendorf and singer Matt Berninger — are headlining this year’s MusicNOW festival, which, like The National’s slow, steady rise to prominence, has evolved into one of the more unique and anticipated musical…
Sean Kagy [Midwest Culinary Institute/The Summit]
Chef Sean Kagy was educated at the New England Culinary Institute and worked at The Inn at Little Washington in Washington, Va., in the early 1990s. From there he moved on to Chicago’s Four Seasons hotel before coming to Cincinnati to work under Chef Jean-Robert de Cavel at The Maisonette. After stints as executive chef…
Events: Love Bash Alternative Wedding Expo
Wedding season is officially in swing with the Sunday celebration of Cincinnati's first alternative wedding expo, Love Bash. Wander outside of the box from noon-5 p.m. while connecting with over 22 bridal and specialty vendors who offer their own exclusive, personal touches. Think offbeat wedding locations, cupcakes instead of tiered cake and vintage or custom-made…
Onstage: Cirque du Soleil presents OVO
When a performing arts organization achieves iconic status, it seems almost silly to attend a performance with the idea of writing a “review.” The whole premise of Cirque du Soleil — and each of its two dozen or so productions, including OVO, currently being presented at Old Coney, east of Cincinnati — is to offer…
Artistic Touch
Next time you’re looping around city blocks looking for the ideal parking space, be sure to stop and view the art. From realistic murals painted on the walls of scaling buildings to bronzed artifacts lodged underneath your feet on Ludlow Avenue, there are little pieces of community spirit sprinkled all around your city outings. ArtWorks…
Doris Day and Convergys
[LOSER] CONVERGYS: After reneging on a tax break deal with the city of Norwood years ago, the firm recently tried to do the same thing to Cincinnati, even as it adds 180 jobs in Erlanger. Now Convergys will have to pay the price. Cincinnati officials are standing behind the restrictions of their 2003 tax incentive…
Media coverage of Osama bin Laden’s killing raises questions
SEALs and their pilots spent months preparing for the raid but White House spokesmen obviously gave little thought to what they’d tell us. The raid succeeded; White House images and statements were contradictory and chaotic. We first saw a photo from the White House situation room with everyone looking intently at something we couldn’t see.…
The Brunch Buzz at Honey
Nothing is quite so civilized as brunch, a leisurely parade of egg dishes, fruit and champagne cocktails served in the company of fresh flowers. On a recent Sunday, when we decided to pretend like we were real people with lives that included something other than work, we got all this and more at Honey (4034…
Music: Elvis Costello
When Elvis Costello and the Imposters take the Taft Theatre stage Monday night, they'll be toting — and touting — the Spectacular Spinning Songbook, a carnival-size, Roulette Wheel-like prop listing the titles of 40 of the hundreds of songs Costello has recorded and performed in his 30-plus years in music. Hits, obscurities, covers — anything…
Art: Kaleidoscope Show
A show this Saturday and Sunday at "Embassy Suites RiverCenter" (10 East Rivercenter Blvd., Covington) quite literally offers a kaleidoscopic view of contemporary art. Sponsored by Brewster Kaleidoscope Society, which is holding a convention here, the free show will feature more than 500 kaleidoscopes and is meant to argue that they constitute fine art. Ranging in…
Ricky Nye Returns
Last year around this time, Boogie Woogie Blues specialist Ricky Nye brought his musical pals from France to the U.S. for a series of local/regional tour dates to promote Ville du Bois, the album they recorded during one of Nye’s frequents treks to Europe three years ago. Now, Ricky Nye & the Paris Blues Band…
Events: Exhibitionism
Exhibitionism, a major fundraiser for downtown's nonprofit Weston
Events: The Yoni Show
After nine months of swelling, mood swings and abstaining from beer, coffee and carnival rides, you'd think a woman could at least choose her method of giving birth. Not so, says the state of Ohio. Ohio Families for Safe Birth is rallying to get a bill passed to allow certified professional midwives to obtain legal…
Everything Must Go (Review)
E verything comes crashing down on Nick Halsey (Will Ferrell). The functioning alcoholic loses his upper-level management position due to a questionable after-hours situation with a female employee and it’s obvious that Halsey has used up all of his lifelines with the firm. When he arrives at home, he finds all of his possessions on…
A Sound Rotation
When Elvis Costello and the Imposters take the Taft Theatre stage Monday night, they’ll be toting — and touting — the Spectacular Spinning Songbook, a carnival-size, Roulette Wheel-like prop listing the titles of 40 of the hundreds of songs Costello has recorded and performed in his 30-plus years in music. Hits, obscurities, covers — anything…
Hope in Motion
High school is a minefield for anyone who deviates, as any LGBT student will tell you. A 2009 survey conducted by GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian and Straight Educational Network) showed that 61 percent of 7,000 self-identified gay and straight students between the ages of 13-21 felt unsafe at school because of their perceived sexuality. Despite the…
May 4-10: Worst Week Ever!
WEDNESDAY MAY 4 The city of Cincinnati has a lot of things to worry about these days, with all the budget deficits, streetcar debates and potholes each deserving as much attention as will benefit City Council members during an election year as possible. That’s why it was relieving to learn today that Mayor Mark Mallory…
High Stakes Pursuit
A spate of deaths in the area during police chases has renewed both local and national concerns about how and when officers should pursue suspects in vehicles. The most drastic incident, which ended late at night on March 16 with the deaths of a 33-year-old West African taxicab driver and his blind passenger, has already…
Music: The National
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Morning News and Stuff
President Barack Obama’s current 60-percent approval rating is its highest point in two years. An Associated Press-GfK poll says that more than half of Americans now say he deserves to be re-elected, but only if he kills another international terrorist. "I was happy about bin Laden," says Brenda Veckov, 42, of Hollidaysburg, Pa. "I put…
Madam Adam in Dayton Tomorrow
Madam Adam is a Charleston, South Carolina rock band. They have been gaining steam and popularity through the East Coast and Midwest after their initial self-titled album release from Road Runner Records. The band consists of lead singer Scott Gould, lead guitarist Drew Reindollar, bassist Kenny Vamer, and drummer Matthew Reindollar. They play Thursday night…
Coheed and Cambria’s Travis Stever Interview
Coheed and Cambria performed at the House of Blues in Chicago, Illinois on April 30th. The venue was in the main hall, a thousand seat venue with a Victorian look to it. The pit was located right in front of the stage, with an area in the back for people to stand who weren’t interested…
