I Want to Make Out with Younger Dudes
So I’ve watched the MTV Movie Awards about three times since they originally aired on Sunday, and it’s not because I think the host Andy Samberg is a really funny, sexy Jew, which he is. I’m on a boat. Whatever. And it’s not because I have nothing better to do. I do. I just bought…
No-Fee-Wednesday for Riverbend Concerts
So if you wanna go see a concert this summer and you don't want to pay an arm, leg, genital, etc. to see, you know, Poison and shit, tomorrow (Wednesday) you can get a deal. For one day only (and maybe another day depending on how this goes), Live Nation is waiving its "service fee"…
Events: Blue Ash SummerBration
Barbeque and Country music. They go together. Cincinnati loves them. At Blue Ash’s 11th annual SummerBration, you get both. Tagged as the city’s “largest free Country music festival,” the live music kicks off Friday when Mississippi natives Crossin’ Dixon open for the 13-time Grammy-nominated guys from Diamond Rio. On Saturday, SummerBraters can check out Keith…
Music: Buddy Miller
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 Saturday night. Guitarist/singer-songwriter Miller, who was born to an Air Force family stationed at Dayton’s Wright-Patterson Air Force Base but grew up primarily in New…
Events: Bugfest
Have you been craving that classic snack “ants on a log?” Or perhaps your own tasty worm-filled dirt pie? If so, you’re in luck. The real deal can be found at the Cincinnati Museum Center’s sixth annual BugFest Saturday. The creepy-crawler’s fest provides fun bug activities and programs for all ages, such as hissing cockroach…
Review: Travel
Two problems with Travel, the aerial dance show: It doesn’t go anywhere, and it needs to lighten up. Still, you might enjoy the trip. Three agile, committed performers defy convention, if not always gravity, in this self-described “multi-media, aerial art masterpiece,” done in an “avant garde style” — in other words, no clear story, an…
Music: Dillinger Four
Should Punk Rock ever lead to growing up? Such is the quandary that the aging delinquents of Dillinger Four have been silently pondering. Sure, the Minneapolis-bred gang of four still slings dozens of hooks and has some tongue-in-cheek moments, but the package feels kind of somber. For as fiery as Dillinger is now, nothing will…
Comedy: Nick Griffin
“I was talking to a friend of mine this week,” says comedian Nick Griffin, “and he said, ‘Nick, remember, no matter how bad it gets, there’s always someone worse off than you.’ So, now I’m depressed and worried about this other poor guy.” Such is life for the Kansas City native, who really only understands…
Review: Bibliography of Love
I didn’t expect to say this, but the primary reason to see jan street dance theatre’s “Bibliography of Love” isn’t the dancing but the spoken word. Three men and two women present innumerable vignettes on the topics of love, gender and relationships, blending a few present-day scenarios into their historical love letter and poetry recitations.…
Onstage: Spanish Legends
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,…
Music: Joe Lally
One band’s hiatus is another man’s overbooked schedule.That could be the mantra of Fugazi bassist Joe Lally. Since the Post-Hardcore/Punk band announced a break in the action seven years ago, Lally has been working relentlessly on a variety of projects. He started by forming Decahedron with former Frodus members Jason Hamacher and Shelby Cinca, releasing…
Art: Iris Bookcafe
In a very neat segue, it’s possible right now to see two exhibitions of Cincinnati photographer Michael Wilson’s work, reflecting different areas of interest, almost within walking distance of each other. Iris BookCafe is showing prints of photographs from Wilson’s 1984 book Heads Bowed Eyes Closed, No One Looking Around through Aug. 7, overlapping until…
Literary: Andre Dubus
Andre Dubus’ latest novel, The Garden of Last Days, is concerned with the same themes as his previous effort, The House of Sand and Fog — exploring how globalization and the intersection of cultures impact everyday lives. This time it’s multiple people in south Florida just before 9/11, all of whom are drawn with psychological…
Art: DAAPWorks 2009
See what a new generation’s rising creative class has to offer at DAAPworks 2009, an exhibition featuring output by recent graduates of University of Cincinnati’s top-ranked College of Design, Art, Architecture and Planning. DAAPworks offers the art-seeking eye a little bit of everything, from highly functional exhibits on community planning, urban studies and industrial and…
Events: Mahrajan Lebanese Festival
Looking to add a little spice to your weekend? Your opportunity is coming Sunday as the St. Anthony of Padua Maronite Church hosts the Mahrajan Lebanese Festival. The festival serves an array of favorite Middle-Eastern dishes including Kibbee. In addition to the meals prepared by experienced cooks, grocery booths offer the opportunity for authentic Lebanese…
Music: Gomez
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. Now they've grown up and moved away from each other. The distance between members has helped Gomez decompress after their…
Music: St. Vincent
St. Vincent can be deceiving. First there’s the name, which seems as if it should conjure an aged dude who plays harp in Catholic high school gymnasium. Then there’s the appearance of the person behind the moniker, Annie Clark, a 5-foot-2-inch pixie with curly, jet-black hair and a face that looks as innocent as Bambi’s.…
Events: Tony! Tony! Tony!
For the past several years, Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati has celebrated the annual Tony Awards with a party that included the live telecast from the celebration of Broadway theater in New York City. This year ETC is cranking up the party 24 hours early. For their Saturday evening event, they’ve multiplied the title times three…
Fringe: 27 Reviews, High Hopes for Second Week
The 2009 Cincy Fringe Festival heads into its second week with high expectations. "I've heard from a number of patrons that this is the strongest field of shows they've ever seen in at the Fringe, and we agree," Managing Director Eric Vosmeier reports. "Our attendance numbers are up, though it's difficult to say how much…
Get Your Summer Folk Fix at ‘Studio 89’
We music fans here in the tri-state area may not have the John Peel Show (well, now that the broadcasting icon is deceased, no one technically does anymore), but we do have WNKU’s "Studio 89." If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a seven-years-and-running weekly summer radio program featuring live in-studio performances by local and…
Events: Film Fringe
Amid a commercial movie climate that’s becoming more generic by the minute, the film portion of the Cincy Fringe Festival is an oasis of creativity by comparison. Cheaper production costs (like lightweight digital cameras and computer editing) and logistically conducive developments (like lightweight equipment, location sets and cheap and/or amateur actors) have made DIY filmmaking…
The Bass-O-Matic
One band’s hiatus is another man’s overbooked schedule. That could be the mantra of Fugazi bassist Joe Lally. Since the Post-Hardcore/Punk band announced a break in the action seven years ago, Lally has been working relentlessly on a variety of projects. He started by forming Decahedron with former Frodus members Jason Hamacher and Shelby Cinca,…
Review: 7 (x1) Samurai
Critic's Pick Add this title to your Fringe “must see” list, offered through Saturday at Gabriel’s Corner. Go prepared to laugh with little letup. A single actor/athlete uses well-honed skills to both re-tell and lampoon Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 film, The Seven Samurai, in which good prevails over evil but at great cost to both losers…
Review: Gravesongs
Critic's Pick To showcase its intern company, Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati has annually contributed a show to the Fringe that features these young performers in scenes by established playwrights or self-written pieces on a particular theme. This year, with a talented set of interns — five 23-year-old women plus a director — they undertook a…
Review: Painted
You might have seen similar artworks while strolling around Summerfair this weekend: a creative idea, an appealing palette, an artful frame. But an unfinished composition. In Painted, six talented and likeable performers (most CCM students or recent grads) color one another, literally, with the experiences of a lifetime. “We all begin with a clean slate,”…
Review: The Gayer Show
Two music stands. Two scripts. Two pools of light. And two men, one on each side of the stage facing the audience. The two performers are directly engaging the audience, using scripts when they need to, narrating parts of their lives. Specifically, they are relating two versions of the long and often arduous process of…
Review: The Success Show
Let’s get it out of the way right now: The Success Show succeeds. But then, staging a send-up of a business motivational seminar offers a wealth of material to choose from, and writer/director Michael Comstock does an 80/20 job of making it pay off. It helps that he has two great comic talents to deliver…
Review: No Stranger Than Home
On a trip to El Salvador in 2004, Katherine Glover met a wise old man who served as her unofficial tour guide and historian. He’d tell tales of the region and of the world he knew. All were colorful but instructive in nature. It was clear he could spin a yarn as a way to…
Review: Call Me
Hmm. Shall we discuss the theatrical arc of this play? The dramatic tension inherent in its subject matter? The actors’ intuitive grasp of their roles? Or shall we throw all that out and just say Call Me will give you a good time in a short time, leaving you open for other Fringe fun? The…
Review: The Edge
Critic's Pick Fringe doesn’t have to mean "frayed." Gliding on the smooth, cool surfaces of what must be the 2009 festival’s most elaborate set — a hand-me-down from a past Ensemble Theatre production, but never mind, it works — The Edge is a beautifully measured, well-polished character study that should enrich the whole fabric of…
Review: The 4 Food Groups
Locally-based Pones Inc.’s 2009 Fringe production struck me as a guilty pleasure of sorts. You know, the kind of piece you might enjoy in spite of yourself. The performance piece in four short acts serves up a bawdy farce, spiked with moments of sharp wit and teasing sexuality. While the commonalities between sex and food…
Review: Incredulity
With very little fanfare, a troupe will take the stage in the side room at Media Bridges. They’ll thank you for coming to Incredulity, explain long-form improvisation and then ask simply: What makes you incredulous? And that will be the only thing the performance I saw and all future performances will have in common. Because…
Review: Sex, Dreams and Self-Control
Critic's Pick Kevin Thornton’s Sex, Dreams and Self-Control is a tour de force. At times hilarious, at times poignant, it's the story of a reluctant gay boy (later man) who's made to feel incredible shame for his sexuality. The performance is at once genuine, entertaining, poetic and professional. The stories Thornton tells of his childhood,…
Fringe Reviews: 21 and Counting
Check out CityBeat's extensive coverage of the 2009 Cincy Fringe Festival. As of noon Saturday we've posted reviews of 21 productions, with more coming every day until all 31 shows have been reviewed.—- Also check out two CityBeat podcasts focusing on the Fringe Festival: one is a performance of the festival piece Incredulity, recorded May…
Summer Music, Weird Modes o’ Transport and Severed Heads
Man, I just recently started watching Deadwood with the boyfriend. (I just IM’d him to confirm that he’s offish my boyfriend, because I’d never typed out the word before — in regards to him — and it looked funny, so I had to double check.) —- "Do you like me? Check yes or no." Turns…
Defeat Means Deters Will Run Again
In his first major case while moonlighting for Stan Chesley’s law firm, Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters suffered a crushing defeat earlier this month when a jury rejected a product liability claim seeking tens of millions of dollars in damages. As a result, Deters has scuttled his plans to eventually move full-time into the private…
Flat Earth Flattens Genres at the Blue Wisp Tonight
“Hindustani”-style guitarist and former bandleader of jam-band supergroup Garaj Mahal, the inimitable Fareed Haque, brings his Flat Earth Ensemble to downtown jazz haunt the Blue Wisp (318 East 8th Street) for a rousing set tonight. —- Haque is a big fan of South Asian Folk music, and his roots are in Jazz and Classical guitar,…
Review: Body Language II: Phys. Ed.
Critic's Pick If we didn’t have Fringes we would have to invent them, because performances like Body Language II: Phys. Ed. are the natural children of this wrong-side-of-the-bed conjuncture of ideas. There’s no way conventional theater would bring about Body Language performances. These productions don’t even play in conventional theaters. They settle into whatever’s handy…
Review: Brother Bailey’s Pageant of Moral Superiority and Creation Science Island Jamboree
You wanna know what “sophomoric” means? You can look it up in your Webster, where you’ll read: “Conceited and over-confident of knowledge but poorly informed and immature.” Or you could just go see a Fringe Festival performance of this show. The key word here is “immature.” Likewise you can look up “labored” and find: “Lacking…
Review: Cemetery Golf
Critic's Pick The trick, 10-year-old Jimmy says, is to get sufficient lift on your ball so it clears the tombstone with the guitar carved into the red marble, but not so much that it sails over the fence into the pig sty, where a mean old sow and a litter of piglets form a hazard…
Review: Villainy
The pre-show music fades and the lights dim. An excited young woman pops up from the audience to announce that, to properly introduce the show, we’ll hear from the “author” himself. It’s William Shakespeare, of course. Or Willy Shakes as he’s sometimes referred to during the course of the night. The girl is so clearly…
Review: Four Wishes
Of all the virtues taught by this classic Native American tale — bravery, humility, cooperation, respect for nature — the greatest might be patience. Three of the story’s four Abenaki adventurers learn that lesson the hard way: bound for home, carrying blessings from the great Gluskabe, they open their pouches too soon, with disastrous results.…
Drag Me to Hell (Review)
Co-written with his brother Ivan, Sam Raimi crafts an enormously enjoyable house of cinematic horrors that is at turns funny, campy, shocking and scary. The ever-engaging Alison Lohman plays Christine, a bank-loan officer angling for an assistant manager position. Attempting to impress her boss with her ability to make “tough choices,” Christine denies a loan…
Dance Flick (Review)
The next generation of the Wayans family storm the gates of Hollywood in this urban interracial romance dance spoof from the fountain of Wayans’ pens (it took Keenan Ivory, Shawn, Marlon, Craig and Damien to spray enough inches to produce this lame move … I mean movie). A big family reunion obviously took place on…
Review: Jacques Brel’s Lonsesome Losers of the Night
I’ve been a fan of Jacques Brel’s sad, despairing tunes for more than three decades, from the moment I first saw a production of Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, a selection of approximately two dozen of the French songwriter’s sad, impassioned paeans to lives of desolation and hope. When I…
Michelle Shocked, Dave Alvin & the Guilty Women, Chris Gaffney and Hatcham Social
This week’s posting has been winnowed by a killer combination of my MidPoint Music Festival judging duties and a long holiday weekend, so try to contain your disappointment at the shortage of reviews. I’m even skipping this week’s vinyl burn because of my recent more-work-than-clock syndrome, and I’ve got a stack next to the turntable…
Review: Where Drunk Men Go: A Poem With Music
Critic's Pick This performance poem, written and delivered by regional bard Richard Hague and supported solidly by Michael Henson on guitar is, even by Fringe standards, a bare-bones affair. And that is as it should be. The two men take the small stage at the Coffee Emporium and, for 75 minutes, trade off in verse…
CityBeat Podcast 9: Fringe Festival’s ‘Incredulity’
For this episode we recorded the Fringe Festival performance Incredulity. It's an improvisational piece that was recorded on May 28 by Ashley Thomas. Follow CityBeat's Fringe Festival reviews here. Suscribe to our podcast in iTunes or use our RSS feed.
A Jam-Packed Full Sunday of Blues
If you have the time (and the endurance), this Sunday at Germania Park in Colerain, you can check out over eight hours of local Blues talent as the annual "Cincinnati Blues Challenge" returns for its 11th annual event. —- The Cincy Blues Society puts on the all-day affair as a way to select local musicians…
Reminder: MidPoint Indie Summer Series Starts Today!
The MidPoint Indie Summer series — showcasing local and national Alternative and Indie bands each Friday on Fountain Square — kicks off this evening at 7 p.m. The show starts with eclectic Neo-Soul/Jazz group iolite. Indie Pop dream-team The Fairmount Girls (whose ever-shifting lineup now includes ex-Sistern mainman Steve Girton on bass) go on at…
Fringe Coverage at 12 Reviews
Check out CityBeat's extensive coverage of the 2009 Cincy Fringe Festival. As of noon we've posted reviews of 12 productions, with more coming every day until all 31 shows have been reviewed.—- This week's podcast focuses on the Fringe Festival, as Steve Novotni converses with Jason Bruffy, Eric Vosmeier and me.
Wenstrup, GOP Criticize Mayor’s Attitude
Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory’s response to the controversy over telephone calls made by a city councilwoman during a police traffic stop is drawing fire from local Republicans. Dr. Brad Wenstrup, the Republican candidate for mayor this fall, issued a press release calling Mallory’s comments “reprehensible.” His comments follow reaction from Hamilton County Republican Party Chairman…
A Dinner with Plenty of Gas
Last year Republicans raffled off a seat on presidential candidate John McCain’s “Straight Talk Express.” Now, for a small donation, you can win a chance to have dinner with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.—- The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) is holding a drawing that will allow one person and his or her guest to…
CityBeat Podcast 8: The Fringe Festival
On this episode we'll check out the Cincinnati Fringe Festival, a marathon of new and offbeat theatrical works running through June 6. Our guests are CityBeat Contributing Editor Rick Pender, Cincinnati Fringe Fest founder Jason Bruffy and Eric Vosmeier, who is the festival's Managing Director.—- Follow CityBeat's Fringe Festival reviews here. Suscribe to our podcast…
Elmwood Place: Cincinnati’s New Rock Haven
Ever heard of Dirty Jack’s? How about the Cup and Saucer Café? If you’re not familiar with these somewhat-off-the-beaten-path, refreshingly un-hip names, next Friday and Saturday (June 5 and 6) provide you with an opportunity to get to know the two Elmwood Place venues, which cater to the Hard Rock, Metal and Punk crowds. —- Located right…
Way to Be, Brook Jacoby
Last night I was watching the last couple innings of the Reds game and this Reds coach popped up on the screen with dark Batman-looking eyes and a very well-defined face and I was like, “Who the fuck is that dude?”—- Turns out it was hitting coach Brook Jacoby, and he still works for the…
Review: A Perfectly Wonderful Evening
The title of this production comes from one of Groucho Marx’s daringly fabulous insults — “I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.” This 80-minute riff on an actual dinner engagement between the cigar-wielding Hollywood humorist and the modernist poet, T.S. Eliot, deserves credit for its promising concept and daunting display of cultural…
Review: Guns and Chickens
CCM professor of drama k. Jenny Jones and a group of students have created their own modern-day Aesop’s fable as a Fringe entertainment and an amusing morality lesson. Much of their production at Know Theatre is exercises in actorly invention, and most of the 45 minutes are very entertaining. Here’s the premise: A tornado flattens…
Review: Free at Last and Confused in the Land of Good & Evil
At 100 minutes, Free at Last/Land of Confusion/The Good, The Bad and The Evil: Angels vs. Demons is at least 60 repetitive, mind-numbing, ear-assaulting minutes too long. It seeks to weld dance, poetry, music, sound and images together into salient social commentary. It is, in performance, a bloated, banal, undigested mess of second-hand ideas and…
A Chorus Line (Review)
Critic's Pick If you’ve ever been drawn to perform, A Chorus Line will hit you right in the gut. The show distills the essence of what drives people who dance, make music and act. It’s not about egos but rather the passion that makes them yearn to perform even when rejection is as likely as…
Review: Cinema Fantastique
Eagle to Squirrel Variety Hour has brought its raucous blend of experimental music, unique poetry and sensuous dance to Cincy Fringe for a second year. Having won a 2008 Music CEA for Best Electronic/Experimental music, the group offers audiences a wide-ranging, eclectic performance. Cinema Fantastique is an exploration of Hollywood movies and includes almost completely…
Review: Empire of Feathers
How many birds come out the egg ready to fly? This gleefully low-budget epic adventure by a London-based stage trio called Giant Bird looks like something newly hatched: even by Fringe standards, the show is cute in a scraggly, spindly way, the performers appealingly hungry and eager to test their wings. And while Empire seems…
Review: Assholes and Aureoles
It’s usually a bad thing to have any kind of expectations walking into the theater. Something you expect to be good is never good enough. Conversely, if you don’t think you’re going like something, you probably won’t. Having said that, I full-on admit I expected Assholes and Aureoles to be funny. Like really funny. Like…
Review: It Might Be Okay
The trick and trouble of creating a long-form program from a series of theater exercises is that the narrative material centers on the actor as content. This means that what's being presented has already been lived and is therefore not living onstage at the moment. It is storytelling, which is the antithesis of theater: relating…
Review: KAZ/m
Critic's Pick Performance Gallery has contributed a show to every Cincinnati Fringe Festival; they’re the only company that's been back six years in a row. But if you’ve seen one of their pieces, don’t think you can bypass KAZ/m. Truth to tell, none of their works much resemble one another beyond the qualities of profound…
Review: The Terrorism of Everyday Life
If you could play a guitar with a jackhammer, Ed Hamell would do it. As it is, he comes so close to “Abuse of an Instrument” that the music police would get him if he weren’t searingly funny and, treating the language with no more respect than his guitar, profanely eloquent. Hamell is an on-the-road…
Tea Baggers Plan Smaller Event in ‘Burbs
Maybe the “spontaneous” Tea Party political movement already is running out of steam. An estimated 3,000 people — mostly suburbanites — descended on downtown Cincinnati’s Fountain Square last month for a Tea Party protest on Tax Day, part of a series of events aimed at expressing anger over President Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus package…
Debunking the Myths About Reds Game Attendance
Most locals consider Cincinnati to be a “baseball town.” Everyone hears family members and coworkers go on about just how great the Big Red Machine was or how exciting 1990 was when the Reds went wire-to-wire in first place and swept the Oakland A’s to win the World Series. Though it’s still relatively early, this…
Art: Women Are Beautiful at the Cincinnati Art Museum
Photographer Garry Winogrand's Women Are Beautiful appeared as a book in 1975, and in 1981 Winogrand produced a portfolio of 85 prints selected from those works. Eighty of the portfolio prints are being shown at CAM. This cohesive show expores his work in a narrow, thematic way. Women were an obsession and the time period…
The Brothers Bloom (Review)
One keeps waiting for 36-year-old Adrien Brody to capitalize on his unexpected Best Actor Oscar for 2002’s The Pianist and do some mature work that really moves us. Instead, he gets stuck running around in overactive action films (King Kong) or playing soulfully perplexed, hangdoggy young men in arch, belabored “quirky” indies like The Darjeeling…
Music: The Sundresses
Our beloved Sundresses return home from their recent Sandwich Tour (whose intent was to challenge the ’Dresses to “eat a sandwich every day and rock the fuck out” on each stop along the way). Fresh from Toledo, the fearsome threesome land at the Northside Tavern Friday for a free 8 p.m. show. Bring ’em each…
Owning People
When people consider human trafficking or modern slavery, many conjure images of teenage girls held captive in brothels in Thailand. Kevin Bales, president of Free the Slaves (www.freetheslaves.net) who’s an authority in human trafficking, has interviewed young women there. He previously described to CityBeat how he secured the “services” of two sex slaves in Thailand…
Music: PJ Harvey and John Parish
John Parish and Polly Jean Harvey have been making music together for more than two decades. And while Harvey is better known for a solo career that has made her one of the most vital artists of the era, Parish is the guy who initially recognized and nurtured her singular skills. He in turn has…
The Grand Visions of Garry Winogrand
‘Garry Winogrand would move fast through the streets, see things happening, maybe across an intersection, would move to that area, firing off his Leica, the wide-angle lens essentially pre-focused, moving with the camera, the energy, the freneticism of the street coming through.” That’s Cincinnati Art Museum photography curator James Crump talking, and he’s unconsciously using…
Xavier’s Success Raises Local College Baseball Profile up a Notch
A month ago, the Xavier University baseball team didn’t conjure a first thought, let alone a second. A lot of baseball happens in Cincinnati. College baseball happens very quietly. At around noon on April 25, the Musketeers plodded into your basic season of no distinction, 21-15 overall and 8-8 in the Atlantic-10. Around noon on…
Chicago Food Tour
I always forget that East Coast-style culture is a mere five-hour drive from here because we have Chicago. Geography is a technicality. In Chicago, you get your “coast” (waves high enough to surf), your fashion (more gladiator sandals than you’d find in Pat Benatar’s garage) and, most importantly, your food (Chicago’s pizza will always win…
PJ Harvey and John Parish Have a Fortuitous Collaboration
John Parish and Polly Jean Harvey have been making music together for more than two decades. And while Harvey is better known for a solo career that has made her one of the most vital artists on the planet, Parish is the guy who initially recognized and nurtured her singular skills. He in turn has…
Music: Fischerspooner
Fischerspooner is an imaginative project. Their sort of appealing weirdness has become the norm for the duo, Warren Fischer and Casey Spooner. The inescapable quirkiness of Fischerspooner intentionally rides the line between speculative art and showy entertainment. Most startling, however, is that the group’s production isn’t landing in arenas but instead mid-sized venues like Bogart’s…
Music: Philosopher’s Stone
Union, Ky., Alternative poppers Philosopher’s Stone took the crown at last November’s Legacy Rocks band competition in Newport, and the grand prize included a music video by Bob Mills of Mills Films in Edgewood. Six months later the final product has arrived, and it’s in the form of a slick, professional-looking DVD. The video itself…
Bling, Vibes and Tantric Piano
[HOT] BLING: NOT RECESSION-PROOF A recent story in the Wall Street Journal examined the hit rappers are taking in our downturned economy. In talking with several jewelers that work with big-time Rap stars, the paper found that many of them have requested cheaper jewelry in the face of the recession. Instead of real diamonds, some…
Question Authority
Americans have always been taught that collective power and government flows from the people, that all public servants (elected and appointed officials, the military, police, firefighters, garbage collectors) work for us. Government authority is derived from the will of the people, who can always take it back. The Bill of Rights guarantees that Americans can…
Ed Hamell on Trial
Ed Hamell sounds tired. He’s just driven 20 straight hours from New Orleans, where he recorded his new album Tackle Box (“because it’s got so many hooks”) with Righteous Babe label head/producer/friend Ani DiFranco, which was physically draining. And he’s coping with the never-popular domestic problems that have occupied his attention and informed his songwriting…
The Last Real Letter
It was mid-afternoon, and before going through a backlog of e-mails I decided to go to my real mail box and check my real mail. This is usually a somber experience. What fun is it to look through bills, advertisements and junk? This time, though, something got my attention. A blue envelope was in the…
Beacon of Hope
Beacon of Hope In response to Joe Wessels’ “A Park Grows at Fernald” (issue of May 13), Fernald has been an albatross hanging on the neck of the Greater Cincinnati area over the years. It’s great to read about all of the proactive steps being taken with the former uranium processing plant and see it…
Music: Meat Puppets
The only consistency in the Meat Puppets’ catalog over the band’s near 30-year history is the consistent shift in their sonic identity. The band has explored Hardcore, Cow Punk, Folk, Psych Pop and several permutations within, between and beyond those genre tags, but, from frontman Curt Kirkwood’s perspective, completely without calculation. For the Meat Puppets’…
Fischerspooner Is Wonderfully Electric
If you glanced at the bizarre image located near this text and were confused yet intrigued, Fischerspooner is accomplishing its mission. While its main purpose is to invigorate your body with shimmering Electronica, the band is also here to make you think outside the box. If you’ve gotten this far, you’re already deep into the…
Careful: Streetcar Petitions Can Be Deceptive
It’s certainly true that good people can come to different conclusions and disagree on an issue. Sometimes, however, good people are led astray by those with ulterior motives. For more than a year, an unusual coalition of arch-conservatives, civil rights groups, Libertarians, Green Party members and others have joined together to mount several petition drives…
Up (Review)
Pixar writer/director Pete Docter and producer Jonas Rivera last week settled into the cozy confines of the University of Cincinnati’s DAAP building for a series of interviews and a larger-scale Q&A event with a group of design students eager to learn about their “magical” workplace. To even call Pixar “a workplace” around the DAAP crowd…
Music: Billy Catfish
Folk experimenter and Southgate open mic commando Billy Catfish re-christens his musical self the Billy Catfish Orchestra with a free 9 p.m. show with Steve Girton on Sunday, May 31 in the Southgate House lounge. It seems that even with the newly appended “Orchestra” tag Mr. Catfish will still be a solo act, unless he’s…
Meat Puppets with Retribution Gospel Choir
The only consistency in the Meat Puppets’ catalog during the band’s nearly 30-year history is the consistent shift in their sonic identity. The band has explored Hardcore, Cow Punk, Folk, Psych Pop and several permutations within, between and beyond those genre tags, but, from frontman Curt Kirkwood’s perspective, completely without calculation. “We don’t really ever…
Back to the City
The experiment is over. I’m not a suburban guy. It doesn’t totally surprise me. I grew up in the suburbs, but my heart is in the concrete and noise and combustible nature of an inner city — namely Cincinnati. Last September, at one of the worst possible times — the middle of a political campaign…
Maureen Dowd’s Plagiarism, Cincinnati’s Connection to a British Scandal and Problems at NPR
I no longer regularly read the New York Times op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd. I take no delight in her Pulitzer-winning nastiness, even when I applaud her target being skewered. For sheer vitriol, she has few rivals outside cable TV. So it was with schadenfreude that I read about her passing off a blogger’s material as…
Music: The Comforts
On their Web site, The Comforts call themselves “crowd pleasers at biker bars and church festivals.” Listening to their latest release, the six-song EP Come On In!, it’s hard to tell whether that nod to their evident fan base is tongue-in-cheek or honest, because the Anderson Township-based band actually sounds pretty damn good for a…
Onstage: Fringe Festival
The Cincinnati Fringe Festival celebrates its sixth annual celebration of offbeat theater and other art forms. For 12 days through June 6 you have the chance to watch 31 productions in multiple performances (about 170 events) featuring nearly 150 artists. The Fringe takes place in 11 venues, all but one in Over-the-Rhine. Festival organizer Know…
Finding Comforts
On their Web site, The Comforts call themselves “crowd pleasers at biker bars and church festivals.” Listening to their latest release, the six-song EP Come On In!, it’s hard to tell whether that nod to their evident fan base is tongue-in-cheek or honest, because the Anderson Township-based band actually sounds pretty damn good for a…
PNC Pavilion Fills a Needed Niche
It is sort of the Goldilocks version of concert venues. It’s not too big, not too small. It’s just right. The year-old PNC Pavilion at Riverbend has proven to be just the right mix for the Cincinnati concert porridge. The 4,100-seat amphitheater opened last spring, immediately filling a void in the Greater Cincinnati concert scene.…
Summer Hot, Coffee Cold
With summer coming we’ll all be spending time at more third places — places where we hang out and socialize other than home or work. But between our trips to the ice cream parlor, the neighborhood pool and the park, the classic third place — the neighborhood coffee shop — won’t be forgotten. Iced coffee,…
Hot or Not
Most people’s fond memories of summertime are largely based on the carefree days of grade-school summer breaks, when long, carefree days meant pool parties and neighborhood sports. For adults, the summer can offer just as many trials as triumphs, as the sun’s relative closeness to the Earth causes us to sweat, burns our skin and…
Check Out Our Own Exhibits, Then Go Regional
For art-museum lovers, one of the best things about hot summers in Cincinnati is the proximity to nearby cities whose museums and public galleries have exhibitions. This makes shows in Dayton, Columbus, Louisville, Lexington and Indianapolis easily reachable. But before we set off on a two-hour drive to see another city’s work, let’s look at…
Cincinnati’s Queen of Soul
“Soul food blesses your whole body,” says Katrina “Aunt Flora” Mincy. “It uplifts your spirit. Whoever prepares it puts everything in their heart and soul into it.” Aunt Flora, as Katrina prefers to be called, has put her soul into soul food, and after a visit to her daughter’s Court Street restaurant, Flo’s Plate Full…
Another Six Days of Horse Talk and Optional School
WEDNESDAY MAY 20 With Ohio’s economy struggling and the state budget looking like the Green Party’s checking account balance, there’s still one politician willing to use horse-inspired metaphors to call on elected officials to increase the state’s revenue. Sen. Bill Seitz (R-Cincinnati) today gave an equestrian-themed speech at a rally supporting video slot machines at…
X Marks the Spot for Cincy Fringe Festival
Starting Wednesday evening, you need to strap on a backpack with some snacks and a water bottle and head to Over-the-Rhine for the sixth annual Cincy Fringe Festival. Fringe veterans know that the best way to enjoy this 12-day celebration of things theatrical and artistic is to come back again and again and see as…
Recruiting, Inspiring, Motivating
Jay Kalagayan’s departure from Know Theatre, the company he founded in 1997, surprised a lot of people. He evolved from founder to actor, writer, artistic director, executive director and development director. I wondered if perhaps he simply ran out of roles to play. In reality, he’s evolved: He married Jan in 2006 and they now…
Camera Obscura with Oblio
Camera Obscura is a bit like a liquor-filled chocolate: something that at first seems dark and sweet but very quickly reveals a pungent center with a potent kick. The band was assembled in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1996 by vocalist/guitarist Tracyanne Campbell, percussionist/vocalist John Henderson and bassist Gavin Dunbar and gained some notoriety with its early…
