Crafty Superstar Grace Dobush
Get your glue guns ready, ya'll, because the Crafty Supermarket's about to take over the Northside Tavern. That's right. Your local watering hole (generally full of tight-pantsed drunks at night) will be hosting an indie craft show on Saturday afternoon (noon-6 p.m.) with handmade fine art, recycled goods, home decor, jewelry, children's items, stationery and…
Art: Kingdom of Nature at Country Club
Country Club, now located on the second floor above the high-end design store Voltage in Oakley, is exhibiting a large number of paintings by Aaron Morse in Kingdom of Nature. His works are joined by a bright collection of ceramic works by the duo Katie Parker and Guy Michael Davis, which, all things considered, works…
Onstage: Hair
For 40 years UC’s College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) has trained musical theater performers. The legendary musical Hair burst forth around the same time that CCM’s program began, so the “American Tribal Love-Rock Musical” is a perfect centerpiece for an anniversary celebration. The CCM production is an eye-popping evening of psychedelia and historic social consciousness in…
Hair (Review)
Critic's Pick For 40 years UC’s College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) has trained musical theater performers. The legendary musical Hair burst forth around the same time that CCM’s program began, so the “American Tribal Love-Rock Musical” is a perfect centerpiece for an anniversary celebration. The CCM production is an eye-popping evening of psychedelia and historic social…
Cincinnati Entertainment Awards for Music
Local musicians and the fans who love them will be getting gussied up for the 13th annual Cincinnati Entertainment Awards for Music Sunday night at Covington’s Madison Theater, a new home for the event. Doors open at 6 p.m., and the show starts at 7. Ticket proceeds will benefit the Cincinnati USA Music Heritage Foundation,…
Music: The Texas Guitar Women
For the most part, when people think of contemporary virtuoso Blues and Roots music guitar players they likely think of male performers — Eric Clapton, Ry Cooder, Buddy Guy, Robert Cray, etc. But, of course, the music world is often a sexist one (purposefully or not), and there's no shortage of phenomenal female guitarists who…
Music: Black Cobra
In its infancy, the pummeling Sludge Metal of Black Cobra wasn’t generated by a full-time “band.” Instead, it was produced by two musicians working remotely from separate coasts. Native Floridians Jason Landrian and Raffa Martinez had long been friends and decided that they wanted to pool their ideas together to create a new project using…
Events: Herzog Historical Marker Reception
“Lovesick Blues” became the most important song in Hank Williams’ career and one of the most influential singles in Country and Pop music history. And it was recorded in downtown Cincinnati on Dec. 22, 1948, at E.T. Herzog Recording Company, on the second floor of 811 Race St. In all, the “father of contemporary Country…
Music: Cincinnati Entertainment Awards
The 2009 Cincinnati Entertainment Awards for Music will be handed out Sunday night at the Madison Theater in Covington. The performance lineup features The Lions Rampant, Magnolia Mountain, You You're Awesome, II Juicy, Small Time Crooks and Brian Olive. This year's event benefits the Cincinnati USA Music Heritage Foundation, which will erect a historical marker…
Music: Phish
Yes, we love Trey Anstasio’s sublime guitar ministrations. We love Mike Gordon’s rapturously fluid bass lines. We love Jon Fishman’s percussive range, from subtle Jazz inflection to hammer-and-tong Rock thunder. We love Page McConnell’s magnificent organ (and his playing’s pretty solid, too — insert rim shot). We love your absurdist Zappa/Beefheart/Hitchcock lyrical quality. We love…
Events: Secret ArtWorks
It's time again for Secret ArtWorks, ArtWorks' fun fundraising event featuring the exhibition and sale of 5-by-7-inch works of art from local, national and international artists. The identity of each artist will remain a secret only to be revealed after the artwork is purchased. This year's party takes place at the Westin Hotel Grand Ballroom…
Film/Events: HorrorHound Weekend
For the first time since HorrorHound was conceived in 2005, the magazine’s founding fathers will bring their signature film convention, the HorrorHound Weekend, to their hometown of Cincinnati. The event will be held at Sharonville Crowne Plaza, formerly the Sheraton Cincinnati North, in West Chester Friday-Sunday. HorrorHound is a 68-page full-color horror-industry magazine that was…
Music: Machine Head
When Machine Head roared out of Oakland 17 years ago, they were hailed as one of the most brutal and potentially one of the best Metal acts to come down the heavy gauge pipe in a long time. Fronted by former Vio-lence and Forbidden vocalist/guitarist Robb Flynn, Machine Head set a sales record for Roadrunner…
Ohioana Pegasus Award Winner
Margot Gotoff, a Cincinnati artist and teacher, is the winner of this year's Ohioana Pegasus Award, given by the Ohioana Library Association to honor an Ohioan for exceptional cultural achievements. —- Gotoff, born in Rochester, moved to Cincinnati in 1986 when her husband accepted a teaching position at University of Cincinnati's Classics Department. She sculpts…
Leonid Meteor Shower
According to NASA's Web site "This year's Leonid meteor shower peaks on Tuesday, Nov. 17th. If forecasters are correct, the shower should produce a mild but pretty sprinkling of meteors over North America followed by a more intense outburst over Asia. The phase of the Moon will be new, setting the stage for what could…
Art: Dania Eliot
More and more, I am finding an alternative, entirely virtual space for Cincinnati arts on the Internet, such as Joey Versoza’s youtube channel (www.youtube.com/user/jversozaiii) that functions like an exhibition of his thoughtfully minimalist video art; or performer/activist Ethan Philbrick’s archive of public dance projects (ethandancesinpublic.blogspot.com). Most recently I’ve become increasingly curious about the video shorts…
Art: An Artist’s Eye on Knowlton Street at NVision
A lot of Cincinnati's hopes and dreams, both past and present, are encapsulated by Northside's Knowlton Street between Hamilton and Crawford avenues — within a short space you can see factories, homes, a defunct funeral parlor, a bar, a bicycle co-op, organic gardens, an art studio, a storefront church. Some are more active today than…
Events: Crafty Supermarket
If your shopping list includes glitter and glue instead of milk and eggs, then you've got to see the Northside Tavern transform from a hipster bar to a hipster shopping spot this weekend. Crafty Supermarket, organized by local D.I.Y. divas Grace Dobush and Alisha Budkie, is the Tri-state's first indie craft show on such a…
Events: Cincinnati Unchained
Shopping locally as of late has developed the stigma of being a bit elitist. While some hip folks like to turn it into a smugness-spreading contest, buying from local vendors is truly beneficial to Cincinnati. Every dollar spent at a locally-owned business creates nearly three times the economic activity of a dollar spent at a…
Machine Head with Megadeth, Suicide Silence and Arcanium
When Machine Head roared out of Oakland 17 years ago, they were hailed as one of the most brutal and potentially one of the best Metal acts to come down the heavy gauge pipe in a long time. Fronted by former Vio-lence and Forbidden vocalist/guitarist Robb Flynn, Machine Head set a sales record for Roadrunner…
Comedy: John Henton
John Henton, known to TV viewers as a cast member of both Living Single and The Hughleys, had never thought about becoming a professional stand-up comic. One day, though, in the early 1980s, his co-workers at a Cleveland-area warehouse dared him to take the stage on amateur night at a local comedy club. “We would…
Dance: Rhythm in Shoes
At first I was disheartened to learn that 2009-2010 marks the final season for the Dayton-based, internationally recognized Americana live music and dance ensemble, Rhythm in Shoes. Then I found out it was a positive choice. I was surprised to learn that founding Artistic Directors Sharon Leahy and Rick Good decided of their own accord…
Herzog Is Hallowed Ground
Well, I’m in love, I’m in love, with a beautiful galBut she don’t care about meLawd, I tried and I tried, to keep her satisfiedBut she just wouldn’t staySo now that she is lea-eav-in’This is all I can say…I got the lovesick blues — Hank Williams, “Lovesick Blues” It was a quirky arrangement of a…
Black Cobra with Paralyzer and Black Tusk
In its infancy, the pummeling Sludge Metal of Black Cobra wasn’t generated by a full-time “band.” Instead, it was produced by two musicians working remotely from separate coasts. Native Floridians Jason Landrian and Raffa Martinez had long been friends and decided that they wanted to pool their ideas together to create a new project using…
Events: Transgender Day of Remembrance
The 11th annual Transgender Day of Remembrance memorializes those who were killed because of anti-transgender hatred or prejudice. It started in response to the death of Rita Hester, who was murdered on Nov. 28, 1998 in San Francisco. Her unsolved murder spawned a “Remembering Our Dead” Web project and a candlelight vigil in 1999. Now…
The Texas Guitar Women
For the most part, when people think of contemporary virtuoso Blues and Roots music guitar players they likely think of male performers — Eric Clapton, Ry Cooder, Buddy Guy, Robert Cray, etc. But, of course, the music world is often a sexist one (purposefully or not), and there's no shortage of phenomenal female guitarists who…
Arts: Fabricate Opening
If you’re the type of person who enjoys the uniqueness and quality of local hand-made arts and crafts (or if you think it’s funny to open a door and yell “Dorks!” into a room full of people gluing stuff together), then a new Northside boutique and gallery will surely interest you. Fabricate, a new space…
Phish
Oh, Phish, how do we love thee? Let us count the ways. We love Trey Anstasio’s sublime guitar ministrations. We love Mike Gordon’s rapturously fluid bass lines. We love Jon Fishman’s percussive range, from subtle Jazz inflection to hammer-and-tong Rock thunder. We love Page McConnell’s magnificent organ (and his playing’s pretty solid, too — insert…
Events: Victory of Light Expo
Open your third eye to the psychic world with this annual body-mind-spirit event. In a weekend packed with information, there will be workshops, readers, holistic healers, artists, live music and more to help you explore the world of parapsychology and psychic development. Workshops include things like “Up Close & Personal Mediumship,” “Quantum Touch: Energy Healing…
Onstage: Hedda Gabler
If you didn’t know that Henrik Ibsen’s tale of Hedda Gabler and her loveless marriage to George Tesman was written in 1990, you could mistake it for a very contemporary work. It’s a piece of realism that set theater writing down a new path, inspiring many later dramatists to portray relationships in ways that were…
Friday Movie Roundup: Dig Deeper
I know we’re in the midst of an economic recession not seen since before The Wizard of Oz — but we only have one Hollywood studio release this week? And the one is 2012, the latest effects-driven, apocalyptic nonsense from Roland Emmerich? —- I thought movies were supposed to do well during tough times? I…
Enquirer’s Double-Digit Drop
Now that any gains from an influx of Kentucky Post readers are no longer helping boost its numbers, The Cincinnati Enquirer had a 13.2 percent drop in its weekday circulation during the past year. The latest report from the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) states that the Mon.-Sat. average paid circulation for The Enquirer dropped…
Terrorism and Bananas
Protestors will be ready to greet investors next week as Chiquita holds its annual stockholders meeting in downtown Cincinnati. Two human rights groups — 8th Day Center for Justice and Witness for Peace — will demonstrate in an effort to hold Chiquita executives accountable for company payments made to terrorist groups in Colombia, payments the…
Welcome Center Opens for Immigrants
Santa Maria Community Services recently opened an International Welcome Center in Price Hill to assist international residents with various needs and help them acclimate to Cincinnati. The center, located within the Roberts Academy in the 1700 block of Grand Avenue, can link families with local service agencies and provides space for programs including English language…
Irving Berlin’s White Christmas (Review)
Critic's Pick If you enjoy musicals — especially movie musicals — you’re in for a great time at the Aronoff Center, where Broadway Across America is presenting the first touring production of Irving Berlin’s White Christmas. OK, so it’s early for a holiday show. Truth is, while this production has a few classic seasonal tunes,…
2012 (Review)
What has technology unleashed on us now? At one time, filmmakers were content to tease audiences with catastrophic events like the sinking of an ocean liner or a blazing high-rise. Soapy survivor tales stood alongside the heroic efforts of men and women rising to save lives against the odds. Now Roland Emmerich, the doomsayer to…
Echo and the Bunnymen, Dashboard Confessional, Bon Jovi and Morrissey
If you think you’re sick of hearing about kidney stones after three weeks, imagine having one (and possibly two) for that long. I’m ready to bungee jump off the Big Mac bridge if that’s what the urologist tells me is necessary to shed this thing (or things … I had a CT scan done on…
Stage Door: Mixed Reactions to “Three Sisters”
There does not seem to be any middle ground about the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park's production of Chekhov's Three Sisters. I've had conversations with people who loved its theatricality and the unusual concept overlaid by director John Doyle. Others think the new adaptation by Sarah Ruhl (who came to see the production last Sunday)…
Art: Something for Everyone at the Carnegie
Among the six new exhibits at Carnegie Visual and Performing Arts Center in Covington are outstanding solo ones by artists Keith Auerbach, Jessica Grace Bechtel, Ken Page and Eric Ruschman, collectively called Something for Everyone. They’re exhibited along with the Clay Alliance group show Feast or Famine and a group show featuring works by children.…
The Damned United (Review)
In his portrayal of famed British soccer team manager Brian Clough, Michael Sheen (The Queen) solidifies his status as this generation's Laurence Olivier in Tom Hooper's enthralling adaptation of Peter Morgan's 2006 book, The Damned Utd. Hooper works effortlessly with Morgan's unconventionally formatted screenplay that flips between eras to explore Brian Clough's dynamic personality that…
Summer Hours (Review)
Olivier Assayas, one of the foremost contemporary French writer/directors, has woven together in Summer Hours a tapestry of a family drama that has great depth and power but is also unencumbered by portentous melodrama and stylistic overstatement. The film has such an understated touch that the enormity of its message, about how time unsentimentally turns…
Music: NerdPow!
With game developers taking frequent technological leaps and the popularity of Rock Band and Guitar Hero nearing the point of cultural oversaturation, current video game music is light years removed from the tinny din and clunky MIDI palettes of yesteryear. Yet there's much more gaming-related audio out there than what makes it to consoles. Though…
Special CEA Ticket Offer
This ticket offer has expired as of 6 p.m. Friday, November 20. If you have already purchased your tickets, you can pick them up at the Will Call at Madison Theater the night of the event. If you were unable to take advantage of the discounted offer, you can still purchase tickets for full price…
CityBeat Podcast 35: Jazz at Schwartz Point
Music by the Schwartz Point Quintet and an interview with Ed Moss, owner and operator of Downtown's favorite speakeasy. —- If you like what you hear, please support our podcast by subscribing to our podcast in iTunes or via our RSS feed. Also, please tell your friends and share this link on Facebook and MySpace.
Health Care Reform and Our New President
If someone manages to shut up self-indulgent U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman long enough and the current health care reform bill approved by the House makes it through the Senate more or less intact, no doubt President Obama will be spinning it as a major victory. It might be a victory for Obama’s administration, but I’m…
CCM Is Broadway’s Farm Team
The University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music — familiarly known as CCM — is one of the best musical theater training programs at any American university. The program was established slightly more than four decades ago and its first graduate burst forth in 1969. That was Pamela Myers, a voice student of Helen Laird, who…
Winners and Losers
[WINNER] Jeff Cramerding: The Charter Committee’s former executive director now has his own political consulting business, and it’s scored some home runs right out of the gate. As the adviser on the successful “No on 9” campaign, which prevented putting more restrictions on local rail-related funding, and on the reelection bid of Cincinnati City Councilman…
Work-Friendly Coffeehouses
If you work from home, you’ve probably done the coffeehouse circuit. It’s a reason to put on civilian clothes and cast off the tired sweats that self-employed people sometimes come to resent. So when you make the trek in your best pair of jeans, where are the best places to find peace, quiet and instant…
Something for Everyone, Feast or Famine and More (Review)
Among the six new exhibits at Carnegie Visual and Performing Arts Center in Covington are outstanding solo ones by artists Keith Auerbach, Jessica Grace Bechtel, Ken Page and Eric Ruschman, collectively called Something for Everyone. They’re exhibited along with the Clay Alliance group show Feast or Famine and a group show featuring works by children.…
Wooster Tavern (Review)
Everything’s Better with Stella A word to the wise: When you go visit a neighborhood tavern known for its cheeseburgers and wings, that’s probably what you should order. My recent trek to Wooster Tavern is a case in point. Ready to enjoy a meal out without the kiddos, my husband and I easily found Wooster…
Don’t Hate on 275
Some things are best in small doses. For instance, I hate reality television, but for some reason I can’t turn away when America’s Fattest Crybabies is on. I also recommend hanging out with Northside hipsters in the smallest amounts possible. Now, I’d like to add Worst Week Ever to that list. Don’t get me wrong,…
Six Years of Watching
This past spring, I had a book come out with the same title as this column. This was mainly because a lot of the material in the book first appeared here. This sparked some questions at book signings and in interviews as to how long this column has been around. Each time I was asked,…
Mapping the Big Picture
It’s the last day of September and Corryville’s Recreation Center is packed. All seating in the center’s large assembly area is filled, and a standing-room-only crowd shares the space with video cameras and lighting, waiting with a barely-contained buzzing for a short video about city planning. It’s not a subject that usually occasions such levels…
Nov. 4-10: Worst Week Ever!
WEDNESDAY NOV. 4 It’s pretty clear that no one is ever going to solve the whole chicken or the egg thing (the notion of existence is waaay too absurd). But that’s not going to stop Kentucky legislators from working through their own version of this existential dilemma, as Ohio’s legalization of casino gambling has forced…
Blowing Their Tops
Vicco, Ky. — Picking his way through the mountain laurel near his Appalachian home, McKinley Sumner explains that all he ever wanted was a peaceful life on his family’s land where he was born and raised. “I live out here in the boondocks and that’s how I like it,” says Sumner, 76, stepping over the…
Pirate Radio (Review)
I remember how excited I was when the movie FM came out back in 1978. At last, here promised to be a really hip movie about the growth of freeform Rock radio and the commercial pressures that threatened and destroyed it. Then FM turned out to be the broadest and hoariest of underdogs-against-the-system clichés, so…
