The Twisted Artistry of Kanye West
Kanye West’s just-released My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is getting mondo love from such divergent entities as Rolling Stone (a rare five-star review — which, according to its ratings scale, equates to a “classic” — written by Rob Sheffield, a critic whose style and insight I admire but whose star-rating designations often seem overly generous)…
Comedy: Darrell Joyce
Comedian Darrell Joyce loves an audience, no matter the venue. Cruise ships, corporate gigs or comedy clubs — he likes the variety. “It’s boring if you’re doing the same thing all of the time,” he says. “I think I need to have that variety of young and old audiences. And there’s a big difference between…
Music: John Prine
If Jimmy Rodgers was the Singing Brakeman, then it’s not too much of a stretch to call John Prine the Singing Postman, since that was how he made rent when he was spending nights sitting at his kitchen table writing his first songs in the late 1960s. By the time he got to Chicago’s Fifth…
Art: A Look at Life through Photography at Phyllis Weston Gallery
Inspired by the Art of Caring: A Look at Life through Photography is the current exhibition at Phyllis Weston Gallery, guest curated by Cynthia Goodman. The entire first floor of the gallery is given over to an impressive roster of internationally famed photographers, including Tina Barney, Lee Friedlander, William Wegman and many others. These photographs…
Events: Handmade Nation Screening
Artist and filmmaker Faythe Levine traveled over 19,000 miles in 2006 to document the new wave of craft in America. She visited 15 cities and interviewed more than 50 indie artists, crafters and designers to present an inside look at the rise of DIY art, crafts and design across the country. Her extensive footage has…
Comedy: Lachlan Patterson
“I think when everything is going really shitty for you, that’s the best time to try something, because it can’t get any worse,” says Lachlan Patterson about his first foray into stand-up comedy.
Events Gay BINGO: Ugly Sweater Christmas Sweater Party
Step into the closet and work what this season has given you — the ugly Christmas sweater. Drag out that hideous sweater and run it through the wash, because that little number is your key to winning a special prize during Gay BINGO this Sunday. This isn’t your Grandma’s BINGO. You and that sweater of…
Events: Festival of Lights
What makes the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, according to Parents Magazine, one of the Top 10 Best Zoos for Kids? How about thousands of holiday lights, Santa Claus and his reindeer, story time with Mrs. Claus, rapping elves and the Gingerbread Village? Come celebrate one of the most magical times of the year at…
Events: East Row Victorian Christmas Tour
Step into the 19th century for the 17th annual East Row Victorian Christmas Tour from noon-6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday in the East Row Historic District of Newport. The tour will showcase seven historic homes, five of which have never opened to the public. The event will begin with the mansion tour where visitors will…
Art: Antique Christmas at Taft Museum of Art
Christmas past is marvelously evoked throughout Antique Christmas at the Taft Museum, with new additions this year to the nostalgic feather trees and old-fashioned toys waiting for Christmas morning. Paper dolls have their own paper dollhouse and Noah's arks fill a display case, along with their attendant animals, two-by-two. There's a German miniature toy shop…
Music: Atlantic/Pacific
Listening to Meet Your New Love, the debut album from Atlantic/Pacific, sonic references skitter across the frontal lobes like images flashed during a droog’s aversion therapy session in A Clockwork Orange. The Brooklyn duo-sometimes-trio flits impressively from sound to sound with an almost casual mastery, like a brilliantly evocative artist who paints in an expressionist…
Music: Here Come The Mummies
Non-scientific studies have shown that YouTube comments account for a third of moronic crap said on the Internet, but when it comes to commenters having trouble discerning between “Here Come the Mummies” videos and others featuring “The Mummies,” the ignorance is understandable. Let's clarify things by breaking down the primary differences between the two bands.…
Onstage: Marco Panuccio
Cincinnati audiences first heard tenor Marco Panuccio when he sang “O Holy Night” as part of the CSO’s Home for the Holidays program. With the demise of CSO holiday shows, the acclaimed singer steps into the breach, returning to his home base with O Holy Night, an evening of holiday favorites in the resplendent setting…
Events: Grapevine Wine Walk
Shopping is fun. Drinking is also fun. Any event that brings these two activities together is a match made in heaven. The Grapevine Wine Walk, a monthly wine tasting held in Over-the-Rhine, must have a hotline to God. This month’s event will be held in OTR’s Gateway Quarter, centered on the corner of 12th and…
Onstage: Cinderella at Ensemble Theatre
Brains trump beauty in Cinderella, now playing at Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati, where every December another familiar fairy tale gets a fun musical makeover. This year’s installment features a philosophy-loving heroine (exceptional homegrown talent Brooke Rucidlo) who calls her critter sidekicks Plato, Socrates and Aristotle (a toad, spider and crow, respectively; no cute rodents in…
It’s Do and DIY at Hive13 Group
There are about 20 people crowded into what was once a foreman’s office space. The gathering is friendly and informal, but there’s an agenda and reports that have to be made. “The reversing class we had last Wednesday was a pretty good success,” Paul Vincent says. “We had probably 25-ish people show up.” The meeting…
Art: Chocolat at Prairie Gallery
Cincinnati artist Brian Joiner had a powerful body of work behind him and an ambitious career ahead of him when he passed away this October. Among his many honors, Cincinnati Magazine named him “Best Portrait Artist” in 1999, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center selected him for a prestigious commission in 2004 and in 2009…
A Rough Life Comes to an End
A homeless man who was featured on the cover of CityBeat in September and talked about his life in makeshift camps under bridges and in vacant lots throughout the city has died. William Floyd, known as “Baldy” to most people, died late Sunday night after a fire spread through a camp near Mehring Way and…
Free Testing on World AIDS Day
Because it can take years after exposure for symptoms to develop, many people who are infected with the virus that causes AIDS don't even realize it. More than one million people in the United States are estimated to be living with HIV, and approximately one in five people with HIV are unaware they're infected, according…
James Franco, Anne Hathaway to Co-Host Oscars
James Franco and Anne Hathaway will be at the Oscars ceremony on Feb. 27 … as co-hosts. Announced earlier today, the Academy's latest tweak (following last year's expansion of the Best Picture category from five to 10) seems a clear effort to lure younger viewers (Franco is 32, Hathaway is 28) to a show that…
NY Times Praises New Pomegranates Album
Cincinnati Indie Pop group Pomegranates released its stellar new album One of Us in October and the acclaim has been glowing … and growing. A new review adds a nice cherry (one of many to come, hopefully) on top of the mounds of positive Web notices, this one from esteemed veteran critic Jon Pareles in…
The Merry Wives of Windsor (Review)
The popularity of Sir John Falstaff, the portly jokester in Shakespeare’s Henry IV plays, led to a sequel. The Merry Wives of Windsor today would have been dubbed Falstaff II. And like most sequels, the original idea wears thin. Falstaff is funny, but his coarse, self-aggrandizing behavior is one-dimensional. That’s part of why Cincinnati Shakespeare…
Atlantic/Pacific
Listening to Meet Your New Love, the debut album from Atlantic/Pacific, sonic references skitter across the frontal lobes like images flashed during a droog’s aversion therapy session in A Clockwork Orange. The Brooklyn duo-sometimes-trio flits impressively from sound to sound with an almost casual mastery, like a brilliantly evocative artist who paints in an expressionist…
Tangled (Review)
p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } A handsome rogue gets rehabilitated. A trapped princess regains her freedom and her throne. Swashes get buckled. Derrying gets done. A wicked enchantress reverts back to her ugly roots. Yes, Disney’s latest reworked fairy tale is upon us, but despite all of the typical trappings Tangled might keep our cynicism…
The Next Three Days (Review)
Writer-director Paul Haggis (Crash, In the Valley of Elah) goes the more conventional action-thriller route here as Russell Crowe and Elizabeth Banks play a married middle-class couple pursuing fugitive route after the wife is sentenced to a long prison term for the murder of her boss. As the schlubby hubby, Crowe attempts to contain his…
A Wrinkle in Time (Review)
Earlier this year John Glore’s adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time premiered at South Coast Rep, one of America’s most respected theaters for new plays. The 1962 novel about precocious kids has been popular for a long time (especially with, well, precocious kids), so there’s a built-in audience. That’s certainly why Know Theatre…
John Prine
If Jimmy Rodgers was the Singing Brakeman, then it’s not too much of a stretch to call John Prine the Singing Postman, since that was how he made rent when he was spending nights sitting at his kitchen table writing his first songs in the late 1960s. By the time he got to Chicago’s Fifth…
Here Come The Mummies with Johny Fink and the Intrusion
Non-scientific studies have shown that YouTube comments account for a third of moronic crap said on the Internet, but when it comes to commenters having trouble discerning between “Here Come the Mummies” videos and others featuring “The Mummies,” the ignorance is understandable. Let's clarify things by breaking down the primary differences between the two bands.…
Faster (Review)
p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Dwayne Johnson races down dark and dirty alleyways as an ex-con hunting down the men who double-crossed him during a major heist and killed his brother. In addition, he struggles to stay one step ahead of an aging detective (Billy Bob Thornton) with a few of his own dark secrets…
The Posthumously Working Artist
Many artists have a story about Brian Joiner. “We saw each other across a crowded gallery room,” Pam Kravetz says. “Cliché, but true. He looked at my art and said, ‘Girl, you should be famous.’ ” “ Brian was kind and friendly with a strong, deep voice,” Antonio Adams says. “ One of the sweetest…
Burlesque (Review)
An Iowa country girl with talent dreams of the big-time saves her pennies and makes the trip to the big city to take a shot at the prize of fame and fortune. We’ve seen this story a million times, and Burlesque, with Christina Aguilera as the young aspirant and Cher as an aging mentor/club owner…
Switchblade Syndicate with Koffin Kats
Northern Kentucky-based Switchblade Syndicate has been playing together since May, having risen from the ashes of vocalist Veronica Grim and guitarist Jimmy “El Rey” Nielsen’s former group, De Los Muertos. Their previous group had an uncharacteristically quick rise to prominence within Cincinnati’s small but mighty Rockabilly scene. Fueled by Grim’s intense lyricism and the band’s…
Darker My Love with Delta Spirit
Darker My Love's sophomore full-length album, 2, was released in 2008. Like its predecessor, the band’s 2006 self-titled debut, the album was filled with sizzling, teetering guitar atmospherics, clouding the vocals in their wake. The sounds garnered comparisons to a procession of Psychedelic and Shoegaze titans associated with decades past, including Pink Floyd, My Bloody…
Ochocinco Bares (Almost) All
Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chad Ochocinco sheds his clothes in a new print advertisement for an animal rights group. Never one known to be shy or retiring, Ochocinco appears naked and holding a football in front of his genitalia in the ad for the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). Referring to the…
Freestore Helps Feed Nearly 35,000
As part of its annual Thanksgiving Day preparations for the needy, the Freestore Foodbank distributed almost 400,000 pounds of food, its largest amount ever for the holiday. During the past three days, the emergency food provider distributed 399,660 pounds of food to 12,204 households. That's enough to feed 34,980 people, according to a spokeswoman.—- The…
Freekbass Brings the Pre-Turkey Funk
Tonight marks the beginning of a “long weekend” of Thanksgiving merriment, a chance to step back and remember the really important things in life, like family, friends and overeating like competitive eating champ Takeru Kobayashi with the munchies. Tonight is also the alleged “busiest bar night of the year” and the next few days are…
Holiday Activities
Events Through Dec. 19: Pop-up Shop in OTR Pop-up shops have grown in popularity around the country as brief occupants of unused retail space. Local businesses including Studio Vertu, Powerhouse Factories, Chocolats Latour, Nati Evolvement Clothing Co. and Artfully Disheveled will have their products for sale in the shop on weekends through the holidays. 1213…
Fine Golden ‘Rings’
No concept album theme has been examined more exhaustively than Christmas. A fresh angle within the holiday music realm seems unlikely, but longtime Cincinnati radio personality Brian O’Donnell, now a fixture on WGUC and WNKU, and local guitarist Jose Madrigal teamed up to craft one with Ring: A Cincinnati Guitar Christmas for Public Radio. Last…
CCV Faces Another Defeat, While Wasting Money
P eople like Phil Burress must live in an alternate reality, full of strange fears and repressed desires, while ignoring the true dangers all around them like soaring unemployment, families that struggle to put food on the table and politicians beholden to corporate interests. Burress, who is president of the anti-gay, anti-pornography, anti-anything-different Citizens for…
Waiting to Inhale
The only smoking I want with my breakfast is the bacon. Maybe the ham, too — but no cigarettes. With the indoor public smoking ban, of course, you Ohio diners have taken smoke-free eating for granted for a few years now. But in Kentucky it’s still a big bone of contention. We were almost at…
Retail in the Rhine
A lthough I grew up in Cincinnati and graduated from Oak Hills High School, I haven’t spent a full holiday shopping season here since around 2006, when I spent a few post-college months living with my parents. I gave a half-hearted attempt at sorting out Cincinnati’s arts/entertainment/shopping scene, but when I heard Over-the-Rhine was supposed…
Unsuccessful Serenade
Exiled from Main Street XXXIV: For Jenny I had just sat down for Thanksgiving dinner when my phone rang. It was my sister, but I couldn’t understand her. “Take a breath,” I implored. After doing so, she cried, “Mark, Mom’s dead! She didn’t come out of her room this afternoon and Arlene broke down her…
Robbing to Start a Record Label, Reality TV and Rolling Stone’s Next Venture
[HOT] So Entrepreneurial, It’s Criminal As long as record labels have existed there have been record labels launched on sketchy seed money earned in nefarious ways ranging from mafia connections to drug dealing. Some of those labels have even been successful. So who knows what kind of amazing music the world has been deprived of…
God Bless Us, Everyone
T he holidays offer a perfect time to go to the theater with local productions for theater fans from wide-eyed kids to old cynics. Some shows are familiar, like a visit with old friends, while others spruce up an old story with some new garland — and perhaps a sprig of twisted sass. A great…
Thanks for the Giving
During a week when we count our blessings, I want to mention several things I’m grateful for, starting with Mrs. Mary Price, a high school English teacher who pulled me out of a study hall in 1963 and urged me to audition for a play she was directing. I’ve been in love with theater ever…
Rat Girl (Review)
Kristin Hersh is a known quantity in the Alt-Rock orbit as a solo artist and through her role in the groups Throwing Muses and 50 Foot Wave. Given her extraordinary productivity, perhaps it is not too surprising to see Hersh author a book, and Rat Girl is actually her second of three, starting with 2007’s…
Switchblade Syndicate (Profile)
R ock & Roll is a cliché. The radio is filled with countless songs about love and loss, sin and redemption and sex and drugs, most written by one-hit wonders. But what if the songs were actually memorable? What if the music put vice clamps on your grey matter and didn’t let go? What if…
Chestnuts Roasting on a Local Fire
O ne Christmas back when my kids were little, I decided to buy all my presents within three miles of my house. Since that included most of downtown Covington, Newport and Cincinnati, even though I had loads of gifts to buy, buying local was a piece of cake. Basically by a happy geographical accident, I…
Nov. 17-23: Worst Week Ever!
WEDNESDAY NOV. 17 For most parents, determining which elementary school your child will attend is fairly easy — just look up which public school is closest to your home, sign little Billy up and tell him to wash his hands a lot. Local media reports today noted that hundreds of parents last week went through…
Merry Craftmas
W hen most people think of arts and crafts, two images typically come to mind. Some think of the classic church basement craft show where retired ladies hawk doilies. Others might remember second-grade art class, where they made handprint turkeys and might or might not have eaten paste. But what about a marketplace of young…
CEA 2010
The Cincinnati Entertainment Awards honored local musicians on Sunday night. See photos from the event here.
Life (Review)
Even though Keith Richards worked with professional writer James Fox on this long-awaited memoir, the voice sounds dead-on true to the “Keef” we know from countless interviews, concert footage, Rolling Stones songs, run-ins with the law, etc. — profane, rambling yet blunt, rough-edged and potentially violent, funny, defiant about his bad habits, passionately unafraid to…
Anant Bhati and Jim Rogers
[WINNER] ANANT BHATI: Local Democratic Party leaders selected Bhati last week to replace Dr. O’dell Owens as Hamilton County coroner; Owens is leaving to become president of Cincinnati State Technical and Community College. Bhati is Good Samaritan Hospital’s gynecology director and an ex-University of Cincinnati trustee. Bhati, 70, is a native of India who came…
Jim Jennings [Owner, Salt of the Earth]
Salt of the Earth (4760 Red Bank Road, Madisonville, 513-272-3650) is a lunch café and dinner-to-go place that’s been helping home cooks round out their repertoire for the past 10 years. Very vegetarian friendly, but not exclusively vegetarian, they also do catering and carry a small specialty grocery selection. Owner Jim Jennings is a wine…
Sights of the Season
After hours of sitting with people who are supposedly related to you, sometimes you just need a break. The holidays are supposed to be a time of peace, which for most of us involves a lot of running around and a lot of "catching up" with folks you only see once a year. Instead of…
Wednesday Movie Roundup: Severed Arm Edition
Listen up, moviegoers: Five of this week's six new releases open today, highlighted by Danny Boyle's 127 Hours, the tension-laced, surprisingly brisk-moving true story of hiker Aron Ralston (played by an inspired James Franco), whose arm was lodged between a boulder and a canyon wall for five days. —-(Look for my interview with Boyle in…
