Music: Yelawolf
Alabama-born Hip Hop artist Yelawolf began making waves in 2005 after self-releasing his debut album, Creek Water. The gifted MC landed a major-label deal with Columbia within two years, but the deal fizzled out and Yelawolf returned to working the underground. By the start of this decade, Yelawolf’s signed with Eminem’s Shady Records. His debut…
Onstage: The Irish Tenors
Traditional Irish songs are folksy, sometimes sad and frequently deal with alcohol — very similar to the holidays. Aptly, the Irish Tenors and their current Premiere Irish Holiday Celebration Tour features both traditional Christmas carols and classic Irish ballads. The trio has sold out shows at Radio City Music Hall and the Sydney Opera House,…
Event: Oakley Fancy Flea Winter Market
In case you missed Crafty Supermarket or the City Flea last weekend, here’s another local holiday market so you can check more friends and family off your gift list. The Oakley Fancy Flea (or O.F.F.) collects some of the best artists, vendors and one-of-a-kind businesses the city has to offer and sticks them all in…
Film: Women in Film Weekend
Cincinnati World Cinema celebrates women in film with a weekend of screenings showcasing female filmmakers, writers and stars. Winning short films from the Lunafest Film Festival will kick off each evening at 4 p.m., followed by a screening of Fort McCoy at 7 p.m., a look at a tightly knit family dealing with personal challenges…
Holiday: Holidays on Ludlow
Quaint Ludlow Avenue gets a Christmastime upgrade. Holidays on Ludlow is family-friendly festival with activities and events including hot chocolate and cookies at PNC Bank, carriage rides departing from Graeter’s, Santa Claus at Ace Hardware, a pop-up fairy tale parade (where storefronts will reveal their fairy tale-inspired winter window displays), live music on the Plaza…
Sports: Redsfest
The Reds are known for offering legit off-the-field fan experiences, from operating a massive team Hall of Fame and museum to putting on this weekend’s annual Redsfest. On Friday and Saturday, fans will have the opportunity to meet current and former players, procure autographs and take photos to put on the Internet, ask executives questions…
Event: Afterhours Speakeasy at the Metropole
Celebrate Repeal Day — aka the end of Prohibition — by drinking alcohol! The Metropole at 21c transforms into an afterhours speakeasy with Roaring Twenties-inspired cocktails, tunes, snacks and burlesque dancing by Ginger LeSnapps. Bootlegger cocktails include the Fountain Square, with Bulleit rye and Cardamaro, and the I-75, with Marker’s Mark, prosecco, smoked sugar cube and absinthe.…
Holiday: Christmas Saengerfest
Cincinnati is the birthplace of Saengerfest in America, a German singing festival that took place in a temporary exhibition structure built on the current Music Hall property in the latter half of the 1800s. By 1870, the popular music festival consisted of almost 2,000 singers and more than 60 area choirs. A couple years ago,…
Art: Holly Dazed Visionaries + Voices
Buying original artwork produced by local artists as holiday gifts is already an improvement over purchasing mass-produced copies. As part of the opening night reception for Visionaries + Voices’ upcoming Holly Dazed exhibition, V+V is offering visitors an artists cooperative sale in the bargain garage. Participants pay just $25 to look through the aisles of…
Comedy: Tom Simmons
The last time he performed in Cincinnati, comedian Tom Simmons got into town a day early, so he wound up closing Go Bananas’ open-mic show. He told the audience he was going to run through some jokes he was thinking about putting in his act, and then promptly destroyed the room. “Some nights it works,”…
Holiday: The Shillito Elves
In 1979 Shillito’s Department Store outfitted their downtown storefront with more than 130 handcrafted, animated elves across interior vignettes and exterior windows. The elves became a Cincinnati tradition until 1997, when the store (then Lazarus) moved to Fountain Square. Since then, the Shillito Elves have had a couple of homes, and in 2005, a local…
Holiday: Antique Christmas at the Taft
The historic Taft Museum of Art provides a glimpse into holidays past with their fitting Antique Christmas exhibit. This annual display of vintage ornaments, toys and decorations explores the nostalgic and unexpected in the house-museum setting. Find feather trees, 1930s foil-wrapped ornaments, World War II-era glass ornaments, paper dolls, early Santa figures, a 1950s Christmas…
Holiday: Holiday Junction
The beloved Duke Energy holiday train display returns to the Cincinnati Museum Center. This locomotive winter wonderland began in 1946 and has since become a Cincinnati tradition, featuring more than 300 miniature rail cars and 60 engines running along 1,000 feet of sparkly, snow-covered track. Along with the enchanting trains and model city, you’ll also…
Onstage: Elf the Musical
You have until Sunday to discover your inner elf. Based on Will Ferrell’s hilarious 2003 movie, this touring Broadway musical tells the story of Buddy, an orphan mistakenly transported to the North Pole and put to work in Santa’s toy shop. He’s too human to pass for an elf and too clumsy to succeed at…
Pedal Wagon Offers Winter Tours
If you’ve ever been driving around the interlocking streets of the city and seen a group of hysterical people slowly pedaling a giant wagon, then you’ve been exposed to the wonderful world of the Pedal Wagon. This 15-person rolling party — powered by the pedals beneath each rider’s seat — takes groups on historic tours,…
Cincinnati Art Museum’s Popular Curator Benedict Leca Gets Promotion
Benedict Leca, a much-liked curator of European Art at Cincinnati Art Museum whose departure in 2012 to become chief curator at Hamilton, Ontario's, Art Gallery of Hamilton prompted protest, has moved again. It's a promotion. Perhaps his greatest accomplishment at Cincinnati was organizing Thomas Gainsborough and the Modern Woman. Here are a few paragraphs from the…
Vigil for Concert Tragedy Victims Set for Wednesday
Tomorrow (Dec. 3) marks the 35th anniversary of the concert tragedy at Riverfront Coliseum (now US Bank Arena) where 11 music fans were crushed and killed after fans pushed their way into the arena to see British Rock legends The Who perform. Tomorrow at 7 p.m., a vigil will be held on the plaza between…
Morning News and Stuff
So my morning donut routine took a dramatic turn today when a box truck plowed into Servatii downtown right before I got there. The whole building was filled with smoke. It looked crazy, and I hope everyone is OK. I’m going to try not to take this as a sign from the universe that I…
Music Tonight: The Stray Birds
Pennsylvanian Folk/Americana trio The Stray Birds perform tonight at Newport’s Southgate House Revival. Australian Indie Folk singer/songwriter Jordie Lane opens the show at 8 p.m. Tickets are $10. After self-releasing their debut album in 2012, The Stray Birds scored wide-spread acclaim (NPR put it in its Top 10 of Folk/Americana albums released that year) and…
Cincinnati International Wine Festival Celebrates 25 Years
2015 marks the 25th anniversary of the Cincinnati International Wine Festival. The festival is well known and respected for offering interesting juried wines, while also focusing on philanthropy. More than 700 wines from over 100 wineries will be available to sample, while guests enjoy winery dinners, grand tastings, a charity auction, and a luncheon prepared…
WATCH: Freekbass & the Bump Assembly’s “Never Enough” Video
Masterful Cincinnati Funk musician Freekbass and his band The Bump Assembly debuted their new music video for the track “Never Enough” this past weekend during a show at Newport’s Southgate House Revival (which also featured a reunion of Freekbass’ old crew, SHAG). This morning, the clip made its public debut. The groovy video is the…
Morning News and Stuff
Welcome back to the post-holiday real world, where we all must once again perform tasks even more arduous than eating three pounds of turkey and falling asleep in a chair while grownups talk about football. But hey, it’s Cyber Monday, so you can still spend brain-melting amounts of time staring at a screen shopping for…
ICYMI: Wussy on CBS This Morning
Veteran Cincinnati band Wussy saw a huge boost of its national profile (and sales) over the weekend when the band was featured on CBS This Morning on Nov. 29. The band’s network TV debut included an entertaining and funny interview segment, spliced with live footage (including shots filmed at this year’s MidPoint Music Festival, where…
Bureau of Missing Persons (Review)
Know Theatre’s annual Fringe Festival uses the motto, “Kinda weird. Like you.” That could be an apt description of its production of The Bureau of Missing Persons, a new play by Lila Rose Kaplan getting its second full production this month (the first was in New York City a year ago). This is the directorial…
Stage Door: Clooney, Christmas Carol and Comedy
Earlier this week I took my mom to see Tenderly: The Rosemary Clooney Musical at the Cincinnati Playhouse (CityBeat review here). It was just as good the second time around. Mom, who loved Clooney as a performer in her heyday, had this to say: "It was like seeing her perform live!" I agree: Susan Haefner…
Update: Protest Marchers Released on Bail
UPDATED Nov. 28, 12:45 PM: Judge Ted Berry waived the tracking device requirement for the protesters today, and those who posted bail (all but one) should be released in the next few hours. Original Post: Some of the 15 protesters arrested during Tuesday’s march through downtown Cincinnati in solidarity with Ferguson, Mo. paid bail the…
Lessons from ‘Lightgeist’
One of the best things about Cincinnati’s current urban renaissance is that older spaces — some unused or even previously unknown — are being reinvented for new purposes. Churches and firehouses become brewpubs and restaurants, office buildings become apartments, underground tunnels become tourist attractions. Since artists are sensitive to their surroundings, a group called Near*By…
Morning News and Stuff
Hey y’all. Yesterday was a long one, but today’s my birthday and tomorrow is Thanksgiving. So yeah, that’s awesome. The big news this morning is something you’ve probably already heard about, maybe from our coverage last night. Roughly 300 people yesterday gathered at the Potter Stewart U.S. Courthouse on Fifth Street for a rally organized…
