Events: Crafty Supermarket Holiday Show
Screw Black Friday and Cyber Monday — Crafty Supermarket Saturday is here! This year the Clifton Cultural Arts Center will be transformed into your handmade goods and gear holiday headquarters. Over 50 vendors will be set up to share their unique and sometimes unconventional creations. With a wide range of price points to fit every…
Events: Cincinnati Unchained
'Tis the season to be shopping! If you’re dreading the stress and chaos of Black Friday, then try a different type of shopping experience with Cincinnati Unchained, voted CityBeat’s Best of Cincinnati 2008 “Best Retail Promotion.” Come out and support Tristate businesses by shopping local all day Saturday. With over 80 local businesses in the Greater…
Events: Christkindlmarkt
It’s that time of year, folks. There’s a bite in the air, the talks of Black Friday shopping are swirling and department stores are already annoying me with Christmas music. Lucky for all of you pre-Thanksgiving Christmas enthusiasts, the Germania Society is hosting its 14th annual Christkindlmarkt this weekend at Germania Park to kick off…
Music: Jesse Sykes
Jesse Sykes is absolutely smitten with the idea of the slow build. On both the August-released Marble Son and the preceding three albums, the namesake of Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter has shown her devotion to tracks that take their time to venture anywhere they want. Instruments move in meticulous, drawn-out motions, and when…
Music: City and Colour
Dallas Green hasn’t won American Idol, shown up to an award show in drag or hanged himself in any of his music videos. He hasn’t needed the aid of reality television or publicity stunts to draw attention. The extent of Green’s publicity moves has been changing the name under which he records and performs. Though…
Comedy: Dominique
For Dominique, going postal meant leaving a job in civil service and starting a career in comedy. Perhaps it had something to do with the postal facility she worked in, the now infamous Brentwood Facility, the site of an anthrax scare. "I knew something like that was gonna happen,” Dominique says. “I used to see…
Art: Sam Amidon
Sam Amidon, a Vermont-born and London-based musician, offers a performance that’s so theatrical in its construction that it has its own title — Home Alone Inside My Head. That means that in addition to playing acoustic instruments and singing his very artful take on Folk ballads, Gospel tunes and Blues, he incorporates storytelling and multimedia…
Squeeze the Day for 11/15
Music Tonight: Cincinnati's "Infamous Trashgrass" band Rumpke Mountain Boys are on the road right now, performing several shows in Colorado, so they won't be holding down their usual every-Tuesday slot at Stanley's Pub tonight. In their place is Bloomington, Indiana's like-minded quintet The New Old Calvary. The band sites as influences "Traditional Old-Time (Music), New…
Literary: Wicked
Gregory Maguire has built his own alternative universe with his series of Wicked novels. Premised on L. Frank Baum's Wizard of Oz tales, Maguire's tales give the stories of the Emerald City and Munchkinland a more contemporary, psychological spin, as well as regarding them from a decidedly cynical perspective. His latest title, Out of Oz,…
Art: Hetero-Types
On the surface, art and science appear worlds apart. One seeks rational, repeatable explanations of our physical environment, while the other traffics in more poetic statements of existence. But in truth, visual art and scientific pursuits have always been a complementary pair. Filippo Brunelleschi’s 15th century invention of linear perspective is as much an artistic…
Music: Shonen Knife
If you didn’t know any better and went to a concert by Osaka, Japan rockers Shonen Knife — like, say, this Wednesday at Mayday (4227 Spring Grove Ave., Northside) — and someone told you the band is celebrating its 30th anniversary, you’d probably slap them and tell them to apologize to the three women in…
Music: Emperor X
In many instances, a guy with an acoustic guitar is likely to produce visions of James Taylor’s brilliant guitar work and melancholy song stylings or Paul Simon’s poetic magnificence, but Chad Matheny doesn’t operate in quite the same vein. Under the nom du rocque Emperor X, Matheny steps onto the platform of acoustic singer/songwriter with…
Cincinnati Music Heritage Group Offers CEA VIP Perks
The proceeds from the Cincinnati Entertainment Awards (coming up this Sunday at Covington's Madison Theater) have been donated to various music-affiliated charities over the years. For the 2011 edition, money from the show will again be given to the Cincinnati USA Music Heritage Foundation. The non-profit organization has spent the past few years shining the…
Music, Movies and the Not So Mundane
Juelz Santana was arrested late last week in New Jersey after allegedly making terrorist threats. TMZ reports that’s Juelz was booked for disorderly conduct but released hours later on $46,500 bail. "Police impounded my Bentley so I guess I gotta bring the rose out! They thought that was my only car," Juelz wrote on Twitter.—-…
City and Colour
Dallas Green hasn’t won American Idol, shown up to an award show in drag or hanged himself in any of his music videos. He hasn’t needed the aid of reality television or publicity stunts to draw attention. The extent of Green’s publicity moves has been changing the name under which he records and performs. Though…
Jesse Sykes
Jesse Sykes is absolutely smitten with the idea of the slow build. On both the August-released Marble Son and the preceding three albums, the namesake of Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter has shown her devotion to tracks that take their time to venture anywhere they want. Instruments move in meticulous, drawn-out motions, and when…
Emperor X
In many instances, a guy with an acoustic guitar is likely to produce visions of James Taylor’s brilliant guitar work and melancholy song stylings or Paul Simon’s poetic magnificence, but Chad Matheny doesn’t operate in quite the same vein. Under the nom du rocque Emperor X, Matheny steps onto the platform of acoustic singer/songwriter with…
Morning News and Stuff
One of the judges overseeing the Occupy Cincinnati trespassing cases says there's nothing in the city charter that gives the Park Board the authority to dole out misdemeanors. Several other municipal court judges either declined comment or said they would consider the point Stockdale makes in his letter if it is raised during the hearings.…
Actors Theatre Is Ready for Humana Festival No. 36
The 36th annual Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville is set for Feb. 26 through April 1, 2012. The theater today announced the line-up of full-length works. (A bill of three ten-minute plays will be announced at a later date.) Here’s what’s in store for the festival that the theater…
Review: Beirut at Bogart’s
A great concert can transform a venue and transport an audience to its own little world. Last night at Bogart's, Zach Condon and his very successful Indie-meets-World-music ensemble Beirut did both in front of a wildly appreciative, sold-out crowd. —- The band is on the road supporting its stellar sophomore full-length, The Rip Tide, another…
Review: David Bazan at the Southgate House
The crowd at Southgate House surely went home with sore throats last night. With every song David Bazan sang, his fans sang along. From a guy near the back who did an animated and fairly accurate imitation of Alex Westcoat’s happy-go-lucky drumming to the hundred or so feet that tapped along, all signs pointed to…
Friday Movie Roundup: Lighten Up, Leo, Edition
When will Leonardo DiCaprio lighten up? It doesn't look like it's going to happen anytime soon. Asked recently if he would consider doing something besides the heavy dramatic lifting of recent years (see Gangs of New York, The Aviator, Blood Diamond, The Departed, Body of Lies, Revolutionary Road, Shutter Island, Inception and now J. Edgar),…
Join ‘Take Shelter’ Discussion Saturday Night
On Saturday night (Nov. 12) after the 7:30 p.m. screening of Take Shelter at the Esquire Theatre in Clifton, CityBeat contributing editor Steven Rosen will lead a discussion into the film's meaning — and what really occurs at the mysterious ending. —- Writer/director Jeff Nichols' tense, provocative psychological thriller is about whether one man's (Michael…
Ass Ponys Guitarist Releases eleven:eleven Project
Northside record shoppe Shake It Records is celebrating 11.11.11 quite appropriately this evening, hosting a release party for a new CD by former Ass Ponys guitarist John Erhardt (who was with the Ponys from the start, from their "Okra years" up through their A&M Records debut). The project, dubbed "eleven:eleven," was written 11 years ago…
Squeeze the Day for 11/11/11
Music Tonight: Local music legends Over the Rhine headline tonight's preview of the restoration of Emery Theatre in (the neighborhood) Over-the-Rhine, hosted by The Requiem Project. Plans for the gorgeous (yet long neglected) theater (which has hosted our Cincinnati Entertainment Awards twice in the past 15 years) will be unveiled and entertainment will be plentiful,…
Immortals
From the producers of 300 comes this neo-mythic tale of Theseus (Henry Cavill), the mortal chosen by the gods to lead the fight against Hyperion (Mickey Rourke), a ruthless king intent on awakening the vanquished titans to defeat the gods and destroy all of humanity. Cavill, on his way to becoming the next Superman,…
Jack and Jill
Adam Sandler tightens his embrace of broad family hijinks with this story about a set of adult twins (Sandler plays both brother and sister, yeah!) who bicker, bicker, bond, bicker some more and then bond one last time during their annual holiday gathering. The movie kicks off (and ends) with real-life twins engaged in…
The Skin I Live In
Pedro Almodóvar proves himself an apt technician at sustaining suspense in the thriller genre. Antonio Banderas returns to work with Almodóvar for the first time in over 20 years, since his memorable performance Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!. The years have been kind to Banderas, who brings his A game to a deliciously…
Martha Marcy May Marlene
Writer-director Sean Durkin introduces Martha (Elizabeth Olsen) as a member of a commune, one of the compliant women who have surrendered to the domestic duties, the listless routine, the second-class status, and the waiting to share the bed of Patrick (John Hawkes), the paterfamilias of this clan. And then, in a fit of spontaneous…
Review: Eclipse’s “Around the World”
Gifted Hip Hop/Funk/Rock/Jazz ensemble Eclipse is set to release its second studio effort, the long-player Around the World, this Sunday at the Southgate House in Newport. Also performing at the 8 p.m. release party are two groups with members who guested on the new album — turntable crew Animal Crackers and funky horns-driven group The…
Music, Movies and the Not So Mundane
Eddie Murphy has stepped down as the host of the Oscars after his friend Brett Ratner resigned as co-producer of the event. Murphy said in a statement: “First and foremost I want to say that I completely understand and support each party's decision with regard to a change of producers for this year's Academy Awards…
Squeeze the Day for 11/10
Music Tonight: For music-loving 9-5ers who have the day off tomorrow for Veteran's Day, there are plenty of live music options tonight. After you've solemnly paid tribute to our brave men and women in the U.S. military, of course. Those who think ukuleles are just little souvenir guitars from beach vacations might be surprised to…
Morning News and Stuff
It's been a wild couple of days in local politics, with most of the names on East Side yard signs losing in Tuesday's City Council election. The newbies: Democrats P.G. Sittenfeld, Yvette Simpson and Chris Seelbach. The new Council will include only one Republican, Charlie Winburn, although Chris Smitherman acts like he's from all sorts…
Onstage: Doubt
A t the end of John Patrick Shanley’s multi-award winning play and film Doubt, the formidable Sister Aloysius cries, “Oh, Sister James. I have doubts! I have such doubts!” Those two short lines are laden with pathos, emotion and high drama. It sounds operatic — and it will be. Opera Fusion: New Works chose the…
Film: HorrorHound Weekend
Whether they admit it or not, the horror genre has a special place in the hearts of most movie buffs. That affinity is usually traced back to childhood, a period during which we are far more open to spooky, supernatural occurrences; the terrifying possibility of a crazy guy in a mask wielding a chainsaw; or…
J. Edgar
Because nothing is more intriguing than people, and in theory celebrated people are even more intriguing, it continues to be a baffling frustration that cinematic biopics — the new J. Edgar included — generally work better as anesthesia than as drama. And it's largely because they continue to make the same, inexcusable mistake: They…
Music, Movies and the Not So Mundane
Young Money Records has officially scrapped the Drake and Lil Wayne collaboration album after previously confirming the project. Drake told XXL that he and Wayne have decided not to make the album because they felt listeners would compare the album to Kanye West and Jay-Z’s Watch the Throne. “Me and Wayne scrapped the idea of…
The BRINK of New Music
The Cincinnati Entertainment Awards ceremony is just a couple weeks away (deadline to vote for your favorite nominees is Friday at noon), but its sister event, BRINK: A New Music Showcase, returns for its 11th year this Saturday. Showcases for BRINK — created to give Greater Cincinnati’s new original bands some love and local music…
Starving Student’s Guide to Cheap Eats (Clifton Edition)
My dad graduated from UC’s engineering college in the early 1960s. A poor kid from the South, he lived at the YMCA and regularly found himself at the dinner table of his soon-to-be in-laws so he could get a square meal. Today’s students face many of the same problems — high costs and low wages…
CEA.11 Performers Announced
A good party needs good music and the Cincinnati Entertainment Awards ceremony has annually featured some of the best music being made in Greater Cincinnati. This year's show at the Madison Theater on Nov. 20 will be no exception. Performers for this year's CEAs will include Wussy, Pomegranates and New Artist of the Year nominees…
The Cult of Horror
Whether they admit it or not, the horror genre has a special place in the hearts of most movie buffs. That affinity is usually traced back to childhood, a period during which we are far more open to spooky, supernatural occurrences; the terrifying possibility of a crazy guy in a mask wielding a chainsaw; or…
Learning To ‘Fly’
There is an old adage that goes, “Those who can’t do, teach.” As with a lot of old phrases, it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but that doesn’t stop people from using it. The phrase loses even more of its power when applied to local singer/songwriter Kelly Thomas. A teacher by profession and musician…
Not the Final Frontier
P erhaps we should begin with a clarification. It seems that Frontier Folk Nebraska’s name has sparked some misconceptions about the band that should be addressed. Frontier Folk Nebraska does not have any particular affinity for the frontier, they are not necessarily a Folk band and … well, you can guess where this is going.…
Zeds Dead
Seven years ago, Canadian Electronic wizards DC and Hooks joined forces to create a formidable musical aggregation they dubbed Mass Productions. In 2007, the Toronto, Ontario, duo dropped their impressive sampledelic debut, Fresh Beetz, an independent album so good the pair decided against a follow-up. As an alternative, DC and Hooks reconfigured themselves (maybe they…
Beirut
Like a lot of bands these days, Beirut didn’t get its start in a garage, but rather in a bedroom. That’s where a young Zach Condon started recording songs on his own. But Condon had acquired musical influences beyond what the average teen is usually exposed to; legend has it that, while traveling throughout Europe…
David Bazan
Scores of musicians have written about losing their religion, but few have been able put it quite as poetically as David Bazan. Far from a new face on the Indie music scene, Bazan certainly knows a thing or two about music and religion. He received his first taste of fame while performing with the well-loved…
Nickelback, Listening Habits and Misfits
[HOT] Roughing the Halftime Act In some ways, hiring hit-making Rock band Nickelback to perform during halftime of the Detroit Lions/Green Bay Packers game on Thanksgiving makes perfect sense. The band is named after a football position and, um, well … they have a new album out that very week! The reasons Nickelback makes no…
Squeeze the Day for 11/9
Music Tonight: Hugely popular Dubstep duo Zeds Dead turns Madison Theater into dance music heaven tonight as its The Graveyard Tour comes to Covington. The Canadian Electronic duo (stage names: DC and Hooks) has become a favorite go-to remix team and they continue to run a weekly dance night in Toronto called Bassmentality, which has…
A Trattoria Tradition
B arresi’s has been around for ages — since 1963 — and I remember being very impressed back in 2005 when I heard that the original owners had sold the business to a young woman who’d started her career there bussing tables. Eventually she worked her way through culinary school and came back, loving the…
Is the Theater Really Dead?
Paul Simon asked that question a long time ago in his 1966 song, “The Dangling Conversation.” I suspect it’s been answered simply by the fact that I can restate it almost a half-century later. But let’s ask what needs to be the next question: Why is theater still alive? The art form began thousands of…
In Love with Line
C armel Buckley is an artist infatuated with line and uncertainty. An associate professor at Ohio State University and a native of England, Buckley is enjoying her third Cincinnati exhibition in a little over a year. Featuring a series of drawings and etchings along with freestanding and wall-mounted objects, Prints and Sculpture at Clay Street…
Creating a New Canon
A t the end of John Patrick Shanley’s multi-award winning play and film Doubt, the formidable Sister Aloysius cries, “Oh, Sister James. I have doubts! I have such doubts!” Those two short lines are laden with pathos, emotion and high drama. It sounds operatic — and it will be. Opera Fusion: New Works chose the…
Nirvana, Feist, Gillian Welch, Marianne Faithfull and more
In 1991, Nirvana roared out of Northwest obscurity and into the global consciousness with Nevermind, an album of almost incomprehensible magnitude and influence. Three short, tempestuous years later, Kurt Cobain turned his back on his brief run and enormously potent legacy in a horrible, irrevocable act of abdication. Whether it was the mundane horror of…
Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero
It’s hard to believe it has been 50 years since President John F. Kennedy and the days of Camelot in the White House. Fortunately, this anniversary already has produced two revealing new portraits of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, one a written appreciation of his life by television commentator Chris Matthews, the other a recently unsealed conversation…
Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945
Most histories of World War II are successful because they focus on specific battles or campaigns. The global conflict that seemed to define the last century was so complex and multifaceted, it would seem foolhardy to attempt to cover it in one book. But that’s exactly what military historian Max Hastings has successfully accomplished with…
In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play (Review)
Critic's Pick Sarah Ruhl’s In the Next Room, or the vibrator play, now at Covington’s Carnegie Center in a production by the drama program at UC’s College-Conservatory of Music, has a current running through it. The production is warm, bright and slightly shocking. The story centers on two women, unhappy in marriage and deeply disappointed…
Enquirer Plays Politics with Page 1
Until its Page 1 story on public employee “perks” last week, The Enquirer was doing a pretty good job of playing pre-election partisanship down the middle. That story — which required a major page 1 correction — embraced the paper’s historic Republican and anti-union demons. The timing was too neat; the subject could have been…
Nov. 2-8: Worst Week Ever!
WEDNESDAY NOV. 2 The Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending & Taxes (COAST) filed another lawsuit today, after people got mad that they have been using Twitter to spread misinformation about the streetcar (like comparing it to 9/11) and filed complaints with Ohio’s Election Commission. Currently, state law allows the Commission to levy fines against those…
A Call to Arms
“Why the fuck would anyone ever go to Cincinnati?” — Nucky Thompson, Boardwalk Empire I have this good friend, Tim McMichael, who has been supportive of my career; being a visual artist, countless times he has anted up with posters for my shows, for instance. What’s more, together with Joseph Winterhalter and Zoltan Faltay, we…
Here’s Why the ‘99 Percent’ Are Pissed
Even the most ardent political junkie probably missed the news amid all the other reports last week about Ohio Issue 2, Cincinnati Issue 48, the looming City Council elections and the drama over the Occupy protests being busted up across the nation. While the broadcast TV networks were busy covering Andy Rooney’s death, Kim Kardashian’s…
Jeff Berding and Jimmy Flynt
[LOSER] JEFF BERDING: When is he just going to go away? Berding resigned from Cincinnati City Council in March, after he butted heads with his fellow Democrats in council chambers and berated them on WLW (700 AM). After Jeff lost support from the police and firefighter unions for his flip-flop on layoffs, his last bastion…
Queen City Bike Rolls On
Twenty-four-year-old Cincinnati native Nern Ostendorf admits that it was with reluctance that she moved back to town early this year. After studying sociology at Northwestern University, she spent time working on farms in New Mexico and North Carolina until a back injury caused her to return home. But the Walnut Hills graduate, who spent most…
Trampling Over the Sixth Amendment
According to a local public defender, people appearing in two Northern Kentucky courts — particularly the poor — are having their rights violated, and judges are responsible. John Delaney, who heads the public advocacy office that handles cases in Kenton and Campbell counties, says district judges in those counties are violating state and federal law…
Unions jubilant over SB5 repeal
The post-election party celebrating the public's execution of Senate Bill No. 5 was jubilant and electrifying. Throughout the night at the Holy Grail Tavern downtown, cheers could be heard celebrating the waves of election reports as they came in. The “No on Issue 2” crowd made its own waves as well, bringing the number of…
Once Again, Anti-Rail Initiative is Defeated
For the second time in two years, Cincinnati voters have rejected a ballot measure that sought to block the city's long-planned streetcar project. After a hard-fought campaign filled with heated rhetoric and election complaints, Issue 48 was defeated Tuesday night. A total of 35,655 votes were cast against the measure (51.54 percent), compared to 33,530…
School Board Incumbents Retain Seats; Kuhns Joins Board
There were no surprises in the Cincinnati School Board elections Tuesday night; incumbents Eve Bolton and A. Chris Nelms held their seats and newcomer Alex Kuhns also won a spot on the board. The Hamilton County Democratic Party had stumped for the trio as a bloc and their names were the most familiar to voters.…
Newcomers Join Council; Bortz, Ghiz Among Ousted
Voters sent a resounding message in Tuesday night's election, giving Cincinnati City Council's conservative majority its walking papers and returning control to Democrats after a tumultuous two-year term. In the process, two longtime incumbents known for their fiery tempers were defeated. Once the final, unofficial results were tallied, three of the four Republicans on council…
