Boehner in D.C. on Election Night
Some critics have alleged Congressman John Boehner (R-West Chester) doesn't pay enough attention to the needs of his district, a charge he flatly denies. But come Election Night, Boehner won't be celebrating (or drowning his sorrows) in Southwest Ohio.—- Boehner, who will become House Speaker if the GOP gains a majority in the chamber, will…
Events: Rally to Restore Sanity
Are you tired of all the whining aimed at Washington, D.C.? How about all the counterproductive yelling at government officials who only pay attention to the loudest and most annoying voices anyway? If so, come hang out at Fountain Square on Saturday to catch the live feed of Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity and…
Music: The Greenhornes
Five years ago, The Greenhornes were ready for a break. The Southeastern Indiana Garage Rock quintet had stormed Cincinnati after forming in 1996, a march that continued with their 1999 debut, Gun for You. They notched several notable benchmarks, including nearly stealing the spotlight from The Strokes at the New York band’s Southgate House debut.…
Events: USS Nightmare Captain’s Ball and Unrated Tour
This haunted riverboat, already a heart-stopping night terror, ramps the excitement down to new depths with the Unrated Captain’s Tour. Intrepid explorers will climb inside the devil's raft with all the lights cut and only a small, weak flashlight as their guide. (You can probably count on the batteries failing halfway through, too.) Once inside,…
Music: The Morning Benders
What if the sweet, art-house pretzel-logic Americana of Jeff Tweedy and Wilco was irresistibly informed by an almost obsessive love of Ray Davies and The Kinks, as if the white light of Tweedy’s rampant originality was broken into a spectrum of sound after hitting the Kinks’ prism shrine in his head? That could be as…
Onstage: Evil Dead: The Musical by Falcon Theater
Guess this genre: Five attractive college students take off to a remote cabin in the woods, dead set on a five-day sex-and-booze bender. Said cabin is abandoned, spooky and also happens to be the last known location of the Book of the Dead, a breezy beach read bound with human skin and inked in human…
Events: Covington Zombie Crawl
Calling all Zombies! Covington's second annual Zombie Crawl is not to be missed. Join artsy ghouls and masked zombies as you make your way through galleries, bars and local hotspots with the spooky streets of Covington acting as the backdrop for the night. Don't have cat ears or face paint? Not a problem. BeConcerned is…
Music: Iron Fest
There is more to Rock & Roll than just sex, drugs and partying. Sure, those are big parts of the experience and a hell of a lot of fun, but in between all the obvious benefits a community is built. Sadly, Cincinnati’s Rock & Roll scene has lost one of its members, “Iron” Mike Davidson.…
Art: Final Friday in OTR
Doesn’t it feel like Final Fridays get better in the fall? This Friday should be no exception, with (among other things) Evan Carroll — an MFA candidate at UC — presenting a solo exhibition at Museum Gallery/Gallery Museum, imaginative new paintings by Michael Stillion at 1305 Gallery and an exhibition of new work by Meghan…
Music: NeedToBreathe
There are plenty of influences at work in the Alternative Christian Rock of NeedToBreathe, and not all of them are musical. Brothers Bear and Nathaniel Bryant “Bo” Rinehart (named after the legendary Alabama coach) are the sons of an Assembly of God pastor and his piano teacher wife, and products of their upbringing in tiny…
Ronnie Wood: I Feel Like Playing
Ronnie Wood has long been associated with some of the biggest names in Rock, from Jeff Beck early in his career, Rod Stewart and The Faces soon after and The Rolling Stones for the past 35 years. Toward the end of his Faces stint, Wood decided to test the solo waters with his better than…
Events: Villa Madonna Academy Craft Fair
Cincinnati and surrounding area is home to many venerable art and craft fairs and, really, few things say autumn to me more than troves of handiwork and baked goods. One I’ve just learned about is at Villa Madonna Academy in Villa Hills, Ky. Going into its 13th year, the fair will feature more than 70…
Events: Park and Vine Grand Reopening
Come out to the Park and Vine grand reopening celebration Friday from 6-10 p.m. (during the Final Friday Gallery Walk) at their new location on 1202 Main St. in Over-the-Rhine. What is Park and Vine, you ask? It's the General Store of the future, with a wide variety of eco-friendly merchandise that minimizes the use…
Art: Summerfair Select at Funke Fired Arts
Most people are familiar with Summerfair, the huge art fair at Coney Island that happens each June. But not everyone knows that annual event supports area artists and arts organizations. Each year, proceeds from Summerfair provide grants to individual artists living within a 40-mile radius of Cincinnati. You can see the wonderful fruits of this…
Onstage: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by New Edgecliff Theatre
New Edgecliff Theatre (NET) annually finds a way to creep an audience out for one evening — while paying tribute to the art of radio theater. Lots of small towns have secrets, but Washington Irving’s Sleepy Hollow just might be the capital of gloom and gore. When the bumbling, superstitious schoolmaster Ichabod Crane comes town,…
Corin Tucker: 1000 Years
Corin Tucker was at the forefront of the Riot Grrl movement in Olympia, Wash., in the early ’90s, first as half of the raw, visceral Punk duo Heavens to Betsy and then as guitarist/vocalist for the hugely influential and wildly successful Sleater-Kinney. When the trio went on an open-ended hiatus four years ago, Tucker’s intention…
The Media’s Role in Covering All Election Candidates
I’m troubled by the unjustifiable exclusion of minor party candidates from Ohio campaign debates sponsored by the news media. Criteria I’ve seen for inclusion remind me of the tests faced by blacks at some Southern election boards and polling places. They’re designed to affect the elections by excluding persons who should be included. I don’t…
Playing Among the Stars
Five years ago, The Greenhornes were ready for a break. The Southeastern Indiana Garage Rock quintet had stormed Cincinnati after forming in 1996, a march that continued with their 1999 debut, Gun for You. They notched several notable benchmarks, including nearly stealing the spotlight from The Strokes at the New York band’s Southgate House debut.…
Music: Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys with Los Straightjackets
Long-term nostalgia for a time one has never actually seen is a remarkable phenomenon. It’s one thing to be temporarily taken with something both new and old, but dedicating your entire image or career to rekindling a lost aesthetic requires a strong sense of devotion. Big Sandy (aka Robert Williams, pictured) knows all about this.…
Paranormal Activity 2 (Review)
p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; } Can the secret buzzing sensation of the first film be sustained once audiences know the truth? Paranormal Activity, with its negligible budget, lack of gore and torture porn fetish and no-name stars in a lo-fi presumed first-person presentation got under the skin of audiences. But…
Events: Grammer’s Halloween Fun House
Grammer’s Halloween Fun House has everything the child inside of you still yearns to partake in during this time of the year. Whether it’s your first stop, second stop or the only stop on your agenda for Friday evening, it’s the one you’re not going to want to miss. Get your crazy antics caught on…
Music: Cloud Cult
It's not entirely rare for musicians to have unusual onstage accompaniments. Rob Zombie, for one, surrounds himself with spooky, kitschy ornaments. During Candy Claws' set at MidPoint, a small tiger totem stood by the drumkit. Avail brings along Beau Beau, a guy whose official capacity is “Cheerleader.” Cloud Cult has an interesting addition of their…
Interview with Stevie Benton of Drowning Pool
Drowning Pool has come through the tri-state several times this summer culminating in the heavy metal rocking performance yesterday at Riverbend with Godsmack and Five Finger Death Punch. The band’s most recent record, their self titled album, Drowning Pool, was released on April 27, 2010. I caught up with Stevie Benton, the band’s bass player…
Interview with Godsmack’s Shannon Larkin
Godsmack came through Riverbend Music Center’s PNC Pavillion yesterday on their “Oracle” Tour with Five Finger Death Punch and Drowning Pool. We caught up with Shannon Larkin Sunday afternoon before the show on the bus to talk about football and about his musical influences. When I arrived I waited in their outdoor football viewing area…
Don’t Stop Believin’: Rock of Ages Opens Tonight
The Broadway hit Rock of Ages took Arena Rock hits from the late ’80s by groups like Journey, Whitesnake, Styx and Bon Jovi and cobbled them together for an amped-up evening of Rock in the theater, particularly appealing to people who were, um, all about partying back in the day. Now it’s on the road,…
Comedy: Pablo Francisco
Pablo Francisco is widely known as a comic with a gift for making all sorts of sounds and doing funny voices, but that perception is a little inaccurate. He's a talented impressionist who uses a variety of vocal effects and odd vocalizations to drive home those bits that involve impersonations and has been working towards…
The Morning Benders
What if the sweet, art-house pretzel-logic Americana of Jeff Tweedy and Wilco was irresistibly informed by an almost obsessive love of Ray Davies and The Kinks, as if the white light of Tweedy’s rampant originality was broken into a spectrum of sound after hitting the Kinks’ prism shrine in his head? That could be as…
Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys with Los Straightjackets
Long-term nostalgia for a time one has never actually seen is a remarkable phenomenon. It’s one thing to be temporarily taken with something both new and old, but dedicating your entire image or career to rekindling a lost aesthetic requires a strong sense of devotion. Big Sandy (aka Robert Williams, pictured) knows all about this.…
Ronnie Wood, Pete Yorn, Joe Satriani and Corin Tucker
Ronnie Wood has long been associated with some of the biggest names in Rock, from Jeff Beck early in his career, Rod Stewart and The Faces soon after and The Rolling Stones for the past 35 years. Toward the end of his Faces stint, Wood decided to test the solo waters with his better than…
NeedToBreathe
There are plenty of influences at work in the Alternative Christian Rock of NeedToBreathe, and not all of them are musical. Brothers Bear and Nathaniel Bryant “Bo” Rinehart (named after the legendary Alabama coach) are the sons of an Assembly of God pastor and his piano teacher wife, and products of their upbringing in tiny…
Literary: InkTank’s Fall Fundraiser
Just in time for Halloween, everyone's favorite nurturers of the written word, InkTank, devotes its fall fundraiser to the theme of Edgar Allen Poe, as creepy and shiver-inducing a writer as has put words to page. The event, which takes over Northside Tavern (4163 Hamilton Ave.) 5 p.m.-midnight Wednesday, features “inspirational speakers, readings from InkTank…
You Gotta Believe It: True Theatre at Know
The best theater is honest and real, and that's what True Theatre is setting out to offer via four evenings of "true stories told by real people" beginning tonight at 7:30 p.m. at Know Theatre and continuing into next summer. —-One theater acquaintance told me this program is inspired by the Moth Theatre in New…
Bad Religion: The Dissent of Man
It’s no stretch of the definition to anoint Brett Gurewitz and Greg Graffin as godfathers of the American Punk movement. The Ramones certainly softened the ground for the genre, but they were singing about Carbona and Rock & Roll high schools and Punk Rock girls. By the time the boys in Bad Religion absorbed the…
USS Nightmare: Behind-the-Scenes
Here's a behind-the-scenes look at the USS Nightmare haunted attraction. See how the characters are made, and get an upclose and personal look at "The Captain."
Friday Movie Roundup: What’s Up, Docs?
What's up with the rush of interesting documentaries in recent weeks? On second thought, make the years. Many have called this the golden age of documentaries ever since Errol Morris and, to a larger extent, Michael Moore broke through and had relatively robust box-office and critical success in the late 1980s, cresting with the unprecedented…
Join In on the Sanity
Are you mad as hell and not going to take it any more? Do you just want to shout at the top of your lungs until someone in Washington hears you? No? Then come hang out at Fountain Square Saturday Oct. 30 from noon to 3 p.m. and catch a live feed of Jon Stewart's…
ACLU Backs Anti-Abortion Group
The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio filed a court brief Wednesday supporting an anti-abortion group that is being investigated for its plans to erect billboards that Congressman Steve Driehaus (D-Price Hill) said contained false information. The ACLU's brief supports the Susan B. Anthony List's complaint in federal court that alleges the Ohio law restricting…
Flag Drops on World Choir Games Preparation
The 2012 World Choir Games are officially Cincinnati’s, as Interkultur President Gunther Titsch presented the event’s flag to Mayor Mark Mallory at the Oct. 20 City Council meeting. But Titsch and WCG Artistic Director Gábor Hollerung had more on their agenda than flag exchanges. Speaking through an interpreter, Titsch emphasized that they were here to…
No-Sleep ‘Sleeping Beauty’
Devon Carney is tired, but somehow he doesn’t look the part. Cincinnati Ballet's associate artistic director has been putting in roughly 16-hour days recently. All these efforts go toward the company’s upcoming production — ironically, The Sleeping Beauty. When I playfully suggest he’d be a sleeping beauty when this is over, Carney chuckles and replies,…
Troubled City Contractor Faces Lawsuit
The fallout from a bitter 2008 power struggle involving a major contractor used at Cincinnati City Hall is about to spill over into the courtroom. Linda S. Kirkland, who had been hired by Invest in Neighborhoods Inc. (IIN) two years ago to be its executive director and then was summarily terminated just days later, has…
Mullins Wildlife Area Hike
Key At-A-Glance Information Length: 1.13 milesConfiguration: Lollipop figure 8Difficulty: Moderate (woods wandering)Scenery: Woods, agricultural fields, and streamsExposure: Full sunTraffic: Light except during hunting seasonTrail Surface: MowedHiking Time: 2 hoursDriving Distance: 45 minutes south of CincinnatiSeason: Year-roundAccess: Sunrise-sunsetMaps: USGS WaltonWheelchair Accessible: NoFacilities: NoneFor More Information: (859) 428-2262 or www.kdfwr.state.ky.usSpecial Comments: Want to get away from it…
Dalai Lama Accepts Freedom Center Award
At a luncheon at the Duke Energy Center today, the Dalai Lama was honored by the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center with the presentation of the "International Freedom Conductor Award." The award has been given to Rosa Parks, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush. A $25,000 prize is offered with the…
Comedy: Bill Maher
If you've ever been on the receiving end of one of his acerbic barbs, you might be inclined to call Bill Maher a witch. Or worse. “No, I'm you,” Maher snarkily replies during a recent telephone interview, when asked if he'd ever been referred to as a Wiccan. (Maher will perform at the Aronoff Center…
A Powerful ‘Excavation’ at CAM
Imagine walking through the rooms of the Cincinnati Art Museum, farther and farther toward the back, then entering a small back gallery and finding a black hole — a gigantic void that sends you hurtling toward the underground center of the earth. It sounds like something out of Jules Verne. Yet, that is the effect…
The Enquirer and County DDS Board
[WINNER] THE ENQUIRER: Cincinnati's only daily newspaper recently performed a valuable public service by shining a spotlight on how some little-watched government boards spent money. At a time when most county workers must forego pay raises and take unpaid furlough days to help balance the budget, employees at some independent county agencies quietly got nearly…
Mecklenburg Gardens (Review)
When you live in a city with an incredible German heritage, people sometimes ask whether it has great German restaurants. Before you suggest the famous one in that Italian city on the other side of the river, remember Mecklenburg Gardens. Sure, Hofbrauhaus has good beer, but Mecklenburg is a Cincinnati treasure. Dining under the grape…
Be Fear or Be Afraid
Bud Stross, one of the three owners of The Dent Schoolhouse, plays many roles at his haunt: Killjoy, VIP the Crazed Hillbilly, Jasper the Clown and the title villain, Charlie the Janitor. Charlie lurks in the basement; he’s the one who murdered all the students and faculty. He’s the reason The Dent Schoolhouse is haunted.…
Meanness
I could hear the three of them making fun of me as they started to get closer. I’m guessing they were teenagers, 17 or 18 years old. I was walking back home from a convenient store carrying a plastic bag full of grocery items. “Hey, motherfucker, what’s in the bag?” “You must have money on…
Sky Galley Restaurant (Review)
Airport dining usually conjures up thoughts of overpriced, processed fast food, but I discovered that could not be further from the truth when I recently had lunch at the Sky Galley Restaurant ( 262 Wilmar Ave., 513-871-7400) at Lunken Airport. Located in the charming Art Deco terminal, the Sky Galley is a throwback to a…
Mayhem Mansion
The winding drive through the dark woods only intensifies the mood for this haunted venue that is supposed to really be haunted. The scare starts via a video with the house’s history of carnage by owner Robert Haverford who, legend says, slew a houseful of guests. After entering through the upstairs window, you wind your…
Bill Maher Doesn’t Care for Tea, Thank You
If you’ve ever been on the receiving end of one of his acerbic barbs, you might be inclined to call Bill Maher a witch. Or worse. “No, I’m you,” Maher snarkily replies during a recent telephone interview, when asked if he’d ever been referred to as a Wiccan. (Maher will perform at the Aronoff Center…
A Simmons Tizzy, The Black Eyed Keys, Willy O
[HOT] Hackers Attack Hack If you can say one good thing about Rock & Roll’s most beloved asshole, Gene Simmons of KISS, it’s that he never sugarcoats what he says, no matter how stupid. But his tough-guy bravado about illegal downloaders recently got two of his Web sites taken down due to attacks by the…
Dhani Jones [Cincinnati Bengals linebacker/Bowtie Café owner]
As linebacker for and defensive captain of the Cincinnati Bengals, Dhani Jones’ Sundays are pretty much booked up for the next few months. But Dhani isn’t just an autumn visitor to the area. His local ties just got stronger with the opening of the Bowtie Café, a Mount Adams eatery dedicated to coffee, conversation and…
Hereafter (Review)
Here's a handy tip for aspiring screenwriters: Combine three or four half-baked story ideas into a single script to make everything seem more deep and profound than it really is. Writer Peter Morgan (The Queen, Frost/Nixon) follows the example of critical darlings like Crash and Babel by combining the mostly-parallel narratives of a San Francisco…
Oct. 13-19: Worst Week Ever!
WEDNESDAY OCT. 13 Let’s face it, sometimes it’s not so pleasant to be in downtown Cincinnati. Maybe there are too many sports fans around or it’s a Sunday and you wish there was a business open to sell you a sandwich. Getting home from downtown could soon be much easier, as Councilman Wendell Young today…
Halloween Happenings for Kids
Halloween can be a mixed bag (pun intended) for parents and kids. It’s the one time of the year we not only allow but suggest that our kids knock on random doors and take candy from strangers. At the same time, we’re asking them to be afraid of goblins, monsters and ghosts but not so…
Ghosts Stories Are History
As an eerie October chill fills the air and the dark of night slowly creeps into our autumn days, the Halloween season fills the imagination with ghostly images of spooks and specters. But what if Cincinnati’s dead can’t be confined to decrepit mansions and overgrown cemeteries? From former first ladies to bootleggers’ wives, the Queen…
Dark Pumpkin Haunted Trail
The Dark Pumpkin begins in the Director’s Studio, an aging shack in which a sinister French-accented filmmaker advises that you're his newest star. He’s making a horror movie, of course, and a table covered with bloody drills, hooks, chains and knives hints at what's in store when the cameras start rolling. From there on out…
Lewisburg Haunted Cave
It’s a real, decommissioned mine with a real, rickety bridge that crosses a real underground lake. There are even guys in wetsuits hiding in the lake, grabbing you when the lights go out. It’ll scare you even though you know it’s coming. The Cave is huge and includes many blackout sequences, laser and strobe trickery…
Limits & Boundaries (Review)
Jarrett Hawkins’ soaring sculptures almost stride through the street-level space at the Weston Art Gallery. His show, Limits & Boundaries, includes works that exude strength and others that seem tethered rather than standing on their bases, as though they might rise on their own if not held back. The two groups share characteristic shapes, like…
Chakras (Profile)
When Andrea Simler DeGolier and her husband relocated to Cincinnati from Buffalo, N.Y., in 1996, she left behind the successful regional band Kama Sutra and a burgeoning scene. After several projects that didn’t quite gel, DeGolier decided in late 2007 to take one last stab at putting together a Cincinnati band. “It took a long…
The Crowning of a Cincinnati Son
Remember Pete Rose the baseball player, the unparalleled competitor who played nearly every inning of every game for more than two decades and got more hits than anyone in Major League Baseball history? It’s been almost a quarter century since Rose put on a Cincinnati Reds uniform. An entire generation has grown up knowing more…
Bad Religion, Eric Clapton, Electric Six and The 88
It’s no stretch of the definition to anoint Brett Gurewitz and Greg Graffin as godfathers of the American Punk movement. The Ramones certainly softened the ground for the genre, but they were singing about Carbona and Rock & Roll high schools and Punk Rock girls. By the time the boys in Bad Religion absorbed the…
CEA 2010 Nominees Announced
The Cincinnati Entertainment Awards (CEAs) for local theater ended with August’s final awards ceremony, but the CEAs for music are still going strong. The nominees for this year’s 14th annual event are in and you can vote now here. This year’s trophies will be given out on Nov. 21 at another sure-to-be legendary CEA party…
Broadway “In Performance” at the White House
Tune to PBS this evening for A Broadway Celebration: In Performance at the White House (9 p.m. on WCET locally) , featuring some of the biggest stars from the New York stage. Nathan Lane emcees the quickly paced hour, Idina Menzel — recently in Cincinnati with the Pops — sings "Defying Gravity" from Wicked and…
