Sep 21-28, 2016
Amped and Revamped: MidPoint Music Festival returns with a new layout and one of its best three-day lineups yet
Sandra Cisneros knows writing changes lives
Sandra Cisneros believes in the power of the written word to change lives. It saved her and she’s certain of its ongoing relevance, even as its delivery system has changed and fractured in the years since her debut, the 1984 novel The House on Mango Street — a vignette-driven work set in her native working…
Rise in texting tickets isn’t fazing texting drivers
Texting while driving has been illegal in Ohio for more than four years. Yet you might not know it from what you see in your rear-view mirror or through the windows of cars alongside you. Texting behind the wheel is probably as common as smoking behind the wheel. So people are still doing it, and…
Morning News: Cincy finds big budget surplus; Ohio among worst states for gender wage gap; the strangest presidential debate ever?
Hi there. Are you hungover? Do you have a headache? Deep, unsettling anxiety? If not, you must’ve missed the first presidential debate last night. It was a doozy. But hey, before we go there, let’s talk about stuff closer to home. The city of Cincinnati will have a $16.6 million budget surplus, city administration says,…
Fed Court: Ohio voter purge practices are illegal
The state of Ohio's procedures for purging inactive voters from its voter registration rolls are illegal, the U.S. Sixth District Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled today. The ruling stems from a lawsuit against Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Ohio A. Philip Randolph Institute and the…
Morning News: Conference discusses regional rail travel; streetcar hits 100,000 rides; Ohio doesn’t know how many voters it has purged.
Happy Friday, Cincy. Here’s your news today. Amtrak officials, Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber representatives, folks from rail transit advocates All Aboard Ohio and plain old transit nerds are getting together today downtown to talk about the Cardinal Line, which runs from Washington, D.C. to Chicago and stops at Cincinnati’s Union Terminal. Currently, the line runs…
Stage Door: New Productions and Special Events
The groundbreaking musical Runaways was an unexpected hit in 1978. Intended as a community service piece, it was based on hundreds of interviews with teenagers who ran away from home, from predators and sometimes from themselves. It began Off Broadway at the Public Theater, and then moved to Broadway, where it was nominated for five…
Cincinnati Food + Wine Classic moves and improves
Cincinnati’s culinary culture has blossomed recently. From the rebirth of hip, artisan eateries in Over-the-Rhine to the eclectic new restaurants lining The Banks along the Ohio River, Cincinnati has become home to a variety of memorable dining destinations and indie food and beverage companies. The annual Cincinnati Food + Wine Classic has been flaunting this…
Your Weekend To Do List (Sept. 23-25)
FRIDAY 23 MUSIC: MIDPOINT MUSIC FESTIVALSince its inception 15 years ago, Cincinnati’s MidPoint Music Festival has undergone changes almost continuously. Originally conceived as a showcase for unsigned acts, the first several years featured a “conference” aspect designed to help up-and-coming musicians. CityBeat took over the event and added higher-profile headliners beginning in 2008. Throughout it…
If painting is dead, Glenn Brown is carrying on with the corpse
The Contemporary Arts Center opened a solo show by British painter Glenn Brown the same day that the Cincinnati Bell Connector debuted just outside its doors. That’s fitting, because both attractions play with the notion of time travel. What happens when we bring something from the past — whether it’s a streetcar or an Old…
Union Terminal murals subject of new book
Winold Reiss and the Cincinnati Union Terminal by Gretchen Garner is a valuable and timely reminder that both the Reiss murals and the terminal itself were on the apex of modernity when created in the early 1930s. The 20th century would bring on new forms of transportation and also art styles, making this book from Ohio…
Morning News: Next Dennison hearing set; feds make first carfentanil indictments in Cincy; Ohio Trump campaign chair: “racism didn’t exist before Obama.”
Good morning all. Here’s a quick news rundown for ya today. The next chapter in the saga of the Dennison Hotel has begun. The City of Cincinnati’s Zoning Board of Appeals today held a preliminary meeting to hash out the details of a hearing that will determine the fate of the historic downtown building. That…
MPMF Visitor’s Guide
Since its inception 15 years ago, Cincinnati’s MidPoint Music Festival has undergone changes almost continually. But through it all, it has remained a three-day celebration of today’s unique and innovative music-makers. The biggest change this year is that fans of all ages will be able to enjoy MidPoint in its entirety, as the format shifts…
Art house theaters learn from Record Store Day
As technological changes alter the way we watch movies, art houses — the often locally owned theaters that show the “quality” indie and foreign films that usually dominate end-of-year awards lists — are taking a page from the indie record stores. Many of them nationally, including the Esquire and the Mariemont locally, are participating in…
Toronto makes ‘La La Land’ an Oscar favorite
At the just-concluded Toronto International Film Festival, from which I have just returned after nine days, orange shirt-wearing volunteers lurked near theater exits to collect votes from audience members for their favorite films. There is a rising curiosity within the industry, specifically among the Academy Award prognosticators, regarding the opinions of the TIFF crowds. For…
Comic Expo becomes a pop culture convention
The evolution of a comic book superhero is fascinating to track. Spider-Man, for example, was introduced in 1962 as an ordinary teen — no otherworldly backstory, no alien superpowers. A small spider bite set into motion a fantastical adventure that comic book fans have loved and moviegoers have flocked to ever since. The organizers of…
‘Kentucky Renaissance’ is a Cincinnati goodbye
Brian Sholis, the Cincinnati Art Museum’s photography curator, has been planning for his upcoming exhibition, Kentucky Renaissance: The Lexington Camera Club and Its Community, 1954–1974, to be the best one since he arrived three years ago. But until very recently, Sholis didn’t also plan on this being his last major exhibition at the museum. He…
Corkopolis wine bar fills a gap in downtown’s Central Business District
The philosophy of downtown’s new urban wine market and bar, Corkopolis, is simple: to provide wine that was meaningfully and thoughtfully created and sourced by people who care about the product, process and art form of wine-making. “The artisanal idea of what people think is wine, that’s what we’re into,” says Daniel Craven, manager and…
Where will the streetcar go from here?
The Cincinnati streetcar’s opening weekend was a rousing success by any measure. But Cincinnati is just at the start of its fight for great public transit. Long lines of eager passengers waited for their chance to try out the Cincinnati Bell Connector; local leaders — streetcar supporters and opponents alike — packed into ceremonial first-ride…
Amped and Revamped
Since its inception 15 years ago, Cincinnati’s MidPoint Music Festival has undergone changes almost continuously. Originally conceived as a showcase for unsigned acts, the first several years featured a “conference” aspect designed to help up-and-coming musicians. CityBeat took over the event and added higher-profile headliners beginning in 2008. Throughout it all, the venues have changed,…
Twelve reasons to get to MPMF early
The thrill of discovery has always been a hallmark of the MidPoint Music Festival. From its earliest days when it featured all unsigned acts through its more recent multi-venue years, the excitement of exploring and the promise of potentially stumbling upon your new favorite band has made MidPoint one of Cincinnati’s most unique festival experiences.…
Morning News: Metro approves plan to expand services; tiny homes are getting big in Cincy; local police chief condemns Tulsa police shooting
Good morning all. Here’s your news today. Metro, Cincinnati’s bus service, yesterday approved a five-year plan to expand its services and provide 20 million rides a year by 2021. Currently, Metro provides about 16 million rides a year. The new plan, drawn up by Metro employees, union representatives and board members, has four main focuses:…
Widespread ‘Panic’
Three years is enough time for major changes to happen in anyone’s life. And that’s certainly been the case for Scott Hutchison and the other musicians in the Scottish band Frightened Rabbit. That time has seen the group change guitarists, parting ways with Gordon Skene and bringing touring guitarist Simon Liddell on as a full-time…
From the Bedroom to the World
Car Seat Headrest seems to have burst onto the scene fully formed, dropping two albums of dynamic, pleasingly slanted Indie Rock in an eight-month span. That includes this year’s Teens of Denial, the type of record that is immediately catchy and reveals new pleasures, both lyrical and sonic, with each listen. Think Guided by Voices…
Immortal Technique
Charismatic Los Angeles Jazz artist Kamasi Washington has been on a so-far phenomenally successful mission to bring Jazz to those unfamiliar with it. His first widely distributed Jazz album as a bandleader, last year’s three-disc (and nearly three-hour) The Epic, startled Jazz and Pop fans alike with its ambition and his tremendous range as both…
Rubber Band
Band Of Horses singer/guitarist Ben Bridwell can promise a couple of things to people who see the group Sunday at the MidPoint Music Festival. First off, expect the unexpected. “One thing that I do like about this band is I don’t know that we’ve ever played the same set list twice,” Bridwell says. “Over 12…
Young the Giant shakes up its sonic and rhythmic approach on the dance-friendly ‘Home of the Strange’
Transitions have always been a stock in trade for Young the Giant — within songs, between albums and even in shifting identities a half-dozen years ago from the band’s previous incarnation as The Jakes. While that was potentially their biggest and most contentious transition, it was probably the easiest of all for the Irvine, Calif.…
Locals at MidPoint Music Festival 2016
The MidPoint Music Festival returns this weekend for its 15th-annual event. This year, the fest (which runs Friday through Sunday) has a new layout: As opposed to using a dozen or so clubs and stages throughout Over-the-Rhine and downtown, there will be four outdoor stages along Sycamore Street in OTR, and though there are some…
Sound Advice: of Montreal with Ruby the Rabbitfoot (Sept. 21)
When Prince died only about four months after David Bowie passed away this year, one of the first people I thought of was Kevin Barnes, leader of the Indie/Pop/Rock juggernaut of Montreal. Barnes’ music always struck me as the perfect combination of those two legends, as it has over the past two decades been alternately…
Sound Advice: Railroad Earth with Scott Pemberton (Sept. 22)
Some bands toil for years before catching the big break that nets them a record deal and the promise of next-level success. For Newgrass Jam band Railroad Earth, that process took a grueling five months. Like an Impossible Missions task force, the original sextet was assembled in New Jersey in early 2001 by manager Brian…
Sound Advice: The Gibson Brothers (Sept. 23)
Hyperbolic words like “legendary” and “superstar” appear in music reviews to denote artists with lengthy tenures and the abiding respect of their fans, peers and the industry. To attach those two terms or others of a similar magnitude to The Gibson Brothers almost feels like damning with faint praise; brothers Eric and Leigh Gibson have…
Robert Goering: The Sometimes Treasurer
Robert Goering is one of Hamilton County’s most essential governmental executives. As treasurer, he serves as the county’s chief tax collector, making sure that citizens pay for services like schools and police protection. He is also the county’s chief investment officer, responsible for generating returns on public money while keeping it safe. In most Ohio…
