A Famous Mural Returns to View
It’s been more than10 years ago since the Cincinnati Art Museum announced selection of a Dutch firm, Neutelings Riedijk Architects, to build a 60,000-square-foot, $45 million expansion on its Eden Park campus, in tandem with a renovation of existing buildings. The concept for the new building — an exhibition hall and an almost 200-foot-tall tower…
Portune: Library board vote to close north building ‘disturbing’
Hamilton County Commission President Todd Portune today railed against a June vote that could close and sell the north building of the downtown public library. Portune said the vote was taken without any public input and that commissioners themselves didn’t know about the plan until after the vote. Portune called that “disturbing.” “Apparently, there was…
Minimum Gauge: The National and Karl Rove are feuding (at least according to the reality-based community)
HOT: The National Beefs with Karl Rove On the new Sleep Well Beast, Indie Rock stars The National “sample” a quote from Karl Rove, the political strategist who helped George W. Bush swindle his way to the presidency twice. On the track “Walk It Back,” singer Lisa Hannigan recites a head-spinning 2004 quote about defeating…
5 Bengals Games to Check Out This Fall
The Bengals only play eight home games a year. Here are five worth checking out, whether you’re joining the tailgaters driving Bengals-striped RVs or yelling at the TV with your buds in a sports bar. Oct. 8 vs. Buffalo Bills By the second week of October, we will know a lot about the 2017 Bengals. Will they be…
Morning News: Bicycle advocates unveil expanded focus for bike path plan; UC professor tapped by Trump for EPA under fire
All right. A lot happened yesterday. Let’s get caught up. Mayor John Cranley and Councilwoman Yvette Simpson battled it out yesterday during a debate hosted by the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber and the Cincinnati Business Courier. At the center of the tense, contentious debate? The $500 million expansion of Children’s Hospital in Avondale — and…
Fall Preview: Cincinnati Music Releases
Cincinnati rockers Buffalo Killers return to action on Oct. 20 when their latest album, Alive and Well in Ohio, drops on the Alive Naturalsound label. Pre-orders for the digital version of the LP — recorded by the band at its Howler Hills Farm analog studio in Middletown, Ohio — are open now through iTunes, while a series of…
Creepy Fall Theater
As Halloween approaches, area theaters present tales of the supernatural, from classic frights to monster musicals. Frankenstein at Falcon Theatre Based on the Gothic novel by Mary Shelley, this interpretation by Nick Dear follows Victor Frankenstein’s grotesque monster in a desperate journey to find acceptance, becoming increasingly vengeful and murderous against his creator. Warning: The play…
Public Nominations Open for 2017 Cincinnati Entertainment Awards
In late November 1996 at Over-the-Rhine club Sycamore Gardens, CityBeat hosted the first Cincinnati Entertainment Awards, which honored the contributions of local musicians, as well as Cincinnati theater performers and productions. Since that first year (which included performances by The Tigerlilies, SHAG and inaugural CEA Hall of Fame inductees Adrian Belew, Rob Fetters, Chris Arduser…
Complainer in Chief vs. the Press
Insulting reporters is so old now that it’s hard to imagine Trump saying anything new. Instead, he’s reduced to repeatedly urging supporters to treat reporters as the “enemy of the people.” He fell back on that potentially lethal exhortation when he attacked accurate stories and fair comment about his response to the racist rally in…
CPD captain’s lawsuit alleges misuse of funds by city manager
A captain with the Cincinnati Police Department has filed a lawsuit against the city, saying that City Manager Harry Black inappropriately funneled city funds through a business owned by a close friend and, separately, used $800,000 in state and federal funds earmarked for emergency systems to improperly pay salaries and other expenses through the general…
In contentious debate, Cranley, Simpson spar over Children’s expansion
The shadow of a contentious fight around one of the city’s largest-ever developments hung over a Sept. 12 debate between Mayor John Cranley and his challenger, Cincinnati City Councilwoman Yvette Simpson. The discussion ranged to other topics, including the Cincinnati’s high poverty rate, how to solve looming funding and service shortfalls for city’s Metro bus…
Morning News: Will Clifton Market make it?; conservative think tank says Cincinnati should absorb Norwood, other municipalities
So, what’s happening around Cincinnati today? Glad you asked. It’s strapped for cash, a major giant competitor just opened a glistening new superstore down the road and its board is fighting each other. Can Clifton Market carry on? Leadership with the cooperative grocery store says yes. There’s debate over whether to sell the store’s building…
Four Year Strong with Seaway, Like Pacific, Grayscale and Life Lessons (Sept. 14)
Although Four Year Strong has endured a number of personnel shifts since their 2001 formation in Worchester, Mass., vocalists/guitarists Alan Day and Dan O’Connor and drummer Jackson Massucco are founding members, and bassist Joe Weiss has been a part of FYS’s Pop/Punk/Hardcore caravan since 2004. Keyboardist Josh Lyford joined a couple of years later, but…
Critic’s Pick: ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ at Cincy Shakes
William Shakespeare’s comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream focuses on the power of transformation, which makes it an especially timely choice for Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, a 24-year theater company with a sparkling new venue in Over-the-Rhine — The Otto M. Budig Theater. A show written to engage and delight Shakespeare’s public when first performed in 1605, Midsummer is just right…
Street name, screenings may honor city native Doris Day
Movie and music fans may soon be able to take a sentimental journey along Doris Day Way and engage in a little Pillow Talk again. Cincinnati City Council will vote Sept. 27 on whether to honor Day with a secondary street sign along a stretch of Walnut Street between Sixth and Seventh downtown, in front of the…
Morning News: Big new uptown development announced; state rules Duke cut off power prematurely to Sharonville residents who later died of hypothermia
Good morning Cincy. Here’s some quick news for you today. There’s another huge new development heading for uptown. National student housing developer Trinitas says it will eventually drop $300 million just across Clifton Ave. from University of Cincinnati redeveloping the site of Deaconess Hospital into 1,000 beds of student housing. The first step will be…
Mann, Simpson propose roundabout intersection in Northside
On the one-year anniversary of the death of a pedestrian killed by a car in Northside, some city officials are pitching a plan to remake a busy intersection that they say will make the neighborhood safer for pedestrians and cyclists. Amid the whoosh of speeding cars and the rumbling of buses and trucks, Vice Mayor…
Sound Advice: Phoebe Bridgers with Conor Oberst (Sept. 16)
Phoebe Bridgers is one of those inexplicably amazing artists whose work drifts effortlessly into the listener's consciousness after a single exposure and then immediately and incessantly demands endless repetition. Considering she's been at this singer/songwriter gig for a decade, it's hardly a surprise that Bridgers' debut album, Stranger in the Alps, is engaging and compelling…
Sound Advice: Big Boi with Killer Mike (Sept. 19)
In The Beatles legend, caricatures of the creative co-leads of the group developed over time — John Lennon was the more wild and adventurous musician, pushing the band to new heights, while Paul McCartney was more of a traditionalist, crafting cutesy Pop songs and providing an anchor. Looking deeper into the iconic act’s history, of…
Morning News: Pending city land sale to Cranley donors draws scrutiny; rents heat up in Cincy
Happy Friday, Cincy. Let’s get straight to the news this morning. Knowlton’s Corner in Northside could become a lot more rounded and less corner-ey. Err, OK, so that’s my weird way of telling you that Vice Mayor David Mann will hold a news conference today proposing that the busy intersection just after the I-75 overpass…
Stage Door: Angels, miracles and plenty of Shakespeare
There’s a lot of great theater opening up this week, but I’ve seen only one of those productions: Cincinnati Playhouse’s opener, Shakespeare in Love. Before I give you the scoop on that, however, I want to mention an excellent staging of one of the greatest theatrical works of the past 25 years that’s currently onstage at…
Your Weekend To Do List (Sept. 8-10)
FRIDAY 08 ONSTAGE: SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE William Shakespeare wrote a lot of plays, but he never became a character. That happened four centuries later when a 1999 Oscar-winning movie imagined a great story about young Will wrestling with writer’s block early in his career. A love affair helps him break through, and now the tale…
Morning News: Westboro meets huge wave of protesters in Cincy; Massie’s no vote on hurricane relief receives colorful response
Hello Cincy! Let’s talk news really quick. You’ve certainly seen them when you're out walking or driving through Cincinnati: Houses with full-on jungle vegetation snaking out of windows, waist-high grass in the yard and trees just going wild through the roof. It might surprise you to know that at least a few of those plots…
Fickell Is Just What UC Needed
A friend of mine has an old family saying about a guy who “fell down in the outhouse and came out wearin’ a new suit.” Ladies and gents, meet University of Cincinnati football. Even if the Bearcats lose big at Michigan this week — and they might, based on last week’s season opener — they’ll…
What a Week! Aug. 30-Sept. 5
WEDNESDAY, AUG. 30 Mark Wahlberg was in town last week to scope a new location of his family’s restaurant chain, Wahlburgers, coming soon downtown. Brothers Mark (the funky one) Donnie (New Kids one) and Paul (the chef one) opened their first restaurant in 2011 outside of Boston. Not only are the Wahlbergs in the music…
‘Insecure’ Keeps It Real
Issa Rae may call her breakout series Insecure (Season Finale, 11 p.m. Sunday, HBO), but the creator/star can take confidence in the fact that she is behind one of the freshest comedies on TV today. Based on her popular web series Awkward Black Girl, Insecure uses the familiar plot of exploring a young woman’s life, friends, relationships and career to…
People’s Liberty’s Globe Grants Are Growing
Along with this week’s announcement of the 2018 winners of the coveted $15,000 People’s Liberty Globe Grants comes news that there will now be two storefront spaces for them to transform with installations. One is the existing location at 1805 Elm St., across from Findlay Market in Over-the-Rhine. The new space will be at 2849…
Why is everything today ‘immersive?’
During this summer’s Fringe Festival, I attended a theater piece that marketed itself as “immersive.” The performance that followed was anything but — the actors did not so much as make eye contact with the audience, causing the experience to feel insular and inaccessible. It seemed “immersive” was just being used as a catchphrase, something…
The Black Box Theater Is the New Thing
As the Contemporary Arts Center is getting ready to start the 2017-18 season of its Black Box performance series, the concept of alternative “black box” performance spaces — with programming to match — is catching on here, not only at the CAC but also at the Aronoff Center for the Arts and Music Hall. At…
New York-style OTR Bagel Bar will explore creative flavor combinations at Findlay Market
Business partners Marshall Mann and Chris Cavallaro started tossing around the idea of opening a quality bagel shop in 2016, inspired in part by Mann’s recent return to Cincinnati from the bagel mecca that is New York City. The pair cites national corporate chains like Bruegger’s and Panera as some of the only outlets available…
Welcome to MPMF.17
Midpoint Music Festival has developed a reputation as the place to discover contemporary music, find the next big thing and meet your new favorite band. Since 2001, our endeavor has been to embrace today’s emerging artists, all with the same spirit employed by Cincinnati’s celebrated musical pioneers, who always reached for something new. Each fall, the streets of Cincinnati become a music…
Cincinnati Hip Hop to shine again at Ubahn Fest
Cincinnati Hip Hop artists once again will perform alongside some of the biggest acts in music this weekend at the unique Ubahn Fest, which returns to the underground transit tunnel near Paul Brown Stadium (the entrance is downtown under the Second Street overpass at the intersection of Plum and Third streets) this Friday and Saturday.…
Craft Coffee Connection
For the last five years, the co-owners of Coffee Emporium — Tony Tausch and his wife Eileen Schwab — have partnered with Olga Hazard, a coffee farmer in Los Andes, Guatemala, to bring high-quality coffee to Cincinnati. During this time, what was originally a simple business agreement quickly became a bond between close friends. Tausch…
Sound Advice: dada with The Trews and Grant Stinnett (Sept. 6)
From the start, dada has exhibited all the ingredients for a successful one-hit-wonder experience: huge-selling debut album with signature single; really good follow-ups derailed by label difficulties and subsequent waning sales; and ultimately the decision to take a break. And yet, somehow, dada’s three determined members — guitarist/vocalist Michael Gurley, bassist/vocalist Joie Calio and drummer…
Sound Advice: The Mavericks (Sept. 9)
One of Country music’s most unique, long-running bands, The Mavericks, has been thrilling audiences since 1989 with their dramatic blend of Latin-tinged, turbo-charged twang and the big-voice stylings of Raul Malo. Born in Miami, Malo is Cuban-American and a first-generation Floridian who grew up in the ’70s listening to crooners like Frank Sinatra and, especially,…
Sound Advice: The Record Company with The Revivalists, Rev. Peyton’s Big Damn Band, Naughty Professor and more (Sept. 9)
Although The Record Company has been a band for the past six years, its greatest successes have come recently. The trio — guitarist/vocalist Chris Vos, bassist/vocalist Alex Stiff and drummer/vocalist Mark Cazorla — coalesced in 2011 around a shared love of traditional electric Blues masters like John Lee Hooker and their translational boogie children, including…
