Raucous Cincinnati Rock crew Go Go Buffalo (which was nominated in the Best New Artist category at the most recent Cincinnati Entertainment Awards) celebrates the release of its first full-length album with a free show Saturday at MOTR Pub (1345 Main St., Over-the-Rhine, motrpub.com). It should be a great night of adrenalized, high-flying Rock & Roll, as the notoriously excellent live band is joined by two other local acts known for great live performances — Tiger Sex and Injecting Strangers — for the 9 p.m. event.
Like its live show, Go Go Buffalo’s manic spin on hard and heavy Rock is freaky, playful and often unpredictable, with a slightly disorienting psychedelic streak running throughout. On the band’s debut long-player (which was recorded with current Trolleydodgers guitarist and former Foxy Shazam member Loren Turner), Tyler Moore’s guitar riffs and leads fly fast and furious, as if stripped from an old Blue Cheer or Black Sabbath album and dosed with a potent cocktail of Adderall, magic mushrooms and Black Flag songs. Drummer Jason Drennan and bassist Graham Lang intuitively guide the wandering arrangements with just the right touch of precision and chaos, while singer Jeremy Moore howls, growls and rants like a mad scientist’s gene-spliced frontman made from the DNA of Jello Biafra, Gibby Haynes, Jim Morrison and Batman nemesis The Joker.
For more on Go Go Buffalo, visit facebook.com/gogobuffaloband or go-go-buffalo.bandcamp.com. Listen to (and, if you click the player, and buy it for however much you want) the new album track “Poison Patrol” below.
Ill Poetic Returns
Now residing in San Diego, former Cincinnati Hip Hop MC/producer Ill Poetic recently put out his first new release since 2012’s The Synesthesia Yellow EP. The Silhouette Project is a five-song EP (with an accompanying short film) that began as an entirely different project. Ill Poetic was initially working on a music video for The Synesthesia Yellow single “Silhouette,” but the project grew into a short film and Ill Poetic changed course musically and created an entirely new EP, which he calls a “companion piece” to Synesthesia Yellow that also “exists in a universe of its own.”
While always a dynamic artist (outside of his original Hip Hop work, he’s created dazzling projects that have paired the music of diverse artists, like his Marvin Gaye and Pink Floyd mash-up, Requiem for a Dream), The Silhouette Project finds Ill Poetic incorporating an even broader range of musical influences, something he said was inspired by discovering new music at the San Diego record store he opened with another Ohio transplant, DJ Inform. The EP’s single, “It’s All Around,” for example, is an ethereal, melodic and soulful slo-mo jam that beautifully meshes elements of Rock, EDM, Chillwave, Hip Hop and R&B.
Ill Poetic launches a Midwestern tour Friday at Urban Artifact (1660 Blue Rock St., Northside, artifactbeer.com). The free 9 p.m. show will also feature performances by Cincinnati’s Raised x Wolves and unique regional Hip Hop artists like Ronin, Hafrican, FAROUT and others.
Ill Poetic’s music is available at illpoetic.bandcamp.com. You can also hear “It’s All Around” here, and the titular EP track below.
Over the Rhine to Host Nowhere Else Fest
Cincinnati music greats Over the Rhine are plotting their first Nowhere Else Festival, which will take place over Memorial Day weekend. OtR’s Karin Bergquist and Linford Detweiler are hosting the music and arts fest on their farmland near Wilmington, Ohio May 28-29, showcasing the work of some of their favorite visual artists alongside performances by acclaimed musical acts like The Blind Boys of Alabama, Joe Henry, Birds of Chicago and Lucy Wainwright Roche, as well as great Cincy-area performers The Comet Bluegrass All-Stars and Katie Laur. Over the Rhine, of course, will also be performing at the inaugural event.
Proceeds from the festival — which has been drawing some national press from Paste magazine and will certainly attract many OtR fans from across the country — will go to helping Bergquist and Detweiler complete the restoration of a 140-year-old barn on the property that is being converted into a performing arts center. Tickets can be found here and there’s more fest info here.
CONTACT MIKE BREEN: mbreen@citybeat.com
This article appears in Apr 27 – May 4, 2016.