The reigning Cincinnati Entertainment Award winner of Artist of the Year honors, Alt Pop quartet Walk the Moon, is finally set to release its second album for RCA Records.
The band’s self-titled debut for RCA was released more than two years ago and featured a large amount of re-recorded songs from Walk the Moon’s self-released i want! i want! album from 2010, so the next album will be the first “all new” full-length in four years. The band’s major-label debut led to non-stop touring all over the world, helping the band earn a huge fan base. This summer, Walk the Moon toured extensively with Panic! at the Disco, which included a hometown stop at Riverbend’s PNC Pavilion.
On Sept. 10, Walk the Moon’s single “Shut Up and Dance” was officially released, giving fans a taste of things to come on the new album, which RCA says will be released in “late 2014.” The single isn’t a huge departure from the songs on Walk the Moon, but it’s another catchy-as-Ebola Dance Pop nugget, rounded out with some nice early-U2-esque guitar riffage and commanding hooks, that should do well on radio.
The band performed the new song on NBC’s Late Night with Seth Meyers on Sept. 15 and kicks off its coast-to-coast “Shut Up and Tour” tour of smaller clubs in Seattle on Oct. 8. The band will perform some of the new material on the tour, which does not include a hometown date. The group will be in Columbus, Ohio, on Oct. 21, but that show instantly sold out. The Columbus date is also the first of several shows that will feature like-minded Cincinnati Pop Rock trio Public as opening act.
Visit shutupanddance.walkthemoonband.com for the latest WtM news.
More Local Notes
• Saturday at Sawyer Point along the riverfront, the Bluegrass for Babies benefit returns for its sixth annual event. BfB, which runs 3-9 p.m., was founded by Matt and Anne Schneider as a way to raise money for Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, where their newborn son received life-saving surgery. Along with live Bluegrass music from some of Greater Cincinnati’s finest, the event also offers lots of family-friendly activities and concessions, with an emphasis on local and organic vendors and nutritional food offerings.
The Bluegrass artists slated to appear are Ma Crow & The Lady Slippers, Comet Bluegrass All-Stars and Hickory Robot. Area singer/songwriter Jennifer Ellis returns to BfB to perform children’s music at 4:15 p.m.
Tickets for the Bluegrass for Babies benefit are $15 in advance or $20 at the gate on the day of the event. Kids 12 and under get in free. Tickets and more info can be found at healthyrootsfoundation.org.
• Friday at the second floor Main Gallery at downtown’s 21c Museum Hotel (21cmuseumhotels.com/Cincinnati) catch the return of Flooded, a special, one night exhibition of screen-printed concert poster art presented by 21c, Josh Mattie of the Contemporary Arts Center and Powerhouse Factories. The free event showcases the work of several area screen printers (and a few collaborative works), including Powerhouse, Southpaw Prints, Cryptogram, TOMMYINK, Neltner Small Batch, Madpixel, BLDG and Rob Warnick. The event, which runs from 7-11 p.m., will also feature a performance by superb local Indie rockers State Song.
• Seminal Cincinnati Punk band SS-20 performs Saturday at Newport’s Southgate House Revival (southgatehouse.com) for a special show in honor of singer Robert “Jughead” Sturdevant’s 60th birthday. For the performance, the band — one of the cornerstone Punk acts of the notorious Jockey Club era of Greater Cincinnati Punk Rock — will feature a rare appearance from original guitarist Pete Sturdevant, Jughead’s brother, as well as later guitarist Pedro Dux and Karl Meyer (of another important early local Punk band, Sluggo) on bass. The show is also a great celebration of early Midwestern Punk, with Indy’s The Zero Boys, New Regrets (featuring Ed Pittman, formerly of Dayton’s Toxic Reasons) and more recent torch-bearers Subsets rounding out the lineup. Tickets are $10 or $12 day of show. Showtime is 9 p.m.
• Thursday at Southgate House Revival, the Cincy Blues Society will be throwing a party to thank the volunteers that make its three main events — the summertime Cincy Blues Fest, the Winter Blues Fest and the Cincy Blues Challenge — possible. Those who volunteered can bring their volunteer shirt to get in for free; others can attend for a measly $5 donation to the Blues Society. Kicking off at 7:30 p.m., the show features live music from The SoulFixers, The Leroy Ellington Blues Band and this year’s Blues Challenge “solo/duo” category winner Jimmy D. Rogers. (cincyblues.org)
• The three-day MidPoint Music Festival, featuring over 150 acts from around the world (including some of Cincy’s finest), returns to Over-the-Rhine/Downtown next week. Tickets are still available at mpmf.cincyticket.com. Be sure to download the MPMF app for your smartphone at live.mpmf.com and start building your schedule — time is running out! (mpmf.com)
CONTACT MIKE BREEN: [email protected] or @
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