Who's Next

The Cincinnati Entertainment Awards is just around the proverbial corner (Nov. 21, Taft Theatre; see citybeat.com/cea for full info). On Saturday at Newport's Southgate House you can get your local music rah-rah on with the annual "Brink" new music showcase. While the CEAs honor and celebrate Cincinnati music's past and present, the Brink event gives a glimpse of the future of the local music scene, with an array of performances by new and up-and-coming acts from various genres. Now in its fifth year, past Brink performers have included such heavyweights as The Sundresses, The Light Wires, The Kim Taylor Band, Cari Clara, Cathedrals, Staggering Statistics, Junior Revolution, (in)camera, The Minni-Thins and scores of others.

This year, the 9 p.m. show once again infests all three stages at the Southgate. The event features Rock and Indie from And How, High & Low, Kamikaze Saucers, Savalas, Mercurochrome, The Moon Fails and The Gentlemen, Hip Hop from Da Muttss and Definition (featuring CEA nominee Ill Poetic) and even Afrobeat from Baoku. The show will also have sets from CEA nominees The Vinyltones, The Terrors and Dan Mecher from the band Turnbull ACs. Admission is $5, which will be donated to the Michael W. Bany Scholarship Fund (also the beneficiary of the proceeds from the CEA event). (citybeat.com/brink)

Queens of "Hearts"
Northern Kentucky's Raison D'Etre has released its latest CD, Hearts Content. The trio performs Sunday at 8:15 p.m. as part of the Leo Coffeehouse music series at Old St. George in Clifton Heights.

Friday, the band participates in a benefit for Women's Way at the women's retreat center, Grailville (grailville.org), in Loveland. The group performs at 7:30 p.m., followed by Katie Laur and her All-Girl Bluegrass Band (call 513-923-1414 to reserve tickets).

The Folk/Americana-flavored group features the accomplished vocal and instrumental skills of area musicians Roberta Schultz, Violet Rae Downey and Vickie Ellis, who offer some of the finest three-part harmony singing you'll likely ever hear. On Hearts Content, the trio mixes well-selected covers with their own equally effective compositions. The loose theme of the album is "love," be it for a person, a book or a simple cup of coffee. With an unfussy mix of lilting piano and acoustic guitar (plus the occasional bass, banjo, mandolin and light percussion), the troupe's harmonies glow unimpeded. Highlights include Downey's strident "I've Got the Heart," Schultz's gorgeously melancholic "No Blues On a Mandolin" and beautifully executed renditions of Neil Young's "After the Goldrush," Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You" and a divinely stirring A Cappella take on Stephen Foster's "Hard Times Come Again No More." Local fans of the trio albums made by Linda Ronstadt, Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris will be happy to know that there's a comparable version in their own backyard. (raison3.com)

More Local Notes
· An impressively eclectic lineup has been assembled for Sunday's second annual Tommy Steffen Memorial Music Fest at the Southgate House. The event — which runs from 2 to 10 p.m. — features performances from Buckra, Entheos, Lagniappe, The Subterraneans, Subvinyl, The Blue Rock Boys, Defunct Red, Drew Dunn, The Comet Bluegrass Allstars, Matt Murray, The Rumpke Mountain Boys, Smokehouse, Ben Walz and Taylor Farley and Blue Rock. Tom Steffen is the younger brother of Bob Steffen, a former Campbell County Sheriff's Deputy, who started Big Stef, Inc., in 1992 to help fund his long-running tradition of providing Christmas gifts to nursing home residents. (Tom, who passed away in 2003, assisted in his brother's holiday good-cheer-spreading.) Proceeds from the show go to Big Stef, Inc. For more on this and the other charity work the organization does, see bigstef.org.

· At the Blue Note in Price Hill Sunday, Bob Cushing and a host of friends present a benefit concert for Paula Weber, a local woman who has myeloma and is in need of a bone marrow transplant. The 2 p.m. show features the Sonny Moorman Group, Danny Frazier & Chris Goins, The West Side All-Stars and the debut of Reunited, Weber's 11-year-old son's band. For more info, see bobcushing.com.

· Longtime local Jazz favorite Phil DeGreg celebrates the release of his new CD, Trio Con Brio, Tuesday at the Blue Wisp Jazz Club. The pianist performs with his triomates Dan Faehnle (guitar) and Paul Keller (bass), who also appear on the album. The drummer-less disc features a mix of originals and Jazz standards. (phildegreg.com)