If you’ve been following the MidPoint Music Festival’s Twitter feed and Facebook page and keeping an eye on the official Web site (mpmf.com), you’ve been privy to a gradual stream of information about the artists performing at this year’s fest, coming up Sept. 23-25 in venues around Downtown and Over-the-Rhine, as well as the Southgate House in Newport. Tomorrow, be sure to check the MPMF site for the unveiling of the full schedule (including venues, dates and times). Even the schedule itself should be pretty cool. This year marks the debut of a new interactive sched that’ll make it easier for you to plot your MPMF course, with lots of new tech features.—-
I won’t spoil too much, but here are few of the artists I’m really looking forward to seeing (besides some of the already-well-ballyhooed MPMFers, like Caribou, Best Coast, Tom Tom Club, Phantogram and Surfer Blood):
• Cowpunk pioneers Jason & the Scorchers (who deserves some credit for helping to create the whole AltCountry thang) were just added to the Southgate House slate (anchoring the Sept. 25 show).
• Elf Power, one of the cornerstone members of the Elephant 6 Indie Pop collective (which also launched Indie heavyweights Neutral Milk Hotel, The Apples in Stereo and of Montreal), will jazz things up at the Blue Wisp Sept. 25.
• Scotland Yard Gospel Choir (scheduled to play last year’s MPMF but forced to cancel after a serious van accident on the way to the show) are back on the MPMF radar, performing Sept. 24 at The Main Event, the new dance club in the old Lava Lounge space on Main Street run by the folks behind the old Subway bar.
As I mentioned in my Spill It column this week, Brooklyn’s Babe the Blue Ox — an amazing band that had such a huge following in Cincy in the ’90s, they were like an honorary local band — headline the Blue Wisp Sept. 24. And Fountain Square will be hopping MPMF week with all-ages shows, headlined by cool Atlanta Indie crew O’ Brother (sort of a gentler, American cousin of Muse and Radiohead) on Sept. 24 and awesome keys-driven rockers Oh My God on Sept. 25.
Also expect to see lots of familiar locals, new and veteran, on the bills, including Wussy, Oso Bear, Mad Anthony, Hickory Robot, The Fairmount Girls, Kry Kids, Pete Dressman and the 6 Five Shooters, State Song, No No Knots, The Hiders, The Western, The Rubber Knife Gang, Grooveshire, Seabird, Eric Tepe Band, Eat Sugar, Enlou, The Seedy Seeds, The Lions Rampant, Come on Caboose, Soapland, J. Dorsey Blues Revival, Cash Flagg, da muttss, Eclipse, Goose, Daughters & Sons, Banderas, The Tillers, The Sundresses, Oxford Cotton, Chaselounge, Pomegranates, Mack West, The Prohibitionists, Culture Queer, Josiah Wolf (from Why?), Darlene, Wade Baker, Shiny and the Spoon, The Harlequins and — phew! — a ton more.
New MPMF venues this year include Jack Potts Tavern (on Main), ArtWorks (in their new location on Central Parkway), Neon’s Uplugged (the recently-reopened space off Main), the Cincinnati Club on Garfield Place and The Main Event.
You’ll have to wait until tomorrow for the rest of the news. Check it out and then head down to Fountain Square for the MidPoint Indie Summer show (with Dawes, Goose, The Sweep and Messerly & Ewing) to talk it over with your friends and buy your three-day MPMF wristbands.
Tomorrow on the Square is the final time you can buy MPMF wristbands for just $29 (they’re $39 from then on out). You’d pay that much to see just a few of these artists (or, in some cases, one), so it’s a recession-friendly bargain you shouldn’t pass up.
