CityBeat Feb. 08, 2017

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Remembering ’78 I enjoyed the story and especially the “Blizzard Diary.” It brought back a lot of memories. I lived in Urbana at the time.

We stayed in our neighbor’s basement when the power went out, wearing three layers of clothes and eating SpaghettiO’s warmed by candlelight. After the power had finally come back on, we warmed up watching WHIO Channel 7’s Gil Whitney for all the latest post-storm news. Interesting times.

— MTCG, comment posted at citybeat.com in response to “Bonding over a Blizzard,” issue of Jan. 18

Cat People, Unite!

Mariana Villalba: Erika, I feel like you would enjoy this.

I on the other hand would probably die lol...

Laura C Cutshall: I am going to SIT and DRINK COFFEE and PET A DOZEN CATS. Alex Breyer: This sounds like an SNL skit waiting to happen.

Comments posted at Facebook.com/CincinnatiCityBeat in response to Feb. 3 post, “Kitty Brew Cat Café in Mason will serve beverages and baked goods alongside a cat lounge with adoptable felines from the Animal Friends Humane Society.”

Where Chabot Is Not Vince Gay: Steve (Chabot)’s so-called fact-finding missions are nothing but wine-and-dine schmoozing and junkets, when he’s not posting alternative facts and racist memes. Steve’s all about making sure workers, the public and the environment are unprotected from rapacious “small” businesses that also don’t want to pay their share of taxes. Of course, the definition of “small” gets more mega by the minute. Steve spends very little time on the issues actual small business owners actually care about. And there’s no doubt about where Steve isn’t. He isn’t at truly open and accessible town halls that are open to all — including media — with wide publicity well in advance, and no screening of questions. Granted, far-right junkets might be more fun than responsiveness, accessibility and accountability to constituents.

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Comment posted at Facebook.com/CincinnatiCityBeat in response to Feb. 4 post, “ICYMI: Steve Chabot takes fact-finding to the ends of the Earth, but what does he accomplish?”

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VOICES

What a Week!

BY T.C. Britton

WEDNESDAY FEB. 01

Law-abiding American citizens are being detained at airport terminals because of their nationality. A woman with zero public school experience was just confirmed to head the Department of Education. The U.S. president’s press secretary swallows giant wads of chewing gum every day. During a time when life could not seem more hopeless and uncertain, America’s true first lady, Beyoncé, changed the national narrative Wednesday afternoon when she announced on Instagram that she and husband Jay Z were expecting not just one baby, but twins. The internet exploded, everyone was excited if not perplexed by Bey’s HIGH ART preggo photoshoot… but what about Blue? Formerly the sole heir to the KnowlesCarter fortune, firstborn Blue Ivy has got to have mixed emotions. Sure, she was photographed kissing her mom’s belly, looking all cute and big sisterly, but she’s about to go from only child to No. 3. Jay and Bey better hope Blue didn’t pick up any voodoo tricks on the “Formation” set in New Orleans. If anyone spots her with a pair of cornhusk dolls, alert the Beygency!

THURSDAY FEB. 02

Groundhog Day was Thursday and, spoiler alert: Winter is staying. The 131-year-old tradition of watching a rodent react to its own shadow and somehow predict winter weather patterns is silly, sure. But by this time next year, when the term “global warming” has been abolished from the country’s vocabulary and the EPA has been

dismantled, Punxsutawney Phil will be all we have left of a voice on climate.

FRIDAY FEB. 03

Yet another roundup of weird regional dishes made its rounds this week, so you know what that means: We’ve got another person shitting on Cincinnati chili. Thrillist published a post titled “Every State’s Grossest Food (That People Actually Love),” detailing state-by-state delicacies like ambrosia salad and “Eskimo ice cream.” Ohio is represented by the Cincinnati chili five-way, an interesting deviation from the typical three-way or cheese coney, which is apparently weird. “Also, a chili five-way is disappointing to hardcore TLC fans every single time.” WTF does that even mean? Our chili has been skewered left and right over the past several decades, and the best you can come up with is a dated reference to Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas? If you’re gonna come for us, you’re gonna need to top Deadspin’s “horrifying diarrhea sludge.”

SATURDAY FEB. 04

Saturday Night Live was full of surprises this week. The show tapped actress Kristen Stewart to host, despite her not having really anything to promote and her generally not being known for emoting, let alone being funny. But Stewart slayed. She called out the president’s 11 tweets about her over the years, came out publicly for the first time — “I’m, like, so gay, dude” — poked fun at her apathetic, too-cool demeanor, then promptly let an F bomb slip — all in the monologue alone! She was actually a fantastic host. But

the biggest shock of the night came from none other than Melissa McCarthy playing an enraged White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer. Easily a top iconic SNL moment.

In Trump’s hatred and dismissal of SNL, he has made the longtime show more relevant than it’s been in many years.

SUNDAY FEB. 05

Super Bowl LI was one for the record books, the first-ever to go to overtime and Patriot quarterback Tom Brady’s record-setting fifth win. Between plays, big-budget ads and Lady Gaga’s Pepsi Zero Sugar Super Bowl LI Halftime Show™ gave us a lot to unpack.

Commercials from Airbnb, Budweiser and Coca Cola and even smaller companies like 84 Lumber all made statements about inclusivity and progressivism, which normally would signal a desire to market to as large an audience as possible, but because our president surrounds himself with white nationalists, instead it seemed controversial.

Queen of controversy Lady Gaga opened her performance on the stadium’s roof and lept Mission Impossible-style down to the stage on-field. Well, she presented the illusion of that — the drone light show and her “jump” from the tippy-top of the stadium were prerecorded (wah-wah). The rest of the show gave multicultural Mad Max vibes as Gaga sang, danced and played her way through her biggest hits from the last decade. Aaand that’s pretty much it. Watching Super Bowl LI was kind of like election night 2016: We all stayed up really late to catch the results, and in the end the white guys won.

Interview with Hungry the Bear, Charter School Advocate

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BY JEFF BE YER, SENIOR BEAR INTERVIEWER

The U.S. Senate this week approved controversial charter school advocate Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education. All it took was Vice President Mike Pence wading in to break a 50-50 tie in the Senate, the first time a VP has ever had to help a cabinet choice get confirmed. A real reporter for CityBeat spoke to a real bear to gain additional perspective.

CityBeat: Betsy DeVos has just been confirmed as the Secretary of Education.

How do you feel about her position supporting guns in schools?

Hungry the Bear: Grrr. Hungry disagree. This bad idea. Bears no like eat students. Bears like eat honey, berries... campers. Dead bear is bad bear. Guns in school bad idea.

CB: A lot of people have criticized DeVos for not having any experience in public education and having educated her kids at home and in Christian schools. Do you think she is too disconnected from education policy to lead this department?

HTB: All bears homeschooled! Bears learn digging den, eating campers, eating berries, scared of people, winter cold and boring. Bears learn good.

CB: Many Ohio public school teachers say diverted funds from public to charter schools combined with teacher evaluations based on standardized tests is making their jobs impossible. What advice can you give them?

HTB: Teacher make class too hard. Need digging class. Dig bear den easy.

Need just big claws and little bit angry. Dig, dig, dig, pass test. Teacher happy, bear ready for winter.

CB: Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s former charter school chief did not report lowperforming online charter school grades in 2015, which helped the schools continue to get funding. The schools have connections to GOP donors. Do you think charter schools and public schools can be evaluated equally under DeVos? HTB: Biggest bear get most honey. If small bear try to take honey, big bear eat small bear. Small bear just be happy small bear not dead.

CB: How do you feel about Vice President Mike Pence having to cast the tie-breaking vote?

HTB: Mike Pence well-known in bear community. Mike Pence tell bears his secrets. Bears like Mike Pence a lot. Mike Pence like bears.

MONDAY FEB. 06

A tweeted photo of a minivan parked in Brooklyn with a dashboard full of VHS copies of Speed went viral this week. As the image spread, others who’d seen the car and its movie collection shared their encounters and others attempted to track it down in New York. Within days the van was identified as the touring vehicle for a band called Idaho Green. Years ago, some of the band members met a guy intent on collecting every copy of Speed on VHS. Ever since, whenever Idaho Green makes a new tour stop, they swing by a local thrift store to scope out its movie selection. They’ve amassed around 50 copies now, and the dashboard became the only open spot in the cramped touring van to keep the tapes. Thanks to web sleuthing, we now know about the van, Idaho Green and the “World Speed Project.” If only bored people on the internet could work together IRL to accomplish literally anything else.

TUESDAY FEB. 07

The live-action Beauty and the Beast film’s trailer is out, and surprisingly silent are animal rights activists everywhere. After boycotting A Dog’s Purpose following the release of a behind-the-scenes video (that turned out to be edited to mislead, BTW), you’d think there would be some concern about another movie starring an animal.

What, just because he’s a “beast” (rude, honestly), he doesn’t deserve the same rights as dog actors?

CONTACT T.C. BRITTON: letters@ citybeat.com

VOICES ON SECOND THOUGHT

Trump’s Unsubstantiated Assertions

By Ben L. Kaufman

It got worse. The next day on NBC, presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway defended Spicer, saying he gave “alternative facts.” NBC host Chuck Todd didn’t bite, saying alternative facts “are not facts, they’re falsehoods!”

There’s more to this than Trump’s adolescent obsession with size. It’s a rejection of the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s wise aphorism, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.”

Trump loathes mainstream news media and reporters whose stories didn’t praise him as a candidate or don’t glorify him as president. Trump even used his first appearance before the CIA memorial wall to damn the news media.

His noxious namecalling isn’t going to end; Trump’s narcissistic response to any perceived slight is frontal attack. As for dishonesty, no sane mainstream journalist would knowingly lie. Mistakes are bad enough. It could be a career killer.

However, facts change. Reporters’ sources often correct or update information. Only malice characterizes differing versions as dishonest or lies.

Think of recent stories about the Italian resort covered by snow. Each day, the number of survivors rose — including three pups — and the feared number of deaths fell.

No one with any grip on reality is accusing Italian rescuers of dishonesty or lying as additional facts emerge.

In Washington, updated Metro data showed Trump’s inaugural crowd figures were wrong: too low. Journalists reported that, albeit with some glee. What Trump, Spicer and Conway could not accept was updated Metro numbers remained lower than Obama’s 2012 crowd.

(This whole mess is a perfect example of why the National Park Service and many other national, state and local officials rarely offer crowd estimates.)

That said, here is a shopping list of statements and pledges that watchdogs can track nationally and, in some cases, locally. The quotes are factual and verifiable, directly from Trump’s inaugural speech: • “We are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the people.”

• “Washington flourished, but the people did not share in its wealth.”

• “Crime and the gangs and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential.”

• “An education system flush with cash but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge.”

• “The very sad depletion of our military.”

• “We will bring back our jobs.”

• “We will bring back our borders.”

• “We will bring back our wealth.”

• “We will build new roads, and highways, and bridges, and airports, and tunnels, and railways.”

• “We will get our people off of welfare and back to work rebuilding our country with American hands and American labor.”

• “We will follow two simple rules: Buy American and hire American.”

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• “We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies and destroying our jobs.”

• “Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength.”

• “We will reinforce old alliances and form new ones — and unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism which we will eradicate completely from the face of the Earth.”

• “We must speak our minds openly, debate our disagreements honestly, but always pursue solidarity.”

• “We will no longer accept politicians who are all talk and no action, constantly complaining but never doing anything about it.

The time for empty talk is over. Now arrives the hour of action.”

• “We will make America wealthy again.”

• “We will make America safe again.”

Following up on Trump’s speech is not holding him to some imagined higher standard than the Clintons or Obama. They expected the rough-and-tumble of public life and American mainstream news media.

Every sensible, sober president learns to live with that adversarial journalism. It’s a tradition. As for readers, listeners and viewers, we’re better off with our reviled watchdog than Trump’s lapdog.

CONTACT BEN L. KAUFMAN: letters@citybeat.com

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Repeated White House accusations of lying are more than a pissing match between reporters and Trump and his lackeys.

Trump’s contempt initially exploded during the campaign, but it reflects a long-term GOP campaign to erode your trust in verifiable facts, evidence and news stories.

It’s meant to undermine your reliance on mainstream journalists — whether Enquirer, WVXU or New York Times — for information you need to make your decisions on personal and public policies and actions. In their place, Trump wants you to accept his unsubstantiated assertions of fact; i.e., climate change, vaccination, immigration, etc.

Nonpartisan polls indicate Trump and the GOP are succeeding. Labeling reporters “dishonest” is especially persuasive among the majority of Americans who don’t read a daily paper, listen to NPR or watch evening news on CBS, NBC and ABC. Instead, these neighbors rely on Facebook, Fox News, right-wing talk show hosts and alt-right websites. To test this, London’s Guardian sent a reporter to Macomb County, outside Detroit, where traditional blue-collar Democrats went for Trump.

One mechanic spoke for many when he was unaware of critical stories saturating newspaper front pages and cable news reports since inauguration day.

“Papers? I’ve no idea what they are talking about — I don’t see them. If it don’t put a dime in my pocket, I don’t worry about it.”

Jeff Payne, managing editor of the Macomb Daily, said news media coverage of Trump’s falsehoods tends to be far outweighed by his readers’ distrust of the messenger.

“You can give readers 50 facts that show that Trump is wrong, but when he portrays us in the media industry as the bad guys, that seems to outweigh all of those facts.”

Trump knows this. He’s a master news media manipulator. Trump was president for a day before he sent press secretary Sean Spicer into the pressroom to accuse reporters of deliberately minimizing the inaugural crowd. Lacking verifiable evidence, Spicer repeatedly cited his boss’ offended grandeur, saying, “This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period.” That was not true.

Un-cropped aerial photos of the National Mall and Metro fare data easily refuted his falsehood. A more pernicious Trump claim renewed his denigration of the integrity of the electoral system. “I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally,” Trump tweeted.

Again, he offered no evidence, and Spicer’s repeated assurance that Trump “believes” those unverified numbers is not proof. State election officials from both parties said Trump’s claim was loony.

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news

Crossroads at Liberty and Elm

Neighborhood groups are concerned about the final version of a big new development coming to northern OTR

By NICK SWARTSELL

IMAGE : PROVIDED

I

neighborhood. The surface lot is another sticking point with community groups, which say they’d like to see the parking garage the developer initially promised.

“The project has changed substantially,” Danny Klingler, an OTR resident and historic preservation advocate, said on behalf of OTRCC and the OTR Foundation at a Feb. 3 City Planning Commission meeting on the sale of the alleys. “The calculus has changed. A parking garage necessitated the sale of those alleys. Now, let’s be clear that there’s no guarantee of a parking garage ever for this site. It’s totally contingent on outside factors. A surface parking lot could do without these alleys.”

Source 3 representatives say the council’s appeal is unnecessary and that they’re planning on introducing the garage at a later date, citing concerns from project lenders about the number of parking spaces available at Findlay Market, in city lots and potential additional parking that could come with more development.

“Overall, we are surprised by the appeal because they are asking us to build a garage we plan on building,” says Source 3’s Business Development Director Michael Heekin.

“We decided the best course of action was to phase the garage.”

Heekin says it would be better for the

A proposed $26 million project at the corner of Liberty and Elm streets could bring big changes to northern Over-the-Rhine. developer to build the garage during initial construction, instead of phasing it in, but waiting to see if that’s possible would further delay the project.

Heekin also says there’s some uncertainty about how much parking is needed.

The city and Findlay Market are currently in the midst of a parking study, and that could impact the need for a garage, he says.

“If they collaborate to bring 200-300 spaces in the area, then our parking could become unneeded, and the 80 spaces will be enough.”

Critics say the concerns go beyond the garage.

Neighborhood groups and Source 3 have been meeting since January of 2016. At first, those meetings looked to be fruitful.

The developer made some adjustments to the project’s size and appearance, after which OTRCC tentatively approved the developer’s proposals with a number of conditions.

One of those was continued engagement with residents — but some community council members say that hasn’t happened.

The council voted 31-5 to pull its support for the project in its October meeting after some members say Source 3 didn’t work hard enough to address community concerns.

Not everyone on the council is against the development.

“Source 3 has made a good faith effort to communicate and work with the residents of OTR,” community council vice president Bob Selhorst wrote in a dissent last year after the council rejected the plan. “We desperately need the good solid development outlined in this project.”

But others remain unconvinced. Historic preservationists are happy that four historic buildings will be renovated as part of the project, but are still worried about its design and how the new building’s large scale and aesthetics fit into the area.

And affordable housing advocates say the development’s market rate units don’t address the neighborhood’s needs.

“With a development the size of the Liberty and Elm project, it seems appropriate to include a percentage of affordable units,” says Mary Burke-Rivers, executive director of Over-the-Rhine Community Housing.

Rivers appreciates the fact that the project doesn’t displace low-income renters but says its size and potential price points— up to $1.75 a square foot — mean it will put CONTINUES ON PAGE 11

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t’s just a couple of gated fields right now, but the spot on the northwest corner of Liberty and Elm streets could set the tone for the future of Over-the-Rhine’s northern half.

The so-called Liberty and Elm development proposed by downtown Cincinnatibased Source 3 Development would be a major change for the area and a likely gateway into long-neglected northern Overthe-Rhine and Cincinnati’s West End. But as the city seems poised to give its final approval on the project, neighborhood groups including the Over-the-Rhine Community Council, the Over-the-Rhine Foundation and others are opposing it.

On the surface, the ongoing argument encompasses issues around affordable housing, preserving the neighborhood’s architectural character, appropriate land use policies and easing neighborhood parking woes.

But there’s a bigger question about the way development is unfolding in the city, critics say: If a community council says no to a project, should the city green light it anyway?

The development, officially named “Freeport Row” after a historic alley Source 3 is seeking to buy from the city, will be a $26 million project with 110 units of market-rate housing, 17,000 square feet of retail space and an 80-space surface parking lot.

In its meeting Jan. 23, OTRCC membership voted 30-13 to appeal the City Planning Commission’s Dec. 15 approval of the project.

Critics say a zoning change and sale of two historic alleys owned by the city should be accompanied by more provisions that will benefit OTR residents.

“We remain interested in development on this site, but until the developer works with the neighborhood ... it should not gain from promises made in exchange for a zoning change when the promises were not kept,” OTRCC member Margy Waller says. “If the city allows this to happen, every developer would understand that an empty promise is sufficient to receive city benefits.”

The City Planning Commission takes community council input into account when it makes decisions about which developments to approve, but votes from those councils alone aren’t binding for the city.

On Feb. 3, the commission voted to approve the sale of Freeport Alley and Campbell Street to Source 3 for $35,300.

Freeport Alley would remain accessible under the current development plans, but Campbell Street would be paved over for a surface parking lot.

The sale of the streets has raised the ire of some community activists, who say they add to the historic fabric of the

news

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Two months after he was defeated in “I believe attorneys have a special opporhis first countywide election, former Hamiltunity and obligation to use their special ton County Commissioner Dennis Deters skills to benefit the community in which is one of five candidates for two vacancies they live,” he wrote. “I love my city and on Ohio’s First District Court of Appeals county, and a judicial position is the way I in Cincinnati. can best use my skills to benefit the comGov. John Kasich’s office is providing no munity around me.” timetable for appointing successors to Pat Timothy McKenna, a private practitioner DeWine and Pat Fischer, who were elected to in Cincinnati since 2005, echoed that reason the Ohio Supreme Court on Nov. 8. The five for seeking the job. He spent more than two names were given to Kasich by the Hamilyears in the Hamilton County prosecutor’s ton County Republican Party, but a Kasich office, the only applicant to have gone that spokeswoman said the field isn’t closed. The surefire route to a judgeship here. job pays $145,550 a year.

Deters, a Republican and former trustee in Colerain Township, came to prominence last January when he was appointed to complete the unexpired term of Greg Hartmann on the Board of County Commissioners.

But in his first test before voters countywide, he lost to Democrat Denise Driehaus on Nov. 8.

Dennis Deters has no experience as a judge. He has worked as an attorney for close to 17 years. He The county administration building could soon be home to two expressed his desire to be new judges making $145,550 without ever serving on the bench. a judge in a questionnaire PHOTO : HAILE Y BOLLINGER submitted to Kasich in December.

“I believe in public service “I would like to serve as a judge as I and our justice system,” he wrote in the would like to serve the people of Hamilton questionnaire obtained by CityBeat County, and my experience and skill set and through a public records request. “I respect personality have prepared me for the job,” the law and the rule of law. I believe that I McKenna wrote. have the diverse experience and common The fifth applicant, Charles “Chip” Miller, sense approach that would be an asset to has practiced law with firms in Columbus, our court system and our community.”

Cleveland and Cincinnati since 2001, the Of the other four applicants, only one — last 12 years with Keating Muething & Mark Schweikert — has served on the bench.

Klekamp. He was the most expansive in Schweikert became a Hamilton County explaining his pursuit of the job.

Municipal Court judge in 1995, moved up to “As much as I’ve enjoyed striving for a cliCommon Pleas Court in 1999 for seven years ent’s preferred result, I will find it more fulfilland spent a decade as executive director of ing to focus on objectively improving the law,” the Ohio Judicial Conference until 2016. He is Miller wrote. “I understand the importance now a visiting judge. of getting the law correct and doing so in a “I now seek to serve in the Court of well-reasoned, clear and concise manner.”

Appeals where I think I can best apply my Mark Painter, who, as a Republican, knowledge, skills and experience and conserved 13 years as a Hamilton County tinue in public service to the people of Ohio,” Municipal Court judge, then 14 on the First he wrote in his questionnaire.

District Court of Appeals, is concerned Kasich has full authority to fill the two about the dearth of judicial experience vacancies on the six-judge court. Kasich did away with a judicial review panel that among the five applicants. examined candidates’ qualifications and “It is troubling that four of the five have made non-binding recommendations. never been a judge, never made a judicial The panel was created by former Gov. decision, never written a judicial opinion,” Ted Strickland.

Painter told CityBeat. “While I believe that Another applicant is David S. Blessing, some outside blood is good periodically, a Cincinnati attorney in private practice CONTINUES ON PAGE 11 since 2004.

FROM PAGE 09

more pressure on affordable housing in the area. Over the past 15 years, 73 percent of the neighborhood’s lowest-income units have disappeared.

“This project will have long-term impact on Over-the-Rhine,” Rivers says. “We’d like to see that impact be positive rather than have long-term negative consequences for this historic and diverse neighborhood.”

The City Planning Commission has approved the various steps of the process despite concerns from critics, saying the plans comply with the city’s zoning code.

Heekin says Source 3 is moving forward with the project.

“Pending how the appeal goes, we hope to break ground by April, but with the possible delay, it may carry over to June,” he says. “We are extremely excited to bring a

FROM PAGE 10

four of the six appellate judges will be new this year. So some experience is needed.

“The most qualified by far is Mark Schweikert, who has been not only a judge, but also a very capable judicial administrator,” he said.

Should Kasich appoint Dennis Deters to one of the vacancies, it would create a potentially ominous dynamic on the court

dynamic project to the area and are working hard every day to bring it to fruition.”

Besides the appeal, the sale of the alleyways is one of the few remaining hurdles left to clear. Cincinnati City Council has to approve that sale — perhaps the last chance for community groups to convince the city to reconsider its approval.

For critics of the project, it’s a vital moment.

“It’s not just about the garage,” Klingler said at the Feb. 3 meeting. “It’s about the project as a whole. It just so happens that this matter of the garage is one more way in which the community’s trust has been somewhat taken for granted. There are serious issues that were laid out many months ago when we started this process that were never resolved. It’s about trying to get a group of three private individuals to listen to all these members of the community.” ©

for defendants in criminal cases. Deters is the brother of Hamilton County prosecutor Joe Deters. Dennis Deters brushed aside any notion of that being a problem.

“Based upon my review, there is no conflict as long as (Joe) does not personally appear before the court where I preside, which he does not and would not,” he wrote in his questionnaire. ©

SEC

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Love List

CityBeat’s annual Love List introduces you to seven passionate Cincinnatians who have turned what they love into their lifestyles. These are portraits of people striving to celebrate life by pursuing a path that rejoices in kindness, creativity and, in some cases, the drive to make some really good wine. By focusing on why they love what they do, why they love Cincinnati and why they love their lives in general, we explore how passion can change our community and the world at large.

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M A I JA Z U M M O, PR O J EC T E D I TO R // PH OTO S: H A I L E Y B O L L I N G ER

Yuliya Bui loves life. It’s the first thing she says when asked to share the things she loves most, and it’s evident in just how much her life has already entailed. Ten years ago, Bui was living across the ocean in Minsk, a city in Belarus just north of the Ukraine. Traveling has always been important to her; some of her favorite places include the Baltic Sea, Barcelona and Turkey. (Two days after this interview, she jumped on a plane to Hawaii.)

Her voyage brought her to Cincinnati in 2007, when she enrolled at Northern Kentucky University to pursue a degree in computer science. She worked as a user interface designer for more than three years before a fresh idea took root in her mind and refused to let go.

Applying her love for the clean, contemporary aesthetics of UI design to floral arrangements, Bui opened flower shop Gia and the Blooms — named after her pit bull Gia, a rescue from the SPCA — in 2016 after shifting her focus to the business the year prior. Bouquets begin at $35, and delivery is free within the Cincinnati metro area.

“When I worked for corporate, before I started the business, I was kind of dragging getting out of bed in the morning,” Bui says. “Now I’m wide awake at 6 a.m., excited for what the day is going to bring. I wake up before my alarm goes off.”

A portion of the store’s proceeds are donated to the SPCA as a way to thank the organization for connecting Bui with Gia. Although Gia, unfortunately, failed her trial period as a shop pet — she has a knack for knocking over plants.

CityBeat: What aspects do you love about your job?

Yuliya Bui: Working with flowers is great just because of the material you get to work with. I really couldn’t wish for anything better to do. We get reminded of it multiple times a week — the kinds of customers we get, people who like and appreciate flowers and are willing to spend money on buying flowers. The messages that people send to each other with the flowers, whether it’s encouragement or sympathy — it doesn’t matter what the message is. Just people thinking of each other and thinking to send each other flowers, it’s great.

CB: How is passion different from love?

YB: When you love something, it’s maybe a little more passive than passion. When you’re passionate about something, it has to do (more) with doing and acting upon things.

You can love something and not do anything, but if you’re passionate you’re acting on it and doing things with it.

CB: It’s Friday night after a long week. Where would you love to be?

YB: I’m actually at my shop most of the time on Fridays.

But we have music on, laughing, probably a good bottle of wine and getting things done.

CB: What do you love about Cincinnati?

YB: Oh my gosh, lots of things. I’m really excited to be in Cincinnati. Budget airlines, first of all. People don’t realize it, but we can get to the East Coast, Miami, Los Angeles for so cheap. It’s a good home base. Also, it’s a bigger city but still has a hometown, smaller city feel. You can get anywhere within 20 minutes and still feel like you live in the city. And then all the restaurants that just opened up, and we have a great music scene and arts scene. Getting all of it being in the Midwest is kind of fascinating.

CB: Name someone who inspires you and tell us why.

YB: My dad does a lot. He’s just always been a business man and really hard working, but also confident and always positive and encouraging. We talk a lot and he always gives me perfect advice. He’s someone I can rely on, always.

CB: What’s the best lesson life has taught you about love?

YB: Probably the more you give the more you receive back.

No tough lessons — just all good lessons.

CB: What is a phrase or motto you live your life by?

YB: My friends tell me I do whatever I want. If you set your mind on something, just do it and get it done as soon as possible.

T i t l e:

Owner of Gia and the Blooms

Yuliya Bui

H o m e tow n :

Minsk, Belarus Wh y w e lov e h er:

For channeling her passion into beautiful bouquets and delivering them for free IN T ERVIEW BY EMILY B EG LEY

C I T Y B E A T . C O M • f eb . 0 8 – 1 4 , 2 0 1 7 • 1 3

T itle:

Founder and owner of longtime green general store Park + Vine, which closed Jan. 15 H ometow n :

Cincinnati W hy we love him :

He’s a gentle, progressive, urban activist and an early pioneer of the new OTR

Dan Korman

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INTERVIEW BY STEPHEN CARTER-NOVOTNI

Park + Vine, Over-the-Rhine’s green general store, closed last month just shy of 10 years of service. Owner and founder Dan Korman’s store became a model for small retail shops in OTR. He built a brand that was known for offering ecologically friendly foods, personal care items, clothing and housewares. He and his team — he calls them his crew and eschews the title of boss — often shared their deep knowledge of low-impact, healthy living with the public over a cup of fair-trade coffee at the store’s vegan lunch counter. And when you spoke with Korman, you walked away from the conversation feeling a little smarter, and a little more optimistic.

Shortly after Park + Vine’s 2007 opening, it emerged as a hub for Cincinnatians who cared about Earth-friendly lifestyles. And that transcendent aspect to the shop is what made it so special and why, years from now, regulars will reminisce with friends about how there was this awesome little place on Main Street where you could get stuff you couldn’t find anywhere else. And the guy who ran it was really trying to do the right thing for the city.

Korman biked to work from his East Walnut Hills home; he doesn’t own a car. He’s a vegan and healthy-lifestyle enthusiast who organized and led regular hikes with his clients and friends. He gladly shared advice with anyone who came in his door, and his easygoing, plain-talking Midwestern style belies his breadth of wisdom on sustainability and urban living. (If pressed, he’ll wax philosophical

on these topics.) That kind of genuineness can be difficult to find. But he’s for real, and when you walked into Park + Vine you knew you were among friends.

CityBeat: What aspects do/did you love about your job?

Dan Korman: The people who I worked with and the people who supported us (at Park + Vine). Especially our last crew, the crew we had in the final stretch. They’re some of my favorite people that I ever worked with at any job at any part of my life. And I’ve been in the workforce for 30 years. This group was very supportive, very loving. When I shared with the group that we were closing — before I went public — I wasn’t exactly sure what the response would be. They were 100-percent supportive. They weren’t thinking about themselves; they were thinking about me. They wanted to see me happy. Every single one of them stuck with me to the end, to the last day. In addition to the crew, our regular customers, the people who kept the store going on a regular basis.

CB: How do you define passion?

DK: Community and people supporting one another. The reason the store lasted as long as it did is because there was a community that rose up around it. It was more than just a place where you could get something to eat or pick up a bar of soap. It was deeper than that.

CB: How is passion different from love?

DK: Passion is an uncontrollable emotion. Love is much more profound and involves complex feelings. It starts with

self-love and then radiates to love for others. Love keeps us together against the drudgeries of life.

CB: What do you love about Cincinnati?

DK: I love how easy it is to live here and to meet people.

Once I feel like I’ve met everyone I can, I meet another new person. And Cincinnati’s always changing. It’s exciting to be in a city that’s changing so much.

CB: Name someone that inspires you and tell us why.

DK: Danny Klingler, director of OTR A.D.O.P.T. (which connects property developers with historic properties in order to restore them for business and residential use). He’s very committed to historic preservation in Cincinnati in general and Over-the-Rhine specifically. I just have a lot of respect for his commitment to those things.

CB: What’s the best lesson life has taught you about love?

DK: That the best form of love is unconditional. At its base level it comes from inside of you. It’s about how you feel about yourself first, and about the world around you second.

(Actor) RuPaul says, “If you can’t love yourself, how the hell can you love someone else?” So, it starts with you.

CB: What is a phrase or motto you live your life by?

DK: “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” - Jalaluddin Rumi

T itle:

Founder of Wendigo Tea Co. and keyboardist/ pianist for on-hiatus local Rock band Foxy Shazam

Sky White bought enough tea, figured out how to build a website and everything I needed to start a business while it was being shipped from China and Japan.”

A lover of all things sci-fi, White named his company after the mythical, antlered, cannibalistic Wendigo spirit. In fact, all of his teas have monster-themed names: Yeti White Tea, Bigfoot Black Tea, Nessy Jasmine Tea. White ships most of his teas through an online ordering system, but Wendigo brews can be found on menus locally at Urbana Café, Collective Espresso, Skeleton Root winery, Flipdaddy’s and Quan Hapa. He might soon expand to locations in Colorado, Nashville and Pittsburgh.

The hype surrounding his teas are founded; he tries to use the most premium estate leaves in his products. His FireBird Chai smells delicious, and when the leaves and spices are immersed in hot water, they bloom. “It’s like making a cocktail out of all top-shelf liquors,” he says.

CityBeat: What aspects do you love about your job?

Sky White: It’s creative and fun. I get to do whatever I want with it, this little tea business. I just started from nothing. And now I can take time to myself and do creative things outside of that, or I can put a lot of time into it and grow the business.

CB: Finish this statement with five of your favorite things: “I love…”

SW: I love tea, I love piano, I love relaxing with friends, I love sci-fi shows. What else do I love? Doing interviews in parks.

W hy we lov e hi m :

For his infectiously kind and friendly personality — and his world-class tea business I N T ERV I E W BY G A R I N PI R N I A

CB: What do you love about Cincinnati?

SW: We’re in a renaissance in arts and food and beverage.

We have phenomenal restaurants popping up constantly.

I’ve spent most of my adult life traveling around the world, and I’ve never experienced something with this much change and this much quality all at the same time.

CB: Name someone who inspires you and tell us why.

SW: When I was a kid I saw a band called Tub Ring.

They’re from Chicago. It was heavy, mathy, nerdy songs all led by a keyboard player, Rob (Kleiner). He played so violently and strange that by the end of the show he was tearing keys out of the keyboard and there’s blood flying everywhere. I’d already been playing music for a while, but I’d never seen a keyboard player lead a show like that. It was one of the things that shaped the way I learned to play music and the way I perform. That band was the first band to take Foxy on a national tour, seven years later.

CB: What is a phrase or motto you live your life by?

SW: I got two of them. One of them is: How do I not fuck this up, when I have a situation that’s a really cool thing that I want to accomplish but I have no idea how to do it? Literally everything for the tea business — I have zero food-industry experience, so I mess up everything all the time, but then I eventually get it right. This other one: Don’t be afraid to be great. Two very different kinds of statements that are really saying the exact same thing.

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During an unseasonably warm January afternoon, burgeoning tea entrepreneur Sky White and I stroll through Washington Park conducting an interview. In the span of an hour it becomes clear to me: Sky White is very famous. On two separate occasions, two people with professional cameras stop White and ask to take photos of him, not with him. He flashes a goofy smile and we’re on our way. He says this sort of paparazzi behavior happens all the time and that people either recognize him for his band, Foxy Shazam, his tea company, Wendigo Tea Co., or his beard — he has a rather epic long, dark beard that sometimes gets him flagged at the airport.

Although Foxy went on hiatus in 2014, touring with the band is what built White’s ongoing passion for tea. “Just imagine having an eight-hour work commute every day. You have an awesome job, but you’re traveling constantly. You don’t have your friends, you don’t have a comfortable place to sleep, you don’t have clean bathrooms, you don’t have any of the things that make you human,” he says. “Shows were awesome. The fans were awesome. But during the day, my thing was to search out really nice tea. So 10 years of 200 shows a year, going and trying to find good tea. I’ve literally had thousands and thousands of different teas from around the world.”

The day after the band decided to quit touring for a while, White decided to launch his boutique tea company. “I cleared out my life’s savings,” he says. “I just

H o m etown :

Cincinnati

T i t l e:

Exhibitions Director, The Carnegie; co-owner, The Littlefield and Second Place H o m e tow n :

Cincinnati Wh y w e lov e h i m :

For his ongoing cultivation of the local art scene and for representing Cincinnati to the larger art world in ways that make us proud to be Midwestern

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IN T ERVIEW BY M A R I A S E DA - R EE D ER

Matt Distel

Matt Distel has long been a champion of the local art scene. After graduating from Miami University in 1994 with a degree in art history, Distel began organizing shows around Cincinnati. Along with artist Kristin Rogers, he ran a gallery in Camp Washington called DiLeia Contemporary from 1994-2000.

During that time, Distel put on the kind of shows we have now come to expect from the local DIY art scene: ephemeral one-off events like pot lucks, performances, slumber parties and the kind of happenings that tend to organically develop around artists who are low on financial resources, yet rich in inspiration and can-do-it resourcefulness.

In the intervening years, Distel has served as curator for nearly all the major art institutions in town: the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati Art Museum, Weston Art Gallery and The Carnegie. But he has also run his own galleries (the aforementioned DiLeia and Country Club), as well as community-driven nonprofits like Visionaries + Voices.

Despite the inherent pretentiousness of administrative positions in the art world, what’s most striking about Distel’s practice as a curator is that he shirks any kind of ego-driven posturing. Instead, he demonstrates the kinds of qualities that Midwestern creatives have developed a reputation for and makes them so coveted by employers on either coast: a generous work ethic coupled with a sardonic humility.

Fortunately for Cincinnati, Distel has several reasons to stay in town. He currently serves as exhibitions director

for The Carnegie in Covington, and in 2014 he opened The Littlefield, a bourbon bar and restaurant, with three of his friends in his home neighborhood of Northside. They’ve also recently opened up a sports-themed bar right next door to The Littlefield called, appropriately, Second Place.

Though he is a busy guy (he initially asked if he could respond to this Q&A with predictive texting technology on his phone), Distel answered our questions about all things passion-related and why he thinks he’s “doing it wrong.”

CityBeat: What aspects do you love about your job?

Matt Distel: It is always working with artists and other curators. The collaborative, communal nature of the work is what I love most. Being around people engaged in ideas and figuring out how to bring those into the physical world is pretty exciting. I feel grateful to be able to go into work and help someone realize a project that at one point only existed as a thought in their brain. Playing a small role in that process is thrilling.

CB: What are you most passionate about?

MD: Having clearly established that I’ve not given much thought to passion, I am passionate about my family and friends, football (soccer), my work and whatever the person next to me can convince me of.

CB: It’s Friday night after a long week. Where would you love to be?

MD: Like any rational person, at home. With my wife.

And a bourbon.

CB: How do you define passion?

MD: Oh, I don’t know. I probably do it wrong.

CB: What do you love about Cincinnati?

MD: Cincinnati has always been a town where you can get things done. Visual art is maybe not as strongly supported by collectors as it is in other towns, but artists can make things happen. Artist-run spaces are always popping up and cycling through periods of incredible creativity. Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky allow motivated artists to start something and maintain it just on passion and hard work for many years. Getting to that next step of making these projects sustainable over decades and generations is the trick.

CB: How is passion different from love?

MD: Is it? I mean, they go hand-in-hand so often. I guess passion, in my telling, bends toward obsession. I’m passionate about some sports things, some TV and film stuff, various artists. Maybe I am conflating passion with consumption. See? I’m doing it wrong.

CB: What’s the best lesson life has taught you about love?

MD: The other day I said, “I’m tired of learning experiences.

When do I get to just know stuff?” I guess that never really happens. This past year has taught me to be around the people you love as much as you possibly can.

T itle:

Owner and vintner behind Skeleton Root urban winery H ometown :

Cincinnati W hy we lov e her:

Kate MacDonald

INTERVIEW BY MCKENZIE GRAHAM

her partner all pitched in and completed the harrowing task of a massive building overhaul, mostly with their own blood, sweat and tears. They maintained the historical details of the building anywhere possible, and what resulted is an evocative space in the city — perfectly poised to set the mood for a drink originally heralded in a time gone by.

CB: Finish this statement with five of your favorite things: “I love…”

KM: Our city, the land and anything native growing on it; engines — I’m a gear-head; local food and drink; our family and pups; friends; and amazing supporters that allow us to pursue this crazy dream.

CityBeat: What aspects do you love about your job?

Kate MacDonald: I love that wine allows me to connect with people from varying backgrounds — from legacy farmers to mastermind chemists. Through wine, there’s endless opportunity to learn about world cultures and the land.

CB: What do you love about Cincinnati?

KM: The hills that form our river valley and city basin; our rich heritage of makers, from world-class machine tools to beautiful wine and beer; our amazing and super-accessible arts community; Italianate architecture; and the unrelenting pride that Cincinnatians have for this place.

CB: How do you define passion?

KM: Passion is a deep emotional connection and interest in someone or something. In my mind, it’s often tied to a desire to understand or perfect something.

CB: What are you most passionate about?

KM: Connecting with people and hopefully creating a sense of community around wine. Too often wine is presented in a pretentious or complex way. We hope to kick that. One of the aspects I enjoy most about wine is that, historically, it’s been a beverage meant for sharing. At its root, wine connects people.

CB: It’s Friday night after a long week. Where would you love to be?

KM: Blind Lemon, by the fire!

CB: What’s the best lesson life has taught you about love?

KM: If you don’t like your reality, change it. Love, after all, is what we do. Personally, it was tough for me to make the career leap. I had a lot of opportunity in the corporate world — not to mention a regular paycheck; however, I couldn’t stay away from the grapes, and I was very motivated by the potential to create something remarkable here, something that’s an authentic expression of the land.

CB: What is a phrase or motto you live your life by?

KM: “The best journey answers questions that, in the beginning, you didn’t even think to ask.” - Jeff Johnson in his book 180 Degrees South.

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Kate MacDonald and her partner Josh Jackson, both in life and business, are searching for property in the rolling countryside outside of Cincinnati. Ohio isn’t often heralded as the land everyone wants a piece of, but MacDonald disagrees: She started her winery, Skeleton Root, in Over-theRhine to prove that the Ohio River basin has more to offer than dairy farms and corn.

Our region was once the greatest producer of wine in the country. During Cincinnati’s prime grape-growing era in the 1850s, there were 2,000 acres of vines inside the city limits. A beautiful and giant print of those days, illustrated for a magazine published decades ago, hangs in the main room of Skeleton Root. The grape vines criss-cross in a maze, covering the hillside of what we now know as Eden Park. It’s a reminder that at one time, even right here in our metropolis, people took the bounty of the earth at its word.

MacDonald is one of those people. She quit her job as an aerospace engineer to pursue her passion for winemaking. She started making wine at home, like a true DIY-er, and eventually, through connections in the community and her own know-how, began dreaming of a space where she could show the locals just how good wine from the juice of Ohio grapes can be.

Inspired by 19th-century Cincinnati winemaker Nicholas Longworth, MacDonald pays tribute to the city’s tradition of urban viticulture. The space that now holds Skeleton Root started as a historic warehouse. MacDonald, her mom and

She had a dream of creating a winery that would reconnect Cincinnati with its deep and fruitful winemaking heritage — and she quit her day job to make it real

T itle:

Rapper and musician H ometo w n :

Cincinnati Why w e lov e him :

For his clear message: “Speak your mind in the face of adversity”

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I N T ERV I E W BY MADGE MARIL

Phillip Eugene Smith aka

Eugenius

“I stutter sometimes when I talk, but not when I’m on this mic,” begins the last track on Eugenius’ new album, Satsui no hado. It unfolds like a retreat after the relentlessly passionate and chaotic first six songs, with operatics lifting the listener to a celestial plane. But when Eugenius’ vocals kick in and the truth begins to drop, it’s another quick-spoken sucker-punch to the gut like any of his tracks.

In his music, Eugenius doesn’t shy away from saying how he feels. “It’s Friday and I’m sober and they think that I’m strange,” he spits on “Sober Fight,” from his 22-track Bars Against Humanity, released last February.

But talking to Eugenius — known by friends and family as Phillip Eugene Smith — in person is a completely different experience. Off the stage, the Cincinnati rapper is a coy sweetheart.

“I’m fairly shy and self-conscious,” he says. “Eugenius has become almost an alter-ego. An outlet to be more assertive, direct and in-the-moment than other musical outlets or life allows.”

The name Eugenius comes from his middle name (and is not at all related to the Roman usurper Eugenius); he combined Eugene with genius. “I thought it sounded kinda rap-y,” he says.

Every step Eugenius has taken as an artist during the last five years has been educated and purposeful. He learned DIY production value from a previous project, an Indie/Soul outfit called Silent Tongues (which has since begun playing

out again) and combined that with his lifelong love of Hip Hop to produce his own music as a rapper. He has been putting music online since 2012 and put out three self-released albums in 2016. By the end of 2016, arts and community magazine AFROPUNK was covering his new releases.

“There’s always the threat of a Eugenius album looming in the background,” he says. That’s the portrait of an artist who is constantly shifting, creating and, most importantly of all, taking us with him wherever he goes.

CityBeat: What aspects do you love about making music?

Eugenius: I love being able to create something from nothing. Taking something that just exists in your head and bringing it to life. Then using what you have created to be able to communicate with total strangers and bond with them in an immediate, universal way. Having a platform to express yourself as direct or as vague as you care to be.

CB: How do you define passion?

E: Something that is a part of your life no matter what; something that dominates your thoughts, alters your mood and controls your actions. It’s what drives you.

CB: What are you most passionate about?

E: Being as open and as honest as possible through my music and my interactions with people. Making music that is interesting and challenging. To try and be a better person than I was yesterday.

CB: It’s Friday night after a long week. Where would you love to be?

E: Some random venue, basement or living room surrounded by loved ones, watching and listening to friends making music. Looking at art. Eating ice cream. Maybe just sitting on the couch watching National Treasure.

CB: What do you love about Cincinnati?

E: How open-minded and diverse the music scene can be.

Having a community that is receptive to lots of genres and (that) strives for inclusiveness of every race, gender and sexual orientation or religious belief is definitely a luxury.

CB: Name someone that inspires you and tell us why.

E: Robert Inhuman (Decide Today, Realicide). He’s definitely one of the pillars of the DIY community. He always brings people together and is an excellent example of the power of positivity and a reminder that music — and music scenes — can and should have substance behind them.

CB: What’s the best lesson life has taught you about love?

E: That just because you love someone or something doesn’t mean it will grow. It takes work, understanding and patience to bear fruit.

CB: What is a phrase or motto you live your life by?

E: Never take the same route twice.

T itle:

Owner of Swoon OTR H ometown :

W hy we love her:

For providing comfy, ethically produced lingerie for all body types I N T ERV I E W BY E M I LY B EG L E Y

items in addition to its steady stock of basic and specialoccasion lingerie (see: beeswax candles modeled after Venus of Willendorf, a 28,000-25,000 B.C.E. figurine that represents the female figure). With products ranging from nude statement earrings to body care products like organic, cruelty-free deodorants, Swoon truly is a tribute to the feminine body, mind and spirit.

CB: What do you love about Cincinnati?

ML: I love that Cincinnati is a medium-sized city where your creativity can really still make an impact. There’s visibility, but there’s not saturation. You’re well-received. So many of the young people here move away to go be creative in other cities, but the people who stay really determine what the city becomes. Every bit of creativity is impactful here.

CityBeat: What aspects do you love about your job?

Melissa Lieb: After 10 years in fast fashion, it feels almost like a penance to work with slow fashion or with ethical brands. I was doing production trips in China and seeing labor; the ethical standards of a lot of the companies I was working for or worked with, it felt really bad. I went through an existential crisis. I made a personal switch toward ethical and slow fashion — a dedicated decision to buy less, to consume less and to consume more consciously. I love offering that to the Midwest.

CB: Name someone who inspires you and tell us why.

ML: My friend Rosie Kovacs from (OTR furniture and interiors store) the Brush Factory — very inspirational.

She never left Cincinnati and she’s always been working diligently to make the city what she wants it. They just opened a brick-and-mortar on Main Street and she’s always moving forward and always creative; basically there’s no wasted time in her day. She’s either dancing and socializing and spreading cheer or she’s working diligently toward executing her passions.

CB: How is passion different from love?

ML: Love is logic-less. Passion has got to be something you can be behind ethically, morally. Love is full emotion and intuition. So I guess passion is like love plus logic.

CB: What’s the best lesson life has taught you about love?

ML: Trust your intuition. Especially for women. There’s something magical about (women), and the more we get in touch with that the truer we are to ourselves.

CB: What are you most passionate about?

ML: I’m most passionate about being a good person to the people around me — just trying to be a good influence and only have a good impact on the people I interact with.

CB: What is a phrase or motto you live your life by?

ML: Live in the now or be in the now. That’s a good summary of how I operate.

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Swoon OTR, a new, upscale lingerie boutique in Over-theRhine, has a simple but salient mission: to offer Cincinnati women independent, ethically minded labels that complement bodies of all shapes and sizes. Helmed by Melissa Lieb, a graduate of the University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning, the store is a celebration of all things femme, selling everything from silky vintage kimonos and super-soft bras — sans underwire — to jewelry hand-crafted by Lieb.

“It’s an enthusiasm for intimates,” Lieb says of her inspiration behind the shop, which officially opened its doors last September. After graduating from DAAP, Lieb spent 10 years working in the New York fashion industry before returning to Cincinnati; the idea for the store struck during her car ride back home.

“I didn’t know what I was going to do — I spent a ton of money at a store in New York that stocked ethical intimate brands,” she says. “In Cincinnati, that stuff wasn’t available.”

The more she thought about that void, the more she realized she could fill it — and quickly.

“It’s kind of funny — it was like time-traveling it happened so fast,” she says of the store’s development, explaining that she created a concept for Swoon, named it and sent her business plan to the Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation in the course of only a week.

That momentum isn’t stopping anytime soon: The shop consistently entices customers with new, intriguing

Melissa Lieb

Cincinnati

love on the brain Whether your Valentine’s Day plans involve romance, wallowing or something in between, these local events have you covered C O M PI L E D BY L AU R E N M O R E T TO A N D M O N R O E T R O M B LY

Booze & Food An Evening in Paris — Chef Nathan has crafted a special Valentine’s-themed menu featuring selections including petit plateau de mer, charcuterie et fromage, bistro steak et frites and more. A la carte menu also available. 5-9 p.m. $50 per person prix fixe. La Petite Pierre, 7800 Camargo Road, Madeira, lapetitepierre.com.

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BB Riverboats Valentine’s Day Cruise — There’s nothing quite as romantic as coasting the Ohio River on a historic riverboat. A buffet dinner, live music and Valentine’s Day packages are available.

6 p.m. Feb. 11 and 14. $60 adults; $40 children.

BB Riverboats, 101 Riverboat Row, Newport, Ky., bbriverboats.com.

Everything is Chocolate — CityBeat dining writer Ilene Ross leads this cooking class in which guests will learn to make the perfect chocolate tart, chocolate bread pudding, chocolate semifreddo and Turkish coffee brownies. 6:30-9 p.m. Feb. 9. $45. Cooks’Wares, 11344 Montgomery Road, Harper’s Point, cookswaresonline.com.

Four-Course Dinner at The Phoenix — Can you say braised beef shoulder and chocolate pots de crème? A four-course menu and wine pairings from The Wine Merchant await you at The Phoenix.

7 p.m. Feb. 11. $79. The Phoenix, 812 Race St., Downtown, thephx.com.

Local Love: Valentine’s Date Brunch — Chef Kate Jesurun leads a cooking class on how to poach the perfect egg, make hollandaise sauce and whip up a decadent mousse. Afterward, enjoy the brunch you created. RSVP required. 9:30 a.m.-noon Feb. 11. $75-$85. Gorman Heritage Farm, 10052 Reading Road, Evendale, gormanfarm.org.

Metropole is for Lovers — Local food and old-world delights are in store at Metropole’s Valentine’s dinner. The regular farm-to-fireplace menu will be available, as will a special fourcourse prix fixe menu. 5:30-11 p.m. Feb. 11 and 14. $60 per person prix fixe. Metropole, 609 Walnut St., Downtown, metropoleonwalnut.com.

Murder Mystery Dinner: Deadly Game of Love — The Whodunit? Players present an evening of mystery and a meal themed around America’s newest game show, “You Said What?” — where the action behind the scenes is deadly. RSVP required. 5:30-9 p.m. Feb. 10. $35. Voice of America Park, 7850 Voice of America Park Drive, West Chester, facebook.com/thewhodunitplayers.

Perfect Pairings Wine Tasting — Go in disguise as sommeliers for the Taft Museum’s Perfect Pairings Wine Tasting. Swirl and sniff international wines alongside exotic hors d’oeuvres, or take a romantic tour of the historic home. RSVP required. 5-8 p.m. Feb. 11. $35 Taft members; $45 non-members. Taft Museum of Art, 316 Pike St., Downtown, taftmuseum.org.

Queen City Radio Presents Cupid is Stupid — Skip the PDA and enjoy some IPAs instead. A portion of proceeds from the evening’s special drink sales will benefit Planned Parenthood, which will be on hand to collect donations, sign up volunteers and provide information. 8 p.m. Feb. 11.

Free admission. Queen City Radio, 222 W. 12th St., Over-the-Rhine, facebook.com/queencityradiobar.

Truffle-Making at Findlay Kitchen — Learning how to make truffles? That’s the gift that keeps on giving. Join chocolatier Sherri Prentiss at Findlay Kitchen to roll truffles and learn how to make a chocolate ganache that could easily be replicated

at home. Enjoy a glass of bubbly while you work.

5-6:30 p.m. Feb. 11. $55. Findlay Kitchen, 1719 Elm St., Over-the-Rhine, findlaykitchen.org.

Valentine’s Day Macarons — Learn the art and science behind macaron baking. 10 a.m.-1 p.m. and 3-6 p.m. Feb. 11. $95. Macaron Bar, 1206 Main St., Over-the-Rhine, macaron-bar.com.

Valentine’s Day at the Memo — Get boujee with your date at Valentine’s Day at the Memo. Strolling musicians and Memorial Hall’s exquisitely renovated event spaces accent a three-course progressive meal and paired wines. Seatings at 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. Feb. 14. $60. Memorial Hall, 1225 Elm St., Over-the-Rhine, memorialhallotr.com.

Valentine’s Day Prix Fixe Dinner at Nectar — Fill up on a four-course meal with appetizers and dishes like beet crudo ravioli, artichoke soup with crispy sunchokes and orange coriander roast leg of lamb. Vegetarian menu available per request at reservation. 5:30-9:30 p.m. Feb. 14. $65. Nectar, 1000 Delta Ave., Mount Lookout, dineatnectar.com.

Valentine’s Day Tasting at the Listing Loon — What do you get when you pair a wine tasting with a chocolate tasting? Heaven. Join The Listing Loon for a Valentine’s Day tasting that includes four wines and chocolates. 5-8 p.m. Feb. 14. $15.

The Listing Loon, 4124 Hamilton Ave., Northside, bit.ly/2kc0a9y.

Valentine’s Dinner at the Zoo — Self-described as the “sexiest zoo in America,” the Cincinnati

Zoo & Botanical Gardens is hosting a Valentine’s dinner dubbed The Wild Side of Love. The Wild Side of Love will question the extent one goes to to get a mate, even if you’re still working on it.

The courtship extremes of the natural world will be compared to our own. 6-9 p.m. Feb. 11 and 12. $150 per couple. Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, 3400 Vine St., Avondale, cincinnatizoo.org.

Valentine’s Dinner at Mecklenburg Gardens — The evening includes a charcuterie plate with gourmet cheese and smoked salmon, plus your choice of four entrées and two desserts. 6-10 p.m. Feb. 14. $38. Mecklenburg Gardens, 302 E. University Ave., Corryville, mecklenburgs.com.

Valentine’s Dinner at Vinoklet Winery — Split a bottle of wine, get free reign of a salad and dessert buffet and select an entrée at Vinoklet. 5-8 p.m.

Feb. 14. $38-$40. Vinoklet Winery, 11069 Colerain Ave., Colerain, vinokletwines.com.

Parties/Events The Art of Love: Be Our Valentine — Sip champagne and nibble some chocolate while you watch artists in action. Find a unique gift for your Valentine in the process. 5-8 p.m. Feb. 9. Free admission. Gallery 708, 708 Walnut St., Downtown, facebook.com/708gallery.

Bijoux Parisiens: French Jewelry from the Petit Palais — This Taft Museum exhibit features 75 pieces of Parisian jewelry from the 17th through mid-20th centuries and “explores the intersection

of French art, fashion and history.” Through May 14. $12 adults; $10 children and seniors; free for members. Taft Museum of Art, 316 Pike St., Downtown, taftmuseum.org.

Cupid Missed Me — Mix and mingle with Cincinnati singles ages 40-60, hosted by cingles.net.

5-7:30 p.m. Feb. 10. $10. Montgomery Inn Boathouse, 925 Riverside Drive, Downtown, cingles.net.

Dine, Dance and Romance — WGRR’s Chris and Janeen from “Married with Microphones” host this plated dinner and dance party. 7 p.m.-midnight Feb. 10. $60-$100. The Grand Ballroom, 6 E. Fifth St., Covington, Ky., mchalescatering.com.

In the Mood for Love at the Mini — While it’s hard to pin down exactly what defines a true Valentine’s Day movie besides the very on-the-nose title of Valentine’s Day (2010), this holiday, go see something outside of your comfort zone. Wong Kar-wai’s film racked up awards in Hong Kong, placed second on the BBC’s list of the 100 greatest films in the 21st century and placed 24th in Sight and Sound’s 2012 critics poll. 7 p.m. Feb. 14. Free.

The Mini Microcinema, 1329 Main St., Over-TheRhine, mini-cinema.org.

Krohn by Candlelight — Step into the South to experience the French Quarter culture of New Orleans and the ecological life of a swampy, moist bayou. Krohn Conservatory’s 2017 Spring Show, Blooms on the Bayou (through March 12), is hosting an adults-only Krohn by Candlelight event, during which you can make a craft for that special someone and learn how to make chocolate. RSVP required. 5:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m. Feb. 10. $15. Krohn Conservatory, 1501 Eden Park Drive, Eden Park, cincinnatiparks.com.

Love Moer on Carol Ann’s Carousel — Moerlein Lager House and Cincinnati Parks have teamed up to offer a romantic weekend featuring free rides on Carol Ann’s Carousel. Bring your Valentine to the Lager House for dinner and drinks and receive a free ride on the carousel. Feb. 10-14. Extended carousel hours 7-10 p.m. Feb. 10-11; 4-7 p.m. Feb. 12; 5-9 p.m. Feb. 14. Moerlein Lager House, 115 Joe Nuxhall Way, Downtown, moerleinlagerhouse.com.

Love Sux 2017 Party — If you think your head might explode at even one more mention of Valentine’s Day, Howl at the Moon | Splitsville has a solution: a giant dance party with drinks, games and music that laughs in the face of love. Bring in a torn-up photo of your ex for a free bowl card.

4 p.m.-2 a.m. Feb. 10. Prices vary. Howl at the Moon | Splitsville, 145 E. Second St., Downtown, howlsplitsville.com/cincinnati-oh.

Pop-Up Market: Coppin’s Saves Valentine’s Day! — The hotel hosts a pop-up market in its new Eva G. Farris Ballroom featuring goods from local artisans like Adorn Jewelry, Elk Creek Winery and Donna Salyers Fabulous Furs. 6-10 p.m. Feb. 10; 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Feb. 11 and 12. Free admission.

Hotel Covington, 638 Madison Ave., Covington, Ky.,

Pre-Valentine’s Day Second Saturday — Sweet deals and treats await at this pre-holiday Second Saturday. Pick up unique gifts for that special someone and pick up a Hop Pass to receive complimentary treats from participating businesses and restaurants. 10 a.m. Feb. 11. Free admission.

Downtown Milford, downtownmilford.com.

Romance in the Heavens — Head to the Haile Digital Planetarium at Northern Kentucky University for a show, music and a box of chocolate.

Actors will tell romantic constellation lore in the planetarium, accompanied by live music. This event is for adults. 7:30 p.m. Feb. 14. $20 per couple. Haile Planetarium, NKU Science Center 409, Nunn Drive, Highland Heights, Ky., artscience. nku.edu.

Family–Friendly My Furry Valentine — Fall in love with a fourlegged friend at My Furry Valentine, the Tristate area’s largest animal adoption event with a whopping 800 animals available under one roof. Noon-6 p.m. Feb. 11; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Feb. 12. $5; $25 early bird. Sharonville Convention Center, 11355 Chester Road, Sharonville, myfurryvalentine.com.

Thursday Art Play: Valentine’s Bash at the CAC — The Contemporary Arts Center is throwing a fancy Valentine’s Day party, and your child is invited! Children ages 4-5 years will make a necklace, paint a canvas bag for someone they love and decorate yummy cookies. 10:30-11:30 a.m. Feb. 9. $5; free members. Contemporary Arts Center, 44 E. Sixth St., Downtown, contemporaryartscenter.org.

Music CCM Orchestra: Valentine’s Day Concert — Mendelsohn’s “Nocturne” from a Midsummer Night’s Dream, Rimsky-Korsakov’s “The Young Prince and the Young Princess” from Scheherazade and excerpts from Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier are but a taste of featured pieces performed by the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music Philharmonia. 8 p.m. Feb. 14. $15; $10 nonUC students; free UC students. Corbett Auditorium, 290 CCM Blvd., Clifton Heights, ccm.uc.edu.

Love Songs: Ballads and Blues with Camille Saba Smith — A Cleveland native, Smith is the founder of the musical ensemble Saba Jazz and has hosted a weekly radio Jazz broadcast for several years on WAIF, 88.3 FM. Smith sang with MUSE, a Cincinnati Women’s Choir for many years and is a member of The Martin Luther King Chorale and The Cincinnati Black Theater Company.

7:30 p.m. Feb. 11. $15. New Riff Distillery, Tower Room, 24 Distillery Way, Newport, Ky., newriffdistillery.com.

Valentine’s Day is 4Suckerz with Fellatia Geisha — Looking for the antithesis of Valentine’s Day? Look no further than “Valentine’s Day is 4Suckerz” at The Mockbee. Hosted by Moratorium_Flux, a new media collective experimental Electronica record label, the show features Fellatia Geisha of New York City, Off the Meat Rack (Cincinnati/ Detroit), DRAPA ft. special guest (Cincinnati) and Cut Yr Dick Off/Vampire Weekend At Bernie’s (Cincinnati). 9 p.m. Feb. 14. Free. The Mockbee, 2260 Central Parkway, Brighton, facebook.com/ themockbee.

Hook up with us

before hooking up this Valentine’s Day. Visit Caracole at our Northside office for free, confidential HIV testing and free condoms.

4138 Hamilton Ave | Cincinnati, OH 45223 | 513-761-1480 | www.caracole.org

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Northside Tavern Square Dance — Callers for this Valentine’s Day edition are Darlene Underwood and Beth Mast, with music provided by the Northside Volunteers. Northside Square Dance is also hosting a “Sweetheart of the Rummage Sale”: 8-10:30 p.m. Feb. 14. Free admission. Northside Tavern, 4163 Hamilton Ave., Northside, northsidetav.com.

facebook.com/thehotelcovington.

WANTS YOU TO

WIN STUFF! Win tickets to this upcoming show!

Enter for a chance to win tickets to local shows! Head on over to www.citybeat.com/win-stuff for a chance to win.

Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood Live!

February 18 at Aronoff Center

Dressed to Kill: Japanese Arms and Armor Now–May 7, 2017 Generously supported by:

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NEW YORK

Japan, Suit of Armor (detail), 19th century, metal, leather, Gift of Mrs. Enoch T. Carson through the Women’s Art Museum Association, 1881.152

to do

Staff Recommendations

p h o t o : T o n y A r r a s m i t h , A r r a s m i t h & A s s o c i at e s

WEDNESDAY 08

ONSTAGE: Playhouse in the Park’s production of LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS is a campy morality tale with humor and polish. See review on page 28.

EVENT: LISTEN TO THIS! Last year is being called The Year the Music Died because so many important icons and innovators of the popular song passed away in 2016. David Bowie, Prince, Maurice White, Leonard Cohen, Leon Russell, George Michael, Bobby Hutcherson, Paul Kantner, Merle Haggard… the list goes on.

Tonight’s Listen to This! record-playing session at the main branch of Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County will be devoted to them. Host and reference librarian Steve Kemple will also lead a discussion.

7 p.m. Wednesday. Free. Main Library, 800 Vine St., Downtown. cincinnatilibrary.org. — STEVEN ROSEN EVENT: SHAKESBEERE DINNER Beer + Shakespeare = ShakesBEERe. Head to the Moerlein Lager House for a night filled with drama, good eats and great beer.

Dinner includes five thematic courses and beer pairings crafted by Moerlein Lager House chefs to accompany five performances by the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company to toast its new building, slated to open in Over-the-Rhine in September. Reservations are required. 6-9 p.m. Wednesday. $75. Moerlein Lager House, 115 Joe Nuxhall Way, Downtown, facebook.com/moerleinlagerhouse. — LAUREN MORETTO

THURSDAY 09

MUSIC: Progressive Bluegrass quintet GREENSKY BLUEGRASS plays the Madison Theater. See interview on page 36.

MUSIC: STRFKR brings Dance Pop to the Woodward Theater. See Sound Advice on page 38.

ONSTAGE: SUMMERLAND Childhood diseases and America’s bloody Civil War left many families in the 1860s bereft, yearning to connect with lost loved ones who they believed had moved on to a lovely place called “Summerland,” where they awaited entry to heaven. Spiritualism thrived, and many believed the mysterious art of photography afforded ghostly glimpses of those who had passed when a portrait of a widow or grieving parent was taken. Those are the circumstances in Arlitia Jones’ world premiere at the Cincinnati Playhouse, where a photographer and an investigator spar over what’s real and what might be a scam. Through March 5. Tickets start at $30. Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, 962 Mount Adams Circle, Mount Adams, cincyplay.com. — RICK PENDER

Visionaries + Voices, 3841 Spring Grove Ave., Northside, visionariesandvoices.com.

— MARIA SEDA-REEER COMEDY: JOSH SNEED For Josh Sneed, Cincinnati native and nationally headlining stand-up, life couldn’t be better. His T-shirt company Cincy Shirts just opened its second brick-and-mortar location, this one in Hyde Park, and the business has been successful enough that he doesn’t have to be a road warrior anymore. “There’s no feeling like performing, but more so than that, I love being a dad,” he says. Indeed, his son has become quite the Reds fan. “I took him to a Giants game last year, and he said, ‘That’s who Johnny Cueto plays for,’ ” he says.

His son also knew that Cueto played for the Royals after leaving the Reds. “He then explained to me how arbitration works and

why the Reds couldn’t keep him. It was a nice moment as father and son.” Thursday-Sunday. $10-$16. Go Bananas, 8410 Market Place Lane, Montgomery, gobananascomedy.com. — P.F. WILSON

FRIDAY 10

MUSIC: Fluidity, a Creative Choral Community for a Cause presents its debut concert, LA NOURRITURE. See feature on page 29.

MUSIC: Canadian AltRockers JULY TALK play MOTR Pub. See Sound Advice on page 38.

DANCE: KING ARTHUR’S CAMELOT Art thou ready to experience the epic tale of King Arthur? If you answered yes, you’re just in time — King Arthur’s Camelot is coming to the Aronoff Valentine’s Day weekend. King

Arthur’s life is thrown into turmoil when he learns of the transgressions of his wife and newest knight, Lancelot. The performance is translated through original choreography from the Cincinnati Ballet, with original music performed by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Projections, puppets and exquisite sets and costumes help tell the story. 8 p.m. Friday; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday. $32-$116.

Aronoff Center, 650 Walnut St., Downtown, cballet.org. — LAUREN MORETTO MUSIC: ROSANNE CASH The newly renovated Memorial Hall hosts singer/songwriter Rosanne Cash as she sings tunes from her Grammy-winning homage to the American South, The River & the Thread, with her collaborator and CONTINUES ON PAGE 24

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ART: STRUCTURAL DREAMS AT VISIONARIES + VOICES Visionaries + Voices hosts a reception for the opening of their newest exhibition, Structural Dreams. Intermingling the work of V+V artists with others from the broader regional art scene, the show will feature work from artists who begin their processes with the aid of structural grids and geometric limitations. This kind of forced paradigm allows for a starting point and tangible framework within which artists can place their more chaotic creative flourishes. Participating artists include illustrator Heidi Hamms, geometric abstractionist John Nusekabel, painter Chase Melendez, sculptor Scottie Bellissemo and more. Opening reception 5-8 p.m. Thursday. Through March 16. Free.

WEDNESDAY 08

OPENING FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10 • 6-8 PM Please Join Us with Catering Provided by Whole Foods

GALLERYTALK

GALLERYTALK

FEB. 15 7PM

photo : provided

FR

GALLERYTALK

MARCH 7 7PM

The Wired: Curated by C. M. Turner

EE!

MARCH 15 7PM

The Thread in the River:

Future Retrieval and Jordan Tate; Photographs by Jane Alden Stevens Justin Hodges and Casey James Wilson; Exhibition Sponsor: Caroline Turner and Ian Anderson Whitney and Phillip Long

Kate Kern: Calling Exhibition Sponsor: Barbara and Gates Moss

FEBRUARY 10 – APRIL 2, 2017 GALLERYTALKS

held at the Weston Art Gallery

Aronoff Center for the Arts / 650 Walnut St., Cincinnati, OH 45202 / www.WestonArtGallery.com 2016-17 Season Sponsor: Dee and Tom Stegman Judith Titchener

SATURDAY 11

EVENT: MADTREE 2.0 WINTER BONANZA Oakley’s MadTree will open its new brewery, taproom and event space this weekend during the MadTree 2.0 Winter Bonanza. The celebration will also mark MadTree’s fourth anniversary and an expansion of a modest 15-barrel system to a 120-plus barrel system, equating to a production capacity of an eventual 180,000 barrels a year.

Located in the former Cincinnati Frog & Switch building, the 50,000-square-foot space cost an estimated $18 million to renovate. The Winter Bonanza will feature more than 70 beers on tap with guest taps, live music and a variety of food vendors. There are currently 7,800 people “interested” and 2,800 listed as “going” on the Facebook event page, so a word to the wise — purchase beer tickets beforehand on the brewery’s website. 11 a.m.-1 a.m. Saturday. Free admission. MadTree, 3301 Madison Road, Oakley, madtreebrewing.com. — MONROE TROMBLY

FROM PAGE 23

husband John Leventhal. 8 p.m. Friday. $35-$55. Memorial Hall, 1225 Elm St., Over-the-Rhine, memorialhallotr.com.

— MAIJA ZUMMO

SATURDAY 11

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ART: The Taft Museum of Art’s BIJOUX PARISIENS: FRENCH JEWELRY FROM THE PETIT PALAIS, PARIS exhibits 75 pieces from French jewelry houses. See Big Picture on page 27.

FILM: Cincinnati World Cinema presents OSCAR-NOMINATED SHORT DOCUMENTARIES at Memorial Hall. See Film on page 30.

EVENT: MY FURRY VALENTINE The sixth-annual My Furry Valentine — Cincinnati’s largest companion animal adoption event — returns to the Sharonville Convention Center this weekend, playing matchmaker to help more than 800 adoptable animals find their forever homes. Dogs, cats, puppies, kittens and rabbits will be available from nearly 40 local shelters like the SPCA, Pampered Pets Animal Rescue, League for Animal Welfare and Louie’s Legacy. More than 45 vendors will also be onsite to provide information about animal care and advocacy

groups and local veterinary services. Noon-6 p.m. Saturday; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday. $5; $25 early-bird. Sharonville Convention Center, 11355 Chester Road, Sharonville, myfurryvalentine.com. — EMILY BEGLEY EVENT: CINCY PROHIBITION PARTY The Cincy Prohibition Party promises an evening of revelry for bootleggers, scofflaws and dapper flappers. Put on your best Roaring Twenties costume and head to the Woodward Theater to Fox Trot to Jazz-era classics from The Cincy Brass, with entertainment from hula-hooping fire dancers Cirqulate. Start the party at Arnold’s Bar and Grill with a picket parade to protest the Temperance Movement and happy hour with musical numbers performed by The Queen City Sisters. The parade will begin promptly at 8 p.m. from Arnold’s with picket signs provided. Happy hour 6-7:30 p.m.; event 8 p.m.-midnight Saturday. $15 advance; $20 door. Woodward Theater, 1404 Main St., Over-The-Rhine, facebook.com/radpadentertainment. — MONROE TROMBLY ART: DRESSED TO KILL: JAPANESE ARMS & ARMOR More than 130 warrior-related objects from the 16th to 19th centuries will be on display at the Cincinnati Art Museum for the new Dressed to Kill: Japanese Arms & Armor exhibition. Dressed to Kill aims to tell the

photo : danny clinch

UNLESS YOU GOT CRAZY FLIPPER FINGERS...

GAME OVER.

TUESDAY 14

MUSIC: VALERIE JUNE Based in various traditional American Roots music forms yet brimming with a unique, contemporary energy and wise lyricism, Valerie June broke through with her 2013 debut album, Pushin’ Against a Stone, which led to tours with Sturgill Simpson and Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings as well as several high-profile TV performances (including her excellent appearance on PBS’s Austin City Limits). This year should be even bigger for June. Her sophomore album, The Order of Time, slated for release in March on Concord Records, has already drawn widespread acclaim from NPR and other respected press outlets. If the early notices and first couple of singles are any indication, expect The Order of Time to be riding high on a lot of “Best of 2017” lists come year’s end. 8 p.m.

Tuesday. $18 advance; $20 day of show. Southgate House Revival, 111 E. Sixth, Newport, Ky., southgatehouse.com. — MIKE BREEN

SUNDAY 12

MUSIC: Michigan rockers POP EVIL play Bogart’s. See Sound Advice on page 39.

TUESDAY 14

FILM: IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE Set in Hong Kong in 1962, Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love follows the tale of

journalist Chow Mo-wan, who rents a room in the same apartment building as Su Li-zhen, a secretary. The next door neighbors live somewhat isolated lives, intersecting with each other in everyday situations until they discover that their spouses are having an affair with each other. Chow and Su begin a platonic friendship, tortured by a blossoming love that custom, society and their own fidelity will not allow. 7-10 p.m. Tuesday. $5 suggested donation. The Mini Microcinema, 1329 Main St., Over-the-Rhine, minicinema.org. — MAIJA ZUMMO

ONGOING shows ONSTAGE Henry VI: The Wars of the Roses, Part 2 Cincy Shakes, Downtown (through Feb. 11)

Over-the-Rhine + 16-BitBar.com

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true story of warriors in Japan, contrasting the reality of the noble Samurai with how we may think of them from popular books and films. With 11 full suits of armor, including one for children, plus weapons, banners, costumes, prints and paintings, the exhibit explores the impact of cultural development in Japan and its influence. Through May 7.

Free. Cincinnati Art Museum, 953 Eden Park Drive, Eden Park, cincinnatiartmuseum.com — CHRISTINA DROBNEY

arts & culture

Sustaining an Artistic Vision

Jewelry and clothing designer Da’Mon Butler’s unconventional creations are gaining attention

BY BRODY KENNY

PHOTO : haile y bollinger

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I

f there’s a living example of the idiom that “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” it’s Da’Mon Butler. For about 17 years, Butler has lived in Cincinnati designing and selling jewelry and accessories, with some pieces made out of unorthodox materials. And he has lately expanded into clothing.

Butler sells through his business, Nomad3176 (“Nomad” being his first name backward and 3176 reflecting his birthdate of March 17, 1966), and is active on Facebook. He refers to his designs as “icing.” Just like the way a glaze can make a cake spectacular, Butler says a piece of jewelry can do the same to an outfit.

“People dress really nice, but it’s always like the last piece you put on that takes that outfit sort of over the top,” he says.

Working retail for Ralph Lauren about 25 years ago kick-started an urge for Butler to set himself apart from his shirt-andtie-wearing co-workers.

“I used to make these brooches out of found materials that I could wear on my suits,” Butler says. “Whether it be broken glass, marbles, stones or just about anything I could find, I’d put on a brooch.”

According to Butler, these unique designs would be immediate conversation starters. He originally found his unusual materials at thrift stores like the Salvation Army and Goodwill, but eventually started ordering materials online and vending his works at events like art fairs. He then realized he had a great deal of competition.

“I found myself in a sea of other jewelry designers all competing for the same customer,” Butler says. “I thought, ‘I need to figure out a way to set myself apart from everybody else and not do what everybody else is doing.’ ” To do that, Butler began pushing further into the unconventional materials. He started using inner tubes from bicycles and Segways, as well as medical tubing — his own keychain is made of inner tubes — with more traditional items, like beads.

Butler says an early influence was his trips to a landfill with his father to throw out their garbage. That influenced his views on sustainability as well as his choice of design materials. He also lived in Germany for seven years and found people there to be much less wasteful than those in the United States.

“I’d rather you wear it and pay me to wear it than for it to be in a landfill and mess it up for everybody else,” Butler says.

Not all materials have worked as well as inner tubes or medical tubing. Butler

Da’Mon Butler (center) and models wear his clothing designs at a recent show. attempted to make necklaces out of water bottles, but the translucent nature of them “didn’t translate well,” he says. However, he still hopes to make them work someday.

His work has garnered devoted fans.

Pamela Myricks, a friend of Butler’s, says she and her husband Lennell have been longtime collectors. Myricks, who owns 21 necklaces and three bracelets designed

by Butler, say she can’t choose a favorite. “I love them all for different reasons,” Myricks says.

Butler, who did not originally intend to sell his jewelry, says he has one client in mind when creating his designs: himself.

“I design everything for me, and then I happen to sell it so I can buy more material to make stuff for other people.” Prices for Butler’s jewelry range between $10 and $100, while his clothing prices range between $30 and $200. “It’s never going to be outrageous, because I would never pay $200 for a pair of pants,” he says.

For his clothing designs, Butler has used a diverse array of fabrics, including Ultrasuede, denim, upholstery and wool to create outfits from ponchos to pants.

Rather than making outfits with a specific pattern in mind, Butler prefers to let the fabric guide him. “I sort of come up with designs depending on the fabric,” he says.

In April 2015, Butler learned to sew at the downtown public library and had 12 outfits featured at a fashion show hosted by the Africana Studies Department at the University of Cincinnati that year. Last year, Butler was treated to “an impromptu photo shoot” with his jewelry after he met a photographer at Second Sunday on Main.

“For her to take two, almost three, hours to do a photo shoot with my jewelry on Main Street, in the middle of the street, was just kind of cool,” Butler says.

Butler has been promoting his work at Second Sunday on Main for 11 years now, but notes a significant upswing in interest in recent years. “The last Second Sunday that we had, I sold 11 pieces, which is a lot,” Butler says.

Butler is already making strides in the new year. On Jan. 7, his work was showcased at a fashion event at downtown’s PRVLGD Lounge & Bistro. And this Saturday, he will have a pop-up shop at Chicken Lays an Egg in Northside. At the PRVLGD show, Butler wore a shirt and jacket made from a disaster relief blanket, along with a pair of pants made from a pair of faux leather curtains given by a friend, and a necklace made of pony and ponytail beads.

While his designs are unisex, Butler likes to use male models because it increases the chance of another man buying one of his designs. “Women, when they see my stuff, they have no hesitation in buying it,” he says.

Butler has a preference for AfricanAmerican male models, as he believes “they’re the most overlooked models.”

He adds: “A lot of designers don’t use African-Americans (or) they only use … a select few.”

In the United States, Butler sees how those who are unique, artistic or not, can be unfairly ostracized.

And he is concerned about that.

“Sometimes we, as Americans, are quick to judge and criticize people for being different, when we should embrace and encourage that,” Butler says.

With some 1,500 pieces produced to date, Butler has made his ambition and drive clear.

“If I couldn’t create, I don’t think I would want to exist,” he says.

Northside’s Chicken Lays an Egg hosts a NOMAD3176 pop-up shop 6-10 p.m. Saturday.

More info: facebook.com/chickenlaysanegg.

a&c the big picture

French Jewelry and Art History

BY STEVEN ROSEN

Some may wonder why the neo-Renaissance style just didn’t last forever, since it sold well and jewelry is an (expensive) consumer item. After all, as Ambrosini emphasizes, jewelry was not a “universal” art form — it was for the wealthy.

But around the turn of the 20th century, it was replaced by Art Nouveau, a larger arts movement that looked to nature and

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“Art Nouveau truly was a radical design aesthetic that permeated all the arts,” Ambrosini says. “This is where the tide turns and revival jewelry falls off the map.”

But things changed again, shortly after World War I, when the public turned against the excessive flourishes of Art Nouveau and the decadent society that brought on calamitous war. Soon, Art Deco arrived with its streamlined design aesthetic — in jewelry as well as graphic arts and architecture.

There was a time that decorative arts were considered to belong to the lesser category of applied arts. They were made for use rather than contemplation. But that’s changed.

“A piece of jewelry actually is a very smallscale sculpture,” Ambrosini says. “The skill, thought and artistry, the design of these pieces, are as original as the design of a painting. It’s simply another outlet for creativity.”

BIJOUX PARISIENS: FRENCH JEWELRY FROM THE PETIT PALAIS, PARIS opens Saturday and runs through May 14. More info: taftmuseum.org.

FEB. 8 (PREVIEW) -12, 2017 TICKETS: $27-$31 adults $17-20 non-UC students $15-18 UC students $15 preview performance This production contains adult themes and situations, and is intended for mature audiences.

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For its Bijoux Parisiens: French Jewelry from the Petit Palais, Paris exhibition that opens Saturday, the Taft Museum of Art is offering an obvious tie-in: macarons during three special Saturday afternoon tea services.

But maybe it should also be renting those magnifying eyeglass loupes, some with LED lights, that jewelers and lapidarists wear to better see tiny gemstones they must inspect.

Because, believe me, there are tiny — miniscule — details to the 75 pieces of jewelry in this show that you will want to study carefully. The exhibit covers jewelry by such famous names as Cartier, Lalique, Van Cleef & Arpels and more, from the early 19th to mid-20th centuries.

The oldest piece here is used to establish a reference point for the later objects. It is from the late-16th century and is a “Charity Pendant” using gold, rubies, pearls and enamel. In the center, and it’s hard to see, is the figure of a woman with two small children. They represent the virtue of charity, according to the object label. It’s impressive to think of the work and, literally, vision involved in creating this.

“It’s the earliest piece in show,” says Lynne Ambrosini, the Taft’s chief curator, who oversaw installation of this traveling exhibit.

This Renaissance brooch, made in southern Germany, falls somewhat outside the show’s purview, although it’s from the Petit Palais museum’s collection. “This is included to give context to the work to follow,” she says.

“In the 19th century, Renaissance jewelry was revived. So we thought it would be especially nice to have this piece to start the show.”

The details of other pieces are just as subtly rewarding, and the show wasn’t even fully installed when I previewed it. In René Lalique’s “Wood Anemone Pendant,” from about 1900, which uses gold, diamonds and enamel, the leaves of the flowers are everso-slightly curled as if by the weight of dewdrops. Diamond dewdrops. (Lalique is best known as an Art Nouveau glass designer.)

In Lucien Falize’s “Neo-Renaissance Pendant,” from about 1880, the spectacularly bold object commands attention, like a miniature Christmas tree, with its gold, diamonds, tourmaline, pearl and enamel. But try to savor the small open spaces, the airiness, within the object’s parameters. That’s a hallmark of Renaissance jewelry and was brought back with the 19th-century revival.

“All the elements connect, but between them is a lot of open work, so you have the sense of lacy, intertwining forms circling around in space,” Ambrosini says.

This exhibit is about its isolated individual objects, sure. But it’s also about more — how jewelry design reflects trends in overall art history and how our definition of fine art has changed with time to accept these.

CCM’S MAINSTAGE ACTING SERIES PROUDLY PRESENTS

a&c onstage

Big Laughs from ‘Little Shop of Horrors’

BY RICK PENDER

Flashes of lightning and thunder. Then Jamison Stern ramps up the humor with a a girl group resembling the Shirelles, Pop dizzying array of comic roles. Most noteworqueens from the early 1960s, opens the thy is Orin, Audrey’s sadistic dentist boyfriend, Little Shop of Horrors in the Cincinnati as well as Audrey II’s first serious meal. But Playhouse’s Marx Theatre. “Call a cop,” they Stern comes back repeatedly as a hilarious sing. “Shing-a-ling/What a creepy thing to array of people seeking to jump on Seymour’s be happening!/Feel the sturm and drang in epic publicity bandwagon resulting from the the air/Sha-la-la/Stop right where you are, plant overtaking the entire flower shop. don’t move a thing.”

Cearley is a magnificent dweeb, a clumsy It’s a warning about dire things to come. but loveable klutz whose yearning for And an overt signal that this is a very Audrey is palpable. They’re a perfect match, tongue-in-cheek piece of theater. Director both singularly lacking in self-esteem.

Bill Fennelly didn’t need to do a lot of fancy tricks to make Little Shop work — it’s H a well-oiled comedy machine, CRITIC’S featuring clever tunes by Howard Ashman and Alan H Menken, the lyricist and composer of animated movies including The Little Mermaid, Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast.

Roger Corman’s 1960 lowbudget horror film about a carnivorous plant from outer space, bent on world domination, was the inspiration for the “horror comedy Rock Nick Cearley plays Seymour, keeper of a monstrous plant. musical” that had a five-year P H O T O : m i k k i s c h a f f n e r photo g r a ph y run Off-Broadway starting in 1982. It was a popular movie in 1986, the same year Cincinnati Playhouse Milo’s stupifyingly blonde, empty-headed first staged it. This co-production with portrait is downright endearing. When they Portland Center Stage had a run in Oregon finally confess their mutual attraction in late last year with the same cast, staged by “Suddenly Seymour,” Cearley stumbles over Broadway veteran Fennelly. That means its his name with a long, sibilant “s” — undercast is solidly polished. scoring his disbelief that his dream of a life The girl group — Chiffon (Johari Nandi), with Audrey could be coming true. Cearley Crystal (Alexis Tidwell) and Ronnette plays Seymour with vocal and physical tics (Ebony Blake) — sings backup throughout that add humor to his performance. It’s all the show with tightly synchronized chorethe more amusing that he’s a great singer, ography. They also function as a latter-day and his duets with Milo evoke the show’s Greek chorus, stepping in and out of the warmest audience responses. action as street kids on Skid Row, where Mr. The offstage band, led by the accomMushnik’s Flower Shop is on the brink of plished local conductor Stephen Goers in his failure. Cranky Mushnik (David Meyers) is Playhouse debut, and Ashman’s literate lyrabout to throw in the towel when his inept ics make Little Shop a very satisfying, wellassistant Seymour Krelborn (Nick Cearley) integrated production. Kent Zimmerman’s brings forth an exotic plant he’s been tendchoreography, especially the stylized moves ing, hoping to impress Audrey (Gina Milo), by the girls, adds even more polish. Michael the shop’s ditzy blonde salesgirl. As a sign Schweikardt designed the two-story set with of affection, he’s dubbed the plant Audrey II, the rundown flower shop that slides forward and it spells surprising success for the shop. when needed and recedes for other action.

Seymour soon discovers that his plant The Playhouse’s production of this campy thrives on human blood and makes increasmorality tale — the price of fame is simulingly obnoxious demands for more as it taneously tough, heartbreaking and darkly grows rapidly. (The alligatorish monster is a entertaining — is going to warm up a lot of larger-than-life puppet operated by Stephen audiences during a chilly January and FebKriz Gardner and given an insistent, jive ruary. Even if you’ve seen the show before, singing and speaking voice by Chaz Rose.) this Little Shop will grow on you.

Seymour enters a Faustian agreement with LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, presented by Cin­ the plant to feed its horrific appetite in cinnati Playhouse in the Park, continues through exchange for fame and love with Audrey. Of Feb. 19. More info/tickets: cincyplay.com. course, things go badly.

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a&c CULTURE

Fluidity: A New Choral Group with a Social Cause

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When Rhonda Juliano’s contract as “When I told Suzy what Fluidity was artistic director with MUSE, Cincinnati’s about, she said, ‘You should pick us!’ ” Women’s Choir ended in July, she took Juliano says. “When I told her what our inspiration from the word “fluidity” to form theme was, it was a perfect fit.” a new chorus — Fluidity, a Creative Choral Established in 2013, La Soupe rescues Community for a Cause. Its debut concert, nearly “expired” produce donated by La nourriture, is this Friday evening at Kroger, Jungle Jim’s and Trader Joes to New Riff Distillery in Newport. create healthy soups that are either sold or “I wanted to create a chorus that had donated to area food banks. no fixed vocal boundaries, as in women’s, “La nourriture,” the name of Fluidity’s men’s or mixed chorus,” she says. “Same debut concert, is French for nourishment. goes for the vocal arrangements.”

The program features songs about cheese, In October, 36 men and women, includchocolate, coffee and drinking your fill. ing teenagers, began rehearsals for Fluidity. Several women sing tenor and one is a bass singer undergoing gender transition. Most of the choral arrangements are labeled as soprano, alto, tenor and bass without regard to gender, but at least one is specifically for men’s voices.

Fluidity is not the first choir Juliano has created. In 2002, she founded Diverse Harmony in Seattle, the first choir for LGBTQ youth and allies. It started off with Rhonda Juliano started a new, diverse choral group. only 12 kids. But at the 2004 P H O T O : © D. M a r t i n / m k photo g r a ph e r s . c om Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses festival in Montreal, Diverse Harmony stole the show “We’re singing ‘Bittersweet Tango’ and and subsequently appeared in the 2005 ‘Carmina Ricotta,’ both by Cincinnati native documentary Why We Sing. Today, Diverse Eric Lane Barnes,” Juliano says.

Harmony has more than 50 members.

Another song, “Berusa er,” means “drink As important as Fluidity’s music is to your fill” in Swedish, and it will be sung to Juliano, its mission carries equal impora Haitian beat. tance. “I kept thinking, ‘How can this choThere is also one outright Pop classic on rus make a difference in our community?’ the program — a six-part arrangement of And the concept of paying it forward came “Bohemian Rhapsody” with MYCincinnati to mind,” she says. director Eddy Kwon on electric violin.

“When I moved to Cincinnati from Seattle The program is ambitious and has its three years ago, I was impressed with the challenges, especially for chorus members number of nonprofits really engaged with with less choral experience. But they all the community. There are so many we agree on the supportive environment, don’t know about, and what excites me is especially Raya Schweitzer, who is in the how we can support and promote these process of gender transition. groups through our singing.”

“I am trying to build a healthy self-idenFluidity concerts will be designed as tity and a better voice during this time, and social events that educate the audience the acceptance has been great,” Schweitzer about a nonprofit agency and present says in an email. music that supports the theme, with the Audience members will hear from DeYprogram clocking in at less than an hour. oung and have a chance to sample some Juliano decided on feeding the hungry of La Soupe’s creations. Dinner by the bite, for the first program’s theme, but she provided by New Riff’s catering staff, folwanted to find a lesser-known organization lows the concert. Audience, choir members to help. and La Soupe representatives can interact.

She made a match at the Social EnterFluidity’s June concert will benefit prise Cincy summit in October, at a Groundwork Cincinnati - Mill Creek. roundtable discussion with Suzy DeYoung, Fluidity presents LA NOURRITURE 6:30 p.m. founder and chef of La Soupe, an organiFriday at New Riff Distillery in Newport. Tickets/ zation that provides food and education more info: fluiditycccc.org. where the need is greatest.

a&c film

Oscar-Nominated Short Docs Offer Truth, Drama

BY T T STERN-ENZI

Saturday, March 4th, 2017 At The Redmoor 3187 Linwood Ave Cincinnati, OH 45208

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This year, possibly moreso than in years Two of this year’s nominated filmmakpast, Cincinnati World Cinema’s annual ers, Daphne Matziaraki (4.1 Miles) and presentation of the Oscar-Nominated Short Dan Krauss (Extremis) transformed the Documentaries shoulders a historic burden, limitation into a strength, wasting little time beyond its mission to highlight education with prologues and character introductions, and culture by providing “the community trusting audiences to dive into the scenes with outstanding motion pictures that of crises and sink or swim. 4.1 Miles sets up explore the human condition and celebrate among a coastal patrol crew on the Greek cultural diversity.” isle of Lesbos that races out multiple times As always, this aim syncs up with eligibila day to rescue Turkish migrants stranded ity requirements for documentary films as in the sea. Extremis situates us in an Amerdefined by the Motion Picture Academy of ican hospital where families and medical Arts and Sciences, which states that films must be “theatrically released nonfiction motion picture dealing creatively with cultural, artistic, historical, social, scientific, economic or other subjects.”

But there is a particular emphasis “on fact and not fiction.” This is where the rub lies because the election cycle, which is barely in our rearview, upended all of our notions about what is “fact” or “fiction” and how we might determine the difference between what is “real” A volunteer rescues a Syrian child in The White Helmets. versus “fake” when it comes PHOTO : orl ando von einsiedel to news and information — the very tools necessary for critical exchanges. teams grapple with the complex decisions Welcome to post-truth America! facing patients nearing the end of life. The What the current slate of films nominated central question — who decides how we die in the Documentary Short category prowith dignity — has no easy answer. vides us with is a certain indisputable truth.

As with The White Helmets, the other The camera’s eye sees the events unfolding; films in this category — Joe’s Violin and it stands there, representing us, at times Watani: My Homeland — grant us greater directly pulling us into the action. access to the subjects. In the former film, For instance, in Orlando von Einsiedel’s director Kahane Cooperman shows us the The White Helmets, we are on the ground in impact of giving via a 91-year old Holocaust Syria, with a group of first responders who survivor in New York City who donates his race headlong into the rubble of fresh airviolin to a 12-year old girl in the Bronx. strike targets seeking to rescue victims and Watani, from Marcel Mettelsiefen, takes honor the dead. The White Helmets were us back to Syria and to a family enmeshed in founded in 2013 and adhere to the motto: that country’s civil war. Once the husband, a “To save a life is to save all of humanity,” but freedom fighter, is taken and presumed dead, we see how difficult the work is and ultithe mother decides to pack up her children mately how not every life can be saved. and seek asylum in a small town in Germany.

From our privileged perspective, Each of the nominated films examines America can debate this reality, but the whether or not some aspect of culture, hisnominated shorts remind us that each and tory or life itself can be lost in safety, but every moment, event and celebration from also entwined in these dramatic narratives this point forward requires an acknowledgeis a recognition that there is an underlying ment. We must document and remember the human truth that must be shared. I would facts, and we must be ready and willing to argue that what Cincinnati World Cinema call forth our remembrances, to testify in and this powerful slate of films are remindsupport of history. ing us is that there is no meaningful state or The truth is evidenced in the sharing stage beyond these self-evident truths. of facts. Yet, on the surface, documentary Cincinnati World Cinema will host presentations shorts seem to face a challenging hurdle. of the OSCAR-NOMINATED SHORT DOCUMENTAHow is a film to delve into complex subjects RIES Feb. 11 and 12 at Memorial Hall. For more and push narrative boundaries while handiinformation, visit cincyworldcinema.org. capped with such time constraints?

ON SCREEN Review: ‘Julieta’

BY T T STERN-ENZI

I remember my first encounter with Pedro Almodóvar, back when I was in college. I had read about Matador and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, but I hadn’t tracked those films down yet — the realities of the prestreaming age. I recall the attention paid to his fascination with high camp and hyper-styled melodrama, so when Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! premiered, I knew I couldn’t avoid him any longer; after all, I was already devoted to David Lynch.

And the film certainly didn’t disappoint.

Antonio Banderas, an Almodóvar regular, played a former mental patient who tracks down and kidnaps his favorite porn star (Victoria Abril) in order to convince her to marry him. The film’s tagline: A love story… with strings attached, aimed to sensationalize and spark outrage, which it did in spades. There was a deeply intimate personal ritual in the bondage scenes, and Almodóvar made sure that the audience was engaged. But I found myself falling under the spell of a storyteller who never let the titillating spectacle overwhelm the underlying humanity of his characters.

Which makes his latest, Julieta, seem like a curious departure. The titular character (Emma Suárez) drifts comfortably through middle age in Madrid, as she and her lover Lorenzo (Darío Grandinetti) prepare to move to Portugal, until a chance encounter with a childhood friend (Michelle Jenner) of her estranged daughter Antia (Blanca Parés) forces Julieta to confront unresolved issues from her past.

Adapting stories from Alice Munro, Almodóvar reins in his natural stylistic tendencies, zeroing in on the careful rendering of Julieta’s personal history via a series of fully realized and lived-in flashbacks. The film appears constantly on the verge of leaping into the soapy abyss, but Almodóvar employs a rich and vibrant color palate, fashion and works of art as the perfect means of uniting the present Julieta with her younger self (Adriana Ugarte) in a satisfyingly mundane way. With a subtle and deft touch, Julieta illustrates how the senses can define character and memory. (Closes at Esquire Theatre Thursday, Feb. 9.) (R) Grade: B+

a&c television

BY JAC KERN

Girls (Season Premiere, 10 p.m. SunFargo’s second season), Flight of the Conday, HBO) has been described as creator/ chords’ Jemaine Clement and The League’s Katie Aselton round out this solid cast. writer/star Lena Dunham’s love letter to young women, to New York, to the Saturday Night Live (11:30 p.m. Saturmillennial generation. day, NBC) – In a show that’s sure to grind But really, the dramedy is more of a President Trump’s gears, resident Donald diary entry than a valentine. impersonator Alec Baldwin hosts for a It’s self-centered, personal to one specific record-breaking 17th time. Ed Sheeran (type of) person, plagued with over-sharing performs as musical guest. and superfluous details, simultaneously Grammy Awards (8 p.m. Sunday, CBS) – honest, hilarious and heartbreaking. Put it Beyoncé owns the night with the most nomin the wrong hands and the reader simply wouldn’t understand, which is why some have simply written off Girls as a product of a privileged ingénue whose offscreen antics often overshadowed the show.

But for many fans, that diary entry is relatable.

Maybe we’re not all a Hannah or a Marnie, but we might know a few. Girls doesn’t glorify its entitled, impulsive, immature meanderers so much as it exposes them, flaws and all, and dares them to make it work.

And try they will, one last Lena Dunham and Riz Ahmed in Girls time in this sixth and final PHOTO : mark schafer season. We’ll see Dunham’s Hannah pursue her writinations (nine) and a slated performance ing perhaps a bit more seriously as she — her first since announcing she’s pregnant encounters a potential new love interest with twins. Drake, Rihanna and Kanye West (Riz Ahmed); Marnie teeters between her also cleaned up noms with eight each. Other ex-husband Desi and Ray; Adam and Jessa performers include Adele, John Legend, The test their passionate connection by collaboWeeknd with Daft Punk, Metallica, Carrie rating on a creative project; and Shoshanna Underwood and Bruno Mars. James Corden continues to find professional success, but hosts the 59th-annual music awards show. fears her friends are holding her back.

Sure, Girls has been far from perfect. But The Walking Dead (Midseason Premiere, so are we, as an audience, and to be con9 p.m. Sunday, AMC) – The fight to take fronted with the ugly truth in such a spirited down Negan truly begins in this second manner has been a fun ride. Maybe Hannah, half of this season, as groups finally begin and thus Dunham, is “a voice of to interact and join forces. Hopefully the a generation” after all. action picks up and the energy stays high if the season is going to recover from its much-lamented first half.

Law and Order: Special Victims Unit (9 Humans (Season Premiere, 10 p.m. Monp.m. Wednesday, NBC) – Star Mariska Harday, AMC) – This British drama about the gitay directs this 400th episode about a teen rise of lifelike artificial intelligence takes who walks in on his mother being assaulted, a more practical approach than HBO’s only to find his friend is the perpetrator. raucous robot counterpart, Westworld.

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Picks of the Week

Here, anthropomorphic “synths” are a part of everyday life as housekeepers, nurses and in other roles. When some synths begin to experiences consciousness, the drama really unfolds, but it’s fascinating to watch the realistic ways in which people react to the A.I., from a call for synth rights to pushback from obsolete human workers (“They’re taking our jobs!”).

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Legion (Series Premiere, 10 p.m. Wednesday, FX) – Noah Hawley, creator of FX’s fantastic dark comedy anthology Fargo, explores new territory within Marvel’s X-Men universe with this promising debut series. Flipping the popular notion of comic book adaptations on its head, Legion follows a young man diagnosed with schizophrenia, imagining mental illness as a superpower. Parks and Recreation’s Aubrey Plaza, Jean Smart (of

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FEBRUARY 25 7 -10 PM

PM

OSCAR EVENT CENTER at JUNGLE JIM’S FAIRFIELD

Tickets Available

IN STORE or JUNGLEFESTS.COM

FOOD & DRINK

Sweet and Sour

The Pickled Pig turns customers into fermented food fans, one pickled vegetable at a time INTERVIEW BY MADGE MARIL

PHOTO : Phil Heidenreich

I

The Pickled Pig offers a variety of fermented veggies, including three types of kimchee.

Learning and loving the process behind producing kimchee inspired Leybman to ferment his backyard garden. From that first kimchee has stemmed garlic beets, sauerkraut, curried cauliflower and, yes, lots and lots of pickles.

I hadn’t had a pickle since the age of 5, when I bit into a vinegary one that had been sitting in the back of my parents’ fridge in one of those huge jars. When Leybman passed me one of his sour pickles, I felt my 5-year-old-self yell, “Don’t do it!” But I did it. And thank goodness I did.

These pickles are nothing like the ones you buy at a supermarket or those relegated to the side of your plate at a burger restaurant. This sour pickle still had a snap of freshness to it — and a crunch.

“They say a good pickle should be audible from 10 paces away,” Leybman informed me as I (loudly) finished the pickle.

Besides being delicious, The Pickled Pig’s ferments are heavy in probiotics. Similar to yogurt, the fermented veggies are full of live bacteria, which popular science agrees aids in digestion. While probiotics occur naturally in the body, introducing them through ferments can help balance your system and reintroduce good bacteria into the gut. Basically, this food is so good that it’s good for you.

The flavors of Leybman’s past also color the dishes he offers. Leybman immigrated to Cincinnati from Belarus in Eastern Europe as a refugee because the government wouldn’t allow his family to practice Judaism.

He describes the Jewish people leaving Belarus as an exodus. There were two waves during the collapse of the Soviet Union; Leybman’s family immigrated during the second wave. He went through Austria and Italy, helped along by the kindness of other Jewish families.

His family’s plan was to immigrate to Philadelphia. But in Italy, none of the Jewish refugees spoke English.

“We had to file immigration paperwork, and everyone was just copying one another’s answers, right?” he says. “My parents copied down ‘Cincinnati’ instead of ‘Philadelphia’ after reading the English off someone else’s papers. So we came here by mistake.”

Now, Leybman smiles as he tells his family’s story. “Kind of a large mistake. But it really worked out.

“This,” he says as he places a hand on a jar of the garlic beets, “tastes like home.”

The Pickled Pig is now Leybman’s fulltime job. While he sells his products in farmers markets around Cincinnati, they

are also being snatched up by vendors like Jungle Jim’s. When negotiating how much of his fermented vegetables and pickles Leybman should bring to sell through Jungle Jim’s, they told him to “bring it all.”

And so he did, and then went back to the kitchen to make some more.

In pursuit of his dream of opening a brick-and-mortar, Leybman turned to the community he knew and loved and created a Kickstarter in the hopes of funding the storefront.

Cincinnati replied, loudly: 252 backers pledged more than $15,000. Thanks to the community support, Leybman was able to purchase a space in Walnut Hills, which is slated to open in about a year.

The space will operate as a storefront and deli, featuring The Pickled Pig products and smoked meats — another hobby of Leybman’s. But if you can’t wait to try The Pickled Pig’s wider menu, they are available for catering — anything from smaller groups to parties of 200.

As The Pickled Pig grows, visit its website to see where it’ll be each week. Chances are, it’s a farmer’s market near you.

For more on THE PICKLED PIG, visit smokedandpickled.com.

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didn’t get along with pickles. I didn’t like them; I didn’t trust them. I picked them off my burgers. I created tiny napkin walls between them and my french fries at restaurants. So when I first caught wind of local food fermenter The Pickled Pig, by name alone I chalked it up as edibles I would never experience.

Fortunately, I am an idiot often proven wrong. After one bite of The Pickled Pig’s sour pickle, my world was rocked forevermore.

The Pickled Pig took me by surprise at the Northside farmers market. When I visited the market on a dreary Wednesday afternoon, one of the owners of The Pickled Pig, Gary Leybman (co-owner with his wife Libby), had set up shop next to rows of vegetables and fresh-baked breads. While Leybman’s brick-and-mortar location in Walnut Hills is under construction, The Pickled Pig thrives on farmers markets, bouncing between Northside, Madeira, Anderson and, of course, Findlay, all year long.

At a farmers market, it’s usually the best practice to go to the booth where everyone else is going. While I browsed, an older gentleman walked up to The Pickled Pig, announcing, “I need the beets!”

He meant, of course, The Pickled Pig’s garlic beets. To inspire that amount of passion in a man over beets is admirable, a true feat in a world that doesn’t give proper respect to fermented vegetables.

Opting to go into business fermenting vegetables might seem like an odd choice, but for Leybman, the journey makes sense.

Before he began The Pickled Pig, he was a private chef for more than a decade, working in kitchens as varied as The Celestial, Pho Paris, Daveed’s and at Saint Xavier church cooking for the priests.

“I wanted my own business, but I didn’t want a restaurant,” he says.

He learned how to make his most popular product — kimchee — in one of those aforementioned eateries, Daveed’s. An item rarely spotted outside of Korean restaurants or groceries, kimchee is a fermented vegetable side dish, generally involving cabbage. The restaurant had featured kimchee on a rotating menu just long enough for Leybman to learn how to make it.

“As soon as I was good at it, they took it off the menu!” he says. So he went home and made it for himself, expanding on the flavor profile he learned at work.

The Pickled Pig’s Napa Kimchee blends ginger, garlic and Korean chili with the classic fermented taste — not too sweet, not too sour. They also offer carrot kimchee and kimchee pickles.

F&D the dish Where the locals come to eat, drink and have fun

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2/10 - Friday

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Spoon & Cellar: A New Spot for Steak and Wine REVIEW BY GARIN PIRNIA

At the end of last year, restaurant Spoon & and paired well with the heat stemming Cellar quietly opened inside the new Holiday from the peas and dressing.

Inn on Broadway Street downtown. Though My companion said the steak was “very typical hotel restaurants can be hit or miss, good” and cooked properly (medium-rare). this one lands somewhere in the middle — The peppercorn sauce — a riff on steak especially in a city that holds its hotel cuisine au poivre — tasted like a spicy barbecue to higher standards (see: Metropole at 21c, sauce, and the garlic mashed potatoes were Orchids at Palm Court at the Netherland simultaneously stiff and creamy, the way Plaza and The Palace at The Cincinnatian). they should be.

The Bistro Group, which owns 25 TGI Downtown is struggling for steakhouses Fridays and five McAlister Delis in the region, these days. Prime Cincinnati (formerly also owns the stand-alone Spoon & Cellar.

Prime 47) has rebranded itself, and Jimmy The “cellar” part references the wine cellar, stocked mostly with well-known bottles from California.

On a cold Monday night, my dinner companion and I ate at the restaurant with a handful of bar-goers and a few families at tables. The space is commodious and feels even larger with the high-back Capone-like booths.

The gigantic, arty spoon on the wall of the entrance and triangular ceiling lights are the boldest parts of the décor.

While the wine menu is Spoon & Cellar’s menu includes steaks, pastas and flatbreads. somewhat boilerplate, the PHOTO : provided cocktail menu is more diverse.

I ordered a Moscow Mule ($10) with Punjabi essence in it. I asked the G’s space is temporarily closed while it waitress what “Punjabi essence” was, and transforms into a German restaurant. If you she said it was a “spice.” The drink did have a want a good steak downtown, Jeff Ruby’s somewhat cumin-y flavor to it, which differSteakhouse is probably the best option, but entiated it from your typical mule, but it felt Spoon undercuts some of Ruby’s pricing. over-priced, especially because Metropole, After eating so much food, we were which is only a few blocks away, offers more stuffed — but dessert awaited. The restauintricate cocktails for less. In fact, everyrant offers three desserts (all $8), including thing on the menu seemed slightly pricey panatone bread pudding. Panatone is a (except during happy hour), but I understood sweet Italian fruit bread, like a fruitcake. the price points when they brought out our This version came with pizzelles stuck into generous portions of food. the chocolate-drizzled bread and a scoop of We started off with the warming spinach vanilla bean ice cream. The whiskey sauce, and artichoke dip ($12), the cured Westphawhich coated the bread, was the best part of lian duck ham ($9) and a bowl of broccoli the dish; I could drink a cup of it on its own. and cheddar soup ($5.95). The dip came out Spoon & Cellar isn’t wholly flexing its piping hot, with a pile of crunchy chips on culinary muscle, and with that little-bit-ofthe side. And the ham combined salty and everything menu, it seems to want to be sweet, with the inclusion of lingonberry like chain Seasons 52, which in turn strives chutney. to be higher-end (and healthier) than the For entrées, my companion, of course, Cheesecake Factory. It’s a boon for those ordered the most expensive thing on the staying at the hotel or patrons just looking menu: an eight-ounce Allen Brothers filet for an above-average meal in the business mignon ($42), which came with peppercorn district, but Bistro Group needs to decide sauce. The filet and the prime rib eye insinuwhat it wants Spoon to be. ate that Spoon & Cellar is a steakhouse, but In a city where hotel restaurants are a their menu ranges from pastas and salads brand in and of themselves, it’s a good idea to flatbreads and sandwiches. I chose the to market to your strengths, which in the sesame-encrusted tuna salad for my entrée case of Spoon & Cellar, are a good steak ($19), an Asian-inspired dish with wasabi and a glass of wine. peas, crispy wonton strips and a creamy SPOON & CELLAR is located at 701 Broadway St., sesame ginger dressing mixed in with Downtown. More info: spoonandcellar.com. greens. The slightly singed fish tasted fresh

F&D classes & events

Happy Valentines Day

Most classes and events require registration; classes frequently sell out.

WEDNESDAY 08

Ohio Rare — To coincide with the Ohio Craft Brewers Conference, Taft’s Ale House will host Ohio Rare, during which nine Buckeye brewers will pour nine rare beers from their stash. These include Yellow Springs Brewery’s Maxxout Stout, Fat Head’s Sorcerer and Taft’s Old Wooden Tooth. 7 p.m.midnight Wednesday and Thursday. Free admission. Taft’s Ale House, 1429 Race St., Over-the-Rhine, taftsalehouse.com.

THURSDAY 09

Bacchanalian Winter Tasting — Teams of up to three people can bring three bottles of the same merlot to compete in a wine tasting. Winners of the blind tasting will take home one bottle from each team. Benefits the Cincy Smiles Foundation. 7-10 p.m. $15 pre-sale; $20 door. The Phoenix, 812 Race St., Downtown, bacchanaliansociety.com.

Table of Polenta — Polenta alla spianatora, which literally means ‘polenta spread flat,’ is an ancient, rustic ritual that has been performed in Italian homes for generations.

The pot-to-table polenta concept is a fun way to share creamy polenta and meaty Bolognese with family and friends. Hands-on class.

6-8:30 p.m. $75. Jungle Jim’s, 5440 Dixie Highway, Fairfield, junglejims.com.

Corkopolis Wine Dinner — Prix fixe menu with dishes prepared by chef David Cook of Daveed’s, paired with wine from Chris O’Hearn of Banshee Winery. 6 p.m. $100. Corkopolis, 640 Main St., Downtown, corkopolis.com.

Wander Walnut Hills — A tour through redeveloped Walnut Hills that features three sit-down stops and two samples from specialty shops or bakeries in and around Madison Road and Woodburn Avenue. 1:30 p.m. $45. Tour leaves from Fireside Pizza, 773 E. McMillan St., Walnut Hills, cincinnatifoodtours.com.

FRIDAY 10

Splinterfest — The fifth-annual Splinterfest celebrates barrel-aged beers. Imbibe pints and crafted flights of rare brews from Moerlein, New Belgium, Oskar Blues and more. Friday-Sunday. Free admission.

Moerlein Lager House, 115 Joe Nuxhall Way, Downtown, moerleinlagerhouse.com.

MadTree Beer Dinner — A four-course collaboration with Dan Shatto from MadTree. Menu includes entrée selections like braised beef short ribs and seafood

SATURDAY 11

Skeleton Root Wine and Cheese Pairing — Lamp Post Cheese brings three of their artisan cheeses to pair with Skeleton Root wines. 2-8 p.m. $18. Skeleton Root, 38 W. McMicken Ave., Over-the-Rhine, squareup. com/store/lamppostcheese.

Carnevale! — Put the fat in Fat Tuesday with an over-the-top Cajun class. A spicy jambalaya is the main course. BYOB. 6:308:30 p.m. $65. Artichoke OTR, 1824 Elm St., Over-the-Rhine, 513-263-1002, artichokeotr.com.

MadTree 2.0 Grand Opening/Winter Bonanza — MadTree will officially open their new brewery in Oakley, MadTree 2.0, to coincide with their annual Winter Bonanza.

Like every bonanza, this event will feature rare MadTree brews, guest breweries, food trucks and live music. 11 a.m.-1 a.m. Free admission. MadTree, 3301 Madison Road, Oakley, madtreebrewing.com.

Wine Merchant Dinner at The Phoenix — A Valentine’s Day dinner featuring four decadent courses paired with handselected wines. 7-10 p.m. $79. The Phoenix, 812 Race St., Downtown, facebook.com/ winemerchantcincinnati.

TUESDAY 14

An Evening in Paris — Chef Nathan has crafted a special Valentine’s-themed menu featuring selections including petit plateau de mer, charcuterie et fromage, bistro steak et frites and more. A la carte menu also available. 5-9 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. $50.

La Petite Pierre, 7800 Camargo Road, Madeira, lapetitepierre.com.

Couples Celebrate Valentine’s Day — A hands-on dinner party for two! Learn how to prepare a filet, creamy potatoes and chocolate-espresso soufflés. 6-8:30 p.m. $150 per couple. Jungle Jim’s, 5440 Dixie Highway, Fairfield, junglejims.com.

Nectar Valentine’s Day Prix Fixe — A four-course dinner with selections for each dish, including a dessert of carrot cake donuts or chocolate pot de crème. Vegetarian menu available upon request. 5:30-9:30 p.m. $65. Nectar, 1000 Delta Ave., Mount Lookout, dineatnectar.com.

Valentine’s Day Dinner at Mecklenburg Gardens — Evening includes a charcuterie plate with gourmet cheese and smoked salmon, plus your choice of four entrées and two desserts. 6-10 p.m. $38. Mecklenburg Gardens, 302 E. University Ave., Corryville, mecklenburgs.com.

MONDAY

$7 Burgers: ALL DAY!

TuesDAY

$8 Flatbread Pizzas

WeDNesDAY

www.bonbonerie.com

$8 Flatbread Pizzas

ThursDAY

$7 Burgers: 5-Close

FeBruArY 9th Jeff Thomas

FeBruArY 10th Out Of The Blue

FeBruArY 11th Mike Liggett

Swad Indian Restaurant

1810 W. Galbraith Rd, Cincinnati, OH 45239 513-522-5900 ORDER ONLINE AT WWW.SWADTASTYOH.IN

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Everything is Chocolate with Ilene Ross — CityBeat dining writer Ilene Ross leads this class on how to make delightful chocolate delicacies. 6:30-9 p.m. $45.

Cooks’Wares, 11344 Montgomery Road, Harper’s Point, cookswaresonline.com.

diane, paired with beers like Unhappy Amber and Rubus Cacao. 7-10 p.m. $60.

Brown Dog Café, 1000 Summit Park, Blue Ash, facebook.com/thebrowndogcafe.

music

Watching ’Grass Grow

Greensky Bluegrass mature as musicians and writers on latest album, Shouted, Written Down & Quoted

BY ALAN SCULLEY

PHOTO : provided

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“M

aturity” is a term some musicians prefer not to see associated with themselves or their bands. After all, music is considered a young person’s game, and youthful rebellion can be a big part of an artist’s image.

But with the release of the sixth Greensky Bluegrass studio album, Shouted, Written Down & Quoted, mandolin player/ singer Paul Hoffman is embracing the “M word” as a sign of the continued musical development of his group.

“It’s sort of the nature of our ensemble that we play a lot — and overplay even,” Hoffman says. “In Bluegrass bands, everybody is playing and playing so many damn notes.

And at some point, I think with all music and all musicians, you get a little bit older and you realize, ‘OK, I can play a lot of notes.

But how do I play less?’ It’s the nature of all things, with flavor, words, color, music — the restraint is a more mature artform.

“So that for me on this record I thought was really cool,” he continues. “There are a lot of delicate moments. It’s not like in-your-face rocking the whole time. There are these tender, beautiful moments. I don’t know that we’ve done that in the past. There are some parts on there that are really pretty, and we’re a dark Rock/Bluegrass band. I’m not sure people are expecting pretty all of the time, but it’s like pretty in a Pink Floyd way. It’s kind of psychedelic pretty. Those are all of my favorite moments on the record, because they’re just so different from what we do all the time.”

Greensky Bluegrass fans, though, don’t have to worry that the band has lost its edge on Shouted, Written Down & Quoted. The group became known for its progressive approach to Bluegrass and for bringing Rock & Roll energy to its music. And that isn’t lost on the latest album. Songs like “Run Or Die,” “Fixin’ To Ruin,” “Living Over” and “Take Cover” have plenty of energy in their brisk tempos and quick finger-picking.

But Hoffman is right about the moments of restraint and beauty that are peppered throughout the album. The group doesn’t worry about breaking any land-speed records on mid-tempo tracks like “Miss September” and “Past My Prime,” choosing instead to make the notes count and focusing on the vocal melodies that carry the songs. And ballads like “Room Without a Roof,” “While Waiting” and “More Of Me” are all about putting melody and mood first, with instrumental virtuosity taking a back seat.

It’s logical that the five members of Greensky Bluegrass are showing more maturity, considering they now qualify as seasoned artists and performers. The

Greensky Bluegrass learned how to treat its fans by going to Phish and Grateful Dead shows. group’s beginnings go back to 2000 in Kalamazoo, Mich., when Hoffman, guitarist/ singer Dave Bruzza and banjo player/singer Michael Arlen Bont formed the core of the original Greensky Bluegrass. The group went through a couple of lineup changes shortly after releasing its debut album, Less than Supper, in May 2004, eventually settling into the current lineup, which also includes Michael Devol on upright bass and vocals and Anders Beck on steel guitar.

By 2006, when the group released its second album, Tuesday Letter, Greensky Bluegrass was showing it was ready to make noise on the national Bluegrass scene. That year, the group won the Telluride Bluegrass Festival’s band contest. The victory earned Greensky Bluegrass a main-stage slot at the 2007 Telluride Bluegrass Festival, a performance that elevated the group’s profile and set the stage for that year’s concert album, Live at Bell’s.

The band’s career has continued to gain momentum since, with three more studio albums (2008’s Five Interstates, 2011’s Handguns and 2014’s If Sorrows Swim) and a touring focus on playing Rock clubs, festivals and Jam band events while keeping a foot in the Bluegrass circuit. Along the way, the venues have gotten bigger; Greensky Bluegrass now routinely plays major theaters

and the main stages of major festivals.

The group’s shows have also grown bigger on a visual level. The visual emphasis is meant to serve a larger goal — to help make a Greensky Bluegrass concert an event that fosters a sense of community within the audience. It’s an ethic Hoffman says grew out of seeing his share of Rock concerts, especially by Jam heroes Phish.

“That’s a big influence for us, just the presentation of the music and the concept of the show being an event and catering to people who see a whole run of shows,” Hoffman says. “That whole relationship with the fan base — the band and the fan — and what it can be I learned from (Phish) and I think from the Grateful Dead. And that kind of community-based music is something that was important to all of us growing up.

Musically it’s hard to say that Phish was a big influence, other than (them) just going for it. But I think that relationship with the fans and the responsibility of the music as a bigger thing I learned from them very much.”

The new songs fans will hear in the Greensky Bluegrass shows this winter are the product of a fairly different approach the group took when recording Shouted, Written Down & Quoted. The band had been accustomed to recording quickly and

finishing albums in a single session, but 2014’s If Sorrows Swim took 10 days of recording, marking the most time Greensky Bluegrass had ever spent making an album.

The new album, though, was recorded in two separate sessions four months apart with producer Steve Berlin of the band Los Lobos. Hoffman says the group pretty much finished the basic tracks during the first session, leaving vocals, overdubs and other embellishments as the main remaining tasks for the second recording session. With extra time to experiment on the songs and four months to live with the basic tracks and think about how to finish them, Hoffman doesn’t find as much to second guess.

“It was nice to have a little bit of time to just digest it and then go back and start to dig into some stuff a little bit more,” he says.

“Sometimes when the project was a little bit more rushed, later you hear things and think, ‘I wish we would have done this (differently).’

With this record, when I listen to it, not much new stuff pops out to me because we sort of exhausted the ‘we can do this’ and ‘we can do this’ (experimentation).”

GREENSKY BLUEGRASS plays Covington’s Madison Theater on Thursday. Tickets/more info: madisontheateronline.com.

music spill it

MIN GAUGE; -

New Brian Olive Album Set for Late April Release

BY MIKE BREEN

More Local Notes

1345 main st motrpub.com

BY mike breen

Right Wing Goes Gaga Lady Gaga did a perfectly fine Super Bowl halftime show that seemed to troll right-wing critics by not including overt “political statements.” But before she even performed, NRATV, a propaganda outlet for the National Rifle Association, weighed in, saying that if Gaga went on an “anti-Trump tirade” it would mark “a declaration of war between our pop culture people and the actual citizens.”

Meanwhile, loony “commentator” Alex Jones said that Gaga would “undoubtedly promote Satanism” during her appearance and force helpless viewers to convert to her religion. At press time, war was averted and there has been no reported rise of Satanic activities outside whatever kind of deal the Patriots had with the devil to win that game.

Cop Tweet Beat Last year, a Canadian police force realized that maybe threatening drunk drivers on Facebook with the prospect of riding to jail with Nickelback on the stereo wasn’t the right tone to set. But it hasn’t stopped other cops from using social media to deter crime. After Beyoncé announced her pregnancy, an Atlantaarea police unit sent a tweet warning citizens not to honor the moment “with celebratory gunfire,” but soon removed it and apologized. But a police department in Wyoming, Minn. relished the spotlight it received when it joked that Super Bowlnight drunk drivers would be subjected to Justin Bieber’s goofy T-Mobile commercial.

The force’s Twitter chief spent Super Bowl night (and next day) joking with new followers and reteweeting press coverage.

Crisis of Faiths CNN didn’t help its case fighting “fake news” accusations recently when it tweeted a link to its story about a posthumous Notorious B.I.G. duets album, announcing that Faith Hill was Biggie’s duet partner. Even the superstar Country singer agreed that pairing her with the Rap legend sounded “awesome,” but it’s actually the MC’s former wife, R&B singer Faith Evans, who’s singing with Biggie on The King & I album.

wed 8

young will stone

thu 9

ona (huntington, va)

fri 10

july talk (toronto) mona

sat 11

the cliftones

sun 12

mike adams at his honest weight this pine box

mon 13

salty candy bradley meinerding

tue 14

motr mouth: stand-up comedy writer’s night w/ lucas

free live music now open for lunch

1404 main st (513) 345-7981

feb

9

feb

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psychic twin

micky avalon

26

lazy ass destroyer

2/11

cincy prohibition 2017

3/3

savoy motel

3/ 7

sad13, stef chura

buy tickets at motr or woodwardtheater.com

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Grammy-winning local musician/procom. “It used to be just because I thought ducer Brian Olive is gearing up for his it would be ‘fun.’ But, after getting fed up latest solo album release, Living On Top, with waiting on people with no vision to which is due April 28. A release party on make mistakes or do nothing at all with that date has been announced for Overmy music, I decided to take it into my own the-Rhine’s Woodward Theater. Tickets for hands and make the label happen. It’s the show — also featuring Pop Empire a chance to release my music and great and Royal Holland — are on sale now at music from bands and musicians that may cincyticket.com. never be heard otherwise.”

CityBeat hosted the public premiere of You can pre-order the album through the title track from the forthcoming LP; the campaign’s page at pledgemusic.com/ visit citybeat.com for a listen. brianolive and earn some extra goodies Olive first came to the attention of local and receive an instant download of the music fans as a member of Cincy legends album’s title track.

The Greenhornes. After two albums with Visit brianolivemusic.com for more info. the band, Olive left to focus on his work as a multiinstrumentalist member of the renowned Soledad Brothers, moving to Detroit and working under the name Oliver Henry. Olive later moved back to Cincinnati and set up his The Diamonds studio in Northside, where he recorded what would become his self-titled solo debut, released in 2009.

Two years later, Olive received even wider acclaim for his fantastic Two Of Everything LP, Brian Olive’s Living On Top is the singer/songwriter’s third solo LP. which he co-produced PHOTO : provided with Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys. He re-teamed with Auerbach for the 2012 Locked Down album by the legendary Dr. John. Olive’s • Cincinnati music faves Over the contributions to that project (as co-writer Rhine soundtracked the recent Super and performer) earned him a Grammy Bowl commercial for Cincinnati Bell. The when it took home the Best Blues Album statue at the 2013 ceremony. group composed a beautiful new song The 10-track Living On Top was for the spot, “Welcome Home,” which recorded over the past couple of years at matched the hometown-love vibe of the The Diamonds and showcases a broader ad perfectly. The song is available to musical palette while retaining Olive’s download at stores.portmerch.com/overtimeless songwriting knack. But during therhine, with a portion of the proceeds the recording process, the building that going to the Over the Rhine Music, Art & houses the studio continued to fall into Earth Foundation. Visit overtherhine.com disrepair. Last winter, the studio was for more details. flooded and Olive lost some of the record• It’s been just over two years and two ings he was doing with other artists, a months since Cincinnati-based Pop/ main source of his income (he’s manned Rock band Walk the Moon released its the board for several local acts, including breakthrough album, Talking Is Hard, the internationally acclaimed Electric which produced the massive hit “Shut Up Citizen). Olive is currently working on and Dance.” The band is reportedly hard completing a new studio space not too far at work on its follow up, but in the meanfrom The Diamonds, which will be called time, fans can get their WTM fix with the Mt. Saturn. He’s also launching Mt. Saturn group’s collaborative track with Wyclef Records — Living On Top is the first Jean. The single “Holding on the Edge” release from the label. will be included on Jean’s forthcoming EP, Olive launched a crowd-funding camJ’ouvert. The former Fugees figurehead paign through Pledge Music to help with recently told i-D/Vice. “To me, this sounds the new LP’s release. like The Police meets Bob Marley.”

“Having a label is something I always CONTACT MIKE BREEN: mbreen@citybeat.com wanted to do,” Olive writes on pledgemusic.

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STRFKR with Psychic Twin Thursday • Woodward Theater STRFKR released four studio albums between 2008 and 2013, a flurry that established the Portland, Ore.-based band’s adventurous, dance-oriented Pop credentials alongside acts like Cut Copy and MGMT. The range of output likely surprised even founder and frontman Joshua Hodges — the band started as a side-project extension of his one-man outfit, Sexton Blake. Of course, it didn’t hurt that Target used “Rawnald Gregory Erickson the Second” from STRFKR’s self-titled debut in a widely seen TV commercial, broadening the band’s reach (and probably bank account).

But Hodges has never much been interested in anything but scratching his own unique creative itch, which made STRFKR the three-year gap PHOTO : cara robbins between STRFKR’s 2013 release, Miracle Mile, and the recently dropped Being No One, Going Nowhere both frustrating to fans and kind of expected. In contrast to the band’s communal songwriting approach on the last record, Hodges wrote the new songs July Talk by himself. The first PHOTO : Provided single, “Satellite,” is anchored by a jaunty rhythm section and tastefully layered with keyboards and guitars. And then there’s Hodges’ high-ranged, laconic vocal delivery, which is employed as just another element in the mix. He opens the song with this nod to his self-imposed seclusion (he wrote much of the album by himself in Joshua Tree, Calif.): “Fall away from the edge of the world/Where I’m fine on my own/Felt right alone.” The lyrics that follow are pretty abstract and mystical, but Hodges apparently had specific topics in mind.

“I wrote it pretty quickly, sitting on my bed during a hot spell in L.A., waiting for the sun to go down so I could go outside,” Hodges told Interview magazine just before the album’s release last October. “To me, the lyrics are kind of about morality and whether it’s subjective and imposed or natural. I think at the time I was just thinking a lot about shame and how useless that generally is for us, especially in regard to our sexuality.” (Jason Gargano)

July Talk with Mona Friday • MOTR Pub Toronto rockers July Talk have been on a gradual but unstoppably steady climb since their formation in 2012. That year saw the initial release of the band’s self-titled debut album on Canadian indie label Sleepless Records; the album proved to have a lengthy shelf life. Coupled with the group’s intense and jubilant live show, July Talk was released (in an extended version) on Universal Music Canada in 2013. The wider distribution and growing acclaim led to an Alternative Album of the Year win at the Junos (Canada’s Grammys) and a U.S. release on Island Records in 2015.

Late last year, July Talk’s second full-length effort, Touch, was released internationally. The extensive worldwide touring since the band’s formation is evident in the album’s amplification of everything that is great about July Talk’s energetic sound — sexy, pulsating rhythms, strong Pop hooks galore, a Rock & Roll swagger that doesn’t quit and the alluring tandem of singers Peter Dreimanis and Leah Fay. There really isn’t any other male/ female duo to which the pair compares (maybe a 21st-cenury Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash?) — Dreimanis has a growling rasp so thick and raw it makes Bruce Springsteen’s sound like a church-choir boy, while Fay has a gorgeous (but never wispy or fey) Pop lilt. The twosome doesn’t really rely on harmonizing so much as trading off parts to create an unusual but effective vocal assault.

Musically, the band bops with a New Wave herk-and-jerk one minute, then bristles with a throbbing Blues/Rock grind the next. The constantly changing shades within the music are masterfully combined for a unique listening experience that will leave you aching to witness the chemistry of the band in a live setting.

Touch also has a compelling thematic arc — exploring the place of IRL human connection in a world full of increased distractions. That theme is laid out directly in the closing title track, a slow-strutting, spacious epic that July Talk had been

playing together for a few years. As the song’s lyrics (including the refrain, “We get so tired and lonely/We need a human touch/Don’t want to give ourselves away too much/T-t-t-touch”) were refined to resemble its current incarnation, it paved the way for the album’s overall theme.

“We didn’t know what the song was about until we really needed it,” Dreimanis recently told Cleveland’s Scene. “As a result, the whole record started to come together as this idea of focusing on human touch.

This song developed as a way to show what people are afraid of and making yourself vulnerable. It’s about just standing naked in front of somebody and why we are all so afraid of that. It’s about accepting that reality and restating it… and how sacred the vulnerability might be.” (Mike Breen)

FUTURE SOUNDS ANDY BLACK – Feb. 17, Bogart’s K.FLAY – Feb. 17, Madison Live RUTHIE FOSTER – Feb. 17, Southgate House Revival WE THE KINGS – Feb. 18, Taft Theatre (Ballroom) LILY & MADELEINE – Feb. 22, Southgate House Revival DELBERT MCCLINTON – Feb. 25, Madison Theater VANESSA CARLTON – Feb. 26, Taft Theatre (Ballroom) SHOVELS & ROPE – March 1, Madison Theater WHITECHAPEL – March 2, Bogart’s MAROON 5 – March 3, U.S. Bank Arena COREY SMITH – March 3, Bogart’s ST. PAUL & THE BROKEN BONES – March 3, Madison Theater JOSEPH – March 4, 20th Century Theater AGENT ORANGE/GUTTERMOUTH/THE QUEERS – March 5, Southgate House Revival JOHNNYSWIM – March 9, Bogart’s NORAH JONES – March 16, Taft Theatre WHY? – March 16, Woodward Theater BLUE OCTOBER – March 18, Bogart’s THE REVIVALISTS – March 21, Madison Theater

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COLD WAR KIDS – March 24, Madison Theater CHUCK PROPHET & THE MISSION EXPRESS – March 24, Southgate House Revival ANDREW MCMAHON IN THE WILDERNESS – March 28, Bogart’s MARGO PRICE – April 2, 20th Century Theater

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Pop Evil with Red Sun Rising and Badflower Sunday • Bogart’s Given the struggle and tumult that Hard Rock quintet Pop Evil has endured to Pop Evil reach the level of sucPHOTO : Ste ve sergent cess they’ve achieved, it might have been tempting fate just a little to name its most recent and best album Up. You know what they say about up — only one way to go from there.

For Pop Evil, that down came last April when drummer Josh “Chachi Riot” Marunde opted out of the band for an opportunity that allowed him more family time. While the split was amicable — Marunde left the door open for future cameo or reunion appearances — Pop Evil now had an immediate need for a hammer, especially considering they were in the middle of the touring cycle for 2015’s Up, the most successful album in the band’s 15-plus year history.

The remaining band — vocalist Leigh Kakaty, guitarists Nick Fuelling and Davey Grahs and bassist Matt DiRito — put out the word that they were considering filling their vacancy with a female drummer. Friends put them in touch with former McQueen drummer Hayley Cramer, who floored the band with her power and authority, and she was welcomed to the fold as Pop Evil’s third drummer. So far, the chemistry between Cramer and the band has been flawless, and Pop Evil fans have embraced the band’s newest member with unbridled enthusiasm.

For the Muskegon, Mich. quintet, Up was the payoff to a long, hard climb that began when the band formed in 2001. Although it dropped a couple of releases in the mid-’00s, they were primarily self-recorded demos; Pop Evil’s first actual studio album,

2008’s Lipstick on the Mirror, came after a seven-year dues-paying run of terrible club gigs. That album earned the band a deal with Universal, which paid for the band to remix and remaster it for a re-release the following year.

The Universal deal soured quickly, and Pop Evil shifted to indie label eOne for its next album, 2011’s War of Angels. But it was 2013’s Onyx that proved to be the band’s big breakthrough, cracking the Top 40 of the Billboard 200 and charting three consecutive No. 1 singles on the magazine’s Mainstream Rock chart. In 2015, Up bested its predecessor’s album numbers, hitting No. 25 on the Billboard 200, Top 5 on the Independent and Hard Rock Album charts and Top 10 on the Top Rock Albums chart.

Through all of this, Pop Evil maintained a constant road presence as an asskicking opener and an always-reliable headliner. Now, Cramer’s presence in the lineup may have revitalized the band into some of the best performances of its career. (Brian Baker)

OPENING SOON Maya Indian Restaurant

music listings

TOP 5 LOCAL BANDS 1 AS YOU LIKE IT 2 THE ALMIGHTY GET DOWN 3 GRIFFIN HOUSE 4 THE PEONIES 5 THE VIMS

Wednesday 08 Blind Lemon - Sara Hutchinson.

8 p.m. Acoustic. Free.

Bromwell’s Härth Lounge - Phil DeGreg. 6 p.m. Jazz. Free.

Fireside Pizza - John Ford. 7:30 p.m. Roots/Blues. Free.

Knotty Pine - 90 Proof Twang Acoustic. 10 p.m. Country. Free.

SUPPORT LOCAL MUSIC MERCH

Miller’s Fill Inn - Karaoke with A Mystical Sound Sensation DJ Rob. 9 p.m. Various. Free.

MOTR Pub - Young Will H Stone with See You in the Funnies and Life Brother. 9 p.m.

AltRock. Free.

Northside Tavern - Grace Lincoln.

9:30 p.m. Soul/R&B/Jazz. Free.

Pit to Plate - Bluegrass Night with Vernon McIntyre’s Appalachian Grass. 7 p.m. Bluegrass. $2.

513.784.0403 SHOP @ CINCYMUSIC.COM

Inner Peace Holistic Center

811 RACE ST, 3RD FLOOR | CINCINNATI, OH 45202

$20 day of show.

Friday 10 20th Century Theater - The Black Ties with The Agoraphobes.

8 p.m. Rock/Pop/Various. $10-$18.

Arnold’s Bar and Grill - Willow Tree Carolers (9 p.m.); Happy Hour Jazz Combo (6 p.m.). 6 p.m.

Americana. Free.

BB&T Arena - Justin Moore and Lee Brice with William Michael Morgan. 7 p.m. Country. $24.75-$59.75.

Belterra Casino - Basic Truth. 8 p.m. Funk/R&B/Soul. Free (in the Lobby Lounge).

Blind Lemon - Charlie Millikin. 9 p.m. Acoustic. Free.

Southgate House Revival (Lounge) - Joe’s Truck Stop, Calumet and Savannah Burke.

9:30 p.m. Country/Roots/Rock/ Various. Free.

Blue Note Harrison - Southern Savior. 9 p.m. Country/Rock.

Free.

H

Thursday 09 Arnold’s Bar and Grill - Dottie Warner and Ricky Nye. 7:30 p.m.

Jazz. Free.

Boi Na Braza - April Aloisio. 6 p.m. Brazilian Jazz/Bossa Nova.

Free.

Bromwell’s Härth Lounge Steve Schmidt Trio with Rusty Burge. 6 p.m. Jazz. Free (solo at 6 p.m.; trio at 9 p.m.).

Danny B’s Lounge - Bob Cushing.

8 p.m. Acoustic. Free.

Blind Lemon - Mark Macomber.

8 p.m. Acoustic. Free.

Fairfield Community Arts Center - The Queen City Sisters.

8 p.m. A Capella/Big Band/Various. $18-$20.

Bromwell’s Härth Lounge - Todd Hepburn and Friends. 6 p.m.

Various. Free.

The Greenwich - Ingrid H Rachel Project. 8 p.m. R&B. $5-$10.

Horse & Barrel - Sonny Moorman. 6 p.m. Blues. Free.

Jag’s Steak and Seafood - The Company Band. 9:30 p.m. Pop/ Dance/Various. Cover.

Knotty Pine - Kenny Cowden. 9 p.m. Acoustic. Free.

Madison Theater - Greensky H Bluegrass with Fruition. 8 p.m. Bluegrass/Jam/Psych/Vari-

JerZees Pub & Grub - Pandora Effect. 9 p.m. Rock. Free.

ous. $23, $25 day of show.

Jim and Jack’s on the River Danny Frazier. 9 p.m. Country.

Free.

MOTR Pub - Ona with Carriers. 9 p.m. Indie Rock. Free.

Knotty Pine - Prizonwood. 10 p.m. Rock. Cover.

Plain Folk Cafe - Open Mic with Mike Lieser. 7 p.m. Various. Free.

Live! at the Ludlow Garage H - The Ark Band. 9 p.m. Reggae/Bob Marley tribute. $10.

Southgate House Revival (Lounge) - Rebecca Rego & the Trainmen with Trippin Roots. 8 p.m. Americana. Free.

Urban Artifact - Kate Wakefield, Swellshark and Kaitlyn Peace and the Electric Generals.

H

Memorial Hall - Rosanne H Cash with John Leventhal. 8 p.m. Americana. $35-$55.

Woodward Theater - STRFKR MOTR Pub - July Talk with H with Psychic Twin. 9 p.m.

H Mona.

9 p.m. Rock. Free.

Indie/Electronic/Pop. $17.50,

Silverton Cafe - Bob Cushing. 8 p.m. Acoustic. Free.

Southgate House Revival (Revival Room) - Run Boy Run with The Local Honeys. 8 p.m. Roots/Americana/Various. $10, $12 day of show.

4 0 • C I T Y B E A T . C O M • F E B . 0 8 – 1 4 , 2 0 1 7

9:30 p.m. Indie/Pop/Rock/Various. Free.

Mansion Hill Tavern - Turner South. 9 p.m. Blues. $5.

Marty’s Hops & Vines - Rockin’ George LaVigne. 9 p.m. Acoustic Rock. Free.

MVP Bar & Grille - Lt. Dan’s New Legs. 9 p.m. Dance/Pop/Various.

Cover.

Northside Tavern - Electric H Citizen with mr. phylzzz. 10 p.m. Rock. Free.

Northside Yacht Club - Man H Halen (10th Anniversary Show). 8 p.m. Van Halen tribute Plain Folk Cafe - Fish Head Duo. 7:30 p.m. Acoustic. Free.

The Redmoor - Smoooth. 7 p.m.

R&B/Motown. $15.

Rick’s Tavern - Road Trip. 10 p.m. Rock/Pop/Country/Dance/ Various. $5.

Silverton Cafe - Off the Record.

9 p.m. Rock/Various. Free.

Southgate House Revival (Lounge) - Barton Samuel Banta.

9:30 p.m. Acoustic. Free.

Southgate House Revival H (Revival Room) - Punk Rock Night with Hudson Falcons, New

Third Worlds, Patsy and Rat Trap.

10 p.m. Punk Rock. $5.

Southgate House Revival H (Sanctuary) - Break Up Lines (album release show) with Settle Your Scores, Softspoken and Circle It. 7:30 p.m. Rock. $10, $12 day of show.

Talon Tavern - Sonny Moorman Group. 9 p.m. Blues.

Urban Artifact - Fareed H Haque & Goran Ivanovic. 9 p.m. Acoustic guitar. Free.

Washington Platform Saloon & Restaurant - Andrea Cefalo and Napoleon Maddox. 9 p.m. Jazz. $10 (food/drink minimum).

Saturday 11 Arnold’s Bar and Grill - The Hot Magnolias. 9 p.m. Cajun/Funk/ Dance/Various. Free.

Blind Lemon - Jamonn Zeiler. 9 p.m. Acoustic. Free.

Blue Note Harrison - The Rusty Griswolds, DV8 and 1 Nite Stand.

9 p.m. Rock/Pop/Various. Cover.

Bromwell’s Härth Lounge Steve Schmidt Trio featuring Peter Gemus and Tony Franklin. 8 p.m. Jazz. Free.

Clermont County Public Library, Amelia Branch - Vernon and Kitty McIntyre. 10 a.m. Bluegrass. Free.

CityBeat’s music listings are free. Send info to MIKE BREEN via email at mbreen@citybeat.com.

Listings are subject to change. See citybeat.com for full music listings and all club locations.

H is CityBeat staff’s stamp of approval.

The Comet - Basement Reggae Night. 10 p.m. Reggae/DJs. Free.

Common Roots - Arya Duo. 8:30 p.m. Fusion/Traditional Persian. $5.

The Greenwich - Spoken.Word.

Soul presents Siri Imani. 9 p.m.

Spoken Word/Various. $10.

Jag’s Steak and Seafood - The Sly Band. 9:30 p.m. Pop/Dance/ Various. Cover.

Jim and Jack’s on the River Dan Varner. 9 p.m. Country. Free.

Knotty Pine - Prizonwood. 10 p.m. Rock. Cover.

Live! at the Ludlow Garage Alex Bugnon, Michael Lington and Marc Antione. 10:30 p.m.

Contemporary Jazz. $35-$75.

The Lounge - John Ford. Noon.

Roots/Blues. Free.

Madison Live - Spafford and Strange Mechanics. 2 p.m. Electronic/Funk/Rock/Jam. $10.

Mansion Hill Tavern - Blue Ravens. 9 p.m. Blues. $5.

Marty’s Hops & Vines - Two Blue.

9 p.m. Acoustic. Free.

Maury’s Tiny Cove - Ricky Nye. 7:30 p.m. Blues/Boogie Woogie.

Free.

H

MOTR Pub - The Cliftones. 9 p.m. Reggae. Free.

Newport Syndicate - The Derek Alan Band. 7:30 p.m. Country. $15 (6:30 p.m. dinner available for $25).

Northside Tavern - DJ Pllio. 9 p.m. Soul/Funk/Dance/Various.

Free.

Northside Yacht Club - In Bloom: A Tribute to ’90s Grunge and Alternative with DJ Righteous and DJ Hail Satan. 8 p.m. Grunge/ AltRock.

Plain Folk Cafe - The Tadcasters.

7:30 p.m. Bluegrass. Free.

The Redmoor - Soul Pocket. 9 p.m. R&B/Dance/Various. $10.

Rick’s Tavern - Second Wind. 10 p.m. Rock/Pop/Various. $5.

Silverton Cafe - The Gamut. 9 p.m. Rock. Free.

Southgate House Revival (Lounge) - Jesse and the Hogg Brothers. 9:30 p.m. Country.

Free.

Southgate House Revival (Revival Room) - Cari Ray with Wilder. 9 p.m. Americana/Blues/ Various. $8, $10 day of show.

Thompson House - SecondAnnual Black Hearts Ball with For the Fire, Derailed, 3rd Person Omega, Clean Slate, Dead in Paradise, Against Icarus, Sacrifice the Sun, Today’s Last Tragedy, I, Apollo and Carriedbysix. 6 p.m.

Rock/Metal/Various. $10.

Urban Artifact - Mike Fest H II with Dynamike Thunderpunch, Kilroy Kobra, Redeye, St.

Pickle, Spooked and Mike Robb.

8 p.m. MikeRock/Various. Free (for Mikes; $5 for non-Mikes).

Washington Platform Saloon & Restaurant - Ron Jones. 9 p.m.

Jazz. $10 (food/drink minimum).

Woodward Theater - Cincy Prohibition 2017 with The Cincy Brass. 7:30 p.m. Jazz/Dance/ Funk/Pop/Various. $15, $20 day of show.

Sunday 12 Blind Lemon - Jeff Henry. 8 p.m.

Acoustic. Free.

Bogart’s - Pop Evil with Red Sun Rising and Badflower. 8 p.m. Hard Rock. $35.50.

H

BrewRiver GastroPub - Ben Levin and Ricky Nye. 6 p.m.

Blues/Boogie Woogie. Free.

The Comet - The Comet Bluegrass All-Stars. 7:30 p.m.

Bluegrass. Free.

Fairfield Banquet & H Convention Center at Tori’s Station - Autism Rocks

8 with Twisted Fate, Amy Sailor Band, Dangerous Jim and the Slims, Life After This, Wize Guys, Robin Lacy & DeZydeco, Big In Iowa, Paisley Cane, Danny Frazier Band, Blue Spectrum, Swan and Brittney’s Lipstick. noon Rock/ Country/Various. $20.

Miller’s Fill Inn - Karaoke with A Mystical Sound Sensation DJ Rob. 9 p.m. Various. Free.

MOTR Pub - Mike Adams at His Honest Weight and This Pine Box. 9 p.m. Indie Rock. Free.

Northside Tavern - “Classical Revolution.” 8 p.m. Classical/ Chamber/Various. Free.

Stanley’s Pub - Stanley’s Open Jam. 10 p.m. Various. Free.

Urban Artifact - Daniken, Amnesiac Mnemonist and Deletist. 9 p.m. Noise/Experimental. Free.

Washington Platform Saloon & Restaurant - Gypsy Jazz Valentine Show with The Faux Frenchmen. 5 p.m. Gypsy Jazz. $10 (food/drink minimum).

Zion United Church of Christ Leo Coffeehouse featuring Ma Crown and the Lady Slippers and more. 7 p.m. Bluegrass/ Folk. Cover.

Monday 13 Blind Lemon - Ben Armstrong. 8 p.m. Acoustic. Free.

Bogart’s - William Singe and Alex Aiono. 8 p.m. Pop/R&B/Hip Hop. $20.

Mansion Hill Tavern - Acoustic Jam with John Redell and Friends.

8 p.m. Acoustic/Various. Free.

McCauly’s Pub - Open Jam with Sonny Moorman. 7 p.m. Blues/ Various. Free.

MOTR Pub - Salty Candy with Bradley Meinerding. 9 p.m.

Rock/Roots/Blues/Various. Free.

Northside Tavern - Northside Jazz Ensemble. 10 p.m. Jazz.

Free.

Southgate House Revival (Revival Room) - Jack Grelle with Mike Oberst. 8 p.m. Country/ Americana. Free.

Stanley’s Pub - Stanley’s Live Jazz Band. 10 p.m. Jazz. Free.

Tuesday 14 Arnold’s Bar and Grill - Casey Campbell. 7 p.m. Blues. Free.

Blind Lemon - Nick Tuttle. 8 p.m.

Acoustic. Free.

Bogart’s - August Burns Red with Protest the Hero, In Hearts Wake and ’68. 7 p.m. Rock. $33.30.

The Comet - Brianna Kelly. 10 p.m. Indie/Pop/Rock. Free.

Crow’s Nest - Open Mic Nite. 8 p.m. Various. Free.

McCauly’s Pub - Stagger Lee. 7 p.m. Country/Rock. Free.

The Mockbee - Fellatia Geisha, Off the Meat Rack, DRAPA and Vampire Weekend at Bernie’s. 9 p.m. Hip Hop/Various. Free.

Sharonville Convention Center - Travis Tritt. 8 p.m. Country. $45-$75.

Southgate House Revival (Sanctuary) - Valerie June. 8 p.m. Roots/Blues/Rock/Various. $18, $20 day of show.

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SAVE THE DATE!

BEST OF CINCINNATI ® CELEBRATION

March 29, 2017 | 5 –9 pM F e at u r i n g F o o d a n d d r i n k s F r o m :

a tavola, the BonBonerie, Coffee emporium, dewey’s Pizza, eli’s BBQ, Flip daddy’s, Fusian, grater’s ice Cream, Holtman’s donut shop, izzy’s, keystone Bar & grill, mazunte, nada, Pompilios, Queen City radio, taste of Belgium, terry’s turf Club and more to be announced!

V I S IT CIT y B E AT.CO m FO R m O R E DETA I L S.

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Rake’s End - Electrigon and Kosmik Ray. 9 p.m. Electronic/ Dance/Various. Free.

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