SOUND ADVICE

Pat Metheny

June 13 • Memorial Hall

What if a legendary jazz performer invited up-and-comers to collaborate on a project that blended his new music with his classic songs, encouraging the youngsters to add fresh interpretations? That’s the thinking behind guitarist extraordinaire Pat Metheny’s 2021 Side Eye album, which features drummer Marcus Gilmore and keys wizard James Francies.

Since the album’s release, Metheny has toured with the Side Eye project throughout the world, filling the seats behind kit and keys with an ever-changing pair of budding bandmates. This month he’ll bring this ingenious concept to Memorial Hall.

“I wanted to create an ongoing platform to host a rotating cast of the newer generations of musicians who have particularly caught my interest,” Metheny tells fans on his website. “The constant factor for me as a leader … is to draw on the strengths of the players I have with me at the time and to encourage everyone to do their best.”

This year’s supporting “cast” includes pianist/organist Chris Fishman and drummer Joe Dyson. The trio will perform Metheny classics like “Better Days Ahead” and “Have You Heard,” as well as music from Side Eye, such as “It Starts When We Disappear.” Fans can also expect to hear his beloved closing number, “Are You Going with Me?”

Since he debuted in 1976 as a teen wunderkind with his first album, “Bright

Size Life,” Metheny has chalked up 20 Grammy Awards. He has continued to surprise — and even, at times, confound — his fans by taking long creative leaps, blending genres and employing new technology to reinvent himself. This approach, along with his generosity to young players and old fans alike, has kept him at the top of his musical game.

Pat Metheny plays Memorial Hall at 8 p.m. June 13. Info: memorialhallotr.com. (Jack Heffron)

Pixies

June 14 • Andrew J Brady Music Center

Here comes your band. When thinking of indie rock bands from the late ‘80s to the early ‘90s — bands that helped to redefine the alternative rock scene — it’s difficult not to place the Pixies on the top of your list. With songs about monkeys going to heaven, waves of mutilation and references to obscure surrealist films, the Pixies were the ‘90s sui generis weirdos; there was no one else like them. It’s rare that a band can seamlessly stitch together an eclectic mix of influences the way Black Francis and company did. When forming the Pixies, Francis placed an advertisement seeking a bass player who was influenced by both the saccharine songwriting of 1960s trio Peter, Paul, and Mary and the hardcore punk of Hüsker Dü. He found the perfect blend in Kim Deal. They were able to move effortlessly from the jagged, unresolved tension and dissonance of songs like “Break My Body” on their 1988 debut studio album Surfer Rosa, to the much-covered and ubiquitous “Where Is My Mind?,” with Deal’s haunting and memorable “ohhh’s,” all within the space of thirteen songs. They followed Surfer Rosa with Doolittle, released just a year later in 1989, and considered by many to be their masterpiece. Almost every song is a classic in its own right. You’re hooked right out of the gate with “Debaser,” a frantic and catchy pop song with violent undertones and lyrics about “slicing up eyeballs,” a reference to the 1929 surrealist silent film Un Chien Andalou, directed by Luis Buñuel and written by Buñuel and Salvador Dali. As an album replete with Biblical imagery, themes of environmental catastrophe, prostitution and murdersuicide, it’s a marvel that Doolittle contains so many memorable, and deceptively upbeat, songs with such dark materials. After several hiatuses and the departure of Kim Deal to form her own wildly successful and influential band, The Breeders, the Pixies are once again in the studio and on the road, having recently released their eighth album, Doggerel, in 2022. If you’re seeking bands that perfectly encapsulate the restless experimentation and moody angst of the ‘90s, only a handful of names come to mind: Nirvana, Radiohead, R.E.M., Sonic Youth, Pavement, and…the Pixies. Don’t pass up the opportunity to see these living legends live.

Dex Romweber plays the Andrew J Brady Music Center at 6:30 p.m. June 14. Info: bradymusiccenter.com. (Derek Kalback)

Dex Romweber

June 15 • Southgate House Revival

Underground music legend Dex Romweber is known for his passionate performances and recordings exploring new territory in old forms — breathing new life into older musical traditions.

As frontman of the influential rockabilly-punk duo Flat Duo Jets, Romweber influenced a new generation of musicians with albums like the 1990 self-titled debut full length and the seminal Go Go Harlem Baby, along with appearances on MTV’s The Cutting Edge and a roaring 1990 performance on The Late Show with David Letterman. The 2006 documentary, Two Headed Cow, features artists like Cat Power and Neko Case talking about the band’s influence, as well as Jack White, who also notes Romweber’s heavy influence in the 2008 documentary, It Might Get Loud

Romweber released a handful of solo records between 1996 and 2016 that have shown his near-musicologist approach to crafting a record. Romweber’s catalogue ranges from the home-recorded and spare Folk Songs (1996) to Chopin-inspired original piano pieces on Piano (2006), and even the varied range on Blues That Defy My Soul (2004).

Romweber is making a Cincinnati appearance in support of his new release, Good Thing Goin,’ a record dedicated to the memory of his sister Sara Romweber who passed away from a brain tumor in 2019. Sara, a musician of note herself, was the drummer in ‘80s power-pop band Let’s Active followed by Snatches of Pink until the early 2000s when she joined her brother to become the Dex Romweber Duo. The two recorded and toured together as the Dex Romweber Duo, recording a handful of revved-up roots records with Sara’s steady and dynamic rhythm supporting her brother’s high energy, often explosive delivery, including a 2009 release produced by and featuring Jack White. Romweber displays the spark of rock and roll, delivering seemingly timeless ballads in his distinct, heart-on-sleeve baritone.

Dex Romweber plays Southgate House Revival at 7:30 p.m. June 15. Info: southgatehouse.com. (Brent Stroud)

Crossword

Going Too Far

BY BRENDAN EMMETT QUIGLEY WWW.BRENDANEMMETTQUIGLEY.COM

Many of the answers in this crossword are too long and won’t fit in the spaces provided. Each of these answers will either begin or end in the gray square immediately before or after it. When the puzzle is done, all the gray squares will have been used exactly once, and the letters in them (reading left to right, line by line) will spell out a quote by Demitri Martin.

Across

1. “Wynnona ___” (Melanie Scrofano series)

4. More run down

8. Jazz home

12. Room with defibs

13. Dalai Lama’s birthplace

14. Said aloud

15. Good times

16. “¿___ estás?”

17. Man’s name at the end of a famous palindrome

18. Do a TSA job

20. Benchmate of Ketanji and Amy

22. Pricing word

23. Battlefield doc

24. “Heads up!”

27. Right now

29. Baking giveaway

31. Trains around town

34. Like fables involving talking animals

35. “Preacher’s Daughter” singer Cain

36. Ruling issued by a mufti

37. Credit union claim

38. It’s a snap

40. Busy body?

44. London mayor Sadiq

45. Without question

46. Without question

49. Country that will be the world’s most-populous mid-year

51. Hombre’s home

52. 49-Across language

53. Cajun stew

54. Comprehend

55. They do taxing work: Abbr.

56. Expiration-date preceder

57. TV actress Ward

Down

1. Civil engineer Gustave with an eponymous Tower

2. “Precision Crafted Performance” sloganeer

3. Like some hard-to-read characters

4. Reeves’ assassin

5. Woodwind instrument

6. It’s good for what ails you

7. Spirit that comes in Vanil, Peachik, and Ohranj flavors, for short

8. Situated atop 9. Little kid 10. Similar (to)

11. “A Quick One, While Away” (The Who song)

19. No longer sailing

21. Change actors

23. Rising point

24. Little jump

25. Kuwait leader

26. Colorful desktop computer that comes with Dolby Atmos

28. Action film star Lundgren

30. Raising hell

31. Messy sandwich

32. Alien-seeking grp.

33. Archaic pronoun

34. Warmth

36. Snack with a communal dipping bowl

39. Chills out with

41. Over 18

42. Oil holder

43. Mistakes that were printed

44. PF Flyers rival

45. Treat delicately

46. Ingredient in edibles

47. Persistent problem for a plumber

48. Italian article

50. Precarious perch on a poplar

LAST PUZZLE’S ANSWERS:

Bertha G. Helmick

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