CityBeat | September 7-20, 2022

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4 CITYBEAT.COM | SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022 PUBLISHER TONY FRANK EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ASHLEY MOOR MANAGING EDITOR ALLISON BABKA DIGITAL CONTENT EDITOR MAGGY MCDONEL SPECIAL SECTIONS EDITOR MAIJA ZUMMO STAFF WRITER MADELINE FENING CALENDAR EDITOR, WRITER SEAN M. PETERS CREATIVE DIRECTOR HAIMANTI GERMAIN PRODUCTION MANAGER SEAN BIERI GRAPHIC DESIGNER ASPEN SMIT CONTRIBUTING EDITORS MUSIC: MIKE BREEN ARTS & CULTURE: MACKENZIE MANLEY THEATER: RICK PENDER DINING CRITIC: PAMA MITCHELL CONTRIBUTING WRITERS ANNE ARENSTEIN, BRIAN BAKER, STEPHEN NOVOTNI, BRIAN CROSS, HAYLEY DAY, JANE DURRELL, BILL FURBEE, JASON GARGANO, GREGORY GASTON, AUSTIN GAYLE, MCKENZIE GRAHAM, NICK GREVER, KATIE GRIFFITH, KATIE HOLOCHER, BEN L. KAUFMAN, DEIRDRE KAYE, JAC KERN, HARPER LEE, MADGE MARIL, ANNE MITCHELL, LAUREN MORETTO, TAMERA LENZ MUENTE, JACKIE MULAY, JUDE NOEL, GARIN PIRNIA, KATHY SCHWARTZ, MARIA SEDA-REEDER, LEYLA SHOKOOHE, SAMI STEWART, STEVEN ROSEN, KATHY Y. WILSON, P.F. WILSON, MORGAN ZUMBIEL CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS HAILEY BOLLINGER, SCOTT DITTGEN, JESSE FOX, PHIL HEIDENREICH, KHOI NGUYEN, BRITTANY THORNTON, CATIE VIOX SENIOR DIGITAL CONSULTANTMARKETING MARK COLEMAN DISTRIBUTION TEAM TOM SAND, STEVE FERGUSON EUCLID MEDIA GROUP CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER ANDREW ZELMAN CHIEF OPERATING OFFICERS CHRIS KEATING, MICHAEL WAGNER VP OF DIGITAL SERVICES STACY VOLHEIN DIGITAL OPERATIONS COORDINATOR JAIME WWW.EUCLIDMEDIAGROUP.COMMONZON 06 NEWS VOL. 27 | ISSUE 18 ON THE COVER: ‘THE KING THING’ PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: SEAN BIERI 12 COVER 27 ARTS & CULTURE 39 EATS 46 MUSIC 55 CROSSWORD CITYBEAT 811 RACE ST., FOURTH FLOOR, CINCINNATI, OH 45202 PHONE: 513-665-4700 | FAX: 513-665-4368 | CITYBEAT.COM PRINTED ON RECYCLED PAPER WITH SOY-BASED INKS PLEASE RECYCLE THIS NEWSPAPER! THANKS. :) © 2022 | CityBeat is a registered trademark of CityBeat Communications, LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written permission. CityBeat covers news, public issues, arts and entertainment of interest to readers in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. The views expressed in these pages do not necessarily represent those of the publishers. One copy per person of the current issue is free; additional copies, including back issues up to one year, are available at our offices for $1 each. Subscriptions: $70 for six months, $130 for one year (delivered via rst–class mail). Advertising Deadline: Display advertising, 12 p.m. Wednesday before publication; Classi ed advertising, 5 p.m. Thursday before publication. Warehousing Services: Harris Motor Express, 4261 Crawford Street, Cincinnati, OH 45223.

SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022 | CITYBEAT.COM 5

In December while still mayor-elect, Pureval announced that he would launch a national search to ll the position.

ose two variants now account for nearly all the new cases in the United States. e U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization for the shots Aug. 31. e CDC action means the P zer booster is now OK’d for those 12 and older; Moderna’s shot is for those 18 and older. e European Medicines Agency and Health Canada also authorized use of an updated booster vaccine on Sept. 1. at one, made by Moderna, contains mRNA instructions for building the original coronavirus spike protein and the spike protein from the omicron BA.1 subvariant. e United Kingdom, Switzerland and Australia have already given the nod for use of that dual, or bivalent, booster. Here’s what to know about the new shots: Should I get a booster shot?

“In her years of public service, Sheryl has proven herself to be a gifted, compassionate, and innovative leader,” Pureval said. “We have a lot of work ahead of us to grow Cincinnati and improve opportunity for our residents, and I’m con dent that City Manager Long is the best person to execute on our vision in the years to come.”Long’s voice trembled with pride and gratitude as she explained what she planned to do as city manager and why the role was important to her.

“I’m honored for the privilege of being chosen as city manager and the opportunity to continue to do great work for our mayor and city council,” Long said after she was sworn in at City Hall. “I am proud to be the city’s youngest female city manager and second Black female to ll this role. It’s rare to have a woman rise to the level of in uence in city government and even more rare for it to be a woman of color.”“And to this amazing city: I became the person I am today thanks to relationships I built here within a community. I love this city and promise to all Cincinnatians we are here for you,” Long said. “We will strive to make the best place to live, work and visit. No matter where you come from, we are in this together. e administration is committed to serving you and moving Cincinnati forward.” Prior to her work in Cincinnati government, Long was the city administrator for North College Hill, serving as its communications lead before that, according to Long’s LinkedIn pro le and government biography. She has a bachelor of arts from Miami University and a master of arts in marketing from Southern New Hampshire University. In December while still mayorelect, Pureval announced that he would launch a national search to replace Paula Boggs Muething once his administration took o ce. On Aug. 17, Pureval said that his team began with 21 applicants, interviewed ve and then selected Long and John Curp as nalists. He recommended Long as his choice Aug. 26. Curp had been serving as interim city manager since January after Boggs Muething left the role. A former city solicitor and partner at Blank Rome law rm, Curp had been appointed by former Ohio Gov. John Kasich to the Ohio Public Defender Commission. “I want to thank John Curp for his hard, commendable work as Interim city manager for the past eight months. He came in with a vision for a more communicative, transparent government, and he succeeded in carrying out that tremendously important objective,” Pureval said after announcing Long as his pick. “I will always be grateful for his work and desire to make a di erence in our community.”

6 CITYBEAT.COM | SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022

“ ey can help restore protection that has waned since previous vaccination and were designed to provide broader protection against newer variants,” Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a statement after endorsing a vaccine advisory committee’s approval of the shots. Both Moderna and P zer and its German partner BioNTech created boosters that contain instructions for making the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron subvariants’ spike protein as well as the original virus’ spike protein (SN: 6/30/22).

GOVERNMENT

BY ALLISON BABKA T he city of Cincinnati has a new manager.Cincinnati City Council unanimously approved Sheryl Long as city manager during a Sept. 1 special session. Mayor Aftab Pureval had recommended Long for the position after conducting a national search.

Here’s what to know about the new shots: Should I get a booster shot? Probably. e CDC now recommends that all fully vaccinated people 12 and older get the bivalent shot, provided it has been at least two months since their last vaccine dose. “If you are eligible, there is no bad time to get your COVID19 booster and I strongly encourage you to receive it,” Walensky said. at recommendation comes regardless of how many boosters people have

In Long’s role as Cincinnati’s 18th city manager, she will oversee about 6,000 employees and nearly 20 departments. She had been serving as assistant city manager since 2019. “In her years of public service, Sheryl has proven herself to be a gifted, compassionate, and innovative leader,” Pureval said. “We have a lot of work ahead of us to grow Cincinnati and improve opportunity for our residents, and I’m con dent that City Manager Long is the best person to execute on our vision in the years to come.”Long’s voice trembled with pride and gratitude as she explained what she planned to do as city manager and why the role was important to her.

Probably. e CDC now recommends that all fully vaccinated people 12 and older get the bivalent shot, provided it has been at least two months since their last vaccine dose. “If you are eligible, there is no bad time to get your COVID19 booster and I strongly encourage you to receive it,” Walensky said. at recommendation comes regardless of how many boosters people have

BY TINA HESMAN SAEY, SCIENCE NEWS R evamped COVID-19 vaccines are poised to do battle with the super-contagious omicron variant.OnSept. 1, U.S. health o cials greenlit the rst major update of the mRNAbased shots, reformulated to recognize both the original version of SARS-CoV-2 and the recently circulating versions of omicron. ose mRNA vaccine boosters could start going into arms within days.

“I’m honored for the privilege of being chosen as city manager and the opportunity to continue to do great work for our mayor and city council,” Long said after she was sworn in at City Hall. “I am proud to be the city’s youngest female city manager and second Black female to ll this role. It’s rare to have a woman rise to the level of in uence in city government and even more rare for it to be a woman of color.”“And to this amazing city: I became the person I am today thanks to relationships I built here within a community. I love this city and promise to all Cincinnatians we are here for you,” Long said. “We will strive to make the best place to live, work and visit. No matter where you come from, we are in this together. e administration is committed to serving you and moving Cincinnati forward.” Prior to her work in Cincinnati government, Long was the city administrator for North College Hill, serving as its communications lead before that, according to Long’s LinkedIn pro le and government biography. She has a bachelor of arts from Miami University and a master of arts in marketing from Southern New Hampshire University.

Cincinnati City Council Confirms

In December while still mayor-elect, Pureval announced that he would launch a national search to ll the position.

U.S. NewBoosterCOVID-19ApproveAgenciesUpdatedtoFightVariants

“ ey can help restore protection that has waned since previous vaccination and were designed to provide broader protection against newer variants,” Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a statement after endorsing a vaccine advisory committee’s approval of the shots. Both Moderna and P zer and its German partner BioNTech created boosters that contain instructions for making the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron subvariants’ spike protein as well as the original virus’ spike protein (SN: 6/30/22). ose two variants now account for nearly all the new cases in the United States. e U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization for the shots Aug. 31. e CDC action means the P zer booster is now OK’d for those 12 and older; Moderna’s shot is for those 18 and older.

NEWS

e European Medicines Agency and Health Canada also authorized use of an updated booster vaccine on Sept. 1. at one, made by Moderna, contains mRNA instructions for building the original coronavirus spike protein and the spike protein from the omicron BA.1 subvariant. e United Kingdom, Switzerland and Australia have already given the nod for use of that dual, or bivalent, booster.

Cincinnati City Council Confirms Sheryl Long as New City Manager

In December while still mayorelect, Pureval announced that he would launch a national search to replace Paula Boggs Muething once his administration took o ce. On Aug. 17, Pureval said that his team began with 21 applicants, interviewed ve and then selected Long and John Curp as nalists. He recommended Long as his choice Aug. 26. Curp had been serving as interim city manager since January after Boggs Muething left the role. A former city solicitor and partner at Blank Rome law rm, Curp had been appointed by former Ohio Gov. John Kasich to the Ohio Public Defender Commission. “I want to thank John Curp for his hard, commendable work as Interim city manager for the past eight months. He came in with a vision for a more communicative, transparent government, and he succeeded in carrying out that tremendously important objective,” Pureval said after announcing Long as his pick. “I will always be grateful for his work and desire to make a di erence in our community.”

U.S. NewBoosterCOVID-19ApproveAgenciesUpdatedtoFightVariants

BY ALLISON BABKA T he city of Cincinnati has a new manager.Cincinnati City Council unanimously approved Sheryl Long as city manager during a Sept. 1 special session. Mayor Aftab Pureval had recommended Long for the position after conducting a national search.

Cincinnati City Manager Sheryl Long PHOTO: PHOTO

Sheryl Long as New City Manager

NEWS

BY TINA HESMAN SAEY, SCIENCE NEWS R evamped COVID-19 vaccines are poised to do battle with the super-contagious omicron variant.OnSept. 1, U.S. health o cials greenlit the rst major update of the mRNAbased shots, reformulated to recognize both the original version of SARS-CoV-2 and the recently circulating versions of omicron. ose mRNA vaccine boosters could start going into arms within days.

In Long’s role as Cincinnati’s 18th city manager, she will oversee about 6,000 employees and nearly 20 departments. She had been serving as assistant city manager since 2019.

As of the week of Aug. 21-27, BA.5 was projected to cause about 89 percent of COVID-19 cases, with BA.4 variants responsible for about 11 percent of cases.“is gives us a variant that is most up-to-date, and most likely looks closer to something that may evolve further in the fall,” Marks said. “ e more up-todate you are, the better chance we have of [the vaccine] working for what comes afterward.”Allomicron subvariants share common mutations. But the shape of BA.4/5’s spike protein looks much different to the immune system than other omicron subvariants do, the CDC’s Natalie ornburg said at the advisory committee meeting. ose di erences may train immune cells to build a wider variety of antibodies that can latch onto a broad array of variants. Mice inoculated with a BA.4/5 containing booster had fewer viruses in their lungs than mice given a BA.1 boosters, Moderna’s Jacqueline Miller said at the CDC meeting. e mice make a human version of ACE2, the protein on the surface of cells that the coronavirus uses to gain entry. Mouse studies of earlier variant boosters corresponded well to levels of protection seen in human clinical trials, Miller said, so the company is hopeful that the BA.4/5 booster will provide good protection, too. Bivalent vaccines perform better — raising antibody levels higher in people and animals — than ones that contain just the original spike protein or only a variant spike protein, Miller said. e spike protein that grabs onto human cells is a three-pronged claw. With the bivalent vaccine, each prong could be either an original or an omicron version. e mixed claw may expose parts of the spike to the immune system that are normally hidden, Miller suggested. Why now?

COVID-19 scenario modeling hub, a consortium of pandemic forecasters who predict COVID-19 patterns over the next six months under varying conditions, considered what would happen in the United States if the boosters were given in September or not until November. Waiting would lead to 137,000 more hospitalizations and 9,700 more deaths, the researchers projected.

Some data indicate that the chance of serious side e ects, like heart in ammation called myocarditis, happen at similar or lower rates with boosters than with the second doses of the mRNA vaccines. e side e ect is rare; CDC has veri ed 131 myocarditis cases out of more than 126 million booster doses given, Tom Shimabukuro of the CDC COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Unit reported. e rate of myocarditis is 1.8 to 5.6 times higher after a COVID-19 infection than after vaccination for 12- to 17-year-old males — the group for which the condition has the highest risk, the CDC’s Sara Oliver said. Spacing the booster at least two months after the last dose of vaccine may help to head o any increase in myocarditis, Marks said in the FDA press brie ng. “We have a tremendous amount of experience with the monovalent, original vaccine,” the FDA’s Doran Fink said during the CDC advisory meeting. at experience made the FDA comfortable extrapolating data from the BA.1 booster trials to decide that the new shots are also safe.

PHOTO: ANNIE SPRATT, UNSPLASH

COVID-19 scenario modeling hub, a consortium of pandemic forecasters who predict COVID-19 patterns over the next six months under varying conditions, considered what would happen in the United States if the boosters were given in September or not until November. Waiting would lead to 137,000 more hospitalizations and 9,700 more deaths, the researchers projected.

Why do the shots target the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron subvariants? “We very deliberately picked BA.4/5,” Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, which oversees vaccines, said in a news brie ng Aug. 31. Both companies have tested vaccines based on the omicron BA.1 variant in humans. But BA.1, which caused the massive surge earlier in the year, is no longer circulating in the United States.

SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022 | CITYBEAT.COM 7 already had. “If you perceive this as big change … you’re right,” Evelyn Twentyman, who leads CDC’s vaccine policy unit, said Sept. 1 during the vaccine advisory committee meeting. “We want to emphasize we’re no longer looking at total number of doses,” she said. From now on, the agency hopes to transition into a more regular schedule for COVID-19 vaccines, similar to getting annual u shots. e original vaccines will still be used for the rst two doses, but bivalent vaccines will replace the old boosters for all but 5- to 11-year-olds. P zer’s original vaccine booster is still available for that age group but bivalent vaccines may come later this year for children as young as 6 months old. ere was another big di erence this time around: e decision to move forward with the BA.4/5 boosters was made without data from human trials. Such trials are under way, but results won’t be known until the end of the year.In authorizing the new boosters without clinical trial data, the agencies are treating COVID-19 vaccines more like annual u vaccines. Data collected from people immunized with the BA.1 boosters and data from studies of mice inoculated with the BA.4/5 vaccine were used as evidence of the new boosters’ likely safety and e ectiveness. e European Medicines Agency said in a Sept. 2 press brie ng that it would also use the BA.1 booster to evaluate the new shots. Why do the shots target the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron subvariants?

And it’s also safe to get u shots and other vaccines, including ones used against monkeypox, at the same time as the COVID-19 booster. In fact, doctors should o er all vaccines for which a person is eligible at the same visit, Elisha Hall of the CDC said.

Based on studies with the BA.1 bivalent booster, yes. at shot produced similar side e ects to the original shots. And it’s also safe to get u shots and other vaccines, including ones used against monkeypox, at the same time as the COVID-19 booster. In fact, doctors should o er all vaccines for which a person is eligible at the same visit, Elisha Hall of the CDC said. Some data indicate that the chance of serious side e ects, like heart in ammation called myocarditis, happen at similar or lower rates with boosters than with the second doses of the mRNA vaccines. e side e ect is rare; CDC has veri ed 131 myocarditis cases out of more than 126 million booster doses given, Tom Shimabukuro of the CDC COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Unit reported. e rate of myocarditis is 1.8 to 5.6 times higher after a COVID-19 infection than after vaccination for 12- to 17-year-old males — the group for which the condition has the highest risk, the CDC’s Sara Oliver said. Spacing the booster at least two months after the last dose of vaccine may help to head o any increase in myocarditis, Marks said in the FDA press brie ng. “We have a tremendous amount of experience with the monovalent, original vaccine,” the FDA’s Doran Fink said during the CDC advisory meeting. at experience made the FDA comfortable extrapolating data from the BA.1 booster trials to decide that the new shots are also safe.

“I really don’t want to establish a precedent of recommending a vaccine that we don’t have clinical data on,” Sanchez said. He added, “I’m comfortable that the vaccine will likely be safe like the others,” but having the human data may help counter vaccine hesitancy. is story was originally published by Science News, a nonpro t independent news organization.

“We very deliberately picked BA.4/5,” Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, which oversees vaccines, said in a news brie ng Aug. 31.

Both companies have tested vaccines based on the omicron BA.1 variant in humans. But BA.1, which caused the massive surge earlier in the year, is no longer circulating in the United States.

ough the mouse data suggest the BA.4/5 booster will work, some of the CDC advisers said they’d be more comfortable having data from the ongoing human clinical trials before recommending the new shots. at data could be available in a couple of months, so why not wait? e wait could cost lives and money, computer projections suggest. e

Bivalent vaccines perform better — raising antibody levels higher in people and animals — than ones that contain just the original spike protein or only a variant spike protein, Miller said. e spike protein that grabs onto human cells is a three-pronged claw. With the bivalent vaccine, each prong could be either an original or an omicron version. e mixed claw may expose parts of the spike to the immune system that are normally hidden, Miller suggested. Why now?

ough the mouse data suggest the BA.4/5 booster will work, some of the CDC advisers said they’d be more comfortable having data from the ongoing human clinical trials before recommending the new shots. at data could be available in a couple of months, so why not wait? e wait could cost lives and money, computer projections suggest. e

An early fall booster campaign could save more than $62 billion in direct medical costs, an analysis from the Commonwealth Fund projects. Is it safe?

“We don’t usually have too much clinical information … when we are thinking about changing in uenza vaccines,” said Sarah Long, an infectious diseases pediatrician at Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia. Much like the u vaccine remodels last season’s version, the updated COVID-19 booster is built on the same sca olding as the original version. “It’s part of the same roof. We’re just putting in some dormers and windows.”

“We don’t usually have too much clinical information … when we are thinking about changing in uenza vaccines,” said Sarah Long, an infectious diseases pediatrician at Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia. Much like the u vaccine remodels last season’s version, the updated COVID-19 booster is built on the same sca olding as the original version. “It’s part of the same roof. We’re just putting in some dormers and windows.”

Pablo Sanchez, a pediatric infectious diseases doctor at e Ohio State University and Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, cast the sole dissenting vote against recommending the BA.4/5 boosters. Other committee members voted to recommend the boosters, but they voiced reservations about those votes.

Pablo Sanchez, a pediatric infectious diseases doctor at e Ohio State University and Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, cast the sole dissenting vote against recommending the BA.4/5 boosters. Other committee members voted to recommend the boosters, but they voiced reservations about those votes. “I really don’t want to establish a precedent of recommending a vaccine that we don’t have clinical data on,” Sanchez said. He added, “I’m comfortable that the vaccine will likely be safe like the others,” but having the human data may help counter vaccine hesitancy. is story was originally published by Science News, a nonpro t independent news organization.

The revamped COVID-19 boosters will target the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron subvariants.

PHOTO: ANNIE SPRATT, UNSPLASH already had. “If you perceive this as big change … you’re right,” Evelyn Twentyman, who leads CDC’s vaccine policy unit, said Sept. 1 during the vaccine advisory committee meeting. “We want to emphasize we’re no longer looking at total number of doses,” she said. From now on, the agency hopes to transition into a more regular schedule for COVID-19 vaccines, similar to getting annual u shots. e original vaccines will still be used for the rst two doses, but bivalent vaccines will replace the old boosters for all but 5- to 11-year-olds. P zer’s original vaccine booster is still available for that age group but bivalent vaccines may come later this year for children as young as 6 months old. ere was another big di erence this time around: e decision to move forward with the BA.4/5 boosters was made without data from human trials. Such trials are under way, but results won’t be known until the end of the year.In authorizing the new boosters without clinical trial data, the agencies are treating COVID-19 vaccines more like annual u vaccines. Data collected from people immunized with the BA.1 boosters and data from studies of mice inoculated with the BA.4/5 vaccine were used as evidence of the new boosters’ likely safety and e ectiveness. e European Medicines Agency said in a Sept. 2 press brie ng that it would also use the BA.1 booster to evaluate the new shots.

The revamped COVID-19 boosters will target the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron subvariants.

An early fall booster campaign could save more than $62 billion in direct medical costs, an analysis from the Commonwealth Fund projects. Is it safe?

As of the week of Aug. 21-27, BA.5 was projected to cause about 89 percent of COVID-19 cases, with BA.4 variants responsible for about 11 percent of cases.“is gives us a variant that is most up-to-date, and most likely looks closer to something that may evolve further in the fall,” Marks said. “ e more up-todate you are, the better chance we have of [the vaccine] working for what comes afterward.”Allomicron subvariants share common mutations. But the shape of BA.4/5’s spike protein looks much different to the immune system than other omicron subvariants do, the CDC’s Natalie ornburg said at the advisory committee meeting. ose di erences may train immune cells to build a wider variety of antibodies that can latch onto a broad array of variants. Mice inoculated with a BA.4/5 containing booster had fewer viruses in their lungs than mice given a BA.1 boosters, Moderna’s Jacqueline Miller said at the CDC meeting. e mice make a human version of ACE2, the protein on the surface of cells that the coronavirus uses to gain entry. Mouse studies of earlier variant boosters corresponded well to levels of protection seen in human clinical trials, Miller said, so the company is hopeful that the BA.4/5 booster will provide good protection, too.

Based on studies with the BA.1 bivalent booster, yes. at shot produced similar side e ects to the original shots.

8 CITYBEAT.COM | SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022

PHOTO: PROVIDED BY CPD

“I do not want my son to run into a cop that doesn’t treat my son like they treat me,” retired CPD o cer Donald Jordan said during the meeting. “I am for a zero-tolerance policy. If you can’t come to work for 10 hours a day and be professional, you don’t deserve this job. Period.”

BY MADELINE FENING C

Some city leaders are pushing for a change to City Code 25 to include a zero-tolerance rule for uses of racial or ethnic slurs: “Except when approved by a supervisor, any use of a racial or ethnic remark, slur, epithet, word or gesture requires dismissal on the rst violation,” the proposed policy change reads.e rule would apply to all city employees, but it has been proposed with cops in mind. CPD o cers were the main point of discussion in an Aug. 8 meeting about the policy between the department and city leadership.

Valentino, who is white, was caught on her body camera footage “Fuckingsaying,n******s, I fucking hate them!” while pounding her st on the steering wheel of her cruiser. Former CPD officer Rose Valentino.

Cincinnati Police Department Fires Officer Rose Valentino for Using Racist Slur on Duty

ity o cials have approved the termination of Cincinnati Police Department O cer Rose Valentino, who was caught using a racist slur while on duty outside of Western Hills University High School in April. “I want to be clear; this type of hateful speech will not be tolerated by anyone who works for the Cincinnati Police Department, sworn or civilian,” interim police chief Teresa eetge said in an Aug. 29 news release announcing the o cer’s Accordingtermination.toareport,Valentino, who is white, was caught on her body camera footage saying, “Fucking n******s, I fucking hate them!” while pounding her st on the steering wheel of her cruiser. e o cer also complained about being caught in tra c outside of Western Hills University High School, which is part of the Cincinnati Public Schools district. An internal report noted that Valentino said the n-word after a student ashed the o cer his middle nger, a claim that is only supported by Valentino’s testimony. Body camera footage o ered a narrow view of the area where Valentino was driving, so the student mentioned in the report was not visible to “Oviewers.cerValentino was extremely frustrated due to the tra c and individuals not taking her seriously,” the reportAccordingread. to U.S. News & World Report, Western Hills University High School has an enrollment that is nearly 70% Black and more than 87% nonwhite or minority. e ACLU of Ohio recently spoke out against Valentino’s actions, calling the incident “inexcusable.”

“As the Interim Police Chief, I must also weigh O cer Valentino’s future ability to police a diverse community that relies upon an impartial party to protect and serve,” eetge said in the Aug. 29 news release. “O cer Valentino’s clear loss of her emotions and ready use of the racial slur tarnished her ability to work with any community member.”ereport said Valentino immediately sought treatment after using the slur, with Valentino saying she had been “a ected by her profession” and was “desensitized to racially o ensive language by music and hearing people talk in the Accordingstreet.”tothe city manager’s o ce, Valentino has the right to ask the Fraternal Order of Police, CPD’s union, to le a grievance with the city to appeal the termination. It is unclear if Valentino plans to appeal the decision.

City may enact a zerotolerance policy for o cers

Gardner, who was a lauded cornerback for UC and who gave up no touchdowns during his college career, was selected by the New York Jets in the fourth round of the NFL draft this year. His Jets contract gives him a guaranteed $38.7 million over four years. e rookie will begin his regular-season NFL career when the Jets take on the Baltimore Ravens on Sept. 11 during the team’s home opener at MetLife Stadium. Cincinnati Reds to Battle Every MLB Team for First Time Ever in 2023 e Cincinnati Reds are looking at a whole new ballgame. Major League Baseball’s 2023 season schedule comes with a big twist – each team will meet each other on the eld at least once. In addition, all 30 franchises are scheduled to play opening day on March 30 – the rst time every team will do so on the same date since 1968. More interleague play, fewer division games For 2023, the Cincinnati Reds will take on each of the other 29 MLB franchises at various points during the season, including all teams in the American League. As a National League team, the Reds typically have played just 20 games a season against American League teams; in 2023, that number will increase to 46. Teams will play a total of four games against their “natural” interleague rival, which is a team from the opposite league that’s within close distance. For the Reds, that means taking on the Cleveland Guardians from the AL. “ e new balanced schedule will feature all 30 Clubs playing each other for at least one series in 2023,” MLB chief operations and strategy o cer Chris Marinak said in a release. “ is new format creates more consistent opponent matchups as clubs compete for postseason berths, particularly in the recently expanded wild card round.”According to MLB, the 162-game season will become more “balanced” by moving away from heavy division play. In 2023, the Reds will play 52 games against other NL Central teams instead of the 76 division games they have now. ey’ll meet each Central opponent 13 times (for four series total), down from 19 games per division opponent now. e Reds will have 26 division home games and 26 division away games. e Reds still will play National League teams outside of the Central, but those are slightly decreasing in number, too. Cincinnati will face o 64 times against non-Central opponents within the NL, down from 66. ey’ll have six games against six NL oppo nents and seven games against four NL opponents. Previously, teams had done the reverse: six against four and seven against six. e changes “rebalance” the previous division-heavy schedule that was implemented in 2001, MLB said. For more than two decades, division opponents typically have taken up nearly half of each team’s schedule.

Cincinnati Sports Briefs

PHOTO: PROVIDED BY REDS

Former UC Bearcat Ahmad ‘Sauce’ Gardner Joins Bu alo Wild Wings to Create ‘Sauce Sauce’

SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022 | CITYBEAT.COM 9

PHOTO: PROVIDED BY INSPIRE BRANDS

Former University of Cincinnati Bearcat Ahmad “Sauce” Gardner has launched a limited-time hot sauce with Bu alo Wild Wings, and it’s predictably called “Sauce Sauce.” In an Aug. 29 press release, Inspire Brands – which owns Bu alo Wild Wings – said that Gardner collaborated with the national restaurant chain’s culinary team on the new condiment. It’s “a smokey, sweet and spicy BBQ sauce which intercepts your taste buds and takes it to the house on your favorite wings and sandwiches,” Inspire said. Sauce Sauce has been available at BWW locations beginning Aug. 31 –Gardner’s birthday. During a launch party in Wayne, New Jersey, the following day, Gardner met with BWW rewards members to sign autographs in – what else? – sauce. “I have always known that everything is better with sauce, so who better to develop my own avor than the sauce experts at Bu alo Wild Wings,” Gardner said in the release. “Nothing says football like wings covered in your favorite sauce. I am excited to launch my own signature ‘Sauce Sauce’ just in time for the season kickoGardner.” recently celebrated his sauce on social media with a BWW video that features him declaring “I love sauce.” In the video, he stands near a wall of dozens of hot sauces, slathers sauce on everything from wings to fries and pulls out a miniature bedazzled sauce bottle. “Even sauce on sauce,” he says to the camera.

The Cincinnati Reds will open the 2023 season with a home opener against the Pittsburgh Pirates on March 30 at Great American Ball Park.

Highlights for the Reds’ new season e Cincinnati Reds will kickstart the 2023 season with a home opener against NL Central opponent the Pittsburgh Pirates on March 30 at Great American Ball Park. e teams will have March 31 o before continuing the series April 1 and 2. e Reds then immediately will welcome division opponents the Chicago Cubs for a three-game series April 3-5. e Reds will take on “natural” interleague rival the Cleveland Guard ians in Cincinnati Aug. 15 and 16. e teams will meet again in Cleveland Sept. 26-27 for a series billed as the OhioOtherCup.AL opponents fans can see at Great American Ball Park include the Tampa Bay Rays (April 17-19), Texas Rangers (April 24-26), Chicago White Sox (May 5-7) and New York Yankees (May 19-21), Toronto Blue Jays (Aug. 18-20), Seattle Mariners (Sept. 4-6) and Minnesota Twins (Sept. 18-20).

All MLB teams will take a mid-sum mer break for the 93rd All-Star Game, scheduled for July 11 at T-Mobile Park, home of the Seattle Mariners. 2023 spring training schedule set With the Reds’ playo hopes likely ushed down the toilet for 2022, it’s already time to start thinking ahead to 2023. MLB announced that spring training would begin Feb. 24. “2023 Spring Training will o cially begin on Friday, Feb. 24 with a pair of Cactus League games before all 30 Major League Clubs play in Cactus and Grapefruit League games on Saturday, Feb. 25,” MLB said in an Aug. 31 press “Selectrelease.games featuring World Baseball Classic teams will be played at various Spring Training facilities on Wednesday, March 8 and ursday, March 9,” MLB continued. “Additional information, including WBC team locations, will be announced in the coming months.”

- Allison Babka Ahmad Gardner’s “Sauce Sauce” is now available at Buffalo Wild Wings locations.

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12 CITYBEAT.COM | SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022 theKingThing King Records in Cincinnati developed James Brown, Otis Williams and more. Now it may be ready for a royal return.SHIELDSCALVINPHOTO:

In 1956,

According to A King Records Scrapbook by Brian F.X. Powers, King Records was the sixth-largest record company during the late ’50s, employing 400 people and successfully managing multiple genres instead of just one, as its competitors were doing. Of course, Nathan didn’t do it alone or all at once.

He tells CityBeat that all musical roads lead back to King Records – a major reason to secure the studio’s place in both local and national history. “Pick an artist – any artist. Pretty much, I can draw it back to King somehow,” Butts says. “Somebody will say ‘Justin Bieber. How you gonna draw that back?’

Well, he came through Usher, and [producer and talent scout] L.A. Reid was who got him on. Usher is copying Michael Jackson; Micheal Jackson is copying James Brown. We are back to King just that fast.”

Butts says that during an era in which most people still hadn’t been granted full civil rights or autonomy, Nathan – who was white – hired workers of all races, genders and backgrounds, including at the executive level. He also was an innovative businessman who streamlined the entire record-making process at one complex – a rst for the industry.

It’s a sprawling, important legacy that the King Records Legacy Foundation is trying to highlight. To do that, the foundation is in the process of preserving some of the buildings at the King complex in Evanston to develop them into an active learning center and museum. e city proposed a preferred development agreement that was signed by the foundation’s committee members Aug. 15. Once the city nalizes the document – which is expected to happen in September – the project can move forward.

In the late ’40s, Nathan hired Henry Glover, one of the rst Black music industry executives. As an A&R (artist and repertoire) expert for King, Glover – a musician himself – initiated some of the studio’s genre mixing, A King Records Scrapbook says. “Henry would work with whoever — country, blues, whatever,” Butts says. “ ey started to tie things over, like the doo-wop artist would back up the

James Brown and e Famous Flames electried America with one of their most notable songs, “Please, Please, Please.” When performing it, Brown iconically fell to his knees as he roared those legendary three words, begging from the bottom of his toes, “Baby please don’t go.” Today, his remarkable air and charismatic performances continue to be celebrated.Intheevolution of Brown’s fame, the birthplace of the song became lost in the glory it created. at place was King Records, and it was right here in Actually,Cincinnati.it’s still here – sort of. e site in Evanston was designated as a local landmark in 2015; as of press time, it’s awaiting a spot on the National Register of Historic Places. On Brewster Avenue, visible from both the northbound and southbound corridors of I-71, the King Records complex of ve buildings holds a legacy so impressive and in uential that somehow, Brown is a mere dot on its everlasting timeline.Butthe shell of the King Records complex has been vacant for years, sadly without much national public acknowledgement of how the label, artists and producers shaped both the music of the time and the future of rock and roll, soul and more.

“And I can pretty much do that with most artists,” Butts insists. “Somehow, I can get you back to King or something that was started at King.”

KingThing by GriffithKatie

But before the future can be realized, it’s important to rst consider – and hear – the musical past.

Fortunately, that may be changing. e King Records Legacy Foundation launched in 2021 as a collaboration between City of Cincinnati o cials, the neighborhood of Evanston and former King Records recording artists Otis Williams, Philip Paul, Bootsy Collins and others. Williams’ son Kent Butts is the executive director of the foundation that’s trying to preserve the studio’s history.

Left: The Tiny Bradshaw Band records at King Studios in 1950.

Working in harmony

According to multiple sources, King Records was founded in 1943 by Syd Nathan, who owned a record store in downtown Cincinnati before capitalizing on popular “hillbilly” music to launch a country music label. A few years later, he also sought and signed Black musicians and singers, eventually mixing both genres and talents into a new foundation of R&B, rock and roll, soul and funk.

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When that space operated as King Records, the building on the rst parcel had two oors. e second oor held o ces, storage, a remix studio and the art department. e rst oor contained a large studio and areas for shipping and receiving, printing, inspection and insertion, plating and testing, machine shop, press room and mill room, according to a sketch in e King Records Story by Darren Blase.

Steve Halper, Nathan’s nephew, recalls working in the shipping department when he was 16 years old, noting that nobody knew then that they were making history.“People looked back and saw the things that happened at King Records, like the mixing of races making music [and] the way he [Nathan] set up his whole operation. To me it was a way to make some money and a hard job,” Halper tells CityBeat Halper also notes that the factory was a sweatbox.

By the early ’50s, King Records’ entire operation was happening under one roof: recording, pressing, art creation, packaging and distribution.

And many historic sources credit King’s vice president and general manager Hal Neely as the man behind the studio’s big business moves, helping it evolve into a fully self-su cient company (according to A King Records Scrapbook, Neely bought King from the Nathan family after Nathan’s death in 1968).

RUTHERELLIOTTOFCOURTESYPHOTO

country singer or sing a country singer’s song or vice versa to see what would work.”

To do all of that, Nathan needed space, and lots of it. Documents from Charles Dahan, a professor in the recording industry department at Middle Tennessee State University who contributed evidence for King Records’ application for the National Register of Historic Places, show that the business’s original property consisted of ve interconnected structures, which exist in varying degrees today. e city of Cincinnati owns several of the original parcels at 1540 Brewster Ave. at portion was constructed in 1921 and in part is “a one-story brick warehouse that houses 17,604 square feet and occupies .69 acre,” Dahan says. Adjoining that building is a “one-story utilitarian garage” that Dahan describes as being in fair condition.

e remaining parcels, which are privately owned today, are at 1548 Brewster Ave. – three interconnected structures, 26,434 square feet on .414 acres, Dahan’s information says.

“ ese machines they made the records on created a great deal of steam and heat,” he says. “ e shipping department wasn’t as bad –  it was where they would have these presses – and right when you came in, you’d hear all that noise and the steam.”

The ‘King thing’ King Records was responsible for many of the era’s de ning sounds. In 1949, popular country duo e Delmore Brothers co-wrote “Blues Stay Away From Above: Inside the King buildingRecordstoday.

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HAZENLEEPHOTO:HALPERSTEVEPHOTO:

Me” with Glover. According to A King Records Scrapbook, the record was “regarded by some as the rst rock and roll record.”

Likewise, Little Willie John recorded the rst version of “Fever” at King in 1956. And in 1958, Hank Ballard and e Midnighters recorded “ e Twist,” named after that time’s dance craze. ese three songs and many others symbolized the power of what was created at King, but the label’s artists didn’t necessarily get their due nation ally. Countless artists like Doc Watson (“Blues Stay Away From Me”), Peggy Lee (“Fever”) and Chubby Checker (“ e Twist”) would go on to render di er ent, frequently more popular versions of the songs that had been born in Cincinnati. Songs of that era were widely covered in part because it made nan cial sense – song royalties went to writers, produc ers and labels rather than to the artists. But there also was a racial aspect at play during the pre-Civil Rights times.

“ e songs were written or sung so well,” Butts says. “Like Elvis – when he sang my father’s ‘Hearts of Stone,’ he sang it like my father. It was just that he was white and he could do it more publicly, and it would get pushed out in that time frame more so then if my father went out and did his own song.” King Records artists embodied so many di erent genres, but no matter their sound, no matter their instruments, they had a certain air that marked them as products of the label. And, boy, did people try to mimic “Everybodyit.that I’ve talked to who knows about King or even just liked something they heard from King, they all tell me that by either watching or listening to the way people from King played, they picked things o of that – o of how the guitar players were playing like Freddie King and those type of people,” Butts says. “And they put that into their new formula of what they were trying to do.” “ e ‘King thing,’ back then, it was like an uncut diamond,” Butts continues. “ ey found out how to chip o of it and make it something special for them – all these di erent artists. It was kind of just sitting there like [the building has] been sitting since we started bringing the legacy back out.”

If you ask Butts, Brown epitomized the “King thing,” with his rhythm and delivery. “James Brown didn’t have a lot of words in his songs, but the tightness of his music together – he was a stickler for a super-tight band,” Butts says. “His big thing was make sure you do it on the one.” “Do it on the one” refers to counting a musical measure. Brown liked to emphasize the rst beat of a measure rather than the second, which was di erent from what many of his contemporaries did in R&B and rock. He also developed a somewhat slower, sultrier“Whengroove.youhear everybody do a drop on the one –Bootsy [Collins] has made a career out of that – well, James Brown brought that aspect into the game, then George Clinton and all these other funk people. So “These machines they made the records on created a great deal of steam and heat... right when you came in, you’d hear all that noise and the steam.”

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Top: King Records as it appeared in 1966. Above: Staff pack records in the shipping department in 1947.

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2018: City of Cincinnati acquires several King buildings, preservation work begins.

2019: Bootsy Collins, Philip Paul and Otis Williams form King Records Legacy Committee.

1944: Brewster Avenue in Evanston becomes home to King Records’ administrative business.

2020: King Records Legacy Committee creates official organization, King Records Legacy Foundation.

2022: Foundation awaits approval for King Records to be listed on National Register of Historic Places and awaits finalization of preferred development agreement proposed by City of Cincinnati.

The kings of history e King Records roots run deep in Cincinnati, as do the roots of those driving the King Records Legacy Foundation. Butts says the involvement of the “ ree Kings” – Otis Williams, Bootsy Collins and the late Philip Paul – was imperative in forming the nonpro t. It’s yet another magical “King thing” from the Queen City. “For individuals like these three King people to come together, that’s not easy or shouldn’t be assumed as an obvious kind of thing, because they really represent so many di erent aspects of the King era and of di erent generations,” says Elliott Ruther, the King Records Legacy Foundation secretary. Between 1954 and 1961, Otis Williams and the Charms released nearly 50 singles on the label, A King Records Scrapbook says. A King agent discovered Williams during a talent show at Withrow High School in Hyde Park. e Charms’ biggest hit “Hearts of Stone” was released in 1954 and ranked on both the R&B and pop music charts, according to A King Records Scrapbook Paul, who died in January, was a renowned session drummer for King, appearing on hundreds of hits and notably working with legendary blues guitarist Freddie King. A King Records Scrapbook says Paul often was called into the Evanston studio because he lived within walking distance – something that belied his immense hit-making talent. Collins, who grew up on Hackberry Street, came 1943: Syd Nathan founds King Records, puts initial recording artists Grandpa Jones and Merle Travis under contract.

it’s a unique thing that was grown from seed to grass. Dealing with someone like James Brown, that really spurred the whole funk movement.” Brown permanently put King Records on the map with hits like “Get On Up” and “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag.” His fame generated a great deal of pro t for the label, while Brown relied mostly on live performances as a means of income, Blase writes in e King Records Story e “King thing” carried over behind the scenes, too. Butts says that when people ask about King’s history, they tend to focus on a single aspect, such as a genre or artist. But the bigger picture spans two decades, Butts insists. “I want people to understand this is for all of us,” Butts says. “So many people are looking for the quote - it’s too big. It’s this ‘King thing.’” Brown’s sometimes-tumultuous relationship with King’s owner Nathan is part of that lore.

1973: King Records property sold, new owners transform site into storage facility.

1959: “The Twist” by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters is released.

1971: Hal Neely sells Brown’s masters to Polydor Records, Cincinnati location closes, operations under King Records name cease.

1997: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducts Syd Nathan.

1963: James Brown’s Live at the Apollo is released, becoming King Records’ most successful album.

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1948: Syd Nathan hires Henry Glover as one of the first Black A&R executives.

2015: King Records site honored as an official Cincinnati landmark.

2021: King Records Legacy Foundation earns non-profit status from IRS, secures private funding for site development and gets $1 million commitment from City of Cincinnati.

Information from A King Records Scrapbook by Brian F.X. Powers and conversations with Elliott Ruther and Kent Butts.

1947: Recording studio is added, streamlining record-making process under one roof.

1956: “Please, Please, Please” by James Brown is released.

2008: Rock Hall installs historic marker at King Records site in Evanston..

King Records Milestones

1968: Syd Nathan dies, former A&R exec Hal Neely buys the business and merges with Starday Records in Nashville.

“A combination of royalties, publishing control and an acrimonious relationship with Syd Nathan led to Brown’s decision to leave King for Smash Record Company in 1963,” e King Records Story states. “Despite their di erences, James Brown returned to King in 1965 with the agreement he would preside over his own work.” Brown had an o ce on the second oor at King Records where he and Nathan infamously disagreed. e King Records Story says that Nathan notoriously disliked the song “Please, Please, Please” and threatened to re King executive Ralph Bass, who had signedHalperBrown.says his mother was an “intermediary” between Brown and Nathan. “James Brown used to call the house at 2, 3, 4 in the morning when he felt like it, and he’d complain or say something to my mother, and it would be passed on to my uncle,” Halper says. “She was sort of the Henry Kissinger between the two.”

1954: “Hearts of Stone” by The Charms is released.

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Many of the current Legacy Foundation members like Butts, Williams, Collins, Paul and Ruther were in that group, but disagreements eventually disbanded it.

Left: Les Claypool of Primus stands with Bootsy Collins. Above: Patti Collins, Christian McBride, Bootsy Collins and Kent Butts

“I was doing a soundcheck. Charles came over to me and he said, ‘Hey, where are you guys from?’ I said, ‘Cincinnati.’ And he was like, ‘Well, you can’t be from Cincinnati because we know all the bands around here,’” Butts recalls. “ en out of the clear blue sky, he said, ‘Who’s your father?’” Butts says nobody had ever outright asked him that, nor was it the focus of his music career. Butts says he began to tell Spurling that it was Otis Williams of the Charms and not man of the same name in the Temptations when Spurling exclaimed, “I knew it – you look just like him when he was young!” It wasn’t until 2008 that Butts and his father connected in person, and it happened at the King Records site when the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame installed a marker honoring the label’s history. Butts says he then went on to tour brie y with his father as one of the Charms. Despite his personal connection, Butts says the King Records Legacy Foundation was formed to focus on the studio’s entire history, not just certain individuals.“I’mnotjust doing this for Otis Williams. I’m not doing it for me. I’m doing it for all of us, because it’s for all of us,” Butts says. “It’s for the city, it’s for you, it’s for everybody.”

According to Halper, the city had set aside funds to purchase land on Montgomery Road for a proposed community center and King Records museum but needed environmental clearance to build there (Ruther says this process happened around 2014).

In 2019 “ e ree Kings,” wrote a letter to the city in the form of a legal motion to create the King Records Legacy Foundation. Williams, Paul and Collins referred to the committee members listed in the motion as “ e King Dream Team.” e letter thanked the government

Butts, who says he had been part of the King Studio Board for nearly a decade, maintains that despite the condition or availability of the King Records complex, preserving the legacy is crucial. Ruther agrees.

“I just don’t see this one happening. It’s a deadend street. It’s got no parking. It’s just – to me – a pink elephant in the middle of Evanston,” Halper says. “I hope I’m wrong. I would love to see my family’s legacy preserved someplace in Evanston, but I just dont think it’s going to be at that place.”

e King Studio Board already had plans for the site in place when Halper joined the board, he says. Ultimately, the clearance took too long and the idea was abandoned. It’s unclear if this incident was what led to the eventual disbanding of the original board, but based on conversations with Halper, Butts and Ruther, it seems likely. “I don’t know if they’ve ever really done anything of any substance to develop the [King Records] property. And it would cost millions and millions,” Halper says. “Even the one on Montgomery Road, that was a dream. Without tons of money to do it, it would have neverHalperhappened.”isn’tsure that the King Records Legacy Foundation’s current plans will be successful.

“I’m doing it for all of us, because it’s for all of us,” butts says. “It’s for the city, it’s for you, it’s for everybody.”

Before the King Records Legacy Foundation was formed, a group called the King Studio Board had other plans for honoring King’s history, Halper says.

RUTHERELLIOTTOFCOURTESYPHOTOS:

An attempt at honoring royalty ere have been a number of attempts to preserve the King Records complex and legacy, though some methods were at odds with each other and this history is Buttsmurky.saysthat Brown tried to acquire the property at one point. According to A King Records Scrapbook, Brown visited the King site in June 1997. ough not con rmed, it’s possible that this is when Brown showed interest in purchasing the complex. “When he came, he was crushed when he saw the condition of the building,” Butts recalls. A previous owner of the studio’s site had tried to demolish the property, but in 2018, the Ohio Supreme Court rejected that attempt. e city ultimately acquired the buildings, cleaned up the property and made it Dahan,secure.thehistorian, credits a number of orga nizations with saving the site, including the Cincin nati USA Music Heritage Foundation, the Bootsy Collins Foundation and the Cincinnati Preservation Association, along with Evanston residents and city government.Atonetime, there even was a movement to preserve King’s legacy without saving the buildings.

along much later, as he was only about eight years old when Nathan founded King Records. He and his brother Phelps “Cat sh” Collins eventually played in Brown’s backing band for two years; in 1972, Collins joined George Clinton’s Parliament-Funkadelic, where he continued to hone his groovy baselines. In 2020, Rolling Stone named him the No. 4 bassist of all time.Butts is the son of Williams, but he didn’t know his father back then. Instead, he says he was raised by his mother, who “ran in the same circle” as other King artists like Ballard and Brown. Artists often stopped by Butts’ childhood home to check on the family, he adds. Butts became a musician himself, playing clubs in a band called Caliber. In 2008, Charles Spurling –the King Records executive who discovered Collins – randomly found Butts playing a gig in Cincinnati. Spurling and Collins’ brother saw Butts and wondered about his origins.

“In my view, if you’re serious about this being about King, the building still exists and people are going to want to connect with it,” Ruther says. “I understand the building is not in the best condition, but I’m somebody that would want to preserve it.”

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Halper was a member of the King Studio Board and says the original buildings were not and still are not worth saving. His involvement on the board lasted at least ve years and began somewhere between 2010 and 2012, he says. “I got involved in the committee that was set up as a joint effort between Xavier [University], the neighborhood of Evanston and this commu nity nonprofit that was set up in conjunction with Xavier,” Halper says. “It really wasn’t just about King Records, and that was what was so important about it. It was something for Evanston. It was going to be a learning center, and it was going to be on Montgomery Road.”

Left: Philip Paul, Kent Butts and Otis Williams speak with Jack White

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Now the King Records Legacy Foundation is moving forward with its vision for a historic complex that will permanently mark Evanston as the birthplace of a special sound that in uenced the nation..

ose funds would be handy, considering the big vision that the King Records Legacy Foundation has for the studio’s legacy. In an email to CityBeat, Ruther says that the project likely will include a repository of artifacts; a museum with a gallery and rotating exhibi tion space; facilitation of new music and art; music education; a concert and performance space; and Civil Rights-Era education components. e learning center also will provide support for King Records artists and former employees and will connect with community and global partners in furthering the label’s legacy. e foundation already has acquired some artifacts, including what Butts says is one of the “ nest assets” — a Neumann microphone that Brown used. e founda tion also has secured clothing from King artists like Collins and Paul and is working toward getting Brown’s original desk that he used in the o ce. Modern musicians also are lending a hand. Jack White, the vocalist and guitarist for the White Stripes and the founder of label and studio ird Man Records, has publicly shown support for preserving the King legacy. Having a deep love and knowledge of music history and vintage equipment, White owns a piece of machinery from an original lathe that was used to press records at King. With the city’s backing all but nalized, the founda tion is doing what it can to speed up the development timeline.“I’malready working with the city on getting tem porary electric in,” Butts says. “It’s a matter of getting a design, and there are a few stabilization situations – which is what I’m dealing with right now – to get the whole thing done.”

The new vision

Butts says that people who had other ideas about how to preserve the King Records legacy weren’t acting maliciously; their plans simply were not in the interest of the “core” of that legacy, he says.

“It will be a hub for what music has been, is and will be in the future,” Butts says. “Everything from the music business, history, education – it’s kind of a gumbo.”

It’s an ambitious undertaking, but as the son of Otis Williams – who Butts says is the last surviving lead singer to come out of King – Butts says he’s as con nected to the studio’s roots as anyone could be. is is a new beginning for King Records, Butts says – a beginning that permanently shares how a buried Cincinnati treasure changed the music industry nearly 70 years ago and how it will come back to life once again to serve the city where it was born.

“One of the most important things is, it does open the building up to be eligible for historic tax credits, which, in combination with both the Ohio historic preservation tax credit as well as the federal, can provide up to 45% credit on expenses in regards to the rehabilitation of the building,” Johnson says.

He says details of the development agreement with the city likely will be nalized by the end of Septem ber, but for now, the group is working with at least a three-year agenda and an initial, tentative $20 million budget. So far, the foundation has secured $200,000 in private funding and a pledged $1 million from the city. Foundation members also are considering hosting a celebrity bene t concert to launch a capital campaign.

Nominations for property in Ohio are processed by the State Historic Preservation O ce, which has already approved the King Records Foundation’s proposal. e National Park Service makes the nal decision.BethJohnson, executive director of the Cincinnati Preservation Association, anticipates a decision this month. In her previous position as urban conservator, Johnson worked with the department of community and economic development on basic stabilization work, making sure that any work done at the King Records site was historically appropriate.

SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022 | CITYBEAT.COM 21 for its participation and said that the promise to revital ize the King property must be led by the legacy.

“It’s imminent; we are in the very nal stages,” Ruther a rms. e King Records Legacy Foundation also expects to receive con rmation of the property’s addition to the National Register of Historic Places soon, which would present opportunities for grants. Knowing that Butts is committed to including every tangible King Records memory it can uncover, Dahan – the historian for the foundation – wrote a 61-page narrative of the business’s history, which was submitted with other supporting documents to the National Register of Historic Places.

Johnson linked the Ohio History Connection – a non-pro t that operates Ohio historic sites – with the King complex, the Legacy Foundation and the city. e Connection received an underrepresented community grant through the National Park Service, which was used in King Records applying for the Historic Registry, Johnson says. King t the bill due to neighborhood demographics as well as the label’s pre-Civil Rights integration and collaboration.

Butts says he’s in the process of selecting an archi tect for the King Records complex. e foundation also has engaged students from the University of Cincinna ti’s College of Design, Art, Architecture, and Planning. In 2019 eight groups of students produced eight di er ent designs for King Records site development. Butts says it’s possible that aspects from each will in uence the nal design. Butts, Ruther and other King Records Legacy Foun dation members say they’re planning to get Evanston residents’ input, as well, especially as the foundation considers meeting parking and neighborhood needs.

“Some individuals excited about the King thing with good intentions mistakenly act like the King legacy is theirs and living legacies get treated as an afterthought or a prop,” the letter declares. “Sometimes individuals take advantage of the situation to the expense of the actual King legacy – akin to a modern-day version of stealing songwriting credit.”

“ at grant is speci cally focused on making sure that we are getting resources for underrepresented communities listed onto the National Register and, in a way, trying to right a wrong in that very, very few places listed on the National Register are associated with underrepresented communities,” Johnson tells CityBeat e history of King Records speaks for itself, Johnson adds. If King is added to the National Register, grant and tax credit opportunities will multiply.

“At King, we are really at such a ground zero of getting started – not only what it is to have the shell of the buildings owned by the city, but also how to step through how we best move forward and how that can lead to an evolving relationship for the future,” Ruther says. “We are still guring out how to best embrace this culture and history that is ours.” Foundation members hope to reveal physical devel opment progress – or possibly even completion – by the end of 2025.

“It’s always hard for me to put this in a few words because it’s such a big thing – to explain all of the aspects of what music does,” he continues. “With this building, I want to highlight the importance of music as something that’s needed culturally. Music as a language.”

If all goes well, Butts says the project will honor King Records with a learning center that features interactive aspects, including a recording studio, performance space, rotating and permanent exhibitions and an abundant collection of historic artifacts.

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“But I wasn’t ready. I was thrilled to travel and see other places. We went everywhere; we even had a chance to go to Paris with him.” (While with Brown, the group did release one single on King and another on the King-a liated Federal label) Still, High primarily saw herself as a background singer. So when the archival James Brown’s Original Funky Divas came out in 1998, it was a surprise — maybe even a revelation — that the album ended with her duet with Brown on “Summertime.” e standout track had debuted on his 1977 ecologythemed Mutha’s Nature. e pair’s funk version of George Gershwin’s 1934 classic starts with Brown intoning, “You’re my beautiful sister and I love you.” High replies, “I’ve been with you a long time and you’ve seen me grow up and become who I am.” e vocals that follow are tremendously moving.

PHOTO: ROPEADOPE RECORDS

“He was a hard man to work for,” High explains. “Shoes had to be shined, nails had to be right, your hair, everything. We found ourselves dressing the way he wanted us. As ladies, we couldn’t wear jeans on the show. But that didn’t bother me because I felt I was on a higher level now that I’m with James Brown.”

Brown’s control even extended to telling her to change her surname to High (it previously was Harvin). And while she had not been a lead vocalist with the Jewels, Brown said he wanted her to take the female lead for him occasionally.

SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022 | CITYBEAT.COM 23

hould there come a time in the not-too-distant future when Cincinnati’s King Records studio has been restored as a historic site, Martha High wants to be at the opening ceremony. “All you have to do is make a call and I’ll come running,” she tells CityBeat during a Zoom interview from her ancé’s home in the Netherlands. You may be thinking, “ at’s nice, but who is she?” at’s understandable. Although High was born in Virginia and raised in Washington, D.C., she’s better known in Europe than the United States But High is perhaps the strongest active link to the Original Funky Divas associated with James Brown, arguably King’s most successful recording artist. ese women performed as lead vocalists, background singers or both during Brown’s exciting stage shows, which also featured superb performances from the band and Brown’s own virtuosic singing and dancing. High joined Brown’s retinue in 1966 and stayed with him for 32 years, with only a few breaks. eir work together included Brown’s massive hits for King, his funk classics on the Polydor label and his nal hits on Scotti Brothers Records, including “Living in BrownAmerica.”diedin 2006 at age 73. After his death, High sang lead female vocals for the touring Original James Brown Band and performed with Brown’s saxophonist Maceo Parker before starting a career in Europe as a headlining singer rooted in soul and funk. She’s still going strong at age 77. One thing that might help her American pro le is the Sept. 2 U.S. release of Soul Brother Where Art ou? Vol. 2 on the Ropeadope label. High is the credited artist and sings lead on super-hot versions of seven Brown songs, accompanied by stalwarts and standouts from his band with background vocals from the Bittersweets. Selections include “It’s Too Funky in Here,” “ ere It Is,” “Prisoner of Love” and “Get It GregTogether.”Hesterproduced these and other tracks shortly after Brown’s death and released the rst volume of Soul Brother Where Art ou under his own name in 2015. High did not sing on the earlier album. High views Soul Brother Where Art ou? Vol. 2 as her tribute to a great artist. “I feel that Mr. Brown was like a father to me,” she says. “A father, brother, friend, mentor and my boss. He created music that can never beHighforgotten.”became a professional singer in the early 1960s, when she joined the Jewels, a Washington, D.C.-based “girl group” of the day. Recording for Dimension Records, which had been created to showcase songs written by Carole King and Gerry Go n, the Jewels had a regional hit in 1964 with a song by other writers, “Opportunity.” Touring behind the record, the group met Brown and signed up as singers in his touring show. Brown had a reputation for being a very bossy boss — a taskmaster who could micromanage the singers and players working for him.

“A little after that was when the other girls from the Jewels decided they wanted to go home,” High says.

High recalls that around the time of the recording, she also traveled with Brown as a hairstylist; he wanted one with him at all times, even in the studio when recording “Summertime.” High mimics Brown’s gravelly voice when explaining the duet’s origins. “‘Come into the booth; I want you to do the song with me.’ I said, ‘Mr. Brown, I don’t know “Summertime.’” He says, ‘Everybody knows “Summertime.” Come on.’ And we did the song — I was not expecting that.” High moved to France in 2004 and lived there for much of the aughts. Eventually, she moved back to the United States to take care of her parents, who are now deceased. But then she moved to Spain in 2017 to resume work in Europe. She came back to Augusta, Georgia, when the pandemic stopped the touring business, but she’s been busy again now that tours have resumed. Next year, once she marries a Dutch man she rst met during her years with Brown, she’ll settle into their home outside Amsterdam. It will be her third marriage; she has a daughter and two sons areHighdeceased.isfullof energy and excitement about her future, personally and professionally. She hopes it includes a U.S. tour as a headliner with a band of Brown alumni. “I really hope so,” she says. “I’m praying that I will get the chance to tour in the States and perform with some of the original guys who know Mr. Brown’s music. “I don’t want his music to ever not be known. I would like the people to know the history of Mr. Brown and where he came from. It was what I was raised up with. I have my own style, and pray to God I was able to nd my own way and my own sound, but I still love to do Mr. Brown’s music.”

Purchase Martha High’s Soul Brother Where Art Thou? Vol. 2 and watch for upcoming tour dates at ropeadope.com.

Martha High worked with James Brown on many hits for King Records in Cincinnati.

Singer Martha High Keeps Alive the Legacy of James Brown and SBYKingCincinnati’sRecordsSTEVENROSEN

24 CITYBEAT.COM | SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022

SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022 | CITYBEAT.COM 25

26 CITYBEAT.COM | SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022

Recycling Reimagined e Cincinnati Recycling & Reuse Hub aims to revolutionize how locals approach — and participate in — waste reduction.

“ at was a weird one that I didn’t know about,” McSwiggin says. “We were literally open for a week and one of our volunteers had come in and said, hey, can you start collecting these for me? And we’re like, OK, what’s that for? He’s a caver — a spelunker — and they have, like, little stashes throughout cave sys tems of emergency food… ey’ll take a handful of silica packets, throw it in with this emergency stash and have little emergency backups if the water rises and they can’t get out or somebody gets hurt and they can’t get out.”

e Cincinnati Recycling & Reuse Hub aims to revolutionize how locals approach — and participate in — waste reduction.

The Hub recycles many types of materials.

PHOTOS: PROVIDED BY THE HUB

BY MAIJA ZUMMO E very American can most likely recite the “3Rs” of recycling: “Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.” It’s a ubiquitous slogan, accompanied by a now-universal logo — three arrows pointing at each other in a cyclical triangle, a ouroboros of waste reduction — and one that acts as a set of guiding principles for the environmentalism movement that grew out of the 1960s and ’70s (the Environmental Protection Agency was founded in 1970). e call to embrace all three, as well as to increase consumer education, is reaching a fever pitch as scientists around the world warn of the growing impacts of climate change and humanity’s role in it.

SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022 | CITYBEAT.COM 27

Items can be dropped o for reuse

ARTS & CULTURE

“ at was a weird one that I didn’t know about,” McSwiggin says. “We were literally open for a week and one of our volunteers had come in and said, hey, can you start collecting these for me? And we’re like, OK, what’s that for? He’s a caver — a spelunker — and they have, like, little stashes throughout cave sys tems of emergency food… ey’ll take a handful of silica packets, throw it in with this emergency stash and have little emergency backups if the water rises and they can’t get out or somebody gets hurt and they can’t get out.”

ARTS & CULTURE

Many things can be recycled for free, but some items, including electron ics, e-media (DVD CDs, VHS, cassette tapes), light bulbs, tires, batteries, cell phones, smoke detectors and bike helmets cost a fee to recycle because they have to be sent to speci c facilities.

Many things can be recycled for free, but some items, including electron ics, e-media (DVD CDs, VHS, cassette tapes), light bulbs, tires, batteries, cell phones, smoke detectors and bike helmets cost a fee to recycle because they have to be sent to speci c facilities. e recycling fee for each item is based on what the Hub’s partners charge. Cur rently, smaller items like batteries cost about $2 per pound to recycle, while larger electronics like TVs cost up to $35.

BY MAIJA ZUMMO E very American can most likely recite the “3Rs” of recycling: “Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.” It’s a ubiquitous slogan, accompanied by a now-universal logo — three arrows pointing at each other in a cyclical triangle, a ouroboros of waste reduction — and one that acts as a set of guiding principles for the environmentalism movement that grew out of the 1960s and ’70s (the Environmental Protection Agency was founded in 1970). e call to embrace all three, as well as to increase consumer education, is reaching a fever pitch as scientists around the world warn of the growing impacts of climate change and humanity’s role in it. Locally, the Cincinnati Recycling & Reuse Hub — colloquially known as “the Hub” — aims to help mitigate the e ects of climate change, with a mission to “revolutionize how people think about ‘things’ and to provide a place where almost anything can be recycled or reused,” according to their website. “ ere are so many things tied to consumption that people need to have a better understanding of,” says the Hub’s managing director Colleen McSwiggin. McSwiggin is a microbiologist and a former chemistry lab manager at Mount St. Joseph University. She was also a member of the sustainability committee at the school and headed up multiple recycling initiatives there and in the community. She founded the Hub last year with Carrie Harms, one of the originators of ZeroLand ll Cincin nati, a reuse center dedicated to design and architecture samples, which was absorbed into the new e ort. ere are now more than a dozen board members who help oversee the nonpro t. e idea for the Hub grew out of the obvious need for a permanent center McSwiggin saw during the community electronics recycling events she hosted, particularly one in Oak Hills. “We had 764 cars through the line in two and a half hours. We lled ve semis, and I still had 150 people in line that I had to say, you know, we can’t take your stu ,” she says. “ at was where I had the idea of, we need a permanent place, where if we have too much stu coming in, we’ve got a place to put it until a truck can come back and get it.” e Hub opened its doors at 911 Evans St. in Price Hill on April 1 of last year. Since then, McSwiggin says they have helped divert 133 tons of waste from land“Wells.[diverted] 65 tons of electronics, seven semi loads of Styrofoam, three tons of batteries and light bulbs, 17 tons of plastic that couldn’t go to Rumpke recycling,” she says. “[We’ve had] 16 tons of things that have been taken for reuse. at includes plants, pots, some Styrofoam…and that includes shoes. e ZeroLand ll is a separate total. And I know that we had over 18 tons of just that — the tile and fabric samples and all that kind of stu — go out. So it’s been a lot.”When the Hub says they can reuse or recycle almost anything, they mean it. But McSwiggin says residents should always start by recycling anything they can with Rumpke, which provides most curbside services in the area. en they can look to the Hub, which accepts everything from plastics, pack aging materials and Styrofoam to items you never thought could be recycled, including corks, contact lens packaging, glue sticks, empty toothpaste tubes, Brita water lters, scissors, dried-up markers, shing line, used Swi er pads and even silica packets — those little white desic cant envelopes that come in various packaging with the warning “do not eat.”

Locally, the Cincinnati Recycling & Reuse Hub — colloquially known as “the Hub” — aims to help mitigate the e ects of climate change, with a mission to “revolutionize how people think about ‘things’ and to provide a place where almost anything can be recycled or reused,” according to their website. “ ere are so many things tied to consumption that people need to have a better understanding of,” says the Hub’s managing director Colleen McSwiggin. McSwiggin is a microbiologist and a former chemistry lab manager at Mount St. Joseph University. She was also a member of the sustainability committee at the school and headed up multiple recycling initiatives there and in the community. She founded the Hub last year with Carrie Harms, one of the originators of ZeroLand ll Cincin nati, a reuse center dedicated to design and architecture samples, which was absorbed into the new e ort. ere are now more than a dozen board members who help oversee the nonpro t. e idea for the Hub grew out of the obvious need for a permanent center McSwiggin saw during the community electronics recycling events she hosted, particularly one in Oak Hills. “We had 764 cars through the line in two and a half hours. We lled ve semis, and I still had 150 people in line that I had to say, you know, we can’t take your stu ,” she says. “ at was where I had the idea of, we need a permanent place, where if we have too much stu coming in, we’ve got a place to put it until a truck can come back and get it.” e Hub opened its doors at 911 Evans St. in Price Hill on April 1 of last year. Since then, McSwiggin says they have helped divert 133 tons of waste from land“Wells.[diverted] 65 tons of electronics, seven semi loads of Styrofoam, three tons of batteries and light bulbs, 17 tons of plastic that couldn’t go to Rumpke recycling,” she says. “[We’ve had] 16 tons of things that have been taken for reuse. at includes plants, pots, some Styrofoam…and that includes shoes. e ZeroLand ll is a separate total. And I know that we had over 18 tons of just that — the tile and fabric samples and all that kind of stu — go out. So it’s been a lot.”When the Hub says they can reuse or recycle almost anything, they mean it. But McSwiggin says residents should always start by recycling anything they can with Rumpke, which provides most curbside services in the area. en they can look to the Hub, which accepts everything from plastics, pack aging materials and Styrofoam to items you never thought could be recycled, including corks, contact lens packaging, glue sticks, empty toothpaste tubes, Brita water lters, scissors, dried-up markers, shing line, used Swi er pads and even silica packets — those little white desic cant envelopes that come in various packaging with the warning “do not eat.”

e recycling fee for each item is based on what the Hub’s partners charge. Cur rently, smaller items like batteries cost about $2 per pound to recycle, while larger electronics like TVs cost up to $35. Items can be dropped o for reuse

Recycling Reimagined

28 CITYBEAT.COM | SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022

e Cincinnati Recycling & Reuse Hub is located at 911 Evans St., Price Hill. cincinnatirecyclingandreusehub.org.Info:

e United Nations [climate change report] basically said 2030 is the makeor-break point. And by make-or-break point, we don’t mean that there’s going to be an apocalypse in 2030; we mean that the systems of the earth will be broken,” she says. “We are trying to do everything that we can to reduce the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, and it needs to be done in numerous di erent ways. e way that we’re taking care of is by making sure that we don’t have to get new mate rials to make new things and to make people realize that what they have, when they throw something away, it doesn’t go away – it’s got to go somewhere. ere needs to be something done with it so it’s not sitting in a land ll. If we can recycle that, the chances are that the resources going into recycling that are much less than what was needed to create a new item in the rst place. But we’re really kind of a stopgap solution.” McSwiggin says the idea is to get people aware of all the resources that go into getting products to them, mention ing how even just recycling cell phones could cut down on the need for coltan mining (a mineral used in smartphones) in the Democratic Republic of Congo, decreasing the loss of gorilla habitat and the exploitation of workers. “We want people to consider what they’re buying,” she says. “And what went into that to get it to them. Was it some thing that had to be made halfway across the world before it was shipped to them? Is it something that they really need? Or is it something that they just want?”

e Hub received a $25,000 grant earlier this year from State Farm to help them expand their mission — and reach — beyond the Price Hill center. e mon ies will go toward building partnerships with local schools and businesses across the area to create new recycling collec tion“Wepoints.want to have collection sites at literally every school, restaurants [and] businesses to collect the things that are in their waste stream, that could be recycled, that don’t have to go to the land ll,” McSwiggin says. “And then we would pick it up.” e Hub already has collection agree ments with schools including Seven Hills, Forest Hills and Wyoming High School, as well as senior living com munities including Ohio Living Llanfair and Maple Knoll Village, and a marine storage business. ere’s even a condo association in College Hill that wrote a grant to create their own Hub collection site.And that’s an e ort McSwiggin sees playing out across communities. “A lot of people have sort of taken it on themselves to be their neighborhood’s point person already,” she says. “ ere are people who say, hey, if you’ve got stu , bring it to my garage, put it there and I’ll take it all down.” “So many people see the world is so disposable and I think the Hub is a per fect example of if people know that there are ways to do this, they will come — it’s kind of like Field of Dreams,” McSwiggin says. “I cannot tell you how many people have walked through and when they see oh, my gosh, you can take such-andsuch, and, oh my gosh, you can take that. Yes, and that’s why we’re here, because we want people to realize that it doesn’t just have to go to the land ll.” e Hub is hosting a fundraiser called HUB-toberfest 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Sept. 18. It will be held at the warehouse and will include tours, food trucks, beer, a DJ, a silent auction and crafts. e suggested donation amount is $5. e event is part of the Hub’s fund drive, which runs through Oct. 22.

“Our mantra is ‘everything has to be clean and dry,’” McSwiggin says. e Hub then sends items out to vari ous partners. McSwiggin — who also dons the moniker “recycler in chief” — is somewhat of a waste whisperer when it comes to nding homes for hard-torecycle items. For example, school sup plies go to Crayons to Computers, shoes go to Soles4Souls, denim goes to Blue Jeans Go Green, functional eyeglasses go to the Lions Club and those that don’t work go to Luxottica and LensCrafters to be shredded and turned into new glasses.eHub also works with TerraCycle and two outlets in Indiana, one that takes plastics and Styrofoam that can’t be recycled through Rumpke and one that takes packaging like bubble wrap and air pillows. e domestic recycling options are new and fast-growing, McSwiggin says.

Previously, much of America’s waste and recycling would have been shipped overseas, until “China nally closed the doors in 2018 and kind of said, we’re not taking the world’s trash anymore,” she says. “ at was when technology really started ramping up here in the United States.”Allof that adds up to the forward momentum the Hub is pushing for, especially, as McSwiggin says, “we’re running down that clock on climate change.”“Oneof the biggest issues — and we try not to get into it too much, unfortu nately, because it is a political matter at this point, or at least some people make it out to be — [is] we are really all concerned that climate change is going to a ect the earth and not for the better.

SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022 | CITYBEAT.COM 29 or recycling when the Hub is open. Patrons enter through the downstairs “mini Hub” and can sort their items into labeled bins.

30 CITYBEAT.COM | SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022

BY RICK PENDER

“ It’s time we get back to thriving,” according to D. Lynn Meyers, pro ducing artistic director at Ensemble eatre Cincinnati (ETC). “ e 20222023 season is about thriving after we have spent so long trying to survive. So much has changed for all of us over the past two years that I feel we need these shows to demonstrate our ability and tenacity to move forward. Each of these plays brings to life essential stories for this essential time.”

e balance of ETC’s season:

The Dancing Princesses (Nov. 30-Dec. 30) A reprise of ETC’s 2017 holiday musical by playwright Joseph McDonough and composer David Kisor. It’s a whimsical adaptation of the story about a kingdom where an overprotective king struggles to keep his ve daughters away from worldly temptations. Despite his e orts, the princesses’ shoes are worn to tatters each morning.

Who All Over There? (April 8-30, 2023) By local actress and director Torie Wig gins is a newly commissioned script getting its world premiere by ETC. It’s an updated remix of the acclaimed 1967 lm Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner that explores the dynamics of a potential interracial relationship between Dean, a young professional and Danya, an aspiring singer. It asks and answers the question as to whether love can be truly colorblind.

Maytag Virgin (May 27-June 18, 2023) Audrey Cefaly’s Maytag Virgin nishes ETC’s 2022-2023 season with one more regional premiere. (Her play e Last Wide Open was produced by the Cin cinnati Playhouse in the Park in early 2019). It’s a classic southern love story about what happens when un appable Jack moves in next door to Lizzy, who’s endearingly neurotic. Neighborly nag ging causes sparks to y between the two high school teachers as they ask themselves if they’re ready to live and loveEnsembleagain.

Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati’s New Season Opens With Thought-Provoking Drama

eatre Cincinnati’s 2022-23 season opens with Sweat, Sept. 17Oct. 9. 1127 Vine St., Over-the-Rhine. Info: ensemblecincinnati.org.

ETC’s 37th season features a Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, a Tony-nominated comedy, a witty and honest story of connection, and the world premiere dramedy of a reimagined classic. For the holidays, the Over-the-Rhine theater brings back one of its popular fairytale holidayETC’smusicals.seasonopens with the 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Sweat (Sept. 17-Oct. 9), by Lynn Nottage. It’s a socially conscious drama set in a working-class bar where factory layo s and picket lines are tearing apart friends and colleagues who’ve worked together for years. e show was commissioned by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2017, had a successful run at New York’s Public eater and then transferred to Broadway. is production is the play’s regional premiere, continuing ETC’s long tradition of debuting important theatrical works. Previously, ETC staged Nottage’s 2003 drama, Intimate Apparel, in 2005. at work was converted into an opera workshopped by Cincinnati Opera and recently staged at New York City’s LincolnNottageCenter.researched the play by spending more than two years in Read ing, Pennsylvania, talking to workers and others a ected by economic and employment anxieties. Her script por trays blue-collar men and women who have been drinking, celebrating and working together for generations in a manufacturing facility, as well as hang ing out in a local bar. eir friendships erode as their union can’t protect them, and they begin to mistrust one another. eir sometimes tragic stories are told with both wit and deep feeling as they turn against one another. e Public eater’s production of Sweat toured to 18 communities in the Upper Midwest in the fall of 2018, locales where the 2016 presidential election was closely contested. (Donald Trump won 14 of the longtime blue-collar strong holds). In a news release promoting the tour, which included a stop in Ravenna, Ohio — where nearby employers Gen eral Electric and Goodyear relocated manufacturing operations to Mexico in the early 2000s — Nottage said, “We saw a real need out there for dialogue. People are su ering in isolation, and there’s a lot of frustration. In theater we can build community very quickly and provide an outlet for people to release their emo tions.” at was the motive for taking the show to a ected communities, and it’s surely Meyers’s rationale for producing the show as ETC’s season opener. e balance of ETC’s season: The Dancing Princesses (Nov. 30-Dec. 30) A reprise of ETC’s 2017 holiday musical by playwright Joseph McDonough and composer David Kisor. It’s a whimsical adaptation of the story about a kingdom where an overprotective king struggles to keep his ve daughters away from worldly temptations. Despite his e orts, the princesses’ shoes are worn to tatters each morning.

Grand Horizons (Jan. 14-Feb. 5, 2023) e regional premiere of Bess Wohl’s comedy about a couple who decide to divorce after 50 years of marriage. ey’re ready to move ahead, but their adult sons don’t take it well Morning Sun (Feb. 25-March 19, 2023) e regional premiere of a new script by Simon Stephens, recent Tony Award winner for e Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. is is the rst production of the show after its New York debut in 2021. Set in Greenwich Village at the White Horse Tavern a generation or so ago, it’s a half-century overview of one woman’s life, revealed with complexity, mystery and possibility.

Thought-Provoking Drama BY RICK PENDER

Grand Horizons (Jan. 14-Feb. 5, 2023) e regional premiere of Bess Wohl’s comedy about a couple who decide to divorce after 50 years of marriage. ey’re ready to move ahead, but their adult sons don’t take it well Morning Sun (Feb. 25-March 19, 2023) e regional premiere of a new script by Simon Stephens, recent Tony Award winner for e Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. is is the rst production of the show after its New York debut in 2021. Set in Greenwich Village at the White Horse Tavern a generation or so ago, it’s a half-century overview of one woman’s life, revealed with complexity, mystery and possibility.

“ It’s time we get back to thriving,” according to D. Lynn Meyers, pro ducing artistic director at Ensemble eatre Cincinnati (ETC). “ e 20222023 season is about thriving after we have spent so long trying to survive. So much has changed for all of us over the past two years that I feel we need these shows to demonstrate our ability and tenacity to move forward. Each of these plays brings to life essential stories for this essential time.” ETC’s 37th season features a Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, a Tony-nominated comedy, a witty and honest story of connection, and the world premiere dramedy of a reimagined classic. For the holidays, the Over-the-Rhine theater brings back one of its popular fairytale holidayETC’smusicals.seasonopens with the 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Sweat (Sept. 17-Oct. 9), by Lynn Nottage. It’s a socially conscious drama set in a working-class bar where factory layo s and picket lines are tearing apart friends and colleagues who’ve worked together for years. e show was commissioned by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2017, had a successful run at New York’s Public eater and then transferred to Broadway. is production is the play’s regional premiere, continuing ETC’s long tradition of debuting important theatrical works. Previously, ETC staged Nottage’s 2003 drama, Intimate Apparel, in 2005. at work was converted into an opera workshopped by Cincinnati Opera and recently staged at New York City’s LincolnNottageCenter.researched the play by spending more than two years in Read ing, Pennsylvania, talking to workers and others a ected by economic and employment anxieties. Her script por trays blue-collar men and women who have been drinking, celebrating and working together for generations in a manufacturing facility, as well as hang ing out in a local bar. eir friendships erode as their union can’t protect them, and they begin to mistrust one another. eir sometimes tragic stories are told with both wit and deep feeling as they turn against one another. e Public eater’s production of Sweat toured to 18 communities in the Upper Midwest in the fall of 2018, locales where the 2016 presidential election was closely contested. (Donald Trump won 14 of the longtime blue-collar strong holds). In a news release promoting the tour, which included a stop in Ravenna, Ohio — where nearby employers Gen eral Electric and Goodyear relocated manufacturing operations to Mexico in the early 2000s — Nottage said, “We saw a real need out there for dialogue. People are su ering in isolation, and there’s a lot of frustration. In theater we can build community very quickly and provide an outlet for people to release their emo tions.” at was the motive for taking the show to a ected communities, and it’s surely Meyers’s rationale for producing the show as ETC’s season opener.

CULTURE

PHOTO:RYAN KURTZ

Who All Over There? (April 8-30, 2023) By local actress and director Torie Wig gins is a newly commissioned script getting its world premiere by ETC. It’s an updated remix of the acclaimed 1967 lm Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner that explores the dynamics of a potential interracial relationship between Dean, a young professional and Danya, an aspiring singer. It asks and answers the question as to whether love can be truly colorblind.

SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022 | CITYBEAT.COM 31 CULTURE

Audrey Cefaly’s Maytag Virgin nishes ETC’s 2022-2023 season with one more regional premiere. (Her play e Last Wide Open was produced by the Cin cinnati Playhouse in the Park in early 2019). It’s a classic southern love story about what happens when un appable Jack moves in next door to Lizzy, who’s endearingly neurotic. Neighborly nag ging causes sparks to y between the two high school teachers as they ask themselves if they’re ready to live and loveEnsembleagain. eatre Cincinnati’s 2022-23 season opens with Sweat, Sept. 17Oct. 9. 1127 Vine St., Over-the-Rhine. Info: ensemblecincinnati.org. An overprotective king struggles to keep his ve daughters away from temptation in The Dancing Princesses.

PHOTO:RYAN KURTZ

Maytag Virgin (May 27-June 18, 2023)

Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati’s New Season Opens With

An overprotective king struggles to keep his ve daughters away from temptation in The Dancing Princesses.

32 CITYBEAT.COM | SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022

34 CITYBEAT.COM | SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022

The current creative forces behind From the Sidewalk are (from left) owner Nick Nguyen and collaborators Mike Giddens and Nigel Agboh.

BY KATIE GRIFFITH

The current creative forces behind From the Sidewalk are (from left) owner Nick Nguyen and collaborators Mike Giddens and Nigel Agboh.

“What’s unique about our space as opposed to most other sneaker resale stores is you don’t necessarily invite the vintage community into this type of space,” Agboh says. “It’s typically whatever is hype, right? Supreme, O -White, those are the things that are driven by the mainstream kind of fashion streetwear culture. But at its root, this is where all that stu began, from vintage designs. If you look at some things on the vintage rack and compare it to some of the hype stu , it’s almost carbon copy at a certain point.” Business has been good in From the Sidewalk’s rst two months. Giddens says customers often are eager to learn what shoes are coming in next.

Nguyen, a third-year nance student at the University of Cincinnati, grew up in Vietnam. His passion for sneakers dates back to the pairs he saved his allowance to buy as a teenager.

e trio looks forward to giving back to the community and bringing in new collaborators. A recent back-to-school charity event gathered school supplies and shoe donations, and Agboh donated 10% of his t-shirt series that features dogs to local animal shelter Cincinnati Animal CARE. “I think that individually, we all have a calling or a social responsibility to give back to the community in which we occupy,” Agboh says. “ is type of business is so creative and we can pivot in so many di erent ways – especially as we look at the community in OTR, the demographic that is coming to frequent our shop – and understand the needs of our community.”

Suddenly, each man receives a winning“Gotmessage.‘em.Got ‘em!” Giddens says. He holds his phone aloft, beaming as he displays the noti cation. “ is, everybody screenshots this and posts it on their Instagram story, exin’, showin’ o that they got the shoe that came out today,” Giddens says. is is sneaker culture at its most dedicated. e subculture once driven by hip-hop, basketball and street style is now devoured by the masses, and individuals like Nguyen, Agboh and Giddens have become tastemakers.

“It really rocked my world,” Giddens says. “I had basically dumped all my savings into my business, so when I got hit it wasn’t just my livelihood, it was everything I had.”

PHOTO: KATIE GRIFFITH

I

From the Sidewalk, 1212 Main St., Over-the-Rhine. Info: thesidewalkshop.com.

Nguyen regards Giddens a mentor in the shoe resale world. Giddens owns Heart and Sole, a popular local resale source that he rst operated from his home and then a storage unit as the business grew. But someone broke into the unit, Giddens says, stealing $100,000 worth of merchandise and as many as 400 pairs of shoes. “It really rocked my world,” Giddens says. “I had basically dumped all my savings into my business, so when I got hit it wasn’t just my livelihood, it was everything I had.” at’s when Giddens and Nguyen teamed up. Initially, Nguyen thought the reality of being a “pure sneakerhead” didn’t mesh with the resale world, but after being laid o during the COVID-19 pandemic, he was inspired to try something new. After “ ipping” his rst pair of shoes, he saw the pro t margin and was sold on the “Whatbusiness.wesell are limited products, which are either sold out instantly after seconds on the drop day or something that people just can’t get their hands on,” Nguyen says. “So we buy the limited or sold-out products and we ip it for a pro t.” Jet Black Vintage, the pop-up that Agboh hosts at From the Sidewalk, specializes in vintage clothing. What started as his personal collection now is his full-time business. He hosts pop-up markets weekly around Cincinnati and also o ers monthly custom subscription boxes.

CULTURE

Nguyen, a third-year nance student at the University of Cincinnati, grew up in Vietnam. His passion for sneakers dates back to the pairs he saved his allowance to buy as a teenager. “I grew up a city kid, so there’s always some sort of gra ti, deejaying or breakdancing somewhere around the neighborhood,” he says. “I grew up playing basketball too. And sneakers just tie in with everything. You have to be fresh all the time, that’s a culture code. When you step out, you have to come correct.” Nguyen has built quick-draw pop-up sales into his business model to help sustain that freshness. Before From the Sidewalk opened its storefront in July, the brand had been a successful online operation. Currently, Agboh and Giddens ll two pop-up slots, but the trio may consider a more permanent partnership if business remains good. Even with his new OTR shop, though, Nguyen says From the Sidewalk will continue to o er pop-up opportunities.

“At 10 o’clock a few mornings a week, basically you get on the app and wait and pray you win the shoe,” Giddens says. “ ere’s 100,000 people on this app right now doing the same thing we are, putting in their money like, ‘Here’s my money, take it, I want this shoe.’ And then in about six, seven minutes, we are more than likely all going to get a noti cation that says, ‘Sorry, you didn’t get it.’”

From the Sidewalk Is OTR’s New Sneakerhead Paradise

It’s an exciting time of day for a sneakerhead — aka a collector or brand and style historian dedicated to the hype and the hustle. e Nike SNKRS app is about to drop its latest must-have shoe, with thousands vying to win one of a handful of spots in the lottery-style drawing.And,yes, the From the Sidewalk crew is among them. “At 10 o’clock a few mornings a week, basically you get on the app and wait and pray you win the shoe,” Giddens says. “ ere’s 100,000 people on this app right now doing the same thing we are, putting in their money like, ‘Here’s my money, take it, I want this shoe.’ And then in about six, seven minutes, we are more than likely all going to get a noti cation that says, ‘Sorry, you didn’t get it.’” Agboh thumbs his phone to refresh the page, noting that these designs typically have a high resale value. Today’s prize is the Nike SB Dunk “Phillies,” a light blue shoe with a burgundy swoosh, colors reminiscent of Philadelphia’s Major League Baseball uniforms in the ’80s.

“ is, everybody screenshots this and posts it on their Instagram story, exin’, showin’ o that they got the shoe that came out today,” Giddens says. is is sneaker culture at its most dedicated. e subculture once driven by hip-hop, basketball and street style is now devoured by the masses, and individuals like Nguyen, Agboh and Giddens have become tastemakers.

PHOTO: KATIE GRIFFITH

at’s when Giddens and Nguyen teamed up. Initially, Nguyen thought the reality of being a “pure sneakerhead” didn’t mesh with the resale world, but after being laid o during the COVID-19 pandemic, he was inspired to try something new. After “ ipping” his rst pair of shoes, he saw the pro t margin and was sold on the “Whatbusiness.wesell are limited products, which are either sold out instantly after seconds on the drop day or something that people just can’t get their hands on,” Nguyen says. “So we buy the limited or sold-out products and we ip it for a pro t.”

From the Sidewalk, 1212 Main St., Over-the-Rhine. Info: thesidewalkshop.com.

“What’s unique about our space as opposed to most other sneaker resale stores is you don’t necessarily invite the vintage community into this type of space,” Agboh says. “It’s typically whatever is hype, right? Supreme, O -White, those are the things that are driven by the mainstream kind of fashion streetwear culture. But at its root, this is where all that stu began, from vintage designs. If you look at some things on the vintage rack and compare it to some of the hype stu , it’s almost carbon copy at a certain point.” Business has been good in From the Sidewalk’s rst two months. Giddens says customers often are eager to learn what shoes are coming in next. e trio looks forward to giving back to the community and bringing in new collaborators. A recent back-to-school charity event gathered school supplies and shoe donations, and Agboh donated 10% of his t-shirt series that features dogs to local animal shelter Cincinnati Animal CARE. “I think that individually, we all have a calling or a social responsibility to give back to the community in which we occupy,” Agboh says. “ is type of business is so creative and we can pivot in so many di erent ways – especially as we look at the community in OTR, the demographic that is coming to frequent our shop – and understand the needs of our community.”

Suddenly, each man receives a winning“Gotmessage.‘em.Got ‘em!” Giddens says. He holds his phone aloft, beaming as he displays the noti cation.

From the Sidewalk Is OTR’s New Sneakerhead Paradise

I t’s nearly 10 a.m. inside one of Over-the-Rhine’s newest shops – a sneaker resale and clothing store, creative hub and popup space called From the Sidewalk. Owner Nick Nguyen sits with his collaborators Nigel Agboh and Mike Giddens under a neon sign that throws a cool green glow over the corner of the room. A rack of vintage clothes in the opposite corner catches some of the light, while rows and rows of rare shoes line the walls. It’s an exciting time of day for a sneakerhead — aka a collector or brand and style historian dedicated to the hype and the hustle. e Nike SNKRS app is about to drop its latest must-have shoe, with thousands vying to win one of a handful of spots in the lottery-style drawing.And,yes, the From the Sidewalk crew is among them.

Jet Black Vintage, the pop-up that Agboh hosts at From the Sidewalk, specializes in vintage clothing. What started as his personal collection now is his full-time business. He hosts pop-up markets weekly around Cincinnati and also o ers monthly custom subscription boxes.

“I grew up a city kid, so there’s always some sort of gra ti, deejaying or breakdancing somewhere around the neighborhood,” he says. “I grew up playing basketball too. And sneakers just tie in with everything. You have to be fresh all the time, that’s a culture code. When you step out, you have to come correct.” Nguyen has built quick-draw pop-up sales into his business model to help sustain that freshness. Before From the Sidewalk opened its storefront in July, the brand had been a successful online operation. Currently, Agboh and Giddens ll two pop-up slots, but the trio may consider a more permanent partnership if business remains good. Even with his new OTR shop, though, Nguyen says From the Sidewalk will continue to o er pop-up opportunities.

BY KATIE GRIFFITH

Agboh thumbs his phone to refresh the page, noting that these designs typically have a high resale value. Today’s prize is the Nike SB Dunk “Phillies,” a light blue shoe with a burgundy swoosh, colors reminiscent of Philadelphia’s Major League Baseball uniforms in the ’80s.

SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022 | CITYBEAT.COM 35 CULTURE

t’s nearly 10 a.m. inside one of Over-the-Rhine’s newest shops – a sneaker resale and clothing store, creative hub and popup space called From the Sidewalk. Owner Nick Nguyen sits with his collaborators Nigel Agboh and Mike Giddens under a neon sign that throws a cool green glow over the corner of the room. A rack of vintage clothes in the opposite corner catches some of the light, while rows and rows of rare shoes line the walls.

Nguyen regards Giddens a mentor in the shoe resale world. Giddens owns Heart and Sole, a popular local resale source that he rst operated from his home and then a storage unit as the business grew. But someone broke into the unit, Giddens says, stealing $100,000 worth of merchandise and as many as 400 pairs of shoes.

36 CITYBEAT.COM | SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022

SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022 | CITYBEAT.COM 37

38 CITYBEAT.COM | SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022

As of the opening date, the bakery o ers an assortment of pastries — think seasonal fruit tarts, croissants and other elevated fare — and for bread, there’s cardamom and apricot bread made with khorason ancient grain our, pain de Campagne (French sourdough), schiacciata (Tuscan atbread similar to focaccia) made with Yocora Rojo our, whole wheat “Super Seed” loaves and spelt-made baguettes and pretzels. e menu rotates because, as Morgan puts it, El Camino gives him the chance to make bread that he wants to bake, not what his wholesale clientele requests.

College Hill’s El Camino Baking Co. is serving up ‘real’ bread and pastries to the hungry masses.

Fresh bread is in high demand at El Camino and runs out quickly, so if you plan to buy a loaf, be sure and arrive early.

FOOD & DRINK

FOOD & DRINK

As of the opening date, the bakery o ers an assortment of pastries — think seasonal fruit tarts, croissants and other elevated fare — and for bread, there’s cardamom and apricot bread made with khorason ancient grain our, pain de Campagne (French sourdough), schiacciata (Tuscan atbread similar to focaccia) made with Yocora Rojo our, whole wheat “Super Seed” loaves and spelt-made baguettes and pretzels. e menu rotates because, as Morgan puts it, El Camino gives him the chance to make bread that he wants to bake, not what his wholesale clientele requests.

Morgan isn’t sure how he’s going to transition to direct customer interaction — the baker is well known for his congenially blunt way of communicating which, some might argue, translates incredibly well into the no-nonsense way he bakes. “I’m gonna get canceled before this is all over,” he says between laughs. “ ey’re gonna be like, ‘this fuckin’ guy is mean!’”Aslong as the quality of his baked goods continue to maintain their level of excellence, it shouldn’t be a problem. At the end of the day, don’t we all want a great loaf of bread more than a simpering baker?

To those familiar with College Hill’s dining scene, El Camino operates out of the building formerly occupied by Red Rose Jems Pizzeria. El Camino serves co ee along with all of its carbo-centric o erings and the shop is set to add pizza to the menu in the near future, once they build out the rest of their building, which will include a dining room. e bakery has yet to set a date for the launching of its pizza menu. “It’ll be Neapolitan, for sure,” Morgan says of the pizza style he’s going to approach. “I don’t think it’s going to be better than St. Francis [Apizza], but it’ll be very di Neapolitanerent.”pizza is typi ed by its simple ingredients and airy, thin crust — not an unusual choice for a baker whose fermented pizza dough is meant to be the highlight of the dish.

Morgan’s bread is prized by consumers thanks to his adherent use of domesti cally grown wheat — not necessarily local, but Kentucky sourced. Because of this, he touts his bread to be superior to commercially available bread made from imported and overly processed our. “I can keep prices down by feeding people real food,” he says. “It has better taste, a better nutritional value, there is zero waste because each part of the wheat berry that I put in is milled to a powder and turned into bread that you eat. It gives you nutrition and bers and miner als. It makes you poop and it makes you feel like you have energy and it doesn’t weigh you down.”

A AboveCrust

“I’ve been running a big bakery and I’ve not been able to really focus on the things that have made me very happy,” Morgan says. “Baking and creating breads used to be something that made me exceptionally happy. And then over the years with working with chefs, you know, you’re making what makes them happy.”Morgan has set up his stone mill in El Camino’s front window so passersby can enjoy a glimpse of how grain is turned into our. “It’s up on a stage and it’s kind of enclosed like an aquarium so dust doesn’t go everywhere,” Morgan says. “I can just hang out in there and mill our and look like a circus act.”

Morgan’s bread is prized by consumers thanks to his adherent use of domesti cally grown wheat — not necessarily local, but Kentucky sourced. Because of this, he touts his bread to be superior to commercially available bread made from imported and overly processed our. “I can keep prices down by feeding people real food,” he says. “It has better taste, a better nutritional value, there is zero waste because each part of the wheat berry that I put in is milled to a powder and turned into bread that you eat. It gives you nutrition and bers and miner als. It makes you poop and it makes you feel like you have energy and it doesn’t weigh you down.”

SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022 | CITYBEAT.COM 39

BY SEAN M. PETERS C ollege Hill is now home to El Camino Baking Co., which, after several weekends of what it described in an Instagram post as a “barebones low key dry run,” is now open for regular bakery/co ee shop hours as of Aug. 24. e bakery is owned by Ryan Morgan, who gained national attention as owner and head baker of Sixteen Bricks, and pastry chef Megan Ketover, who’s established a great reputation in the industry as executive pastry chef for Boca and, more recently, Khora and Hart & Cru. is will be the rst time Morgan has opened a bakery with retail options instead of the wholesale business he’s used to running at Sixteen Bricks. “It’s super nerve-wracking to realize you’ve never had a retail location before,” Morgan says. “I run a pretty good sized wholesale operation, but it’s just kind of getting all of those other movements of navigating humans coming in — they really want a lot of attention.”

“I’m gonna get canceled before this is all over,” he says between laughs. “ ey’re gonna be like, ‘this fuckin’ guy is mean!’”Aslong as the quality of his baked goods continue to maintain their level of excellence, it shouldn’t be a problem. At the end of the day, don’t we all want a great loaf of bread more than a simpering baker? To those familiar with College Hill’s dining scene, El Camino operates out of the building formerly occupied by Red Rose Jems Pizzeria. El Camino serves co ee along with all of its carbo-centric o erings and the shop is set to add pizza to the menu in the near future, once they build out the rest of their building, which will include a dining room. e bakery has yet to set a date for the launching of its pizza menu. “It’ll be Neapolitan, for sure,” Morgan says of the pizza style he’s going to approach. “I don’t think it’s going to be better than St. Francis [Apizza], but it’ll be very di Neapolitanerent.”pizza is typi ed by its simple ingredients and airy, thin crust — not an unusual choice for a baker whose fermented pizza dough is meant to be the highlight of the dish.

“I’ve been running a big bakery and I’ve not been able to really focus on the things that have made me very happy,” Morgan says. “Baking and creating breads used to be something that made me exceptionally happy. And then over the years with working with chefs, you know, you’re making what makes them happy.”Morgan has set up his stone mill in El Camino’s front window so passersby can enjoy a glimpse of how grain is turned into our. “It’s up on a stage and it’s kind of enclosed like an aquarium so dust doesn’t go everywhere,” Morgan says. “I can just hang out in there and mill our and look like a circus act.”

El Camino Baking Co., 5915 Hamilton Ave., College Hill. Info:el_caminobakingco.instagram.com/

PHOTO: SEAN M. PETERS

BY SEAN M. PETERS C ollege Hill is now home to El Camino Baking Co., which, after several weekends of what it described in an Instagram post as a “barebones low key dry run,” is now open for regular bakery/co ee shop hours as of Aug. 24. e bakery is owned by Ryan Morgan, who gained national attention as owner and head baker of Sixteen Bricks, and pastry chef Megan Ketover, who’s established a great reputation in the industry as executive pastry chef for Boca and, more recently, Khora and Hart & Cru. is will be the rst time Morgan has opened a bakery with retail options instead of the wholesale business he’s used to running at Sixteen Bricks. “It’s super nerve-wracking to realize you’ve never had a retail location before,” Morgan says. “I run a pretty good sized wholesale operation, but it’s just kind of getting all of those other movements of navigating humans coming in — they really want a lot of attention.” Morgan isn’t sure how he’s going to transition to direct customer interaction — the baker is well known for his congenially blunt way of communicating which, some might argue, translates incredibly well into the no-nonsense way he bakes.

Fresh bread is in high demand at El Camino and runs out quickly, so if you plan to buy a loaf, be sure and arrive early.

Ryan Morgan’s new bakery offers an assortment of pastries and bread.

El Camino Baking Co., 5915 Hamilton Ave., College Hill. Info:el_caminobakingco.instagram.com/

A AboveCrust College Hill’s El Camino Baking Co. is serving up ‘real’ bread and pastries to the hungry masses.

40 CITYBEAT.COM | SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022

SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022 | CITYBEAT.COM 41

42 CITYBEAT.COM | SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022

Alice in Over-the-Rhine Delivers Imaginative Cocktails in a ‘Retro-Future’ Setting BY LEYLA SHOKOOHE EATS

“We opened Alice to bring a new experience to Cincinnati,” says Seth Maney, one of three partners in the building and business. “We wanted to bring these old empty buildings back to life for the love of the history, bringing an overlooked, but amazing, workshop to a public use.”  In 2018, Maney and his partners James Fisher (of Lost Hospitality and Somerset) and Joshua Smibert bought the building, formerly home to J.B. Schmitt Company from 1872 to 2012. e original plan had been to open the space in early 2020, but the COVID19 pandemic halted the timeline. e group then took 2021 to build their vision.Sowhy is it called Alice?  “It was a good contrast to the masculinity and the heaviness of an old world workshop from the 1870s,” Maney says. “It is about duality. If there’s a word that I could put with Alice, it would probably be the duality of the physical, the metaphysical, and your senses and your state of mind changing.”  Alice is a triptych of sorts: there’s the courtyard and patio, the indoor bar area and the disco room. e courtyard has a relaxing vibe accented by an art-light installation made from repurposed agricultural water tanks. e bar itself, a square concrete island in the middle of its room, makes people-watching, which still retains something of its pandemic rari ed glow, easier than ever. Exposed beams and a huge yellow duct, neon squiggles and a marquee-esque menu enhance the night-club-in-late80s-Germany vibes.  If a bathroom isn’t Instagrammable these days, did you even use it? Maney and crew enlisted a team of artists to transform each of the ve bathrooms in Alice as they saw t (one CityBeat favorite has a gobo projector and is excellent for sel es). e hallway leading to those bathrooms is a canvas, too - everything from the ceiling down is plastered in a retro collage of assorted magazine clippings, ephemera, show posters and nostalgia-inducing imagery.

Every inch of Alice’s perfectly curated interior and exterior is meant to be documented on your Instagram feed. PHIL

PHOTOS:

SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022 | CITYBEAT.COM 43 W

Every inch of Alice’s perfectly curated interior and exterior is meant to be documented on your Instagram feed.

PHOTOS: PHIL ARMSTRONG W hile Alice, a new bar in Over-the-Rhine, opened in late June, doesn’t take its name or inspiration from the one of Wonderland fame, the spot is just as charming and beguiling. Located in an old garage-warehouse on the corner of East Liberty and Main Streets, Alice stands apart from the other bar options in the area with colorful industrial vibes and clever cocktails.

Alice in Over-the-Rhine Delivers Imaginative Cocktails in a ‘Retro-Future’ Setting BY LEYLA SHOKOOHE EATS

hile Alice, a new bar in Over-the-Rhine, opened in late June, doesn’t take its name or inspiration from the one of Wonderland fame, the spot is just as charming and beguiling. Located in an old garage-warehouse on the corner of East Liberty and Main Streets, Alice stands apart from the other bar options in the area with colorful industrial vibes and clever cocktails.

ere are two house shots: the House Green Tea (which reads like an immunity booster, is crisp and full- avored) and the Co ee Crisis. Don’t sleep on the list of mocktails, or non-alcoholic cocktails, either. e icc Bitch is a spin on a strawberry shake, and if you’re in the mood to add some booze, rum renders it a cooler cousin to the pinaAdjacentcolada.to the bar, the disco room is a huge black box-like space with a DJ and light booth upstairs, primed to pick up the dance-club mantle in a way no other bar has quite been able to do since the old Japp’s Annex days. e disco had its rst real outing during the nal weekend of Pride Month in June. e Alice team enlists Brave Berlin to do projection mapping, art and light in the disco room, with DJs and dancing every Friday and Saturday night. e space also is available for private events and“Werentals. havesome really extraordinary spaces in Cincinnati, and those extraordinary spaces can create extraordinary experiences,” Maney says. “It’s important to pour your heart and soul and blood, sweat and tears into these buildings because once they’re gone, they’re gone, and the experiences they can engender are what make us unique. at’s really the culture and story of the city. We need to embrace our past but at the same time, push for the future.”

“ e general vibe of the place is sort of this retro-future thing. ere’s a lot of old plastic vintage ephemera mixed with this concept of what the future could or would look like, sort of futuristic movies that are post-apocalyptic,” ManeySeatingsays. inside of Alice is ample, with low couches and retro-cushioned seats. e open bar concept allows for good ow, a necessity in these semipost-pandemic days. General manager Rich Harwood (formerly of Japp’s and Neon’s), J.P. Mayer (who has led the beverage program at 21C) and Emily Patton are the beverage and bar leadership team. ere are six house cocktails, some pre-mixed standards, great wine options, and some fun non-alcoholic cocktails. Indeed, the cocktail menu reads like a greatest hits album of sorts, with names like Beet on the Brat, Ari Up, Death of a Clown, Dead Flowers, Smoke & Mirrors and Dinner Party. Dead Flowers features bourbon, rose vermouth and cream sherry, served neat with a bit of lemon peel. e Ari Up is a super-fun and aesthetically pleasing, sexier version of a Long Island iced tea. e cocktail features a housemade cola and cardamom and looks like what Wednesday Addams would drink if she stopped by. ere are two house shots: the House Green Tea (which reads like an immunity booster, is crisp and full- avored) and the Co ee Crisis. Don’t sleep on the list of mocktails, or non-alcoholic cocktails, either. e icc Bitch is a spin on a strawberry shake, and if you’re in the mood to add some booze, rum renders it a cooler cousin to the pinaAdjacentcolada.to the bar, the disco room is a huge black box-like space with a DJ and light booth upstairs, primed to pick up the dance-club mantle in a way no other bar has quite been able to do since the old Japp’s Annex days. e disco had its rst real outing during the nal weekend of Pride Month in June. e Alice team enlists Brave Berlin to do projection mapping, art and light in the disco room, with DJs and dancing every Friday and Saturday night. e space also is available for private events and“Werentals. havesome really extraordinary spaces in Cincinnati, and those extraordinary spaces can create extraordinary experiences,” Maney says. “It’s important to pour your heart and soul and blood, sweat and tears into these buildings because once they’re gone, they’re gone, and the experiences they can engender are what make us unique. at’s really the culture and story of the city. We need to embrace our past but at the same time, push for the future.” Alice, 1432 Main St., Over-the-Rhine, aliceotr.com.

Alice, 1432 Main St., Over-the-Rhine, aliceotr.com.

“We opened Alice to bring a new experience to Cincinnati,” says Seth Maney, one of three partners in the building and business. “We wanted to bring these old empty buildings back to life for the love of the history, bringing an overlooked, but amazing, workshop to a public use.”  In 2018, Maney and his partners James Fisher (of Lost Hospitality and Somerset) and Joshua Smibert bought the building, formerly home to J.B. Schmitt Company from 1872 to 2012. e original plan had been to open the space in early 2020, but the COVID19 pandemic halted the timeline. e group then took 2021 to build their vision.Sowhy is it called Alice?  “It was a good contrast to the masculinity and the heaviness of an old world workshop from the 1870s,” Maney says. “It is about duality. If there’s a word that I could put with Alice, it would probably be the duality of the physical, the metaphysical, and your senses and your state of mind changing.”  Alice is a triptych of sorts: there’s the courtyard and patio, the indoor bar area and the disco room. e courtyard has a relaxing vibe accented by an art-light installation made from repurposed agricultural water tanks. e bar itself, a square concrete island in the middle of its room, makes people-watching, which still retains something of its pandemic rari ed glow, easier than ever. Exposed beams and a huge yellow duct, neon squiggles and a marquee-esque menu enhance the night-club-in-late80s-Germany vibes.  If a bathroom isn’t Instagrammable these days, did you even use it? Maney and crew enlisted a team of artists to transform each of the ve bathrooms in Alice as they saw t (one CityBeat favorite has a gobo projector and is excellent for sel es). e hallway leading to those bathrooms is a canvas, too - everything from the ceiling down is plastered in a retro collage of assorted magazine clippings, ephemera, show posters and nostalgia-inducing imagery.  “ e general vibe of the place is sort of this retro-future thing. ere’s a lot of old plastic vintage ephemera mixed with this concept of what the future could or would look like, sort of futuristic movies that are post-apocalyptic,” ManeySeatingsays. inside of Alice is ample, with low couches and retro-cushioned seats. e open bar concept allows for good ow, a necessity in these semipost-pandemic days. General manager Rich Harwood (formerly of Japp’s and Neon’s), J.P. Mayer (who has led the beverage program at 21C) and Emily Patton are the beverage and bar leadership team. ere are six house cocktails, some pre-mixed standards, great wine options, and some fun non-alcoholic cocktails. Indeed, the cocktail menu reads like a greatest hits album of sorts, with names like Beet on the Brat, Ari Up, Death of a Clown, Dead Flowers, Smoke & Mirrors and Dinner Party. Dead Flowers features bourbon, rose vermouth and cream sherry, served neat with a bit of lemon peel. e Ari Up is a super-fun and aesthetically pleasing, sexier version of a Long Island iced tea. e cocktail features a housemade cola and cardamom and looks like what Wednesday Addams would drink if she stopped by.

ARMSTRONG

44 CITYBEAT.COM | SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022

SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022 | CITYBEAT.COM 45

MUSIC

BY KATRINA ERESMAN F amed Dayton emo export Hawthorne Heights has started a music festival.

Ohio Is Still for Lovers

Ohio Is For Lovers Festival — named after the band’s breakout single and regional emo anthem — brings together well-known emo and emo-adjacent acts. e festival takes place this Saturday, September 10 at Riverbend Music Center, and showcases local music acts as well as local vendors. According to lead singer and rhythm guitarist JT Woodru , the idea for a festival like this had been percolating for a while. Woodru explains that while being based out of Ohio has its perks, it can also keep a band out of the loop when it comes to festivals in bigger cities.“Sometimes we kind of feel like we’re on our own little island — albeit an oasis in the middle of the Midwest,” Woodru says. “We were like, ‘Hey, we’re tired of not getting o ers from our favorite festivals. Why don’t we just do one of our own?’” At rst, actually running with the idea was an inside joke that Woodru likens to a Christopher Guest lm. But when the opportunity presented itself, the band started to take the proposition more seriously. “ e more and more we thought about it, we realized that it could be bigger than we ever thought,” Woodru says. “We’re not like the biggest band in the world, but we’re a known band, so why not us?”

The festival is inspired by a Hawthorne Heights song of the same name.

Once the band began developing a plan for Ohio, other cities wanted in on the action. e band’s “Is for Lovers” festival series kicked o with events in Wichita and Denver in August. ose cities might seem random, but in the Hawthorne Heights universe they make perfect sense. Wichita was the rst city to play “Ohio Is for Lovers” on the“Ourradio.heart has always been close to Wichita,” Woodru says. Denver was an obvious choice thanks to the band’s solid fan base there. “Denver never lets us down no matter what tour we’ve ever been on,” Woodru says. e cities were also ideal because of their distance from other upcoming punk and emo festivals, like Riot Fest in Chicago and When We Were Young in Las Vegas. But more than anything, Hawthorne Heights wanted to show their appreciation for the regions that have been with them since the beginning.eband has maintained the handson, DIY spirit that animated them 20 years ago, when Hawthorne Heights began playing rental halls in Dayton –speci cally a now-defunct Knights of Columbus hall, where some DIY knowhow was a must. While the band has a label, a booking

MUSIC

Ohio Is Still for Lovers

46 CITYBEAT.COM | SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022

“ e more and more we thought about it, we realized that it could be bigger than we ever thought,” Woodru says. “We’re not like the biggest band in the world, but we’re a known band, so why not us?”

Launched by Dayton emo band Hawthorne Heights, Ohio Is For Lovers Festival brings well-known emo acts to Riverbend Music Center this month.

PHOTO: COURTNEY KIARA BOYER

BY KATRINA ERESMAN F amed Dayton emo export Hawthorne Heights has started a music festival.

Once the band began developing a plan for Ohio, other cities wanted in on the action. e band’s “Is for Lovers” festival series kicked o with events in Wichita and Denver in August. ose cities might seem random, but in the Hawthorne Heights universe they make perfect sense. Wichita was the rst city to play “Ohio Is for Lovers” on the“Ourradio.heart has always been close to Wichita,” Woodru says. Denver was an obvious choice thanks to the band’s solid fan base there. “Denver never lets us down no matter what tour we’ve ever been on,” Woodru says. e cities were also ideal because of their distance from other upcoming punk and emo festivals, like Riot Fest in Chicago and When We Were Young in Las Vegas. But more than anything, Hawthorne Heights wanted to show their appreciation for the regions that have been with them since the beginning.eband has maintained the handson, DIY spirit that animated them 20 years ago, when Hawthorne Heights began playing rental halls in Dayton –speci cally a now-defunct Knights of Columbus hall, where some DIY knowhow was a must. While the band has a label, a booking

Ohio Is For Lovers Festival — named after the band’s breakout single and regional emo anthem — brings together well-known emo and emo-adjacent acts. e festival takes place this Saturday, September 10 at Riverbend Music Center, and showcases local music acts as well as local vendors. According to lead singer and rhythm guitarist JT Woodru , the idea for a festival like this had been percolating for a while. Woodru explains that while being based out of Ohio has its perks, it can also keep a band out of the loop when it comes to festivals in bigger cities.“Sometimes we kind of feel like we’re on our own little island — albeit an oasis in the middle of the Midwest,” Woodru says. “We were like, ‘Hey, we’re tired of not getting o ers from our favorite festivals. Why don’t we just do one of our own?’” At rst, actually running with the idea was an inside joke that Woodru likens to a Christopher Guest lm. But when the opportunity presented itself, the band started to take the proposition more seriously.

Launched by Dayton emo band Hawthorne Heights, Ohio Is For Lovers Festival brings well-known emo acts to Riverbend Music Center this month.

“Life is dark, life is challenging,” Woodru continues. “I think that any time you can hear somebody emotionally and metaphorically walking with you, walking alongside you on that journey, I just think that that relationship is special.” e music released by bands like Senses Fail, Story of the Year and Bayside — all of which will play at Ohio Is for Lovers Festival — may be emotive, but it often contains elements of pop music, too. Emo and its adjacent genres frequently feature catchy melodies and hooks you can’t get out of your head.

If there is a lesson to be learned from the creation of the Ohio Is For Lovers Festival, it’s that no city is too small for big ambitions and good times. As soon as the Hawthorne Heights record e Silence In Black And White went platinum, Woodru realized “anything’s on the table Hawthornenow.”Heights tries to communicate that sense of possibility at every opportunity, he says. “We always wanted everybody to feel that,” Woodru says. “We wanted the 14-year-old kids sitting in their bedroom playing guitar for the rst time to feel like you have a place out here. Doesn’t matter where you’re from. Do it yourself, and get the right people involved, and it’ll be a lot of fun.”

“I asked all my friends in all these bands to donate a half hour of their time,” Woodru explains. “ eir fans come up and they pay some sort of price to throw a ball to try to dunk their favorite member of their favorite band.”

“Life is dark, life is challenging,” Woodru continues. “I think that any time you can hear somebody emotionally and metaphorically walking with you, walking alongside you on that journey, I just think that that relationship is special.” e music released by bands like Senses Fail, Story of the Year and Bayside — all of which will play at Ohio Is for Lovers Festival — may be emotive, but it often contains elements of pop music, too. Emo and its adjacent genres frequently feature catchy melodies and hooks you can’t get out of your head. For Woodru , that’s the ideal balance. “I think that darkness is healthy, just as I think that pop sensibility is healthy too,” he says. “ ere are times when it seems like things are pretty dark and depressing for the Beatles, and then there are times when we’re [sic] just singing about ‘Good Day Sunshine.’ [...] I think balancing the bad times with the good times is kind of what our music is.” Balance was also a goal for the festivals’ lineup. Woodru says he looked for local up-and-comers who would bring sonic and cultural diversity to the lineup.“e best thing about it is we got to hear a bunch of local talent that is excited about this style of music,” Woodru says. “We just want a lot of di erent types of bands and a lot of di erent types of people. We get tired of seeing the same type of bands [at] every festival.”Ohio’s music scene will be represented with Cincinnati locals Leggy, Tweens and Vacation; other regional acts include Dayton punk band the Raging Nathans and Better Anyway of Spring eld, Ohio. Woodru says these bands will get the same treatment as bigger-name bands set to perform at the festival, which features Descendents, New Found Glory, Motion City Soundtrack and Red Jumpsuit Apparatus..“Wejustreally think that forming this ecosystem that everybody lives and survives and breathes is important,” he says. “It should not be every band for themselves or every person for themselves, and it should not be a competition. Everybody should be at the party.”

Ohio Is For Lovers Festival begins at noon on Sept. 10 at Riverbend Music Center, 6295 Kellogg Ave., California. Info: isforloversfestival.com/ohio.

Ohio Is For Lovers Festival begins at noon on Sept. 10 at Riverbend Music Center, 6295 Kellogg Ave., California. Info: isforloversfestival.com/ohio.

At rst it might seem like emo music — named for its emotional (and often dark) lyrics — is not conducive to maintaining mental health. But artists like Woodru argue that the music portrays an honesty and relatability that engages fans who are looking for something a little deeper. It brings mental health into the conversation, raising awareness in the process.

All proceeds from the Dunk a Punk station at the Ohio Is For Lovers Festival will be donated to charities. “We’re really strong supporters of mental health awareness and LGBTQ,” Woodru says. “Anything revolving around that has always had a special place in our heart, because a lot of our fans are in that space. [...] Anytime we can gure out a way to help that cause, we’re always 100% down.”

agent and a manager these days, Woodru says they still print their own shirts and run their own online store. ey’ve been taking on plenty of the tasks involved in organizing the festivals, too, from reaching out to bands like New Found Glory and Silverstein to booking dunk tanks — or, in the festival’s parlance, “Dunk a Punk.”

“Life is dark, life is special.”thatIyouwalkingwalkingmetaphoricallyemotionallyheartime“IWoodruffchallenging,”continues.thinkthatanyyoucansomebodyandwithyou,alongsideonthatjourney,justthinkthatrelationshipis

SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022 | CITYBEAT.COM 47

At rst it might seem like emo music — named for its emotional (and often dark) lyrics — is not conducive to maintaining mental health. But artists like Woodru argue that the music portrays an honesty and relatability that engages fans who are looking for something a little deeper. It brings mental health into the conversation, raising awareness in the process. “I think it’s music rooted in insecurity and rooted in unsurety [sic] and just trying to carve your place in the world,” Woodru says. “As a young adult, I think that that’s where everybody is [...]. For a lot of people, it’s really hard to listen to people sing about dancing in the club when you can’t really relate to that.

“I asked all my friends in all these bands to donate a half hour of their time,” Woodru explains. “ eir fans come up and they pay some sort of price to throw a ball to try to dunk their favorite member of their favorite band.” All proceeds from the Dunk a Punk station at the Ohio Is For Lovers Festival will be donated to charities. “We’re really strong supporters of mental health awareness and LGBTQ,” Woodru says. “Anything revolving around that has always had a special place in our heart, because a lot of our fans are in that space. [...] Anytime we can gure out a way to help that cause, we’re always 100% down.”

For Woodru , that’s the ideal balance. “I think that darkness is healthy, just as I think that pop sensibility is healthy too,” he says. “ ere are times when it seems like things are pretty dark and depressing for the Beatles, and then there are times when we’re [sic] just singing about ‘Good Day Sunshine.’ [...] I think balancing the bad times with the good times is kind of what our music is.” Balance was also a goal for the festivals’ lineup. Woodru says he looked for local up-and-comers who would bring sonic and cultural diversity to the lineup.“e best thing about it is we got to hear a bunch of local talent that is excited about this style of music,” Woodru says. “We just want a lot of di erent types of bands and a lot of di erent types of people. We get tired of seeing the same type of bands [at] every festival.”Ohio’s music scene will be represented with Cincinnati locals Leggy, Tweens and Vacation; other regional acts include Dayton punk band the Raging Nathans and Better Anyway of Spring eld, Ohio. Woodru says these bands will get the same treatment as bigger-name bands set to perform at the festival, which features Descendents, New Found Glory, Motion City Soundtrack and Red Jumpsuit Apparatus..“Wejustreally think that forming this ecosystem that everybody lives and survives and breathes is important,” he says. “It should not be every band for themselves or every person for themselves, and it should not be a competition. Everybody should be at the party.”

“Life is dark, life is special.”thatIyouwalkingwalkingmetaphoricallyemotionallyheartime“IWoodruffchallenging,”continues.thinkthatanyyoucansomebodyandwithyou,alongsideonthatjourney,justthinkthatrelationshipis agent and a manager these days, Woodru says they still print their own shirts and run their own online store. ey’ve been taking on plenty of the tasks involved in organizing the festivals, too, from reaching out to bands like New Found Glory and Silverstein to booking dunk tanks — or, in the festival’s parlance, “Dunk a Punk.”

If there is a lesson to be learned from the creation of the Ohio Is For Lovers Festival, it’s that no city is too small for big ambitions and good times. As soon as the Hawthorne Heights record e Silence In Black And White went platinum, Woodru realized “anything’s on the table Hawthornenow.”Heights tries to communicate that sense of possibility at every opportunity, he says. “We always wanted everybody to feel that,” Woodru says. “We wanted the 14-year-old kids sitting in their bedroom playing guitar for the rst time to feel like you have a place out here. Doesn’t matter where you’re from. Do it yourself, and get the right people involved, and it’ll be a lot of fun.”

“I think it’s music rooted in insecurity and rooted in unsurety [sic] and just trying to carve your place in the world,” Woodru says. “As a young adult, I think that that’s where everybody is [...]. For a lot of people, it’s really hard to listen to people sing about dancing in the club when you can’t really relate to that.

48 CITYBEAT.COM | SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022

50 CITYBEAT.COM | SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022

September 18 • Madison eater Everyone handled two years of a touring pause in di erent ways. Some fretted, some denied, and some, like John Crai gie, wrote and recorded an album about street mermaids and howling at the moon, among other practical concerns. e Portland-based singer/songwriter recently released Mermaid Salt, a stir ring, intimate collection of moody songs and spare instrumentation. As a longtime folkie in uenced by John Prine, Craigie’s wry perspective peppers his songs with twisted humor and surreal leaps of imagination. He used to open for Jack Johnson, distilling his storytelling skills and comic timing into inspired vignettes epitomized by “Laurie Rolled Me a J” and “I Wrote Mr. Tambourine Man.” After his most recent prior album, 2020’s Asterisk the Universe, gave him a higher pro le, Craigie began headlining larger theaters with his laidback, slightly cracked folk tales.

PHOTO: TAHNEI ROY

When Old 97’s began sessions in a Nashville studio for their twelfth studio album, appropriately titled Twelfth, the city was rocked by a tornado outbreak that ultimately caused 25 deaths, injured 300 and left billions of dollars in damages across four states. e alt-country trailblazers may well have thought they were lucky to have survived an EF3 storm and that the worst was behind them. But that was in early March 2020, and an even worse outbreak was just on the horizon. e band — for 30 years composed of frontman Rhett Miller, bassist/vocalist Murry Hammond, lead guitarist/vocalist Ken Bethea and drummer Philip Peeples — would release Twelfth that August, in the midst of a long, costly pause that halted most live music. Outside of a few scattered gigs last year, this marks the Old 97’s’ rst fullscale tour since 2019 and their rst local appearance in four years. Before the pandemic shut things down, the band was still touring on the backto-back releases of 2017’s Graveyard Whistling and 2018’s primarily original Christmas album Love the Holidays, and looking forward to doing the same for the forthcoming Twelfth e unplanned hiatus had one happy outcome; Miller had time to write and record his eighth solo studio album, e Mis t, which comes out Sept. 16. e album’s rst single, “Go rough You,” was just released as a teaser. While the 97’s are ostensibly tour ing behind Twelfth, the band’s recent setlists have only featured one song from the album, the pounding bril liance of “Turn O e TV.” is circuit instead seems focused on their earlier recordings, particularly 1997’s Too Far to Care; the band even bows to super fans and hauls out a couple of tracks from their 1994 debut, Hitchhike to Rhome. An Old 97’s show is like pizza or sex — the worst you’ll ever experi ence is still pretty damn good. e Old 97’s play the Southgate House Revival at 8 p.m. Sept. 20. Doors open at 7 p.m. ere are no COVID-19 protocols in place for the event. Info: southgatehouse.com. (Brian Baker)

SOUND ADVICE John Craigie’s latest album, Mermaid Salt, involves street mermaids and howling at the moon.

PHOTO: PROVIDED BY RED LIGHT MANAGEMENT

PHOTO: PROVIDED BY RED LIGHT MANAGEMENT

e Portland-based singer/songwriter recently released Mermaid Salt, a stir ring, intimate collection of moody songs and spare instrumentation.

September 18 • Madison eater Everyone handled two years of a touring pause in di erent ways. Some fretted, some denied, and some, like John Crai gie, wrote and recorded an album about street mermaids and howling at the moon, among other practical concerns.

SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022 | CITYBEAT.COM 51

OLD 97’S WITH THE HouseSeptemberVANDOLIERS20•eSouthgateRevival

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the nomadic Craigie said, “I got time to silence all the noise and chaos of touring and look inward.” Mermaid Salt reveals a more somber, contemplative tone in his songs. Instru mentally, he relies much less on his acoustic guitar and more on piano, with a purring electro-beat set back in the mix, accompanied by a rotating cast of musicians. Onstage, ttingly, it’s usually just Craigie with his guitar, his songs shining with shades of warmth, wit and poignance.JohnCraigie plays Madison eater at 8 p.m. Sept. 18. Doors open at 7 p.m. ere are no COVID-19 protocols in place for the event. Info: madisontheater. com. (Greg Gaston)

JOHN CRAIGIE WITH MAYA DE VITRY

JOHN CRAIGIE WITH MAYA DE VITRY

PHOTO: TAHNEI ROY

SOUND ADVICE John Craigie’s latest album, Mermaid Salt, involves street mermaids and howling at the moon.

Fans can likely expect to hear old favorites and even a few deep cuts at Old 97’s upcoming show

As a longtime folkie in uenced by John Prine, Craigie’s wry perspective peppers his songs with twisted humor and surreal leaps of imagination. He used to open for Jack Johnson, distilling his storytelling skills and comic timing into inspired vignettes epitomized by “Laurie Rolled Me a J” and “I Wrote Mr. Tambourine Man.” After his most recent prior album, 2020’s Asterisk the Universe, gave him a higher pro le, Craigie began headlining larger theaters with his laidback, slightly cracked folk tales. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the nomadic Craigie said, “I got time to silence all the noise and chaos of touring and look inward.” Mermaid Salt reveals a more somber, contemplative tone in his songs. Instru mentally, he relies much less on his acoustic guitar and more on piano, with a purring electro-beat set back in the mix, accompanied by a rotating cast of musicians. Onstage, ttingly, it’s usually just Craigie with his guitar, his songs shining with shades of warmth, wit and poignance.JohnCraigie plays Madison eater at 8 p.m. Sept. 18. Doors open at 7 p.m. ere are no COVID-19 protocols in place for the event. Info: madisontheater. com. (Greg Gaston)

OLD 97’S WITH THE HouseSeptemberVANDOLIERS20•eSouthgateRevival

When Old 97’s began sessions in a Nashville studio for their twelfth studio album, appropriately titled Twelfth, the city was rocked by a tornado outbreak that ultimately caused 25 deaths, injured 300 and left billions of dollars in damages across four states. e alt-country trailblazers may well have thought they were lucky to have survived an EF3 storm and that the worst was behind them. But that was in early March 2020, and an even worse outbreak was just on the horizon. e band — for 30 years composed of frontman Rhett Miller, bassist/vocalist Murry Hammond, lead guitarist/vocalist Ken Bethea and drummer Philip Peeples — would release Twelfth that August, in the midst of a long, costly pause that halted most live music. Outside of a few scattered gigs last year, this marks the Old 97’s’ rst fullscale tour since 2019 and their rst local appearance in four years. Before the pandemic shut things down, the band was still touring on the backto-back releases of 2017’s Graveyard Whistling and 2018’s primarily original Christmas album Love the Holidays, and looking forward to doing the same for the forthcoming Twelfth e unplanned hiatus had one happy outcome; Miller had time to write and record his eighth solo studio album, e Mis t, which comes out Sept. 16. e album’s rst single, “Go rough You,” was just released as a teaser. While the 97’s are ostensibly tour ing behind Twelfth, the band’s recent setlists have only featured one song from the album, the pounding bril liance of “Turn O e TV.” is circuit instead seems focused on their earlier recordings, particularly 1997’s Too Far to Care; the band even bows to super fans and hauls out a couple of tracks from their 1994 debut, Hitchhike to Rhome. An Old 97’s show is like pizza or sex — the worst you’ll ever experi ence is still pretty damn good. e Old 97’s play the Southgate House Revival at 8 p.m. Sept. 20. Doors open at 7 p.m. ere are no COVID-19 protocols in place for the event. Info: southgatehouse.com. (Brian Baker)

Fans can likely expect to hear old favorites and even a few deep cuts at Old 97’s upcoming show

52 CITYBEAT.COM | SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022

SEPTEMBER 7-20, 2022 | CITYBEAT.COM 55 CROSSWORD IS THIS YOUR CARD? BY BRENDAN EMMETT WWW.BRENDANEMMETTQUIGLEY.COMQUIGLEY 1Across. Cobra’s poison 6. Cool as a cucumber, religiously 9. Orders of toast, in diner slang 14. Tour de France stage 15. Chance to answer questions online, briefly 16. Yellow woodland bloomer 17. Calm and comfortable 19. Teeny-___ 20. Mouthwatering 21. Aware of, as dirty tricks 22. Nylon coat? 23. “O’er there” 24. Its last 4 digits are used more than the first 5: Abbr. 25. Where St. Francis performed miracles 29. Univision journalist Ramos 31. Colorful duck 32. Hospital section that may have a helipad 37. Letters from HR 39. “... ?” 40. Full of suds 41. Setting for the 2013 movie “Gravity” 44. Hacky Sack joint 45. Currency used in 19 countries 46. Transports with batteries 48. First hoopster to dunk from the free-throw line, for short 51. Spot for bingeing 52. ___ Bolin (Chinese contemporary concealment artist ... look him up, mind-blowing stuff) 53. Device that gets rid of dust bunnies 55. Australian cowgirl 60. ___-Technica (headphone brand) 61. Beefeater, e.g. 62. Nationwide rival 63. On the money 64. Barely beat 65. Move around undetected 66. [fist pump] 67. Marshall knobs Down 1. ___ scallopini 2. Accusatory question at the Forum 3. Quick breaks 4. Org. with a blue flag 5. Pirate’s crew, in the pirate’s own words 6. Dr. in “Planet of the Apes” 7. Pros in ambulances 8. “Uninterested” 9. Where crews convene 10. Sharp projectiles in some bars 11. Leaves the scene 12. Gray removers 13. Bug out? 18. Took first place 21. Bug in mezcal 23. “For real?” 25. They’re in some drive-thrus 26. Flow (through) 27. “The Maltese Falcon” detective 28. “Good game” 29. ___ Ian (“Mean Girls” girl) 30. Mushroom selection 33. Sing, as to the cops 34. Fail big-time at the box office 35. Sport with two acute accents in its name 36. Some deli options 38. Breeder’s resource 42. Surface space 43. “Song Sung Blue” singer 47. Showed a muffin top, say 48. Puffs on a blunt 49. City where Joan of Arc was put on trial 50. Actress Comer 52. Jaunty rhythms 54. Silicate used in drywall 55. Make fun of 56. Carmaker with a 4-ring logo 57. Pattern of notes to jam on in Indian music 58. Pitcher Hershiser 59. Bookie’s figures 61. Lay down some bucks LAST PUZZLE’S ANSWERS: Bertha HelmickG. ATTORNEY AT LAW DISSOLVE Dissolution:MARRIAGEYOURAnamicableend to marriage. Easier on your heart. Easier on your wallet. Starting at $500 plus court costs. 12 Hour Turnaround. 810 Sycamore St. 4th Fl, Cincinnati, OH 513.651.966645202 DISSOLVEMARRIAGEYOUR Dissolution: An amicable end to marriage. Easier on your heart. Easier on your wallet. Starting at $500 plus court costs. 12 Hour Turnaround. 810 Sycamore St. 4th Fl, Cincinnati, OH 45202 513.651.9666