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Come see our new Spill It: A Music Blog here and our new A&E blog here. All archived posts and comments have been moved to the new sites. Please add new comments there, not here.

New Zoo Venue

If your are heading to the Cincinnati Zoo tomorrow (Thursday) for the free, brilliant double-bill of World Cafe faves Kim Taylor and The Hiders (which we highly recommend doing), the concert has been moved indoors to the “Safari Gallery,” near the Nocturnal House and Manatee Springs exhibits (presumably because of the chance for rain).
The show [...]

Jack White Still Holding Greenhornes Rhythm Section Hostage

With James Brown gone, is Jack White the new hardest working man in show business? Or at least the most “quick and efficient.”
Billboard.com reports that White has begun work in Nashville on a new Raconteurs album with singer/songwriter Brendan Benson and the powerhouse rhythm section of Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler of Cincinnati’s Greenhornes. [...]

Oh, The Secrets You Can Learn From Pollstar

Every now and then, I like to take a peak at Pollstar.com, the Web site for the biggest publication for concert industry news. If you put “Cincinnati” into the search, dates by touring artists coming to town are listed. And often these dates can precede the official announcement from local promoters. The premature listings are [...]

Hip Hop Supporters Now Recommending Censorship?

Billboard.com is reporting that Russell Simmons, the founder of the Def Jam Rap/Hip Hop label, is on the “Rap is ruining society” bandwagon officially. Simmons and others from the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network released a statement about their recommendations for record companies and broadcasters. In part, the statement said, “HSAN is concerned about [...]

Local Boys Done Good (Again)

How about a little music this morning? Die-hard Indie fans worldwide likely already know about The National, a group of friends from Cincinnati who moved to Brooklyn to start the band in 1999. If the past few albums are any indication, the May 22 release of their new one, The Boxer (again on Beggars Banquet [...]

Local CD of the Week: The Sheds’ You’ve Got A Light

Cincinnati Indie Folk duo The Sheds have released other albums before their brand new You’ve Got a Light, but don’t look for them in your favorite CD store. The band simply put the releases (and this one) up on their Web site for free download. While that can be seen as smart promotional acumen, with [...]

Oprah’s Street Cred Continues to Plummet

Mainstream rappers can sometimes be less than ideal spokespeople for Rap music. Exhibit A, Snoop Dogg’s reaction to the Don Imus controversy: “(Unlike Imus, rappers are) talking about hos that’s in the ‘hood that ain’t doing shit, that’s trying to get a nigga for his money.”Although, conversely, Snoop did recently come up with this [...]

Another Tribute to Mark Chenault

(NOTE: Local studio wiz and CityBeat columnist Dave Davis sent along his own musings about the late Mark Chenault. Feel free to leave your thoughts about Mark in the comments section if you knew him.)
The world just got a whole lot smaller. On Saturday at around 2 on the most beautiful day so far in [...]

Farewell, Colonel

Longtime local musician Mark Chenault passed away Saturday afternoon around 2 p.m. at the Scarlet Oaks hospice facilities in Clifton. He was 53. The funeral is to be held today (Monday) at the Mosque of Cincinnati at 3668 Clifton Ave. at 2 p.m. Friends are welcome to attend (please, no flowers).
Chenault was involved as a [...]