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A tour of treasured neighborhood chili joints is a delicious way to get to know the Queen City’s diverse enclaves

THE CINCINNATI CHILI TRAIL BY M A C K E N Z I E M A N L E Y • C H I L I R E V I E W S BY J U D E N O E L

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CELEBRATION!

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March 28 • 5:30-9 pm • The Phoenix

tickets on SalE NOw! bestofcincinnati.com

WHAT A WEEK! BY T.C. B R I T TO N

Janney (Best Supporting Actress, I, Tonya Tonya) winning top acting awards. A fine, fun night. Looking ahead, we’re here for #HaddishRuloph2019. After loling throughout Tiffany Haddish and Maya Rudolph’s presenting bit, we hope they’re pegged to host the next big show.

Clone Zone

Oscars Hot Takes

directing and best picture categories for his directorial debut. He shot the poignant horror film in just 23 days on a $4.5 million budget. You go, Jordan Peele! • …And none for Greta Gerwig. The indie darling’s nostalgic coming-of-age comedy, Lady Bird, was shut out, alongside The Post and Mudbound. • It was ladies night. Frances McDormand called on all nominated women to stand in the audience, saying that they all had stories to tell and people better put their money where their mouths are by financing women-led projects. Ashley Judd, Salma Hayek and Annabella Sciorra shared a Time’s Up moment. Jennifer Lawrence and Jodie Foster replaced Casey Affleck as Best Actress presenters (and killed it). Rita Moreno, who won Best Supporting Actress in 1962 for West Side Story Story, presented in the same damn dress she wore that year! #GOALS • Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway got a second chance to announce Best Picture and didn’t F it up this time! Still, when director Guillermo del Toro accepted the Oscar for The Shape of Water Water, he immediately double-checked the envelope. The fish-man love story nabbed four of its 13 nominations, the most of the night. For such a politically charged time (cue the “Stick to acting!” cries), there wasn’t a whole lot of feather-ruffling. Unless you’re Mike Pence. Nods to social causes, like support for Dreamers, seamlessly wove in and out of the light and entertaining program. And overall the wins were pretty predictable, with Gary Oldman (Best Actor, Darkest Hour Hour), Frances McDormand (Best Actress, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), Sam Rockwell (Best Supporting Actor, Three Billboards Billboards) and Allison

Awards season finally came to a close Sunday night with the 90th annual Academy Awards. Host Jimmy Kimmel did a great job keeping things fast and loose while still addressing some of the many issues at the forefront of Hollywood and across the country right now, like the #MeToo movement. And speaking of fast, he encouraged folks to keep their acceptance speeches brief with a little incentive: a Jet Ski and trip to Lake Havasu, Ariz., to the winner with the shortest speech. Phantom Thread costume designer Mark Bridges walked away with an Oscar and that Price Is Rightworthy prize package when his speech clocked in at around 30 seconds. And the show still ran over by almost an hour! Once again, Kimmel surprised a bunch of normies who had no idea they’d be meeting Oscar nominees or appearing on TV (so… is that a dream come true or real-life nightmare?). A theater full of folks thinking they were getting an advance screening of A Wrinkle in Time was ambushed by Kimmel, Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, Margot Robbie, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Lupita Nyong’o and others. There were hot dog guns. Here’s some other stuff that happened! • History was made. Four-time nominee James Ivory nabbed his first Oscar, Best Adapted Screenplay for Call Me By Your Name. At age 89, he’s the oldest winner in Academy history. As a man who wore film star and fellow nominee Timothée Chalamet’s face on his shirt, he’s also the most fashionable winner in Academy history. Jordan Peele won Best Original Screenplay for Get Out Out, becoming the first black director to win the award and third person overall to receive nominations in writing,

Good-Guy Glover

Girl Scouts are super business-savvy these days. We’ve all read about young cookie sellers setting up shop outside marijuana dispensaries — genius. One like-minded mini entrepreneur from Atlanta, Charity Joy Harrison, advertised Girl Scout cookies in a now-viral video based on Donald Glover’s song “Redbone.” She got to meet Glover on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, so naturally he made a tasty purColbert chase — for himself and the entire studio audience. Harrison hit her quota and then some with Glover’s 113-box buy. He may be a successful rapper, actor, creator/star of Atlanta and young Lando, but that’s a chunk of change! Have you peeped the price on those bad boys lately? That’s like a $1,000 check right there.

Brooklyn Barbecue

Southerners and lovers of food alike are up in arms after a Munchies story on the Brooklyn barbecue scene, which apparently exists. The only problem? That shit doesn’t even look good. The main photo for the story is a sad looking plate of grub from Fette Sau’s BBQ with sauceless beef brisket, a couple of dry-ass store-bought rolls and two sour pickles. People with taste buds were quick to retort with some pics of some real Southern comfort food, but the problems don’t stop with it looking unappetizing. These hipster “barbecue” joints are also expensive AF. That same pitiful plate of brisket costs $29 per pound, before adding sides. Add to that waiting in long lines for a seat at a restaurant that frequently sells out of dishes and you have a pretty stellar example of how white people ruin everything. And speaking of poor choices… Contact T.C. Britton: letters@citybeat.com

3. Speaking of white people acting a mess, some legislators in Utah this week released a video in which they explain how bills are passed… to the tune of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme song. 4. Frances McDormand wore pajamas and slippers to that other awards ceremony, the Film Independent Spirit Awards. We get it, Franny, you ran out of fucks to give 15 years ago. 5. In a tweet that’s been shared around the globe and back, a Scottish man jumped face first into a snow-covered trampoline. In shorts. 6. Gwyneth Paltrow keeps referring to ex-husband Chris Martin as her “brother” in interviews. Trying to consciously un-remember that image. 7. Olive Garden is currently serving a dish called the Meatball Pizza Bowl that consists of pizza dough fashioned into a bowl, filled with cheese, sauce and meatballs. 8. An E! producer said she got axed for airing the moment when Eva Longoria told Ryan Seacrest the network “screwed Catt Sadler” on the Golden Globes red carpet. Sadler left E! last year after discovering her co-host Jason Kennedy made twice as much as her. 9. Patriots owner Robert Kraft’s much-younger girlfriend had a baby and it’s not his and they’re cool with that. 10. Roy Moore begged for donations to his legal defense fund.

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PHOTO: MERRICK MORTON

2. Iggy Azalea wants to be Latina now. The Australian rapper seems to be shifting from appropriating Southern black culture to appropriating Hispanic culture in her newest video.

Frances McDormand in Three Billboards

P H O T O : J A C K E N G L I S H / 2 0 17 F O C U S F E AT U R E S L L C

1. The World Peace and Unification Sanctuary church in Pennsylvania held an AR-15 blessing ceremony where members renewed vows while toting guns; the same kind used in the recent Parkland, Fla. school shooting.

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Gary Oldman in Darkest Hour

Barbra Streisand is a legend. She’s an EGOT (winner of an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony). She’s brought to life iconic characters throughout her 60-year career. She’s a queen who cannot be stopped. She cloned her dead dog. Streisand recently revealed to Variety that her dogs Miss Violet and Miss Scarlett are actually clones of her 14-year-old Coton du Tulear (oh she fancy) Samantha, who passed last year. I’m actually more weirded out by the sweet old lady names she gives her pups than the whole cloning thing. Sign me up!

This Week in Questionable Decisions…

NEWS Is the Collaborative Agreement Still Alive? Experts tapped by the city say Cincinnati has walked away from core tenets of its celebrated 2002 police reforms

Activist Iris Roley speaks at a police reform event in Roselawn PH OTO: NIC K SWARTSELL

BY N I C K SWA R T S EL L

C I T Y B E AT. C O M

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ast June, city officials, representatives from the Cincinnati Police Department and police accountability activists held a buzzing news conference at City Hall to announce they would launch a “refresh” of the city’s Collaborative Agreement, a nationally lauded effort at police reform. A big part of those efforts was a panel of experts led by Saul Green, the attorney who monitored the original court-ordered Collaborative. That group was to examine the progress the city has made since the initial reforms. Nine months later, Green’s panel has returned its reviews, and they are scathing. That — and continuing stark racial disparities in arrests by CPD — have activists with groups like the Black United Front, whose lawsuit triggered the original Collaborative Agreement, sounding alarms. The city, however, says it has simply miscommunicated how it does policing because problem solving has become standard, and that it upholds and honors the tenets of the agreement. Green and his team asked for reports from CPD in three areas: bias-free policing, mutual accountability and community problem-oriented policing. The team also includes University of Cincinnati criminal justice professor John Eck, Columbia University law professor Jef Jeffrey A. Fagan and Joseph Brann, a longtime law enforcement professional who was the founding director of the federal Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. That panel wrote in its reports that the city has walked away from key components of its landmark 2002 court-mediated agreement. Among those tenets are the so-called Community Problem-Oriented Policing methods set out in the federally mandated agreement. That approach is also formally called Scanning, Analysis, Response and Assessment (SARA). “The November 2017 report from the City — Community Problem-Oriented Policing Strategy — strongly signals that the City of Cincinnati has abandoned the principles of the Collaborative Agreement,” Green’s team wrote in their final of three reports. “We conclude this based on two

themes that permeate the City’s report. First, it suggests that the Cincinnati Police Department is applying a policing strategy other than Community Problem-Oriented Policing. And second, it indicates that the Cincinnati Police Department has little leadership interest in preventing crime using evidence-based practices. Taken literally, it states that the City of Cincinnati has unilaterally withdrawn from the Collaborative Agreement. “This is strong language,” the report continues, “and we have purposely chosen our words to leave no ambiguity about our expert opinion.” The SARA model calls for deep collaboration between police, other non-law enforcement city departments, community residents and property owners. It’s not the same as community policing — outreach efforts like officers playing basketball with youth or programs to improve police-community relations. According to Green’s team, the city’s reports detail much of the former, only isolated attempts at the latter and seem to not draw a distinction between the two. “Problem solving is not community policing. It’s not midnight basketball. It’s not boot camps. It’s not shopping with a police officer. It’s not hugs,” says civil rights attorney Al Gerhardstein, who represented activists like the Black United Front. “Those are all fine. But they’re not ways to reduce the over incarceration of black people. They don’t work.” The city, however, says it is already following the Collaborative, but may not have communicated it to Green and his team effectively. “Based on the feedback offered by the Independent Contractor, CPD recognizes that we could have included additional information to better convey our continued commitment to problem solving in meeting our goals of community

problem-oriented policing,” CPD officials wrote in a supplemental report released this month. That report contains examples of projects the city says are problem solving efforts, along with positive outcomes brought by those projects. The report says that the department hasn’t abandoned SARA’s problem solving procedures. Instead, they’ve become so embedded in the department’s way of doing business that officers aren’t always aware that the practices are out of the ordinary. Officials do acknowledge in the supplementary report that the department hasn’t been documenting its use of problem solving techniques as much as it could. Police reform advocates like Gerhardstein are quick to acknowledge that there has been progress as a result of the agreement. That is something community groups attest to. Geneva Clark of Westwood says that in recent years, police patrolling that part of Cincinnati seem to have taken parts of the Collaborative to heart. “We have seen a decrease in violence and an increase in the response of the police officers,” she says. “But you have to be at the table. We’ve invited the community and had community forums. We’ve seen changes in how the police are dealing with the community, and we’ve had them implement changes suggested by the community. I’ve seen it, it works. But it doesn’t work unless you work it.” Despite those gains, however, reform advocates and some experts say that systemic change toward models like SARA

has not happened within CPD.

Unsteady Progress, Continuing Tension

The original Collaborative arose from federal court-ordered mediation after the 2001 police shooting of an unarmed 19-year-old named Timothy Thomas by Cincinnati Police officer Stephen Roach. Thomas was black and Roach was white, setting off already bubbling racial tension around policing that culminated in three days of civil unrest in Over-the-Rhine and other neighborhoods. The Collaborative Agreement sought to shift the Cincinnati Police Department away from aggressive tactics toward more community-oriented policing, created the Citizens Complaint Authority to receive and act upon complaints of officer misconduct or bias, aimed to diversify the city’s police force and other efforts. But in recent years, Green’s team says, several components have slipped. Court supervision of the Collaborative ended in 2008. The refresh, according to officials, was meant to measure the progress of the Collaborative and attempt to build upon it. But even as that effort was under way, deep fissures emerged among the parties involved. Tensions around the collaborative were on full display last year when Fraternal Order of Police President Dan Hils announced the FOP was pulling out of the refresh. The FOP’s temporary abstention from the refresh process came after criticism of a CPD detective who testified during the trial of Ray Tensing, the University of Cincinnati Police officer who shot and

killed unarmed black motorist Sam DuBose. Critics say that detective Sgt. Shannon Heine went too easy on Tensing during the investigation into DuBose’s shooting. The relationship between the city, the FOP and activists soured further in October, when Hils asked Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters to keep two CPD officers accused of excessive force and racial profiling from testifying before the Collaborativecreated Citizens Complaint Authority until the criminal trial for their accuser was finished. Cincinnati City Manager Harry Black pushed back hard on that request, making a late-night phone call to Hils on Oct. 27. “You are trying to obstruct the CCA and I cannot honestly sit down at the table with the refresh with you all doing what you are doing right now,” Black said. “And I will let the world know this, that you guys are intentionally obstructing the CCA process.” Later in the conversation, Black said if the obstruction continued, he would go to the Department of Justice. Hils filed a complaint with law enforcement authorities, saying Black’s call was threatening. Despite the dustups, the city has plowed on with the refresh process, holding several community forums to gather input and announce some results. But critics say the city is dodging a vital conversation around the problems administering the Collaborative Agreement that Green’s report highlights. “We have elected officials, we have a mayor, we have a police chief,” Cincinnati NAACP Vice President Joe Mallory says. “We have to hold them accountable. With the refresh, it sounds good to say, ‘Hey, we believe in this process,’ but if they’re not going to support and put everything behind it, it’s just rhetoric.”

Data Shows Distrust and Disparities Remain

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Fears about racial bias in policing still hang heavy in some parts of the black community, even after the Collaborative. On a recent Saturday, Iris Roley and the Black United Front held a community forum at the New Prospect Baptist Church in Roselawn about the refresh effort and the panel’s reports. Roley was instrumental in winning the initial Collaborative Agreement, and has been intensely involved in police reform efforts since. One woman, who came to the event with her teenage son, spoke passionately about what it feels like to be afraid of the police. “I feel like when my son walks out the door, there’s a war raging against us,” she said. “I have to fear him going out because the black community is under siege.” “I’m one who lost a family member at the hands of police,” Roley told her. “We’re going to do some work. We’ve been working on this for 17 years. We need you to stay, and listen, and help us. If we don’t hold the elected officials and the people we pay to bring us a service accountable, we’re no better. We leave the mess to him,” she said, pointing to the woman’s son. A study commissioned by the Black United Front and executed by University of

Cincinnati faculty and graduate students surveyed more than 1,250 residents of Cincinnati and nearby areas about their attitudes when it comes to the Cincinnati Police Department. The respondents — about 41 percent black and 59 percent white — roughly mirror the city’s racial makeup and were further statistically weighted to match 2016 Census estimates for Cincinnati. Fifty-one percent of black residents surveyed say they have little to no trust in the police, while just 20 percent of non-black residents said the same. Two out of three black residents strongly disagreed with the statement that CPD treats people equally, while only 28 percent of non-black respondents felt that way. Other findings were more nuanced. Thirty-seven percent of black residents surveyed thought police-community relations had improved since the Collaborative, while 28 percent thought relations hadn’t improved. The survey also measured wider elements of Cincinnati society. Seventy-one percent of black residents surveyed said they had zero or little trust in Hamilton County courts, compared to just 28 percent of whites surveyed, and 68 percent of black respondents said they had little or no faith in Cincinnati’s government, compared to 46 percent of white respondents. Another survey of criminal justice and other professionals in Cincinnati funded by the city had some similar findings. Twenty of 31 respondents to that survey disagreed with the idea that the City of Cincinnati fairly and equitably enforces the law among all groups of residents, though they rated CPD high in other areas. Deep disparities in arrests by CPD underlie the distrust expressed by the black community. While overall arrests — and arrests of blacks — have gone down in the years since 2001 in Cincinnati, that’s followed a national trend. Incidents where an officer shot a citizen have also gone down recently. There were two police-involved shootings last year — one of a white citizen, one of a

“Saul and his team found that community black citizen, both ruled justified. There were four problem-oriented policing has not been officer-involved shootings happening within the department, hasn’t in 2016 — three involving been implemented fully,” Ruhland says. black citizens — and six in “Now, there are pockets of problem-oriented 2015. Five of those shootpolicing — there will be a project here and ings involved black citizens. there. But citywide, the strategy has not Despite reductions been implemented.” in arrests and shootings, Part of that comes from the way the stipublacks still disproportionlations set by the Collaborative are overseen ately find themselves in the right now, Gerhardstein, Roley and others backs of police cruisers. say. In the first half of 2017, A body called the Managers Advisory roughly 72 percent of adult Group was set up when court supervision CPD felony arrests and 63 percent of misdemeanor over the Collaborative ended in 2008. The arrests were of black group, made up of key stakeholders, is supcitizens, according to CPD posed to make sure the city is practicing data, though blacks make problem-solving in policing. up just 42 percent of Cin“We need to keep track of problem solving cinnati’s population. and how the agencies are cooperating with The disparities among each other,” Gerhardstein says. “And the juveniles are even more Managers Advisory Group has done a bad stunning. Ninety-six perjob of getting that organized. It consists of cent of youths arrested for the right people — the FOP, business people, felonies and 89 percent arrested for misdepeople from the community, police — but meanors by CPD in the first half of 2017 were it’s not challenging us to do the work we black, according to CPD data. need to be doing.” Experts and Advocates Urge Green and his team had several recommendations that could be undertaken Return to Problem Solving during the Collaborative refresh for making Proponents of the Collaborative — and the SARA model — say that it doesn’t have to be sure that CPD follows problem solving techthat way, and that the racial disparities in niques. They include: arrests are still unacceptable. “What we’re doing in the collaborative is • Strengthening the Managers Adviprevention,” Gerhardstein says. “We don’t sory Group so that it is more systemic and want to put black people in prison and then pattern-based in its approach, instead of try to retrieve those lives for society. We simply discussing anecdotal events. want them not to go there. • Developing sound problem solving “When we did the Collaborative, the performance indicators to keep track of instruction was, yeah, we don’t want to get when and how CPD uses problem solving beat up, we don’t want to get shot, we don’t techniques and the impact of those actions. want to get treated in a disparate way. Yes, • Creating routine internal audits of we want to keep the city safe, but we don’t problem solving efforts undertaken at see why only black people get arrested. So maybe there’s something we can do other CPD, based on review criteria created in than arrests that can keep the city safe.” a collaboration between the department Gerhardstein gives an example — an and outside parties. Those audits should be apartment building in which a resident is shared publicly periodically. running drug deals and prostitution. • Developing indicators of what fair policUnder SARA, the police would convene ing actually looks like and creating longother residents, the landlord, other city term objectives around those indicators. departments and community groups to • Developing sound measures of officer address the problem. Maybe the drug dealer safety, health and welfare and creating gets arrested, but others in the community specific projects around them to make sure who don’t need to be in the criminal justice officers aren’t under undue stress and can system stay out of it. perform their jobs as safely as possible. “If you use the SARA model, we can reduce • Creating an annual, public report to city overall calls for service, reduce crime and government of problem solving efforts. improve relationships,” says University of Cincinnati criminal justice professor Ebony • Making it clear to current and future city Ruhland, an expert on community-police and police managers that carrying out qualrelations and the SARA model. “It doesn’t ity problem solving is a core function of the have to be either/or between effective and Cincinnati Police Department. fair policing.” Green and his team charted specific Those are action points police reform problem-solving projects undertaken by advocates would like to see implemented as CPD since the Collaborative. The departsoon as possible. ment undertook 64 projects right before “These things (like SARA) mean somecourt supervision of the Collaborative thing and they have actions behind them ended in 2008. They dipped to a low of and we need to hold them to that,” Black eight right around the end of 2013 before United Front’s Roley says of city and police rebounding to an all-time high of 70 in 2014 leadership. and 2015. However, there were just 15 such problem-solving projects in 2017.

THE

CINCINNATI CHILI

f you’ve lived in Cincinnati for any amount of time, you’ve likely stumbled into the center of a debate between die-hard fans of Skyline and Gold Star: which local chili chain is the best? Both founded by immigrants — Skyline in 1949 by Greek transplant Nicholas Lambrinides and Gold Star in 1965 by the four Jordanian Daoud brothers — they used secret family recipes to create the city’s top feuding chili empires, spreading saucy meat and golden cheese across the Tristate. But if partisan chili politics isn’t your thing, you can always take the road less traveled and try your tastebuds at a neighborhood parlor, which are just as steeped in tradition and their own unique recipes. Some, like iconic (and James Beard Award-winning) Camp Washington Chili or Food Networkfeatured Blue Ash Chili are already famous in their own right. Others? Others are more obscure and may not haven’t gotten the Guy Fieri stamp of approval, but are just as vital — and delicious — community institutions. Starting with the godfather of chili parlors, Empress Chili, and working our way around the city from Northside to Newport, we tried to get a taste for the history and cuisine of several distinct neighborhood spots. We not only discovered the impact that Empress has had as the proverbial trunk of the local family tree of chili joints, but also that noodles slathered in meat sauce taste distinct at each destination. We couldn’t visit every cherished chili parlor, but here are the fables and flavors behind those we did. Empress Chili

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PHOTO: HAILEY BOLLINGER

Empress Chili 3670 Werk Road, Bridgetown, empress-chili.com The History: The first splattering of Cincinnati chili can be traced back to two brothers: Tom and John Kiradjieff, immigrants from Argos, Orestiko, a town in the now-Northwestern region of Macedonia-Greece. One brother immigrated to Cincinnati and then brought the other over in 1921. A year later, they served the first bowl of Cincinnati chili. James Papakirk, a first-generation immigrant from Greece, now owns the brand. He says that when the modest parlor first opened, it was a combination restaurant and dry goods store in the old Empress Burlesque Theatre storefront. Like many of the parlors that followed, it thrived on community. Other immigrants came to work for the Kiradjieffs, and they helped one another settle in a new country. Later, several would go on to stake a claim with their own storefronts. “I think it was a true phenomenon. I think it was a combination of a great dish, but a legacy of how those chili parlors operated,” Papakirk says of the chili chain reaction. The lasting impact of Empress would exceed the “wildest expectations” of its founders in terms of what the staple dish has become, Papakirk says. (And, yes, the recipe is unchanged). “The ongoing joke is that they can’t really find chili in Greece,” he says, adding that if you go up to a counter and ask, they’d refer to it as spaghetti with meat sauce. His theory is that the dish stems from a Greek-style lasagna called pastichio: thick, tubular noodles layered in a similar meat sauce with a thick layer of béchamel and spices reminiscent of Cincy chili. “(Empress’ Chili) has stayed more true to the old-world spice profile,” Papakirk says. Talk to owners of parlors and diners who now serve up the dish themselves and many acknowledge their roots in Empress. Even

BY MACKENZIE MANLEY; CHILI REVIEWS BY JUDE NOEL

TRAIL

A tour of treasured neighborhood chili joints is a delicious way to get to know the Queen City’s diverse enclaves

Papakirk’s wife, Maria, is in on the legacy: her family founded Camp Washington Chili. The Chili: In addition to the usual crop of double-decker sandwiches and ways, Empress offers some zany takes on old favorites: individual chili pizzas with cheesy, saucy fare on dough and the tough-to-pronounce “spagoney,” which swaps out hot dogs for noodles. Feeling a little adventurous, I ordered a spagoney and a 4-way with beans. This was the first 4-way I’ve had that comes in a circular bowl, not a boat. The consistency of the chili is smoother here than in other parlors. It’s paste-like, poured over big, pillowy noodles and topped with flossy cheese. It comes to your plate warm and goes down easily, tinged with a bittersweet aftertaste that is reminiscent of cocoa powder. It certainly substantiates rumors that parlors put chocolate in their chili, but the culture of secrecy surrounding these restaurants does not allow me to confirm or deny that. The 4-way is definitely worth revisiting, but the spagoney works best as a novelty item. Mustard and pasta just don’t mix. Based on the rest of my observations, though, I can infer that the coneys are very good. Price Hill Chili’s Steve Beltsos and his daughter PH OTO: NIC K SWARTSELL

says. “I know the fathers, their kids and now they’re married, so now their kids. I’ve been here since I was basically 10 years old.” Like many immigrants who opened chili parlors, Beltsos’ mom and dad are from a small village in Northern Greece named Kastoria (it’s now gone, bombed out of existence in World War II). Beltsos’ great-great uncle worked at Empress Chili,before he then spun off another restaurant called Latonia Chili. His father, Sam, worked there briefly before leaving his apprenticeship to open Price Hill Chili at age 22. “He put in a lot and I put in a lot,” Beltsos says. “You have to be here. You have to watch; people want to see you. It’s the personal touch.”

Beltsos primarily knows people by what they eat, and tries to know everyone by name. The staff can time when Sunday masses in the neighborhood let out, as Catholics migrate from church pews to restaurant booths. For many locals, Price Hill Chili is a slice of their own history. News clippings line the wall, including a photo of Beltsos’ daughter handing a coney to then-Vice President Dick Cheney. “It’s my neighborhood, and I’ll look after it,” he says. The Chili: Price Hill Chili’s 5-way, shaped like an Olympic stadium topped with a dairy CONTINUES ON PAGE 10

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Price Hill Chili 4290 Glenway Ave., Price Hill, pricehillchili.com The History: Regulars congregate around a no-frills bar in Price Hill Chili’s Golden Fleece Lounge, which the West Side staple added to the existing restaurant in the 1970s. In the center of it all sits a laughing Steve Beltsos, the owner of the family-run diner. His daughter is there, too, but an outsider wouldn’t be able to distinguish between family and customer — Beltsos treats everyone with the same warmth. Price Hill Chili was founded in 1962 by Beltsos’ dad, Sam (though retired, he still comes to visit). Back then, the location consisted of one room that seated 50 people. Its menu and physical size have expanded since (it seats 350 these days), but the family values and wood-panelled aesthetics haven’t changed. “We have generations of families,” Beltsos

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Dixie Chili PHOTO: HAILEY BOLLINGER

Blue Jay founder Danny Petropoulos and his daughter, Souli, who now runs the business PHOTO: HAILEY BOLLINGER

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dome, boasts a firmness its peers lack. The noodles are taut and hearty, without sacrificing their wobble — you actually taste them through the chili’s meatiness. This is one of the more mellow iterations of the standard Cincinnati chili recipe, foregoing some spice for a warm sweetness. I find myself more focused on Price Hill’s texture than its taste: it’s somewhat oatmeal-y, while competitors opt for a more slurpable consistency. The 5-way fills me up fast, but doesn’t manage to topple my insatiable chili appetite. I drop a few Westminster Bakers Co. oyster crackers into the dregs of the dish, finishing it off. Despite issues with structural integrity (it unraveled a bit en route to my mouth), Price Hill’s coney is still good. Stabbing at its remains with a fork, I spear a good blend of bun, dog and cheese. The frank is one of the better chili parlor offerings: it has that nostalgic, oily taste that reminds me of the uniformly beefy hot dogs you can only seem to get at sporting events. The verdict: Price Hill’s chili is the comfiest in the city. It’s filling, warm and tastes like home, whether or not your family routinely serves up 3-ways and coneys.

Dixie Chili 733 Monmouth St., Newport, Ky., dixiechili.com The History: In 1918, Greek refugee Nicholas Sarakatsannis arrived in the U.S. at age 15. Eleven years later, he turned a humble hot dog stand and knowledge gained working at Empress Chili into Northern Kentucky’s own take on Cincinnati Chili: Dixie Chili. Today, 150 gallons are still prepared in the Newport commissary — including a vegetarian version made with soy protein and Dixie Chili’s secret spices. As recounted on the Dixie Chili website, Sarakatsannis walked into Empress, said he was looking for work, and they told him to slip on an apron. A year later, he opened his own parlor, which has flourished since.

Sarakatsannis’ youngest of six sons, Spiros, grew up in the chili business. His memories of working alongside his father stretch way back, and he says he still recognizes regulars. Now, he’s taken over the family business. With a location in Newport, another in Covington and one in Erlanger, Dixie has become an integral part of Northern Kentucky culture; each location a local landmark in its own right. The Chili: The cheese is transportive. Though I’ll have visited a good portion of the Greater Cincinnati area’s parlors by this trail’s end, Dixie is still my chili joint. Just a block from my childhood home, the Erlanger Dixie Chili’s drive-thru was a regular stop for my grade-school self. I remember riding in the back seat of my grandmother’s car, a Styrofoam box of cheese coneys buckled into my lap — still warm. I’d pop the lid when I got home,

letting the smell of fluorescent-yellow cheddar waft through the living room. My boyhood nostalgia is paved in chili. Dixie’s flagship Newport location is more attuned to its urban surroundings than the neighborhood counterpart I’m used to. The checkered tile floors, cafeteria trays and ferns are still present, but they’re bathed in red neon. I decided to upgrade from my usual 5-way to Dixie’s exclusive 6-way, which includes beans, onions and chunks of garlic, bursting with a slight sourness that adds an odd kick to the dish. Traditionally, Dixie’s offerings are dominated by their Wisconsin cheddar: so satisfyingly rich that I’m tempted to decapitate the way’s cheese toupee and snack on it separately. The liberal smattering of garlic acts as an effective counterbalance to the dairy, but it’s not quite enough to convert me from my 5-way.

Blue Jay Restaurant 4154 Hamilton Ave., Northside, 513-541-0847, searchable on Facebook The History: Danny Petropoulos, though technically retired, still comes in nearly every day to Blue Jay Restaurant, which he opened with his late wife, Tina, 50 years ago. He takes pride in the soups and chili that populate the classic menu, and makes it all from scratch every day, sometimes at his house. “My recipe is my own recipe. That’s it. Good recipe, people like it, I’ll stick with it,” Petropoulos says. “Sooner or later (my daughter) is going to do it, but as long as I’m healthy, I’ll do that.” The origins of that recipe can be traced back to a small Greek village, Variko, where Petropoulos grew up and where his father had a restaurant of his own. In 1951, his wife immigrated and settled in Cincinnati. She came back to the village, they got married and he joined her in the Queen City in 1959. After working at his uncle’s now-closed chili parlor and a stint at MacGregor’s Sporting Goods making golf clubs, he opened the restaurant that would become a Northside staple. Not much has changed since. The deep green vinyl and distinctly ’60s wallpaper with dark wood panels speak of legacy, tradition and generations of hearty meals and hearty laughter. Beyond chili, many flock to the diner for nostalgic breakfasts and classic lunch fare. Petropoulos’ daughter, Souli, who took over the business, doubled up the menu. The original iteration hangs just above the grill, and was used in the upcoming Robert Redford flick, Old Man and the Gun. Petropoulos says his wife Tina, who passed away mid-February, worked harder and taught him more about life (and cooking) than anyone he knows. With their daughter at the helm, the tradition continues. “If you go today, you won’t find a seat to sit down. Specials all day. It’s booming,” he says.

staff that Chili Time’s titular dish had a “floral” taste: a sensation I wasn’t able to imagine until actually digging into a plate. I couldn’t come up with a more accurate way to describe my 4-way’s herby, salty flavor, which tasted a little different with each bite — some forkfuls are as savory as Skyline’s fare, while others are uniquely sour or earthy. Whether you order a way or a coney, it’ll come buried in a heap of soft, crumbly cheddar you could mistake for goat cheese were it not so yellow. I wouldn’t mind eating a full bowl of it on its own, if I respected my body a little less. At this point in the trail, I was so inundated with chili that I decided to forego it on my coney, opting to top mine with just cheese, mustard and the bottle of Frank’s RedHot sauce sitting at the table. Thanks to the cheese, this wiener was a winner, even without a key ingredient.

Chili Time PHOTO: HAILEY BOLLINGER

PHOTO: JUDE NOEL

At one time, Procter & Gamble was a big company (in Saint Bernard). A lot of people worked there. It left, so it’s changed. It went from a city to an actual village,” Stidham says. “We still get a good crowd here. We still get a lot of people who’ve left Saint Bernard, and they want to come back here and eat at Chili Time.” “I probably eat a cheese coney everyday,” he says. The Chili: I’d heard from fellow CityBeat

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to manager. He points to a building across the street with wooden shingles: Chili Time’s original location from 1963 until they moved in 1986. The original owners, brothers Harry and Pete Vidas, worked at Empress downtown before concocting their own recipe, which the family still owns. Harry’s son, Chris, now owns the restaurant with his wife, Kim. “This town has changed a lot in its time.

Chili Time 4727 Vine St., Saint Bernard, chilitime.net The History: Along Saint Bernard’s main drag, one sign stands out — a cartoon clock suspended in half a cup of chili. The message is clear: it’s chili time. The orange awning is vibrant among unassuming small-town storefronts and the interior is just what you’d expect from a no-frills establishment; one at which Gary Stidham has worked at for 40 years. Starting as a dishwasher, he worked his way up

Cretan’s Chili Restaurant

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And he’s right: Walk into Blue Jay on a weekend morning and there’s hardly a seat to spare. The Chili: While other chilis strive for a blend of saucy and hearty that leans toward wetness, Blue Jay embraces the natural mouthfeel of ground beef. It’s akin to a taco salad, if your idea of a salad eschews leafy greens for cooked pasta. Among an extensive line-up of classic diner fare that could complement your order, I appreciate that Blue Jay’s ways go easy on the grease. The dish is filling, but not so much so that you can’t leave room for a side of crinkle-cut fries, which are reason enough to make a Northside pit stop. If you prefer your chili with a side of conversation, this is probably the most interesting place to do it. The diner’s always bustling, and the walls are covered in woodland-themed artwork that sets an oddly rustic tone for your lunch with friends.

Cretan’s Chili Restaurant 7039 Vine St., Carthage, 513-821-1203 The History: Well-hidden in Carthage, Cretan’s Chili Restaurant is a vintage oasis that doesn’t just sling classic diner food: if you’re able to find time to visit the grill between its elusive hours (10 a.m.-2 p.m.), you’ll slip into a realm of cozy Americana. Cretan’s is a Hopper-esque landscape of linoleum and wood-paneling, serving Cokes in Styrofoam cups and sandwich platters listed on a menu that’s essentially Arial font on laminated printer paper. A trio of regulars nurse coffee cups as they huddle around an old box TV, flickering the news. George Kyrios drops in on their conversation as he traverses the length of the counter. He and his sister Lilly have worked at Cretan’s since they were kids. Their parents, Katina and John, founded the business in 1948. It was originally a candy store that happened to sell sandwiches and evolved into a chili parlor in the ’60s. Lilly says that their customer base typically consists of late-morning coffeedrinkers and local workers on lunch break. Though the ways are the most popular lunchtime order, she prefers chili cheese sandwiches. “I eat one almost every day,” she says. The Chili: George makes the chili daily from scratch, and he’s particular about how it’s made. Lilly says he cuts the meat, grinds it and blends it with spices according to her father’s top-secret recipe. No word on what those spices are, but my gut tells me that there’s definitely a liberal dose of clove mixed into each batch, giving Cretan’s ways a kick that reminds me of Chili Time’s blend. You can tell that it’s homemade, and the portions are reasonable enough that you’re full after eating your way, but not so much that you feel stuffed to the gills. If you’re not a local, it might be difficult to swing by Cretan’s. But if you do, the Kyrios family will make it worth the trip. They’re the most attentive and kind staff I’ve met at a chili parlor — friendly, and quick to crack a joke.

BEST OF CINCINNATI® GOLDEN TICKETS March 28 | 5:30-9pm | The Phoenix, 812 Race St, Downtown Cincinnati

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Every attendee will have a chance to win a pair of tickets to:

Bonnaroo 2018 Forecastle Festival Bunbury Festival Jason Mraz David Byrne Tedeschi Trucks Band Odesza Steve Martin & Martin Short

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SPONSORED BY:

Early Bird: $35 - SOLD OUT General Admission: $42 Presidential Package: $100

proceeds benefit:

For more information, visit bestofcincinnati.com

STUFF TO DO WEDNESDAY 07

MUSIC: Iron Chic brings Pop Punk to the Southgate House Revival with Propagandhi and La Armada. See Sound Advice on page 32.

ONSTAGE: CCM Transmigration Festival The movement from one place to another by a person or object can be described as “transmigration.” The word is also used when discussing ideas of reincarnation and the transition from one state of being to the next. The University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music’s 10th-annual Transmigration Festival uses this theme and showcases six new and original 30-minute shows created by students in the CCM Acting program. The shows will be performed simultaneously at different locations around CCM village and those attending can choose four out of the six shows to see. Admission is free but reservations are required. 7 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Free, but RSVP to 513-556-4183. CCM Village, Corry Boulevard off Jef Jefferson Avenue, Clifton, ccm. uc.edu. — ZACH PERRIN

THURSDAY 08

EVENT: An Evening with Neil Gaiman at the Aronoff Center is currently sold out, but read Brian Baker’s musings on the man on page 20.

MUSIC: Miguel mixes R&B, Rock and Funk at the Taft Theatre. See Sound Advice on page 33.

PHOTO: BRI HICKS

performer and audience, contemporary local pianist Brianna Matzke will perform the work of local composers to celebrate International Women’s Day on Thursday. Composers with local connections and national/ international recognition like Laura Harrison, Alexis Bacon and Carrie Magin wrote the music Matzke will play inside the exhibition space of the Weston Art Gallery. 7 p.m. Thursday. $10 suggested donation. Weston Art Gallery, 650 Walnut St., Downtown, salon21.org. — MARIA SEDA-REEDER

FRIDAY 09

MUSIC: Lioness Lioness is a 10-piece Dayton, Ohio musical group featuring members of some of the finest Gem City-area outfits the city has given the world over the past couple of decades, including Shesus, Me & Mountains and Ohio Casket. Formed

by estimably talented singer/ songwriter Nathan Peters — who was last seen fronting another one of those Dayton gems, Captain of Industry — Lioness’ gifted musicians (who play mandolin, strings, keys, guitar, bass and drums) give the songs their lush, organic textures, as do the layered vocals of the four harmony vocalists. Fans of Captain of Industry will remember Peters’ songs as being loaded with unbelievably memorable melodic hooks, something that continues with Lioness, though remarkably the songwriting is stepped up a few more notches. The sound is timeless Pop Rock wrapped in an orchestral Indie Folk package, an alluringly unique mixture of late ’60s/early ’70s Kinks and early Pulp, sprinkled with pinches of Damon Albarn’s candy melodies and Arcade Fire’s moody soundscapery. Last year, Lioness released

its phenomenal debut, Time Killer which you can (and Killer, really should) find at lionessdayton.bandcamp.com. It’s the kind of album that will haunt you throughout the day and have you reaching for the music player to revisit it as soon a humanly possible. The group should be impressive in a live setting, making Dawg Yawp’s hometown show this Friday with This Pine Box even more of a must-see/must-hear event. 8 p.m. Friday. $12; $14 day of show. Woodward Theater, 1404 Main St., Over-theRhine, woodwardtheater. com. — MIKE BREEN

you’ll also get the chance to sample all sorts of food that can be expertly paired with your vino. Having raised $5.3 million in the 27 years since its inception, the festival is the second longestrunning charitable wine fest in the U.S., with half of the funds from each ticket going to 36 different Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky charities benefitting arts,

EVENT: Cincinnati International Wine Festival Browse and sample a selection of 700 wines from more than 250 wineries from around the world at this year’s Cincinnati International Wine Festival, held at the Duke Energy Convention Center. Along with wine,

ONSTAGE: Othello Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, OTR (through March 24)

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Ongoing Shows

Red Velvet Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati, OTR (through March 31)

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MUSIC: Música Pro Femina at the Weston Art Gallery As part of Salon 21’s fourth season of small, intimate concerts that break down barriers between the

Pianist Brianna Matzke performs Thursday at the Weston Art Gallery.

EVENT: Listermann’s International Women’s Day Beer Release Listermann Brewing Company is celebrating International Women’s Day for the second year in a row by releasing three farmhouse ales (Call to Farms, Riveting Rosie and

COMEDY: Tom Simmons “I don’t really do specific political jokes,” says comedian Tom Simmons, “I do jokes about big issues like race, religion, politics and abortion. I cover several subjects, but I’ve found any jokes about Trump turn the room quickly.” Conventional wisdom suggests that it’s a great time to be a comedian, what with Trump in office, and that the jokes surely write themselves. Simmons says otherwise. “First of all they don’t write themselves,” he insists, “and secondly, people are so divided they feel uncomfortable. And Trump supporters are really beholden. I have 70-year-old guys standing up and giving me the finger. It’s a thinner line to walk these days.” Through Sunday. $8-$14. Go Bananas, 8410 Market Place Lane, Montgomery, gobananascomedy.com. — P.F. WILSON

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MUSIC: Mipso brings its Americana melancholy to the Woodward Theater. See Sound Advice on page 32.

Tastes like Persistence) and donating a portion of the proceeds to Women Helping Women, a local organization that supports survivors of gender-based violence with counseling and job training programs. The cleverly titled ales were actually brewed by women in Cincinnati back in January on a day that doubled as a brew-training session and networking event (which CityBeat covered in our Beer Issue). In addition to new brews, the night will feature a raffle, a free photobooth and live screen printing to turn the locally designed feminist bottle art into your next Women’s March T-shirt. 5-9 p.m. Thursday. Free. Listermann Brewing Company, 1621 Dana Ave., Norwood, listermannbrewing.com. —MCKENZIE ESKRIDGE

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education and health and human services. Come to the charity auction and luncheon on Saturday to eat with winery representatives and bid on wines, dinners and trips. Grand Tastings will be held Friday evening and Saturday afternoon and evening. The events are ticketed separately, and you can purchase add-ons for the education series and tasting room specials. 6:30-9 p.m. Friday; 2:30-4:30 p.m. and 6:30-9 p.m. Saturday. Grand Tasting tickets $65$75. Duke Energy Convention Center, 525 Elm St., Downtown, winefestival.com. — ZACH PERRIN EVENT: Darkotica On Valentine’s Day, longrunning Cincinnati gay bar The Dock was purchased by the Ohio Department

Check our website for this week’s deals!

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WEDNESDAY 07

CINCINNATI.ALTPERKS.COM Facebook/ T w i T Ter: perkopol is

FILM: Kubrick Film Series: A Clockwork Orange No matter how you feel about bowler hats, it’s hard to deny the influence Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971) had on the course of pop culture history. It paved the way for more dystopian sci-fi flicks that explored intricate, dreamlike worlds and — like his previous release, 2001: A Space Oddyssey — provided heaps of aesthetic influence for future directors in the form of surrealist imagery and X-rated shock value. It’s also the third and final film in a trilogy of Kubrick screenings hosted by the Esquire Theatre, following Lolita and Dr. Strangelove. University of Cincinnati film historian Joe Horine will lead a post-movie discussion that delves into the director’s impact, notorious perfectionism and diverse filmography. 7 p.m. Wednesday. $10. Esquire Theatre, 320 Ludlow Ave., Clifton, esquiretheatre.com. — JUDE NOEL

of Transportation in order to make room for improvements to the Brent Spence Bridge. With the club’s untimely closing came what seemed like an end to Darkotica, a weekly Goth night that gave local scenesters a chance to flex their existential dread and stomp to classic Darkwave jams. Thanks to Mixwell’s Northside, however, the event remains undead — for now. Darkotica will return for a one-off this Friday, featuring sets of Electro-Industrial and EBM spun by DJ Impossible and STEPHEN29. If you’re brooding on a budget, don’t fret! There’s no cover charge. Just come dressed in your most macabre duds and with a penchant for doom and gloom. 9 p.m.-2:30 a.m. Friday. Free. Mixwell’s, 4169 Hamilton Ave., Northside, facebook.com/mixwellsbar. — JUDE NOEL EVENT: LOOK Opening Philanthropic lab People’s Liberty’s Camp Washington storefront opens Friday with LOOK, a reading room, newsstand and performance space from PL Globe grantees Anh Tran and Sidney Cherie Hilley. According to a release, “LOOK is a space where artists, writers, wizards, designers, unicorns and actors can gather, collaborate and share their work. In this versatile space for performances,

workshops and readings, all are invited to stop in and explore, meet someone new and get inspired.” The opening celebration features music, art, a photobooth and light bites. 7-10 p.m. Friday. Free admission. Camp Washington Globefront, 2840 Colerain Ave., Camp Washington, facebook. com/look.colab. — MAIJA ZUMMO ONSTAGE: Cirque de la Symphonie The Cincinnati Pops hosts a weekend of aural and aerial acrobatics with Cirque de la Symphonie, who will perform circusstyle feats and whimsical entertainment to accompany symphonic works like Ride of the Valkyries, the Jaws theme, music from Phantom of the Opera and a John Philip Sousa-scored march. Expect acrobats, contortionists, jugglers and dancers provide a visual display while the Pops plays. 8 p.m. Friday; 8 p.m. Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday. $20-$105; $15 kids. Music Hall, 1241 Elm St., Over-the-Rhine, cincinnatisymphony.org. — MAIJA ZUMMO

SATURDAY 10

EVENT: Saint Patrick’s Day Parade Get ready for the streets to run green as the 52ndannual Saint Patrick’s Day Parade descends on

PHOTO: PROVIDED BY THE ESQUIRE

PHOTO: JAMES J. KRIEGSMAN

WEDNESDAY 07

EVENT: Repair Fair Cincy Our comfort hangs in the balance of fragile machines: it’s an unfortunate fact of life that we tend to forget until the fridge goes on the fritz or your hair dryer heaves its last breath. If you’re not the handy type, the cost of repairs and replacements can add up, draining your bank account while heaping discarded appliances into

YOUR WEEKEND TO DO LIST: LOCAL.CITYBEAT.COM

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SPORTS: Cincinnati Rollergirls Home Opener & Fan Appreciation Night Cincinnati’s beloved rollergirls are back in business Saturday night as they take on Colorado’s Boulder County Bombers in a double-header at Schmidt Memorial Fieldhouse at Xavier University. While the sport once thrived across the country, it lost steam in the 1970s when transportation costs spiked. The roller derby revival first sparked in

landfills. Luckily, Repair Fair Cincy just might have the solution to your problem next time something needs fixing. If your broken household item falls into one of the event’s listed categories — clothing, skateboards/bikes, small electronics, jewelry, tools, etc. — you can pass it off to a repair volunteer, who can teach you how to fix it free of charge. Repair Fair is an all-ages event, and appointments with volunteers are scheduled on a first-come, first-served basis. Come early, and be ready to roll up your sleeves: the future of your defective toaster oven (and the environment!) may be at stake. 9 a.m.-noon Saturday. $10. Pleasant Ridge Recreation Center, 5915 Ridge Ave., Pleasant Ridge, hamiltoncountyrecycles.org. — JUDE NOEL

2001 with the Lonestar Rollergirls in Austin, Texas, but Cincinnati didn’t follow far behind; Saturday marks the opening of Cincinnati Rollergirls’ 13th season. And when we see them rollin, we’re not hating. CityBeat readers have consistently voted CRG the city’s Best Amateur/ Semi-Pro Team since 2011. To express their gratitude, the team is paying it back not only in competitive bouts, but special fan giveaways throughout the night. 6-9 p.m. Saturday. Adults: $12 advance, $15 at door; Kids: $5 advance, $7 at door; free 6 and under. Xavier Univer University, 3800 Victory Parkway, Evanston, cincinnatiroller Evanston, cincinnatirollergirls.com. — MCKENZIE ESKRIDGE

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downtown Cincinnati. Starting at noon, Gaelic societies, Highland dancers, bagpipers, friends, family and anyone else who is Irish for the day (and registered in time) will parade from Mehring Way and Central Avenue downtown to Freedom Way and Rosa Parks Street at The Banks, led by Honorary Grand Marshal Thomas Hogan, native of Wexford, Ireland. If you didn’t register to march, anyone and everyone is invited to watch the parade, which has never been canceled — whether facing rain, sleet, snow or even sun. Noon Saturday. Free. Mehring Way and Central Avenue, Downtown, cincystpatsparade.com. — MAIJA ZUMMO

ONSTAGE: Marie and Rosetta Sister Rosetta Tharpe had a mean way with an electric guitar, even when she performed Gospel songs. In the 1930s and ’40s she sang in church in the morning and then at New York’s Cotton Club in the evening. Her style influenced the likes of Little Richard, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and even Elvis Presley. This play — full of roof-raising, heart-rending bluesy singing — is about the day the legendary “Godmother of Rock & Roll” began to rehearse for a national tour with Marie Knight, her young protégée. Neil Pepe, who staged the show’s 2016 world premiere at New York City’s Atlantic Theatre Company, is the director. Through March 31. $30-$85. Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, 962 Mount Adams Circle, Mount Adams, cincyplay.com. — RICK PENDER

ARTS & CULTURE All Bow Down Before Neil Neil Gaiman thinks he’s something special, primarily because he is BY B R I A N B A K ER

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everal years ago, I was freelancing for the New Haven Advocate under the able editorship of former CityBeat minion John Stoehr. Stoehr emailed me one afternoon with an intriguing query: Would it be possible to get an interview with Lady Gaga to preview her upcoming concert? After several incapacitated moments of convulsive laughter, I responded to his request thusly: “Lady Gaga doesn’t need you, me or God to help her sell tickets.” I offered to do a “think piece” instead. The situation seems to be largely the same with science fiction author/graphic novelist Neil Gaiman, whom I was asked to interview if possible, although the reasons are not as clearly obvious as in Gaga’s case. He’s appearing 7 p.m. Thursday at the Aronoff Center for the Arts in support of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. The event is sold out and he’s not doing interviews. So what exactly is it about the 57-yearold Gaiman that inspires his public to attend his appearances in such numbers, thereby allowing him the luxury of not dealing with the unwashed press, i.e., me? First of all, he’s British (so cool), has two middle names (Richard MacKinnon) and he’s married to singer/songwriter Amanda Palmer (also known as Amanda Fucking Palmer). Before we wander too far into the vast expanse of Gaiman’s almost unbelievable résumé — it would be completely plausible if it was revealed that he had been Chuck Barris’ child partner in the CIA — there is a bullet point in his credits that warrants italics: He’s written two episodes of Doctor Who. In the geekiest corners of wild geekdom, that factoid alone could account for at least a portion of the slavish, standing-roomonly crowds that fill his live readings. If Gaiman had never done another thing beyond contributing to the good doctor’s mythology, he could have retired to his mother’s basement and played Halo and World of Warcraft endlessly, always within easy reach of a garbage bag full of Cheetos, a 10-gallon reservoir of Mountain Dew and a bong, all of it financed by Doctor Who fans that have constructed shrines to those very scripts in their mothers’ their mothers’ basements. their Of course, those episodes have been more recent developments in Gaiman’s

literally storied career, coming along in 2011 and 2013. His first Doctor Who episode went on to win a Hugo Award, science fiction’s highest accolade, an honor that Gaiman has now won six times. He was once nominated for his 2006 novel Anansi Boys, but he requested that the nomination be withdrawn on the grounds that the book was more fantasy than science fiction. That’s a shame, because with a seventh punch on his Hugo card, he’d get a free dinner at Douglas Adams’ Restaurant at the End of the Universe. Oh well, there’s always next year. And every year after that. And since the subject of awards has been broached, it’s safe to imagine that Gaiman’s home or homes must be trophy rooms with attached garages. In addition to the aforementioned Hugos, he has won multiple awards from a variety of august ceremonies, including the Nebula, Locus, Harvey, Eisner, Bram Stoker, Ray Bradbury, Shirley Jackson and British Fantasy Awards, among many others. Gaiman has been recognized for every facet of his writing, from his groundbreaking Sandman series of graphic novels to short stories, novellas and novels. He won both the Newbery and Carnegie medals for his 2009 young adult novel The Graveyard Book, the first author to achieve that milestone. It seems like the only organization that hasn’t bestowed some mantle bling on Gaiman over the past quarter century is the Lollipop Guild, and he probably asked them to withdraw their nomination, too. Let’s not forget that there are a number of film and television entries on Gaiman’s curriculum vitae as well. He wrote all six episodes of the darkly inventive Neverwhere, broadcast on the BBC in 1996, and he wrote the series’ novelization. Know Theatre presented a very popular stage version of the novel last year. Gaiman co-wrote the script for Robert Zemeckis’ modern interpretation of Beowulf. He’s written several treatments Beowulf that are in various stages of the film process and several of his novels and novellas have been translated to screens both big and small, including Stardust and Coraline for the former and American Gods for the latter. And then there’s another one of those career highlight moments — voicing himself on The Simpsons in 2011. Gaiman’s influence also creeps into the

Neil Gaiman is a superstar literary figure. PH OTO: K Y LE CAS S I DY

musical realm. One of his first books in the mid ’80s, back when he was still a journalist, was a biography of Duran Duran (given the choice between three musical acts to write about, he recently said he chose the New Romantic superstars over Barry Manilow and Def Leppard because they had less of a history). He’s also close friends with singer/songwriter Tori Amos, who has written Gaiman and his books, stories and characters into several songs and even asked him to be her daughter’s godfather. He frequently tours with Palmer, and even released a collaborative live album with her in 2013. His writing bears all the earmarks of a life enthralled by Rock — iconoclastic, anti-authoritarian, brash, electric, visionary. Gaiman’s teenage Punk band was fueled by his love of the Velvet Underground in general and Lou Reed in particular; the appreciation he wrote for The Guardian after Reed’s passing —where

he claims that Sandman would never have shimmered into existence without Reed and his work — is as impassioned and moving as anything in his fiction portfolio. It’s logical to assume that Gaiman doesn’t feel the need to speak to his fans through the press because he speaks to his fans directly; he has over two million Twitter followers and was cited by IGN Entertainment in 2013 as one of the best tweeters in the comics industry. He also routinely corresponds with fans through his Tumblr account. The only remaining question may be why Gaiman has as many fans as he does, but if any or all of the above clarifies anything, it’s the fact that he doesn’t attract just one type of zealot. Comic books, Doctor Who, science fiction, fantasy, television, film, The Simpsons, music… all of these obsessives have found a brilliant champion in Neil Gaiman. All things considered, I wouldn’t talk to me either.

CULTURE

Camp Washington’s Cultural Growth BY L E Y L A S H O KO O H E

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Chase Public will have a new address in Camp Washington come April 1, accelerating the trend of arts groups and projects moving to and revitalizing that older and once heavily industrial neighborhood. The literary-friendly performance gallery is leaving its Northside location, on the second floor of a building at 1569 Chase Ave. in the business district, for a bigger space at Chase Public will occupy a new, larger space in Camp Washington. 2868 Colerain Ave. It will be sandwiched between P H O T O : R YA N B A C K People’s Liberty’s new outpost at 2849 Colerain Ave. and Wave Pool gallery/art center. The last existence through April 21. AFBC (Anti performance in the current Chase Avenue Fashion Boot Camp) follows, opening May location is set for March 16, a reprise of the 18, and then SkateAble closes out the first popular “Response Project.” round of programming at Camp Washing“It has a lot more to do with how nice that ton later in the summer. space is than being dissatisfied with this “There’s a momentum happening there,” space,” says Scott Holzman, Chase Public’s says People’s Liberty program director executive director. “It’s bigger, it’s more Aurore Fournier. “I know it’s only artisticcomfortable, it’s nicer. There’s storage and based at the moment, but I feel like we’re office space, which is something that we’ve all getting that vibe that, ‘OK, things are been needing, and it’s on the first floor, changing for the better,’ and hopefully which is a big plus in terms of visibility and other things will follow up.” especially accessibility.” Wave Pool, which describes itself as a Chase Public will retain the same name “contemporary art fulfillment center,” was (“Colerain Public sounds too much like one of the first arts-based organizations a school, even for us,” Holzman says) to take root in the neighborhood in 2014. It and the same philosophy of focusing on has become a catalyst for change. community collaboration and empathy “We very quickly fell in love with Camp through artistically minded performances Washington and have, from the get-go, and presentations. really wanted to be a progressive part of Already on the books for April are a the neighborhood,” says Calgano Cullen, number of events: a new music perfora founder and executive director of Wave mance from local composer Jack Bogard, a Pool. panel on publishing, the second presentaPart of that progressive attitude includes tion of The Slide Show Show Show, a handful of the development of multiple community readings and, eventually, an open house. partnerships. Wave Pool has worked with Holzman emphasizes the artistthe Camp Washington Community Board, and community-led orientation of the the community council, River City Correcprogramming, much of which has been tional Center, Washington United Church dreamt up by attendees, will remain intact. of Christ, American Sign Museum and “Hopefully, that new physical environCamp Washington Urban Farm, among ment inspires new ideas for how people others. Cullen says the goal is to try to can use that space,” he says, citing work“uplift” the neighborhood in different ways. shops and other events held at Chase that Wave Pool is part of the Made in Camp were the by-product of inspired attendees. gallery walk/event, a recently developed “We’re not going to be too prescriptive neighborhood plan based on input from about it in the beginning because it’s nice stakeholders and residents. It refers back to to see what emerges through people’s the area’s industrial roots, the many blueexperiences, but we’re pretty sure that it’s collar residents and the growing commugoing to be inspiring for folks.” nity of artists and their spaces. Camp Washington itself is experiencing “It’s really cool to think about this as significant growth as a cultural commuan arts district,” Cullen says, adding nity. People’s Liberty, the nonprofit philshe wants change to come in a way that anthropic lab already familiar for its Globe engages and interests the current residents. grant installations at its location on Elm “That’s part of the reason why Wave Pool Street in Findlay Market, opens its second tries to do everything we can to change the “globefront” in Camp Washington Friday. neighborhood in ways that the people who Its first grantee takeover will be LOOK, live here want.” a literary and performance salon from Sidney Cherie Hilley and Anh Tran, in

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From Kennedy Heights to Bed-Stuy BY JAS O N G A R G A N O

Brandon Harris describes himself as a “high yellow Negro,” the light-skinned offspring of a middle-class family from Kennedy Heights who attended Seven Hills School, a private K-12 institution that educates the children of the city’s wealthiest families. That unique set of circumstances informs much of Harris’ Making Rent in Bed-Stuy: A Memoir of Trying to Make it in New York City City, an engrossing mix of personal anecdotes, incisive reporting and criticism published last year by Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins, which has steadily found an audience. Enthralled with movies since childhood, Harris studied film at State University of New York (SUNY) in Purchase in the early 2000s. Afterward, he intended to move 30 miles south to New York City and start a moviemaking career in the mold of his onetime hero, Spike Lee. He indeed moved to New York City, rooming with his childhood buddy and former Seven Hills classmate Tony — whose well-to-do parents helped finance their living situation — in the historically black Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant. But things don’t always go as planned. As is so often the case in an art form that requires access to large amounts of money, Harris had trouble getting his filmmaking career off the ground. Almost by accident, he began writing movie reviews and the occasional feature for Filmmaker Magazine, which eventually led to more freelance journalism work for a variety of publications, from IndieWire and The New Republic to n+1 and The New Yorker Yorker. Making Rent in Bed-Stuy draws from pieces he has written over the years as well as new takes on topics as diverse as gentrification and poverty, the rise of Bed-Stuy native Jay-Z, and the troubles filmmakers of color have in getting their work financed and distributed. The book toggles between Harris’ thoughts on his struggles to make rent over the last dozen years and his political and social commentary of rare insight. Everything is delivered via an evocative, transportive prose style that illuminates the issues of minority life in Bed-Stuy and beyond. “It was an emotionally tumultuous period of my life and I chose to document it firsthand in ways that I could scarcely imagine,” Harris says. “At the same time, it was a period of self-discovery; it was also a journey into the heart of this sort of mecca of black America that I was living in that is greatly imperiled by forces beyond any of our individual control.” Harris visits his Cincinnati hometown periodically — much of his family still lives here and it’s where he filmed his one and only full-length feature, Redlegs, a semi-autobiographical indie that drew praise from The New York Times. Harris

Brandon Harris’ book has developed a following. PHOTO: KENTUCKER AUDLEY

sees parallels between Bed-Stuy and Overthe-Rhine, each of which has changed radically in recent years. “What has taken place in Over-theRhine since I made Redlegs in 2010 is the complete transformation of a historically landmarked urban space that was blighted in the years of white flight and has been coveted by the city’s elite since at least the 1970s as a place of urban renewal,” he says. “It has been utterly transformed in a way that makes it a clarion call for those who’d like to do the same thing in urban spaces that were ceded to blacks and disinvested in and overly policed and denied services and shamed by the news media for two or three generations.” The transformation of urban centers all over the country is a complex, often controversial topic, one that spurred what would become Making Rent in Bed-Stuy. “It’s a major American story,” he says. “I think it’s as significant a story as the deindustrialization of the middle of the country and the hollowing out of the white working class. It’s a significant national crisis. If poor people who are disproportionately brown had any political agency in this country, it would be at the top of the agenda of any politician who wanted to keep their job. But that is not the world in which we live.” While Harris was originally hesitant to delve so deeply into his own experiences as they relate to issues of race, class and moviemaking, he’s now grateful he was pushed to do so by the various editors he worked with in bringing Making Rent in Bed-Stuy to publication. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” he says. “I always saw the book as a highwire act. I wanted to be very unsparing of self. I wanted to be harder on myself than anyone else, and I felt that if I did that I would have the liberty to be hard on pretty much anyone: black people, white people, politicians, my parents, my grandparents, my girlfriends, Spike Lee — the list goes on and on.”

ONSTAGE

‘Kill Move Paradise’ Is Intensely Real BY JAC K I E M U L AY

CRITIC’S PICK

Know Theatre’s Kill Move Paradise opens and crying out to a crowd that gives only abruptly. The first character to greet the silence in return. stage is Isa (Darnell Pierre Benjamin), who But in Kill Move Paradise, discomfort makes his entrance with a thunderclap is a good thing. Playwright James Ijames and instant deep emotion. Performed in uses this ethereal setting to create a sense thrust, Kill Move Paradise ensures the of dread. As each new character pops audience is there to watch every moment, out, or new names are added to the list in hear every breath and feel every experiIsa’s pocket, we feel an apprehension that ence as it develops onstage. comes with never knowing if there is an Isa demonstrates this intention immeend in sight. Ijames uses the audience’s diately, pointing people out and asking discomfort to prove a point. direct and pointed questions. “Come to see By bringing the audience into the me?” he demands of a man in the front row. experience, Ijames highlights the passive “What for?” But the answer doesn’t matter; Isa isn’t looking for answers from the audience. Nor is Grif (Landon Horton), who comes barreling out of the back of the house onto the stage not long after. The two talk for some time, without the harsh reality of their situation being evident. Neither Isa nor Grif can remember the exact details surrounding the events that brought them to what they see as such a strange place. Soon they Crystian Wiltshire as Tiny in Know Theatre’s Kill Move Paradise are joined by Daz (Elliot Young), and eventually the PHOTO: DAN R. WINTERS three realize they are dead — Daz takes the news much harder than his companions. But nature of American culture. The willingno character is as heartbreaking as Tiny, a ness to be a spectator who witnesses and preteen boy played by adult actor Crystian feels but never acts. Or, perhaps more poiWiltshire, who enthusiastically joins the gnantly, the spectator who instead insists others, equipped with a beaming smile that “all lives matter.” and a toy gun. But these characters are aware of their Each of these four characters is trapped spectators. And they use that awareness to in limbo — a confusing place filled with grapple with their experiences. They pose water, thunderous roars and a handy rhetorical questions and shout cryptic instruction booklet for their time there. poems from their own individual corners Their job, the booklet states, is to rememof the stage, desperately trying to make ber what happened to them. Over the sense of it all. course of the next 70 minutes, they set out The actors skillfully navigate the to do just that. This is the answer they are tense landscape of the play, while creatlooking for. ing moments of levity. But even in the But they aren’t alone in this limbo; moments of comic relief, the tension hangs they are part of a seemingly endless and in the air like an ominous cloud. constantly growing list of names that Isa Four young lives were ripped away too pulls out of his pocket. The list contains soon, and Kill Move Paradise demands each of their names along with black men to know why. And more importantly, it and women who came before them, whose demands that we reckon with the implicalives were also cut short simply because tions of those deaths: scores of books left of their blackness. Trayvon Martin, Eric unwritten by lives lost too soon; television Garner, Sandra Bland and Sam DuBose shows that highlight the black experience are among some of the names Isa somberly left untold. Talent truncated by senseless reads aloud. deaths. In the end, Tiny receives assurance Part of what makes the experience of Kill from Daz that his death was, in fact, not OK, Move Paradise, directed by Piper N. Davis, and Tiny doesn’t need to accept it as such. so intensely real and uncomfortable is not None of them do. just the facts that spill over to meet the Kill Move Paradise is onstage at the fiction. The intensity also stems from the Know Theatre (1120 Jackson St., level of interaction between the actors and Over-the-Rhine) through March 24. individual audience members. When they Tickets/more info: knowtheatre.com. speak, they speak to you — locking eyes

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‘Heathers’ and our Mass-Shooting Era BY JAC K ER N

News of a modern Heathers TV reboot quote on the school marquee. Heathers — based on the cult classic 1989 film — takes place in a world where being the garnered mixed reactions to say the least. most “other,” checking the most self-idenFans of the original lamented Hollywood tifying boxes, gives you the highest credo. messing with yet another classic, wherein Veronica (Grace Victoria Cox, sufficiently Winona Ryder and Christian Slater take taking over Ryder’s role) is mocked for down members of their school’s cruel “only” being half-Jewish, as if that’s not clique. edgy enough. One Heather is threatened While remakes are often criticized for to be outed as straight. It’s like a Fox News missing the point of or not remaining true interpretation of the dreaded liberal milto the source, Heathers avoids those pitfalls lennial/Gen Z experience, exaggerated pretty well. While staying planted in enough to make it pretty funny. present day, the pilot includes many referYou can’t deny this satire is intriguing. ences to the film. But the deeper issue with this dark comedy is whether now is really an appropriate time to air a show about teenon-teen violence, suicide and a high school murder spree. The answer: Apparently not. Originally set to premiere this Wednesday on Paramount Network (formerly Spike), the series was recently pulled, with the network citing the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting that rocked Parkland, Fla. and the (L-R) Heathers’ Jasmine Mathews, Melanie Field, Brendan Scannell country on Valentine’s Day as the reason. Given the P H O T O : C O U R T E S Y O F PA R A M O U N T N E T W O R K heartbreaking prevalence of gun violence, bullying and teen suicide, will there ever be a “right It’s been described as a Trumpian dystopia, time” for Heathers? but I think that points more to the ridicuThere are plenty of violent shows out lousness of it rather than glorifying it. there — The Punisher comes to mind. But Then you have the Heathers themselves, where the Marvel thriller handled gun who represent a big departure from the violence by unabashedly showing its film. The cookie-cutter Wasps of ’89 are horror and ultimately condemning terror, replaced by a plus-sized queen bee and Heathers handles brutal crimes with a her minions, the genderqueer Heath and heavy dose of irony. Splashed in neon cola black-lesbian Heather. Meanwhile, clueors with contemporary covers of ’80s jams, less adults in this universe struggle to comthe tone — very similar to the original film prehend how a “fat kid” could be popular. — definitely minimizes the grim subject It’s both refreshing and cringeworthy matter that sadly does exist in the real — yes, the traditional outsider types can world. Thirty years ago, everything about be the bullies of today, but they’re still subthe film — from the cynical dialogue to the jected to the other end of that torment. violence — was so over-the-top. Children Feared by their peers, the Heathers are killing themselves and one another didn’t truly equal opportunity offenders, with a populate the headlines, and the fact that uniquely contemporary M.O.: terrorizing this is a show about (but not necessarily anyone who isn’t woke. Wearing a T-shirt for) teens is significant. emblazoned with a Native American Take 13 Reasons Why Why, for example. The mascot is punishable by public embarrassdrawn-out look at a young woman’s suicide, ment and a full social media takedown. It how she got to that point and her death’s really does speak to the outrage culture so effects on her classmates caused quite a unique to this internet-raised generation. stir, as parents and teachers feared it might Does it make sense to postpone such encourage copycat behavior. The differa show at this poignant time? Of course. ence is that 13 Reasons Why Why, a straightforBut, at the same time, let’s just make sure ward and highly emotional drama, read we point our attention and outrage at like a bleak after-school special. There was the appropriate channels that let mass no sarcasm, irony or dark humor, which is shootings happen — those outside of our at the core of Heathers. televisions. This show is not based in reality — it’s a Contact Jac Kern: @jackern caricature, down to the Khloé Kardashian

The Oscars: End of the Road for 2017 Films BY T T S T ER N - EN ZI

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and now Black Panther under her belt, let’s hope it doesn’t take Morrison as long as Deakins to grab some Oscar glory. Back to the top prize: I’m not sure how I feel about The Shape of Water as a Best Picture winner. From Call Me by Your Name (the very first film I saw at Toronto in 2017) and Lady Bird (Toronto was where the early buzz first kicked in) to my neverending love affair with the Dee Rees drama Mudbound and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri plus the late sleeper dreams for Get Out Out, this year’s awards season was certainly a roller coaster ride — a long strange trip that has left me wondering what happened to the rules and the idea of expectations. I suppose there is some truth to the adage about rules being made to be broken. In making picks, I’ve stopped largely living inside my head. I play the odds now. I read the tea leaves — scouting the winners from the various guilds (actors, writers, directors and producers) and a handful of the other known awards shows like the Independent Spirits. There’s a degree of sports analysis that goes into filling out an Oscar ballot that has absolutely nothing to do with personal preference. I have to admit that The Shape of Water is only my third favorite Guillermo del Toro film behind Pan’s Labyrinth and Cronos, even with its peerless performance from Sally Hawkins. But del Toro’s unconventional love story is the big fish of the season. Let the new hunt begin. Regional audiences have one last opportunity to look back at the season when Cincinnati World Cinema screens the Academy’s live-action shorts program at Memorial Hall Saturday and Sunday. Screenwriter/actress Rachel Shenton and director Chris Overton won the Oscar with their short The Silent Child, but these films make winners of us all.

PHOTO: COURTESY FOX SE ARCHLIGHT PICTURES

We’ve come to the end of the road, and unlike Boyz II Men, I’m so ready to let go. It happens around the same time every year as the prestige film season coverage comes to a close with the Academy Awards, and we seem to have been talking about the same set of films and performances since late August or early September (around the time of the major trifecta of film festivals in Telluride, Venice and Toronto). What more can be said? At the Academy Awards ceremonies Sunday night, Oscars in the top categories went to The Shape of Water for Best Picture and Best Director (and Best Original Score and Production Design); Darkest Hour’s Gary Oldman for Best Actor; Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’s Frances McDormand for Best Actress and Sam Rockwell for Best Supporting Actor; I Tonya’s Allison Janney for Best Supporting Actress; Call Me By Your Name for Best Adapted Screenplay; Get Out for Best Original Screenplay; and Coco for Best Animated Feature. But in terms of crafting the final feature narrative of the awards season, it’s worth mentioning Get Out’s double wins at Saturday’s Independent Spirit Awards (for Best Director and Best Film), which some were willing to hail as an emerging trend or a last possible gasp for an upset for Best Picture at the Oscars. The last four Independent Spirit Awards winners resulted in Best Picture honors for 12 Years a Slave, Birdman, Spotlight and Moonlight Moonlight, so precedent watchers were taking notice. And then, lo and behold, the film’s creator Jordan Peele became the first African-American to earn the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. While this wasn’t a complete surprise, since Peele received the same distinction from the Writers Guild, there was an assumption that Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’s writer-director Martin McDonagh might ride the Academy Award performance wave into the winner’s circle for his original script. But in the search for miracles, my eyes were on another category. What do the following films have in common: The Shawshank Redemption; Fargo; Kundun; O Brother, Where Art Thou?; The Man Who Wasn’t There; No Country for Old Men; The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford; The Reader; True Grit; Skyfall; Prisoners; Unbroken; and Sicario? How about Roger Deakins as cinematographer? Beginning in 1995, Deakins earned Oscar nominations in cinematography for each of these films and wound up losing. Thirteen times. Last night, the 14th time was the charm, as Deakins finally claimed the top prize for Blade Runner 2049, doing so against Rachel Morrison, the first female nominee in the category (Mudbound). With films like Sound of My Voice, Fruitvale Station

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La Boîte craft winery PHOTO: PROVIDED

three ciders, the unnamed sparkling cider is a pleasantly fruit-forward drink that will be accessible to cider fans, while “Juice Box” is a more nuanced, barnyard funky kind of cider that wine lovers will appreciate for its depth. “Sucker Punch,” the still cider, is sour and congenially challenging, but something to explore and enjoy for its transportive element. Translated to “the box” in french, La Boîte’s winery is located in an old gas station near the outskirts of La Boiteaux Woods — no relation. Keller and Middleton weren’t even aware of the coincidence. “Maybe it was subconscious,” Keller says. “The Box” just perfectly worked to describe their workplace. The two have talked with local restaurants and shops about carrying and serving their wine and cider, but nothing has officially been announced. “Worst case scenario,” Middleton says, “we can just drink it.” Some might argue that’s the best case. Keller and Middleton are, however, hosting a tasting on March 22 at Pleasantry with sales by the glass and bottle. The winemakers hope the tasting will include all three cider products and two Pét-Nat wines, plus food pairings. To keep up with La Boîte and its availability, follow @LaBoiteWine on Instagram.

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“Yeasts are magic: they took all the oxygen out and clarified it,” Keller says. While most of the talk has been about ciders, La Boîte also offers wine. At present they have a tank of sauvignon blanc and a tank of pinot noir, created with grapes sourced from vineyards along the Columbia River in Washington State. Soon they’ll be ready to share another Pét-Nat blend of the two wines, but it still needs time. Patience is the unspoken universal ingredient in winemaking. Middleton and Keller met while working at Over-the-Rhine restaurant Pleasantry, where Middleton cooked and Keller served. Pleasantry — a high class winer-diner brunch destination run by Daniel Souder, Joanna Kirkendall and chef Evan Hartman — values natural wines and farm-to-table food. It was there, through the restaurant’s celebration of the natural world, that the duo decided to work together in creating drinks that reflect this heightened mentality concerning not only the end product, but also the spirit of production. Keller studied bio-chemistry in college with an initial interest in doctoring, but after a few classes on fermentation and beer and wine making in Western culture, he took on an internship with a small winery in Columbus, Ohio and another in California, which, as he described, “did everything the exact opposite of how we’re doing it here.” He allows that many big production wineries are under a lot of pressure to maintain consistent product, even while selling a million cases each year, so there is a need for those methods in the economy. La Boîte is starting small, producing around 660 bottles their first year. Of the

nuances of the fruit. “If we were to write an ingredients label on our cider, it would just read ‘apples,’ ” Keller says. “We don’t add yeast, it’s already on the apples. We don’t add sugar, alcohol is produced from whatever is in the apples. That’s the coolest thing to me. It’s like a study of life in a bottle — and you get a buzz off it. “That’s why I fell in love with wine: I don’t have to cook it or raise the temperature. If you just crushed apples and put it into this (bottle), it would eventually turn into alcohol.” “Or vinegar, if you’re not careful,” adds Middleton. Two of La Boîte’s initial ciders are sparkling, made in the Pétillant Naturel style (shortened to Pét-Nat), which means the beverage is bottled prior to full fermentation so it continues to ferment inside the vessel, resulting in a natural fizziness. The third is a sour, non-carbonated cider. All of the drinks are unfiltered. The apples are blended in certain proportions for each of the varieties. When the fruit is juiced and crushed, the resulting liquid is dark brown because of oxidation, but the end product is a gorgeous, clear golden amber thanks to the work of wild yeast. There are methods of clarifying drinks that utilize a kind of clay called bentonite, something used by many modern winemakers and brewers to achieve a uniform aesthetic, but La Boîte claims it kills the drink’s personality. There is a bit of sediment in each bottle as a result of their natural production process, but its presence is negligible.

M A R C H 7 – 1 3 , 2 0 18

ohn Keller and Andrew Middleton are the minds and makers behind La Boîte, a new winery in Mount Healthy that crafts natural wines and alcoholic ciders with minimal intervention — they leave the juice well enough alone to ferment at its own innate pace, using only natural yeasts found on the fruit itself. “We’re just babysitting while nature takes over,” Keller says. “This is the way wine was made before modern science 80 years ago. We’re going back to traditional methods.” Natural wine is seen by some as a reaction to current mass-production wineries that often utilize an arsenal of chemicals to assure the highest yield and a consistent end product. As a result of the industrialization of winemaking, the uniqueness of the region and fruit variety is homogenized and sacrificed for the sake of shelf life and steady marketability. Natural wines and ciders embrace the strange places a beverage can transport its sippers, revealing the quirks and depth of a particular region or fruit. For naturally minded winemakers producing on a smaller scale, finding the right place from which to source ingredients is obviously a high priority. La Boîte will soon premiere three apple ciders made from fruit harvested at Salatin’s Orchard in Moores Hill, Ind. “Well, it started rough. They thought we were prank calling them the first time, asking for 20 bushels,” Middleton says — a bushel is approximately 45 pounds. Luckily, they weren’t fooling anyone. “Salatin’s is not an organic orchard, but they don’t spray,” Middleton says. “It was so hard to find apples we could afford, but we found someone doing it right... The relationship with Salatin’s is awesome; we’ve been back twice.” Keller and Middleton bought multiple types of apples including Black Twig, McIntosh, Macoun, Ozark Gold, Red Delicious and Yellow Delicious. By diversifying the kinds of apples used in a cider, they can achieve unique blends that explore the

THE DISH

Fondue for Two at Share: Cheesebar BY M A I JA Z U M M O

decided to add a fondue night at Share.

Featuring food and drink from Axis Alley, Bakersfield, Chart House, Game Works, Mitchell's Fish Market, Sammy's Craft Burgers and beer . . . . . . and more to be announced!

WED., MAY 23, 2018

C I T Y B E AT. C O M

M A R C H 7 – 1 3 , 2 0 18

5:30-8:30 PM NEWPORT ON THE LEVEE

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CityBeat: What inspired the idea to create a fondue night? Especially fondue for two? Emily Frank: We tossed around the idea of raclette and fondue but loved the interactive aspect of fondue. Our second love — right behind cheese, of course — is creating experiences that Share’s fondue lets you cover lots of tiny, cut-up food in delicious, hot cheese. people can share with friends, famPHOTO: HAILEY BOLLINGER ily and even new friends. It seemed Share: Cheesebar in Pleasant Ridge is like the perfect fit for our concept. helmed by Emily Frank, a human one might lovingly refer to as a “cheese freak.” CB: Fondue, once a trendy staple of 1970s Frank owned C’est Cheese gourmet dinner party culture, fell out of fashion in grilled cheese food truck for years before America for a bit. Do you think fondue is deciding to expand her passion into a ready for a comeback? cheese-focused brick-and-mortar in her EF: How the heck did a hot, melty vessel own neighborhood. As she told us when of cheese ever fall out of fashion? That’s the shop opened last year, “I don’t want to nuts. We think it’s back and has come back be in a food truck for the rest of my life.” with a bang. If Hillary Clinton could make Like C’est Cheese, the relatively new the ’70s pantsuit fashionable again, we can Share has a focus on gourmet dairy. It’s do the same for fondue! a cozy shop with a curated cooler full of rotating artisan cheese options. Turn them CB: Tell me about what’s inside that deliinto a cheeseboard if you’re dining in, with cious fondue. How do you make it? a chef’s choice of three to five cheeses EF: We make each pot to order and think accompanied by bread, nuts, olives and we’ve really perfected our recipe. We use preserves. Or add some meat — Share will a ton of Gruyere, Swiss and emmental pop some charcuterie, like Ohio’s North cheese along with sauvignon blanc, garlic, Country salami, on that board. lemon juice and fresh thyme. And while the boards are there whenever Share is open — as are grab-and-go CB: What food items can people dip in options to take home or to give as hostess their cheese and how did you pick what to gifts — things get very melty on Wednesdip? day nights during Fondue for Two. From EF: You can seriously dip anything into 5-8 p.m., Share serves a fondue pot with fondue. We serve ours with tiny potatoes, dippable options for vegetarians ($20) and broccoli, apples, bread and some sort of carnivores ($24) and half-price bottles of sausage that rotates weekly. (At home) you wine (with purchase). “We go through a could do cornichon — little, baby pickles — lot of wine that night,” says Frank. There asparagus, mushrooms, Brussels sprouts are whites, reds and rosés, all at affordable or any other meat or vegetable you like. price points. Dining in, the tables at Share transform CB: Will you continue fondue nights into a sea sprinkled with bright red cast going forward? Or is it a seasonal thing? iron pots (nestled on sterno warmers) and EF: We’ll definitely continue it through groups of people dunking veg and bread the spring and make a game-time decision into nutty and fragrant white cheese. Each about the summer. Absence makes the pot comes with color-coded dip sticks, so heart grow fonder, right? Perhaps we’ll there’s no mix-up as to whose dipper is take a hiatus during the really hot months whose. And if you run out of food before and bring it back for the fall. your cheese, you can order a second helpFondue for Two runs 5-8 p.m. Wednesday ing (or just eat the cheese straight from the nights at Share: Cheesebar (6105 pot). Ridge Ave., Pleasant Ridge). More info: After spending an evening drinking and sharecheesebar.com. dipping, we talked to Frank about why she

CLASSES & EVENTS WEDNESDAY 07

TBSP Cookbook Club: Jerusalem — Join the TBSP Cookbook Club to meet other cookbook fanatics. Each month, the group works out of the same cookbook to create a themed potluck. You bring a dish! This month’s cookbook is Jerusalem by Yotam Ottolenghi. 6-8:30 p.m. $45. Revel OTR, 111 E. 12th St., Over-the-Rhine, tablespooncookingco.com. Hands-On Seed Starting — Plant more varieties of veggies, herbs and flowers at a lower cost by starting from seed. Head to Turner Farm to learn the basics and special techniques before plunging hands-on into fluffy potting soil. 6:30-8 p.m. $20. Turner Farm, 7400 Given Road, Indian Hill, turnerfarm. org. Go Vegetarian — If you’re interested in switching to a plant-based diet, this class gives the keys on what to eat, where to eat, health benefits, recipes, food tastings and more from seasoned vegetarians, herbalists and chefs. 6 p.m. $10; includes tasting. Sweet Sistah Splash, 1218 Sycamore St., Overthe-Rhine, facebook.com/ sweetsistahsplash.

THURSDAY 08

FRIDAY 09

Fabulous Fish Friday at Bridgetown Finer Meats — Home of Fabulous Fish Friday and a biggerthan-the-bread giant fish sandwich. Menu also includes lobster bisque, lobster mac and cheese, Big John’s shrimp boat, famous green beans, homemade tartar sauce and coleslaw. 11 a.m.-6:30 p.m. Fridays through Easter. Bridgetown Finer Meats, 6135 Bridgetown Road, Bridgetown, bridgetownfinermeats.com. All Saints Fish Fry — Go for the fish tacos and stay for the beer. Fried cod, grilled salmon or tilapia, fish tacos, pizza, fries (sweet potato available) coleslaw, baked potatoes, mac and cheese. And to finish it off: Beer and wine. 5 p.m. Fridays through March 23. All Saints Church, 8939 Montgomery Road, Kenwood, allsaints.cc. Mary, Queen of Heaven — Offered every Friday during Lent, Mary, Queen of Heaven boasts a huge menu of fried Icelandic cod including their signature Holy Haddock sandwich. Sides offered include fries, mac and cheese, coleslaw, green beans and more. 4-8 p.m. Fridays during Lent. Mary, Queen of Heaven, 1150 Donaldson Highway, Erlanger, Ky., mqhparish.com.

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SUNDAY 11

Graziano Wine Maker Brunch — Dilly hosts a winemaker brunch with Mendocino, Calif. winemaker Gregory Graziano to close out Cincinnati Wine Festival weekend. There will be overthe-top brunch pairings with Graziano’s wine, including a 2017 pinot noir rosé and a 2011 brut rosé sparkling wine. 11 a.m.-3 p.m. RSVP to 513-561-5233. Dilly, 6818 Wooster Pike, Mariemont, dillybistro.com.

Irish Soda Bread for

St. Patty’s Day!

bonbonerie.com

Afternoon Tea with Princesses — The BonBonerie hosts tea with Tiana, Snow White and Cinderella. Each ticket includes tea service, face painting, singing and photo-ops. 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. $35 per person. The BonBonerie, 2030 Madison Road, O’Bryonville, facebook.com/bonbonerie. Muslim Khool Paint Night — Cincy #woke eatery Conscious Kitchen hosts this evening of food, creativity and culture. Soul Palette will lead a class on creating Islamic-inspired masterpieces while you eat local cuisine. 6-8 p.m. $33.72. Conscious Kitchen, 2912 Vine St., Corryville, facebook.com/khoolah.

THURSDAY 15

Salami + Cheese Class with NCC & Kenny’s Farmhouse Cheese — North Country Charcuterie and Kenny’s Farmhouse Cheese head to Share: Cheesebar to teach a class on pairing cheese and meat. Beer and wine will be available for purchase. 6-8 p.m. Share: Cheesebar, 6105 Ridge Ave., Pleasant Ridge, facebook. com/sharecheesebar.

C I T Y B E AT. C O M

Saint Boniface Northside Fish Fry — Grab fried or baked cod, fried shrimp, cheese pizza, stewed tomatoes, french fries and more to go or eat in. 5-7 p.m. Fridays through March 23. $9 adults; $5 kids. St. Boniface School, 4305 Pitts St., Northside, stbonifacecincinnati.com.

Saint Francis Seraph Church Fish Fry — Join in the celebration with a fish fry at the Christian Moerlein Malt House Taproom. Grab a craft beer and fish sandwich while listening to live music. 5:30-9 p.m. Fridays through March 23. 1621 Moore St., Overthe-Rhine, facebook.com/ SFSChurch.

Brewer’s Table — Brewers and chefs come together at the Moerlein Lager House for an evening of chef-prepared foods and paired beers at a large communal table. 7-10 p.m. $18.94. Moerlein Lager House, 115 Joe Nuxhall Way, Downtown, facebook.com/ moerleinlagerhouse.

Plant-Based Cookery — Get hands-on kitchen time to learn how to make plantbased dishes to please any person, vegan or not. Menu highlights include kale and romaine salad, handmade beet and bean burgers with avocado and cherry kombucha cobbler. 6:308:30 p.m. $80. Turner Farm, 7400 Given Road, Indian Hill, turnerfarm.org.

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Cheese + Wine at The Rhined — Certain combinations of cheese and wine bring out the best in each other and this class covers five of each, with cheese selections from The Rhined’s Stephanie Webster and Vintner Select’s Lauren Wiethe. 6-7:30 p.m. $40. The Rhined, 1737 Elm St., Over-the-Rhine, facebook. com/therhined.

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

MUSIC

Softentimes Amid work with her Dreamgaze band Soften, Cincinnati’s Brianna Kelly releases new Ambient Folk project BY J U D E N O EL

C I T Y B E AT. C O M

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inter is finally loosening its cold grip on Northside, and as the temperature flirts with the mid-50s, the weather’s agreeable enough for Hoffner Park to be populated by gradeschoolers tossing a baseball back and forth and a crust-punk couple with cappuccinos in tow. Also enjoying the relative warmth are the members of Cincinnati Shoegaze quartet Soften, who sit framed by the brick pavilion in front of Urban Artifact, a cathedral turned brewery. It’s the sort of moment that inspires frontwoman Brianna Kelly’s songwriting: sublime and tinged with spiritual undertones. Her new solo EP — a split cassette with Utah Drone outfit Sympathy Pain — takes this ethos to its aesthetic extremes. Oceanic pulses of guitar, keyboard and discarnate vowel sounds loop into a tranquil nothingness, sometimes slightly chopped like a lo-fi Hip Hop beat sans drums. Her solo recording process is akin to meditation. “I’ll usually ask myself a question throughout a season, or I’ll have a melody pop into my head while I’m doing something really mundane, like the dishes or when I’m at work,” Kelly says. “I’ll try to let it sink in, then sit down at the keys or guitar and loop something, then keep on building. Then I take it to my computer and edit the track and lyrics to it.” While working on the split project, Kelly spent much of her creative energy thinking about the human need for personal significance and strived for the solace one feels when shedding their self-consciousness. She culled as much influence from Ambient Folk acts like Julianna Barwick and Grouper as she did from the Taizé monastic community, an order of Christian brothers from a wide range of traditions whose multilingual worship songs stress simple, repetitive phrases. “Sanctus,” a 9-minute track that closes out Kelly’s side of the EP, mirrors the Taizé’s musical tradition. Based on its titular liturgical hymn (“holy, holy, holy…”), the song was originally more that 12 minutes long. Unsatisfied with the original mix, Kelly reversed the vocals, forming a strange overlapping drone that sounds lost in translation. Ryan Hall, who runs that Whited

Soften P H O T O : N ATA L I E J E N K I N S

Sepulchre label that pressed the split tape, says that the cassette’s two sides work as a cohesive whole. “Both are comfortable with silence in their work and they both don’t fall into the trap that many Ambient or Drone artists fall into, which is to mistake movement for addition,” he says. “I can imagine both are coming from two different worldviews, but seem to arrive at a few easily understood musical touchstones.” The tape comes on the heels of Soften’s solid debut album, seen + unseen, which helped earn the band a New Artist of the Year nomination at the 2017 Cincinnati Entertainment Awards. No less dreamy than Kelly’s solo work, the record is patient and texturally engaging, packed end-to-end with lengthy songs that let woozy chords linger. Imagine Slowdive’s triumphant guitar structures eaten away by a grimy layer of decay. Comprised of Kelly (vocals/guitar), Corey Waddell (guitar), Jon Delvaux (bass) and Andrew Aragon (drums), the band officially formed a year and a half ago as an outlet for Kelly to let her classical guitar tunes expand into fully fledged Dream Pop anthems. The project was originally blanketed under her own name, but was christened Soften in August to reflect the full group’s creative input. Two summers ago, the project began to take shape when Kelly met Delvaux. “We were sitting on his porch, just trading songs back and forth and hanging out,”

Kelly says. “It was the first time I felt like anyone was really listening to my songs — he really took everything in.” Shortly after, the two shared a booking as solo acts and came together at the end of the night to perform a set of cover songs. Afterward, Delvaux told Kelly he knew a drummer who might be able to help them do more live collaborations if she was interested. Enter Aragon, who’d briefly toured with Delvaux in the past. “It’s my third band — maybe my fourth if you’re counting my high school band,” he says, fiddling with a fluorescent orange camera. “This feels more like a real band than in the past, when it was more like friends who happened to get together and play music.” Waddell, who had played in the Art Rock project Comprador with Delvaux, joined shortly after, adding the final piece to the band’s cohesive puzzle. The pre-name-change incarnation of Soften began practicing in St. Elizabeth Catholic Church in Norwood, a dilapidated building now owned by Vineyard Central. Its boomy acoustics are partly responsible for the spacious sound of Soften’s debut. You can place yourself in the building while listening to “See Me,” the closing cut on seen + unseen. Distorted peals of guitar hover like ectoplasmic incense and Kelly shouts a refrain in the form of a rhetorical question: “But what would happen if tonight, you looked me in the eyes?”

Despite its cathedral-capacity scope, the album was recorded in Delvaux’s bedroom. “That was really the tricky part, getting it to sound big,” he says. “Dealing with a room that size, where there’s no real room sound, most of the time is spent, like, ‘Hey, hit your drum,’ then spending five minutes messing with the equipment.” Though Soften spent much of the winter playing their album material, Kelly spent her time alone focusing creative energy elsewhere to decompress. Distancing herself from writing more traditional Rock structures produced the material for the Whited Sepulchre split. In relation to seen + unseen, the split is like an overcast thought bubble forming above the album’s head, dropping snowflakes cold enough to stick. It feels disembodied, but more in tune with the soul than the body itself. Kelly hopes that the next few months will produce a single. Or three. For now, Soften is focusing on being more collaborative with the material they produce, working creatively as a quartet. “When we work together, it’s kind of effortless,” Delvaux says. “By and large, we say, ‘Let’s do this,’ and get it done. It’s a new perspective on things — wholesome and nice.” For more on Soften visit soften.bandcamp. com and facebook.com/softentheband. Brianna Kelly’s new solo release is available at briannakellywsr.bandcamp.com.

SPILL IT

Cincinnati Acts Heading to SXSW BY M I K E B R EEN

BY M I K E B R EE N

More Like “Suckabee”

Cincinnati bands headed to SXSW. PHOTO: PROVIDED

This summer will see a new documentary series co-executiveproduced by Jay-Z about the life and controversial death of Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old shot and killed in 2012 by George Zimmerman (who was acquitted of murder charges). Late last year, Zimmerman issued threats to the Hip Hop heavyweight over the series, claiming filmmakers harassed his family for interviews. He reportedly told theblast.com that he knew how to “handle people who fuck with me, I have since February 2012” and appeared to suggest he’d feed Jay-Z to an alligator. Jay-Z finally responded, destroying Zimmerman with just 33 words on the new DJ Khaled track “Top Off”: “Meanwhile Georgie Porgie sinnin’ and sendin’ me threats/Save your breath, you couldn’t beat a flight of steps/Try that shit with a grown man/I’ll kill that fuckboy with my own hand.”

Keith Turns on Mick, Drugs With The Rolling Stones gearing up for a tour, Keith Richards’ latest press rounds have unsurprisingly sparked a million shards of residual coverage thanks to his various barbs. Targets this time include Taylor Swift (a “flavor of the month”) and his bandmate Mick Jagger (after commenting on the 74 year old having another child in 2016, Richards said “it’s time for a snip… those poor kids”; he later issued an apology). He also took a swipe at another old friend, saying he’s slowed down a little because “drugs are not interesting these days,” calling them “institutionalized and bland.”

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C I T Y B E AT. C O M

Contact Mike Breen: mbreen@citybeat. com and @CityBeatMusic.

Jay-Z vs. Zimmerman

fe aturing

with elements of Electronica and Fusion) also made a video for the track that was showcased by huge percussion sticks and mallets manufacturer Vic Firth. Us, Today is doing a few shows on its way to and from SXSW, and it all kicks off Thursday at 9 p.m. at Mecca (1429 Walnut St., Over-the-Rhine, facebook.com/ meccaotr). More info: uscommatoday.com. • Since debuting its online presence last fall, ElectroRock foursome Passeport has Passeport Passeport has retained its shroud of mystery, which is refreshing in this age where it feels like fans can find out what many of their favorite artists are thinking, feeling and doing at any given time of any given day. Not to kill too much of the mystique, but the band features former Multimagic members Sebastian Schultz, Brian Davis, Benjamin Hines and Mia Carruthers. The group made its debut on “On the Run,” a track by L.A. Electronic/Dance producer/ DJ/artist NIGHTMRE from his latest EP for Mad Decent, the label founded by Diplo. Passeport followed the collaboration up quickly with its own single, “Blood,” and an accompanying music video. More info: passeportmusic.co. • The imaginative Indie/Art Rock cello/ drums project Lung embarks Lung embarks on lengthy Lung tours often and its current jaunt throughout the eastern half of the U.S. features numerous Texas dates, including several throughout SXSW (twice the twosome is playing two sets in one day at the fest). Singer/cellist Kate Wakefield and drummer Daisy Kaplan released the remarkable Bottom Bottom of the Barrel Barrel album last year and, when they’re home, have been hard at work on a follow-up. More info: lungtheband.com.

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee was recently forced to resign from the Country Music Association Foundation board of directors. Sarah Sanders’ dad’s bigoted stance on LGBTQ+ issues (he once said legalizing gay marriage was like legalizing incest) led to such outrage from artists and industry leaders, he quit the board (which supports music education and other charities) less than 24 hours after joining it. The failed bassist later said he was outraged, suggesting the CMA had been bullied into the decision (eye-roll emoji) and his faith and “conservative and traditional political views” (three eye-roll emojis) were the reason everyone was being so mean to him.

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Cincinnati music has always had some sort of presence at South by Southwest, the huge festival/conference/showcase in Austin, Texas that has been a prime destination for music business folks for 32 years. Though it has grown in scope dramatically and now features many established performers, the event is still a reliable platform for up-and-coming artists to perform in front of music industry representatives (from labels, publishers, booking agents, management firms, etc.). It’s also just a big, fun party that gives bands a chance to play for other musicians and music die-hards from all over the world. This year, Cincinnati’s strong SXSW contingent is a good signifier of the health of the local music scene. Here’s a look at some of those participating in SXSW, which begins this Monday. Find videos, music and more from these bands at citybeat. com. • Thursday, Cincinnati rockers Frontier Folk Nebraska host a combo release party/ send-off show at Southgate House Revival (111 E. Sixth St., Newport, Ky., southgatehouse.com). The free, 9:30 p.m. show also features acclaimed singer/songwriter William Matheny, who the band will be touring with on their way to and from SXSW. The new release being celebrated is Foolish Frank, a crisp four-song EP issued through Cincinnati-based Old Flame Records that shows the foursome at the height of their Rock & Roll powers. Leadoff track “Fill Up My Cup” exemplifies everything great about the band — sublime, unpretentious songwriting; soaring, skytickling vocals and hooks; and a grounded, timeless Rock & Roll candy center. Foolish Frank Frank is available on cassette and digitally at frontierfolknebraska.bandcamp.com. • Dawg Yawp had one of the best 2017s of any Cincinnati music entity. The duo’s sitar-laced Indie Folk/Pop debut album scored nationwide airplay and led to frequent touring and an appearance on NPR’s popular Tiny Desk Concerts. Tyler Randall and Rob Keenan also scored big at the 2017 Cincinnati Entertainment Awards, picking up prizes for Album of the Year and Artist of the Year. The twosome just received another big honor — Dawg Yawp was deemed one of the worst band names of 2018’s South By Southwest, dismissed with a blithe “Nah, dog” by Austin blog do512.com. Dawg Yawp headlines a SXSW send-off show Friday at the Woodward Theater (1404 Main St., Over-the-Rhine, woodwardtheater.com). More info: dawgyawp.com. • CityBeat recently wrote about Us, Today’s new single, “What is Time Now. Goodmorning?,” the band’s first new music since 2015 and a preview of a new album due later this year. The unique instrumental trio (a mix of Indie, Prog and Post Rock,

MINIMUM GAUGE

SOUND ADVICE

Future Sounds Mavis Staples – April 20, Memorial Hall Bully – April 27, Woodward Theater No Age – May 8, Northside Yacht Club Ghost – May 11, Taft Theatre Ledisi – June 6, Taft Theatre Grizzly Bear/Spoon – June 25, PNC Pavilion

Iron Chic PHOTO: NICOLE GUGLIELMO

Miguel

Pretenders – July 6, Taft Theatre

PHOTO: RCA RECORDS

Iron Chic with Propagandhi and La Armada

C I T Y B E AT. C O M

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Wednesday • Southgate House Revival

Iron Chic is technically a Pop Punk band, but it’d be doing the Long Island, N.Y. quintet a disservice to box them into a genre that evokes teenage romanticism and sloppily played blast beats. While its scuzzy songcraft packs enough gruff melodicism and hooks to flesh out at least a pair of mid’90s Fat Wreck Chords LPs, the band boldly goes beyond scene conventions. Its latest full-length release, You Can’t Stay Here, falls just shy of Shoegaze, lavishing reverb on distorted power chords that prop-up anthemic hooks. It’s like early Blink-182 with Japandroids’ impassioned delivery or Built To Spill with a streamlined sound that could’ve made mainstream waves at the turn of the millennium. The new record’s lyrics provide an even greater sense of gravitas. Released just over a year after the death of the group’s former guitarist Rob McAllister, You Can’t Stay Here explores Iron Chic’s existential side. On “Invisible Ink,” a cut built upon blistering lead guitars and a snare drum that could lead a parade’s march, frontman Jason Lubrano reflects on his brush with mortality, singing “Death’s sweet kiss was a bullet that missed us,” while treading the fine line between sincerity and theatrical emotion. Iron Chic’s output can be gloomy, but it’s still hard-hitting and shimmery enough to feel cathartic. Their music is an act of exorcism, driving out demons with stadiumsized solos. It’s mosh-worthy, if you’re the type to get introspective in the pit. “I know I have a tendency to write depressing lyrics, so I usually do make a conscious effort to make a note of optimism to counteract it,” Lubrano told Riot Fest in 2017. This year is Iron Chic’s 10th one together. The band is commemorating its newfound

Mipso PHOTO: LIVELOUD MEDIA

veteran status on tour with Propagandhi — another band with a pun-centric name, whose seminal 1993 debut, How To Clean Everything, helped lay the groundwork for Everything the next 25 years of Pop Punk production. (Jude Noel)

Mipso with Ben Sollee & Kentucky Native

Thursday • Woodward Theater The first track on Edges Run, Mipso’s album slated for release in April, is called “Take Your Records Home,” and it chronicles the end of a love affair punctuated with the titular request, a plea to remove the music that now represents something lost and missed. It has the sweet, dusty ache of classic ’70s Folk Rock and the supernatural harmonies of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, but it also shimmers with the heartbreaking potential of what might have been if Gram Parsons had survived his demons and continued on his path with Emmylou Harris. And that’s just the first song. Mipso’s seeds were planted in 2011 when University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill students Joseph Terrell and Jacob Sharp began performing as a guitar/ mandolin duo in and around their Chapel Hill environs. The group expanded with the addition of bassist Wood Robinson, dubbing the project the Mipso Trio, then signed with a local label to release the debut album, 2012’s Long, Long Gone.

Many origin stories have been floated to account for the band’s name, but the one that seems to have stuck is that it’s based on a Japanese phrase that describes something familiar yet slightly off-kilter as being “a little pee in the miso,” and that the group simply added a little “p” to the “miso.” After their 2013 graduation, the three musicians toured Japan for two weeks, a trip that was captured by indie filmmaker Jon Kasbe in the fittingly titled documentary Mipso in Japan. The band also dropped the “Trio” that same year and released its sophomore album, Dark Holler Pop, featuring more traditional Bluegrass approaches to instrumentation and arranging. In 2014, Mipso became a quartet after securing longtime collaborator Libby Rodenbough as its full-time fiddler and vocalist, and the quartet returned to the studio for 2015’s Old Time Reverie, which found the band delving into new sonic territory with more moody Americana touches (still, the album debuted in the top slot on Billboard’s Bluegrass chart). Mipso’s Americana evolution continued with the gorgeous melancholy of last year’s Coming Down the Mountain, and it’s cemented with the imminent release of the excellent Edges Run, almost a year to the day later. Certainly there’s nothing particularly new about blending Folk, Gospel and Rock into a dry rub to season a batch of Bluegrass songs with a smoky twang, but Mipso has discovered that rare chemistry of four people coming together and uncorking bottled lightning with every tour and trip to the studio. (Brian Baker)

Miguel

Thursday • Taft Theatre Miguel — recently seen performing Best Original Song winner “Remember Me (from Coco) at the Oscars — makes it all look so easy. The 32-year-old singer/songwriter has dropped four full-length albums

since 2010, each a deft mix of electro-laced R&B, Rock and Funk — the type of genre cross-pollination that made Prince a multi-hyphenate star of the highest order. While Miguel’s profile is not yet near that of his most obvious inspiration, his brand of sly, sensuous music is a respite from the tumult that dominates our current culture. That’s not to say Miguel is immune to what’s going on around us. The title of his latest, released last December, isn’t subtle about what might be on his mind — War & Leisure is a loose concept album about buttressing social strife with love and sex. Album opener “Criminal” — a slinky rocker that features a guest spot from rapper Rick Ross — includes references to Columbine and Colin Kaepernick, while at the same time finding Miguel in his usual lover-man mode, admitting to his lady, “Oh, it’s so good it feels criminal/This shit’s gotta be criminal/The way I keep killing you.” (Don’t worry, it’s a metaphor used in the most partner-pleasing way possible.) War & Leisure’s most curious track is “City of Angels,” an ode to Miguel’s native California that mixes apocalyptic imagery with romantic longing. Backed by sparse, almost remedial instrumentation, Miguel’s versatile, ever-expressive voice tells the story of a surprise aerial attack on Los Angeles, during which our first-person narrator admits he did someone wrong: “I was at a townhouse down in Venice Beach/ Stealing moments with you know who/We won the war but not a day goes by/That I don’t think I shoulda been with you.” The chorus includes more regret, as Miguel sings, “When the City of Angels fell/I was busy letting you down, woman/ When the City of Angels fell/I was nowhere to be found.” It’s the rare song that yields sympathy for both the lothario and the scorned partner, just another sign that Miguel is on a creative plateau all his own. (Jason Gargano)

LISTINGS

WEDNESDAY 07

BROMWELL’S HÄRTH LOUNGE - Phil DeGreg Trio. 8 p.m. Jazz. Free. MANSION HILL TAVERN Losing Lucky. 8 p.m. Roots. Free.

MARTY’S HOPS & VINES - Dave Hawkins and Peg Buchanan. 7 p.m. Celtic/ Folk. Free.

H H

MOTR PUB - See You in the Funnies with Troy Petty. 9 p.m. AltRock. Free.

NORTHSIDE TAVERN - Queen City Silver Stars. 9 p.m. Soca/Calypso/ Reggae/Samba/Pop/Various. Free.

NORTHSIDE YACHT CLUB - Stuyeyed with Mardou, Dinge and Orchards. 9 p.m. Indie Rock.

SOUTHGATE HOUSE REVIVAL (SANCTUARY) - Propagandhi with Iron Chic and La Armada. 8 p.m. Pop Punk/Rock/Alt/ Various. $23. URBAN ARTIFACT - Blue Wisp Big Band. 8:30 p.m. Big Band Jazz. $10.

THURSDAY 08

ARNOLD’S BAR AND GRILL - Ricky Nye and Dottie Warner. 7:30 p.m. Jazz. Free. BLIND LEMON - Mark Macomber. 7:30 p.m. Acoustic. Free. BOGART’S - Lights with Chase Atlantic and DCF. 8 p.m. Pop/Various. $21. BROMWELL’S HÄRTH LOUNGE - Todd Hepburn and Friends. 8 p.m. Various. Free.

THE HAMILTON - Will Pope. 7 p.m. Guitar. Free.

OCTAVE - The Mighty

SOUTHGATE HOUSE REVIVAL (LOUNGE) - William Matheny and Frontier Folk Nebraska. 9:30 p.m. Indie/Rock/Various. Free. SOUTHGATE HOUSE REVIVAL (LOUNGE) - The Exit Strategy with Veronica Grim & The Heavy Hearts and Aaron Whalen. 8 p.m. Rock/Various. Free. SOUTHGATE HOUSE REVIVAL (REVIVAL ROOM) - Aaron Lee Tasjan with Dylan LeBlanc. 8 p.m. Rock. $15.

TAFT THEATRE Miguel. 8 p.m. R&B/ Soul/Pop. $32.50-$52.50.

TRINITY GASTRO PUB Carl G. 7:30 p.m. Acoustic. Free. URBAN ARTIFACT - In the Pines, The Bellowing Pines, The Comos and LuxDeluxe. 9 p.m. Indie/Rock/Various.

WOODWARD THEATER - Ben Sollee and Kentucky Native with Mipso. 8 p.m. Indie/Americana/Various. $14, $16 day of show.

FRIDAY 09

ARNOLD’S BAR AND GRILL - River City Roustabout. 9 p.m. Folk. Free.

wed 7

see you in the funnies, troy petty dogberry brewing co beer tasting

TICKETS AVAILABLE AT THE SOUTHGATE HOUSE LOUNGE OR TICKETFLY.COM

thu 8

laurel & the love in abby vice, lipstick fiction

Fri 9

3/7 - ProPagandhi, P Pagandhi, iron ChiC, La armada; marCh artist in residenCe: the exit strategy, veroniCa grim & the heavy hearts, aaron whaLen

automagik, arlie

3/8 - aaron Lee tasjan, t dyLan LeBLanC; wiLLiam matheny, Frontier FoLk neBraska

s at 10

3/9 - haCkensaw Boys; the doLLyrots LLyrots w/ LL viCe triCks; hank erwin & the sBg’s

THE LISTING LOON Pedro-X Band. 6 p.m. Various.

lauren eylise Jon schuyler

sun 11

kyle lacy & the harlem river noise

3/10 - 3rd annuaL roCk ‘n’ revivaL For a Cure; Brother smith, niCk jamerson (oF sundy Best), jordan wiLson trio; BLues in a BottLe: roB LumBard, riCky nye, niCk LLoyd

LIVE! AT THE LUDLOW GARAGE - Martha Redbone Roots Project. 8:30 p.m. Americana. $20-$35.

mon 12

monk tamony

3/11 - jeFF austin Band, the wooks, the sweet LiLLies; mama said string Band

motr mouth: stand-up comedy

3/14 - marCh artist in residenCe: the exit strategy, johnny Conqueroo, jess LamB

JEFF RUBY’S STEAKHOUSE - Grace Lincoln Band. 8 p.m. Soul/R&B. Free. KNOTTY PINE - Party Town. 10 p.m. Various. Cover. LAWRENCEBURG EVENT CENTER - KC and the Sunshine Band. 8 p.m. Disco/ Pop/Dance. $35-$65.

MANSION HILL TAVERN - Doug Hart Band. 9 p.m. Blues. Cover. MARTY’S HOPS & VINES Over Easy. 9 p.m. Soft Rock. Free.

GRAND CENTRAL DELICATESSEN - Ricky Nye,

3/15 - that 1 guy; CoaL Fired BiCyCLe, Cookin’ hearts

WWW.SOUTHGATEHOUSE.COM

1404 main st (513) 345-7981

NORTHSIDE YACHT CLUB - Yardboss. 9 p.m. Rock.

Live Music

OCTAVE - Peridoni, Chachuba, DIZGO and Aytiko. 7 p.m. Electronic/ Fusion/Trance/Jam/Various. Free.

SCHWARTZ’S POINT JAZZ & ACOUSTIC CLUB - Michael Cruse Trio. 9 p.m. Jazz. Cover.

THE DRINKERY - MixTape. 6 p.m. Rock.

free live music open for lunch

NORTHSIDE TAVERN - Sexy Time Live Band Karaoke. 8:30 p.m. Various. Free.

COLONEL POMPS TAVERN - Amy McFarland and Billy Larkin. 8 p.m. Jazz/ Various. Free.

CROW’S NEST - Roger Wendover. 10 p.m. Acoustic. Free.

writer’s night w/ dave

MOTR PUB Automagik with Arlie. 10 p.m. Indie Rock. Free.

RICK’S TAVERN - Strange Love. 10 p.m. Rock/Pop/ Country/Various. $5.

tue 13

BLIND LEMON - Jamonn Zeiler. 8:30 p.m. Singer/ Songwriter. Free.

THE COMET - Psychotic Reaction with Limp Wizurds, Cult of Sorrow and The Nothing. 10 p.m. Rock/Psych/Various. Free.

1345 main st motrpub.com

THE GREENWICH - Just Friends Friday with Kathy Wade and Mike Wade. 9 p.m. Jazz. $10.

no cover

Wednesday 3/7 3/8

ben sollee & kenTucky naTive miPso

SOUTHGATE HOUSE REVIVAL (LOUNGE) - Hank Erwin & The SBG’s. 9:30 p.m. Americana. Free.

SOUTHGATE HOUSE REVIVAL (REVIVAL ROOM) - The Dollyrots with Vice Tricks. 9 p.m. Pop/Rock. $12.

Thursday 3/8 Todd Hepburn & Friends 8-11

Friday 3/9 The Samantha Carlson Quartet 8-12

SILVERTON CAFE - In Real Life. 9 p.m. Various. Free.

Jess Lamb & The Factory 8-11

3/9

Dawg yawP, This Pine box

3/2 2

Davina & The vagabonDs Frenchaxe

3/2 3

sylmar, PouT, Triiibe

saTurday 3/10 The Phil DeGreg Trio 8-12 cocktaiLs

firepLaces

Wed. - Fri. open @ 4pm | Sat. open @ 6pm buy tickets at motr or woodwardtheater.com

125 West Fourth st. | CinCinnati, ohio 45202

www.BromwellsHarthLounge.com

C I T Y B E AT. C O M

NORTHSIDE YACHT CLUB - Obscene with Flesh Mother and Fenrir. 9 p.m. Death Metal/Various.

SCHWARTZ’S POINT JAZZ & ACOUSTIC CLUB - John Zappa, Brad Meyers & Phil Burkhead. 8:30 p.m. Jazz. Cover.

Rob Lumbard and Chris Douglas. 8 p.m. Blues.

MOTR PUB - Laurel & the Love-In with Abby Vice and Lipstick Fiction. 10 p.m. Rock. Free.

Pines and Joe Marcinek. 8 p.m. Roots/Rock/Jam/Dead tribute.

111 E 6th St Newport, KY 41071

M A R C H 7 – 1 3 , 2 0 18

COLONEL POMPS TAVERN - Sammi Riggs. 8 p.m. Acoustic. Free.

859.431.2201

CityBeat’s music listings are free. Send info to Mike Breen at mbreen@citybeat. com. Listings are subject to change. See CityBeat.com for full music listings and all club locations. H is CityBeat staff’s stamp of approval.

PUZZLE

SOUTHGATE HOUSE REVIVAL (SANCTUARY) - Hackensaw Boys. 9 p.m. Roots. $12.

TAFTâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S ALE HOUSE - Bands & Brews: Benefitting Cincinnati Childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s featuring Robin Lacy, Joanie Lacy and Rick Leighton. 8 p.m. Rock/Roots/Various.

THOMPSON HOUSE - It All Comes Together Rap Showcase. 8 p.m. Rap/Hip Hop. $10. TURFWAY PARK - Trailer Park Floosies. 9 p.m. Rock/ Pop/Dance/Country/Hip Hop/Various. Free.

URBAN ARTIFACT David Bowie Tribute presented by Radio Artifact featuring Starman and Suncruiser. 9 p.m. Bowie tribute. $10.

WASHINGTON PLATFORM SALOON & RESTAURANT - Victor Provost Quartet. 9 p.m. Steel Drum/Jazz. $10 (food/drink minimum).

WOODWARD THEATER - Dawg Yawp with This Pine Box and Lioness. 9 p.m. Indie/Folk/Rock/ Pop. $12, $14 day of show.

SATURDAY 10

ARNOLDâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S BAR AND GRILL - Ben Knight and the Well Diggers. 9 p.m. Americana. Free. BLIND LEMON - Willow. 8:30 p.m. Acoustic. Free. BOGARTâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S - The Classic Rock Experience with Dangerous Jim & The Slims. 8 p.m. Classic Rock. $15-$25.

C I T Y B E AT. C O M

M A R C H 7 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 1 3 , 2 0 18

THE COMET - Basement Reggae Night. 10 p.m. Reggae/DJ. Free.

CROWâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S NEST - The Inturns. 10 p.m. Rock. Free.

THE GREENWICH Kelly Richey. 8 p.m. Blues/Rock. $10.

THE HAMILTON - Amber of Shiny and the Spoon. 8 p.m. Folk/Pop. Free. KNOTTY PINE - Naked Karate Girls. 10 p.m. Rock/ Pop/Dance. Cover. LIVE! AT THE LUDLOW GARAGE - Howard Jones. 8 p.m. Pop. Sold out.

MANSION HILL TAVERN - Jeff Bonta & the Tucker Boys. 9 p.m. Blues. Cover. MARTYâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S HOPS & VINES - Kick the Blue Drum. 9 p.m. Blues/Rock. Free.

H H H

MOTR PUB - Lauren Eylise. 10 p.m. Neo Soul/Various. Free. NORTHSIDE TAVERN - Pike 27 with Wake the Bear. 9 p.m. Rock. Free.

NORTHSIDE YACHT CLUB - Jack Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Shea (Bayside), Ethan Luck (Relient K), Jon Lewis (Dopamines) and Scarlett Street. 8:30 p.m. Rock

OCTAVE - Mickey James & his Queen City Crew. 8 p.m. Swing/Jazz/R&B/Blues. Free. RICKâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S TAVERN - Trailer Park Floosies. 10 p.m. Rock/ Pop/Dance/Country/Various. $5. SCHWARTZâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S POINT JAZZ & ACOUSTIC CLUB Emily Jordan, Jordan Pollard & Judy Tsai. 9 p.m. Jazz. Cover. SILVERTON CAFE Chubby. 9 p.m. Various. Free.

SOUTHGATE HOUSE REVIVAL (LOUNGE) - Rob Lumbard, Ricky Nye and Nick Lloyd. 9:30 p.m. Blues. Free. SOUTHGATE HOUSE REVIVAL (REVIVAL ROOM) - Brother Smith, Nick Jamerson and Jordan Wilson Trio. 9 p.m. Country/ Funk/Soul/Various. $10.

SOUTHGATE HOUSE REVIVAL (SANCTUARY) - Rock N Revival for a Cure with The Grove, Lemon Sky, 500 Miles to Memphis, See You in The Funnies, One Day Steady, Current Events, 90 Proof Twang, Saturn Batteries, Sundae Drives, Circle It, Room for Zero and more. 5 p.m. Rock/ Various. $5. THOMPSON HOUSE Efflorescence. 8 p.m. Post Hardcore. $10. URBAN ARTIFACT - Hutch Down and Fixx Band. 9 p.m. R&B/Funk/Soul/Dance/ Various.

WASHINGTON PLATFORM SALOON & RESTAURANT - Billy Larkin and Amy McFarland. 9 p.m. Jazz. $10 (food/ drink minimum).

SUNDAY 11

RABBIT HASH HISTORICAL SOCIETY AND GENERAL STORE - Ricky Nye, Rob Lumbard and Chris Douglas. 3 p.m. Blues.

THE SKELETON ROOT Dan Van Vechten. 2 p.m. Americana. Free. SOUTHGATE HOUSE REVIVAL (LOUNGE) Mama Said String Band. 9:30 p.m. Bluegrass. Free.

SOUTHGATE HOUSE REVIVAL (SANCTUARY) - Jeff Austin Band, The Wooks and The Sweet Lillies. 8 p.m. Americana/ Various. $18. URBAN ARTIFACT - Assurance Sessions and Dark Harbor. 9 p.m. Rock/Various. Free.

MONDAY 12

BLIND LEMON - Ben Armstrong. 7:30 p.m. Acoustic. Free.

THE GREENWICH Baron Von Ohlen & the Flying Circus Big Band. 7:30 p.m. Big Band/Jazz. $5 or 2 canned goods.

MCCAULYâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S PUB - Open Jam with Sonny Moorman. 7 p.m. Blues/Various. Free.

MOTR PUB - Monk Tamony. 9:30 p.m. Rock. Free.

TUESDAY 13

BLIND LEMON - Nick Tuttle. 8:30 p.m. Acoustic. Free.

THE HAMILTON - Preston Charles III. 7 p.m. Violin. Free.

MEMORIAL HALL Songs and Stories with Graham Nash. 8 p.m. Rock/ Pop/Various. $56-$96. MOTR PUB - Writerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Night. 9 p.m. Open mic/Various. Free.

URBAN ARTIFACT Leopold the Ghost, Abby Vice and In Details. 9 p.m. Alt/Pop/Rock/Various. Free.

AC R O S S

1. Like a churchgoing VIP 6. Go like Mikaela Shiffrin 9. The Raiders home, in 2019 14. Oscar-nominated director for â&#x20AC;&#x153;Get Outâ&#x20AC;? 15. Punk rock icon Gordon 16. Show jubilation 17. Start of a oneliner by 23-Across 19. Bad feeling 20. Not forthcoming 21. Preposition that comes in handy in palindromes 22. Lacking direction, electrically 23. Comic with the TV show â&#x20AC;&#x153;Important Thingsâ&#x20AC;? 27. Goes downhill fast 29. Conde ___ 30. Irreplaceable string 31. It has a campus in Kingston: Abbr. 32. Snapdragon, e.g. 35. One-liner, part 2 40. Knot things up 41. Namely, in Latin 42. T-shirt order 43. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Oh fuuuuu...â&#x20AC;? 45. Tennessee range, briefly 47. One-liner, part 3 51. Some brothers 52. Smack 53. Indian rule 56. Bubbeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pancake 57. End of the one-liner 60. Suffered humiliation 61. Hill tender 62. Post-war agreements 63. Points in 62-Across 64. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Yoo-hoo!â&#x20AC;? 65. Zoo regulars (presumably if the nanny canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think of

THE NOSE KNOWS BY B R EN DA N E M M E T T Q U I G L E Y

anywhere else to take them) DOWN

1. Bigger than big 2. Star of Netflixâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Outsiderâ&#x20AC;? 3. Lose water 4. Big Blueâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s QB, familiarly 5. Swimsuit model Alexis 6. Hula outfits 7. Passer of bad checks 8. Sends a quick word 9. Italian scooters 10. Ship overseas 11. Catholic ___ 12. Asian mountain range 13. Rear end 18. Rather interested 22. Vigorously, poetically 24. Direction that becomes its opposite when an â&#x20AC;&#x153;Oâ&#x20AC;? is added to its front 25. Israelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Golda 26. Sign on the cross 27. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Stop everythingâ&#x20AC;? 28. Big name in

hotels 31. Pretzel brand 32. Comic with the 2018 stand-up special â&#x20AC;&#x153;Tamborineâ&#x20AC;? 33. Notepad part 34. Rugged vehicles 36. Ones against all odds? 37. 42-Across, e.g. 38. Attach (onto) 39. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s captured on a lot 43. Noah on the Knicks 44. Regal birds

45. Not that good, tbh 46. Thing debunked on Snopes 47. B equivalent 48. Say a few words in public 49. Coke purchase 50. Bonn river 54. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s down when the chips are down 55. â&#x20AC;&#x153;New Girlâ&#x20AC;? girl 57. Faux cry 58. Right on the money 59. Not of the cloth

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PUZZLE

LEGAL/AUCTION

Notice is hereby given

Notice is hereby given that Extra Space Storage will sell at public auction at the storage facility listed below, to satisfy the lien of the owner, personal property described below belonging to those individuals listed below at location indicated: 8080 Steilen Dr. Florence, KY 41042 on March 20, 2018 at or after 10 am. Jayson LaStarza, Unit 2731, Household Goods; Daniel Hallock, Unit 2519, Household Goods; Todd Covington, Unit 1105, Household Goods; Ryan Pyles, Unit 2317, Camping Equipment; Dexter Helton, Unit 2320, Household Goods; Eric Peet, Unit 2638, Household Goods. Purchases must be made with cash only and paid at the above referenced facility in order to complete the transaction. Extra Space Storage may refuse any bid and may rescind any purchase up until the winning

bidder takes possession of the personal property. HELP WANTED Personal Assistant/ Caregiver For active person who just needs help. 3-4 Days per week, 3-4 hours per day. Must Drive and pass a background check. Contact Kim @ 513-310-9312. Sunrock Farm is hiring part-time tour guides and camp counselors. Must have college experience and be good with children and animals. Flexible Schedules/ Great Working Environment /Ideal for Students, Teachers, Retirees, Etc. $9/hour email@sunrockfarm.org or 859-781-5502 ADVERTISING ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Cincinnati CityBeat has served the Greater Cincinnati area for 22 years with cultural and political reporting, entertainment previews, food and drink reviews, events coverage and much more. Today, we are a diverse media entity, serving our clients needs via digital, print, ecommerce, social and experience-based marketing solutions. Our Account Executives are key members of a dedicated team, focused on mutual success for our clients and our business. If the following sounds like you, we’d love to speak with you: • You are energetic, outgoing and passionate • You live with integrity • You are fearless and welcome challenges • You have a track record of getting to the decision maker • You conduct yourself with professionalism in person, in writing and over the phone Essential Duties and Responsibilities • Aggressively prospect

develop and close new business via a variety of sources • Work cohesively with prospects and clients to discover their needs and recommend our best solutions • Maintain ownership of the sales cycle from first contact through maintenance • Meet and exceed monthly, quarterly and annual sales goals Compensation: • Base salary + commission + Bonus • Paid Vacation/PTO • 401(k) • More Basic Requirements • Excellent written & verbal communication skills • Excellent attention to detail and follow through • Proficient with Microsoft Office All adult line ads must contain the exact phrase “Body Rubs” and/or “Adult Entertainment.” Illegal services may not be offered in any ad. CityBeat does not accept, condone or promote advertisements for illegal activity. Every ad purchase includes ONE phone number or e-mail address listing. Additional phone numbers & e-mail addresses can be printed for $10 each. Ad copy & payment must be received by FRIDAY AT NOON. for the Wednesday issue. All ads must be PREPAID with a VALID credit card or in cash/ money order. If a credit card is declined for any reason, the ad will be pulled from the paper and online.

• 1-2 Years sales experience preferred Email resume and cover letter to: sales@citybeat.com No Phone Calls, Please.

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C I T Y B E AT. C O M

Notice is hereby given that Extra Space Storage will sell at public auction at the storage facility listed below, to satisfy the lien of the owner, personal property described below belonging to those individuals listed below at location indicated: 5970 Centennial Circle, Florence, KY 41042, 859-408-5219, March 20th , 2018, 10:30 am Dorothy Collins, 645, Household items; James Allen, 644, Household; Kathy Wolfe, 108, Household items; Dave Turner, 703, Clothes, household items, beds; Mark Obrien, 701, Household items; Christopher Braun, 741, Household items, furniture. Purchases must be made with cash only and paid at the above referenced facility in order to complete the transaction. Extra Space Storage may refuse any bid and may rescind any purchase up until the winning bidder takes possession of the personal property.

that Extra Space Storage will sell at public auction at the storage facility listed below, to satisfy the lien of the owner, personal property described below belonging to those individuals listed below at location indicated: 2900 Crescent Springs Rd, Erlanger, KY 41018 on Tuesday, March 20th at 11:00 AM. Elbert Eubank Jr., Unit 338, Household items/ furniture; Donna Damron, Unit 642, Books/ personal items; Brian H Harkins, Unit 1133, Household goods. Purchases must be made with cash only and paid at the above referenced facility in order to complete the transaction. Extra Space Storage may refuse any bid and may rescind any purchase up until the winning bidder takes possession of the personal property.

41017 (859) 206-3078 on March 20th , 2018 on or after 9:30 am. Jacqueline Young 453, Household items, personal stuff; Melissa Howard, 206, Household Furniture; Heather Gross, 464, Tubs/ Bags of clothes, toys, Knick knacks ; Shannon O’Brien, 265, Household items; Dru Coppage, 432, Household goods; Nicholas Hawley,507,Household; Eric Copeland,259, Household items. Purchases must be made with cash only and paid at the above referenced facility in order to complete the transaction. Extra Space Storage may refuse any bid and may rescind any purchase up until the winning bidder takes possession of the personal property.

M A R C H 7 – 1 3 , 2 0 18

Notice is hereby given that Extra Space Storage will sell at public auction at the storage facility listed below, to satisfy the lien of the owner, personal property described below belonging to those individuals listed below at location indicated: 525 W 35th St Covington, KY 41015 (859) 261-1165 on March 20, 2018 on or after 12:00 pm. William Fields Jr, 03503, Misc household items; Jennifer Meyer, 04124, Household Goods, furniture; Jamison Jones, 04333, Household Goods; Daniel York, 02209, Household goods; Heleni Sibert, 04602, Misc household furniture; Kelly Riddle, 04119, furniture and other misc items; Bradley Weick, 04404, household items; Lineup Technologies, 02102, Business Equipment; Jerry Merritt, 04327, chest, couple of small fi ling cabinets, boxes; Tanya Hammond, 04611, Household goods; Rose Marie Golsby, 03502, Household items. Purchases must be made with cash only and paid at the above referenced facility in order to complete the transaction. Extra Space Storage may refuse any bid and may rescind any purchase up until the winning bidder takes possession of the personal property.

CLASSIFIEDS

DELIVERY CONTRACTORS NEEDED

CityBeat needs contractors to deliver CityBeat every Wednesday between 9am and 3pm. Qualified candidates must have appropriate vehicle, insurance for that vehicle and understand that they are contracted to deliver that route every Wednesday. CityBeat drivers are paid per stop and make $14.00 to $16.00 per hr. after fuel expense. Please reply by email and leave your day and evening phone numbers. Please reply by email only. Phone calls will not be accepted. sferguson@citybeat.com

NIGHT GARDEN RECORDING STUDIO

Seamless integration of the best digital gear and classics from the analog era including 2” 24 track. Wide variety of classic microphones, mic pre-amps, hardware effects and dynamics, many popular plug-ins and accurate synchronization between DAW and 2” 24 track. Large live room and 3 isolation rooms. All for an unbelievable rate. Event/Show sound, lighting and video production services available as well. Call or email Steve for additional info and gear list; (513) 368-7770 or (513) 729-2786 or sferguson. productions@gmail.com.

DISSOLVE YOUR MARRIAGE

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

NOW REOPENED

Tohi

Cincinnati’s Only Hemp Spa, Tea House, and Boutique Massage • Facials • Waxing • detox Sauna Mani/pedi • tea House • Smoothie Bar • Hemp Boutique

942 HatcH St. • Mt adaMS 513-421-8644 • toHiSpa.coM

thelodgeky.com

BEST OF CINCINNATI® GOLDEN TICKETS March 28 | 5:30-9pm | The Phoenix, 812 Race St, Downtown Cincinnati

C I T Y B E AT. C O M

M A R C H 7 – 1 3 , 2 0 18

Every attendee will have a chance to win a pair of tickets to:

Bonnaroo 2018 Forecastle Festival Bunbury Festival Jason Mraz David Byrne Tedeschi Trucks Band Odesza Steve Martin & Martin Short

Barenaked Ladies John Fogerty & ZZ Top Dead & Company Kesha & Macklemore Chicago & REO Speedwagon Lynyrd Skynyrd Cirque du Soleil Corteo Jimmy Eat World

TICKETS: