SOUND ADVICE

April 25 • Bogart’s

With his lo-fi thrum, churn and charm, Shakey Graves brings his patented suitcase kit and eclectic roots music to Bogart’s for a night of ragged singalongs. Alejandro Rose-Garcia, the Austin, Texas-based musician, debuted with his album Roll the Bones and Shakey Graves stage name back in 2011. Known for his one-man band dynamics, Shakey rigs a homemade bass drum kit out of an old suitcase and tambourine to anchor his ramshackle sound. He keeps the beat with his feet while playing guitar and singing his bluesy folk rambles — it’s a workout just watching him. Graves still performs his stripped down, funky blast of street busker schtick for part of his set, and then his band joins him for the remainder. On later records like 2018’s Can’t Wake Up, he utilizes other musicians and expands his sound.

Graves describes his music as “hobo folk,” and you can hear the tumbledown mileage in his music: the dusty roads, trains and highways that bisect his stories and songs. But it’s his charisma, loose feel and warm interaction with fans that pull the crowd in every night. This tour he focuses on Roll the Bones X, his most recent record, as a familiar touchstone; this is a special edition, two-disc re-release of his first record filled with rarities and alternate cuts.

Graves sums this up to Magnolia Record Club in 2021, “I made many strange burned cds over the years for friends, this first record is the ultimate one of those, the cream on the top of years of strange songs put on tape. . . I love its rough edges and heart.”

Shakey Graves plays Bogart’s at 8 p.m. April 25. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Info: concerts.livenation.com. (Greg Gaston)

April 25 • Music Hall

Making a return trip after a sold out performance in 2017, Ben Folds performs with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, conducted by Lucas Waldin at historic Music Hall, on April 25.

Ben Folds is arguably one of the most compelling voices of his generation, with his piano-driven anthems and ballads filled with playful effervescence often juxtaposed with sarcasm, irony and sometimes heavy (or even heartbreaking) themes.

He found success with his group Ben Folds Five and the band’s breakthrough record in 1997, Whatever and Ever Amen. The album featured the bouncy and rollicking “Battle of Who Could Care Less”,

“Kate” and the band’s biggest hit, “Brick,” a tale of two young lovers put in a life changing situation with a simultaneously melancholic and anthemic chorus.

Ben Folds Five released their third studio album, The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner, to critical praise in 1999 before Folds went solo with Rockin’ the Suburbs in 2001 and a string of well received releases and collaborations punctuated by a Ben Folds Five reunion record, The Sound Of The Life Of The

Mind, in 2012.

Much like a lot of his songwriting, Folds has made some playful and adventurous moves throughout his career, even contributing songs to blockbuster movies like Hoodwinked, Over the Hedge and Handsome. Most recently, Folds contributed the Emmy-nominated title song for 2022’s Peanuts special “It’s the Small Things, Charlie Brown.”

In recent years, Folds has performed with orchestras in programs across the world and served as artistic advisor of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C. A result of some of these collaborations is the dreamy and ambitious pop of Folds’ 2015 album, So There, made with New York chamber orchestra yMusic and featuring a piano concerto performed with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra.

Folds recently announced his latest album, What Matters Most, will be released June 2.

Ben Folds plays Music Hall at 7:30 p.m. April 25. Info: cincinnatisymphony.org.

(Brent Stroud)

May 6 • PNC Pavilion

British rock and roll legend Billy Idol and his famous bleach blonde hair and punk sneer will make a special appearance in front of a Cincinnati crowd at PNC Pavilion.

Along with his unmistakable image, Idol’s revved up new wave sound delivered with a punk attitude made him one of the biggest stars of the original MTV era throughout the ‘80s, and his popularity has kept him a relevant personality and sustaining figure in pop culture ever since. From being a regular on major festival lineups and on daily radio play to tour dates around the world, he’s proven his staying power.

Idol began his career in the mid-70s, forming the charting punk band Generation X before branching out as a solo artist with a move to New York City in 1981 and the release of his debut solo EP Don’t Stop. A self-titled full-length album followed the next year, achieving major success with the singles “Dancing with Myself” and “White Wedding,” making Idol a video star with the accompanying videos that received heavy rotation on the then-newly-formed MTV. The album Rebel Yell followed in 1983, again scoring hits and video airplay with the album’s title song, the power ballad “Eyes Without a Face” and the driving “Flesh For Fantasy.”

Overall, Idol scored hits with 12 singles landing on the Billboard singles chart, including a number one with his cover of ‘60s group Tommy James and Shondells’ “Mony Mony” in 1987 and 1990’s “Cradle of Love” at number two.

He recently signed to Dark Horse Records, a label founded by late Beatle George Harrison, and has released two EPs, The Roadside in 2021, and The Cage in 2022. Idol also received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in January.

The show, bringing a high energy rock and roll show with a shaking fist and a rebel yell, will feature longtime collaborator and Idol guitar player Steve Stevens.

Billy Idol plays PNC Pavilion at 8 p.m. May 6. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Info: riverbend.org. (BS)

May 12 & 13 • Aronoff Center for the Arts

When Johnny Cougar released his debut record, Chestnut Street Incident, back in 1976, few would have guessed his career would still be going strong some 45 years later in 2023. But, of course, fans know the Seymour, Indiana, native now by his real name, John Mellencamp, after he ditched the cheesy pseudonym in 1983 with the release of Uh-Huh. Long ago having proven his commercial songwriting chops, which includes having sold over 60 million records globally, the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer is still releasing quality roots music into his seventies.

Strictly a One-Eyed Jack, Mellencamp’s new record from 2022, offers moody textures — even jazz-tinged at times, with his stark, downbeat balladry and craggy croak. More than any other dynamic, his voice has changed dramatically, coarsening into a Tom Waits-like growl that trades higher range for gravitas.

Mellencamp explains to Forbes, “I was happy when I heard me sing “Gone Too Soon” that I sounded like Louis Armstrong. It wasn’t anything I tried to do, it’s just that cigarettes take their f**king toll on your vocal chords. And so even you can tell by just talking to me, that my voice is raspy, and that’s all from smoking. Nothing that I wanted to do. . . But I’m happy that I sound that way.”

Bruce Springsteen even joins Mellencamp on two duets, and their shared “Wasted Days” is one of the record’s highlights. It’s good to hear this pair of classic rockers finally collaborate in the twilight of their careers.

John Mellencamp plays the Aronoff Center for the Arts at 8 p.m. May 12 & 13. Info: cincinnatiarts.org. (GG)

Across

BY BRENDAN EMMETT QUIGLEY WWW.BRENDANEMMETTQUIGLEY.COM

1. Some run in the background

5. Gimpo International Airport city

10. Meany of literature

14. At a leisurely pace

15. Zoo attraction

16. Thing stepped on for comic effect

17. “I’d agree”

18. Adjust, as margins in a word doc

19. Did gangbusters on

20. Item #1 bought at a head shop?

22. “You’re one to ___”

24. Leans towards

25. Item #2 bought at a head shop?

28. Gastropub selection

29. Inarguable truth

30. Accomplished

31. Ingredient in space cakes

33. ___-Go (ski-bike company)

34. Troubles

35. Item #3 bought at a head shop?

39. Nine in German, and noun in Korean

40. Genre for Alexisonfire or Burning Airlines

41. Baby boy

42. Rowing machine unit of measurement

43. Go ballistic

44. Old video game company now embarking in blockchain because why not

48. Item #4 bought at a head shop?

50. Neanderthal

52. Violinist Leopold

53. Item #5 bought at a head shop?

54. They’re often lying around the house

56. Bundling group

58. News you can use

59. Port Colborne’s lake

60. Three-card

61. Electric Mayhem’s saxophonist

63. Piles up 64. Does wrong

1. Things of value 2. “Let’s rock!” 3. Fruit similar to a grapefruit 4. Completely involved with 5. “Maybe, maybe not”

7. Pledge before a judge

8. “___ cerveza, por favor”

9. Harvey Milk and Billie Jean King, for two rival

11.

26. Bank statement

27. OR VIPs

29. Camera setting

32. It has a lot of minor characters

34. Put plastic over your windows, e.g.

35. Cronus and Rhea’s daughter

36. Potato preparation style

37. Short December holiday

38. Dry wine from Verona

39. First name preceder?

43. Legal advice

45. Key of “Für Elise”

46. Campaigned, so to speak

47. Fort Knox blocks

49. Gary of “Lost Highway”

50. Budgetary concerns

51. Burning evidence

53. Hidden message in some crosswords (not this one, though; don’t look for one)

54. Candy from a dispenser

55. It might be named after a great athlete

57. “He’s picking on me!”

LAST PUZZLE’S ANSWERS:

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