It Is Always Free, You Dummies…

Hopefully this isn’t too little, too late, but I would just like to tell people that New Years Eve at the Northside Tavern is free. The Tavern is always free, thus this will be free. I’ve been hearing door prices ranging from 20 to 50 dollars, so I just want to remind people that it is actually zero dollars to get in. I would suggest getting there early though, it is going to be packed. I’m not really sure where this whole rumor got brewing but it is a big fat fail.

Your New Years Plans!

Special edition, non-weekend DMF tonight alongside a midnight performance by Bad Veins. Come on down and ring out a fairly lackluster 2008. (Yes, I know Obama was elected this year, but most of the other stuff kinda blew.) Here is to 2009 being a whole lot better!

End of the Year List….

I wasn’t honestly planning on doing anything like this, mostly because I love to hate best-of lists. But since more than a couple people asked me to do it, I thought I would take the easy way out on content and put up a couple. I though that today we would just get the music one out of the way. I’m always in a weird place with music lists at the end of the year. I’ve never really been one for the serious artistry kind of music, normally opting out  for cheap thrills. For example, Fleet Foxes seemed to be topping a lot of peoples lists, they would not even come close to being on my lists due to the fact that they make me sleepy. For me, the best music is thrilling, something that I listen to and get really excited about. For whatever reason many of the softer spoken albums that come out just don’t supply the visceral thrill that I really need. So, in no particular order, these are the albums and singles that supplied my fix this year. (As a disclaimer, I’m only going to post tracks for the albums that I didn’t hear much about from other people this year.) Let’s get started, shall we?

What was up? YYA at the Tavern!

Of course, right after I said I was starting up again I disappeared for a week or so. This whole holiday season can be both overly busy and I attribute most of my absence to that. The other thing distracting me was the inaugural You, You’re Awesome show at the tavern. I used my limited ability to run lights to make the evening that much more fun… hopefully. All in all, I’d say the night went off without a hitch, so here are a few pictures from what should be the first of many shows. More pictures of the fun had after the jump!

Save the date!

Next Thursday I expect the lot of you to attend the inaugural You, You’re Awesome show at the Tavern. Kevin and Yusef will be manning the instruments and I’ll be doing my damnedest to produce and interesting light show to compliment the completely awesome video accompaniment. This will really be something exciting so come on down. I may or may not be DJ’ing afterwards as well, we’ll see. If enough of you show up and decide to enjoy yourself into the wee hours, I definitely will be. There are more surprises to be had that night as well. Mystery abounds! Good friend Ben Davis, of Bad Veins, will be opening up as well. Sounds like fun, right? Yes, yes it does.

Here’s a little treat for you to chew on. Unsanctioned mp3 giveaway!

You, You’re Awesome – You and Your Bad Self

Love,

John

P.S. The poster was done by Yusef and Julie.

Gift Giving…

I know we are all broke. Until this past weekend I hadn’t really left my neighborhood in about three weeks. I get it. For the most part, I would say that Christmas is taking a year off. Kids should get presents due to their being children, but adults should take it easy. HOWEVER, you should still buy presents for a select few. Since I’ve been poor-ish for a while my family already know who the lucky few are and have come to grips with it… or  have never noticed I don’t buy them anything. If you are going to buy presents this year, I urge you to go local. Now, I don’t really have a vehement hate for most big-box stores. In fact, the idea of buying bananas, a PS3, a digital tire pressure gauge and a Beta fish all in the same space has always seemed vaguely pleasurable to me. But this year I ask you to stay away from the malls, the Targets and any other space that takes 10 minutes to walk across. 

Little bit of sad news…

Sure, we all know that Peter Frampton resides in these parts, but we unfortunately lost another, perhaps lesser known, local musical talent on Sunday. Dennis Yost, singer and drummer for 60’s pop group Classics IV, best known for their songs “Stormy”, “Spooky” (above) and “Traces,” passed on due to respiratory faliure. Yost was 65.

“Stormy”

 

The Cincinnati Labyrinth Project

I recently became involved with the Cincinnati Labyrinth Project, a group who mission statement goes thusly:

Cincinnati is in need of a cultural and economic renaissance. By signing this petition, you express your commitment to the notion that by selling the perennially unsuccessful, infuriatingly mediocre Cincinnati Bengals football franchise and erecting a complex, state-of-the-art stone labyrinth in Paul Brown Stadium, all Cincinnatians would experience both fiscal and cultural growth. We at the Cincinnati Labyrinth Project are a deeply committed bunch, so you may rest assured that we will work tirelessly to bring this wonderful proposal to fruition. Do it for Cincinnati! Do it for labyrinths!

I urge all of you to read the blog carefully, very carefully. When people ask me “What do philosophy majors do with their time after they are out of school?,” I now have something to point them towards.

As the mission statement says, do it for Cincinnati, do it for Labyrinths!

The Cincinnati Labyrinth Project 

Love,

John

The Imperial Theater or: The Need For A Venue

3. You need to train yourself to believe that the world cares about what you have to say.

-John Hodgman, “The Six Essentials”

Yes, it has been a while, and I’m getting back to blogging. Hopefully the above quote explains why I stopped blogging, and writing in general actually, and why I’m also getting back into it. I could do a lengthy paragraph (or nine) about stopping, the reasons behind it, the great sense of indifference I felt towards casting off words to be maybe/maybe-not read by the internet masses, but that’s boring. Let’s just get back into things. Now, I will say that the blog entries will be coming to you in a diminished volume relative to the last go around. For whatever reason, I was forcing myself to churn out two-to-three blog entries a day. This led to three things:

1. More daily entertainment for you. That’s a good thing, of course.

2. Annoyance that I had to write that much. Funny thing is though, it was entirely my own doing.

3. A lack of things to write about. I was really stretching at times towards the end. Stretching for subjects is hardly enjoyable.

But let’s move past this and talk about something, something that I’ve ranted about many-a-night to my friends while imbibing a few cocktails. Some claim its funny when I get ranty, but I have a hard time believing that. Either way, let’s talk about venues, as in we don’t have one where there should be one. Brace yourself kids, this could get long.

Think of the concerts you’ve been to in the past few months. Where did you see them? If you are like many people, Midpoint notwithstanding, you were at one of the bars in Northside, Southgate House or (shudder) Bogarts. In the past few years the amount of venues has dwindled drastically. With Top Cat’s, Alchemize and Sudsy Malone’s closing, the city was left with a great deal fewer places for bands to play. Thankfully Northside Tavern recognized this and opened up the beautiful back room. But I want to propose to you a different kind of venue. As Cincinnati concert-goers there will most likely be some things about this hypothetical venue that you won’t like, but hear me out.