That’s our neighbors, Aron and Ben Levin, up on stage last night, doing their thing. Playing the blues.
Ben Levin is a piano prodigy. He’s only 21, but he’s been playing gigs since he was 13. (You can check out his chops here.) Pre-pandemic (“The Before Times”), Ben and Aron had quite a few gigs around town every week. When coronavirus hit, it shut down most of the venues they played. Then it hit a lot closer to home – Aron got COVID-19 last November. Playing live took a back seat to staying alive. Aron was in the hospital for a month… he came way too close to being yet another coronavirus fatality. Then he endured a long stint of in-patient rehab. He’s not 100%, but he’s working his way back.
I’ve always loved seeing live music. I’ve always admired the special bond that Aron and his son have. But I’ve never appreciated their gigs as much as I did when I saw them last night.
Blues a healer, all over the world
Blues a healer, healer, all over the world, all over the world
My wife and I play pickleball on Tuesday nights, in a couples league. No, we’re not 80 years old, we just like to act like it.
There’s another league that plays on the courts next to us, and one of the guys in that league heads up the Cincinnati Pickleball Club (yes, such a thing exists). A few weeks ago, he gave us some promo swag (carabiners to hang our pickleball bags on the fence… now if only we had pickleball bags). The carabiners had the CPC website listed, so I checked it out and decided to join. It’s a grassroots organization dedicated to promoting the sport in this area, and I’m all about groups that promote positive activities (hence my 20 year membership in the Arbor Day Foundation… and my decades-long love affair with Up with People).
Smells Like Teen Spirit… the good kind
Unbeknownst to me, my $20 annual fee made me Member #700 in the CPC. And that’s the only 700 Club I want to be a member of.
They’d never play pickleball… it even sounds sinful.
In Cincinnati Pickleball circles, I’m kind of a big deal.
I didn’t get a tickertape parade, but I did get a Q&A slot in the weekly email newsletter.
Free publicity in a newsletter that goes out to at least 699 other members. It’s almost as good as being in the new phone book!
Autograph line forms on the left. One item per customer…
Not that I need any more notoriety — this blog has thousandshundredstens a few loyal readers — but I managed to get a byline in the April edition of Cincinnati Magazine by writing the text to accompany some really cool photos (by Aaron M. Conway) of a local farm that grows hops.
The editor of Cincinnati Magazine, John Fox, is an old friend of mine. When I was working at an alternative music station, he was the editor of an alt-weekly, and the station and the paper would collaborate, cross-pollinate, and co-promote events often due to the large overlap in audiences. John will throw me a magazine assignment every now and then – usually something fairly straightforward and not too time-consuming. I enjoy the challenge, and I always wind up learning something new while doing research and interviews. For the hops farm piece, I got to interview one of the growers and connect with brewers at several local breweries… it’s a really tight-knit community and it was cool to witness the spirit of collaboration among them. I also learned quite a bit about the process of growing hops, and I found it quite fascinating.
“The more you know…”
If you’re keeping score at home, I’ve now done four pieces for Cincinnati Magazine over the past couple of years, and two of them have been beer-centric. I think I’m being typecast. Then again, if the shoe beer mug fits…
It’s like, totally far out to get snow on 4/20, duude.
Global climate change is real.
“Last Night It Snowed” is a song by the Cincinnati band Ass Ponys. Their lead singer and main songwriter is Chuck Cleaver. He’s brilliant – right up there with Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Randy Newman, Warren Zevon. I love, love, loved the Ass Ponys – still do, in fact, even though they faded into the sunset back in the early aughts.
Chuck Cleaver’s lyrics can be twisted, sardonic, off-kilter… downright weird. His voice is an acquired taste. But spend some time with his songs and you’ll come to appreciate his brilliance. “Last Night It Snowed” is the lead track off the Ass Ponys final studio album, Lohio. That release is a good place to start your College of Chuck courses.
Chuck’s in a band called Wussy now. They’re as amazing as the Ass Ponys were. Chuck and Lisa Walker, the other lead singer/songwriter in the band, have done nearly 40 livestream shows on Facebook over the past year, on Friday nights. Combined with a few shows from bassist Mark Messerly, members of Wussy are approaching 50 free shows. Each one’s a gem… and a lifeline in this pandemic-cursed year.
Wussy can’t tour. They have a tip jar but they never mention it. They all have day jobs. If musical genius equated to cold hard cash, they would be billionaires. But it doesn’t work out that way. We could focus on the cold, cruel music biz that’s buried them and the Ass Ponys.
A blanket white
At least it was when it came down last night
The morning brings the rain
The blanket’s washed away
Now everything turns back to grey
But instead I focus on the inherent beauty of the music. And pray that someday the world will come to appreciate it as well.
My friend Keith Neltner was featured in yesterday’s Cincinnati Enquirer. The online version of the article is here. He created the artwork for a mural that will be in the green room of PromoWest Pavilion at Ovation, a new music venue in Northern Kentucky. Now he and his friends are bringing the mural to life.
L to R: Nathan Dye, Stacey Vallerie Meyer, Chris Dye, Keith Neltner Photo credit: Kyle Eli Ebersole
The artwork pays tribute to three local musicians who first rose to fame via their work on the King Records label, which was based in Cincinnati. Philip Paul was a session drummer. Otis Williams was a doo-wop artist. Bootsy Collins got his start playing with James Brown, and is widely regarded as one of the best bass players in this or any universe.
Bootsy Collins, Philip Paul and Otis Williams Photo credit: Sam Greene/The Cincinnati Enquirer
“So many people were influenced by the music that these guys created, and they have no idea that there’s a vacant building on Brewster where it all happened.”
Keith Neltner, in the Cincinnati Enquirer article linked above
The fact that they are Black musicians is significant, because that’s a big part of the King Records legacy. In King Records’ heyday in the 50s and 60s, King had an integrated workforce – not just the recording artists on the label, but also the session musicians, the A&R folks, the engineers, the workers at the pressing plant, the office staff.
This M.O. of King Records owner Syd Nathan was driven less by noble intentions and more by capitalism: he didn’t see black and white, he only saw the color of money. But to his enduring credit, he created a mini-meritocracy and a bastion of diversity in an era when most were blinded by prejudice, and helped launch the careers of performers from marginalized communities – both African-American and “hillbilly.”
Sidebar: Check out the book King of the Queen City by John Hartley Fox for the full story about King Records, one of the most important, successful and influential record companies in the history of modern music, and one whose role is often overlooked.
I’m sure the mural artwork is fantastic (I’ve written about Keith Nelter’s artistic genius before – it’s on full display on his website.) And it’s great that it will drop some King Records knowledge on the touring artists who play the venue.
“King Records was a big deal back in the day. It’s going to be a great thing when artists come to town and they can learn about King Records.”
But because the mural is in the green room of a music venue that will hold 2,700 indoor fans, or 7,000 outdoors, the only way I’ll get to fully appreciate it is if I join a successful rock band… or become a groupie!
That’s mighty high praise from Mr. Mighty Ducks. We’ll take it. We’ll also take the #11 slot in the Travel + Leisure list of The 50 Best Places to Travel in 2021. Here’s what they have to say about Cincy:
The first clues that the Queen City — a Rust Belt capital that was hard hit by the decline of American manufacturing — was poised for a comeback started a few years ago, when tech startups and small businesses moved into disused Over-the-Rhine warehouses, filmmakers flocked in to take advantage of tax breaks and early-20th-century architecture, and historic spaces like the city’s Music Hall got a much-needed polish. Now, the urban revival is official — but sneak in a 2021 visit and you can still claim to be a trendsetter. Check into the Kinley, which opened its doors in downtown Cincy in October with a much-buzzed-about restaurant from chefs Kevin Ashworth and Edward Lee. While you’re in town, dine at restaurant standouts Please and Goose & Elder, explore new outdoor installations at the Cincinnati Art Museum, and pay a visit the lauded Cincinnati Zoo, whose animal dispatches on social media are the only reasonable justification for keeping your Twitter account. —Lila Battis
#1 in the Estevez Index, and #11 for Travel… not too shabby. Better watch your back, real Paris!
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