Best Foot Forward
Doing the local original music scene ‘Best of’ style

Interview by Mike Breen

Bad Veins, good music Photo By: Roman Titus

Best Jazz Saviors
A group of four investors (including lawyer and Jazz bassist Ed Felson) swooped in and took over the Blue Wisp Jazz Club, ensuring that downtown retained an elegant space for Jazz artists and their fans. The legendary club, now in its third decade, continues to attract top-shelf national musicians and hosts local artists even more frequently. Jazz might not be the thriving art form it once was in terms of public support, but it’s good to know there’s still a place to hear it live on a regular basis. Thankfully, the Blue Wisp Big Band has kept its every-Wednesday home there. Could you imagine the Cadillac Ranch Big Band? 318 E. Eighth St., Downtown, 513-241-9477

Best Intimate Concert Series
“The Living Room Shows” presented by local Roots/Folk label Blue Jordan Records offer the most intimate live-music experience you could have short of hiring someone to play your own bedroom. Every other month, two artists (mostly from the label’s roster) perform in someone’s living room in Norwood to provide fans with an alternative to noisy bar shows. The location is top secret — you won’t know where to go until you buy a ticket. Just like an old rave party, but with better music. www.bluejordan.com

Best Outlaw with a Heart of Gold
Bear hugs from Dallas Moore seem almost as popular as his fiery, soulful brand of “Outlaw Country” music, displayed expertly on his most recently released CD, Tales From a Road King. The genial singer/songwriter’s down-to-earth, friendly charm brought out an army of defenders when Moore and his posse were incorrectly identified as the hecklers at last fall’s Cincinnati Entertainment Awards. www.dallasmoore.com

Best Music Reviews on a Blog
Proving that creative, long-form music criticism lives on in cyberspace — lord knows print media is suffering from serious shrinkage these days — the locally-based blog The Wheel’s Still In Spin offers up entertaining “short story” reviews in which the author crafts clever fictional tales based on the CD being reviewed. The site also does a good job of featuring local musicians and does a round-up of national CD releases every Tuesday. www.thewheelsstillinspin.com

Best Next Big Thing
Indie Pop duo Bad Veins joked in a recent CityBeat cover story that they were the most signed unsigned band in Cincinnati. The duo — which has no official CD on the market — has built up a press kit bigger than most major-label artists. Everywhere they go (South By Southwest, CMJ, etc.) they seem to win over new fans in the music industry and outside of it. A record deal has seemed certain for a while. Put money down that it happens this year. www.badveins.net

Best Supergroup
One of the city’s best singer/songwriters, Kim Taylor, has played shows with a variety of accompaniment — from duos with a drummer or keyboardist to full bands to solo — but this year she debuted a “real” backing band featuring some of the city’s finest musicians. Steve McCabe (Throneberry, wil-o-ee), Reuben Glaser (Pearlene, Viva La Foxx) and Jesse Ebaugh (Pearlene) would make a great band by themselves; behind Taylor’s soul-tickling voice and songs, they’re untouchable. www.kim-taylor.net

Best Loosely-Themed Fest
The genre of “World Music” might just be the most open musical genre. I mean, all musicians are making music in the world, right? The first World Music Festival at the Southgate House last fall broke it down perfectly, showcasing the best local offerings in the ill-named genre. Celtic, Middle Eastern, Afro-Beat, Reggae, Indian, Brazilian, Israeli Folk, Latin and Jazz all had a spot at the fest, which helped build a strong sense of community within the World music field locally. www.worldmusicfest.org

Best Vinyl Release Concept
Very few local artists release vinyl anymore, partly because of the lack of turntables and partly because it costs three arms and two legs to have vinyl pressed. The warm, intimate sounds of Indie band The Chocolate Horse seem made for the format (no high-compression necessary), so they put their debut album, Patience Works!, out on wax. The Horse’s spin on the vinyl-release concept is a practical one — each 12-inch includes a CD version of the music as well. www.thechocolatehorse.com

Best New Blues Singer/Slinger
Singer/songwriter/guitarist Jon Justice, formerly of Memphis “Jam band” The Recipe, has become a young-gun sensation on the local Blues front, making a rollicking sound that is solid enough to attract purists but fresh enough to draw in a new generation — something the Blues desperately needs. Justice and his band won the local Cincy Blues Challenge and represented the city in Memphis earlier this year at the International Blues Challenge. www.jonjustice.com

Best Jet-Setter
If you’re ever in Europe, check the Web site for Napoleon Maddox, well known in town as the beat-box king/MC/mastermind behind IsWhat?!’s amazing Jazz/Hip Hop fusion. There’s a decent chance he’ll be performing over there. Maddox has made several trips overseas, performing with IsWhat?!, Roy Nathanson’s Sotto Voce and others. Keep an eye out for his latest, Audio Pathogens. www.napoleonmaddox.com

Best Indication It’s 1993 All Over Again
Just like in the early ’90s, when The Afghan Whigs were driving the media to town to christen Cincinnati “The Next Seattle,” the past year has seen an increase in attention to our fair city thanks to the national recognition of artists like Wussy, Bad Veins and others. Spin magazine even featured Cincinnati’s music scene in a flashy two-page spread, just as they did way back then.

Best Indication It’s Better Than 1993
The Spin article was written by a knowledgeable local (Kari Wethington) and offered a solid overview of the original music scene. Still, the piece only scraped the surface — a real testament to what we have going on here.

Best Indication That 1993 Is Only a Distant Memory
During the ’90s, Short Vine was the center of the original music universe. In the last year, the two leading clubs on the strip (Top Cat’s and Sudsy Malone’s) shut down operations, leaving long-standing concert hall Bogart’s the only real remnant of the era. Don’t cry too much, though — things change, and they’re only getting better. ©