MidPoint Music Festival 2010

Midpoint Music Fest was last weekend, in case you live under a rock and managed to not hear about it. This year they had over 250 music showcases going over the three days. The music was spread across 25 or so stages throughout the central business district and Over-the-Rhine.

We picked up three day passes earlier this summer at Fountain Square and managed to catch a few good shows during our time wandering the streets of Cincinnati listening to music fill the streets.

Here's a quick rundown of the stuff we managed to see.

Thursday - First up was a trip to the Know Theatre to see Nathan Holscher. The plan was to stay for Jessica Lea Mayfield, but her show was cancelled so we headed to Grammers to see Best Coast. From there we went to Jack Potts to see Walk the Moon, who put on a pretty incredible live show.

Friday - we took this night off and were at Music Hall for the Cincinnati Pops

Saturday - Started off at Mixx to see the Koala Fires, then checked out Chocolate Horse at Below Zero. After that we wandered down to FB's to watch Bourtros setup, but since they were running late we took off and headed to the CAC to catch A Place to Bury Strangers who were probably one of my favorites, even if they had to endure countless power loss issues.

I know some people who were trying to cram a dozen or so bands in per-night, which would have made for some crazy nights. We opted to just check out a few here and there and not live by any real set schedule. It worked out well and I think next year we might do the same, but maybe start a bit earlier and plan for all three days. Definitely one of my favorite Cincinnati events and if you haven't attended before be sure to check it out next year.

website: http://www.mpmf.com/

MPMF 2010

We're about a month away from Midpoint Music Fest 2010 and the lineup for this year is pretty incredible. If you haven't gotten your tickets yet, you can pick them up online or at the MidPoint Indie Summer events at Fountain Square. We picked up passes at the Square and are pretty excited to hit up as many shows as we can.

Upcoming free Fountain Square events building up to MPMF.10:

• Friday, August 27th, 7PM-11PM
• 10 p.m. Brian Olive
• 9 p.m. Oxford Cotton
• 8 p.m. J Dorsey Blues Revival
• 7 p.m. 20th Century Tokyo Princess
• Friday, September 3rd, 7PM-11PM
• 10 p.m. We Are Scientists
• 9 p.m. The Seedy Seeds
• 8 p.m. Hazle Weatherfield
• 7 p.m. Okay Lindon

MPMF.10 runs September 23rd-25th, check out their website for the incredible lineup and build your schedule.

Cadillac Ranch = clunker

If you live in Cincinnati you may have already heard some Cadillac Ranch-bashing as a result of some serious party-foul action that went down during MidPoint Music Festival this past weekend. If you missed it (as I did because I was out of town), here's the gist from BuyCincy:

After hearing one band they were unhappy with, Cadillac Ranch pulled the plug on visiting Midpoint Music Festival bands scheduled to play Saturday night at his venue. After Cleveland's The Lighthouse and The Whaler finished their low-key 8pm set, Cadillac Ranch had enough and cancelled performances from bands that came to Cincinnati from New York, Louisville, and Nashville, citing lack of profit.

How embarrassing, to say the least. I find myself getting surprisingly defensive as one of our precious, awesome jewels (like MidPoint) is bullied by Big Restaurant. There is no excuse for behavior of this nature, and it's vindicating to notice that I'm not the only one up-in-arms. This has quickly become a media nightmare for at least this location of the chain-- there's even a Facebook page set up to encourage a boycott.

Hell, I'm in. One more excuse to Eat Local, amirite?

If you agree that this is unacceptable, might I recommend voting this location down on Urbanspoon?

Soapbox: "Making Musical Cities"

"Events like MPMF, Taste of Cincinnati, and the Fountain Square summer concert series are all good examples that support local musicians. If there were some sort of organization to pull together bands, graphic artists, promoters, and small labels, to promote the city's music as a whole, I think it could be pretty big."

There's a nice piece in Soapbox about the burgeoning music scene in Cincinnati. Shout-outs to @allnightparty, @badveins and Project Mill, yea! Also a plug by my beloved @redkatblonde for locally-grown music in ads campaigns:

"In my experience, very few ad projects that require music have ever incorporated original local music or musicians. I think the main reason lies in the fact that businesses don't know how to necessarily find original local musicians, and therefore miss opportunities to use their music. If a company wants to connect their product or service to Cincinnati, and wants a true hometown feel, the most authentic thing they can do is use original local music in their productions," she says.