Kate's Queen City Notes

Blundering through Cincinnati, laughing all the way

Author Archives: allthenamesaretakensothisisreallyreallylong


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Bunbury 2015 Must See: The Avett Brothers

What can I say that hasn’t already been said about The Avett Brothers? Nothing really. But if you are unfamiliar with them Pitchfork has a really nice review of their 2012 album. That ought to tell you what you need to know.

Bunbury will be my first time seeing them, and I am really excited. If you haven’t checked out Seth Avett and Jessica Lea Mayfield’s cover of “Between the Bars” you really should. And oh look, I put it here for you. They did a whole album of Elliott Smith covers, and they are just gorgeous. Elliott Smith, I miss you so much. Not gonna lie, I have a secret hope they cover Elliott Smith at the show as unlikely as that is. And my love of Elliott Smith just hijacked this post. Sorry. Not Sorry.

Avett Brothers play at 945 at Bunbury 2015.


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Bunbury 2015 Must See: Catfish and the Bottlemen

This video has one of the nicest depictions of a mental hospital I have ever seen. By nice, I mean beautiful and completely unrealistic. I won’t hold that against them. This song has some good hooks, and the rest of their catalog sounds solid.

I failed to start my Bunbury research early enough. One of the consequences of that is that I can’t give as much time to each band that I take an immediate liking to. I suspect that with more time to sit with these guys, they would grow in me. I would have a deeper connection than my current flirtation. Hopefully, when I see them, their performance will help reign me in. They play at Bunbury 2015 at 5 on Friday.


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Bunbury 2015 Must See: Twenty One Pilots

This band isn’t exactly in my wheelhouse. But when I saw them at Bunbury a couple of years back their performance was really entertaining. When they took the stage the pianist launched off the top of his upright piano. The piano thudded to the stage; stage hands scurried to the rescue. But Twenty One Pilots didn’t miss a beat. Later in the show the drummer passed a platform to the crowd and set-up his kit there and played. Regardless of how you feel about the music, you will be entertained.


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Bunbury 2015 Must See: Shakey Graves

Americana seems to be a thing right now. Slickly produced well manicured bands with banjos and mandolins abound. Hey there Mumford and Sons and Lumineers. I’m sure the lack of banjo on Mumford’s most recent release will be the cause of much consternation.

American folk music has such a rich history. It’s been a tool for telling stories, sharing misery, and speaking out against systemic oppression. All these bearded pretty bands feel hollow when I consider the history of the product they are hustling.

But then there’s really gorgeous music happening just out of the spot light. Shakey Graves lives in this space. His voice is captivating.

I am curious to see his one-man performance. Typically, solo performances aren’t dynamic enough to hold my attention for long. But I love being proven wrong.

Shakey Graves performs at Bunbury 2015 Sunday at 530.


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100 Books by 40: COLD COMFORT FARM

Book: Cold Comfort Farm
Author: Stella Gibbons
Published: 1932

This is an ode to references. Stella Gibbons is poking fun at books that were popular at the time. Novels that idealized English rural life were common with quirky characters and regional dialects galore.

I purchased this as an audiobook because I was headed out of town for the weekend and wanted something to listen to in the car. Due to my lack of planning, I didn’t have time to get the audiobook from the library. I failed to grasp the implications of purchasing a “dramatized” reading. Dramatic, it is.

This dramatized reading is complete with different voice actors for each character as well as sound effects. I could live without the sound effects. I do, however enjoy the different voice actors.

This book is a little tough for me to get into. In order to fully appreciate parody, I would need to be more familiar with what is being lampooned. Imagine watching Spaceballs without seeing Star Wars. Sure, it’s still funny, but many of the jokes would fall flat. That’s my experience with this book.

I’ve read a couple of the authors that Gibbons is parodying. Via this list, I’ve read the Bronte sisters and Thomas Hardy. But I sense that my familiarity would need to be more significant than one read through can give me.

Regardless, I enjoyed the book. I’m sure many jokes sailed over my head. And I suspect some of the absurd aspects of the plot were more obvious due to the voice actors interpretation. But, if you haven’t read any of the authors that this book lampoons, I suggest you skip it.

Reading now:
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett

Finished reading:
1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen – only 99 cents for Kindle edition
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens – have on Kindle
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy – have on Kindle
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens *I read this when I was too young to appreciate it; I would like to read it again as an adult. I will do so if I have time.
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding *I’ve read this twice. I will read it again if I have time.
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac *I’ve read this twice. I will read it again if I have time. I have the unabriged unedited version and will probably take on that if time allows.
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel

Pending reading:
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie


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Bunbury 2015 Must See: Wussy

Wussy is a great local band. I often miss our local acts at fests because I have many opportunities to see them outside fests, and when I must choose between something I love but have regular access to and something unknown that I don’t have regular access to, I pick novelty. Wussy kicks off the fest on Friday at 2, and has no competition for the first half of their set, so I am guaranteed to catch part of their performance. I can’t think of a better start to a great weekend.

If you are traveling for Bunbury, here’s what you need to know. Wussy has been praised by Rolling Stone and SPIN. Their albums have achieved critical success in spite of Wussy’s sparse touring. The band members all have day jobs, and getting out of town for tours is a challenge. But here in Cincinnati, we’re lucky. We have them all to ourselves. If you want a little taste of the Cincinnati indie music scene, don’t miss this band.

Check out their performance on KEXP:

All the feels that I have about discovering music lives in this song. A voice comes through the speakers and grabs hold of your soul whispering that you aren’t alone. This unexpected connection wrenches hope and joy out of what can otherwise feel a mundane existence. NOTE: this is a subset of the video above.

Wussy – Teenage Wasteland:

(Verse)
Do you remember the moment? You finally did something about it.
When the kick of the drum lined up with the beat of your heart
Stuck in the corn with only a transistor radio
Making paths with the soundwaves and echoing Oh Babyloh-oh-oh-on(Chorus)
Yeah, we heard your beat real loud and clear on the last one
And we were pulling for you a thousand times a day
And it don’t take much to sound like a sleeping prophet
When your misery sounds so much like oh, so far away
Too far away, too far away

(Verse)
Do you remember the night you finally heard something about it?
When the kick of the drum went off like artillary fire
And if you’re wondering, man, oh yeah, say that it got to us
The shackles nd the (???) would scream like ohr, yeah yeah yeah

(Chorus)
Yeah, we heard you clear, real loud and clear on the last one
I must have listened to you a thousand times a day
And for one short breath, it sounds like the world is ending
It’s floating in space, but then it (???) so far aways
So far away, so far away

(Chorus)
Heard you loud and clear on the last one
We were potting for you a thousand times in a day
And it don’t take much to sound like a sleeping prophet
When your misery sounds so much like oh, so far away
Too far away, too far away

Wussy plays at Bunbury 2015 at 2pm on Friday.
If you wanna see my past experiences at Wussy’s shows check my past blogs out:
Wussy on NYE
Wussy at MPMF


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Bunbury 2015 Must See: Old Crow Medicine Show

The context matters when I am introduced to music. Much like a first impression, it’s like nicotine in walls. They never quite leave. They only fade, but never quite disappear.

I worked at a bar for some years; it was sort of place that wait staff would gather to drink away their nightly tips from midnight to last call. At mealtimes it was a wholesome family environment. In the wee hours of the morning, people were drowning their loneliness and making small an steady steps to heart failure and lung cancer.

I was introduced to “Wagon Wheel” in those wee hours of the morning. Fatigue was nipping at my heels while I struggled to find humor in jokes only funny to those three shots in. Inevitably, “Wagon Wheel” was the center of a “Crazy Hand of Poker” and “Ants Marching” sonic shit sandwich. And so, Old Crow Medicine Show got shoved into the malice-filled corner of my brain reserved for people who wear patchouli and like jam bands.

Regardless of my past impressions, I researched Old Crow Medicine Show as I have all the other bands in the Bunbury line-up. I was surprised to find that they are legit. I am delighted to be wrong. Now, my only concern is all the people turning up to see them that only know “Wagon Wheel” and will most likely be wearing patchouli.

Old Crow Medicine Show plays on Saturday of Bunbury 2015.


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Bunbury 2015 Must See: Walk the Moon

Three cheers for local music going national! Cincinnati loves their hometown band as much as the band loves Cincinnati. Their last show at Bunbury was high energy and loads of fun to watch.

And congrats to Walk the Moon for having a radio hit right now. I’ve seen these guys numerous times before, they were signed to a major label. They always put up a fun show. While many might complain that their fans are rambunctious, I like to lean into their exuberance. FYI, this video was recorded here in Cincinnati; the building they are in is The Mockbee in OTR.

Walk the Moon play on Friday on Bunbury 2015.


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Bunbury 2015 Must See: The Decemberists

I love this band. I saw them some years back, and got the added bonus of seeing The Head and the Heart as openers. At the time, I believe that Jenny Conlee, pianist among other instruments in The Decemberists, had recently been diagnosed with cancer. The show was subdued, and Conlee was absent. There seemed to be a pall over the band. Regardless, their technical execution was flawless. They just seemed disengaged from the audience.

Since then, Conlee’s cancer has gone into remission. I am curious to see the band now; the change in context might affect the band’s performance. I am hoping for a little more engagement this time around.

I love these songs. I love them so hard.

The Decemberists play on Saturday at Bunbury 2015.


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100 Books by 40: VICKY ANGEL

Book: Vicky Angel
Author: Jacqueline Wilson
Published: 2000

Writing a children’s book about the grieving process must have been tough. Reading a children’s book about the grieving process was tough. It would be inaccurate to say that I enjoyed this book.

The main character has a troubled relationship with her parents. She also has a troubled relationship with her best friend who passes away early in the book. She stumbles through the grieving process with little support.

I recognize that this context is considerably more realistic that what’s often portrayed in our books, movies and TV shows. So, I see the need to paint a more relatable picture to young adults. But filling a need doesn’t necessarily equal enjoyable end product.

I don’t like children’s books. I often feel that the reader is being condescended to. This book was no exception. The only children’s author that I’ve read in this list that’s avoided condescending is Roald Dahl. Somehow he manages to deal with emotional challenges and ethical problems while fully inhabiting child-like imagination. Feel free to skip this book. But for God’s sake read Roald Dahl if you haven’t.

Check out my blogs on Roald Dahl’s books here:
THE TWITS
CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY
BFG