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CEA 2003

Over the Rhine

Back to the Start
From local sensations to international cult favorites, Over the Rhine always find their way home.

INTERVIEW BY BRIAN BAKER

For Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist, the founders and sole remaining creative forces of Over the Rhine, home has always been both an abstract concept and a concrete reality.

Buzz Ward (left) and Ed Stern Photo By David Sorcher

After moving to Cincinnati from smalltown Ohio nearly a decade and a half ago, the city became the pair’s adopted hometown as well as the base of operations for OtR, their gauzily pretty Pop band (once self-described as “post-nuclear, pseudo-alternative, folk-tinged art-pop”) that’s inspired an exponentially large and cultishly fierce fan base over the years. The groundswell began in Cincinnati naturally, as OtR rose in the local ranks, then quickly grew as they were embraced by a regional audience, until finally they belonged to the rarified world of nationally and internationally renowned recording artists.

And with each successive step, home became an increasingly fractured reality. Home was two small towns in Northern Ohio. Home was the two apartments that Detweiler and Bergquist maintained in the 150-year-old neighborhood that was the band’s namesake and earliest songwriting inspiration, homes they kept even after their 1996 marriage. Home was a van and a stranger’s couch and an endless succession of hotel rooms. Home was a studio.

After working long and hard to escape the gravitational idea that they were a local band — OtR’s only area appearances for several years now have been their annual Christmas shows — Detweiler and Bergquist have now returned home. Not in the literal sense, as OtR is firmly ensconced in their major-label recording contract with Virgin Records imprint Back Porch, and they’re still a band that very much belongs to the world.

And yet the roots of OtR’s 10th and latest album, Ohio, are, as the title would imply, very much a product of Detweiler’s and Bergquist’s childhood experiences and earliest influences, all of which were cultivated here in the state that now serves as the banner for their new album.

Since forming Over the Rhine in 1989 (with original guitarist Ric Hordinski and drummer Brian Kelley) and playing their first gig at Sudsy Malone’s, the band has consistently been a fan favorite, and that fandom spread as OtR’s circle of exposure widened. They self-released ’Til We Have Faces in 1990 and Patience in 1991 (which also featured the photography of soon-to-be-huge Michael Wilson) and signed to IRS Records, which reissued both albums and released Eve in 1994.

Over the Rhine Photo By Michael Wilson

1996 became the watershed year for OtR. IRS was dissolved in a corporate merger and OtR was freed from their contract, which cleared them to release a pair of dark acoustic albums: Good Dog Bad Dog and The Darkest Night of the Year, a moody rumination on Christmas. Detweiler and Bergquist decided to make their romantic pairing permanent by marrying in the fall. Two months later, Hordinski left to concentrate on other music interests and Kelley bowed out as well.

The following year, OtR was signed to Back Porch, the small Blues/Folk imprint of Virgin Records. Amateur Shortwave Radio was the first release under the deal in 1999, and 2001 marked the much acclaimed Films for Radio, as OtR became a duo surrounded by a rotating cast of hand-picked musicians.

Two years later, and with the air cleared of any lingering doubts about the band’s immediate and long-term future, Bergquist and Detweiler set to work on the songs that would comprise Ohio. As with most creative endeavors, especially by groups with long and much-examined histories, Ohio began with a little bit of healthy soul searching.

“Now that we’ve been doing this for a while, I think there’s always a period of questioning and self-doubt, or at least self-awareness, that precedes the recording of a batch of new songs,” Bergquist says. “Do we still believe in our music? Are we repeating ourselves? Is there still a spark? But once we got into these songs, we had the overwhelming sensation that we were coming home.”

The group hit the road with an assembled backing cast in support of Ohio, but unspecified difficulties caused Detweiler and Bergquist to pull the plug on the tour.

“We’ve poured our hearts and our souls into our music this year, and we’ve seen that tree bear a lot of fruit and flourish,” the duo writes on their Web site. “But we’ve increasingly realized that there has been very little room left over for anything else including our relationship and marriage. As difficult a decision as it is, we’ve decided we must go home to do some much needed caretaking and work to preserve this part of our lives.”

Thankfully for fans, the homecoming therapy seems to have done the trick. Over the Rhine are now set to resume the Ohio tour in December, which will include their annual holiday show at the Taft Theater on Dec. 12.

For Over the Rhine, it seems home is indeed where their hearts are. ©

Michael Burnham

Man Behind the Curtain
Michael Burnham’s recognition by the League of Cincinnati Theatres is an unsought honor

INTERVIEW BY BRANDON BRADY

In the local theater community, a hushed reverence surrounds Michael Burnham, but the director/actor would rather be considered a son of a bitch.

Michael Burnham Photo By: Jon Hughes / photopresse

Burnham envisions the scene as he’ll accept the Award for Continuing Excellence bestowed by the League of Cincinnati Theatres at the 2003 Cincinnati Entertainment Awards and be ushered into the CEA Hall of Fame: a warm envelope of applause and admiration as he takes the stage. The director, however, has a change to note. He switches the theater community’s motivation from respect-filled awe to cocky irreverence for a unifying thought: “That son of a bitch would be nothing without me.”

“And they’d be right,” he says, as his eyes light up mischievously. But he seriously believes that would almost be the bigger compliment — a moment of truth strived for in the best theater productions.

“I don’t care how smart I am,” he says. “They did the work.”

Burnham’s sincerity is a marked reflection of the man. His gratification with the theater community is as great and as honest as the accolade he’s about to receive. He describes his own recognition as “sweet” with a subtle, touching wistfulness.

“I felt really validated in a way I didn’t know I needed to be,” he quietly admits.

The award is an unsought honor. Burnham is embarrassed by the fuss. He’s frightened. He departs on a beautifully told tangent about a hair tail he grew and refused to cut as long as Richard Nixon was president. The hair tail became a suggestive nervous prop until a fateful snip by a distracted barber.

“Oh, shit! Now I have to really be me instead of just looking like me,” Burnham remembers thinking. “And I’m scared of the award for exactly that same reason.”

Burnham is faced with the fact that the man behind the curtain is himself. He hides behind his roles and his productions. He’s content at times to be a hermit, though he happily chats up friends and acquaintances he’s made along the way. And he still can’t say no to the maddening, intoxicating game that is theater.

He ran from playing a sailor on the stage of the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, where he also served as literary manager for nine years, to immerse himself in the Theatre of the Ionosphere in Mount Adams. He crafted The Vietnam Project, a chillingly personal unsupported work, at the College-Conservatory of Music, where he’s been teaching directing, script analysis and dramaturgy for 19 years. He’s slipped into the role of a shivering Irish storyteller in Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival’s The Weir as well as directing a haunting four-person production of The Oedipus Trilogy for the troupe.

And then, amidst other credits too numerous to mention, there’s Corpus Christi. The much-debated gay retelling of the Christ tale, which Burnham directed and which earned three CEA nominations and received a 2003 Post-Corbett Award for Extraordinary Event for The Know Theatre Tribe, was a mesmerizing production for those brave enough to watch. The show says as much about homophobia and religious beliefs as it does about him.

For Corpus Christi, he put women in male roles and used heterosexual actors as homosexuals. Cross-casting isn’t a new technique for Burnham; he employed it when directing CSF’s Doctor Faustus and CCM’s The Tempest. His use of the best actors in non-typical roles is a means to integration and to innovation.

Theater is and has been Burnham’s mirror to Cincinnati. He sees the ease with which the theater scene is becoming integrated and hopes the same for the city. He notes his fortune at being able to move among companies of different size and stature.

“Ani DiFranco says you play in whatever venue they give you,” he explains. “If I play in those different venues, then I’m helping make integration happen.”

His experiences morphing from theater to theater unfold into fascinating, richly told theatrical war stories voiced with soft-spoken gentility. His lengthy resume — and his bosses at UC — have pigeonholed Burnham into two characters: He’s either the city’s resident curmudgeon or the grandfather of the city’s theater scene. In typical fashion, Burnham confirms and denies it.

“I’ve lived here long enough to say what I think and nice enough to get away with it,” he says. “I don’t think I’m the grandfather. I’ve just worked with everyone.”

Burnham prefers his daughter’s characterization of him: He’s the dirty old uncle of the city’s theater scene. And if that theater scene wants to take credit for making that son of a bitch, Burnham would be proud. ©