If you were hoping to walk up and buy tickets to check out tonight's show at the Taft Theatre featuring the Grammy-winning Tedeschi Trucks Band, skip the box office and "walk up" to a scalper because the Taft just sent out a press release announcing the show as a sell out. (Read what our Brian Baker had to say about the group here.)

If you do have tickets to tonight's 8 p.m. show (doors open at 7 p.m.), be sure to arrive on time to catch opener Shannon Whitworth (pictured). After a self-made Americana debut, the singer/songwriter's career began in earnest in 2009 when she went into the studio with producer Neilson Hubbard (who has worked with a slew of singer/songwriters, including Glen Philips, Garrison Starr and his pal Matthew Ryan). The two emerged with Water Bound, a lovely, eclectic album that touched on Blues, Jazz, Roots music and Rock.

Whitworth has a new album due this year in which she collaborates with Band of Horses' bassist Bill Reynolds (who has done behind the scenes work for The Avett Bros. and Lissie), so the evolution of Ms. Whitworth should be interesting to continue to watch.

Here's a clip of Whitworth performing live:

• Jazz trumpeter Scott Belck performs tonight at the Blue Wisp. Belck is the Director of Jazz Studies at University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music, where he succeeded retiring longtime department head Rick Van Matre a couple of years ago. Read our interview from last year with Belck here. For tonight's 7:30 performance at the Blue Wisp, Belck is joined by locals Rusty Holloway, Phil DeGreg and Jim Leslie. Admission is $5.

• The 2012 Tunes & Blooms music series at the Cincinnati Zoo concludes tonight with a 6 p.m. concert featuring Folk Rock crew The Turkeys and Americana ensemble Jake Speed & the Freddies. Admission is free but it costs $8 to park in a zoo lot. It might rain. Bring a hat.

Here's a clip from a documentary about late local outsider artist Raymond Thunder-Sky featuring Speed's song, "Raymond Thunder-Sky," especially audible towards the end. Looks and sounds like a great project.



Click here for more of tonight's live music events.

On this day in 2004, Bob Pollard announced that his Dayton, Ohio-based Indie Rock group Guided By Voices would be calling it quits. The band would cease to be after the touring duties for the Half Smiles of the Decomposed were finished.

But he must have had his fingers-crossed behind his back when he announced it.

Pollard wrote online, ""I've always said that when I make a record that I'm totally satisfied with as befitting a final album, then that will be it. And this is it. I love the guys in the band, but I'm getting too old to be a gang leader."

Fans figured Pollard was Guided By Voices, anyway (or at least the songwriting engine and the only member to be a part of every GBV lineup), so, while their was some sadness that the name was being retired, GBV-esque material would no doubt continue to flood the market in the form of Pollard's prolific output.

In 2010, Pollard must have gotten his second wind. He became a gang leader again when it was announced that the "classic" GBV lineup (with the members who played on seminal ’90s albums like Alien Lanes and Bee Thousand) would reunite. Sixteen shows turned into more shows, which turned into more shows and, early last year, a new album.

In 2007, Pollard told Magnet magazine, "If you're gonna get the band back together, it should be to support a new record, not just to play the hits. That's like doing the county-fair circuit. I don't see Guided by Voices reforming." GBV fans were mostly thrilled he changed his mind. But Lou Barlow of fellow Indie stalwarts Sebadoh was less enthused. In October of last year, Barlow told CityBeat he found it a bit tacky for GBV to reunite, but only because they had already embarked on a "farewell tour." (He's a stickler for semantics, apparently.)

The Guided By Voices post-farewell tour reunion slowed down a bit this year. Upon the release of the new album, Let's Go Eat the Factory, in January, several more tour dates were expected, but the group pulled back and cancelled most of them. GBV has only two shows on their schedule for 2012 — July 15 at Cincinnati's first Bunbury Music Festival along the riverfront (details here) and Sept. 21 at a fest in Florida. Maybe Lou's comments really hit home? Or maybe Pollard is just trying to pay tribute to his idols, The Who?



Born This Day: Musical movers and shakers sharing an April 26 birthday include the "Mother of the Blues," Gertrude Pridgett, better known as Ma Rainey (1886); twangy guitar legend ("Peter Gunn," "Rebel Rouser") Duane Eddy (1938); Italian songwriter/producer/film composer ("Love to Love You Baby," "Take My Breath Away") Giorgio Moroder (1940); Rock & Roll teen idol ("Wild One," "Volare") Bobby Rydell (1942); Soft Rock hitmaker ("Dream Weaver") Gary Wright (1943); the drumming Taylor of Duran Duran, Roger Taylor (1960); original drummer for Minneapolis rockers The Replacements, Chris Mars (1961); soap actor turned one hit wonder ("Rock On") Michael Damian (1962); singer for Pop trio TLC, Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins (1970); drummer for masked Metal marauders Slipknot, Joey Jordison (1975); Hip Hop/R&B singer/rapper Ms. Dynamite (1981); and Japanese film producer and the creator of legendary movie monster Godzilla, ‪Tomoyuki Tanaka‬ (1910).

Tanaka — along with writer Shigeru Kayama, director ‪Ishirō Honda‬ and special-effects creator ‪Eiji Tsuburaya‬ — created Godzilla for the movies as something of a metaphor for the fear still looming over Japan after the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The series of films based on the monster would go on to become huge cult classics in the U.S. and spawn not only the crappy 1998 blockbuster starring Matthew Broderick, but also a bunch of songs.

Without Tanaka, the world might not have tunes like Motorhead's "Godzilla Akimbo," Mr. Magic and Master P's "Ghetto Godzilla," The Flaming Lips' "Godzilla Flick," Siouxsie Sioux and The Creatures' "Godzilla!," jazzer Ben Allison's "Kramer Vs. Kramer Vs. Godzilla," Hardcore/Thrash band M.O.D.'s "Godzula," Metal ensemble Zebrahead's "Godzilla Vs. Tokyo," K Pop all-girl group Big Mama's "Godzilla Dub," P Diddy and Jimmy Page's "Come With Me" (the awful lead single from the ’98 Godzilla soundtrack) and, of course, Blue Oyster Cult's epic "Godzilla."

Here's the playlist:

Remember the first time you saw Erika Wennerstrom sing in front of the Heartless Bastards and watched amazed as she pummeled her guitar and sang with a ferocity that made her neck veins dance like a cobra in a snake charmer’s basket? Brittany Howard approaches her role fronting Alabama Shakes with a similarly wrought intensity and to a familiar result.

Like the Bastards and Grace Potter & the Nocturnals, Howard and Alabama Shakes channel ’60s Blues Rock with a contemporary edge on their excellent full-length debut, Boys and Girls.

It’s not hard to play spot-the-influences with the Shakes, as the broad experience of the individual members found them looking for the commonalities between James Brown and Otis Redding and Led Zeppelin and AC/DC while working up an early set list. The mega versatile Howard finds them easily with a fluid guitar style that can be Doo Wop sock-hop one minute (“Heartbreaker,” the title track), elephant-gun recoil the next (the Joan Armatrading-steered-by-Jimi Hendrix howl of “Be Mine,” the loping groin kick of “Hold On”). Vocally, she wails with the hellhound authority of her Soul and Blues influences while pushing the needle into Rock God territory; comparisons to Janis Joplin are not the least bit out of line.

Boys and Girls would be an impressive accomplishment from a band in its middle period, but it’s made all the more amazing considering the Shakes have only been together for three years and this represents only their second release. Howard and her cohorts in Alabama Shakes have an impeccable sense of Blues Rock classicism and an exciting sense of how to give it a good rowdy slap into right now.

We've written a bit in the past about the new film-meets-music "One Shot Music Video" series, beautifully shot, black-and-white short films of various local musical acts shot at the historic Emery Theatre (which is back in action as a functional venue this weekend). Shot by world renowned photographer Michael Wilson with audio help from the musical duo Pop Empire, the clips are filmed in one continuous take (thus the name).

The project has started to take shape and is on a roll now. Pop Empire's Cameron Cochran reports that the series is now named for the venue — "The Emery Sessions" — and will be comprised of footage from 10 artists, all shot at the theater. It's a great way to not only spotlight local music, but also show off the theater in a great light.

Wilson and Pop Empire have completed a couple of videos for Daniel Martin Moore for the first of the series. The second in the series is Over the Rhine (longtime compadres of Wilson's, who has shot OTR album covers and promo shots — including the one above — since the band's very beginning). OTR is familiar with the surroundings; the band played the "preview party" hosted by The Requiem Project which re-introduced the 100-year-old theater to locals late last year.

Here's a clip of Over the Rhine's Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist performing "The Laugh of Recognition" from the twosome's latest album, The Long Surrender. (Click over to local blog Each Note Secure to check out another clip from the project.)



Cochran also runs the all-free, all-digital "record label" The Recording Label, which has issued stellar recordings by The Kickaways, Vacation, Sacred Spirits and Pop Empire. He says working on "The Emery Sessions" inspired him to give the label a more local-specific name. The Recording Label is now called Cincinnati Recording Service. Click here for the new site.

And here are a few words from Cochran on the Sessions and the label:

If we are consuming light then sound is accompanied by sight. Many musical performers understand this concept and will incorporate a visual component to their audio performance. The idea behind the "One Shot Music Video" is to approach music from the opposite direction. The audience approaches the music from a visual perspective first because whether they know it or not the first performance they see is the photographer's.  It is the photographer's eye that navigates them through the musical performance. The hidden live performance is the one done with the camera.

The Emery Theatre was the perfect place to begin our exploration of this relationship between listening and watching live musical performances. Each musician we have recorded and that we are going to record have a love for this amazing space and understands what the Emery Theatre means to our great city of Cincinnati. It is perhaps our own experiences working in this theatre and the pride that has developed for our hometown of Cincinnati that inspired us to change the name of The Recording Label to Cincinnati Recording Service. This name change is also a tip of the hat to another person who loved his city as well as the power that American music has to bring people together, Memphis' very own Sam Philips.

Though they hail from Minneapolis, Indie Pop duo Fort Wilson Riot list its "hometown" as "Our dear van Casandra," a nod to the pair's nomadic life as a D.I.Y. touring entity. Buzzed about after their appearance at last year's MidPoint Music Festival, the twosome (Amy Hager on vocals, keyboard, guitar and trumpet and Jacob Mullis on vocals, guitar and keyboards) returns to Cincinnati tonight for a free show at MOTR Pub. FWR has been noted for its dynamic approach, shifting around from Indie Folk to Garage Rock to Dance Pop and beyond.

Here's FWR's latest single, the Electro groovin' "For All the Little Things," taken from its split EP release with Minneapolis' Phantom Tails.



The show kicks off at 10 p.m. with openers Zoo Animal, stirring vocalist Holly Newsom's self-described "Minimalist Grunge Pop with heart" group, also from the Twin Cities and inspired by the likes of Julee Cruise, Keren Ann and another "Newsom," the harp-rockin' Joanna.

Here's the gauzy, woozy Zoo Animal track "Laying and Lying" from the recent seven-song EP Departure.

On this day in 2002, rapper for the Pop group TLC, Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes died in a traffic accident in the Honduras. The star was allegedly trying to pass a truck, but another vehicle was coming the opposite way when she made her move. To avoid it, Lopes swerved off the road. The Mitsubishi Montero Sport Lopes was driving flipped, hit a couple of trees and threw all four passengers out of the vehicle. Lopes died from head and neck injuries; the other passengers survived.

Left Eye was just a month away from her 31st birthday.

Lopes' casket was engraved with lyrics from the TLC hit "Waterfalls" ("Dreams are hopeless aspirations, in hopes of coming true, believe in yourself, the rest is up to me and you"). Lopes gave an interview to MTV News about her first solo album, 2001's Supernova, in which she described her song/poem "A New Star Is Born," which was dedicated to her late father. In the interview, she said, "That track is dedicated to all those that have loved ones that have passed away. It's saying that there is no such thing as death. We can call it transforming for a lack of better words, but as scientists would say, 'Every atom that was once a star is now in you.' It's in your body. So in the song I pretty much go along with that idea. I don't care what happens or what people think about death, it doesn't matter. We all share the same space."

There are a lot of Left Eye remembrances going on in cyberspace today since its the tenth anniversary of her death. Check out word on a new track — and some remembrances from her former TLC pals — featuring Lopes and Bootleg of the Dayton Family here.

Here's a video tribute to Lopes put together by a fan and set to "A New Star," followed by an earlier different kind of tribute to TLC by Cincinnati's own Afghan Whigs (who just announced their first non-festival reunion date in the U.S., scheduled for October in New York City).





Born This Day: Musical movers and shakers sharing an April 25 birthday include: Jazz/R&B saxophonist Earl Bostic (1913); legendary Jazz vocalist Ella Fitzgerald (1917); influential Blues guitarist Albert King (1923); wildly successful songwriter and producer (with writing partner Mike Stoller) Jerry Leiber (1933); bassist for Classic Rock band CCR, Stu Cook (1945); singer for Prog band Marillion, Derek William Dick, much better known as Fish (1958); singer for Synth Pop legends Erasure, Andy Bell (1964); original Jane's Addiction bassist Eric Avery (1965); and the "Father of Hillbilly Jazz," fiddler Vassar Clements (1928).

Clements' improv approach to Bluegrass was a revelation. Putting a Jazz twist on Roots music makes him a spiritual godfather of the whole "Newgrass" movement.

Clements grew up in Florida and taught himself to play violin at the age of 7. When he was 21, he joined Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys, recording with them in the early ’50s. Word of Clements' prowess and innovative style traveled and he became an in-demand session player. In 1971, Clements joined John Hartford for the groundbreaking Aereo-plain album, widely considered one of the first "Newgrass" records. Hartford and Clements were joined by Norman Blake, Randy Scruggs and Tut Taylor for the album, which was produced by David Bromberg.

During his 50-year career, Clements would go on to become a crucial part of the progressive Bluegrass movement of the ’70s, including appearances on a couple of other trailblazers — the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's Will the Circle Be Unbroken and Old and in the Way, featuring Jerry Garcia, David Grisam, Peter Rowan and John Kahn. By the time he passed in 2005 at the age of 77 (from lung cancer), Clements had played with everyone from Paul McCartney, The Monkees and The Grateful Dead to Stephane Grappeli and Woody Herman.

Here's Clements performing with the Del McCoury Band in 2003.

Canadian Alternative band Cowboy Junkies perform tonight at the 20th Century Theatre in Oakley. Formed in the mid-’80s, the group has been consistently critically acclaimed and have had a few moments of mainstream breakthrough, including its cover of The Velvet Underground's "Sweet Jane," a minor MTV hit in the late ’80s that was revived as part of the soundtrack to Natural Born Killers in 1994. The track was included on the 2008 compilation of Canada's finest, Rhino Records' Northern Songs: Canada's Best and Brightest (the album put the Junkies alongside Great White North greats like The Band, k.d. lang, Leonard Cohen and Broken Social Scene).

The past couple of years the Junkies have been issuing a string of releases under the "Nomad Series" banner, a nod to the group's freedom from a record label contract for the first time since their formative years in the mid-’80s, which has given them free reign on what they release, create and record. The group has used the series to get closer to its already close fans, keeping those interested posted on the progress of each project via their website. Now that all four volumes of the Nomad Series have been issued, the collection is available as a box set with lots of bonus features and a 52-page book.

Tickets for tonight's 8 p.m. show are $20-$30. Here's "Sweet Jane" and a track from Vol. 2 of the Nomad Series, which features all songs written by late singer/songwriter Vic Chesnutt, "We Hovered With Short Wings."

Our Steven Rosen spoke to the Junkies' Michael Timmins about the Junkies' connection to Cincinnati's like-minded Over the Rhine band. Read it here.

On this day in 1984, arguably the greatest concert film ever made, Talking Heads' Stop Making Sense, premiered. The film was directed by Jonathan Demme (The Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia, a trio of Neil Young documentaries) and shot during three concerts at Hollywood's Pantages Theater in December of 2003. Along with being a compelling piece of art in itself, the movie was also groundbreaking in that it was the first made with all digital audio.

The film was also noteworthy due to Demme and the band's avoidance of concert movie cliches. The audience was barely shown; no color lighting was used onstage; there were no fast edits, behind the scenes footage, interviews or close ups of intense guitar soloing; and crew members are shown shuffling set props and equipment on and off the stage (instead of the usual "It's all magic!" approach).

Here's a song from the flick, "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)," from the Speaking in Tongues album (which was the record the band was touring when the film was shot).



Born This Day: Musical movers and shakers sharing an April 24 birthday include: Jazz tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson (1937); singer/actress Barbra Streisand (1942); legendary producer (Bowie, T. Rex, Sparks, Thin Lizzy) Tony Visconti (1944); drummer for classic rockers CCR, Doug Clifford (1945); bassist for New Wave/Pop group Blondie, Nigel Harrison (1951); Punk trailblazer with The Damned, Raymond Burns, better known to the world as Captain Sensible (1954); singer/bassist for ’80s rockers Knight Ranger, Jack Blades (1954); drummer for The Cure (1984-1993), Boris Williams (1957); singer for underrated "really AltCountry" band Tarnation, Paula Frazer (1963); bassist for eclectic rockers Faith No More, Billy Gould (1963); Pop superstar (and American Idol's primary "success story" testimonial) Kelly Clarkson (1982); singer for Pop/Rock band All American Rejects, Tyson Ritter (1984) and Alt music pioneer with Bauhaus, Tones on Tail and Love and Rockets, David J (1957).

Born David John Haskins (his younger brother, Kevin Haskins, was also drummer in Bauhaus, Tones and L&R), J — like Peter Hook of New Order/Joy Division — had a very distinctive sound, which is rare for a bassist. Never one to rest on his laurels, J seems to be in a consistent state of creativity, releasing records and recording with numerous collaborators outside of the Bauhaus/L&R realm. Late last year, J released his latest solo album (the first for him in eight years), Not Long for This World, and staged the premiere of his avant-garde play, The Chanteuse and the Devil's Muse, based on The Black Dahlia murders.

J — who also wrote and sang several Love and Rockets songs (including the hit "No New Tale to Tell") — has benefited greatly from Kickstarter, the website that helps artists find funding for projects via fan contributions. Both the play and his latest solo album were funded with Kickstarter. (As if that wasn't plenty on his plate, around the same time, J also staged the one-woman show he wrote and directed, Silver for Gold: The Odyssey of Edie Sedgwick. Check out J's site for a look at/listen to more of his recent projects.)

Here's J's Kickstarter video for Not Long, as well as the track, "Spalding Gray Can’t Swim."

When the phrase “guitar hero” gets tossed around, it’s naturally in reference to some of the greatest six string figures in Rock history. But if there is a subset of that hallowed group — guitar heroes in waiting, as it were — then Natalie Wells surely deserves to be included on that hopefully short waitlist.

The Independence, Ky., native is quickly becoming one of the Greater Cincinnati area’s most powerful live forces with a guitar presence that stands shoulder to shoulder with some of the giants of Rock. A teenage student of the Blues, Wells felt an affinity for first generation masters like Skip James and Mississippi John Hurt and next gen ’60s acolytes like Johnny Winter, Big Brother’s Sam Andrews and James Gurley, Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix, Rory Gallagher and a host of others. Wells’ brilliance in her own guitar pursuits has been in her supernatural ability to absorb a rainbow of Blues and Rock influences and translate them through her own unique interpretive gifts. As she showed on her largely original debut, Mind the Gap, she may have learned from the greats but she’s much more interested in running the guitar flag a little farther up Rock & Roll Hill.

On her new mini-album, Live from Earth, Wells and her chugging rhythm section (bassist Curt Hall and drummer/vocalist Michael Hodges) offer up an all-cover set that simultaneously proves how much she loves her influences and demonstrates her translational power.

Live From Earth’s seven tracks represent just four factions of Wells’ estimable influences and they’re more than tangentially connected; Buddy Guy is one of the primary links between the old acoustic and new electric school of Blues, while Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix and Robin Trower represent those who most effectively reimagined the Blues in a Rock context. Wells injects swinging new life into Led Zep chestnuts “Heartbreaker/Living Loving Maid” and “What Is and What Should Never Be” while distilling Hendrix’s complex chemistry to a simpler but still impressive formula with her takes on “Stone Free/Third Stone From the Sun” and his avowed classic “Voodoo Chile.”

Wells finds the heart of Guy’s gentle “My Love is Real” and the soul of Trower’s blistering “Day of the Eagle,” all delivered with her fluidly original guitar stylings and a voice that is part husky Blues shouter, part Cher Pop powerhouse. Wells may still has a few minor vocal timing issues to fine tune, but Live on Earth is solid evidence that her guitar chops are cooked to perfection and ready to serve to a wider audience.

At this point, Natalie Wells’ guitar does not gently weep; it cries a bucket of tears, screams with passionate abandon, howls like a steroid-amped wolf and demands to be heard.

There are oodles of live musical options tonight all over our area tonight. Here's a quick rundown.

• Dayton/Columbus band The Werks — self-described as a "Psychedelic Dance Funk Rock Improv" group — celebrate the release of their new self-titled album, the band's third, a self-issued full-length. Opening up the 10:30 p.m. show at Covington's Madison Theater is Freekbot, the dance-inducting duo project of Chris "Freekbass" Sherman and Tobe "Tobotius" Donohue. Below, check out the Freekbot track "Get Up" from a recent Rock Against Cancer benefit album (which also includes a track from locals Skeetones). Tickets for tonight's show are $10.


• Inventive banjo genius Bela Fleck has reconvened the original lineup of his Bela Fleck and the Flecktones band. The progressive/Jazz/Roots/World/experimental troupe got back together to record Rocket Science (released around this time last spring), the first recording by the original four Flecktones in nearly two decades. They're touring behind the album and coming to Millett Hall on the campus of Miami University in Oxford tonight for a 7:30 p.m. concert. Tickets range from $20-$50. (Read more here.)

Here's a behind the scenes look at the recording of Rocket Science:



• Much buzzed about singer/songwriter and Garage/Rock/Blues explorer Hanni El Khatib performs a free show tonight at around 10 p.m. at MOTR Pub. Sundelles open up. Check out our interview with El Khatib in this week's CityBeat here and then check out the video for his song, "Loved One," below.



• Elsewhere tonight: Eclectic local label Grasshopper Juice celebrates its third anniversary with a two-floor party/show at downtown's Mainstay featuring the diverse lineup of Revenge Pinata, Sometimes, Playfully Yours, The B.E.A.T., Blastronauts, Dub Lock and DWB. (9 p.m.; $5); a great display of fresh local Hip Hop can be found at Mayday in Northside. Valley High, Trademark Aaron, Zoo Crew, DJ Sinceer and DJ Benigma perform. (10 p.m.; free); acclaimed local Celtic Rock crew Roger Drawdy and the Firestarters perform at a benefit for the Keegan's Spirit Foundation, which assist families affected by heart disease. The show is this evening at Molly Malone's in Covington. (7 p.m.; $10); radio show Salina Underground hosts a free "Record Store Day Eve" bash at Northside Tavern tonight at 10 p.m. featuring the great lineup of The Sweep, newcomers The Chance Brothers and Brian Olive. (10 p.m.; free); great local Americana ensemble Mangolia Mountain presents its album release party at the Ballroom at the Taft Theatre tonight (read more here). (8 p.m.; $13); get your 420 on at Stanley's Pub tonight as the club hosts a "420 Party" with Reggae band The Cliftones and the Grateful Dead-lovin' Jerry's Little Band. (9:30 p.m.; $7); and — where I know MOST of you will be — schmaltzy singer/songwriter Barry Manilow turns the Bank of Kentucky Center in Highland Heights into the Copacabana when he performs at 7:30 p.m. tonight ($34.99-$124.99).

We kid the Barster, of course. I mean, have you heard the dude rap?



Click here for even more local live music events tonight.