Cincinnati Electronic Rock four-piece Eat Sugar released its fantastic debut full-length Levántense! this past summer as a digital-only offering. But early next year, the well-received album — which scored a Cincinnati Entertainment Award nomination for 2010’s “Album of the Year” — will be reintroduced to the masses thanks to Eat Sugar’s label home, the wildly eclectic and widely respected Mush Records. The release is set for a Feb. 22 launch by Mush.

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CityBeat is hosting a stage at Taste of Cincinnati this Memorial Day weekend. The lineup for Sunday, May 30's  "CityBeat Stage presented by Riverbend Summer 2010" features a stellar collection of national up-and-comers and local heroes. Below is the schedule and some links so you can check 'em out before you check 'em out.

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It looks like the Thompson House, the venue that is taking the place of the much-beloved Southgate House in Newport, will be open by May. Ticketweb has advanced tickets on sale now for a May 18 concert by trad Ska/Soul revivalists The Aggrolites and Punk Bluegrass band Old Man Markley, as well as a May 27 booking featuring "post Grunge" group Smile Empty Soul. Former Avail singer Tim Barry also has a May 12 booking in the "Parlour" listed on his website.

A lot of Southgate House diehards have made it clear they won't be attending anything at the "new" venue, staying loyal to the former owners and management, who promised a new "Southgate House" would be reopened by the first quarter of 2012. (For those not so good at math, the first quarter of 2012 ended this past Saturday.) Photos emerged online of some of the interior redesign going on in preparation for the Thompson House opening and it's been a bit of a gut-punch for those who loved the old House, with a gaudy purple and gold color scheme and a lot of the vintage appeal (and woodworking) stripped away. (Check out some pics on the Facebook of former SGH bartendress Kristen Kreft, also a local musician with the band The Perfect Children.)

So what say you? If the Thompson House books a show you really want to see, will you attend?

Cincinnati music’s most iconic figure, Bootsy Collins, is gearing up to release a new album this spring, the funkmaster’s first new material in five years. The guest list on Tha Funk Capital of the World is stacked with superstars from various fields, not just music. Along with Hip Hop legends Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg and Chuck D (who all perform with Bootsy on one track, “Hip Hop @ Funk U”), eclectic banjo master Bela Fleck and fellow Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Bobby Womack, the 16-track collection also features such non-musical figures as Al Sharpton, Tom Joyner, Dr. Cornel West and actor Samuel Jackson. Funk Capital has an April 26 release date.

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One of Cincinnati's all-time great turntablists, Tobotius (aka Tobe Donohue, member of DMC award-winning collective Animal Crackers), is preparing to release a solo album this February titled I, Tobot, but website The Untz posted the first leak from the record yesterday (click here for a free download). The track, "The Blox," is a collaboration with local Funk master, bassist Freekbass (aka Chris Sherman); the two local musicians have been working the national club circuit together as Freekbot. (They also collaborated on a modern "fight song" for Notre Dame's Fighting Irish called "We Are ND"; click here to view.) Check the hyped-up Tobotius/Freekbass track (fueled by a flurry of chaotic samples and scratches) below.

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Younger local musicians and the music fans who love them might find it hard to fathom, but once upon a time, Cincinnati’s corporate Rock radio juggernaut WEBN was one of local music’s biggest allies, a wild, wooly and eclectic FM outlet as open-ended and freeform as any internet radio station or podcast. In the ’70s and ’80s, before inflexible, homogenized playlists made it impossible for even major label Cincy bands like The Afghan Whigs to get spins, the annual WEBN Album Project compilations gave major exposure to local and regional artists. Saturday at the Madison Theater, the WEBN Album Project Reunion Show flashes back to that era. In this week’s CityBeat, Brian Baker caught up with one of Cincinnati’s most popular bands ever (and an early Album Project participant), The Raisins, whose seminal lineup is reuniting for Saturday’s event, joining several other AP alumni. Brian also caught up with some of the other participating musicians to discuss the Album Project’s legacy. Below are their thoughts, as well as some vintage video clips from the era.

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The last time Slug felt as sick and contradictive as this was the last time he played a show in Cinci. He and the other half of Atmosphere, DJ/producer Ant, haven’t played one since, save a Scribble Jam or two. But the last headlining show that Atmosphere played in Cincinnati was nearly seven years ago. If you’re an Atmosphere fan, then you’ve heard the various references to Top Cat’s and that show. As someone who was there, I remember it being just about as tragically awesome as Slug does, just from a different perspective.

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When it was announced that Cincinnati native Bryce Dessner would be one of the curators of the huge Big Ears festival in Knoxville, Tenn., at the end of March, some wondered if his annual hometown avant/Indie/Chamber MusicNOW festival would happen in 2010, considering the similarities in programming and timing. So it was good news to hear that MusicNOW is on schedule for March 30-April 1 at Memorial Hall (next to Music Hall), just after Big Ears and featuring some of the same artists.

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An avalanche of information about this year’s MidPoint Music Festival reveals the event’s growth and focus entering its 10th year. The full schedule of performances — from an eclectic assemblage of artists that includes Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Booker T. Jones, rising Australian Indie Dance champs Cut Copy and clever Pop duo Mates of State — is available now at mpmf.com. Many of the popular features from recent MPMFs are returning Sept. 22-24, but there are plenty of brand new ones being introduced, all designed to make the MidPoint experience even better.

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Invitations to the performers chosen from online music submissions are set to begin rolling out soon, but today, the first artists coming to Cincy for this September’s MidPoint Music Festival were announced. Below are the initial 20 national artists booked for the fest, which runs Sept. 22-24 in various venues in Downtown and Over-the-Rhine, as well as a few more acts for the MidPoint Indie Summer series on Fountain Square.

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