Local music fans who like their Indie Pop noisy and creative need to check out Pop Empire, a new duo featuring Cameron Cochran (of The Sheds, Lions Rampant fame) and Henry Wilson. And, like Cochran's Sheds (which gave away all of its music free online), Pop Empire is recession-friendly. Head to popempire.com and download the band's debut EP, Rainy Child, for free.

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Music lovers complaining about the out-of-touchness of the Grammy awards is like stand-up comedians complaining about airline food. Both are overdone and clichéd, but the frustration is a shared experience that people instantly identify with. With the Grammys, sometimes an unlikely win or loss is so infuriating and baffling, people can’t help but go ballistic. This year’s event was a rollercoaster that reflected both the Grammys’ perpetual practice of giving trophies to irrelevant and/or the “safest” artists and the program’s well-intentioned efforts of late to get with the times. I can’t remember ever describing a Grammys ceremony as “shocking,” but this year’s was full of surprises both pleasant and mind-numbingly inexplicable.

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The ever-busy Greenhornes bring their current tour with San Antonio rockers Hacienda (“discovered” by Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys and also the bulk of Auerbach’s solo touring band, The Fast Five) to Covington’s Mad Hatter Thursday night for an all-ages, 8 p.m. show. (Local openers are The Kickaways and Two Headed Dog, featuring former members of The Virgins and Thee Shams.) If you can’t make it or want to keep the Greenhorne vibe going into April Fool’s Day, you can catch the band performing on Carson Daly’s late-night NBC show Friday (yes, it’s still on the air and, in fact, actually features a number of interesting musical and cultural figures now that the network appears to have no interest in it).

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It was recently announced that the historical marker proposed for the former site of Herzog Studios (811 Race St., current downtown home to CityBeat’s offices) has been approved. Thanks to the hard work of the Cincinnati USA Music Heritage Foundation, Brian Powers and others, the marker will be installed at the site — where Hank Williams recorded trademark tunes like “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” and artists like Flatt & Scruggs and The Delmore Brothers also worked — on Nov. 22, the day of the Cincinnati Entertainment Awards.

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As we prepare for the musical tsunami that is the MidPoint Music Festival, we thought we'd take a breather and let you watch some video (kind of like that teacher you had who would show "topic-appropriate" movies to the class when he was suffering from a hangover/mental breakdown). Two MidPoint bands have brand-spankin' new music videos out: The Lions Rampant and The Sundresses.

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Last night, Cincinnati's Walk the Moon hosted an album release show at New York City's Mercury Lounge in honor of their full-length debut for RCA Records. To promote the record on a bit of a wider scale, the quartet also performed on The Late Show with David Letterman. The band played its signature tune, "Anna Sun," which has been named "song of the summer" two years running and, therefore, deserves a ranking on the list of all-time songs of summer.

WtM's appearance on The Late Show also elicited some nostalgia from the host. Letterman introduced the band as "from the Queen City, Cincinnati, Ohio … home of Oscar Robertson and your Cincinnati Royals." Lettterman grew up in Indiana and has talked about his affinity for Cincinnati (and, particularly, its sports teams, including our one-time NBA franchise) frequently.

After the tune, Letterman seemed to enjoy the group so much, he joked with them, "Now wait a minute — during your song, we made some calls and we've arranged for you guys to move from Cincinnati and live here at the YMCA."

Walk the Moon killed it. Look ma — no face paint?! Here's the video:

The Bunbury Music Festival in Cincinnati falls on the same weekend as two other big regional music fests, one 100 miles to our south and the other about 300 miles northwest of the Queen City. Like Bunbury, the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago and the 10th annual Forecastle fest are happening July 13-15.

In theory, the proximity (geographically and time-wise) should lead to some crossover, as artists from one event might run their tour route to the other cities to score some of those big festival performance fees. (MidPoint's 2011 fest in Cincy, for example, shared some acts with the somewhat nearby Pygmalion Music Festival in Urbana-Champaign, Ill.) But so far that hasn't happened with Bunbury, which seems to be focusing on more mainstream "Alternative" artists, as opposed to Pitchfork's more esoteric lineup and Forecastle's endearing mishmash of styles.

Louisville's Forecastle previously announced that hometown heroes My Morning Jacket would be curating the event and performing. This morning organizers announced that joining them will be Dubstep superstar Bassnectar and Dad Rock champs Wilco, plus Andrew Bird, Girl Talk, Atmosphere, Neko Case, Sleigh Bells, A-Trak, Dean Wareham (playing Galaxie 500 songs), Galactic, Clutch, Flying Lotus, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Mike Doughty, Real Estate, Deer Tick, Charles Bradley, JEFF the Brotherhood and Cincinnati's Walk the Moon, among others. Click here for ticket info and the the full lineup so far.

Meanwhile, here is who Pitchfork announced yesterday for this year's event in Chicago's Union Park: Vampire Weekend, Feist, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Hot Chip, AraabMUZIK, A$AP Rocky, The Field, Liturgy, Kendrick Lamar, Grimes, Cloud Nothings, Tim Hecker and Willis Earl Beal. Thirty more artists will be announced later.

Pitchfork tickets go on sale next Friday, March 9, at noon via the Pitchfork fest's site here.

So if you could go to any of the three festivals, based on the info available so far (and not counting travel costs and lodging arrangements) which one would you attend — Cincinnati's, Louisville's or Chicago's?

Following last week's announcement of the lineup for this year's MidPoint Indie Summer — free concerts every Friday on Fountain Square featuring an eclectic mix of local and nationally-touring Indie bands — kick-ass local promoters Self Diploma have unveiled who they have coming in for the Beats Summer Concert Series. Like Indie Summer, the Beats series features a blend of local and national acts. The concerts will feature some big names and hot up-and-comers in Hip Hop, Dance and Electronic music, including one of the best rising Hip Hop acts on the scene, The Cool Kids (Aug. 4).

Self Diploma has booked over 80 artists for the events, which kick off June 2. The concerts run through Aug. 25 and are open to all ages. Shows start at 6 p.m. and will be hosted by local DJ D-Lo.

Click here for updates and further announcements from Self Diploma. Here's the video press release for this summer's events, followed by the full sched.


June 2:
AER
YOUNG DUECE
ERIK '222' BARNUM
DJ SKILLZ
JOEY MACK
CALI KID DUBZ

June 9:
TIMEFLIES
DJ ETRAYN
DJ SCHU  
IAN J
CRISTINA TADDONIO
JOSEPH NEVELS

June 16:
DJ CLOCKWORK
SANTINO CORLEON
GOLD SHOES
O'MY'S
HODGIE STREET

June 23:
BASS SLANGAS
JOHNNY QUEST  
MARKY C
QUINCY
J.STRUCK

June 30:
DAVEY C
MILK & COOKIES
DJ SHOESHINE
DJ JOHNNY B
DJ LOCO

July 7:
CRIS CAB
D-WHY
DJ SCHOLAR
NAPALM
CAL SCRUBY
FAN'S CHOICE

July 14:
3LAU
DJ E-V
DJ PULLANO
MANIC FOCUS
DJ SB

July 21:
PIERCE FULTON
DJ PRISM
PHNM
DJ FISSION
DJ FURSUR

July 28:
LOGIC
TAYYIB ALI
DJ BANDCAMP
VINCENT VEGA
JAMES WADE
SPONGE STALLINGS

Aug. 4:
THE COOL KIDS
PUCK
DJ DROWSY
BAILEE MOORE
THOSE GUYS
FAN'S CHOICE

Aug. 11:
KREWELLA
CJ THE DJ
THE CHAOTIC GOOD
SH3LLZ
NEON MEDUSA

Aug. 18:
FIRECAT 451
BITFLIP
TRIP TURLINGTON
INFECTED ANGEL
DJ MOWGLI

Aug. 25:
MIKE STUD
HUEY MACK
DJ HAWK
TRADEMARK AARON
JOLA THE TRUNK BOY
CHANCE THE RAPPER

Paul McCartney — "The Cute One" — will perform at Great American Ballpark on Aug. 4 as a part of a string of summer dates that'll see the former Beatle playing Yankee Stadium and Wrigley Field (among many other giant venues). Tickets for the Cincinnati date go on sale this Friday through tickets.com.

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The ongoing saga of locally-spawned music and broadcasting legacy WOXY continues and, once again, the station has been forced off the "air" (or Internet, as the case is) due to financial problems.

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