This afternoon, Wendy & I ‘catered’ an annual event for Over The Rhine. After their Christmas Concert on Saturday, they host a smaller-scale acoustic show/meet & greet at St. Elizabeth’s Church in Norwood. Wendy & I take care of cookies, cheese, veggies, candy, soda, wine, and lots of other food-related items (napkins, cups, ice, etc). This year, we served nearly 400 glasses of wine, so we know the attendence was much larger than last year’s 200 (either that or this was an exceptionally thirsty crowd!).

The event was really nice, and the fans just adore being able to rub elbows with the band in such a beautiful, intimate setting.

No real dinner for us beyond what we could scrounge from the party.

Tonight was the annual Over The Rhine Christmas concert at the Taft Theater in downtown Cincinnati. Wendy & I attended as guests of the band with our friends Brian & Milan.

The four of us met for dinner at SHANGHAI MAMA’s, a few blocks up from the theater, for an excellent dinner of Asian-inspired food. I just love their house-made noodles! After dinner, we took the long way around to find Starbuck’s for a cup of (overpriced) coffee before walking to the theater. It was a fair amount of walking, but we didn’t mind after the big dinner. The fact that the weather was unseasonably warm made it even more comfortable, and a nice contrast to other year’s when this concert is on what seems to be the coldest night of the year.

We had great seats thanks to Karin & Linford, and enjoyed opener Mary Gauthier more than we thought we would. Over the Rhine came on and did a very nice show, featuring many songs from their new Christmas record, SNOW ANGELS. Since we hadn’t yet gotten the record, most of the songs were new to us. Karin’s lazy diction made it difficult to understand the words she was singing, but we enjoyed the concert nonetheless.

After the show, we were invited backstage to say hi to the band, which we did before ducking out early and heading home.

From the creators of the Musical Genome Project comes the following:

Ever since we started the Music Genome Project, our friends would ask:Can you help me discover more music that I’ll like?

It’s pretty darned neat.

Jeanne snapped this picture while we were waiting in the line for the Over The Rhine show in late August, 2005. I thought the composition was pretty amusing.

Click the picture for a larger view in a new window.

REVIEW BY: Bruce Lachey.

The show last night at Southgate was really fun, great sound.

Kim Taylor opened, and she was WAAAY better than I thought she’d be. It seems hard for me to retain interest in a live performer after 6 or so songs I’ve never heard, but she did great. Much looking forward to her CD.

I couldn’t snag a setlist after the show, but if my memory serves, it went
something like this:

• Go Down Easy
• Bothered
• The Last Time I Saw Jesus
• I Radio Heaven
• Lucy
• Little Blue River
• Faithfully Dangerous
• Orphan Girl
• Curse These Dreams
• Holy Rain
• World Can Wait
• Hello Ohio
• Jack’s Valentine
• Miles
• —
• Green Clouded Swallowtail
• Anywhere At All

Hmm. It seems like I’m missing a song. I could probably recall who played what for each song but that would even bore me. Linford manned the keyboard for about half of the songs, and also played acoustic guitar and some accordian. Karin played acoustic about 1/2 the night and keyboard for Hello Ohio. Jack played acoustic, electric and lap steel and sang lead on Holy Rain.

“Go Down Easy” was slower than the CD, and the acoustics in the room were dandy. The audience is SO quiet, it’s astonishing. Karin had a lot of ad-lib vocalizations at the end that were beautiful.

“Last Time I Saw Jesus” was something apparently recently completed, and Karin said it was conceived when they were recording in New Orleans (probably Eve). It’s from a woman’s perspective, I think the first few lines are “the last time I saw Jesus, I was drinking bloody marys in the South” and “New Orleans” works it’s way in there at the end of that/the refrain.

Karin and group seemed to be in reasonably good spirits and glad they were playing live. She talked about the recent troubles she’s been having and told a story about watching the Wheeling news on TV at her mother’s house last week. Apparently some dude was arrested for walking around naked in town, and when asked what he did for a living, he said he grew marijuana. Sure enough, they went to his house, and he does. Karin then kinda “dedicated” I Radio Heaven to her naked pot-farming TV buddy. It was a groovy version, just two acoustic guitars, kinda strumming along. It was one of the few songs of the night that wasn’t shifted downtempo of it’s original version.

They said something offhand about taking requests, and someone requested “Green Clouded Swallowtail”. Karin joked that that was a mouthful to say; it’s much easier to yell “Freebird!” and maybe they should make their song titles shorter… She told the girl that they might be able to pull that one off later.

“Faithfully Dangerous” didn’t have Linford on keys at all, but on acoustic guitar. Still spiffy.

Talking about the current tour (which if ya don’t know was only a handful of dates that weren’t canceled), Karin said the original plan was to just put the three of them, no crew or anything, in a van and take backroads. They started in Arlington VA, and took 50 all the way from Cincinnati. 500 miles later (and still on US RT 50!) they were at the club. Although the tour was cut short, they hope to play like this in the future again.

“Orphan Girl” is that same Gillian Welch song they’ve been playing for years. (Yawn) Pretty and all, but (yawn).

Karin said they were at one of her favorite parts of the setlist, and they played two songs from Jack’s fine fine new CD. If you bought the first one and were afraid of his singing, lemme tell ya it’s VASTLY improved. The songwriting still seems top-notch. The first one, Karin sang and Linford had GREAT piano adds from midway into the song on. “Holy Rain” was similar to the MP3 download from a few months back (which Karin referenced).

Jack ups and leaves stage. Karin says, “We should play something from that record we just put out… That’s a novel concept” or something, and they launched into a nice “World Can Wait”. Piano part was way more varied than the CD.

Then Linford and Karin stand, Linford leaves, and Karin mans the piano. Says “with a man like Linford around, who needs to play piano” but that she still likes to write on it. She talks about growing up in E Central OH, about 20mi from where Linford grew up and how mining-focused the whole area is. She says how other couples grow up looking at the same moon or something all the time, she and Linford were looking at the same strip mine machines. She continued talking about growing up in that environment, going out with friends, etc. Also about losing a neighbor boy or something to drowning in a strip pit. Anyway, this all leads to “Hello Ohio”. It pretty much was a song about the things she just talked about, and the chorus if you’d read it on paper or here would read a little dopey maybe (”I know Ohio/like the back of my hand” was the second line of the refrain) but under her great playing and emotive voice, was a really special song. The bridge had a lot of names of friends (Holly/Mary/Natalie maybe) and that and the whole of the song conjured a lot of beautiful images. The last line of the chorus was something along the lines of “it’s hard to see, the story end”.

Then the group rejoins stage, Jack plays acoustic, and they rip into “Jack’s Valentine”. Linford skips the “part about the paintings, ‘cos I frankly wish I had never written that part”. Pretty fun.

“Miles” was arranged pretty differently than any of the other millions of ways it’s been played live. Nice to hear it again. As were the encore tunes. During the insufferably long “Little Blue River”, Megan and I wandered ’round the venue stirring up trouble here and there. From the balcony just behind the stage, I thought I saw four songs listed on the setlist for encore, but only two were played.

As always, it was good seeing y’all listfolk out on a Sunday (Melissa H, Rick C, Dan T, Megan L, Drew V, Andy S, Jacob M, Brian S, Jon W, I’m sure I’m forgetting some more) and your posses.

Hmm.

That’s all I can think to write.

Your sort of human being,
Bruce

In my hot little hands (well, actually, next to them so I can type) is the first complete Over The Rhine Tribute CD — “What It Takes To Please You”.

The booklet and tray card for the CD are completed and have arrived.

They look GREAT!

We’re really excited now that we’re in the home stretch. Check this site often for updates and ordering information!

Hello Tribute CD Players and Pals!

This message was originally sent to my distribution list of Tribute CD folks. If you didn’t get it, then I DO NOT have a current email address for you. You need to get that information to me ASAP!

If you haven’t heard, the official name of the project is “What It Takes To Please You — A Tribute To Over The Rhine”. The website, the best source of up-to-date information, is http://www.drewvogel.com/whatittakestopleaseyou.html.

NOW THE NEWS… We’re in the home stretch of the project. Here’s what’s left to do:

And that we’re waiting for the following things to happen:
* Couple more pieces of text need to be written and added to the booklet
* Need to get DAT submissions ripped to CD
* DAT submissions need to be mastered into the project
* Ordering the dual-CD jewel cases
* Finalizing track order (what song goes in what order on what CD)
* Designing the printing that will go on the actual CDs and getting that done
* Complete the printing/binding of the booklet and tray liner
* Paying the royalties

Some of these things are under my control, some under Bruce’s, some are inter-connected.

None of these items are going to be lengthy, time-wise… Assuming that Drew’s schedule and Bruce’s schedule mesh, we’ll be meeting this weekend or early next week to finish these items.

ALSO IN THE NEWS… I need a mailing address for ONE person from each submission. Please send the following information:
* Name of Submitted Track (case-sensitive — the way you type it here is how it will appear on the track listing. For example,)

What I envision happening is this:
* We’ll get our end in order — finish mastering and begin duping the CDs.
* We’ll open for pre-orders to collect money so we can…
* …pay the royalties and…
* …begin shipping product to our eager customers.

Thanks!
Bruce & Drew
(lost & lovely)

(this email is bulk-sent to those that identified themselves as interested in the Over the Rhine Tribute CD project. if you do not wish to receive future mailings, please reply with “UNSUBSCRIBE” in the subject of your email. you may complain bitterly in the body of your email.)

“WHAT IT TAKES TO PLEASE YOU”, the Over the Rhine Tribute CD project, is in its final phase.We’ve secured a printer for the project and will be working during the next few weeks to get things finalized and prepare for sale of these CDs. Check the website for more information.