Undark Photography's Profile

The entire record feels like you’ve been granted some sort of backstage access into the mind of the artist, with songs written in the predawn hours in the kitchen before the rest of the house would wake. Even the cover photo is the view of one particularly foggy morning looking out the kitchen window.

Another New Morning, the latest from Cincinnati music veteran Jim Pelz, opens with a hot steel guitar lick over a cut time snare drum, and my first thought was, “Hot damn, a real country music record!”

The best music has the ability to transport the listener, and such is the case for Andrew Hibbard’s self-titled LP, a collection of ten folk and Americana songs that made the cut from almost 300 songs Hibbard claims to have written.

Cincinnati Queerpunk band Creamboy have released Clean Up My Mind, a collection of 9 extremely catchy tracks. Creamboy describe themselves as having influences of "folk and indie rock with a punk ethos," and while apt, that description doesn't go far enough.

Cincinnati singer-songwriter Jay Madera is releasing a new single, “OH-126!” A departure from the driving rock of last year’s debut single “Curb Appeal.” 

Cincinnati’s Phasmids have released a new single and b-side, “The Closest Thing” and “No Outside World,” respectively, in anticipation of the release of the band’s first LP in late spring.

For me, a good rock and roll band needs little more than pounding drums, a loud guitar, and someone yelling some vocals (loudly) into a microphone. If you can’t get that foundation working, no amount of bells and whistles is going to make up for it. But when it works, it works. 

It seems that so many shows at the Southgate House Revival have that “Saturday night vs Sunday morning” dichotomy, with stomping rhythms and raucous shouting that walk that fine line with one foot in the juke joint and one foot in the church – fitting for a converted chapel. That same vibe was on display as Brown County, Indiana’s Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band and Paducah, Kentucky’s own Colonel J. D. Wilkes brought the final night of their Blues Revolution Tour to SGHR on Saturday night, stomping and shouting their way through a history of hillbilly, blues, and gospel music.