Luann Gibbs

In the Bleak midwinter

Concert Listings, Music, podcast

The dreaded holiday hiatus from live music is inching closer. There are fewer gigs on the ol’ “This Week in Live Music” Koncert Keeper for the next couple of weeks, so let’s make this a double shot to get us thru 2021 (a.k.a. 2020 Part II). Yes, it’s the famous “year-end double issue” that publications like to roll out at this time of year… because “year-end double issue” sounds so much better than “we’re half-assing our way through the next couple of weeks.”

He can hardly bear to hear more Mariah Carey.

Before we get to this week’s fortnight’s gigs, let’s get a crowd ‘n venue review from Mr. Jason Isbell:

Very kind of Jason to say that about our fair burgh. Let’s hope his Icon plaudits attract the attention of other touring artists.

OK, on with the shows…

Tonight, Over the Rhine kicks off a three-night stand at Memorial Hall, Motherfolk and Sylmar play Bogart’s, Ekoostik Hookah plays the old Annie’s, Ben Levin is at Brewriver with special guest Johnny Burgin, and the Fleetwood Mac tribute (the band, not the mac & cheese dish at Keystone) is at Ludlow.

Saturday, Anderson East plays Bogart’s, Squirrel Nut Zippers are at Ludlow Garage, Phil Vassar & Sister Hazel are playing the Hard Rock Casino, Afroman celebrates “Merry Spliffmas” at the old Annie’s, and Ben Levin and Johnny Burgin will be on stage at Big Ash. The next morning, they’ll be playing the Hard Rock Casino.

Big Bad Voodoo Daddy (no relation to Voodoo Chile) plays the Taft on Tuesday.

Maddie Poppe has an Acoustic Christmas show at Ludlow on Thursday, and Ben Levin plays Shire’s Garden.

Santa Claus is coming to town very late next Friday. You’d better watch out.

Rick “Dr. Noah Drake from General Hospital” Springfield plays the Icon on Wednesday, December 29th.

Not a doctor. Played one on TV.

The Rumpke Mountain Boys kick off a two-night stand at the old Annie’s next Thursday, December 30th. That same evening, Ben Levin will be playing Dead Low Brewing.

Arlo McKinley is at the Madison Theater on New Year’s Eve, while Freekbass will be doing a Funkadelic-KISS mashup called FunKISSdelic at Ludlow Garage. Clutch (the band, not the part I had replaced on my 1976 Datsun B-210 back in ’87) plays the Icon, with Stoner (the band, not the guy in the 2nd balcony with the vape pen) and Native Howl.

Also on New Year’s Eve, this lil’ scamp celebrates another spin around the sun:

Wardrobe by Botany 500.

He plans to celebrate by drinking expired eggnog and staying up until the wee hours (9:45 p.m.).

If he’s feeling extra wacky, he might even have some fruitcake…

Listen Up!

KEXP will be counting down the top albums of the year (as voted on by listeners) today. List member “Rico” recommends this list of the year’s top 100 albums, courtesy of a Finnish music blogger. Luann “Miss Kitty” Gibbs of Inhailer Radio (and the calendar listings queen at the Cincinnati Enquirer) put together a lengthy Spotify playlist of her favorite songs (here), as did Matt “I don’t have a cool nickname like ‘Rico’ or ‘Miss Kitty'” Lacefield (here). Matt also does a music blog/online radio show thang at The Unfamiliar. (Both Luann and Matt have been guests on the 97X Rumblings from the Big Bush podcast… check it out if you have some free time over the holiday break.)

Album Cover of the Week

The person who did the egregious airbrushing work on this cover must’ve already been in “year-end double issue” mode.

Have a great week, and then another great week, and best wishes for a happy 2022!

Episode 43: Luann Gibbs – Miss Kitty Forever!

97X, Music, podcast, woxy.com

Luann Gibbs started listening to 97.7 FM in Oxford in the pre-97X/Dr. Demento days of the late 70s. When 97X debuted in 1983, she became an avid listener. When the 97X message boards started, she was quite active on them (as “Miss Kitty”). Eventually, her college friend Mike Taylor recruited her to do on-air shifts at 97X/woxy.com. Luann’s been with the Cincinnati Enquirer for 15 years (she’s the queen of “Things to Do”), and also does weekend shifts at Inhailer Radio. We chat with her about college radio, internet radio, her message board “family” and her ongoing promotion of new music.

As we mention on the the podcast, Luann is our #1 hype person – her March 18th Cincinnati Enquirer article entitled “Top 10 ways to practice social distancing” featured a shout-out for Rumblings from the Big Bush:

You can peruse Luann’s most recent articles and lists for the Cincinnati Enquirer here.

Luann also does weekend DJ shifts for Inhailer Radio, which is carrying the 97X/woxy.com/WNKU (R.I.P. X 3) torch by promoting local and national indie music. Not only can you tune in online or on your smartphone, but Inhailer was recently added as WGUC’s HD3 channel.

“Miss Kitty” also posts a monthly collaborative playlist of cool new music (curated by 97X/WOXY fans) on Spotify. Here’s a link for the August edition.

Luann stays connected with her old 97X/woxy message board friends on the WOXY Forever! Facebook group. (You’ll also find links to the monthly playlists here.)

So close, and yet so-cially distant.

97X, podcast

In case you missed it (and there’s a 99.9% chance you did miss it), the podcast that I co-host is yesterday’s news! Er, I mean, it was in yesterday’s Cincinnati Enquirer. What do you mean you don’t subscribe to a newspaper? What do you mean you don’t even know what a ‘newspaper’ is?

“Daddy, this iPad is broken…”

Luann Gibbs wrote a “Top 10 ways to practice social distancing” article, and there we were, right at the top of the list. OK, eight spots away from the top of the list. But still, we got some ink!

Full disclosure: Luann Gibbs used to work at 97X. But neither Dave nor I knew that she was going to mention us.

“Extra, extra… two old guys talk about a radio station that died a decade ago!”

It was our “the new phone book’s here” moment.

Actually, Dave and I don’t harbor any delusions of grandeur. (Occasionally, we do have delusions of adequacy, but we lie down until those go away.) Our podcast is extremely niche. Some podcasts have thousands of regular listeners, some have hundreds… we have “tens” of listeners. As I often say, “we’ve made about 50 people very happy” by bringing back fond memories of a small-but-mighty and much-beloved indie rock radio station. But it’s always nice to get a bit of recognition for the hard work you’ve done.

And now that we’re all under house arrest, there’s never been a better time to check out some new podcasts.