MPMF.10 Picks: Friday

I gave my MidPoint schpeel in the previous post with my Thursday picks so I won’t repeat myself here. The big draws for Friday are Surfer Blood and Ted Leo but I’m also excited about Silverghost —I booked them to play Earthquakes a few months ago and they were great! They have an EP that you can download for free from RCRDLBL: The Equine Lips EP

There were definitely a lot of conflicts for Friday night—especially the 11:30 slot—and it might be hard to check out the bands at the (relatively isolated) Southgate House without missing a lot of other stuff so we’ll see what happens.

My Favorite Albums of 2009

Music blog, Almost Four Stars, asked me to write about my favorite albums of 2009. I’m posting it here as well but if you visit  www.almostfourstars.com the version there also includes some streaming selections from each album.

Koala Fires CD Release Show

Hopefully you’ve already downloaded (for free) “All the World’s Been Staged” and you already know that Koala Fires’ debut full-length album is going to be released on Saturday, January 2, 2010. Here’s what else you should know… we’ll be joined that night in the Southgate House ballroom by Amo Joy, The Harlequins and The Guitars—three amazing bands that I’m really excited about sharing the stage with.

Amo Joy are an Indianapolis-based band that I was first exposed to at this year’s MidPoint Music Festival. They put on a great live show and had everyone dancing. Find them online and make friends at amojoy.com.

Our Cincinnati friends, The Harlequins and The Guitars will be opening up the show. We’ve played with The Harlequins a couple of times over the past year and they’re personal favorites of mine. The Guitars are a little bit newer so this will be our first time together. Find out how awesome they are for yourself by downloading (for free) their cover of Ennio Morricone’s ”La Resa Dei Conti” at http://theguitars.bandcamp.com.

Of course, our brand-new full-length album will be available for purchase on CD at the show.

November 2009 Earthquakes

Earthquakes is a new dance night John Hogan and I will be hosting monthly at Mayday (formerly the Gypsy Hut) in Cincinnati’s beautiful Northside neighborhood. Our first event was Mayday’s Grand Opening on October 24 with the Lions Rampant and Oxford Cotton.

Starting with November we’ll be doing every final Saturday and each month we’ll have a different band perform live to get things going before the DJ stuff starts.

Our November band is psychedelic soul rockers The Harlequins.

MPMF.09 Picks: Thursday

It’s almost MidPoint Music Festival time and that means making hard decisions. With 270 bands performing over the course of three nights on 23 stages, you, uh… can’t see everything. Here’s what I’m gonna try to see Thursday.