May 7: Say It Ain't So, Joe

Sad news reported on the Spill It blog: Cincinnati Blues legend Big Joe Duskin passed away yesterday morning at age 86. Many of us remember Joe's participation in the 2004 Cincinnati Entertainment Awards, when he was inducted into the CEA Hall of Fame and played a bit at Old St. George. He'd released an album that year and been honored with "Big Joe Duskin Day" that summer during the Blues Fest. Check out this interview with Joe back in 2001.

• Drop Inn Center officials are trying to get the word out to anyone who stayed at the homeless shelter in the past few months after seven cases of tuberculosis were identified recently.

• Conservative candidate Nicolas Sarkozy won France's runoff election for president yesterday, "the first son of an immigrant to rise to the French presidency in a country struggling to integrate second-generation immigrants," according to The New York Times. One of his key issues was building better relations with his ideological counterparts at the White House. Ooh la la!

• Ideological counterpart U.S. Rep. John Boehner (R-West Chester) says Republican House members will offer their own troop withdrawal Plan B if President Bush's "troop surge" strategy doesn't show progress in the next few months.

• Brooklyn Hip Hop artist El-P is in town tonight at Top Cat's on Short Vine, with Cincinnati's own Mr. Dibbs (who did production work on El-P's new album, I'll Sleep When You're Dead) opening the show. See Jason Gargano's interview with El-P here.

• Power Pop trio The Dollyrots — with "the energy of a kindergarten class loaded on Cocoa Puffs," according to Mike Breen — are at The Poison Room tonight. Fronted by the charmingly sassy singer/bassist Kelly Ogden, the band is like The Runaways meeting The Donnas on Little Steven's Underground Garage, where they've been getting a lot of airplay.

— John Fox

Comments

[Action News]

El-P's gonna be in town! Cool! I hope they play Lucky Man. Where's my lighter?