WCPO Lounge Acts

Wonky Tonk and The Highlife are an alternative/Americana band from Covington, Kentucky. 

Fronted by singer/songwriter Jasmine "Wonky Tonk" Poole, the group joined WCPO Lounge Acts on the patio at Northside Yacht Club to perform songs from their 2020 album Lessons & Lovers.

Find out more at https://www.wonkytonkmusic.com/

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While live music was shut down during the pandemic, Cincinnati band Heavy Hinges didn’t miss a beat when it came to writing songs.

Over the past year, Heavy Hinges crafted enough new material to record a live album at Urban Artifact in Northside and still perform all new songs during their WCPO Lounge Acts recording at Northside Yacht Club.

“We write songs very easily together. It’s just a very organic process,” singer MayaLou Banatwala said while holding her purple Brazilian wood electric ukulele. “We all wore masks the whole time. Now we’re all completely vaccinated.”

Guitarist and singer Dylan Speeg said he enjoyed the extra time spent on songwriting.

“It was interesting to write songs without any shows,” he said. “We really took a lot of time with our songwriting because we didn’t have to get them done for anything.”

Heavy Hinges consists of Banatwala and Speeg, along with Brian Williamson on drums, Kirk Hunter on guitar, and Andrew Laudeman on bass.

At its heart, Heavy Hinges is a melting pot of influences. The band began by covering its members’ favorite gospel standards like “Go Down Moses” and “Can’t No Grave Hold My Body Down” with an updated alt-rock vibe.

Since then, Heavy Hinges has found its own unique sound by exploring more genres. When pressed, names like Elvis Costello, Amy Winehouse, and 30s Italian jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt get dropped.

“I like to try to get as many influences in as I can,” Speeg told me. “Because they say as long as you’re ripping off three people at the same time, it’s original.”

Still, it’s the band's collective love for Motown-era hits and Banatwala’s self-described “obsession” with The Supremes keeps the band’s sound consistent among so many influences.

“We definitely have our feet in the history of music, in the past,” Speeg said. “We’re not trying to be super-progressive or anything. But I think what we come up with is very unique, because we all come from different backgrounds.”

Banatwala agreed.

“It’s from the heart,” she said.

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“Country music is alive and well in Wilder still today.”

Sitting with his acoustic guitar in his lap, those are the first lyrics Bobby Mackey sang for his recent WCPO Lounge Acts session recorded at his music venue, Bobby Mackey’s Music World, in Wilder, Kentucky.

They couldn't be more true.

Mackey is a local country music legend and his music venue is just as iconic. That’s not hyperbole: Mackey was inducted into the Northern Kentucky Music Legends Hall of Fame in 2012, and signs for the city of Wilder proudly read “Home of Bobby Mackey’s Music World."

Mackey himself is classic, having been making country music for 50 years. Although the times and styles have changed, Mackey sees himself as a champion of classic country music — although he’d insist on calling it just “country.”

“What they’re calling country today, I resent the fact they call it country,” he explained during his Lounge Acts performance. “I’m not putting it down. Time goes on, but… it sure ain’t country.”

It’s a feeling Mackey explores in his tune “What They Call Country.”

Mackey’s rebellion against so-called “new country” motivates him to take a grassroots approach to keeping a place for classic country alive.

“The mainstream country radio stations don’t play country, so country music had to find a place to go, and little by little it has,” Mackey said. “There are more than 500 radio stations that play traditional country music and play independent artists like myself.”

Mackey kept things classic for his WCPO Lounge Acts performance, playing four news songs with just his acoustic guitar.

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Cincinnati punk band Tweens preview four new songs on WCPO  Lounge Act

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If Cincinnati rap duo Patterns of Chaos were anime, their weapons would be microphones.

During their Lounge Acts taping, Patterns of Chaos performed two new songs from their next album, "Chaotic Good." The songs, "Fruenlaven" and "Spazzin,'" show off Jay Hill's dynamic to drop jokes and serious topics side-by-side.

Find out more about Patterns of Chaos:

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Perhaps the greatest challenge in writing about Cincinnati’s up-and-coming singer Bla'szé is attempting to describe her style.

Last year, Bla'szé performed at the Cincinnati Entertainment Awards and was nominated in the “R&B/funk/soul” category. Yet, even combining three genres isn’t quite enough to describe Bla'szé.

“I love to do all types of music,” she said during her WCPO Lounge Acts appearance at Northside Yacht Club.

“Whatever I’m feeling in the moment, that’s what it’s going to be,” Bla'szé said casually, seemingly unimpressed by her own versatility. “If I want to rap, I’m probably going to rap. If I want to sing a little more, I’m going to sing a little more.”

As talented as she is at singing, Bla'szé first pursued a dance career at the University of Cincinnati's College Conservatory of Music where she graduated in 2013 with her bachelor in fine arts in ballet. When injury sidelined her dance prospects, she turned her focus to singing.

“Being in ballet is really what I need to get the confidence to perform in front of people,” she said.

Bla'szé continued building her confidence on her recent debut album, “Energy.” It’s an album that Bla'szé said helped in “realizing the confidence I have to tell my story.”

The story “Energy” tells is not a linear one. It begins with the super-chill good-time R&B-style “Good Vibes,” bounces right into the rather explicit rap track “Everybody Like Me,” and then into the dance-pop single “Love Me Tonight.” Somehow, Bla'szé blends these genres fluidly around herself to shape a style of her very own.

As an audience, we’re left with only one word to describe Bla'szé's style of music: everything.

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Cincinnati-based singer Emmaline might be a young musician, but she's got a vintage voice.

"I grew up listening to jazz," Emmaline said during her WCPO Lounge Acts session. "My dad's a jazz pianist, so I was really heavily influence by jazz, R&B, and classic soul."

Some music fans may recognize Emmaline from her Billie-Holiday-style performance of Jessie J's "Domino" with Postmodern Jukebox, a group that puts old spins on new songs.

On her latest single, "Peppermint Kisses," Emmaline said she wanted to "give an interesting spin on a classic love song."

"Peppermint Kisses" is the first single from Emmaline's upcoming EP "Necessity," out Oct. 2.

Because many recording studios are closed due to the pandemic, the entire EP was recorded in Emmaline's basement studio.

"We wanted to do something that was safe but also effective," Emmaline explained. "So we thought recording at home would be the best option."

For her WCPO Lounge Acts session, Emmaline performed "Peppermint Kisses" as well as "All My Sweetest Dreams" from her 2019 EP of the same name.

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Cincinnati shoegaze band Slow Glows planned to kick off a three-week tour to the SXSW music festival in Austin, Texas, in March. COVID-19 changed the band's plans.

The trio, made up of singer/guitarist Kelli Redding, bassist Ian Gorby and drummer Rachel Thode, had a release show for its latest single, “Sigh,” at MOTR Pub in Over-the-Rhine on March 6, but the following tour wouldn’t last.

“We got two dates into that and had to turn around, which was kind of a bummer,” Redding said during the band’s WCPO Lounge Acts session.

Music video for "Sigh" by Slow Glows.

“Shoegaze,” for the uninitiated, is best defined by guitar effects, dreamy vocals and intense volumes to create ethereal-sounding alternative rock.

“To me it’s like rock music that has kind of a dreamy, spacy element to it,” Redding explained. “It’s lots of use of effects pedals to get that ambiance, other-worldly element.”

The influence of 90s shoegaze icons like My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive is apparent on the band’s 2019 debut LP, “Stargaze Rock n Roll.”

“Those were the songs we’d been playing live in Cincinnati for the past two years,” Redding said of the LP. “It’s got a warm vintage sound to it.”

Despite not hitting the road to play music and sell records, the band seems optimistic. “We’re getting creative with how to stay relevant during this,” Thode said.

The band plans to return to Mt. Saturn Studio in Northside next month.

“We’re in the midst of almost being done with writing for our second record,” Redding explained.

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Blending blues, rock 'n' roll, punk and early American music with modern forms, Austin, Texas-based duo Ghost Wolves is no stranger to MOTR Pub. The band has made the Cincinnati music venue a repeat stop during its almost eight years of touring.

This time is a little different. The group returns to MOTR Friday fresh off the release of its three-song single "Crooked Cop" on Jack White-founded label Third Man Records . For singer and guitarist Carley Wolf, the partnership with Third Man was a big deal.

"We're just fans of the label," she said in a news release. "They have so many of our heroes in their catalogs, people like Muddy Waters, Wanda Jackson, Dead Weather, Jerry Lee Lewis, the White Stripes. It's mind-blowing that our music will be there alongside them. It doesn't feel real, it feels like a dream."

Carley and drummer Jonny Wolf, who have been married for seven years, wrote and recorded the songs against a backdrop of fear and uncertainty in their personal lives. Immediately before the recording, the Jonny traveled to visit his terminally ill father in Connecticut.

"I was up there almost a month when they first hospitalized him," Jonny said in the release. "When he stabilized somewhat, I went back to Austin to take a break and be home briefly, and that's when we recorded this. So we were creating with all of that hurt going on in the background. It was therapeutic for me in a way, to be there with these people, working on art. And I think it came out on the record. It's definitely darker and more intimate than our previous albums."

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Erika Wennerstrom, the lead of Heartless Bastards, released her debut solo album, “Sweet Unknown,” in March of 2018 on Partisan Records.

Wennerstrom’s solo songs are built on the same blues and folk foundations as her songs with the Bastards, but her flirtations with both psychedelic sounds and pop sensibilities are both ambitious and clear on “Sweet Unknown.” Although the break with the band was mutual, Wennerstrom seems to be basking in newfound freedom, singing “I walk around this crowded town / I had to re-find my way / You know I couldn't remain the same / What it is, what it is, what it is / Don't fight the change within” on her song “Good to Be Alone.”

Set List:

• Extraordinary Love
• Twisted Highway
• - interview -
• Staring Out the Window
• Letting Go

Wennerstrom also performed a cover of Townes Van Zandt's "Be Here to Love Me" that is available on the WCPO Lounge Acts YouTube channel.

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Erika Wennerstrom's second WCPO Lounge Acts session was recorded on June 14, 2019 in the WCPO Digital Lounge in Cincinnati, OH.

WCPO Lounge Acts features intimate in-studio performances and interviews from outstanding musical artists.

Mixed by Brian Niesz.

Hosted by Emmalee Smith.

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