Sunday, November 21, 1999
Locals catch raves in mags
BY JIM KNIPPENBERG
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Scanning the national scene, we find a batch of locals making news. Such as . . .
RAVE ON: So look at who has Spin hot and bothered in the December edition. It's Cincinnati's Isley Brothers. Specifically, it's an over-the-top review of It's Your Thing: The Story of the Isley Brothers (Legacy; $44.99), the three CD, 49-song set that came out in August and has been selling briskly since. According to Spin, the group's “indelible” with “a stylistic agility that . . . will likely never be seen again.” Reviewer Britt Robson backs it up with a rating of 8 on a 1-10 scale.
Oh yeah, in the same Spin there's a full page ad for Candies Fragrances with Dennis Rodman and Princeton High grad Carmen Electra cuddled up under purple satin sheets. Looking considerably more cozy, we might add, than when they were arrested earlier this month at a Miami hotel on a domestic disturbance charge.
TOP PARTY: The winter edition of Social Register Observer, one of the bibles of our social betters, has its shorts in a bunch about the University Club. Check its “Marvelous Parties” page, a recap of three really good parties across the country. Including the recent opening of an exhibit featuring 80 local artists showing paintings, ceramics, glass and jewelry. Guests mentioned: Stewart Shillito Maxwell, Taft Museum director Phil Long and several members of the Emery clan.
It shares the page with, among others, a party aboard the Forbes (as in magazine) yacht Highlander.
NOTES: Meanwhile, a local outfit got a command performance from Paul and Judi Patton, Kentucky governor and first lady.
Even though neither plays, they recently added a 7-foot Baldwin Grand to the ballroom of the Governor's Mansion.
Actually, neither of them needs to play. The piano is equipped with Baldwin's ConcertMaster Player Piano System, a computerized version of the old player piano. Meaning no one has to pedal that baby; throw in a disc and let it rip.
The piano runs in the $50,000 range and was paid for, according to sales manager Mike Lucas, by the mansion's Historical Properties Endowment Fund.
SOUND FAMILIAR?: So all last week people were hearing a radio commercial (WGRR, WRRM, MOJO, WYLX) for this weekend's Cincinnati Symphony concerts, then wondering “Who the heck is that guy talking? Sounds mighty familiar.”
Turns out it's Ricardo Montalban, trading in his Chrysler's “rich Corinthian leather” for Music Hall's red velvet seats in a 60-second spot produced by Dave Bukvic of Cincinnati's Mann Bukvic Gatch Partners.
Set to the music of Xavier Montsalvatge's Concierto Breve— as opposed to some dweeb yelling “Da Plane Da Plane” — it's Montalban promising “cubism for the ears . . . a work of art for the mind's eye.”
Yeah, but why?
It's part of the CSO's “image and awareness campaign,” says spokeswoman Nellie Cummins, adding that the goal “is to have distinctive voices that a listener wouldn't otherwise hear on radio in Cincinnati.”
Furthermore, Cummins says, you'll hear and see plenty more for the next four years, because the orchestra has committed $1 million to a TV-radio-billboard campaign.
Lots of rich Corinthian leather, that, although they'll be using lots of voices, not just Montalban.
Knip's Eye View appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Have an item to report? Call Jim Knippenberg at 768-8513; fax: 768-8330.
