For the past 15 or so years, the Ohio City Singers, a local ensemble of about a dozen musicians that plays original Christmas music, has played a slew of holiday shows to celebrate the season. This year, it’s added a two-night stand at Forest City Brewery, the Tremont brewery located in a restored 1860s tavern. The shows there take place on Friday, Dec. 19, and Saturday, Dec. 20. Those performances are in addition to concerts at the Music Box Supper Club (Dec. 6), the Winchester in Lakewood (Dec. 13) and the Treelawn (Dec. 21).
“We usually just do one night at Forest City Brewery, but the shows sell out so fast that we’ve added a second night,” says Allen one morning over coffee at Ready Set!, the West side coffeeshop he runs with his sister Molly Allen. “After we did the show last year at Forest City, we immediately booked the second night. It’s a great-sounding room and has a beautiful vibe to it. It feels very holiday-esque. It’s a concert venue, but it has a casual vibe. Everyone can sit or dance depending on what they want to do.”
The Dec. 19 show will be “cover-heavy” and the Dec. 20 show will feature deep tracks and include an acoustic set.
The Music Box concert will be a family friendly affair, and the Winchester will be a special one too. It’ll feature a performance of the band’s debut album, Love and Hope, in its entirety.
The band’s roots go back to 2003 when Allen and his sister along with local singer-songwriter Doug McKean worked up four original Christmas tunes and then threw a big Christmas party to which they invited their musician friends. They played the four original tunes they had penned as well as a few covers, recorded them and delivered them on a CD to their families as a Christmas gift.
“My sister designed the cover artwork for that release,” says Allen. “It was all the musicians I was playing with at the time like Boys from the County Hell, Rosavelt, Annie DeChant and Wally Bryson. We wrote four songs and handed out lyrics. My kitchen was attached to the main room, and people were in there cooking food. We taped the whole thing. People sang along, and we learned the songs as we were recording them. It was like two days before Christmas. We stayed up all night with Mike McDonald, who was the engineer, and burned 30 CDs and put the cover art in. I remember handing it to my dad on Christmas Eve. He thought we were making a mix CD, and he looked at the songwriting credit and saw we wrote the songs and teared up.”
The group would play five of those house parties before recording 2008’s Love and Hope, its official debut, with producer Don Dixon (the Smithereens, Marshall Crenshaw). Dixon would become a band member in the wake of the recording, and he often dresses as Santa for the live shows.
“Every year, different people showed up at the parties,” says Allen. “The people who showed up the longest for the most amount of time wound up in the band. Me and Doug McKean were always in it as were Matt Sobol and Kelly Wright and Austin Charanghat. I invited the Jack Fords to one party, and that’s how their drummer, Brent Kirby, became the Ohio City Singers drummer. It was almost by accident. That’s how the lineup ended up so large. It’s like nine people.”
The group recorded its next albums at various locations around town but always added some crowd sounds by taping shows at places such as the Happy Dog.
“We always wanted to keep the house party vibe, so crowd participation has always been a big thing,” says Allen. “The crowd and the people who come to the shows have always been part of the music.”
This year, two new songs, the rollicking “Christmas Card from Heaven,” a song that features bells and accordion, and the blues-rock number “Santa Won’t You See Me,” will make their way into the sets.
“Doug and Austin and I had been writing all year long and had 15 or 16 new songs,” says Allen. “We were trying to get a record together. We have a record written and ready to go, but couldn’t decide which songs to put on it. These two songs seem to play well live, so we’ll release them as digital singles. They’re really upbeat.”
The group played Winterloo on Waterloo at the Treelawn for the first time last year, and Allen says the band is excited to return there for the group’s last show of the season.
“We saw a lot of new faces at the show there last year,” says Allen. “It was fun. I didn’t know what to expect. Playing original Christmas music doesn’t always go over well, but everyone had a great time. It was a surprise.”
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