Question The Pop

bio

2012-12-31T07:55:00.007-05:00

Peter Berkowitz is an editor, reporter, essayist and critic for LEO Weekly.
He has also written about music, comedy, nightlife, dining and other adventures for The Louisville Courier-Journal, Velocity Weekly and Metromix Louisville, and Bejeezus and Spin magazines.

He has written cover stories on Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer, public radio, the music of Bonnie 'Prince' Billy and My Morning Jacket, and local restaurants.

He has also been a regular columnist, reviewed bars, interviewed chefs such as Duff Goldman, Edward Lee, Karter Louis and Timothy Tucker, actor Kal Penn, playwright Marco Ramirez, author David Martin Stack, Bonnaroo Music Festival founder Ashley Capps, Forecastle Festival founder J.K. McKnight, NPR host David Dye and comedians Brian Regan, Hannibal Buress and Tom Green.
He has also written biographies for the Louisville-based bands King's Daughters & Sons, Nautical Fox and Second Story Man.

He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English, with a concentration in writing, from Indiana University. He lives in the Schnitzelburg neighborhood of Louisville, Kentucky.

Musical acts he has interviewed:
Abigail Washburn, Amy LaVere, Andra Suchy, Ashleigh Flynn, Bassekou Kouyate, Ben Sollee, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Brigid Kaelin, Buddy Miller, Cheyenne Marie Mize, Dane Waters, Dawn Landes, Del McCoury, Haley Bonar, Hayes Carll, Henry Rollins, JD Crowe, Jim Kweskin, Joan Shelley, John Cowan, Josephine Foster, JP Source, Justin Lewis, Langhorne Slim, Nanci Griffith, Nathan Salsburg, Neko Case, Rachel Grimes, Ronald Jenkees, Rosanne Cash, Sallie Ford, Sarah Jarosz, Tim O'Brien, Vandervelde, Van Dyke Parks,
and members of Advance Base, Amon Amarth, Anthrax, Asobi Seksu, Bibelhauser Brothers, The Black Lillies, Black Sabbath, Blind Pilot, Blitzen Trapper, Bosco, Bowerbirds, Brontosaurus, Brothers and Sisters, Buffalo Killers, Calexico, Califone, Cheer-Accident, Coke Dick Motorcycle Awesome, Corrosion of Conformity, Dailey & Vincent, David Wax Museum, Dead Meadow, The Decline Effect, Def Leppard, Down, East Cackalacky Ascetic Marching Death Band, Elephant Micah, The Fervor, Fleet Foxes, Former Thieves, Fort Frances, The Foxery, The Funky Meters, Gang Gang Dance, Grupo Fantasma, The Head and the Heart, Heartless Bastards, Heavy Trash, Helmet, Hidden Ritual, Horse Feathers, House Ghost, The Jayhawks, JEFF the Brotherhood, Junior Boys, Junip, King's Daughters & Sons, The Ladybirds, The Low Anthem, Lucky Pineapple, Maiden Radio, Mint Condition, Mucca Pazza, My Morning Jacket, Natives, The New Mastersounds, Obits, Of Montreal, OK Deejays, Old Baby, The Pennies, The Phantom Family Halo, Pictureplane, Radical Dads, The Ravenna Colt, Sebadoh, Shipping News, The Shondes, Silver Tongues, Small Sur, Social Distortion, The Soft Moon, Sound & Shape, Spirits of the Red City, State Champion, Supertruck, The Tedeschi Trucks Band, Tender Mercy, They Might Be Giants, Those Darlins, Trophy Wives, The 23 String Band, Wax Fang, White Denim, White Rabbits, Xerxes and Your Black Star.

image by Jason Clark.

Movin' On Up

2012-01-25T21:11:00.002-05:00

Singer/multi-instrumentalist Cheyenne Marie Mize celebrates the release of her new EP, We Don’t Need, Saturday at Headliners Music Hall, with Silver Tongues opening. She told us about signing with an established indie label and looking toward her next full-length album.

LEO: The EP’s release was delayed from last fall once you signed to Yep Roc.

Cheyenne Marie Mize: Yeah, originally Roaring Colonel Records was going to help us out. We had been talking a little bit to Yep Roc and it made sense, if they were going to come on board, to hold off on the EP and get a bigger team amassed. It was really great. In September, I was in Raleigh for the Hopscotch Festival and got to meet the whole Yep Roc team. They came down and saw our show, and it was great to meet everybody in person.

LEO: Do you feel any more pressure because there’s a potential for a larger audience now?

CMM: No, not more pressure, it’s more excitement. This EP is kind of strange in that it’s a little taste of a lot of different things. In that way, I think there’s probably something for everyone on it (laughs), you know? Everywhere from the really dark, more digital drums and that kind of sound to a little more organic, with percussion and piano going on underneath, and everything else in between, as well.

LEO: When you were putting it together, was it a conscious choice to do it that way?

CMM: Yeah, in a way. I had a group of songs I was ready to record, and each of them were kind of oddballs in their own way, so I figured it would make sense in some weird way (laughs) to put them all together, and just get them out there. I knew it was going to be a while before I could really put out a full-length record on my own; I thought I was going to be doing it on my own, so I really wanted to get some new music out there, considering it had already been two years since I’d recorded Before Lately. I was just ready to get some new stuff out there. Those songs were the first ones that made sense.

Learn more at cheyennemariemize.com.

Photo by Meagan Jordan.

c. 2012 LEO Weekly

John Cowan adapts to the modern world

2012-01-18T12:46:00.000-05:00

“To be honest, if the Doobie Brothers hadn’t come along, I don’t know if I could’ve held on to my house.”

So says John Cowan, a pioneer of the genre known as “Newgrass.”

“The economic crush was just terrible,” the friendly and surprisingly frank Cowan tells LEO. The Evansville native, the only member of New Grass Revival who hadn’t come from a bluegrass background, had toured with the Doobies briefly in the mid-’90s and returned last year as bassist for the classic rock group, partially out of necessity.

Now, with his own trio, the 58-year-old returns to a city he long ago called home. Louisville, what Cowan calls “my favorite town in the world,” is where he began his musical career after graduating from Eastern High School.

“I consider myself a native. I don’t know if Louisville considers me a native, but I do.” He played in bands like Everyday People and Louisville Sound Department before joining Sam Bush in New Grass Revival at the age of 20. That band, which fused traditional bluegrass with a ’70s rock ’n’ roll energy, also helped launch Bela Fleck to prominence.

Cowan moved to Nashville in 1980. “It’s a great place. I love Nashville, I really do. Other than serious conservative Christian churches every two blocks, and the attitude that goes along with that, it’s actually a great town to be an artist in — believe it or not.”

Having worked with everyone from obscure bluegrass pickers to Garth Brooks and Wynonna to the aforementioned Doobies, Cowan acknowledges, “I’ve had a kind of curious life. By choice or by the artists’ path, it’s been a nice mix of both art and commerce for me … My time in New Grass Revival branded me every way possible that is good.”

The band may not have sold millions of albums, but many musicians were fans. “That’s a great calling card to have in your pocket. It’s definitely afforded me a lot of respect … To this day, it’s how people — even though I’ve done so many other things — it is, to this day, 20 years after we broke up, still how I’m introduced: ‘Oh, you know, John Cowan from New Grass Revival.’ It’s funny, for a band that never had a hit, to have some relative renown.”

Cowan needed to cash in that relative renown even more after he married a woman with six kids. That midlife transition also meant that the musician had to adapt to two different schedules — long drives on the road and “a fairly normal life” at home.

“It’s a little hard, biologically speaking,” Cowan says. “When I’m on the road, I go to bed at 3 in the morning; but when I’m home, I have to get up at 6 to take them to school. That’s because I want to; I want to spend as much time with them as possible.”

Though Cowan’s family life has been fulfilling, the recent economic downturn hit hard professionally. “It was really tough. Before I got this opportunity to go back to work for the Doobie Brothers, we had a five-piece and then we had to break down to a three-piece. My wife lost her job that year at Christmastime.”

He was dismayed at the closure of ear X-tacy, noting, “One of the downsides to living in the information age is there’s no retail … everything is file sharing and MP3s now. I’ll tell you one thing I’ve witnessed, that most people in my genre — whatever that is,” he says with a hearty laugh, “country bands or whatever — sell CDs at shows, and that’s a big part of their excess income. It certainly is for us.”

Despite all the conflicts, he is still as in love with music as ever. “I think music’s in good shape. The kids are all right, as The Who said once.” Some of Cowan’s recent favorites include the Black Keys, Dawes and Fleet Foxes.

“I’m not one of these guys — I’m 58 — who goes, ‘Everything sucks today.’ I don’t agree with that. Probably the fact that I have kids around me all the time is one reason I’m able to be exposed to modern music. They’re always like, ‘Hey, check this out on YouTube.’”

THE JOHN COWAN BAND
Saturday, Jan. 21
Uncle Slayton’s
1017 E. Broadway • 657-9555
johncowan.com
$15; 8:30 p.m.

Photo by J. Michael Krouskop

c. 2012 LEO Weekly

Sean Cannon’s adventures After Dark

2012-01-18T11:59:00.000-05:00

Through the years, Louisville’s AAA public radio station, WFPK, has attracted a large audience with their blend of thoughtful, semi-commercial singer-songwriters, alt-rockers, jazzbos and folkies. One target demo they had struggled with was the 16-34-year-olds group, but some recent, younger additions — music director and morning host Kyle Meredith, late night mixers OK Deejays and evening DJ Sean Cannon — have helped make the station more appealing to that generation.

For Cannon, whose experience has also included work in print news and music blogs, it’s obvious that he would utilize social media to help make the most of his program (heard Monday-Thursday nights on 91.9 FM and wfpk.org). “WFPK After Dark” not only plays some of the most interesting current music — a recent night featured songs by Dum Dum Girls, Kurt Vile, Deerhunter and Russian Circles, alongside usual suspects like Joan Osborne, Coldplay and the Dave Matthews Band — but recently expanded to add interview segments featuring hip folks like comedian Marc Maron, cast members of FX’s “The League,” the founder of taste-making music site Pitchfork, a co-owner of local eatery Please & Thank You, and bands like 400 Blows and Cave In.

“It’s been an interesting experience,” Cannon says. “The weirdest part, I think, is that a lot of those have just been set up through Twitter. Kyle and I were talking, and just sort of flippantly sent out a couple of tweets to (“League” co-stars) Paul Scheer and Mark Duplass, and they were both, automatically, ‘Yeah, I’ll do it tomorrow. Give me a number.’

“It started out in a very different form. When I initially got the job, I talked to (program director) Stacy (Owen) specifically about what I wanted to do … it morphed into an idea of doing an interview with someone every night, having them pick songs and doing DJ sets, every single night. So, from there, well, I’ve got to find people to interview. And it’s like, once this starts, I can’t just go, ‘OK, I’m not going to do it!’ six months in. I did the math, and it’s something like 160 people, because what we’re going to do is two months on, two weeks off. Two months of new stuff, two weeks of ‘best of,’ so it would be like a season or a series.”

Cannon was raised as a pop culture lover in Mayesville, Ky., which he immediately identifies as “the home of George Clooney,” as well as basketball stars. Two years at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary didn’t agree with him, as he found it to be “a little too Southern, a little bit too Baptist.” Downtime at a job and friends met online led to work for the blog Buzzgrinder, which led to appearances on WFPK, which led to “After Dark.”

“I was working at Q-doba at the time, 30 hours a week … I was so uncomfortable on the air because I was so green, so I’d work 45 hours a week here to get up to speed … I would get maybe four hours of sleep a day. But I guess it worked out all right.”

photo by David Modica

c. 2012 LEO Weekly

Syrupy treat

2012-01-11T10:58:00.001-05:00

Bosco released two EPs in 2011, setting the stage for what can only be world domination this year. Or, maybe just some more great music. LEO asked Sam Craig to help the world understand what we’re in for.

LEO: What is “hardcore flat grass”?

Sam Craig: In so many words, country punk. Also known as roots punk. We are punk rockers playing the three-chord songs we are used to playing, but on traditional country instruments to a bluegrass tempo.

LEO: While some of your music is kind of raucous, some of it is very pretty and might not seem suited for rowdy bars. How do you manage to balance the two sides?

SC: You would be surprised — this sound is quite popular in the underground and is only getting bigger. It is, indeed, a punk act. We play louder and talk rougher at gigs.

LEO: Your cover of Richard Hell’s “Blank Generation” is a good example of how you’re influenced by punk and country. What’s the common thread?

SC: Bluegrass shares certain characteristics with punk music — similar topics of pain, sorrow, wanting something better and, on the other side of the coin, consuming alcohol and laughing with friends is already in place within both genres. The common thread was already there, we just chose to walk it accordingly.

LEO: You have made some of your music available on cassettes. Why do you like this format?

SC: CDs don’t really sell. Every band has a CD to push at their shows and on their websites; cassettes certainly stand out. The main attraction is the physical product, but the economically viable aspect is the mp3 download included with the tape. That is the best selling format these days.

Bosco plays Jan. 13 at the Mag Bar and Jan. 16 at Baxter’s 942. Check out mosbosco.bandcamp.com.

c. 2012 LEO Weekly

The LEO interview: Langhorne Slim

2012-01-11T10:54:00.000-05:00

You can read LEO's profile of Langhorne Slim in this week's print edition. For fans, here's more of our discussion:

LEO: First of all, tell me about your grandma.
Sean Scolnick: My grandma is a wonderful woman. All my grandparents were very wonderful people. I’m in Florida now with her because my grandpops did pass away about 5,6 months ago. I’m from Philly, from a town called Langhorne, and she’s been living with my mom. Now that the weather’s getting shitty, she’s coming back to Florida, so I came back to help the transition a little bit. It’s been cool, man. We had time off, since we just recorded a new record, so I was in Argentina and now I’m in Florida — I’m doing everything I can to follow the sun.

LEO: Where in Florida are you?
SS: Delray Beach. It’s where the old East Coast Jews go to retire.

LEO: Right…
SS: I saw your last name, I thought you might be also part of the tribe.

LEO: I would not have known that you were, from your music, or a casual glance. But I see it now.
SS: Right (laughs). There’s not too many Jewish themes in my music, but I’m not trying to keep it a secret. I’m proud.

LEO: Has there been any influence, culturally if not sonically, on your songwriting or performance?
SS: I don’t know. Certainly there’s an impact, just being raise that way. I sort of gave it up religiously; people say, “You’re more like a Jew through the tradition or the culture, family stuff,” that’s stuff I feel is a part of my world and my life. But I’m not exactly practicing.

LEO: If your band played some Klezmer tunes, it wouldn’t not make sense.
SS: No, in fact, I consider Klezmer to be dance music. I love me some Klezmer. I listen to it and I dance around to it, but I never play it myself.

LEO: What does your grandma think about your music?
SS: My grandparents have been extremely, extremely supportive. We just recorded this record — usually when we’re done recording records in the past, I would have a CD of rough mixes and play it for my family. This time, I just had it on my iPhone, and I don’t have an adaptor — so we thinks I’m holding out on her. She’s like, “Don’t you just have a CD?” One of these days, I’m gonna go to a store out here and find an adaptor so I can play it for her. She’s come out to shows and has always been — my whole family, but my grandparents had a major impact on my brother and me, growing up, and they’ve always been one hundred percent supportive and really into it. Which is pretty awesome.

LEO: It’s great that they never tried to push you to be a doctor or a lawyer.
SS: You know what I think it was, man? I think they might have thought about it, but I think it was so clear, growing up, that that was not a path that I was going to be able to take, even if I wanted to, and that if anything was going to keep me out of trouble, that would be art or performing or music. I think they saw how happy it made me and, as soon as I started gaining certain accomplishments or making a living at it, it would almost have been crazy to talk me out of doing something that made me happy, that I was also starting to make a living at.

LEO: How do they feel about your itinerant lifestyle, being on the road and moving around all the time?
SS: I think, in the beginning, my mom, too, they would worry about me, just traveling so much, and I think that they’d didn’t even understand, like the first time we went to Italy: “There’s somebody in Italy that you’ve never met, who contacted you and now you’re gonna go there for a month and travel around Europe …?” I’m like, “Yeah! (laughs) This is what I’ve always wanted, this is the way this life goes.” So now they get it. They’re still my Jewish mother and grandmother, but I think now they realize they’re still going to worry a little bit, but I’m not going and getting kidnapped; I’m actually going because people have booked shows, and we’re gonna go play them.

LEO: They thought it was like internet dating at first, but now they see you on “Letterman”.
SS: That’s what shows are, essentially. They book the show and then you show up and meet a bunch of strangers (laughs). That’s the beauty of this life, man, it’s what I love. I do, I do.

LEO: Do you find the concert experience to be like a blind date?
SS: Well, I went on one blind date when I was a lot younger, and it was fucking terrible. There are similarities, but I wouldn’t equate it. I mean, I play shows that are terrible, too, but the vast majority would be like a really, really great blind date.

LEO: When you have a bad show, do you blame it on the audience?
SS: Never. I’m hard on myself, to a fault. We play a ton of shows, so not every night is going to be magic — I understand that intellectually, but in my heart and soul, that’s what I want. I’m upset with myself any time it really isn’t that way. There certainly is a major component where the energy of the band and the energy of the audience, when it does synch up in that magical, beautiful way, it certainly helps the show to be great. If an audience is super low energy and the big is really high energy, it can be a crappier version of the blind date. I always think that it’s up to the performer to connect and to try to get those magical results.

c. 2012 LEO Weekly

Langhorne Slim on music, dating and Grandma

2012-01-11T10:53:00.000-05:00

It says something about the current state of rock ‘n’ roll that one of its most passionate and urgent performers needs to call LEO back after he finishes running errands with his grandmother in Delray Beach, Fla. It says something, too, about the character of Langhorne Slim — known to his family as Sean Scolnick — and how he was raised.

“My grandparents had a major impact on my brother and me, growing up, and they’ve always been one hundred percent supportive and really into it. Which is pretty awesome,” says the 31-year-old folk and punk-inspired singer/songwriter/guitarist.

A native of Langhorne, Penn., Scolnick’s family has always been supportive, if a bit cautiously at first. “I think it was so clear, growing up, that (having a typical career) was not a path that I was going to be able to take, even if I wanted to — and that if anything was going to keep me out of trouble, that would be art or performing or music.”

“They saw how happy it made me and, as soon as I started gaining certain accomplishments or making a living at it, it would almost have been crazy to talk me out of doing something that made me happy, that I was also starting to make a living at.”

Tours with the Avett Brothers, Lucero, Josh Ritter and many others, plus appearances at Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza and on David Letterman’s show have helped them understand the life of the troubadour.

“I think that they didn’t understand, like the first time we went to Italy: ‘There’s somebody in Italy that you’ve never met, who contacted you and now you’re gonna go there for a month and travel around Europe?’ Scolnick laughs. “I’m like, ‘This is what I’ve always wanted, this is the way this life goes.’ So now they get it. They’re still my Jewish mother and grandmother, but I think now they realize they’re still going to worry a little bit, but I’m not going and getting kidnapped; I’m actually going because people have booked shows, and we’re gonna go play them.”

His family is among the first to hear his new records, though Grandma’s sneak preview of the upcoming Langhorne Slim album, The Way We Move, due in May, has been delayed.

“Usually when we’re done recording in the past, I would have a CD of rough mixes and play it for my family. This time, I just had it on my iPhone, and I don’t have an adaptor — so she thinks I’m holding out on her.”

The live shows are where the band truly excels — usually. Scolnick discusses the relationship between concerts and blind dates. “That’s what shows are, essentially. They book the show and then you show up and meet a bunch of strangers,” he laughs. “That’s the beauty of this life, man, it’s what I love … I went on one blind date when I was a lot younger, and it was fucking terrible. There are similarities, but I wouldn’t equate it. I mean, I play shows that are terrible, too, but the vast majority would be like a really, really great blind date.”

Read an extended interview at bluecat.leoweekly.com

Photo by Liz Devine

c. 2012 LEO Weekly

Haunted Pop

2012-01-04T13:12:00.000-05:00

The public release party for the indie pop-rock band House Ghost’s debut full-length album, The Adventures of House Ghost, doubles as an art event for Craig Hawkins at the 930 Art Center in Germantown (doors at 7 p.m. for art, with music beginning at 8 p.m.). House Ghost guitarist Shane St. Clair’s other band, Interstates, had also been scheduled to play this event but recently canceled. The busy man also manages the new gastropub Four Pegs Beer Lounge and Social Eatery. He took a few moments out of his hectic schedule to tell LEO Weekly what his newest band is all about.

LEO: Why did you name your band “Holy Ghost”?

Shane St. Clair: Haha, good one.

LEO: How did the members meet? What was the initial inspiration for this band?

SS: (Vocalist/bassist) Keith (Miller) and (guitarist) Derek (Keijner) and I have been in project bands and making records for six years, so the three of us have been friends for a while and always made music together. The inspiration for House Ghost was to take Keith’s songs and put them against a surf-y, dream-pop landscape.

LEO: How was recording the album? Did anything funny and/or notable happen during the process?

SS: Recording was/is fun. The record was made in living rooms and basements across Louisville. We’re probably most passionate about the recording and making-records aspect of being a band, so we put a lot of work into it and deliberated a lot.

LEO: Who is the least talented member of this band?

SS: Me!

Facebook influences cited: The Beach Boys, Starflyer 59, Polaris, The Magnetic Fields, The B-52s, The Pixies, Fountains of Wayne, Best Coast, Otis Redding

Sample the sounds of The Adventures of House Ghost at your leisure at houseghostmusic.bandcamp.com.

c. 2012 LEO Weekly

album review: Rare Treats

2012-01-04T13:10:00.000-05:00

Rare Treats
Wolf in People’s Clothing
GUBBEY

As far as Christmas presents go, receiving Louisville folk artist Patrick Thompson’s lo-fi recordings as Rare Treats was a nice surprise under the ol’ LEO tree. His bio states that Thompson “wanted to make a record that didn’t sound entirely like it came from Louisville, Kentucky,” and by that standard, it mostly succeeds. Though traces of ’90s forerunners can be detected, the Rare Treats blend of DIY punk, metal, art and underground riffage reduced to the most basic elements is more reminiscent of the underappreciated Wipers or very early Sebadoh than Slint or Rodan. Though distortion is employed, melodies remain clear and purposeful, and Thompson’s relaxed approach is a welcome change of pace from the many careerist bands who put too much effort into sounds unworthy of big, expensive productions. This Wolf manages to simultaneously sound as fresh as tomorrow and as authentic as a lost 1991 recording, demonstrating that whatever you think the Louisville sound is, those sounds can always surprise you.

c. 2012 LEO Weekly

album review: Joe Hanna

2011-12-28T10:04:00.000-05:00

Joe Hanna
Social Ritual
SELF-RELEASED

On his third solo record, Louisville singer/songwriter and guitarist Joe Hanna has brought together some of his — and our — favorite musicians, including Java Men vets Todd Hildreth (keys) and Ray Rizzo (drums), Picket Line bassist Danny Kiely and journeyman guitarist Mark “Lupe” Hamilton. Make no mistake, though, this is one man’s show, when it’s all said and done and the neon bar sign’s been turned off. Hanna’s Texas-via-Midwest soul/folk material, a well-balanced collection of jovial rockers and tender ballads, should appeal to fans of more famous acts such as John Hiatt, Lyle Lovett or Van Morrison; to be fair, they’ve all been at this longer, but Hanna is no mere pup and deserves his shot on public radio. The recording is crisp, and the band does an admirable job of providing subtle and supple support. Judge for yourself on Monday (Jan. 2), where they’ll perform a full-band set at Clifton’s Pizza at 7 p.m.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Affirmed but not forgotten

2011-12-28T09:55:00.000-05:00

Nathan Salsburg’s first solo album, Affirmed, is a collection of mostly solo guitar compositions, performed by an archivist, radio presenter and LEO columnist who spends much of his time interacting with music old and unjustly forgotten.

LEO: Why make your first record now, at the advanced age of 30-something?

Nathan Salsburg: The short answer is that I’ve wanted to make this record for a long time, and it took this long to make. The long one is that some years ago, I got really burned out on playing music with the fairly paltry tools I then had at my disposal, and instead devoted myself to becoming a better listener. Over time, that devotion increased my attentiveness, adventurousness and sensitivity as a listener, which started expressing itself in my playing, and in the development of a style that felt like mine. The style started begetting tunes, and the tunes begat the record.

LEO: You work in the music industry, working with digital files all the time. So why do I have a CD in my hands?

NS: I wouldn’t say I work in the music “industry.” My livelihood doesn’t rely on how much music I can sell, but rather the efficacy with which I make music available. And as people, including me, interact with music in all forms of media, I’m glad that Affirmed is available in as many formats as the label saw fit to produce: CD, LP and MP3. I love cassettes, and if they had been a feasible medium to produce, I would have been happy with that, too.

LEO: What should people do while listening to your record?

NS: I would hope people would be satisfied just listening to the record. If they are, it’s a success.

Learn more at noquarter.net.

Photo by Tim Furnish.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Mixing it up for 20 years on ‘World Café’

2011-12-21T08:17:00.001-05:00

Even after two decades of hosting public radio’s “World Café” (heard locally on 91.9 WFPK, weekdays from 6-8 p.m.), David Dye has trouble explaining his job to some people.

“The parents of the kids at my kids’ school — I don’t think they know what it’s about,” Dye laughs. “I try to explain it, and I go, ‘Well, it’s sort of semi-popular
music …”

The Philadelphia-based show features semi-popular Celtic folk, garage rock, hipster dance, ’60s pop, funk revivalism and any other sounds that interest Dye and his staff. Sometimes it actually reflects popular taste, from recent guests like Foster the People to early discoveries like Sheryl Crow.

“I remember seeing her at a convention,” Dye reflects. “Everybody was talking with everybody and having lunch, and nobody was paying attention to her, and I thought she was great. You look at Sheryl Crow now and you go, ‘How could you not have realized that?’”

The early years were defined by singer-songwriters, but Dye and his staff evolved with the times. “We went where the inventive music goes. We went with people who were doing more interesting things. It’s what we’re listening to, and it just made a lot of sense.”

Adapting has been a large part of why they have been able to continue — not just financially, but as music fans. Dye continues, “The original AAA artists are … I guess, in some ways, they’re not being as creative. We’ve lost a few stations who wanted a more folky thing, but that’s not really what we’re doing.”

Dye has interviewed almost 5,000 musicians. Occasionally, it doesn’t go as planned. Lou Reed behaved typically. “It wasn’t really a disaster — I think it was pre-planned. He just gave me one-word answers for a long time.” With pop singer Jewel, a misunderstanding interrupted what should have been a breezy chat. “Jewel and I didn’t click. I probably clumsily asked a question and she reacted; she thought I was insulting her, so she insulted me back. Like, ‘Whoa, all right!’

“Generally speaking, the staff here has found that my interviews are best with people I really like. If I don’t really love somebody, I can get myself into trouble,” laughs Dye.

More often, Dye has been able to spend time with artists and learn more about them. “I think one of the major things is not being afraid to ask the question that you’re nervous about. Or that you think might offend somebody. Because you have no idea … you can’t get inside their head.” Dye has the advantage of being in a studio with his subjects. “I try to be very conscious of reading people’s cues — either vocally or what they’re saying, just watching how comfortable or uncomfortable they are.”

Dye agrees with those who tell him he has “a dream job.” “We just started up this new ‘Sense of Place’ series, where we travel to various cities and talk to musicians. I mean, wow! It’s a fabulous, fabulous job.” A recent voyage to Dublin will soon be followed by trips to New Orleans and London. “People always say, ‘Why don’t you go out to see much music?’ Well, every day I’m seeing something coming in to me.”

One problem Dye has, which many share, is a lack of time to listen to all the new music that pours in constantly. He now commutes via train, and recently began a morning workout routine that adds an additional album’s worth of tunes to his day. Recommendations from staffers, colleagues and the web help him focus.

Even after what’s already been an amazingly long run, the world of “World Café” continues expanding. A 2007 book compiled some of Dye’s favorite interviews, and two live performance venues branded as “World Café Live” have opened in the Philadelphia area.

Dye’s biggest goal is to keep the sounds diverse. “People’s record collections are not one thing, and the more I remember that, the better. It’s great to have the Black Keys on, but it’s also great to have the Chain Gang of 1974, or something with Yo-Yo Ma. I like to mix it up.”

photo by Michael T. Regan

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Mercy Me

2011-12-21T08:16:00.000-05:00

You might recognize Tender Mercy’s Mark Kramer from his years behind the counter at ear X-tacy. The music Kramer himself makes could be described just as he can: tall, lean, quiet and powerful. The new Tender Mercy EP is The Road To Good Intention Is Paved With Hell.

LEO: How did the band come together?

Mark Kramer: Although in the past I’ve had help, it is just me that represents Tender Mercy. I thought about going under my own name, but I really liked the title, and coincidentally, it kept appearing in books I was reading. I took it as a sign. So to answer your question, the band came together at conception. Careful with that one — I know this is a family paper.

LEO: Your music is often quiet and slow yet, for this EP, you worked with some of Louisville’s most notable hardcore musicians. What did they offer the project?

MK: The operative word here is “musician.” They are wonderful, generous, multifaceted individuals whose use of their ears isn’t limited to hardcore or heavy music. What did they offer? Their respect and kindness, and a much different way of hearing what I do. Their impact was nothing but positive for this EP and a huge part of why I am so proud of it.

LEO: You worked for a long time at ear X-tacy. Is it extra bittersweet that you won’t be able to sell this EP there?

MK: Extra, extra bittersweet. One of my hopes was not only to have it sold at ear X-tacy, but, having seen so many inspiring performances there, to kick off its release with an in-store like so many amazing local bands have.

LEO: What is your favorite Robert Duvall movie?

MK: “Days of Thunder.”

Learn more at tendermercy.bandcamp.com.

photo by Sean Bailey

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

album review: Dane Waters

2011-12-14T08:25:00.000-05:00

Dane Waters
Dark Waters
SELF-RELEASED

Music can have such an odd effect on memory. Though Julee Cruise is hardly a household name today, chances are many would instantly recognize her voice from the “Twin Peaks” soundtrack. The only song I remember from my wedding reception was hers. It’s a sound not heard often enough, and it’s the first thing one might hear upon entering these Dark Waters. The well-trained local vocal champ, who has collaborated with many of Louisville’s best artists across multiple genres, has finally released this, her first (almost entirely) solo effort, and the freedom afforded here suits her well. The album is a haunting, lush collection of minimal soundscapes that probably work as well in a spa as they do in a gallery or an intimate nightclub. Some of the mostly one-word song titles give a fair approximation of the mood here: “Winter,” “Blue” and “Dream Again” deliver on their promise — but just because she sounds mellow doesn’t mean she’s not fierce and mighty.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

album review: Supertruck

2011-12-14T08:23:00.003-05:00

Supertruck
Supertruck
SELF-RELEASED

I wasn’t really lucid in the ’70s (but then, who was?), but I am a student of music history. Such a time was fertile for what we now call classic rock and Southern rock; it was the best of times and the worst of times for each. Louisville’s Supertruck has clearly done some of the same homework, and knocks out a promising collection of boots-wearing, truck-driving rock that should help establish them as a band to watch. Though cuts such as “Whiskey Cut Tea” and “She’s a Drinker” might make them sound predictable, there’s more going on here than just drinkin’ anthems. While lyrically they fall short of Skynyrd’s best story songs, and singer Jordan Humbert’s everyman vocals can’t match the beauty of Dickey Betts or the grit of Gregg Allman, Supertruck’s guitarists, Sturdevant and Jordan Humbert, kick out jams more than worthy of the Outlaws or the Marshall Tucker Band. A fluid rhythm section and extra touches of piano and fiddle help flesh out some good ol’ listening.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Foxy like a craze

2011-12-14T08:22:00.000-05:00

The Foxery invade Headliners on Tuesday, Dec. 20, to celebrate the release of their new album, Life Is Still Beautiful. LEO asked Travis Beck about their year.

LEO: What changes and opportunities have you gone through this year?

Travis Beck: This year has been quite full of changes and opportunities, and has probably been our most busy year to date. First off, this is the first full year with our current bassist, Mike Stewart, so it’s been a growing opportunity for the band to develop with a new bassist. He has been a wonderful creative influence on all of us, and has really fit perfectly into the direction we have taken with our music. This band has always been a sort of brotherhood, first and foremost, and Mike has been a wonderful addition both musically and as a friend and brother. In the last couple months, we have also been working in a second guitarist, Dean Bryant, and I am so excited to see where he takes us musically, going forward. He has been great to have around.

We have been blessed to play on some pretty cool shows this year, such as opening for Ra Ra Riot and Pomegranates, and those bigger shows have really helped us to gain a strong stage presence. It’s been a wonderful year for all of us, and I think we have grown a ton. I know I can’t wait to continue growing and developing with these guys in the years to come.

LEO: Who are your favorite local bands?

TB: There are quite a few bands we would call brothers right now in Louisville, and new ones seem to be coming up pretty regularly, so that’s cool. Sadly, our closest friends, Young Lions, are breaking up, but we certainly hope that they all continue with making great tunes. Other bands we are close with and love are Via Animo, Anwar Sadat, Fork in Socket, Brain Trust, Jovian and Jubalson, who also will be joining us onstage at our CD release at Headliners.

Learn more at thefoxery.com.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Former Thieves’ First World Blues

2011-12-14T08:20:00.000-05:00

LEO spoke with Former Thieves vocalist Matt Schmitz a couple weeks ago as the band was enjoying nice weather while touring the West Coast. The Cedar Falls, Iowa-based band has spent most of the year touring behind their No Sleep Records release, The Language That We Speak. This show will pair them with two Louisville bands also signed to the Southern California label.

LEO: You’ve been here already twice this year, at ear X-tacy and Krazy Fest.

Matt Schmitz: Yeah, it was cool. We love Louisville.

LEO: Our record store, ear X-tacy, just closed down after 26 years.

MS: I just read that the other day! That’s a bummer, man.

LEO: Are you hearing those stories everywhere you go?

MS: Not so much. The ones that we’ve played, everything’s fine so far, but that one — that was a real big bummer. That was a really cool record store, and everyone that worked there was super, super nice. The show we played there last March was awesome.

LEO: You’re playing a house show here.

MS: Yeah! The Chestnut House, we are so excited about that!

LEO: Do you play lots of house shows?

MS: That’s how we started. We basically played living rooms, basements — anywhere we were able to play. Since then, it’s been mostly venues, so when we can get back and play house shows and get back into that environment, we’re really excited about it. It’s going to be a nice change of pace to go from playing on big stages every night in front of a lot of kids who aren’t 100 percent sure who we are, to playing in a basement with a bunch of bands we really, really like.

LEO: And you’re friends with the bands here.

MS: Yeah, we’re best friends with the dudes in Xerxes. We’ve known those guys for years now. They’re one of our favorite bands. We’ve done some touring with them in the past. They’re on the same record label we’re on, and Frontier(s) is playing, too — we’ve never played with them before, but they’re on No Sleep Records as well, and the old singer from Elliott’s in that band, which we’re all big fans of, so we’re really stoked to see them play.

LEO: What inspires you when you write lyrics?

MS: It’s a big blend of issues. I have a habit of putting myself in a really uncomfortable position, in public — like, for instance, I’ll go into a coffee shop, or into a really crowded bar, and listen to people’s conversations. It really brings out a lot of issues. Most of our songs are about the ups and downs of the reality of how people are, the good side and the bad side of it. It’s been really cool to grow as a writer. When we started out, it was pretty one-dimensional. Since the last full-length, I’ve really gone in some new directions. We’re working on a new EP now, and we’re trying to spread out a little bit further with ideas, so it’s cool.

LEO: You sound like a reporter or a critic.

MS: Yeah, I think “critic” is the best term to use, because you’re putting yourself 100 percent out there, and surrounding yourself with stuff that’s really annoying or repetitive in people’s lives, just picking stuff apart and finding an issue, then trying to go a lot further … When we were working on this last full-length, a year ago, we’d been on tour for a long time, then we had to get home and finish up all these songs. We had a bunch of songs, but I had to really get down and finish all the words for them. We were getting down to the wire, so I basically had to go somewhere and pile through everything, so that’s what happened. “I’ll just go to a coffee shop and see if this works.” And I realized, “Wow, everyone here sucks!” I got a lot better material as I put myself in that scenario.

Former Thieves
with Frontier(s), Xerxes and Lay Down & Die
Sunday, Dec. 18
Chestnut House
714 E. Chestnut St.
facebook.com/FormerThieves
$5; 7 p.m.

photo by Tim Dodd

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Josephine Foster’s little life

2011-12-14T08:18:00.001-05:00

Outsider folk-artist Josephine Foster has traveled from her native Colorado to Chicago and on to Spain, exploring different facets of her music — as a solo artist, or with Born Heller and other combos, creating music that runs from the contemplative to the raucous. Arthur magazine’s Jay Babcock called her “A Grace Slick for the 21st century — and that’s all grace, no slick.”

LEO: You draw on many different historical eras to inspire your music. Do your non-musical hobbies or tastes inform your musical education? Or do you just seek out music from earlier periods as a music lover?

Josephine Foster: I am a music lover. One influential hobby when I was very young was being a water-ballet swimmer. Listening to crystal clear music from underwater speakers and dancing in synchronized motion with other girls was very magical. I chose LPs from the public library — Bach, The Beach Boys, Mantovani Orchestra, television-Western theme music — and made spliced compilations that flowed together into a three-minute routine. Then I choreographed very wild water dances to this music. Sometimes there were lightning storms and you would be watching the flashes of light as you came up for a breath, and the music was above and below the water. This activity led me to listen to many types of music, especially thinking of dance, and it was very influential on my imagination.

LEO: Have you learned anything from teaching music to others that you’ve applied to your own music? Do you study with any teachers yourself?

JF: One thing I feel reflected in my music directly, especially, was working with children, very young children — I prefer ages 3 and 4. To me, (that is) the age of a most fascinating aperture of that imaginative child state. They did affect me a lot, and some of my children’s songs I wrote to invite them into spontaneous improvisations within song. I did study with teachers, various ones, in my days of aspiring to an operatic career and, boy, I learned some good things, and sometimes got extremely confused. Hopefully I didn’t confuse too many people when I was a voice teacher, but being confused might be the nature of it. Learning to sing is not for everybody; I think it’s a Western modern activity, at the heart of it a healing process to unite divided, confused people. Some people have an intuitive flow with their voice and body, and others have psychological barriers reflected in their voices, which ideally a teacher can help out with. I love to teach singing and accept students to this day.

LEO: Ukuleles have become trendy recently, but you’ve been playing them for a long time. Does it make you happy or sad to see Eddie Vedder clutching a uke?

JF: Ukuleles are fantastic. My brother just picked it up, even. To me, any trend involving actually playing an instrument is a very, very good thing.

LEO: Some find your music romantic, some find it spooky, and some say it’s both. What do you hear?

JF: Well, I hear all those things, and other things, too. I am a romantic, for sure! Romanticism has its inherent shadow side.

LEO: Your husband is from Spain. Where is the best environment for you to make music?

JF: I’ve lived there for the past five years. The best environment for making music is with resonating people and even animals, and within acoustical reverberent structures, whether from architecture or nature.

LEO: What’s next for you?

JF: More songs from Spain, more of my own songs, and new collaborations from Nashville to New Mexico.

Josephine Foster with Parlour and Dane Waters
Friday, Dec. 16
Zanzabar
2100 S. Preston St. • 635-9227
myspace.com/josephinefoster
$10; 9 p.m.

photo by Jessica Knights

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

A lifetime of Black Sabbath

2011-12-07T22:19:00.002-05:00

The founding father of heavy metal pretty much lied to me. Despite being a kindly English gentleman overall, Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi tried to deny one important question, for understandable business reasons. It happens, and the LEO music department has certainly dealt with worse through the years — and where would heavy metal be without a bit of mischief? His new memoir is “Iron Man: My Journey Through Heaven & Hell With Black Sabbath” (Da Capo, $26, 416 pages).

LEO: How are you enjoying your new life as an author?
Tony Iommi: It’s different. Yeah, very.

LEO: Has it given you any new understanding into your life?
TI: It has, yeah. I’ll tell you, it’s certainly given me a shock — when you see in print the things that went on in your days … (laughs)

LEO: Do you think it’s worth it?
TI: I’ve never really done anything about my private life — that was the hard thing for me. I’ve always talked about the band, about Sabbath, for 40 years. To talk about your private life’s a little bit different.

LEO: Have you set anyone’s beard on fire recently?
TI: (laughs) No, I’ve stopped that now. Those days are gone. Yeah, that was in my silly younger days.

LEO: Is there nothing you do now that falls in the category of “silly”?
TI: I still play a bit. I can’t help it — it’s embedded in my psyche. I’m always pulling pranks on people and joking around. What’s life all about? You’ve got to have a bit of fun.

LEO: What is it about the temperament of a musician that keeps them from settling down like the rest of society?
TI: Well, I do do what everybody else does. I’ve settled down, but I do something else as well. When I’m at work, playing, it’s a slightly different life, but when I’m home, I’m like everybody else — I watch movies, go out to dinners and see my friends, and walk, and do whatever it is you do.

LEO: I interviewed Henry Rollins today, and he told me that he’ll be moderating a press conference with Black Sabbath soon, announcing your new record.
TI: Really? I’ve not heard that. That’s a new one on me. My goodness. Unless they’re doing one without me … (laughs) “Henry Rollins is playing guitar!” When was that supposed to be?

LEO: He said a couple weeks, in Los Angeles.
TI: OK. Well, I’ll investigate that. I’d like to know what album he’s announcing, as we haven’t done one!

LEO: What other future plans do you have?
TI: Well, we have been in talks about the original Sabbath getting together, but that’s not definite yet. I’ve got a few different projects underway.

NOTE: LEO spoke with Iommi and Rollins on Nov. 2. On Nov. 11, Rollins hosted that press conference with the band, announcing that the four original members of Black Sabbath have been rehearsing, will be touring, and will record a new album. Rolling Stone reported that Iommi said, “It’s now or never. We get along great. Everything’s really good.”

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

album review: She & Him

2011-12-07T09:20:00.000-05:00

Shim’s adorkable She, Zooey Deschanel, has had quite a fall season. She’s become a mainstream TV star, she’s getting divorced, and then there’s this, a classic Christmas album. By “classic,” I mean “as expected,” or surprisingly lacking in surprises or innovations. She and M. Ward (Him) do their usual thing, including typically skillful guitar textures from Ward, but if you like Christmas music and/or have any Christmas albums — well, this is another one of those. She tries to do her best Ronstadt, especially on “Blue Christmas,” and yes, the audiophile duo do take on tunes from the Beach Boys and NRBQ, but if you aren’t charmed by blue-eyed devil Deschanel, you probably won’t enjoy her solo ukulele rendition of “Silver Bells.” If you are, you will, and so on. It’s as if the pair have gone so far beyond irony that they forgot to not take this so seriously. Is it bah humbugable? Not necessarily, but is it worth $15?

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

album review: The 23 String Band

2011-12-07T09:19:00.000-05:00

Kentucky’s 23 String Band seem like a lot of guys we know and love around here — regular dudes with exceptional skill. Their bluegrass attack is fueled by high-octane rock ’n’ roll energy, skillfully guided here by producer Kevin Ratterman. A rascally sense of humor also helps distinguish them from some of their peers, dropping in quotes from other songs like jazz musicians and mimicking trains or jugbands or whatever else strikes their fancy. While some exponents of this genre can be overly reverential at times, the Strings are too raucous to settle for easy sentimentality or religiosity; they’re more about liquor and girls. The sources of their cover material here — including a John Hartford beauty and an early Tom Petty FM classic — indicate their relaxed attitude, though they put everything into these performances. Author Silas House, a better scribe than I, wrote, “Their shows are electrifying, their songwriting is top-notch, and their vocals are as tight as the cork in a jug of moonshine.” And we think you’ll agree.

C. 2011 LEO Weekly

Sampling White Rabbits

2011-12-07T09:17:00.001-05:00

The founders of the sextet White Rabbits moved from Columbia, Mo., to Brooklyn in 2005, inspired by Ska and its New Wave descendants. Since then, they’ve expanded their sound and found mentors in the popular Austin-based Spoon, whose leader, Britt Daniel, has produced for them. The third White Rabbits album will be released early next year.

“We spent the summer in Austin. We were there for three months, from April through the Fourth of July,” says singer/pianist Stephen Patterson. “It was the longest continuous stretch we’ve ever had to be able to record a record.”

Like most young bands, White Rabbits have had to patiently pay their dues. Though their indie pop/rock is undeniably catchy, they haven’t had a hit song yet for radio or car commercials.

“Out first record (2007’s Fort Nightly) was done by sneaking into a studio every weekend, or whenever we could,” Patterson says. “The second record (2009’s It’s Frightening) was done over the course of four weeks, in two two-week sessions. It was really fast. So it was nice this time to stretch out and have time to experiment with stuff, try different arrangements, go through wilder sounds than we’re used to.”

Patterson clarified that their new songs aren’t wildly different, but involve a new way of writing for the band. While some of the new material came out of playing together live, others came from recycling aspects of those performances. “We got into the idea of sampling ourselves. I would record the band, or just a few of us, playing in our rehearsal space in Brooklyn, and find a little moment that sounded cool and use that as the basis for a song, (a sound) that would go through the majority of the song as the main building block.

“We knew that we wanted to apply the rhythm stuff in a new way. That was one thing we were aspiring to do — instead of doing a straight drum sound, putting a little something or other on top of the drums, giving some special quality to that part or arrangement … I grew up playing drums, so I love working on those parts with those guys, and it’s still a big factor in the music we make.”

Whether it’s Animal Collective’s modern take on psychedelic and tribal rhythms or Vampire Weekend’s more accessible, Paul Simon-inspired Caribbean style, it’s become increasingly easy lately to find bands more interested in percussion.

Patterson concurs, “I think that’s great for the most part — drums are cool, they’re a pretty timeless instrument. But I feel like there are many other ways this concept could be applied than the ways I’ve been seeing it lately. It’s not just simply about power; it’s also about all the different textures it can get.”

The members of White Rabbits have found inspiration in the Ethiopian music series Ethiopiques, as well as “a lot of R&B and a lot of hip-hop.” Patterson says the band also draws inspiration from “a lot of Afrobeat stuff. We really learned to play as a band touring through the last record, so on this one we got really into getting a locomotive kind of rhythm going and trying to keep it continuous throughout the track.”

You learned to play as a band on your second record?

“Yeah, I would say so. Repetition — you do it enough (laughs) and you start to figure out what we can do, between the six of us, that sounds cool. We stopped trying so hard to replicate the album live. That forced us to only be listening to each other in the room, at the moment. That’s a very obvious sort of thing, but a lot of times those very obvious things can take a while to totally sink in. The main thing is, you just tour for a long time and … we toured for long time on our first record, and our second — for two years off of that one — and we’re starting to figure it out.”

WHITE RABBITS WITH SONOI
Thursday, Dec. 8
Zanzabar
2100 S. Preston St. • 635-9227
whiterabbitsmusic.com
$10 adv., $12 DOS; 9 p.m.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Big Baby Band

2011-12-07T09:16:00.001-05:00

Old Baby is a new group featuring members of local bands Young Widows, Workers and King’s Daughters & Sons. Their debut EP, Misunderstanding Human Behavior, will be released by Hawthorne Street Records soon.

LEO: Tell me about your new supergroup.

Jonathan Glen Wood: Drew (Osborne) and Evan (Patterson) wanted to play music together, and then Todd (Cook) wanted to play. Since I became friends with Evan, we’ve always talked about playing music together. Then we asked Neil (Argabrite) if he wanted to play. It just worked out, man. We got together in, I guess, February, and we set a goal that we were gonna try and write and record something pretty quick. It was cool, going into the studio and having everything come together, and it actually sounded really great.

LEO: How do the members’ different influences come together?

JGW: From my end, there are some darker folk elements. From Evan’s end, there’s some really great washed-out guitar stuff. It’s definitely heavy, but it’s not like loud heavy, it’s just really intense. There are some repetitive elements, but we don’t have any long tunes — everything is pretty concise. There are moments when it all opens up. Definitely influences are late ’60s/early ’70s rock ’n’ roll; for me, ’70’s folk … some Krautrock stuff … even some pretty raw punk stuff comes in, musically.

LEO: And the name?

JGW: Old Baby was one of the first ones that Todd came up with. We cycled through so many names, and none of them really clicked. That’s the one that stuck.

LEO: Todd was previously in a band called Dead Child.

JGW: (laughs) Right.

CAVE and Old Baby play Sunday, Dec. 11, at Zanzabar at 9 p.m. Go to othersideoflife.wordpress.com for more info.

C. 2011 LEO Weekly

The Wire(s)

2011-11-30T21:32:00.003-05:00

LEO asked Brian Gray to tell us about his hot band, The Hot Wires. They celebrate their new EP with a show at ZaZoo’s on Friday, Dec. 2, with Buffalo Killers and The Tunesmiths.

LEO: What’s the new EP called, and how did it come together?

Brian Gray: It’s called The Cockpit Fighter EP. We named it after an image of an old fighter plane sitting in a scrap yard that our drummer’s girlfriend found. It still looks badass even though it’s shot to hell and out of commission. As far as recording, my friend Donnie Bott offered to record us for free. So, of course, we said yes. His only stipulation was that he could only finish four songs for us. So, we got those done and decided to get ’em out there.

LEO: What kind of band would you say you are?

BG: I would say the Hot Wires are high energy rock ’n’ roll. When we were forming, I was in a serious MC5 rediscovery period. They were around right after the original rock ’n’ rollers and right before the punk movement. So, there was no real name for what they did, but high energy. I wanted a band like that.

LEO: You were a Legendary Shack*Shaker once upon a time. How did that compare to being a Hot Wire?

BG: I was actually an original Shack Shaker! I had never really played straight ahead rock ’n’ roll or rockabilly before that band, and it was like going to school. We never practiced, and Colonel JD would pretty much tell us what key the song was in and go. Either you jumped in or got left behind. And the Hot Wires is probably the closest band to them I’ve been in, as far as energy goes. But this band is so much more fun, honestly. I always felt like a hired gun then. This is much more passionate for me.

Find more info at reverbnation.com/thehotwiresky.

Photo by Marty Pearl

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

album review: State Champion

2011-11-30T21:21:00.001-05:00

State Champion
Deep Shit
SOPHOMORE LOUNGE

It takes skill to take a moribund genre and breathe fresh life into it — especially without breaking any ribs. The Kentucky-via-Illinois twang rock machine that is State Champion applies admirable strength and passion into this collection, leader Ryan Davis’ urgent bark prodding the rest of the band to keep up as they build songs designed to lead them out of this dead-end dump and off to some Springsteen-esque better place. Born to Run/Darkness-era Boss isn’t an out of place comparison, though the fiery Midwestern spark of early Uncle Tupelo also comes to mind. This is the music of a man who cares, and who probably has a thick beard. Though Bob Seger is still able to rock the Bucket, State Champion is a band you want to push up against in a small bar, sweating out the work week through your flannel. This is what rock ’n’ roll is all about, something that can bond a pissed-off teen and my 55-year-old Uncle Kenny at the same time.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Mint Condition stay fresh

2011-11-30T21:00:00.002-05:00

Today The Roots are seen as an oddity for being a live band, but until recently, everybody played their own instruments. Though pop and R&B has changed dramatically in the past 20-some years, Mint Condition have stayed true to their talent and ideals. Their latest album is called 7. LEO spoke with bassist Ricky Kinchen.

LEO: You guys are celebrating your 20th anniversary, approximately. How does it feel, being 20 years in?

Ricky Kinchen: It feels great. A lot of great things have been happening — touring, some TV shows. It all started with this TV show we did called “Way Black When,” where they celebrated the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s. Every artist that played, we backed up. So our résumé grew within four weeks to, like, The Emotions, BBD, Ginuine, Guy, Cuba Gooding Sr. — he was amazing, I’ll never forget him. I know he wore them kids out, because he wore us out.

Then Prince called, so we did some shows over in Europe. The first show was, like, 35,000. The second show was 60,000. Some festivals … Then we toured with Jill Scott, Anthony Hamilton, DJ Jazzy Jeff and Doug E. Fresh. Then, next month we start rehearsing for the Trumpet Awards, where we’re going to be doing a tribute to Earth, Wind and Fire.

So, everything is good. I’m ready for the next project. We still got that magic whenever we come together, and it’s going to be interesting every time.

LEO: What can we expect from the live show? Sharp suits? Any other visuals onstage?

RK: I don’t think we’re going to be wearing suits or anything like that (laughs). We always looking young and looking fly. For us to be in our 30s and 40s — let’s just say 30s (laughs) — we still look halfway decent. So yeah, the ladies are definitely going to be coming out.

LEO: I’m about your age, so can you give me some advice on how to keep it fresh?

RK: Two of the guys who look the youngest, they work out, they drink a lot of water. The lead singer probably looks the youngest; he doesn’t club a lot, I don’t think he does a lot of drinking. So, if you drink, I’d say tone it down to some wine, some beer maybe (laughs). The strong stuff is definitely going to age you.

LEO: Are you seeing a range of age groups at your shows now?

RK: Oh yeah, definitely, definitely. The reason they come is they know what they’re going to get. They know every time they come to see us, they’re going to get a live performance. It’ll be people up there sweatin’, playing drums — you know you’re not going to get a track show. That’s the one thing about a lot of the younger artists right now — they’re killing their careers. Once all the shiny jackets and glitter and sunglasses are gone, and the record deals are gone, the only thing they’re going to have left is to do shows. But they don’t know how to do shows, and all the information is out there for them to learn — but they’re not being taught.

LEO: Is this the best period for the band?

RK: It’s all great. It’s all different. I might appreciate things more now than I did back then.

Mint Condition with Eric Roberson
Sunday, Dec. 4
Brown Theatre
315 W. Broadway • 584-7777
mintconditionmusic.com
$38.50; 7:30 p.m.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

album review: Silver Tongues

2011-11-23T21:23:00.005-05:00

Silver Tongues
Black Kite
KARATE BODY

The debut album from the Louisville-based Silver Tongues, which includes some talents who have played with Wax Fang, The Fervor and Cabin (including LEO (m)ad man James Hewett), is yet another surprising, atypical release from Falls City. The often subtle, intentionally paced collection draws influences from varied sources rarely heard in other groups simultaneously — there are hints of gospel, early ’90s peak R.E.M., early ’70s folk, classic rock, and most consistently and wisely, pre-Radiohead geniuses Talk Talk — coursing through the veins of these songs. Though the occasional anthemic moment can veer a bit into late- ’80s Cause Rock territory (a la U2, Sting, etc.), the majority of the material is so quietly confident that it feels almost anti-rock. Such material — not too soft, not too hard, perfect for every office (but really best heard late at night, contemplating humankind’s place in the universe) — should, in a just universe, find a wide audience, here and everywhere. See them (tonight, Wednesday, Nov. 23, at Zanzabar at 10 p.m.), and thank me later.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Q&A with Dane Waters

2011-11-23T21:00:00.000-05:00

LEO: You sound, to me, like a mermaid — sexy, mysterious, removed from daily life. Are you real? Do you have to pay an LG&E bill and shop for groceries like the rest of us?

Dane Waters: I hope I’m very real! I do spend a lot of time trying to focus on the essence of life, whether it’s through reflecting on its meaning or why I’m here, finding ways to connect with others … but I think I’m more interested in transcendence. I can find something to love about absolutely everyone, even if it’s a small thing. I find beauty and art everywhere, from the scars to the stars. I don’t care much for grocery shopping, but I do eat lots of sea creatures and adore baby tako.

LEO: Your music is very cinematic, as in David Lynch, German Expressionism, etc. (not Tom Cruise). Does film inspire your music?

DW: Tom Cruise did a great job in Kubrick’s “Eyes Wide Shut”! But yes, film and, probably more so, opera are indelible influences. I totally dream about Lynch or Herzog asking me to do a song for one of their films! So if they were to ask me about these songs, I’d say they’d find failing heroes, extreme dynamics, murder, suicide, shadows, residuals of war, sharp contrasts, palpable atmospheres, soaring heights, abysmal depressions of steppenwolves, romance, forgiveness and just generally a whole lotta desire and death.

LEO:   You made most of this album by yourself, but you collaborate often with others and have your own group, Softcheque. Why did you do much of this alone?

DW: It’s true. I’m musically connected to many groups from choirs to the opera chorus to gig bands that have jazz elements, and to bands Sapat and Another 7 Astronauts. I’ve also recently done vocal tracks for Wax Fang and Ut Gret. But I also need to produce music where every detail and nuance is my decision. I like the artistic control immensely. I’m even doing all the printing of the jackets myself with my own woodcuts.

LEO: Your new album is called Dark Waters. Do your friends call you “Dark”?

DW: I think most people know my light cheer and smile. Then there are the few that know me so much better.

Dane Waters and Another 7 Astronauts each play sets on Thanksgiving eve at Land of Tomorrow (LOT), 233 W. Broadway. Check www.facebook.com/#!/Another7Astronauts for more info.

album review: Anton Mink

2011-11-16T21:26:00.000-05:00

Anton Mink
Outside the Lines
ROSE ISLAND

Two decades ago, as Riot Grrl threatened to influence a generation, those creatures once known as major labels sent in their own army of harmless suburbanites to distract the teeming masses — Letters to Cleo, No Doubt, etc. — to create a new New Wave for a new generation more concerned with whom Julianna Hatfield was dating than what social change might be possible under the post-Reagan/Bush political climate. This you-go-girl! scene — a minute before the Spice Girls finally took down the guitar bands on the radio — typically led to bands playing in the background of a club scene in an Alicia Silverstone or Drew Barrymore comedy and little more; best for a collegiate audience looking for kegger background music, this weirdly funky pop/rock wasn’t meant to last long, like that Bud Light at that kegger, but oddly enough, here it is again.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Justice is served by King’s Daughters & Sons

2011-11-16T17:05:00.001-05:00

When WFPK DJ Matt Anthony called King’s Daughters & Sons a Louisville music version of the comic book “Justice League,” he got it right. To call the band a “supergroup” would also be fair, though their combined fame as members of Rachel’s, Shipping News and other bands is notably less than that of the Traveling Wilburys or Chickenfoot.

The new band began with singer-songwriter Joe Manning, a popular local fixture and LEO columnist. Manning wanted to expand his music beyond what the solo format allowed, and to incorporate more surprising influences — the subtle beauty of the Louisville-bred The For Carnation, the gothic pleasures of Nick Cave, as well as the ultimate solo record, Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska.

Manning and guitarist/singer Mike Heineman, writing together, wanted to explore fictional narratives — worlds of ghosts, sirens, murder ballads and other themes not found easily in rock music today. What they found was a style that combined the literary and musical traditions of the American South and the British Isles.

Manning also wanted some of their favorite musicians to join them.

“I initially said no,” Rachel Grimes remembers.

“Oh, did you?” says Manning, surprised, as they laugh.

“I think I said I’d think about it, and took two or three months.”

Heineman clarifies, “I think it was a year of just dudes” before Grimes’ love for the songs overtook her reluctance to join another band.

“We’re so excited to finally have this record coming out,” Grimes says. The title of the Nov. 22 release, If Then Not When, came from a scrambled line she had uttered in comical frustration about the four year-plus haul from their first show to their first album.

“It had been on my mind for a long time, and it’s worked out pretty much exactly how I envisioned it,” Manning says.

It was Grimes’ career path that led them to an unexpected home on a Scottish label. On a solo European tour last year, the pianist met Alun Woodward, former leader of the band The Delgados and co-founder of the influential indie label Chemikal Underground. After he sent her some of their records, she sent him her band’s album.

“At the very last moment, right when we were getting ready to self-release it, we finally set ourselves a date,” explains Manning. “We said, ‘In 30 days, we’re going to decide what we’re going to do with the record,’ and in that 30 days, (Chemikal Underground) said, ‘Yes, we’d love to put your record out!’”

The more traveled members have seen enough of the music business to keep their expectations low. Grimes, bassist Todd Cook and drummer Kyle Crabtree were all personally affected by the 2009 closure of their longtime mutual label home, Chicago’s Touch and Go Records, which occurred shortly after King’s Daughters & Sons recording sessions had begun with producer Kevin Ratterman.

Despite all the obvious problems within their industry, the group members have fans scattered all over, from Louisville to Tokyo. So why did it take so long to get to this point? In the end, probably because what distinguishes them from most new bands — their relative maturity and civility — stopped them from doing anything too rock ’n’ roll cliché.

“This has always been a 100-percent democratic group,” Manning says. “Which means it’s taken a long time to do things.”

Neither the band nor their label are concerned with launching long tours, or acting as though the business of music is currently financially rewarding. The members, who have all seen each other grow up in Louisville bands since the ’90s, have plenty of new songs in progress and are having fun playing together. Still, Manning can already appreciate what they have achieved together.

“If nothing ever happened again, I would like to have a record that I would like to listen to. And I would like to listen to this record.”

King’s Daughters & Sons with Seluah
Friday, Nov. 18
21c Museum Hotel
700 W. Main St.
www.kingsdaughtersandsons.com
$10; 8 p.m.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Bassekou Kouyate’s African blues

2011-11-16T14:54:00.002-05:00

Veteran string-picker Bassekou Kouyate has made some valuable friends — Taj Mahal, Bonnie Raitt, Eric Clapton, Ali Farka Touré — who have helped him expand his audience beyond Africa. His band’s most recent album, I Speak Fula, was released in 2009 by Sub Pop imprint Next Ambiance.

LEO: How did you learn to play the ngoni?

Bassekou Kouyate: I was brought up in a large family of active griots, traditional musicians who were sought out not just in our village but throughout the area of Ségou and in the capital, Bamako — even sometimes in neighboring countries, for social negotiations and entertainment. My father and uncles, just like their father, were skilled ngoni players. The ngoni is the signature instrument of male griots and, until recently, no other people played the instrument.

Following our family tradition, I was not actually taught until I was 8 years old. My father Moustafa was my teacher, and I was lucky because he was famous as a ngoni player. In addition, my maternal grandfather, Bazoumana Sissoko, was the most famous griot in Mali, but I didn’t get to know him well until I came to Bamako at the age of 16. By that time, he was blind, but he recognized that I was a serious player and was very fond of me. He could recognize me by feeling my hands.

LEO: The ngoni is said to be similar to the banjo, which is used often in American folk music. Do you listen to any banjo music from this part of the globe?

BK: I first heard banjo music when I came to the U.S., to a meeting in Tennessee about the protection of traditional blues music, and met up with well-known banjo players. It was there that I heard American music for the first time; we had no radio or TV, and all I knew was the music I made with other Malian players, who mostly played modern instruments — guitar, flute, drum sets — and with my family, who played traditional Malian instruments.

Since then, I’ve learned to listen to the banjo, which fascinates me because it is so obviously a descendant of the ngoni that was made in my grandfather’s time out of a round calabash with wood and gut strings, instead of the elongated hollowed-out wood base we use now. The U.S. player I’ve listened to most recently is Béla Fleck, with whom we went on tour in 2009. He is the most amazing musician and one of the people who is quickest to pick up on material brought to him by other musicians.

LEO: What can Malian music offer music fans in the United States?

BK: First, it is an opportunity to listen to your roots. When I first heard the blues, I thought it was Bambara music from my home area in Mali, and Americans will be able to hear the same similarities. Next, it shows how traditional music can be developed in a modern form, but Americans know all about that already — we can just show how it works for Malians of our tradition. There is a variety of traditions in Mali, from the Mandé, the Sorai, the Wassoulou, the Tuareg, the Bwa and many more. And above all, what our Malian music can offer music fans in the U.S. is that it will make them want to dance.

For an extended interview, go here.

Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba
Thursday, Nov. 17
Clifton Center
2117 Payne St. • 896-8480
www.subpop.com/artists/bassekou_kouyate_and_ngoni_ba
$20; 7:30 p.m.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Super fun

2011-11-16T14:52:00.001-05:00

For a good time, call Supertruck — or, better yet, go see them live when they celebrate the release of their new self-titled album. LEO asked bandleader Daniel Sturdevant about their long road to stardom.

LEO: How did the album come together?

Daniel Sturdevant: My brother Nate joined — we’d cycled through a few drummers before that. This album has three different drummers on it ... It’s been a work in progress for the last two years, really.

LEO: Did you have to block off times around people’s jobs and real lives?

DS: Yeah, yeah, definitely. But it’s been a continuous source of fun, and frustration (laughs), as it always is. Now that we’ve got Nate in the band, it’s been a lot easier. Before, we always had to go around somebody’s schedule, but I can lean on my brother, and my girlfriend Natalie (Hartman, bassist) is home base, so it’s a pretty tiny group. We started out as Jordan (Humbert), the singer, and me — just acoustic guitars, singer-songwriters ... Over time, we built it up to a rock ’n’ roll band; that’s what we enjoy doing.

LEO: How far do you want to take this band?

DS: That’s a good question. As far as I can go. I’m looking forward to getting this out, people hearing it.

LEO: How do you see Supertruck’s role in the Louisville music scene?

DS: I don’t like to see it as just a good time, drink up kind of rock ’n’ roll band, but there is that aspect of it. But at the same time, people can get caught up in that. People seem to enjoy themselves at our shows. People might not say that it’s visually stunning (laughs) or the most intricate musicianship they’ve ever heard, but they usually say they had a good time. We try to bring that excitement, bring the fun. It’s definitely a big part of why we do it. Not to say that we don’t practice — I take my guitar work very seriously, and I’m always trying to better it. I’m never fully satisfied.

Supertruck plays at the Monkey Wrench on Saturday, Nov. 26. For more info, go to www.supertruckmusic.com.

Louisville's Top Chef

2011-11-10T15:08:00.015-05:00

Between 2003 and 2009, Chef Edward Lee and his Old Louisville restaurant, 610 Magnolia, had been one of dining's worst-kept secrets in the region. The farm-to-table pioneer, a multiple James Beard Award semifinalist, saw his stock rise after a 16-page profile in Gourmet magazine, followed by a winning appearance on “Iron Chef America,” and now as an ongoing competitor on Bravo’s “Top Chef” (Wednesdays, 10 p.m.). Whether he wins the $100,000 grand prize or is this season’s “too soon!” cut, Lee’s role on the popular program can only help the rest of the country see that Louisville has a lot more to offer than KFC.

LEO: Why "Top Chef," as opposed to the 800 other food programs on now?

Edward Lee: That's easy: just look at the caliber of chefs competing. It's not home cooks or diner owners trying to get their 15 minutes of fame. “Top Chef” draws the best of the best because there's a legitimacy that other shows just don't have. Now, I did do “Iron Chef” and win, but that was last year. I wanted to compete against the brightest up-and- coming chefs in the country. I love being in that pressure cooker and pushing myself to see what I can accomplish under the most unpredictable situations.

LEO: Did you know any of the other cheftestants prior to taping?

EL: I had heard of some of them. Many have a great reputation in the industry. It was fun to meet and compete against them. The ones I didn't know, well, I think we're on a first name basis now.

LEO: Of all the prior cast members, do you have any personal favorites — either due to abilities or personalities?

EL: I don't have a favorite, I respect every past chef that had the gumption to put their careers on the line in front of a national audience. It ain't easy.

LEO: How did you feel about it being in Texas, and in 3 different cities?

EL: Awesome. You know, I'm a huge Townes Van Zandt fan, who was from Texas, and I'd never been to Texas before, so it was a real treat for me. Now I get what it means when people say everything's bigger in Texas. All the while I've got “Pancho and Lefty” in my head and my knife pack under my arm. That was surreal.

LEO: How do you feel about Louisville's food scene currently? There have been a slew of interesting restaurants (Harvest, Eiderdown, Hillbilly Tea, Hammerheads, etc.) that have opened since the recession began. Why — or how — do you think that has happened?

EL: Independent restaurants are generally immune to the ups and downs of a market-based economy. If you make good food and offer a value product, people will come in good times or bad. Louisville's food scene is exciting and ambitious. I'm proud to be a part of it. But there's still room to get better, more innovative, and revive old traditions. I'd love to see a kick-ass soul food restaurant in this town.

LEO: Do you have any plans for a new restaurant any time soon?

EL: Maybe …

LEO: Your former chef de cuisine, Gabe Sowder, has been operating the mobile Taco Punk operation, which will soon also become a restaurant. Do you feel like you've gone from a young upstart to a mentor and established national figure?

EL: I don't think that's for me to say. I do what I do; I make mistakes, I accomplish certain goals, I still have dreams. I still love every ounce of this business. This business is a marathon, not a race. I just hope I'm somewhere at the top when all is said and done.

LEO: Do you think your career would have gone in this direction if Gourmet had folded 3 months earlier? Was this part of your plan already?

EL: As important as that Gourmet article was, I have to believe that my career wasn't based on a coincidence. I was cooking my ass off before the article came out, and have been ever since. So, yes, I believe that hard work and dedication does eventually reap rewards despite what happens in the media world. Having said that, I'm sure glad as hell that Gourmet didn't fold earlier.

Home boys

2011-11-09T15:15:00.001-05:00

Relic has become a popular attraction around Louisville, sharing soulful, harmonious bluegrass at bars, festivals and anywhere else available. Now, the band’s two most similar members, Aaron and Adam Bibelhauser, have stepped to the side with a new album, Always Home, a collection that honors the brotherly tradition of the Stanleys, Louvins and Everlys. LEO asked how the Bibelhauser Brothers project came together.

LEO: Why not record this with Relic?

Aaron Bibelhauser: This new record initially began as a solo project of mine, with the intent of recording and releasing my original songs, some closer to fitting in the bluegrass box than others. After getting started on the project, my twin brother, Adam, brought some of his own tunes to the table. It quickly became apparent that this was to be a duo project of new, original music. It was really about focusing in on our abilities as writers and as vocalists.

LEO: Bluegrass hardly requires you to write your own new material. What inspired you?

AB: Writing new material is critical to keeping traditional music alive and relevant. I do think that skirting in and out of the confines of a traditional genre is a really helpful tool in gathering thoughts and presenting them in a coherent manner, without sounding too far out. With bluegrass music — much like the blues, jazz or even classical music — it’s easy to paint yourself into a corner as a musician who plays only existing compositions. In consciously steering ourselves away from this idea, it almost opened up a door, and it became a logical next step to write our own stuff.

LEO: Do you resent musicians in more trendy genres who get more mainstream attention?

AB: A lot of pop music has become mainstream because it’s catchy and people really like it. I think, however, there is a real drive in deciding what songs get airplay that has a huge effect on what listeners tend to like. It used to be that disc jockeys got to decide what new music they wanted to play, and now it’s all pre-determined by label affiliation and commercial interests behind the scenes. At the end of the day, I just hope that the music I involve myself in has substance. I want to do something that’s meaningful, as an artist, not just a guy trying to figure out what hook the song is going to need to grab people’s attention.

Bibelhauser Brothers perform Friday, Nov. 11, at Uncle Slayton’s at 8 p.m. Go to www.cdbaby.com/cd/bibelhauserbrothers.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Stoner hero Kal Penn returns from duty

2011-11-09T15:01:00.000-05:00

If anyone is recession proof, it’s probably Kal Penn. After only five years in Hollywood, the New Jersey native landed a leading role in the stoner comedy “Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle.”

“It tanked at the box office,” says Penn, eight years and two sequels later. “So we were like, ‘Oh, man, OK. Well, I guess this was fun. It was nice to meet you …’ and then, three months later, it comes out on DVD and suddenly starts picking up all this steam.”

Most of the movie roles Penn took in between sequels were less successful, and it took getting past a stereotypical villain job on “24” to land a more satisfying, regular part on “House, M.D.” But after a season and a half of what a million actors would kill to get, Penn left to take a job in the new presidential administration, as an associate director in the Office of Public Engagement.

Penn — who served under his birth name, Kalpen Modi — spoke recently at Bellarmine University about community service. “It was for the ‘Do Something’ initiative, which encourages folks to get involved on a community level, whether it’s art or volunteerism, or just doing something other than complaining about what other people aren’t doing.”

Penn’s job in the White House called on him to serve as a liaison to “young Americans, the arts, and Asian-American and Pacific Islander communities,” and the 34-year-old self-described “nerd” enjoys engaging with others. After his lectures, Penn says, “Q&A is always fun. I don’t like to talk at folks for very long; I hated that when I was in college.”

Penn claims to not be fully clear on why people have been so interested in his career moves. “It’s not a unique story at all … It’s not uncommon for people to take a break from the private sector to serve as political appointees. You’ve got doctors and lawyers and professors and people that are serving this president, they’ve served past presidents; they do it for a year or two, or four, or eight years, and then go back to what they were doing before.”

Penn’s “Kumar” contract required him to take a leave from D.C. last year to film the Christmas-themed movie, now in theaters, which uses 3-D. “The 3-D is cool, there are a couple of explosions, and the special effects are awesome, but they’re not action movie special effects,” he says. “What people like about Harold and Kumar is their relatability, so, to put on 3-D glasses, you feel like you’re on the couch with them or you’re in these insane situations. It’s so cool to see. I was wondering when we started, ‘Is this a 3-D gimmicky thing?’ But I thought it was awesome.”

He has also returned to TV, appearing this season with “Kumar” series co-star Neil Patrick Harris on “How I Met Your Mother.” Up next, if all goes well, will be a new comedy series starring and developed by Penn for NBC’s Thursday night lineup.

“I was so excited — it’s what every actor would want to do: ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to develop my own show?’ I love ‘30 Rock’ and ‘The Office’ and ‘Parks and Recreation,’ that kind of stuff, so I’m working with them on developing a workplace comedy. To me, what I love about the ‘Harold and Kumar’ movies is that those guys could have looked like anybody, could’ve been from anywhere, it just so happened they looked like (co-star) John (Cho) and I, and are from New Jersey.”

Penn’s idea is to set the series at the U.N., most similar in tone to “Parks and Recreation” but moved to the middle of New York’s most diverse mini-world.

“I think what it should focus on, in order to be funny, is everyday situations. Regardless of what office you work in, there’s always beef between people, or somebody’s got a crush on somebody else — whether you’re at the U.N. or you’re working at Walmart, office politics are always very similar. Hopefully we can riff off of the diversity of the characters, but (tackling racial issues) definitely wasn’t a hidden desire.”

The setting also incorporates another favorite topic. “They’re all public servants, in some capacity, and that’s kind of neat. I don’t think we’re ever going to do plotlines on the Arab-Israeli Conflict,” Penn laughs, “but something like the International Year of Rice, I’ve always been fascinated by — like, how does something like that actually happen? How do 198 countries decide that this is going to be the International Year of Rice instead of solving another issue? I think it’ll be more that kind of stuff.”

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Cropped Out offers abnormal music for another option

2011-11-09T14:57:00.001-05:00

The second annual Cropped Out music festival takes place downtown this weekend, featuring underground acts like MV & EE, Bill Orcutt, John Wesley Coleman III and the reunited Scratch Acid, plus many more. Co-founders James Ardery and Ryan Davis grew up in Louisville, but Ardery now lives in Brooklyn, so LEO asked Davis to inform us about what they had to offer.

LEO: Explain yourselves to our readers who voted for HullabaLOU as “Best Festival” in our Readers’ Choice poll. Who are you?

Ryan Davis: Cropped Out is a small promotions company and collective of friends, started by two Louisville natives, with the primary intent of providing our hometown with an alternative source of live music. The whole idea came about early last year when a series of frustrating circumstances led me to decide that, if you want to see something happen in this town, you often have to do it yourself. I contacted my friend in Brooklyn, who was and still is well connected as a promoter and musician in the city. I went to college in Chicago and had worked at record labels and booked shows at art spaces and bars around town, and toured the country for years with my own band. So between the two of us, there was all this talk of bringing friends through town on their own respective travels and pairing them with bands we were stoked on around Louisville — of which there was no shortage. What better way than to throw them all in the cage together for one weekend? Well, in retrospect, there was probably a plethora of better ways, but we’re learning more with every one-off show we book, and I hope some of that knowledge rubs off on the festival in our second year of doing it.

LEO: How do you decide whom to book?

RD: I think we tend to begin with friends’ bands, first and foremost. Then we start chewing over a small handful of long-shot dream headliners, and fill it in from there. Last year was more of an effort, at least on my part, to get as many of my friends involved as humanly possible. Not that that has changed this time around, but in an effort to not have the same festival all over again, we’re looking around under some slightly different rocks.

LEO: What about locals?

RD: An accurate representation of local musicians is absolutely imperative to the project. It’s the life source of the entire operation. We can sit around all day trying to bring bands with whom we are fascinated to town, but without that exchange of ideas between our community and its passers-through, that sense of participation, it defeats the purpose. We wouldn’t be doing this if it weren’t for the bands around here to whom we grew up listening, initially planted the seeds of the punk rock tree in our brains at an early age, before we went off into the world and decided how to harvest it. There are musicians in this town, some of whom are more or less “stuck” here, be it because of familial obligations or work or money or comfort or whatever. They may never have the opportunity to tour, or to be heard at all, which is criminal under some circumstances. So in bringing the weird world to Louisville, we are simultaneously, and proudly, showing Louisville to the weird world.

CROPPED OUT
Nov. 11-13
The Crummy Den • 835 E. Main St.
croppedoutmusic.com • $20-$50

album review: Ut Gret

2011-11-02T21:46:00.004-04:00

Ut Gret
Radical Symmetry
UNHEARDOF PRODUCTIONS

Some of the most “incorrect” music makes more sense in today’s ADD-iPod world than it did 40 years ago. While fans of jazz, funk, prog rock and gypsy music might have crossed paths occasionally in the early ’70s, they’ve otherwise been a scattered and lonely lot. But today, groups like Mucca Pazza, Beat Circus and, from Louisville, Liberation Prophecy and Ut Gret have boldly taken the baton from Zappa, Zorn and other freaks, and the result — at its best — is music like Radical Symmetry. Within the first song, a handful of genres interweave delightfully, a cat-and-mouse game of creative, caffeinated composing run amuck, and intentionally so. The second song, well sequenced, is a jaunty, sexy Parisian number with womanly vocals, a strutting organ and an inspired sax. Eastern music comes in, deceptively smooth jazz runs parallel to electro squiggles, and military marches welcome the clowns to town. Highly recommended if you have an open mind and are more likely to travel to Djibouti than to Destin.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

X’d out

2011-11-02T20:51:00.005-04:00

"ear X-tacy is no more"

It was a weird ending for the record store that popularized the “Keep Louisville Weird” slogan.

Though beloved local institution ear X-tacy had struggled to survive in the new century, no one expected it to end the way it did.

They failed to open on Saturday and left no notice about why they were closed. An employee called singer-songwriter Alan Rhody, a Nashville resident, at about 9:30 a.m. to tell him his 3 p.m. in-store performance wasn’t going to happen.

ear X-tacy remained inexplicably closed for several hours before LEO first started hearing something was wrong. Upon arriving at the store late Saturday afternoon, all was quiet, dark. The merchandise was still there, visible through the glass doors, but otherwise … nothingness.

Calls and emails to employees current and past were met with a wall of silence. Around 5 p.m. Saturday, one source told me that “legally” nothing could be said until an announcement was made. LEO then discovered that the store’s Twitter and Tumblr accounts had been removed.

Sunday came, and the silence continued. The store remained closed, frozen in an unexplained moment. An update on the store’s Facebook profile said an announcement about the store’s future would come Monday. Given that the busy holiday shopping season was on the horizon, it didn’t make sense that they would just close, suddenly, or that it would happen now.

When owner John Timmons first made a public plea for support in February 2010, he called a press conference at the store, using the media to help the public understand how dire their financial situation was. Years of Apple products, illegal downloading, powerful chains and an unsuccessful investment in Think Indie, a digital site intended to challenge iTunes, had taken their toll, and he urged local customers to come back to his brick-and-mortar business.

On Monday morning, I arrived at the store shortly before their expected 10 a.m. opening, anticipating the lights turned on and the doors open, or dozens of passionate supporters gathered — sharing stories of the first cassette they’d ever bought from the store, or buying a Rachel’s CD from Jason Noble himself, or hanging out in the store on a Friday night when they were under 21 and had no better place to go.

Instead, I found closed doors again. Around the city, people were growing increasingly nervous about the future of the landmark.

As Monday droned on, no time was given for an announcement. Concerned supporters continued to ask questions, and one ex-employee decried “media vultures” on Twitter.

A Facebook update in the 4 o’clock hour promising an announcement was quickly deleted. Finally, around 5:50 p.m., the store’s profile issued Timmons’ official announcement that “ear X-tacy is no more.” The emotional letter, which gave no explanation for the abrupt closure, read in part: “It has been a dream come true … actually, a dream exceeded, to be part of your musical lives here in Louisville for the last 26 years … The record store experience has been the only child in my life. Now, it’s time for me to let it fly.”

As of press time, it remained unclear what will happen to the merchandise, including numerous local, self-produced recordings. There is no indication that there will be a liquidation sale, or a going away party. The store often described as a community meeting place left supporters nowhere to turn to express their feelings except the Internet — the very beast that, at least in part, was to blame for the store’s demise.

On Tuesday morning, a fan named Tammy commented on the store’s Facebook page, “Where on Earth am I going to Christmas shop now???!!!” Whoever is running the store’s page replied, “Poor Tammy! Find another local record store. I can give you a list :)”

This story has been revised to reflect the following correction: An ear X-tacy employee called musician Alan Rhody around 9:30 a.m. Saturday — several hours earlier than initially reported — to cancel a scheduled in-store appearance later that day.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Metal drama

2011-11-02T15:12:00.002-04:00

Theatre 502’s new production isn’t just good drama, it’s also a valentine to music lovers — especially those who know that Slayer and Poison exist on different planets. LEO caught up with playwright Marco Ramirez.

LEO: What is the play about?

Marco Ramirez: “Broadsword” is about a broken-up heavy metal band from New Jersey that has to reunite in order to save their lead guitarist from the grip of hell. It’s kind of an Agatha Christie mystery play, but imagined through the lens of “The X-Files” and “Halloween.” It’s also very much about family — both the one we’re born into and the one we make for ourselves.

LEO: How did music influence the direction of the story you wrote?

MR: The play’s entirely about music, but even more so it’s about musicians. I don’t think the story of one band influenced me more than others, but the stories of a bunch of misunderstood blue-collar geniuses did. Names like Daniel Johnston and Jeff Mangum (neither of whom made metal), and wonderful music mythology surrounding Robert Johnson and guys like Jeff Buckley. Basically, anyone who ever recorded one genius album and disappeared, or who died mysteriously, or who thought they spoke to the devil.

LEO: How much of an expert on metal are you?

MR: I know a lot more than my parents do, but a lot less than the guy with the Dio tattoo on his neck. It’s weird — when it comes to metal, I’ve found that, at most, what people know is maybe Metallica and a couple “Wayne’s World” quotes.

LEO: Does your taste differ from your characters?

MR: I love me some Motorhead and some Pantera — I jokingly called an early draft of this play “Cowboys From Hell” — but I don’t think I listen to it as often as the guys in “Broadsword” probably do.

LEO: Do you have any Louisville music favorites?

MR: I’m not sure if this is Louisville-specific, but a lovely Louisville native — the director of “Broadsword,” Amy Attaway — gave me two bluegrass mixtapes a couple years ago. Distortion or no distortion, there is nothing more metal than a “murder ballad.”

“Broadsword” runs from Nov. 11-19 at Parkside Studio at the Iroquois Amphitheater. More info can be found at www.theatre502.org.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Sebadoh’s license to please

2011-11-02T15:08:00.005-04:00

The story of Sebadoh has taken more twists and turns than a telenovela, though one lacking in obvious sex appeal or comical evil. The story began in the late ’80s in western Massachusetts, where then-ex-Dinosaur Jr. bassist Lou Barlow began collaborating on lo-fi homemade tapes with Eric Gaffney. Jason Loewenstein joined soon after, and the trio, fueled by their single “Gimme Indie Rock!,” influenced a generation of angry, confused but sensitive ex-punks.

Gaffney left early on, replaced first by Bob Fay and then by Louisville native Russ Pollard, whom Loewenstein had met while living in Louisville for more than a decade. Though the group’s last album was released in 1999, Barlow and Loewenstein have reunited at various times since, unfairly never achieving the mass popularity of peers Pavement or Guided by Voices.

Though the two men now live across the country from each other — Barlow in Los Angeles and Loewenstein in Brooklyn — and play with other groups (Barlow with Dinosaur Jr., Loewenstein with the Fiery Furnaces), the songwriters have begun working on new Sebadoh material again. For this tour, Fiery Furnaces drummer Bob D’Amico has joined the duo.

Sub Pop recently reissued their acclaimed 1994 album Bakesale, so LEO asked Barlow about that period.

LEO: Bakesale was made around the time Jason was involved with (Louisville musician) Tara Jane O’Neil.

Lou Barlow: Yeah, he wrote a bunch of songs about her (laughs). She plays on the record. He’d recently moved to Louisville, actually. He loved Louisville, so he stayed there.

LEO: How do you feel the album holds up now?

LB: I didn’t think it would hold up; I guess, in my mind, I imagined that it wasn’t as good as people said it was … I’ve always liked the songs and the lyrics, I just didn’t think texturally or playing-wise it would really hold up, but when we were putting together the reissue, I finally had to listen to it. We lightly remastered it, beefed it up just a little bit, so I had to listen to it again, and I was kind of amazed that it sounded pretty good. It had a really cool feel to it, and the feel of it was pretty consistent … it was kind of a charming record — it’s not like a monster rock record by any stretch, but it’s pretty charming in its limitations, and also in its strengths.

LEO: Where do you think it falls in the Sebadoh catalog, for your tastes?

LB: I kind of think records like Bubble and Scrape and Sebadoh III and The Sebadoh, the last record we did, I think those are more powerful and scarier records. I like scary rock records, I guess (laughs), when it comes to rock bands. I like things to have a little bit of an edge to them, a menacing edge. I’m not really into the Pixies so much. I think there’s other Sebadoh records that have more of that edge (than Bakesale), to me they make them more interesting — but, having said that, listening to it, Bakesale is, track-by-track, definitely pretty consistent, and I really love Jason’s songs on it.

LEO: And you’re still OK with Bob Fay’s song “Temptation Tide”?

LB: Yeah … it’s OK. You know, that’s the spirit of Sebadoh. Bob Fay was the drummer in the band; true to our credo, our ethos or whatever, everybody had to have a song, and that’s Bob’s song. It could have been a lot worse (laughs), you know? It’s OK.

LEO: When Bakesale came out, it spoke to a lot of younger people who felt alienated and confused, like you. Now, you’re a family man.

LB: (laughs) Yeah … To be perfectly honest, I never saw it that the songs I wrote were — I got a lot of flack for being like, “These are so immature, navel-gazing, self-indulgent songs,” and I never bought that. I put a lot of effort into writing songs I thought would have longevity. I was in a really good spot as a songwriter, and the songs I wrote, they don’t embarrass me. They make sense to me. For all of the anger, or the confusion, of youth that might be in those songs, I also think that I could easily go through something as a 45-year-old man, and one of those songs, “Rebound,” could easily apply to somebody having romantic relationships in their 40s, I think. It’s not that difficult to translate it. To me, they’re just good songs, and in my opinion, they’ve stood the test of time. I’m able to play them, and I’m pretty to sensitive to that. If I’m playing a song and I don’t believe in it, or I’ve gone beyond it, I don’t play it, ’cause it feels weird. In general, these songs just don’t feel weird.

For an extended interview, go here.

Sebadoh with Mazes and Deer Meet
Friday, Nov. 4
Headliners Music Hall
1386 Lexington Ave. • 584-8088
www.sebadoh.com
$15; 9 p.m.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

No borders bluegrass

2011-10-26T23:23:00.000-04:00

When Tim O’Brien went solo after the dissolution of his popular bluegrass band Hot Rize, his path was not entirely clear. The West Virginian had established himself as a talented mandolin and fiddle player, singer and songwriter, but a short stint on a major label in Nashville didn’t work out. In hindsight, it’s easy to see how his various skills would help him forge a diverse and satisfying path, but it didn’t come without challenges.

“I’ve just got that classic attention deficit syndrome. Traditional music, there’s so many angles, and there’s a community — the community’s all around, and I guess I’m susceptible to my environment and different things as I come upon them,” O’Brien says. “I see no reason to wall myself off. As a consequence, I say yes to a lot of projects. I learn a lot. It gets a little scattered sometimes, but mostly I like it. I like the smorgasbord part of it.”

O’Brien and guitarist Bryan Sutton play together in Louisville on Saturday, though this duo show comes on the heels of a recent run of Hot Rize reunion shows, where Sutton joined the surviving founders.

“We did one this time last year for the same length of time, about 10 days,” O’Brien says about the Hot Rize tour. “It’s just kind of a check-up, we see how we’re all doing … It’s a family reunion.”

Would doing it for more than 10 days make it less special? “Yeah, I think so … We broke up in 1990, but we never really went away; we just wanted to move on to something else. It’s still kind of the same thing. I’m mostly into pursuing different things, but when I do get the jones to play traditional bluegrass, it makes sense to do it with these guys. It’s where I made my mark in that game; it’s so formative, it’s definitely where I come from.”

Even more like a family reunion is his new project, due next year. O’Brien and his immediate family members — his sister Mollie, her guitarist husband Rich Moore and their children — are recording an album of songs by Roger Miller. “We have a set … mostly fairly obscure ones. It’s very exciting working with the family there. They rose to the occasion.”

So far, no major problems or rivalries have emerged. Or maybe Dad, 57, just hasn’t realized it yet. “I don’t know. I’m sure there is. There’s insecurities and kind of wondering why we’re doing this. Mollie and I are the ones who have been on the stage and traveled the world. I think they kind of wonder if they want to get into that or not. Everybody’s got their own slant, the music that they’re listening to. I mean, there’s a lot of common ground — Gillian Welch, Tom Waits — that’s one reason why we chose the Roger Miller bag, because it’s quirky enough that everybody can get into it. It unifies it, in a good way.”

The multi-faceted stringman has another session booked with British guitar god Mark Knopfler, who asked O’Brien to play in his band last year.

“That should be great. He’s a master songwriter and musician, and he has a beautiful studio in London, so I’m looking forward to working there.”

O’Brien thrives on the collaborations, even if it has been challenging at times for his family. He follows his desires, buoyed by playing to audiences that appreciate timeless music. Though the music industry encourages repetition of proven formulas, O’Brien finds that “really hard and boring after a while … I really admire somebody that can do that. Del McCoury, for instance, I really admire because he doesn’t change his music hardly ever; he mostly does the same show, he makes new records, but he mostly does the same show, and his fans love it. And he seems to love it. I get a little restless. I just couldn’t do that. So I go back and forth. Sometimes it gets a little too smooth, and I go and mess it up.”

Tim O’Brien & Bryan Sutton
Saturday, Oct. 29
Clifton Center
2117 Payne St.
www.timobrien.net
$21-$23; 8 p.m.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Local dead

2011-10-26T07:59:00.003-04:00

Author David Martin Stack walks through his Brooklyn streets with a dark secret — he’s actually a Louisville native. The music obsessive gives love to his hometown in his new YA novel, “The Pretty Dead,” which features zombies, rockers and other local favorites.

LEO: Louisvillians love to know where we went to high school. So, tell us!

David Martin Stack: “The Pretty Dead” is set in an evil high school where the cool kids are literally cool … to the touch — they’re dead! I’m a proud graduate of St. X, which is why I named the fictional school after our rivals Trinity. Just to be clear — this book is a work of fiction. The real Trinity High School is not a hot bed of the undead … as far as I know.

LEO: Who were your favorite local bands when you were growing up?

DS: I have a long list of local favorites. It runs from Sunspring, Ennui and Bush League all the way through to Squirrel Bait and Slint, the Palace Brothers, Crain, Rodan, Gastr Del Sol, and King Kong. I can honestly say these are still among my all-time favorite bands. In “The Pretty Dead,” every chapter is titled after and includes a quote from a song by some of my favorite all-time bands. There are lots of Louisville bands included.

LEO: Do you plan to write more Louisville-centric books?

DS: I should think so. Of all the books I’ve written, my two Louisville-centric books seem to get the most attention. My picture book “Good Morning Captain,” inspired by the Slint song, took off after it was featured on Pitchfork. New York magazine called it “The world’s most terrifying children’s book.” Louisville, it seems, is my good luck charm. I’ve actually just started writing a book set in Sligo, just outside Louisville. Hopefully the good luck extends just past the Louisville Metro area.

“The Pretty Dead” is available locally at Carmichael’s and ear X-tacy. It is also available as a 99-cent ebook on iTunes and Kindle. Proceeds benefit children’s literacy. Go to www.posterband.com for more info.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Waxing on Gonzo

2011-10-12T23:08:00.002-04:00

The second annual Gonzo Fest will include musical performances from some great locals as well as some notable touring bands, including The Whigs, Fresh Millions and David Wax Museum. The latter, a Boston-based group receiving acclaim for their third album, Everything Is Saved, answered a few questions.

LEO: Are you a Hunter Thompson fan?

Greg Glassman: We’re very curious and excited about being a part of Gonzo Fest. We appreciate anyone who has a distinct, original and humorous take on the follies of mankind, and Hunter S. Thompson surely embodied this.

LEO: You’re Americana, folk, Mexican-American, indie rock ... who are you, anyway? Is Calexico threatened by you?

GG: I believe the most common press label being applied these days is “Mexo-Americana,” and that’s fine with us. Like most musicians, we have too many influences to name, but given the instrumentation, chord and rhythm structures, and harmony vocals, “Mexo-Americana” distills us down to a style that someone new to our music can relate to. We are all big fans of Calexico, and they are near the top of the list for bands we would love to tour with. We met some of them at the Green River Festival a few summers ago and enjoyed showing them the son jarocho instruments we play.

LEO: You made the NPR Listeners’ Poll list of the best music of 2011 so far. Who’s on your version of that list?

GG: In no particular order, we’ve been spinning new records from these bands lately: Yellowbirds, In One Wind, tUnE-yArDs, Gillian Welch, Cuddle Magic, Jessica Lea Mayfield.

LEO: You have some birds on your merchandising. Have you heard the phrase “Put a bird on it” yet?

GG: (laughs) Honestly, no, we hadn’t heard that, but that makes sense. Who doesn’t like birds? Our connection with birds comes from a traditional son jarocho song we play called “El Pajaro Carpintero,” or “Carpenter Bird.” A friend of the band is an amazing woodblock print artist and has hand-carved many images for us, including the cover of our first album.

LEO: Why should the good, hard-working people of Louisville be excited about you? (Don’t feel obligated to mention My Morning Jacket or bourbon.)

GG: Well, we’re good, hard-working people, too, so we’ll have that in common to start. We’ve never played Louisville before, so we’d love to show your town a good time, and vice-versa. If nothing else, come see Suz beat the hell out of a donkey jawbone.

David Wax Museum plays Saturday at 5 p.m. at the Monkey Wrench. For more info, go to www.davidwaxmuseum.com.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

The Tea Total Package

2011-10-12T20:15:00.001-04:00

Hillbilly Tea expands to meet customer demands

The best type of success is doing something unlikely and making it work, against the odds and what most might call common sense. One example would be Hillbilly Tea, the downtown eatery and gourmet tea specialist that opened last year.

When tea business veteran Karter Louis and his partner, Arpi Lengyel, decided to open the cozy spot for a lunch-only crowd, the hidden gem, located on a side street near the KFC Yum Center, immediately outgrew its initial design.

“Since we opened, week one, we reached capacity. We got pretty popular pretty fast — that, we did not anticipate,” says Louis, a Louisville native who also has worked on other restaurant concepts in larger cities. “A lot of our customers are not necessarily just people downtown … We took off really fast, but then it died down a little bit. Comments from people were like, ‘Oh, we didn’t think we could get in.’ We don’t want to convey that to people.

“I think if you own a large restaurant, people perceive a wait as OK. But when they see everything when they walk in the door, it’s a bit more daunting. We knew immediately that we wanted to expand, let guests come who wanted to experience the concept.”

But Hillbilly Tea had a second issue to resolve, as well.

“The No. 1 thing that some of our customers requested when we asked ‘What can we do to improve?’ was ‘Get alcohol,’” Louis laughs. “The size that we were before, we could not get a liquor license because we were too small. Certainly, growing does help us with that.”

Louis initially wanted to open a small, low-pressure spot that would pay tribute to tea first, and also to his roots, with what he describes as “good, wholesome food.”

“For me, tea has become a way of life, and I’ve put a lot into it, in terms of my career, and it resonates with me, certainly, and it’s amazing that I come home to Louisville and I say, ‘OK, I’ve done all these fancy tea places; this is my expression of tea … is it stupid?’” Louis says. “‘Or do people really get it?’”

After spending 20-something years in bigger cities, Louis wanted to return to Louisville, but says, “I still needed to have something to do for a livelihood. I told (partner Lengyel) that we would open up downtown, that we would be a lunch place open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and we would be off on weekends. Now we open up at 8 o’clock in the morning, and we close at 9 p.m. — as soon as we get alcohol, we’ll close beyond that — and we’re open seven days a week, so it’s clearly not that. But it’s OK, it’s a good thing.”

Now expanding to the second floor, Hillbilly Tea soon hopes to introduce a liquor program that will include tea-infused vodkas, boutique wines, bourbon and a few local beers.

They also plan to incorporate another regional treasure. “We’re very excited about moonshine. There’s only two companies in the United States that are approved to sell moonshine; one of them is a company called Moonshine, from Tennessee. We’ll probably do some infusing with the moonshine, as well.”

For this, patrons can thank the heavy drinkers of Louisville, as well as downtown’s conventioneers. “I feel like a lot of people think we don’t want to serve alcohol, but that wasn’t the deal,” Louis says. “It was just that we didn’t plan on it; we just thought we’d be open for lunch. Last fall was when we started opening for dinner, and all those convention people would come and we’d have tables of six and eight convention people … they would say, ‘Where’s the alcohol?’ and get up and leave. That was very painful,” Louis says with a bittersweet chuckle.

“Instantly, I begged our landlord to let us go upstairs, and that took a long time. That space has never been used for anything other than storage in 80 years. There was a lot of infrastructure stuff that had to go on here. I think people thought it was going to be a matter of just coming upstairs and painting,” he laughs, “but it actually was a lot of work.”

Now the time has come for Louis’ little tea retreat to become a Louisville nightlife fixture.

“It’s been a blast. I didn’t really know what to expect, coming home to Louisville … They say you don’t make it till you make it at home. The success of Hillbilly Tea is the cherry on top of all the things that I’ve done.”

photo by Ron Jasin

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Fox and the Sound

2011-10-05T20:48:00.003-04:00

The Pacific Northwest-based folk rock band Fleet Foxes emerged, seemingly overnight, in 2008 and quickly became one of the most popular and acclaimed new bands in years. Their second album, Helplessness Blues, was released by Sub Pop in May. LEO phoned leader Robin Pecknold at 2:30 p.m., as he was just waking up in Raleigh, N.C., after a long night of driving.

LEO: Are you comfortable sleeping on the road, in the bus?

Robin Pecknold: It’s OK … I’m not sure that I would just hire a bus just to drive me around, not playing shows.

LEO: What else do you do to entertain yourself and your bandmates on the road?

RP: We have bikes we take on tour. Skye (Skjelset) especially likes to get his out and ride around — he likes to see a city that way. I like record shopping.

LEO: Have you seen a lot of stores closing around the country the past couple of years?

RP: No — I mean, I feel like the ones I’m looking for are just, like, vinyl-only. I’m sure those guys get hit, but they’re also catering to a more specialized crowd. I feel like it’s the ones that try to do everything that seem like they’re not making the marks and struggling.

LEO: You have your particular focus, but you guys have also been part of a wave that’s had some popularity in the past few years.

RP: Yeah, I mean, we’ve been lucky in finding an audience. Everything’s sort of cyclical, and stuff will come in and out of favor, but it’s nice that we have found people that are into what we do.

LEO: Have you noticed any differences between living in Seattle and Portland?

RP: I think for a guy like me who is, I guess, at work on the road, Portland is a far more chill city to come home to. There’s less big companies based there, that sort of helps. They seem a little less focused on making a bunch of money. Obviously, it’s better for a city if you have a strong economy than not, but for a musician coming to Portland, it’s cheaper and people are down to hang out. They don’t have to work as hard, ’cause it’s a cheaper place to live than Seattle.

LEO: Have you seen that affecting your songwriting?

RP: I don’t know. I guess I feel like we’re more free to do … anything when I’m there. I think being in Seattle, I’d get recognized a little more often, so I’d be more hesitant to go out and do stuff. I don’t know. I feel more anonymous, but that’s a small … like, one guy a week, you know?

LEO: How have the new songs been going over live since the record came out?

RP: I think it’s good. We wrote this newer record to sort of complement the first one, in some ways — expand and, also, crystallize some of the ideas from the first one. So, it’s cool. The set feels a lot more wide-reaching now.

Fleet Foxes with Van Dyke Parks
Wednesday, Oct. 5 • Louisville Palace
625 S. Fourth St. • 583-4555
www.fleetfoxes.com
$35.50; 8 p.m.

photo by Sean Pecknold

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s political surprises

2011-10-05T17:22:00.001-04:00

Louisville’s own Will Oldham, the only constant in the musical presentation known as Bonnie “Prince” Billy, has been performing since before LEO was just an idea in John Yarmuth’s brain. His new album, Wolfroy Comes to Town, was released on Oct. 4. This special performance introduces a new series of cultural events at the Clifton Center.

LEO: What do you like about the Clifton Center and what they plan to do there?

Will Oldham: I played a show there in the ’90s, and I think I was in a play there in the ’80s, possibly. I like that it’s in the best neighborhood in Louisville. I like that it’s a solid room that sounds good. It’s usually nice to play in a room that was designed as a theater, so there’s an inherent acoustic quality to the room — as opposed to so many of the rooms we play, where music was just added as part of the business of the place. Or, people have relied upon the eventuality of a PA making something transmittable to the ears of the audience. It’s always a treat to be in a room where there’s a relationship between what’s going on audibly from the stage and how people are meant to receive it, with or without electricity. And the Clifton Center is one of those places.

LEO: Is that why you like to play so many unconventional venues, because the sound quality can vary so much from club to club?

WO: When we travel on the road, we never travel with a sound engineer. Many clubs have great sound engineers who know what they’re doing very well, who deal with such a wide variety of music every night that they know their room better than anybody we could bring. We don’t do effects, we create our own dynamic on the stage, so we don’t need somebody who knows our set, we need somebody who knows and likes music, and knows their room and is consistent. At the same time, the variety of acoustic scenarios that we come across in the course of a tour, at times, can be jarring. So it’s good to fall back on an exterior scenario, or theatrical scenario; sometimes there’s something nice about people sitting in assigned seats, like in the Clifton Center, and sometimes it’s nice when people have the freedom to position themselves how and where they like during the course of a show.

LEO: Who’s playing in your band on this tour?

WO: (Guitarist) Emmett Kelly, who is also the Cairo Gang, he’s based in Chicago. Angel Olsen, based in Chicago, who’s singing with us and also makes records under her own name. And Ben Boye, who’s based out of Chicago as well, is playing a variety of keyed instruments — harmoniums, Hammond Rhodes, pianos. From Louisville here, (drummer) Van Campbell, (bassist) Danny Kiely and myself.

LEO: Have you worked up any surprising cover songs for this tour?

WO: Now, if I told you that …

LEO: (laughs) I knew you were going to say that.

WO: Well, you asked the question, “Do you have any surprises?”

LEO: You could’ve said “yes” or “no.”

WO: Right. I have no idea what a surprise would be or wouldn’t be for anybody. So, what’s up with Mayor Fischer not talking about Bonnie “Prince” Billy?

LEO: (laughs) That’s a great question.

WO: Yeah, it is a great question! Now he’s moved on to the Sherman Minton Bridge thing and talking to Barack Obama — there are more important tasks at hand.

LEO: I don’t know. I think it’s a city law that you have to endorse My Morning Jacket.

WO: (laughs) Yeah, I think that’s true. Does that mean I’m breaking a law?

LEO: Would you ever run for office here?

WO: I don’t think my past and personal life would stand up to the scrutiny of a campaign. Not in this life.

LEO: Is there anything else you’d like to cover for this article?

WO: I figure that making something readable in hopes that advertising can still get sold at a premium is up to you. So, when you feel that you’ve got the material to jump off the page … I’m happy.

Bonnie “Prince” Billy with The Phantom Family Halo
Sunday, Oct. 9
Clifton Center
2117 Payne St.
dragcity.com/artists/bonnie-prince-billy
$16 adv., $18 DOS;
7:30 p.m.

photo by Dirk Knibee

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

The LEO interview: Van Dyke Parks

2011-10-04T10:15:00.003-04:00

Van Dyke Parks is a living legend, especially to record collector nerds. His work is vast and ever-surprising, ranging from his work with peak-era Beach Boys to Joanna Newsom today. He makes a very rare live appearance in Louisville tomorrow, opening for a group that idolizes him, Fleet Foxes. His label, Bananastan, recently released Arrangements, Vol. 1, featuring 15 of his most fun arrangements for himself and other artists.

LEO: Bananastan is a fun word, especially for a record label. What's the origin?

Van Dyke Parks: The word derives from a movie, The Hot Rock, with Robert Redford. My wife used it for her shop name in the flea market of Paris. I thought it sounded totally tropically topical, well-geared to my cogs of industry.

LEO: Do you think pop music and more experimental, baroque, composer-style music will ever coexist happily? Or will the public never accept such genre-hopping on the pop charts?

VP: Such definitions will be eclipsed in time, as was "hep," "groovy," and "far out". The public is pushing musicians ahead of the curve, with world beat sensations genre-hopping die hard pop stars.

LEO: Are there any artists today that you're aware of who make the type of music you hear in your head, or that you've become most known for?

VP: My favorite singer/songwriter is Paolo Conte. Unfortunately, I don't speak his language, But he typifies the kind of artists I like, who bring new elements together to shock and awe. Fleet Foxes has such maverick abandon.

LEO: Song Cycle has become one of the records honored with a 33 1/3 book devoted to it, and likely one of the least-known of the records in that series. Does it feel even more special to be in that position?

VP: Print publicity is all well and good. Yet, I agree with Oscar Wilde, who observed, "Criticism is the highest form of autobiography." Frank Zappa — of whose Mothers I was a player — put it this way: "Talking about music is like dancing about architecture."

LEO: You're touring now with a young band who are inspired by the work you've done since the early '60s, and you have a new compilation out now which highlights some of your earliest work. Do you ever feel like your professional life exists simultaneously in the '60's and in the present?

VP: I'm totally moved to be invited by a group so inspired. They mean so much to so many because of their courage and talented explorations. If anything from the '60s is worth saving, it's courage in the arts. There's a jungle of fundamentalism out there, waiting to be tamed by kind hearts.

LEO: Do you think music, and all of its possibilities, was more fun 45 years ago than it is today? Are musicians today lazier, or less inspired?

VP: My windshield is bigger than my rear view mirror. It was fun being a brunette ... now that there is snow on the roof, a fire rages within.

LEO: What are you working on next?

VP: This month, it's Skrillex, Paddy Malone and Ry Cooder, and an arrangement for Kimbra's debt on Warner Brothers. It's widescreen, at 360 degrees.

Fleet Foxes with Van Dyke Parks
Wednesday, October 5
Palace
http://bananastan.com/
$35, 8 p.m.

Tonguing silver

2011-09-28T16:27:00.002-04:00

Silver Tongues will release their debut album, Black Kite, on local indie Karate Body Records this month. What began as a solo project evolved to become a full band, including past and present members of Wax Fang, The Fervor, Cabin and Follow the Train. Leader David Cronin took a few minutes during his honeymoon to tell LEO about the band.

LEO: How did the band come together?
David Cronin: The band came together in the way that most bands come together, I imagine. I had written some songs, and I grabbed my friends and asked them to play the songs with me. It solidified when we were scheduled to bring the songs into the studio. At that point, I had (drummer) James (Hewett) and (bassist) Jake (Heustis) helping me to flesh out the songs. (Percussionist) Brian (Cronin) and (guitarist) Michael (Campbell) came a little bit after and rounded out the group.

LEO: What inspired the songs on the album?
DC: The songs were my reaction to the things that were happening in my life at the time — confronting changes internally and externally, thinking of the future, sadness, happiness, love ... a mixture of things encountered in everyday life.

LEO: What are your goals with this album?
DC: I wanted to take my ideas and thoughts and present them in a cohesive fashion. I wanted to get from point A to point B, in a sense. I knew that I had some good ideas, but I wanted to structure them and nudge them until they started rolling on their own. I had to let go of them and see where they ended up. It is funny because the finished product is not what I originally had thought it would be at all. But it is good to do that. Songs can surprise you.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

New directions for Fort Frances

2011-09-22T16:42:00.003-04:00

The Chicago-based Fort Frances is an indie pop trio with some local roots. Their debut album, The Atlas, has earned strong reviews. The free show they’re playing this week should be a strong incentive to catch them now while you can. LEO spoke with leader David McMillin about location, location, location and the Beatles.

David McMillin: I grew up just north of Louisville, in Columbus, Indiana.

LEO: I was just there last week.

DM: In Columbus? The architectural mecca of the universe! (laughs) It’s so crazy growing up there, to have tours, the Columbus Vistors’ Center bus _ when you grow up looking at all those churches and the library, you don’t think much of it, but that’s cool that you were there. I actually lived in Louisville for about a year or two.

LEO: What part?

DM: I lived in St. Matthews. I guess it was in 2008? I used to do a lot of solo stuff, so I spent most of that time working on writing a record.

LEO: And now you’re in Chicago?

DM: Yeah, I’ve been in Chicago for three years. Aaron (drums) and Jeff (bass) have been here for that whole time, too. Jeff was a drummer originally, and we had to make him a bass player, ‘cause we already had a drummer (laughs).
The solo stuff was a lot more Americana-type stuff, and now we’re experimenting with a lot of textures, and it’s gotten pretty layered. It’d be great to gave a 4-piece or a 5-piece. Right now, we make use of just having the three of us. There’s a lot of changing of instruments on stage, so I’ve been forced to turn myself into a keyboard player. There’s a lot of movement onstage.

LEO: Does that affect the momentum?

DM: I actually feel like it helps us. I guess that’s my selfish opinion, I like a little bit of change, rather than he’s playing guitar, he’s playing bass and he’s playing drums, and that’s the look for the next 60 minutes. We do have a lot of gear, I guess it could be kind of awkward … (laughs) But I think it works to our advantage, to have different instruments, even if they don’t appear song after song.

LEO: I know I’m not the only one to hear a Beatles influence in your songs.

DM: Yeah, yeah — thanks! That’s a big compliment. And it’s also sort of what we were aiming for. With our debut, with this record, I wrote most of it in my apartment here in Chicago. I guess I became more interested in experimenting with sounds and layers of sound, rather than just strictly writing a song on guitar or piano. I think that makes finishing songs a lot more difficult, but I think it ultimately can lead to — for me, a lot of songs that I never would’ve been able to write three or four years ago. The record is by no means a concept album, but it is written to flow somewhat together. A lot of these songs were written almost in pairs. Thematically, I guess the biggest common theme would just be direction … it’s called The Atlas, (laughs) so … I think much of the reason that is what the whole record is about probably because there was a big change in direction from the solo stuff to what we’re doing now.

LEO: You’re from Columbus, lived in Louisville and Chicago, and recorded this album in Maine. Maybe changing directions is a natural theme for you.

DM: Yeah! Right. (laughs) We’re pretty excited, I think the show in Louisville is going to be the first of a couple week’s span, and then a couple weeks in October. Personally, I get in these modes where it feels better to be in as many different places as we can be. There’s something nice about waking up and not necessarily knowing where you are. I find it really hard to write while I’m traveling, but when I get home, it’s the best time to write. So, when I haven’t been gone for a while … it’s not writer’s block … I just get a lot of inspiration from being where I’m not supposed to be.

Fort Frances with JK Mabry
Friday, Sep. 23
The 930 Center
8 p.m., free
www.fortfrancesmusic.com

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Rosanne Cash’s memory banks

2011-09-21T16:23:00.001-04:00

Acclaimed singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash comes to the University of Louisville Kentucky Author Forum Monday for a well-paired interview with Nick Spitzer, the host of public radio’s “American Routes.” Cash recently published her memoir, “Composed,” and is already thinking about starting a second volume.

LEO: You’re coming to Louisville for a talk, instead of a performance.

Rosanne Cash: I know, I haven’t been to Louisville in a long time, so I’m really looking forward to it.

LEO: What kept you away from us for so long?

RC: I don’t know! (laughs) Someone tells me to show up somewhere and I go, and no one told me to show up in Louisville for a long time!

LEO: Do you have any fond memories of us?

RC: Well, King’s Record Shop, of course. That was a great moment, going to that store. I’m so sad it doesn’t exist anymore. There’s something to be said for brick and mortar record stores. I found a lot of records that way, flipping through the racks.

LEO: Do you enjoy doing interview shows, as opposed to putting on a full concert?

RC: I like it — it’s fun. I like the give-and-take. I particularly like the Q&A session. It interests me — what people think about, what moves them. I’m a social animal. I was doing one of these the other night, and some guy asked about the bass part on a song I had recorded. I love that!

LEO: You’ve got your book, “Composed,” to talk about, and (recent album) The List —

RC: And (greatest hits collection) Essential, that came out on my birthday.

LEO: Do you think it’s because of your age, or just your feelings right now about your career, that you’re in a reflective period?

RC: Well … partly? I mean, I’d hate to think it’s just that end-of-career, end-of-life thing, but I think I’m at the point where I have to reassemble — look at the past, draw from it, get another plan together, draw on the best of it to see the future, you know?

LEO: Absolutely. I wasn’t thinking about it as an end, more like a halfway point, where you —

RC: Yeah, re-gather your resources. But, see, some people tell me they don’t want an Essential done on them, because they think it means end-of-career, like it’s over. I didn’t take it that way at all.

LEO: How comfortable do you feel telling stories that not only represent you, but also other people, in your books and songs?

RC: Well, I don’t feel any responsibility for being factual in songs. I take poetic license left and right. I used to teach a songwriting workshop; a lot of young songwriters, I would suggest a change and they’d say, “That’s not how it happened,” and I’d say, “There’s no fact-checker here.” But, in the memoir, yeah, I felt a responsibility to be factual. In fact, I checked things out with my sister: “Do you remember it like this?,” because I think, if it’s got memoir on the cover, then it has to be factual.

LEO: Would you say that all songs are fictional by definition?

RC: No, I wouldn’t say they’re all fictional; they’re certainly drawn from my life. I haven’t written anything I got from television.

LEO: What do you think it is about writers that makes us want to describe things to other people?

RC: Oh, God, that impulse is as old as we are, isn’t it? To tell stories, to document, to observe … As an art fan, if I stand in front of a painting or hear a song that moves me and makes me think about my own life — that’s a common need in all of us, isn’t it?

LEO: Do you ever feel competitive toward other writers or songwriters?

RC: Is it awful if I say yes? (laughs) Of course I do! If I hear a song by Elvis (Costello) or Steve Earle and I go, “Damn! How did they get that one?”

LEO: And then you cover them later.

RC: Yeah, then I cover them later (laughs). Or, it’s inspirational. I want to get better, I want to say, “I want to write a song as good as that. I need to buckle down.”

Rosanne Cash
Monday, Sept. 26
Kentucky Center, Bomhard Theater
501 W. Main St.
www.kentuckyauthorforum.com
$20 (interview only), $100 (interview and dinner); 6 p.m.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

They Might Be Genius

2011-09-21T15:56:00.001-04:00

“Hello, Kentucky!”

They Might Be Giants’ John Flansburgh — the tall John of the group — is calling from his house in the Catskill Mountains of New York.

“We just finished two albums, and I just finished (producing) this Jonathan Coulton project as well, so my outbox is full,” Flansburgh says. Is he exhausted? “I’m kind of invigorated! It’s actually kind of an exciting moment — the songs are getting really good responses, kind of exceptional responses. You never know how things are gonna be received, or if the timing of what you’re doing is gonna be in sync with the world, but it feels like there’s a lot of interest — interest that has been dormant for a while.”

Join Us, the group’s 15th proper album, was released in July. It’s their first album for adults since 2007. The band, known for its prolific assortment of humorous, nerdy songs, has been the subject of a feature-length documentary, won two Grammys and, presumably, made a healthy amount of money writing the theme song for TV’s “Malcolm in the Middle.” They have also spent part of the last decade creating albums for kids and their Raffi-hating parents.

“In the last few years, we’ve been doing these family projects. We’ve kind of been off the scene for a while, in that radio sense. So it’s really interesting now — ‘They Might Be Giants on the radio? What?’ We have to make a video! No one’s said, ‘You have to make a video for your song,’ in like 10 years! The era of the rock video ended a long time ago — except when your song is getting played on the radio,” Flansburgh says. “So we’re rejoining Rihanna in the weird world of having to make videos. It’s kind of exciting. It’s always nice to have new material and be going out on tour, but … I don’t know, maybe the world’s catching up with us again.”

Flansburgh suggests that part of the secret to They Might Be Giants’ longevity is their inability to achieve the kind of success that Guns N’ Roses and Britney Spears found.

“I know where the money is — it’s not in music! Everybody can just relax. We figured out a way to not be broke. Getting through this world without being broke is still occasionally a struggle. Just being on the road is very expensive. I can’t believe how much money we can generate and still not be profitable. That’s the ultimate weird thing — we do very well in the U.S. in terms of live shows, but the expenses are just brutal. It took us a long time to get to where normal bands are — it took us a long time to graduate to a bus. We were in the van for 10 years.”

They Might Be Giants have been a thing since the early ’80s. “I would have a hard time recreating our early stuff,” Flansburgh says. “There’s some things about it that seem vaguely dated. I just don’t have that much love for gated reverb.”

The two Johns who lead the group have seen many eras come and go, surviving by doing
only what makes sense for them at the time.

“We’re the worst judges of where we land in the culture. I don’t know anything about how we’re understood, or misunderstood — there’s part of me that ... I get why we can do what we do, but I can’t imagine trying to explain that to a teenager. So much of music is caught up in identity politics, people are so concerned with whether people are truly ‘livin’ it.’

“I remember somebody on the road crew, in the early days of Marilyn Manson, saying he really liked him because ‘Manson was livin’ it.’ I just thought, like — living what? We are truly living the mild, lightly depressed, adult, prosaic lives that we explore in our songs.”

Flansburgh may be a veteran, but he’s still seen as a misfit in popular music. “It’s always struck me as really unfair that, if you’re in a band, you’re in competition with Prince. I can’t compete with Prince! Prince and I are the exact same age. He’s tiny, but loud — he’s an impressive dude, he’s like a superhero! It’s like being in competition with Thor. What we have to offer is so different from what’s being offered by so many others.”

"Waterfront Wednesday" with
They Might Be Giants,
J. Roddy Walston & the Business, and The Deloreans
Wednesday, Sept. 21
Waterfront Park, Big Four Lawn
www.theymightbegiants.com
Free; 6 p.m.

photo by Shervin Lainez

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Rock ’n’ soul gives back

2011-09-21T15:53:00.000-04:00

The Tedeschi Trucks Band began last year so that blues singer/guitarist Susan Tedeschi and her husband, Allman Brothers Band guitarist Derek Trucks, could spend more time together. Their merged band comes to Louisville for a special event on Saturday. LEO called Trucks at a hotel in Wisconsin last week.

LEO: You’re coming to Louisville for a benefit for cystic fibrosis. What is the band’s personal connection to that?
Derek Trucks: We try to do at least a handful of dates a year connected to either charities we’re familiar with or just situations where we feel like we’re giving back in some way. We got contacted about that show; it’s not a situation I was familiar with before, but it seemed like a good setup.

LEO: Do you ever feel guilty about being able to make money off of playing music?
DT: No. We work our asses off (laughs), and we aren’t making that much money! I’d feel more guilty if I was working in an office and trading numbers and making untold millions. When you show up and play music for people, it’s a positive experience for everybody. It’s not a zero-sum game where if we win, you lose (laughs). It’s one of the few things in life I think everybody can walk away from feeling better about.

LEO: Between your family, this band and your other bands, you’re one of the most family-oriented musicians I can think of.
DT: We try to keep it that way. A lot of that is circumstance, and a lot of it you have to nurture, too. We make sure that the people we’re on the road with are people you wanna … (laughs) … spend a huge part of your life with. With your family, you don’t choose who your family is, but you can choose how you deal with everybody. We’re pretty fortunate that way.

LEO: Do you feel you’ve learned from examples that you’ve seen around you, and in rock ’n’ roll and soul history, as far as seeing problems you can avoid?
DT: Oh, yeah. You learn a lot more about what not to do from the hundreds of thousands of stories out there. There’s a lot of career success stories, but not a lot of life success stories. Being around a lot of those people, playing in bands with some of those people, you get a real first-hand account of what went down, what works and what doesn’t. A lot of times, you have to go with instinct and buck trends, which we seem to do a lot. The conventional wisdom of “Don’t start a band with your wife,” or “During a recession, don’t put an 11-piece band together” (laughs) — these are all things people would say, “Not the best idea.” But it’s been great, man. It’s more than worth it.

"Rock Strong 4 Life"
With The Tedeschi Trucks Band, Gustavo Renovalez and
The G-Drive Band
Saturday, Sept. 24
Cardinal Stadium
2800 S. Floyd St.
www.facebook.com/RockStrongforLife
$34-$50; 6 p.m.

photo by James Minchin

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Brothers, without a doubt

2011-09-21T15:51:00.001-04:00

The Decline Effect will play their first show on Saturday, at Cahoots. Vocalist Dave Johnson, known for The Glasspack, tells LEO how he joined ex-members of Kinghorse and Malignant Growth to start Louisville’s newest supergroup:

“I found out (brothers) Mark and Chris (Abromavage) were starting a band. I sent Mark a bit of lyrics and links to pass to Chris since I did not know Chris very well. I obviously knew of Malignant Growth, but I had never known Chris. I had been going to school, studying philosophy with a concentration in social sciences and a minor in social change. My higher learning made me reconsider how I approach bands and lyrics. It made me discover how the nation’s ideology (subtly based on freedom and equality) is so ass-backwards to the way things really are (inequality and arbitrary meritocracy). I then came to the conclusion that with the new band, my voice was not just an instrument but a tool — to make people think and question why it could be that a few have everything while many have none, and the gap keeps widening.

“I do not think any longer of my voice as just an instrument or lyrics as unimportant. I have always felt that I wanted to say something more, but I needed a band, the opportunity to be an authentic frontman, and the knowledge to be more ‘MC5.’ Chris and Mark are those musician brothers that are tight as a knot on guitar and bass — and bicker a lot. I love it.

“The band is fun. We took the necessary time to put quality in front of quantity. The music itself, mostly riffs written by Mark, is wonderful. I stepped on this band-scene expecting some type of classic rock, but I got good old-fashioned Louisville hardcore punk-metal at its best, by definition, because these guys contributed to its origin. The rest of us contribute a bit to arrangement and everyone speaks their piece — balls-to-the-wall style.”

Find more info at www.facebook.com/TheDeclineEffect

photo by Sherry Ambromovage

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

An awkward chat with Hannibal Buress

2011-09-21T15:03:00.000-04:00

Hannibal Buress has written for “Saturday Night Live” and “30 Rock,” released a CD, performed stand-up on late night TV and all over the world, and is currently developing his own TV series. He is 28 years old.

Chris Rock said, “If Steven Wright, Mos Def and Dave Chappelle had a baby, that would be disgusting, but it would sound like Hannibal Buress.”

Q: Do you like people? All the everyday stuff people do seems to bother you, and gives you your best material.

Hannibal Buress: Yeah, I like people, yeah. Everybody has stuff that bothers them about other people. That doesn’t mean I hate people.

Q: Yes, but most people don’t write it down and turn it into jokes.

HB: Stand-up comedians do. So yeah, I like some people.

Q: You were in the documentary “The Awkward Kings of Comedy.” How do you feel about that label?

HB: It’s alright. I think it helps get the project attention and brand it a bit. I don’t consider myself awkward.

Q: You seem comfortable onstage. Do you get stage fright?

HB: No, I don’t — I mean, it depends on the show. I’ve enjoyed it for a while, so I feel pretty comfortable whether I’m trying out new material or it’s TV. Every now and then when I get on TV, I get a little nervous about being on TV but, for the most part, I just go to the gigs and see what happens.

Q: You left “30 Rock” recently. Do you have plans, or are you just concentrating on stand-up now?

Q: I’m concentrating on stand-up now, and trying to do more acting. I’m going to audition for some stuff, and hopefully my friends will put me in stuff.

Q: Do you have any interest in trying to get your own show?

HB: That would be really cool, to have my own show. I would like to come up with some ideas and see what happens.

Q: Would you want a network show, or something more off-beat?

HB: Depends on what I’m able to come up with, and where it would fit. If I had a really good network idea, that’d be great. If I had a really good cable idea, then that’s great also. If I had a show, I would want it to go in a place where it could flourish and grow. The network isn’t that important to me.

Q: Who are some comics you like these days?

HB: I’m a big fan of Patrice O’Neal. John Mulaney is great. Sean Patton. Another guy, Damien Lemon, in New York, is really funny. Jeffrey Joseph. There’s so many, man.

Q: Have you been to Louisville before?

HB: No, I haven’t.

Q: Do you have any ideas or expectations about people here?

HB: No, I would just expect that people would come to the comedy club and laugh and buy drinks and leave. That’s what happens when I go to most cities.

Q: I’ve read that you’ve become known for mocking journalists and their dumb questions, sometimes, after the interview. What’s my worst question so far?

HB: Your worst one was opening up with “Do you like people?” That was pretty bad. (laughs)

Good vibrations

2011-09-14T16:14:00.001-04:00

Mayor Fischer talks music with LEO Weekly

On a warm Friday night in July, Mayor Greg Fischer greeted thousands of music fans at Waterfront Park. The mostly under-25 crowd had gathered at the Forecastle Festival to hear some of the freshest new dance and hip-hop sounds, only to be greeted by a guy who not only looks like their dad, but is also the embodiment of navy suit-wearing power. Little did they know that his love of Bob Marley is as great as his love of leading Louisville.

That night, Fischer was accompanying Forecastle founder J.K. McKnight, who told the crowd that Fischer had deep musical roots, having been a concert promoter while studying economics in college. Intrigued, LEO asked our mayor for an interview to discuss his musical interests. The discussion covered not only his wonder years, but also the troubles facing the Louisville Orchestra, the viability of local venues, My Morning Jacket, what’s on his iPod and his affinity for reggae.

LEO: I saw you at the Forecastle Festival, where J.K. McKnight told the crowd that you had been a concert promoter when you were in college.

Greg Fischer: When I was a college freshman, looking for something to sink my teeth into, I got involved with the concerts committee at Vanderbilt University. I actually started at the Good Woman Coffeehouse. It was two large dorm towers, and we had a coffeehouse in the basement. Being in Nashville, there were all kinds of opportunities for musicians that lived there and for folks that were just traveling through. The Good Woman held probably 200 people. The drinking age at that time was 18, so it was a very vibrant place. That’s really where I learned to be a small promoter and producer, and put on lights and music and things like that. From there, I went on and worked with the concerts committee. We were the largest student-run concert committee in the country, so we’d have about 25 concerts a year.

The best one ever was one of Bob Marley’s last shows in December of 1979. He died about a year later. They were doing a tour of the country … I was the co-chair of the committee, along with a guy named Steve Buchanan, who now runs Gaylord Entertainment. And the other guy that was with us was Ken Levitan. Ken is one of the biggest names in music now.

What happened was, the promoter for Bob Marley called and said, “We’d like to play Nashville.” I was always a big reggae fan, so I said, “That’s great! But we don’t have any money left, our semester’s budget has all been spent.” And he wanted to do it in a very short time frame ... So I said, “How much is Bob Marley?” “$25,000.” I said, “I’ll give you 6.” He said, “How about 8?” I said, “Done.”

So we put this Bob Marley show together in three weeks, and it was a wonderful experience. He was touring around the country, spreading a positive vibration …

That was one of the biggest. Ray Charles came there. What was really fun, too, was we had a blues festival in the fall, so Muddy Waters was the headliner, Paul Butterfield, and I think we had the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Jimmie Vaughan’s band. We’d met Stevie Ray Vaughan six months before that. He was young, I think about 18 or 19. This would’ve been ’79. He was going to come and do a show for us, he was like $1,500. We were one of the early people to discover him. But his bus broke down in Mississippi. He called and said, “I need you to pay for fixing my bus to get to the show,” and we’d heard a lot of that kind of stuff, so it was like, we can’t do that.

It was a great education for me, because I negotiated the contracts and that type of thing, I had a lot of responsibility at an early age. It was like getting an MBA while I was in college; some people do sports or fraternities, but I did music and concert promotions.

LEO: How did you discover reggae in the ’70s, when you were a kid?

GF: I just liked the beat, I don’t know where I was originally introduced to it. Probably going to spring break in warm places, I guess (laughs), I don’t know.

LEO: That sounds like a Jimmy Buffett song.

GF: Yeah. But that’s led to some fun stuff now that I’m mayor. I think festivals are great because they bring people together to celebrate. You can have a wonderful event that people are drawn to by some common bond, whatever type of music it might be. I think it’s great to build these up from scratch, have people come and then leave with a positive vibration.

Louisville has a strong history of festivals, so we want to amplify that. I’ve always been a fan of J.K. McKnight’s because I went to his first Forecastle because I just notice these type of things. There was probably just a couple of hundred people at the first one in Tyler Park, and I’ve admired the way that he’s grown that over the years, and I think his association with AC Entertainment … is going to be very good for Louisville.

LEO: Do you think it can be as big as Bonnaroo or Coachella, or one of the larger festivals?

GF: Forecastle? I hope that they see that as a different type of product than Bonnaroo. It’ll grow and be very successful, but I think Bonnaroo has its own stand-alone kind of deal. Now, I do hope that we can have some kind of strategic partnership with AC Entertainment, one way or another.

I know we’ve got other venues here in town that we need to start to optimize, like Iroquois Amphitheater should be a must-stop for bands coming through the Southeast. I’d like to see tens and tens and tens of shows there, to where you’re thinking, “We don’t have anything going on this weekend, let’s see what’s playing at the amphitheater.” And that should be people within a 100-mile radius, from Louisville to Cincinnati to Lexington to Nashville, should be thinking about that. We’ve got a great venue there, it’s just not being utilized that way. Louisville Gardens has got a way to go. It’s a nice, 5,000-seat indoor venue — we don’t have anything like that that’s active for entertainment, so it needs an upgrade. That will be a part, I hope, of the whole Center City solution, that will draw a lot more people to come to town, as well.

Headliners seems to be doing well. They’ve got new ownership there, and they seem to be doing a good job. We’ve got a lot of places for outdoor concerts — Waterfront Wednesday’s been amazing, what’s happening with that. Is the new location permanent, do you know?

LEO: I don’t know if it’s confirmed as the permanent location.

GF: That’s added a real nice element to it, being there by the ramp to the bridge — and that amphitheater’s there by Waterfront Park. That’s a great venue. I think we’ve got a lot of potential that’s not being touched on as a city. We’re certainly big enough to support these acts in the city, in the region, so we’ll be working on that.

LEO: So what’s on your iPod right now?

GF: Well, most of my kids’ music is what’s on there. I’m kind of stuck in reggae, really.

LEO: Really?

GF: Yeah.

LEO: Do you keep up with it, or just the classic stuff?

GF: You know, Bob Marley’s kids have actually done some good music, so I like the classic reggae. Some of the newer reggae, from the 1980s on, the more DJ kind of stuff — you know, the stuff that was the precursor to rap, really — I’m not so much into that …

… Van Morrison … and I am a My Morning Jacket fan. I think they put on a great show. Did you go to the show that was here a couple of months ago?

LEO: Yes.

GF: What was the gal’s name that sang with them?

LEO: Erykah Badu.

GF: Yeah, I mean, she was over the top, I thought. That was just a beautiful, beautiful combination. So, I need to expand more into the modern era, I’m not taking the time to do that … if you would lend me your iPod, or give me a suggested playlist, I’d be interested in that.

What 91.9 plays, I tend to like that; I don’t know if that means I’m getting older, I don’t know … Ben Sollee, another good guy who does some very interesting stuff. You don’t have to look far to find good music. I tend not to like stuff that’s jarring. I just tend to like to get into a groove and not be too assaulted by the music.

LEO: What about the orchestra, what do you suggest for their situation?

GF: You know, one twist on that that not many people are talking about — and I’ve spoken to J.K. about that — is, “What are orchestras doing to be more popular among younger listeners?” There’s emerging, independent local music and the orchestra. We should be really vibrant here, we’ve got a great local music scene and part of that is the orchestra. Regardless of whatever the resolution is, we’ve got to see that come back. (Late last month) I met with management and some of the players. They’re far apart.

What makes this complicated is that it’s a financial situation, but then it’s an artistic situation, too. To play at the opera in the pit, that’s what, a 40-member orchestra? And the full classical orchestra is 70, 72, something like that? So there’s several moving parts to figuring this out. You can’t just say, “We’re gonna have 40 players and that’s it,” because then you can’t do a full repertoire of what the orchestra can do. So, I’m not qualified to make those judgments. What we’ve encouraged them to do, to help them, is to get a consultant that they both agree on, that understands the financial aspects and the musical aspects. The city, obviously, wants its orchestra, but it’s got to be a financially viable plan to where it’s not dependent on rescue donors every year. I’ve talked to these rescue donors, and they’re all saying, “We need a long-term, sustainable plan to figure it out.” I’m hopeful that will occur. It’s not like we’re the only city fighting this battle, there’s a bunch of other cities that we can learn from, in terms of what works in an artistic sense and from a budgetary sense, as well. You got any ideas?

LEO: Nope.

GF: Are you a musician?

LEO: No. Do you play anything?

GF: No. Our kids all play drums or piano or violin, but I’m pretty clueless.

I always wanted to be a good blues harp player, harmonica player. When we were in Nashville, Tim Krekel was living in Nashville at the time, making a living as a songwriter. He and a guy named Fingers Taylor were good buddies. Fingers was the harmonica player for the Jimmy Buffett band, that’s where those guys hooked up. So, we would do these independent parties, they’d bring all their guys in, I think they called it the “All-Star Rock and Roll Revue” or something like that. These guys were hardcore rockers in their day. So we’d asked them to play, “Sure,” just whoever’s gonna show up is gonna show up. They’d play at one of our houses. They were friends and associates and just great musicians. It was a wonderful opportunity to bring their buddies and jam, all kinds of people would show up and really enjoy it.

College is a unique time, especially when you can enjoy music and be exposed to music. I think it was a great influence on me, I learned a lot about business and finance and management, as well.

A couple of years ago, I meshed my interests in interfaith activity — I’ve done a lot with the Festival of Faiths here — and music. One night, I brought 25 musicians to town, called “Roads To You.” They were 25 musicians under the age of 25 from all over the world, so you end up with Muslims and Jews and Hindus and Christians playing music together. We had 75 different shows within one big period. Part of the deal was the kids would play great music, then talk about their countries and their lives. Say, “OK, Muslims and Jews make good music together, why doesn’t the world work that way?” So we’ve used that as an opportunity to teach kids about international music and international relations, as well. It was a really great week for the community, great cultural, musical, interfaith week for the city.

Photo by Michael Stewart

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Comedy, tragedy: Too soon — or perfect timing?

2011-09-08T11:49:00.003-04:00

As an earthquake rocked Japan last March, flooding the streets and threatening nuclear power plants, Alec Sulkin, a writer for the animated TV comedy “Family Guy,” decided to share his humorous thoughts on Twitter.

“If you wanna feel better about this earthquake in Japan, google ‘Pearl Harbor death toll,’” wrote Sulkin. Though he likely expected praise from comedy fans for his hilarious insights, Sulkin soon found himself apologizing instead.

“Yesterday death toll = 200. Today = 10 thousand. I am sorry for my insensitive tweet. It’s gone.”

Meanwhile, comedian Gilbert Gottfried tweeted, “I was talking to my Japanese real estate agent. I said, ‘Is there a school in this area?’ She said, ‘Not now, but just wait.’”

Sulkin kept his job as a TV joke writer, but Gottfried got fired from his job as the voice of the Aflac duck.

Was either man wrong for joking while people died? Is it funnier when 200 die than 10,000? Or was their mistake joking about a current tragedy instead of one long past?

Q: What did Ted Kennedy tell Mary Jo when he found out she was pregnant? A: We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

In Woody Allen’s 1989 movie “Crimes and Misdemeanors,” a character shares his comedy philosophy, one that has since become commonplace. “If it bends, it’s funny. If it breaks, it’s not funny … You’ve got to get back from the pain … Comedy is tragedy plus time. The night Lincoln was shot, you couldn’t make a joke about it … Now, time has gone by, it’s fair game.”

So was the 1969 joke about Kennedy’s tragic accident funnier then, or now?

“My only thought is ‘never’ too soon for funny. Funny is so subjective, though, and one man’s hysterical is another’s heretical,” says Andrew Solmssen, a comedian from Los Angeles who has been in comedy for more than a decade. “I was with people the day of 9/11 who were finding comedy in the coverage and the hysteria, and even the morbid stuff like the jumpers, and some of the things they said would not have been universally funny. But they were funny to me, and it helped get me and all of the people I was with through it.”

“As a New Yorker, you constantly come across people whose lives were impacted by 9/11,” says Gayle Kussoy, who works for a nonprofit in Queens. “I think the most important thing one can do is be respectful of that, so any jokes should be avoided.”

“Nothing is really offensive — it’s either funny or not funny,” argues Louisville comedian Raanan Hershberg. “So when a joke that’s not funny is made, one processes it, and their intellectual justification for not laughing is that it’s offensive — but really, the issue is that it’s not funny, and that’s why you’re even processing it in the first place. The only thing sacred in comedy is that nothing is sacred ... Make fun of it all, just make sure you’re funny.”

Q: What do Christa McAuliffe and Donna Rice have in common? A: They both went down on the challenger.

In 1986, the preceding joke was timely, in awful taste and, as jokes go, pretty clever. To those who witnessed the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, it was a vivid reminder of life’s tragedies. To supporters of Sen. Gary Hart, it was a pre-Clinton confirmation that getting caught in a sex scandal would be lethal to a charismatic Democratic presidential hopeful. To anyone under 30 today, however, it probably just sounds like a sex joke about a handsome boxer.

Last week, the Huffington Post ran an item in their comedy section called “Funniest Post-Hurricane Irene Tweets So Far,” featuring tweets like, “I didn’t even get halfway through my emergency beer stash. #ireneregrets.”

Gilbert Gottfried didn’t make their list, but not for lack of trying. “My thoughts and prayers are with victims of the East Coast Earthquake who had their cell phones temporarily disrupted,” he tweeted on Aug. 25.

This time, when many were annoyed by media hype — and “only” 40 lives were lost — no one complained that his jokes were “too soon.”

No-Play List

2011-09-08T11:46:00.004-04:00

On Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, our nation was attacked. All normal sense of everyday life and logical thought was overtaken by fear, and that was true at the corporate level as well as on the streets of Manhattan. The country’s largest radio chain, Clear Channel, soon issued a list of songs that were not — legally speaking — “banned”; they were merely suggestions for local programmers to consider avoiding. Explanations were not provided.

Either way, the list itself suggested censorship of the weirdest kind. While all Rage Against the Machine songs were forbidden, the band Bad Religion was left alone but Godsmack’s song “Bad Religion” made the cut.

Any songs about “falling” in love were in trouble.

Some selections only make sense in that they exist on the border of racism and xenophobia (The Bangles’ “Walk Like an Egyptian,” The Clash’s “Rock the Casbah,” Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”). Some refer to New York in some irrelevant way (The Drifters’ “On Broadway”), Chicago (“The Night Chicago Died” by Paper Lace) or Los Angeles (Everclear’s “Santa Monica”).

Some excerpts from a very long list:
Louis Armstrong — “What a Wonderful World"
Barenaked Ladies — “Falling for the First Time"
The Beatles — “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds”
Pat Benatar — “Love Is a Battlefield”
Brooklyn Bridge — “Worst That Could Happen”
Neil Diamond — “America”
Dio — “Holy Diver”
Shelly Fabares — “Johnny Angel”
Filter — “Hey Man, Nice Shot”
Foo Fighters — “Learn to Fly”
Fuel — “Bad Day”
The Gap Band — “You Dropped a Bomb On Me”
Norman Greenbaum — “Spirit in the Sky”
The Happenings — “See You in September”
Carole King — “I Feel the Earth Move”
Korn — “Falling Away from Me”
Limp Bizkit — “Break Stuff”
Lynyrd Skynyrd — “Tuesday’s Gone”
Dave Matthews Band — “Crash Into Me”
Alanis Morrissette — “Ironic”
Red Hot Chili Peppers — “Under the Bridge”
Rolling Stones — “Ruby Tuesday”
Steam — “Na Na Na Na Hey Hey”
The Surfaris — “Wipeout”
U2 — “Sunday Bloody Sunday”

The Shondes walk the walk, rock the rock

2011-09-08T11:44:00.002-04:00

Like most bands today, The Shondes are a queer political Jewish punk band. OK, so maybe they’re pretty unique, but the Brooklyn residents are more than a novelty — they’re a band first, and they write songs about their lives and their interests like everyone else. Currently on tour promoting their third album, Searchlights, the band has also been dealing with violinist Elijah Oberman’s cancer struggle.

LEO: Louisville audiences might know more about punk rock than they do about Judaism. Can you explain the interrelatedness of the two?
Elijah Oberman: Well, there’s certainly a rich history of Jewish punks, but for us, it’s mostly about allowing our music to be the place where all the things that inspire us interact and merge together naturally when we’re creative. So we’re each inspired, in different ways, by aspects of Judaism and also steeped in different kinds of Jewish music, from liturgical to Klezmer. I don’t think I can point to a song or part of a song and say, “That’s Jewish!,” but it’s in there somewhere, and people tell us they can hear it. When you’re making music, all these different parts of you percolate and combine, and that’s really exciting to me.

LEO: What causes more confusion or weirdness on the road — Jewishness, queerness or being from Brooklyn?
EO: (laughs) I think what surprises people most is when we say we’re Jewish in the context of being pro-Palestine activists — yes, there’s lots of us out there. But honestly, I don’t think people are very confused by us. I think people come to see us because they’re excited about who we are and the music we make. It’s usually our music that people are surprised by and talk about, that magical thing that happens when something moves you and you weren’t quite expecting it. That’s the best part of performing.

LEO: How do you feel about the current state of LGBT rules and regulations in the U.S.?
EO: It’s really important to me that there be safety and justice and dignity for queer and trans people in the U.S. and around the world. Rules, regulations and laws can be an important part of that, but it’s not everything. A lot of the organizations I support aren’t doing work on gay marriage or Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, which I know are the queer issues getting the most media and governmental attention right now. They’re working on things like supporting homeless queer youth, stopping police brutality and trans rights in prisons and foster care, and talking about how these issues disproportionately affect queer people of color and poor people. It’s not that I don’t care about gay marriage, but I care about these things more.

LEO: How is your health today?
EO: I’m doing well, thank you. It’s been a really hard year, and I’m cancer-free, but still have a ways to go in terms of recovering from chemo and getting strong again, finding a new balance in my life, and processing what I’ve been through. It’s just the next step in the journey. It’s definitely been a life-changing experience in a lot of really awful ways, but in a lot of really good ways, too. I’m grateful to have been given that opportunity for that learning and also the chance to have a healthy long life, so I can act on what I’ve learned and do something good with it.

The Shondes with Madame Machine and Ohlm
Sunday, Sept. 11
The Rudyard Kipling
422 W. Oak St.
www.shondes.com
$5; 7 p.m.

The Ladybirds Have Another One

2011-09-07T20:30:00.002-04:00

If you’re a fan of The Ladybirds, you should probably thank Brett Holsclaw for their new album, Shimmy Shimmy Dang!

Four years ago, the Louisville band released Whiskey and Wine, a well-received debut that promised plenty of fun times. But the curse of the fallen drummer did not spare them.

“Honestly, dude, we went through so many drummers, we were treading water for so long,” laments Jaxon Lee Swain, the band’s bassist and co-founder with his wife, singer Sarah Teeple, and guitarist Max Balliet.

The trio met several years ago in Bloomington, Ind. “We were good friends with Max’s older sister, so Max would come up to Bloomington and party and play with his band at her house. We found that we had a lot of musical tastes in common and really enjoyed hanging out together,” Teeple says. “When Jaxon and I moved on from Bloomington, we came down here with the idea of starting The Ladybirds with Max, but didn’t know how it was going to pan out. Our original idea was for me to be the singer and have three back-up singers, a la The Shangri-Las, so it was always us three. Then we went through a series of drummers.”

The band took their name from “Ladybird,” a song by the warped duo of Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood, whose music influenced the band. The cover of Shimmy features a photo of Sinatra, enhanced by local artist Dan Davis.

The band also stayed local when they signed their record deal with Departure Records’ Greg Carter.

“Greg is our neighbor,” Swain says. “We went to a neighborhood block watch meeting —”

“The only neighborhood watch meeting we’ve ever been to —” continues Teeple with a laugh.

“Greg was like, ‘You probably don’t remember me, I’m the guy that comes to your shows,’” continues Swain, “and I’d talked to him before.”

“Our good buddy Scott Mertz had just signed with Departure, so we had him in common,” Teeple says. “We knew each other, he expressed interest ...”

And so a partnership was formed.

The Ladybirds’ point of view can be explained simply: “Just having fun,” Teeple says.

To which Swain adds, “Rock ‘n’ roll music.”

JLS: We try to elaborate, like, y’know, ’50s, ’60s rock ‘n’ roll.
ST: You don’t want to say “classic rock,” because that makes us seem like Lynyrd Skynyrd or something. Often we’ll add further elaboration — there’s hints of rockabilly, punk rock …
JLS: Country music.
ST: We started out as punk rockers and … this is what happened (laughs).

Getting to this point “was a long, hard road,” says Swain, as both laugh ruefully.

“We’ve been with Brett for a couple of years now,” Teeple says. “(Keyboardist) Anthony (Fossaluzza) joined us probably about four years ago. His organ playing adds a lot, and that’s kind of shifted our direction a bit, opened us up in a really great way. We all work really well together and have so much fun. But, yeah, it’s been a circuitous route to get here.”

“We almost called the album Circuital,” jokes Swain, whose wife adds vocals to the My Morning Jacket song “Holdin’ On to Black Metal” from that album.

“We counted — I think we had seven or eight drummers, but we had two of them twice,” Teeple laughs. “We’re still on good terms with them.”

JLS: It just didn’t work out.
ST: It’s kind of funny … “Hey, you know that one cliché ...?”
JLS: That’s been our lives for the past few years. Now that we’ve got Brett, it’s great. That was a very trying period, and that’s why it took so long … We thought our songs were worth getting out there.
ST: And I think our ability to have a lot of fun together — sometimes, when the stress levels would get up there, we’d still be able to stay up too late and listen to records and drink beer and have a lot of fun together. That always keeps us coming back for more.

The Ladybirds with Those Darlins, DR Country & DJ Woodrow on the Radio
Friday, Sept. 9
Headliners Music Hall
1386 Lexington Road • 584-8088
www.ladybirdsrock.com
$10; 9 p.m.

Keeping up with of Montreal’s dance noise

2011-08-31T10:00:00.001-04:00

If the mark of a true artist is an inability to sit still, to repeat something just because it worked once, then — even if for no other reason — of Montreal bandleader Kevin Barnes is definitely an artist.

Even those not in sync with of Montreal’s ever-shifting directions would have a hard time denying Barnes’ abilities, though. Including Barnes himself.

“Everything I write is poppy; there are elements that are always melodic,” he says of his songwriting, laughing and seemingly embarrassed by a skill many would like to be burdened with. “I’m always trying to explore different possibilities. It’s more exciting, because I’ve written so many dance-y pop songs over the years, so I’m always looking for new inspiration, looking for new directions to go in. I don’t ever want to be a self-caricature. I want to constantly evolve.”

Barnes is in total control in the studio, a place he goes to every day. On tour, he has a small studio in the back of his bus.

LEO: How much writing can you get done on the road?
Kevin Barnes: Not very much; usually, when I’m touring, I write a lot more lyrics than I do music.

LEO: Do you collaborate with others while you’re out together touring?
KB: Not so much ... I don’t really do that much collaborating.

of Montreal began in the mid-’90s, one of many psychedelic pop bands associated with the Elephant 6 collective based in Athens, Ga. Like another fan of psychedelia, Prince, of Montreal has evolved toward becoming a high-energy funk band in recent years. Their latest record, The Controllosphere, was “definitely influenced by Parliament and a lot of funky stuff, and also incorporating a slightly noisier element to things, experimenting with that … Trying to get out of the super-catchy pop trip that I’ve been on for a while now,” Barnes says.

LEO: How challenging is it to balance funk with noise that’s hard to dance to?
KB: I guess it all depends on what you want to do. When I’m making music, it’s definitely coming from a more selfish place, exploring my own psyche. I mean, I do release records because I do, on some level, require affirmation or whatever it is. Also, because I’m excited about it and I want to share it with people. But I don’t really think that much about, “Oh, this song’s going to make people dance,” or “This song’s going to make people sad.” With the dancing thing, with my music, there’s lots of starts and stops and key changes, tempo changes, that really go against what you consider “dance music.” Most dance music is repetitive, you’ve got to keep the groove going, but a lot of times I just get bored. Within 30 seconds, I want it to change, come up with something different. So I’m definitely not the best writer, in that way, getting people on the dance floor and creating a party. But that’s not really my goal … The only thing I really think about is wanting to give the audience something exceptional. I don’t ever want to go on stage and have it be flat and lame and uninspired.

Of Montreal is known for filling their concerts with colorful costumes and props, and Barnes is more willing to give up control when it’s time for the show.

KB: Oh yeah, you have to dive in at some point. By the first or second show of a tour, it’s pretty obvious, “Oh, that thing we wanted to do with that one costume is stupid, it’s just not working.” None of us have any problem with that, we just want to do something that feels right and feels good. Whether it’s completely opposite of what we originally envisioned doesn’t matter, because the main goal is just feeling good about the show.

LEO: So where is the future taking you, music-wise?
KB: I’m kind of in a strange place right now, artistically, making a lot of songs that I’m not really sure how people will feel about them; I think they’ll probably turn a lot of people off and maybe bring in some new people. I guess that’s just how it goes. I feel like more artists should take more chances. A lot of people just figure out something that works and just do it till they burn out on it. I just want to keep taking chances, trying new things, staying vulnerable and staying excited.

of Montreal with Yip Deceiver & Kishi Bashi
Monday, Sept. 5
Headliners Music Hall
1386 Lexington Road • 584-8088
www.ofmontreal.net
$15; 9 p.m.

Preaching to the choir with Amon Amarth

2011-08-17T22:29:00.001-04:00

Whether you want to classify them as Vikings, hobbits or death metal pioneers, Stockholm’s Amon Amarth want to challenge your ideas. The ever-evolving band of warriors returns to Louisville’s metal-loving South End on Tuesday, infecting their fans with increasingly melodic yet still-heavy tuneage from their ninth album, Surtur Rising, in addition to well-loved classic hits from their 20 years together.

LEO spoke with leader Johan Hegg, who — to this reporter’s ears — speaks like a “Die Hard” villain.

LEO: Are audiences any different in Scandinavia than in the U.S.?
Johan Hegg: (laughs) Metalheads are metalheads.

LEO: For those of our readers who don’t know much about metal, what sets Amon Amarth apart from others?
JH: From the category of music we grew out of, which is death metal, we are a very melodic band. I think that’s something that’s very different. There’s also a melancholy to our music, which is actually very unique.

LEO: The new album was inspired by the Surtur legend, is that right?
JH: It’s not a concept album, no. There’s only two songs like that on the album. It’s a pretty fascinating story behind that, really — it deals with the end of the world and all that follows. It’s a very violent part of the story, but also very sad, because even the hero dies.

LEO: Do you do a lot of reading that influences your writing?
JH: Yeah, I read a lot on different topics. But a lot of stuff that influences my lyrics is everyday stuff — stuff that happens in the world or in my life in general. It doesn’t necessarily have to be Norse mythology — although, I’m a huge fan of that history and use it as a metaphor for the topics I want to discuss. I don’t really want to preach to anybody, but the things I bring up in my lyrics are usually not that interesting to anybody but myself (laughs).

LEO: Do the other guys in the band know what you’re singing about?
JH: Some get it, some don’t … I don’t care (laughs).

LEO: You said you don’t want to preach, but you write a lot about religion. How do you feel about the role of religion in Scandinavia versus in the U.S.?
JH: Having been over to the U.S. many times, I can tell that religion is a bigger part of people’s lives, in general, than it is here. This country is much more secularized than the U.S. is. It also depends on where in the U.S. you go; you go to the major cities, it’s less so. That’s also kind of the same over here.

LEO: How do you feel about the role of religion here, as opposed to in your country?
JH: Personally, I don’t like the form religion has taken. The institution of the church as something to allow people to have spiritual enhancement is just bullshit. I don’t mind if you believe in God, go ahead, but you shouldn’t have to go to church to be interested in that — it’s just bullshit. I think what religion is today is mainly a power tool for people to keep other people in control.

LEO: Do you ever have problems with people telling the band, “You can’t do this” or “You should try to do something more commercial”?
JH: No. Never happens with us, actually. We’ve been with Metal Blade Records now since 1997, and we’ve always had a good connection with those guys. They love metal, and we are, by far, not the most brutal band they’ve signed. So we’ve never had any discussions on that stuff, no.

LEO: What can we look forward to with your live show?
JH: We’re doing a very aggressive and gritty show. We’re performing the new album in its entirety, and then we come back after a short break and play other stuff. It’s two-and-a-half hours of music, and it’s a very energetic and great show. We’re looking forward to getting back to Kentucky, it’s been a while.

Amon Amarth
Tuesday, Aug. 23
Expo Five
2900 Seventh St. Road • 645-1820
www.amonamarth.com
$20; 8 p.m.

Def Leppard’s amazing race to maturity

2011-08-17T22:29:00.000-04:00

Phil Collen, 53, joined Def Leppard as a guitarist in 1982, after a successful run with the glam metal band Girl. LEO caught up with him at a Starbucks.

LEO: You’re known for performing shirtless. Are you wearing a shirt now?
PC: Right! Yeah, actually, I’m wearing a shirt right now, so I guess it’s a disguise.

LEO: The last time you were in Louisville, a friend of mine was surprised to see you guys in a Starbucks, ordering decaf lattes. How do you balance being a rock star vs. being a regular guy in real life?
Phil Collen: Easy, actually. I’ve always led a very normal life. I go to the beach all the time, and me and my wife are just hanging here, right now, at Starbucks, yeah. Sometimes people go, “Dude, I love your album, I’ve got your stuff,” it’s great. The only time anything’s ever really happened was years ago, in the ’80s at a Bon Jovi concert in Japan; I got mobbed by a gang of girls and someone tried to tear a hair out.

LEO: You’re know as a studio band. Why a live album now?
PC: Well, we took our first break in 30 years. We took a year off, after being wrapped up in that cycle of album/tour/album/tour. I enjoyed having time to reflect. We got to look back at some of the live stuff – we took it from two tours, in 2008 and 2009. Our producer, who’s our out-front sound guy, literally marked off good versions of songs. It wasn’t a real daunting task, where we’re having to listen to 100 versions of “Pour Some Sugar On Me.” It’d be, like, maybe two.

LEO: 5 songs with “rock” in the title (“Rock! Rock! (Till You Drop),” “Rocket,” “Rock On,” “Rock of Ages,” “Let’s Get Rocked”) appear on this album. Are you aware that 20% of your set involves “rock” in some way?
PC: I think that’s probably the lack of imagination of a teenage boy. When these songs were written, that’s what you’re dealing with. It’s one of those things – be careful what you wish for. You want to be a rock star, then you go, “Shit, we’ve got all these songs, ‘Rock’ this, ‘Rock’ that”… But to be quite honest, they are rockin’ songs; they kind of work in that way. I do think that that’s what happens with younger guys – before you travel and get a different view of the world. So much has happened – politically, socially, spiritually – just from traveling around the world. I guess if we were to write songs about “rockin’ out” now, it wouldn’t be where we’re actually at.

LEO: What inspires you these days?
PC: You meet people, you grow, you get more experience, you see how the world works… I think it’s great, traveling. I’ve been in the most amazing conversations around the world – in India, talking to someone about the prime minister; In Russia, I talked to a dissident. I wouldn’t have had that opportunity, talking to people all over the world. You can say, “I’ve got songs about rockin’ out, and I’ve had a conversation with an arms dealer.” All of a sudden you can put that in your book of experiences, and you just constantly grow. It’s good to be open minded, you can let all these things in, if you write songs or books or poems or paint, even. You can let all this out in an artist way. It’s fantastic, and I really appreciate it. I didn’t really realize that when I went into it in the first place, when I took up the guitar, that it would take me to all these places. You can talk to people on either side of the political fence and, if you’re open minded, you can become an ambassador. Hopefully, you can do some of that in your music, as well.

LEO: Do you have any favorite young bands today?
PC: Something happened – this isn’t just ’cause of the internet, but I think the motivation changed. People want to be famous and rich, but they don’t necessarily want to have an artistic expression. I think that’s a big difference, if you listen to the Beatles, the Stones, Hendrix, Bob Dylan, there was an expression, regardless of genre. If you listen to Erykah Badu, she is an artist, she gets her shit out, what she wants to get out there. There’s some great stuff out there, but you have to dig in and reach for it. There’s not a lot of it.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Andra Suchy

2011-08-10T20:43:00.001-04:00

Like Woody Allen, Garrison Keillor is a prolific, older wordsmith who thrives on collaborating (artistically) with younger, more vibrant women. Andra Suchy fills that role Sunday evening for a live, not-for-radio performance of “A Prairie Home Companion” at the Kentucky Center.

LEO: How would you describe your music to someone who hasn't heard you yet?
AS: Country/Folk or Americana.

LEO: What inspires your songs?
AS: Mostly my experiences and emotions, but sometimes I am inspired simply by the act of writing. Sometimes it's a particular melody or the instrument I write with that inspires what comes next. Occasionally I set out to write specifically on a particular subject, but I think the best stuff comes more on its own.

LEO: Do you write on a schedule, or whenever inspiration strikes?
AS: Hmmm ... I do both, especially if there is some sort of deadline for a project, or I have been particularly busy and time is hard to come by.

LEO: How do your surroundings inspire your music?
AS: I am very inspired by nature and the seasons and the nostalgia that can accompany them. Sometimes I write about that sort of stuff from my memory as well.

LEO: How much do you feel inspired by other forms of American pop or ethnic music genres?
AS: I really appreciate many genres. I was brought up with so much music from so many angles, it truly deepened my appreciation and also the pool of musical inspiration.

LEO: In the studio, how much do you try to capture your live sound? How free do you feel to experiment with sounds you might not be able to recreate live?
AS: I guess that depends on the specific situation. I really try to get the best representation of the song. Sometimes that comes from a more raw place and sometimes more refined. I guess I don't follow any rigid rules.

LEO: Do you get a lot of groupies?
AS: Hmmm .... there are a few people that repeatedly come to my shows and seem to like my music — which makes me happy!

LEO: What is your favorite song to perform? What do you think is your worst song?
AS: Usually the newest. I can't categorize my songs as the "best" or "worst" because how I feel about them depends on so many things including how they are in the writing process, if they still morphing, how many times we have successfully performed them and if we know how to record them. Right now the worst songs are the ones I haven't started writing yet but know they are in there somewhere.

LEO: Is there a better singer out there than Garrison Keillor? If no, then whom?
AS: I don't think singers (much like songs) can fall into the "good," "better, " "best" type of categories. It's unclassifiable. There are so many singers I love for different reasons and Garrison is one of them. He is my favorite duet partner by far.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Storefront Congregation

2011-08-03T14:02:00.003-04:00

Storefront Congregation is a Louisville band who blend authentic American sounds into a lovely, comforting mix that's as nice on the couch as it is in a club. Their new album, Kaleidoscope, is out this week, and they will play at Jim Porter's on Friday night to celebrate its release. LEO got singer/guitarist/banjoist Murrell Thixton to tell us how it is.

LEO: So, you're in a band, eh? What's it sound like?

Murrell Thixton: Well, with a 5 string banjo, a mandolin, an upright bass and acoustic guitar... at first glance, certainly a bluegrass band, right? Not necessarily in our case, at least not in the traditional sense. With a love of pretty much all genres of music and all four of us being singers, we bring a mixture of swing, blues and country music into our selection of material, along with a lot of interesting vocal arrangements. We still get after an old traditional bluegrass tune, too, from time to time, when we get the itch.

LEO: You write some originals and do some covers. How do you choose which songs fit?

MT: I feel comfortable saying that the first hurdle tunes have to cross for us is, "Do they fit our vocalists?" We generally are attracted to tunes we consider to be well-written lyrically, and we pay a lot of attention to the "feel" of a song. Will it mix well with the band's instrumentation, and can we work an interesting arrangement? As writers we're very selective of our own material; we all have many tunes that we've tried but just wouldn't work, either due to feel or there wasn't a consensus as to the overall quality for whatever reason. Our new record, Kaleidoscope, has seven originals and the remaining five are covers.

LEO: How challenging is it for you to channel older sounds and make them sound modern and relevant?

MT: I think we do a pretty good job. Playing the instruments we choose to play and doing everything acoustically presents challenges, for sure. I feel we do a good job at making songs from other genres / writers our very own by working hard on developing arrangements that are unique and vocally and instrumentally challenging. We spend equal time on tunes that our band members have written, trying to give them a special touch.

LEO: Where do you find ideas for your songs?

MT: Songs we've written personally come from our own life experiences, and just years of working on our songwriting craft. Again, the tunes we pull from other genres come from four folks that just love all sorts of music. Our covers range from old swing tunes, to Keb' Mo', to an occasional old bluegrass standard, to country and blues.

LEO: How do your surroundings inspire your music?

MT: We all come from a lifetime of exposure to music. Kent Houchin and myself have played music together starting in our early teens. Lauren started at a very early age, as did Nathan. All of us have played professionally in numerous bands, recorded and toured at various times. Just a lifetime of doing what we love with others that do the same.

LEO: How do you fit into the Louisville music scene?

MT: For the most part, we've all been woven in the musical fabric of the Louisville music scene for all of our lives. We all pick occasionally with other folks when the opportunity arises. We all love music and you might find us involved in a recording project, playing some country/rock n roll or just out jamming with friends.

LEO: What do the band members do to earn a steady living?

MT: Kent works the very early driving shift at our big employer UPS, Lauren works for a major Louisville corporation, Nathan is doing the professional musician gig at the moment and I'm with the local music store First Quality Music.

LEO: What is the most rewarding - and most frustrating - thing about what you're trying to accomplish with music?

MT: The most satisfying, no doubt, is putting on a good show and making good music. All musicians spend hours perfecting their craft and a tiny amount of time performing. It always feels great when the work pays off and the performance goes well. I think I speak for most musicians who "have it in their blood" — we'd all love to be able to play on a full-time basis. Making an actual living, covering the bills, taking care of your family and putting some money back is almost impossible for most pickers, they have to do something else to make ends meet. When you spend those hours doing the "regular job", it can severely cut into the creative time. Still, we manage with a lot of hard work and some serious time-juggling to make a CD and get out and play some performances. Our new CD, Kaleidoscope, premieres on August 5th; we just opened the boxes yesterday from Discmakers and that was a mighty fine feeling... kind of an "ahhh" moment after about a 10 month effort. It was nice.

Storefront Congregation with Tyrone Cotton
Jim Porter's
2345 Lexington Rd.
http://storefrontband.com/
7 p.m., &10 adv. $12 DOS

Maiden Radio's 'Lullabies'

2011-08-03T10:51:00.000-04:00

Julia Purcell didn’t plan to make a record of lullabies to sell. While pregnant, Purcell thought it would be fun to make one for her now 10-month-old, Maya. Her bandmates, Cheyenne Mize and Joan Shelley, liked her idea.

“Maybe that took the edge off,” she says. “That allowed us to create something really organic and beautiful. We spent a couple of short afternoons in Cheyenne’s attic recording around one microphone, and the results, we really loved.”

Purcell’s partners both also have solo careers, while she owns a music therapy business, Louisville Expressive Therapies.

“I never saw myself as doing music full-time, as a performer. I’m just really thankful that I’m able to hold onto a part of me that can do that for myself, to be a whole person. I don’t feel like I’ve missed out; a solo career was never really a dream of mine. What I’m doing with these ladies is perfect.”

Between the business, the baby and the new album, she has plenty going on. Maya made her voice heard during our interview. “This is harder than any job I’ve had,” Purcell laughs. “I’m on duty all the time.”

The trio is promoting this short but sweet record of traditionals with performances at Uncle Slayton’s (Aug. 5) and ear X-tacy (Aug. 9).

“We thought there was a market for it — everyone’s having babies or knows someone who’s having babies. It’s not just for babies, it’s an album for everybody.”

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Pictureplane's choices

2011-07-26T17:52:00.000-04:00

LEO spoke with Travis Egedy, the one-man band behind the “witch house” music.

LEO: How would you describe your music to someone who hasn’t heard you yet?
PP: Punk music for people who love house music. The sound of the earth breathing. Occult house music. Dark sexual pop music.

LEO: What inspires your songs? How do your surroundings inspire your music?
PP: I am inspired by lots and lots of things. Science and technology, contemporary art, mysticism, shamanism and the future of evolution of consciousness. Sexuality, gender and human beings. All these things fuel my art. I am very inspired by my surroundings and the various experiences I go through and situations that I find myself in. I am inspired by my lifestyle choices.

LEO: When writing, do you think about how the music will move people to dance? Think?
PP: Yes. I sort of intuitively look for a certain groove. A rhythm that your body understands and responds to. I want to move the body. But I also try not to think too much about other people when I am making my music; a lot of it is personal.

LEO: How much do you feel inspired by other forms of American pop or ethnic music genres?
PP: Well, I think pop music inspires everyone, whether they even listen to it or not. I would say I am inspired by pop cultural themes more so than the actual pop music that is on the radio or whatever. Current trends have always been a source of fascination for me. I have always been really in to rap and hip-hop music. That is still a big inspiration. And hip-hop is pop culture.

LEO: Do you consider your group more of a pop dance band or experimental electronic project?
PP: It is an art project, really. A performance art project that I also make the music for…

LEO: In the studio, how much do you try to capture your live sound? How free do you feel to experiment with sounds you might not be able to recreate live?
PP: When I am making a song, I don’t really think about how I am going to play it live. The “studio” and the performance aspect of what I am doing are pretty different. Yeah, there is a lot of experimentation while I am producing, but I keep the performance very free also.

LEO: What do you hate most about the music business?
PP: I wish the real artists had more money.

Pictureplane with Teengirl Fantasy, Gatekeeper and Nzambi
Thursday, July 28
Zanzabar
2100 S. Preston St., 635-9227
9 p.m.
www.myspace.com/pictureplane

Amy LaVere: dark, suspenseful and fun

2011-07-20T14:42:00.003-04:00

Think there’s only room for one redheaded spitfire woman who started out playing a mix of early rock and earthy Americana but has evolved into a more mature, finely textured artist? Well, move over, Neko Case. Memphis-based singer/songwriter/double bassist Amy LaVere is not just on the road, she’s on the road to recovery. Her new album, Stranger Me, is a collection of goodbye songs, composed in the wake of losing a guitarist to the Hold Steady, a drummer — her boyfriend — to a romantic break-up, and her mentor, legendary Southerner and producer Jim Dickinson, to the great beyond. Such times would surely undo a lesser mortal, but LaVere perseveres. The drummer returned to make the record, and a new producer, one whose previous project was engineering last year’s Grammy-winning Album of the Year, by Arcade Fire, was hired.

LEO: Are you able to do music as a full-time job?
Amy LaVere: Well, I would say mostly full-time. When I have a little too long of down time, I end up getting in a situation, scrambling around to put up work. Typically, I do music full-time. At least, I’ve been able to for the past 5 months…

LEO: Your persona in your songs is that of a bad-ass. How much of that is what you’re really like, and how much is playing a role?
AL: (laughs) Interesting question … I don’t know. I guess I’m pretty comfortable. Some days more than other days, but… I guess I do have some pride in the fact that I am a really hard worker; I think I have a pretty broad perspective on my life and how to run it, I suppose.

LEO: Do you think your experiences, and getting older, have helped with that?
AL: Absolutely. I think it’s helped with not taking myself too seriously. I think I’ve got a healthy sense of humor. I actually kind of welcome the challenges that this sort of lifestyle brings. It’s a very bi-polar lifestyle (laughs), you know, it’s really good and really bad.

LEO: Do you identify with that personally? Or just have a good perspective on it?
AL: I wouldn’t say that I was bi-polar! It’s the lifestyle that’s bi-polar. No, I’m pretty good about rollin’ with it. I have a great ability to compartmentalize in my life, and I’m getting a lot better at it. I’m not overly prepared, and I don’t look backwards. I live in the moment.

LEO: Did moving around a lot as a child influence that?
AL: I traveled a lot as a child… I guess so.

LEO: Do you think that that helped make you a better observer of people?
AL: Well, I would think so; but, I have an older sister that was brought up with this gypsy lifestyle, like I was, and – I definitely think that we gained a much bigger, broader perspective than a lot of kids we were meeting – I think it definitely influenced my decision to have a nomadic lifestyle as an adult, whereas my sister, she’s married with three kids and has lived in the same house for sixteen years. It was really important to her that her children knew the same kids that they went to elementary school with throughout their lives. I don’t think that she really wanted that for her children, for her adult life. I’m somewhat addicted to it.

LEO: Do you feel bad for her in some ways?
AL: No, really, we go back and forth about being envious of each other. I was just there this last weekend, I flew in to go to my niece’s graduation. I hadn’t seen them in a year and a half. They have such a beautiful family, it’s really nice to see. Sometimes I look at it and go, “God, I’m missing so much…” I’m sure some times – well, I know from her, “Oh, you’re so lucky, you get to see so much and do so much…” It’s one of those things.

LEO: It's probably good that you're not both out there, competing for record sales.
AL: (laughs) No, I 'd probably help her out. I don't have much of a competitive spirit.

LEO: Does that hold you back?
AL: No, I do try to challenge myself, at every opportunity that comes up. I blindly take on things that are out of my realm of experience, I do that all the time. I enjoy it, whether I'm bad at it or good at it; I'd rather be doing that than sitting on the couch being a fat American.

LEO: (laughs) Well, I can understand that. Your restless spirit reflects itself in your music, which jumps from genre to genre. Do you think that helps you or holds you back in any ways?
AL: Oh, well, umm... No. I really don't put a whole lot of energy into that, because you never know what someone might make of it or think of it, and I just don't really concern myself too much with it. If I don't like it, then I'm failing myself. And I mean, hell, nobody likes just one style of music anyway, as far as I know. Different stories that I'm telling demand a different sort of feel or production on them. I just sort of get in the middle and swim in it, when it comes to what the production's going to be or how the song's going to come out. I just can't worry about it so much. I mean, I understand how people to label things or compartmentalize things when it comes to describing music, for sales and things, but I'm not in marketing. That's not my responsibility. I just do my part, the best I can, and hope that it gets sorted out.

LEO: When you meet someone, and they ask, "What kind of music do you play?", what do you tell them?
AL: My blanket statement is, It's an amalgamation of all kinds of great music. (laughs). It's really tough. Sometimes I'll just say, "It's rock 'n' roll." What would you say it is?

LEO: I like what you said.
AL: (laughs)
LEO: I don't think I could do any better than that. You could put it on a shirt, even.
AL: (laughs) Yeah! "It's the music I like."

LEO: What can we expect from your live show?
AL: It's a four-piece band. I think it's suspenseful. It's dark, suspenseful and fun.
LEO: That sounds good.
AL: Yeah, I think it's good. Music from tense moments.
LEO: Tense in fun ways?
AL: Yeah, tense in fun ways. It's definitely a listening show.

Amy LaVere with Tristen
Wednesday, July 20
Uncle Slayton’s
1017 E. Broadway • 657-9555
www.amylavere.com
$13; 8 p.m.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Cheer-Accident, in a Louisville context

2011-07-20T07:58:00.001-04:00

Since 1981, Chicago’s Cheer-Accident has been thrilling a loyal gang of followers with their fluctuating art-rock attack, often embellished by a rotating collection of some of the Windy City’s many fine and simpatico musicians. They return to Louisville to promote their 17th album, No Ifs, Ands or Dogs. LEO caught up with founder and drummer Thymme Jones.

LEO: How would you describe your music to someone who hasn’t heard you yet?
Thymme Jones: I’ve given up on that one. Literally, I just tell people, “You just kinda have to hear it.” I could just go the “blank-meets-blank-meets-blank” route, but a lot of people would just draw a blank on the blanks. Plus, I like to think the whole is much greater than the sum of its blanks.

LEO: Where do you find ideas for your songs?
TJ: Where I’ve misplaced them.

LEO: How do your surroundings inspire your music?
TJ: By keeping quiet.

LEO: Do you consider your group more of a rock band or experimental project?
TJ: Rock/pop/experimental in equal measure. And we measure often (way more often than we cut).

LEO: In the studio, how much do you try to capture your live sound? How free do you feel to experiment with sounds you might not be able to recreate live?
TJ: I consider the studio and live to be completely different animals. We feel 100-percent free to experiment with sounds we would never (in a million years) be able to recreate live. The word “recreate” is key here: I think what I like best about both live performance and the studio is, in either context, we are not really recreating, but creating. There are things that can happen with a live song, in terms of it being a real-time event with an audience, that could never happen in a studio setting. We may have played a song a hundred times, but we’re still making many varying choices (ostensibly, improvising within a given structure) each time we play it, and so it is a creative act. Conversely, we’re not recording a song in the studio merely so we can successfully recreate it at a later date — we’re trying to come up with something that makes sense in that moment, with those particular sounds.

So many contradictions, so little time! As you can see, the studio setting and the live setting are exactly the same in that they both involve interacting with the present moment, with little concern for subsequent re-enactment. However, we never feel any need to “capture” our live sound in the studio (“sound” isn’t the only aspect of “live,” so why bother?), and we never feel any need to “play the song exactly the way it is on the album.” Or, for that matter, play any of the songs on the album at all. I’m a big fan of context: Sitting at home listening to music is much different than being at a venue listening to music, so it seems like a good idea to treat the two quite differently.

LEO: Does your music ever make you horny?
TJ: That’s a chicken-or-the-egg question if I’ve ever heard one! OK, well, I’ll kill two chickens with one egg here: Music, and all art, is a result of horniness. Horniness is just a god-awful word, though, so let’s just stick to the trumpet.

LEO: What do you think of Louisville?
TJ: I love Louisville. Louisville used to love us. And then it stopped. But I think it’s going to pick back up with that idea again.

Cheer-Accident with The Teeth and Softcheque
www.cheer-accident.com
Friday, July 22 • Cahoots
1047 Bardstown Road
454-6687
$5; 9 p.m.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

J.D. Crowe and the new generation

2011-07-20T07:15:00.000-04:00

Native Kentuckian J.D. Crowe is a legendary bluegrass banjo player who started with Jimmy Martin 55 years ago and then, in the early 1970s, went on to lead his own influential group, the New South. He returns to us for a free concert on the square in downtown Corydon, Ind. LEO enjoyed a warm conversation with the master.

LEO: Where do you call home these days?
J.D. Crowe: I live in Nicholasville, Ky. It’s a suburb of Lexington — now (laughs). I’ve seen a lot of changes through the years, yes. I think it’s good.

LEO: You’ve seen a lot of changes in your music career, too.
JDC: Ninety percent of it’s been good, 10 percent of it not too good. But for the most part, it’s been good, the growth and everything — you gotta have it. If you don’t, things get stale. There’s some parts of it that’s … I won’t get into that, some of that’s kind of a personal thing. I tell you what, the recording industry is kind of in a slump. I think the Internet, it may be all right, but I think it’s hurt, in a way. It sure hurts our CD sales, from people going to the music stores and buying them like they used to. It’s definitely hurt, but in other ways, you can get on there and instead of buying the whole CD, you can buy one song. It comes out about the same, probably.

LEO: Has the Internet been helpful for gaining new fans?
JDC: Oh, yeah. I think the Internet has helped as far as getting exposed to the music where they can’t be exposed otherwise. Because not that many bands travel abroad to play, so they don’t get to hear a lot of the pure bluegrass that we do over here. But they get on the Internet, and everybody’s got a website where they can hear and see cuts of the bands. I’ve had requests from other countries to send them a CD. I’ve had some notes from France, Australia, Finland — of course, Japan. I’ve been in Japan and Europe a couple of times. It’s very sparse, though.
LEO: Do you mostly tour in the summer these days?
JDC: I’m on the road about 50 days a year. That’s all I want. It’s tiresome. I been there, done that, those 200-days-a-year deals; I don’t want to do that anymore.

LEO: You’ve also played with some rock bands and jam bands.
JDC: It’s amazing how many people they draw, (laughs) as opposed to bluegrass. That’s what always amazed me. And I know why, too — it’s the media. They’re always pushing the rock ’n’ roll; it just appeals to these younger people. That’s the whole deal. I’m not specifically talking about Louisville or Lexington — I’m talking about worldwide. Your TV, your big musical stations — it’s all over, it’s not local. It’s a different era right now than it used to be. People think different, everything’s just different. You just roll with the flow, that’s it. I don’t worry about it, there’s no use to do that. So just do what you’re doing and let everybody do what they do — everybody’s happy.

LEO: You have some younger bluegrass fans, too, who’ll come to see you.
JDC: They do, they do. Probably not enough (laughs). But hopefully they’ll come around.

LEO: Any plans to make a new record soon?
JDC: I’ve slowed down on that. I probably should. My last’s been out probably five or six years. We’ll probably do another one. At this stage of the game, I don’t worry about things too much. It is important to have a new CD out, I think it’s very important, it’s just that I don’t right now. We’re looking for songs, I’m trying to do something different; when we get ready, we’ll go in and start.

LEO: What can we expect from your live show?
JDC: I think we do probably about an hour and 15 or so. You can bring anyone. It’s a family-oriented show, that’s for sure. You don’t have to worry about that. I can’t guarantee the rest of it … (laughs), but I know what we do! Basically, it’s a good show, sure is. It’s a listening show. As I tell people, we’re not a dance band. We don’t do dance music. We prefer not to, let me put it that way (laughs). That’s a little out of our league.

J.D. Crowe and the New South with Hog Operation
Saturday, July 23
Corydon Square
310 N. Elm St., Corydon, Ind.
888-738-2137
www.thisisindiana.org
Free; 4 p.m.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Ashley Capps of Bonnaroo on Forecastle

2011-07-13T09:17:00.003-04:00

As the founder and president of AC Entertainment, Knoxville's Ashley Capps has turned the music world on its head over the past decade. His company also runs other festivals, including Moogfest and Big Ears, and books clubs in several cities in the South. This year, AC has also entered into a partnership with Louisville's Forecastle Festival, a blend that both sides hope will lead to greater success for both companies.
LEO spoke with Ashley Capps about Forecastle in advance of the July 15th min-festival in downtown Louisville.

LEO: What qualities does (Forecastle founder) J.K. McKnight have that made you want to work with him?
AC: I really admired J.K. and was impressed by what he has accomplished with Forecastle. When we finally met, I would have to say that I immediately sensed a kindred spirit. And as I got to know J.K. a bit better, it became clear that his vision, combined with an extraordinary work ethic and commitment to realizing that vision, made him a great fit for our team.

LEO: What have you seen Forecastle accomplish that convinced you that they were both a moneymaker and an aesthetically similar operation?
AC: Well, it's no easy feat pulling off a festival, and it's especially impressive to see one that has been successfully grown over the course of 10 years in the way that Forecastle has. What really has made Forecastle stand apart, however, has been the focus that J.K. and his team have put on the overall festival experience. Again, his vision and his attention to detail in bringing that to fruition are exemplary.

LEO: What can you offer that will improve on what they've already done?
AC: Our whole reason for becoming involved in Forecastle is because we did feel that we could offer some opportunities to help J.K. grow the event and help it to become even more successful. In our early discussions, I think it was clear that we shared a similar sense of aesthetics in imagining what the festival experience can be. I think what AC brings to the table is our experience - our organizational support, our booking and marketing teams - to help take the festival to new heights.

LEO: Some people in Louisville assume that AC has bought FF in order to eliminate a competitor. Did you see them as a threat in any way?
AC: No, that really never crossed our minds, to tell you the truth. It wouldn't really make any sense to do that. In fact, we didn't really "purchase" FF so much as we hired J.K. to work with us on a variety of projects, along with the goal of working together on Forecastle as well. We got involved for two reasons: because we wanted J.K. to be part of our team and because we believe that Forecastle is a festival with a unique and compelling identity and experience of its own.

LEO: Will Forecastle definitely be returning to Louisville in 2012?
AC: That's certainly the plan. It was hard for us to make the decision not to do the full-scale event in 2011, but J.K. wisely felt that we needed more time to create the event that we all want the next Forecastle to be. That was smart. He was absolutely right about that.

LEO: What can AC's booking division potentially offer Louisville's audience? How will they know which acts locals want to see?
AC: We've been somewhat active in Louisville for some time, actually. Back in the 1990s, we presented artists like Alison Krauss & Union Station, John Prine and a number of others at the Kentucky Center for the Arts. And we've done a number of shows at the Palace as well - Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Phoenix, Neil Young and others. We're now taking the time to get to know the city and its people better. What's clear is that there's a lot of enthusiasm for music and the arts in Louisville and we're eager to explore the possibilities.

LEO: How much advertising will be done to attract out-of-town attendees?
AC: It depends upon the event. If you are specifically referring to Forecastle, one of our plans is to definitely work with our marketing and publicity teams to continue to elevate its profile as a national, and even international, event. But these days, with the internet and social media and all, this is not so much about how much advertising you do as it is about creating the unique and exciting festival experience that fans want to share with their networks.

LEO: AC's festivals are all located within the same region, and arguably appeal to many of the same fans. Are you worried about having too many similar festivals taking away from each other's bottom line?
AC: Well, I think the key is for each of the festival events to have their own unique character, and I think we've accomplished that with Bonnaroo, as well as with Moogfest in Asheville and with Big Ears in Knoxville. All three of them are quite distinctive and quite unlike one another. Forecastle also has it's own unique identity. But we've actually been involved in events all over the country, including Vegoose in Las Vegas for 3 years, and last year we were involved in Sonår Chicago as well. And we're currently exploring several other concepts, in other regions of the USA and possibly in other countries as well.

LEO: Have you spent much time in Louisville?
AC: Not nearly enough, though I've visited many times. It's such a great city. I've really fallen in love with Louisville. Every time I visit, I can't wait to come back for more.

JK McKnight on Forecastle 2011

2011-07-13T09:13:00.001-04:00

Louisville’s Forecastle Festival is in a transitional phase. After years of growth and growing pains, the increasingly popular annual summer attraction has entered into a new partnership with Knoxville’s AC Entertainment, producers of Bonnaroo and other festivals. Founder JK McKnight decided to skip producing a full-scale weekend festival this year in order to have time to make the most of AC’s resources for next year, Forecastle’s 10th anniversary. In addition, he now holds the title of “national partnerships/global visionary” with AC Entertainment.

This Friday’s “mini-fest” will feature Pretty Lights, Big Boi, RJD2, Twin Shadow and more at Waterfront Park, with an obligatory after-party at the new Ice House on East Main.

LEO caught up with McKnight to discuss past and future details of the fest. An additional interview with AC president Ashley Capps can be found at bluecat.leoweekly.com/

photo by Marty Pearl

LEO: How have you felt that Forecastle has evolved over the years? How do you think it compares to other festivals in the region?

JK McKnight: It's certainly evolved every year, and will continue to do so. I think part of that evolution was just trying to find a home for it, something that fit my vision and that we could grow into. I knew early on that Waterfront Park would probably be that venue, and starting mapping it out when I was 22 or so. I still have those original drawings, which are remarkably similar to what we actually did. Since we now have a home, it is much easier to set roots and grow into the space. We've received so many compliments on the layout and use of the park. I remember (Waterfront president) David Karem telling me it was "the best, most creative use of the space" he had ever seen. What he didn't know is that I had been working on it for 7 years.

As far as festivals in the region, it's very difficult for me to gauge, because I haven't really been to many other ones (hard to believe, I know). We have friends with a company called Dataflow in Knoxville that assist with Voodoo Festival in New Orleans, so we've gone down there the past two years. It's similar in scale and in the middle of the city.

With that in mind, I do think Forecastle is its own animal: a nautically-themed music, arts and environmental festival sandwiched between the Midwest and South. Who would have thought?

LEO: How did the deal with AC happen?

JK: It started with a simple email from me to Ashley. We had communicated off and on for a few years through a friend of mine, Bobby Burk, but were never able to connect in person. The timing seemed right toward the end of last year, and he invited me to Knoxville. I think we realized pretty quickly that we shared a similar worldview, history and, of course, we’re both Aquarius. Going down there was really exciting. Soon after, Ashley came to Louisville and fell in love with what he saw here. I introduced him to everyone I thought was relevant. Soon after, I went back to Knoxville and, slowly but surely, we started seeing a partnership and employment opportunity.

LEO: Tell me about your job today: What does your work with “national partnerships” involve? What about “global visionary”? Did someone else have this position before you?

JK: It’s a new position, and I’m helping build the department. “National partnerships” means working with national brands that have an interest in participating in the events we produce. Through Forecastle, I built a network that consists of thousands of companies in various industries — from outdoors, natural products, technology, communications — that I have relationships with. From a strategic marketing perspective, any of those relationships are applicable to the events we produce, whether it be Moogfest, Big Ears or Bonnaroo. Everyone is looking to our demographic as their customers of the future. So I’m there to work with those brands and develop the activations and marketing presence we’ll feature before, during and after the event.

“Global visionary” is a little less defined, but it was an award I received from the World Affairs Council last year. I view it from a business development standpoint, being able to see opportunities both locally and abroad, and presenting them to AC Entertainment. It also applies to event creation, launching new festivals and events.

When I was asked by (AC exec) Patrick Roddy to create a title, I gave a couple different options, and “national partnerships/global visionary” was the one he liked the best.

LEO: Forecastle has used a nautical theme, from its name to its posters, and you gave yourself the nickname "Cap'n". Why?

JK: The ship imagery certainly can be derived from being an Aquarius. When I was in preschool, they say I would sit there and watch the water drip out of the facet, over and over again, while all the other kids played with Legos. It's just the way I am. I love water. So when the time came to come up with a name, I liked the idea of a metaphorical ship (which represented music and arts to me) and the place on the ship where everyone gathered after a hard day's work, to relax and socialize. Thus, the name "Forecastle", which is the crew's quarters of the ship.

LEO: Forecastle began as a free festival in Tyler Park, and now is owned by AC Entertainment, the company that runs Bonnaroo, which attracts 80,000 fans annually. How many people attended in the first few years? Did you honestly believe, back then, that it would get to the level it's at now?

JK: Yes, we were free and non-profit for 4 years, 2002 - 2005. It was only in 2005 that I really starting looking at it as a possible career. At the time, I was pretty conflicted between doing Forecastle and pursuing my own music career for a living. It was a really difficult decision, because I felt my heart was in composing and writing, and I didn't want to give that up. However, I felt like we had a unique formula with Forecastle that was at the forefront of something much bigger than my own interests. That ended up being very true. We were definitely pioneers in many aspects of the festival environmental movement, years before the Rothburys of the world starting popping up everywhere, and every festival suddenly felt pressure to have a sustainability program featured. That was unheard of in 2003.

So in essence, I decided we needed to stay the course and see it though. I knew it would be extremely difficult and require tremendous sacrifice on my end, especially to continue growing it as the pace we were, without any major investors, bank loans, or anything. To work, it had to be 100% community supported, and even that wasn't enough by the time we got to the Belvedere.

With all that in mind, the early years were a lot of fun. I was learning so much, and the pressure wasn't there as much as it is now.

As far as attendance, there was maybe 150 people there the first year, and half of them were involved in the event one way or the other.

Important footnote - the festival is owned by myself and a handful of local investors. AC Entertainment is a partner, but there's no equity distribution or ownership. Forecastle is a co-promotion between The Forecastle Festival, LLC, and AC Entertainment, Inc.

LEO: Have there been years when the fest has lost money? If so, how were you able to continue on in the following year?

JK: Well, for many years I kept the festival free, so there was no opportunity (or desire) to make money. As far as being able to continue on, it brings back some rather interesting memories. I'll never forget being 24 and getting hit with a massive production bill after Cherokee Park. I had no idea how I was going to pay it, and ended up taking two jobs - one in sales and one I created (online auction business). I think I had everything wrapped up in about 6 weeks, but it was a total wake-up call for me. I realized that if I were to continue growing this thing exponentially, the risk factor would do the same, and all of it would inevitably fall on my shoulders. I think it was around that time that both my parents and some of my close friends said, "JK, you really can't do this anymore for free. You really need to think about it."

With that in mind, I try to look at those situations as opportunities, and I did get to work for some amazing people that I learned a tremendous amount from. People like John Yarmuth, Jimmy Brown and others I've had the privilege to work for over the years.

LEO: How much has your family helped to make the fest viable?

JK: They've been really amazing, and all have taken ownership of unique areas of the festival.

My mom is single-handedly responsible for bringing about our entire healthy, locally-sourced culinary focus. I have to think, in 2006, we were one of the first festivals of this size and proportion that was sourcing nearly everything from a small radius around Louisville. Just like everything else on the environmental side, it's much more common place now, but back then it wasn't.

My dad, on the other hand, has really contributed the most with security, and has been a guiding light in the world of business. Each year he leads a platoon of guys and does a great job. He got to shadow the Director of Bonnaroo's operations recently, which I think he really learned a lot from (even got to chase down a stolen golf cart).

My sister, among other things, has been a critical part of our media team the past few years. She's brought on some amazing people that are still with us today.

So as you can see, it's become quite the family operation. I owe a lot to them, and I probably don't thank them enough for their hard work and sacrifices.

LEO: Nederlander Entertainment, in Cincinnati, took over booking in '09 and '10. Whose idea was that? Did you pay them, or did they pay you for the job? How did that relationship work out?

JK: Just like our newly forged relationship with AC Entertainment, it was a co-promotion. I met them through a close friend of mine, who had been working at Jillian's, where they were doing a lot of shows. They seemed to have a major interest in Louisville by the amount of shows they were producing, and since we wanted grow the event beyond what I could do solo, we partnered on it. The foundation had been laid through years of hard work, so it made perfect sense to bring on a partner to help take it to the next level. Prior to 2009, I was managing everything - booking, marketing, sponsors, permitting, ticketing, insurance, concessions, you name it. I was at the end of my rope, working 70+ hours a week and depending on one event, once a year, for all my income. A risky gamble very few people would do. Having the opportunity to partner with another organization took a great deal of pressure off of me. Otherwise, I probably would have ended up in the grave by now (or spontaneously combusted on the Belvedere the following year...). The 2006 - 2008 years were incredibly exciting, but it almost burned me out.

LEO: How have Nederlander and AC helped with, or otherwise affected, music bookings?

JK: It's helped tremendously. Like anything in business, it's all about relationships. Being able to partner with industry veterans allows you to open doors that may have been previously closed.

LEO: This year’s mini-fest is very focused on new dance and electronic music. Through the years, the wide variety of musical acts has been called unfocused at times, and some past headliners have been criticized as being past their primes. What do you think the festival’s musical point of view has been?

JK: It's an interesting opinion, because I would argue that many of these artists are iconic figures that are extremely relevant to the musical landscape, no matter how many years past their prime someone deems them to be. Paul McCartney is probably 40 years past his prime, but he's more popular now that he ever has been, and his music is just as relevant today as it was in the 60s. You could say the same for a vast array of artists. I think if we were to announce Pink Floyd as the headliner to Forecastle 2012, I don't think anyone would shake their heads and say, "Would loved to have seen them in the mid-70s, but absolutely no interest now. They're just not relevant."

The musical pallet has indeed evolved, and I think it will continue to as popular culture evolves. We want to keep things exciting and interesting, and I think that always means a combination of up-and-coming and veteran artists, and the large group of artist that exist between them. With the exception of electronic artists, not many contemporaries can say they're doing something truly original these days. Almost all of it can be derived from something that's been created before, or a combination thereof. I'll never forget talking with Greg Gillis (Girl Talk) at Forecastle 2007, and him telling me that there's absolutely no chord progression an artist can create these days that hasn't been written before. He's studied it systematically over a number of years, and came to that conclusion. So the key for him is to take dozens of pieces of "old" songs and create entirely "new" ones out of them. Now that is pretty original (even if Z-Trip is the founder of it), and it's the way things are moving forward. Those who don't think electronic music is the next cultural tide are simply glued to their old comforts and refusing to let go. Europe is already there, and has been for years. America is finally waking up.

LEO: Some local bands have publicly complained about being asked to perform for free, or being booked on a secondary stage. What do you say to them? How important are local bands to the fest today? Are they less important than they once were?

JK: Well, there hasn't been a local band that's performed for free in 5 years, so not too sure where that's coming from. As far as locals on our main stages, we've always done that. I think last year both Wax Fang and Lucky Pineapple played on the East Stage. For all the artists on the Kentucky Stage (I think there were around 26 last year, nearly 1/4 of our roster) they just need to understand the costs and risks associated with an event of this size. We're building all the stages from the ground up, on top of the fencing, security, permitting, staffing, and everything else that goes with it. It's expensive, and quite the opposite of playing a club show. We're taking major risks to do an event like this, with no guarantee of a return. If an artist cannot draw enough of an audience to substantiate the aforementioned costs, then it's going to be difficult for us to accommodate them there, and expect to be able to continue on.

As far as relevancy, I think it's very relevant. Forecastle has the opportunity to be a vehicle that showcases developing artists talent to thousands of people they never would have been exposed to otherwise. And I'm not just talking about their performance. The marketing and advertising efforts reach millions, and their name is on all of it. There's a high value to that.

If you're a band trying to get your name out there, performing at festivals can be a great way to do it. I hope to develop our Kentucky stage out a bit more in future years, now that we have the space to accommodate.

LEO: How important are the activism and art sections to you today?

JK: This fall, we’ll be making the biggest announcement to date on the environmental front. It will change the game for us — a local/global initiative that’s going to have a major impact in some areas of the world that are critical to sustaining life. It’s something I conceptualized when I was 12 years old, that I’ve finally been able to bring to fruition.

LEO: Who would you like to see at 2012’s fest?

JK: I have a working speculative 2012 list that’s part of a 74-page model I built for the 10th anniversary show. The artist side is still in the brainstorming phase, so probably not worth putting out there and creating expectations. I’m certainly looking very closely at what we did in 2009 and 2010. Overall, I'm excited for the doors that ACE will open and believe that our programming will continue to upgrade and remain a staple in the Midwest and South.

LEO: Who are some of your favorite music acts currently?

JK: The Meeting Places, Explosions in the Sky, Thomas Newman, and I think that Band of Horses record has now been in our player for over a year.

LEO: What are your biggest successes? Also, what are your biggest mistakes or regrets?

JK: Hmmmm. Seeing everything come together for Forecastle 2009 and 2010 were definitely some of my biggest successes. Both of those events were dreams that birthed almost a decade earlier, that I stuck to day in and day out until they were fully realized. It was not easy, and there were many times I wanted to give up, but the moment I had in 2009 when 23,000 people from 44 states and 6 countries descended on the Belvedere is something I will hold onto forever. There are many times I get down and think about other things I could do with myself, when someone makes me realize that doing this is a tremendous gift and honor. I remember being with Ben (Band of Horses) awhile back after a show, and I was complaining about all the stress I was under and how much I just wanted to be back in South Carolina. He looked at me and said in a stern voice, "You're lucky, you know that. Not many people get to do what they want in life." He's right.

LEO: What lessons have you learned from your experiences?

JK: Man, there's been so many. I've actually started working on a few book ideas. Most profoundly, I would say trusting your instincts, believing in yourself, and just going for it without reservations. If you have a dream, don't sit around and think about all day. Think of reasons of why you can and should do it, not excuses and fear for why you can't do it. I truly believe everyone has a passion for something, and if you're smart enough and willing to sacrifice everything you have to get there, you can do what you love. When I was a working musician in my early 20s, I moved into a run down, abandoned old Victorian mansion in the West End because my friends and I could work on it in exchange for rent. We lived off Ramen noodles and Miller High Life. By doing that, I was able to invest 90% of my income into my career, and develop it the way it needed to. In the creative industry, that's how it works. How far you get is often determined by how much you're willing to sacrifice to get there. As Ghandi said, “Strength does not come from physical capability, it comes from indomitable will.” That quote hung above my bed for eight years and is pretty central to my overall perspective of life.

LEO: You began your career in the music business in your early 20's, singing and playing with the Vixen Red. Have you completely abandoned your own music?

JK: It's interesting that I still get asked that all the time. To be honest, it's something I think about quite regularly, which I guess is normal for someone who lived it as long as I did. For years, being an independent, working musician was life, and it was a life I loved very much. It was a lot of work (writing, recording, producing, booking, marketing, etc), but I was learning so much and taking in every moment of it. Those years, and what I learned from them, definitely laid the groundwork for what I do now.

In 2001, I built a studio with my best friend in the basement of an old Whiskey Distillery next to Headliners Music Hall. I pretty much lived there for 5 years, before a massive flood wiped everything out in 2006. Before the Distillery, it was a house next to Home Skate Shop on Bardstown Road, where I set up camp for 2 years. Most people my age would go out at night, but I would usually prefer to go there and just write for hours. It was so rewarding, and there was nothing like coming home with a new song idea, excited to see what it would become.

To this day, I still think writing is what I'm best at. Whether it be composing music, lyrics, poetry, fiction, or short stories, it's at the center of everything I do. From writing a proposal to Patagonia to writing in my journal at night, and take each work and each sentence with a weight. I do miss writing music and haven't had time to do nearly as often since my studio was destroyed by a flood in 2006. That Distillery was my sanctuary, and I was there every night. Either in the basement working on songs or up on the rooftop gazing at the stars. I loved that place, and haven't been able to find anything quite like it since. I now live in a cottage on River Road, and we don't have a basement, garage, etc., so it makes things difficult. My girlfriend's always encouraging me to get back into it, but the space is really critical to making that happen. When we move back to the Highlands, I'll start again.

photo by Marty Pearl

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Forecastle: Rising above the tide

2011-07-13T09:11:00.000-04:00

Better than OK

2011-07-13T09:10:00.000-04:00

Aaron Chadwell and Alex Bell started OKDeejays in 2008, and since then the duo has spun tunes at local clubs, bars and events, and also brought visiting DJs and bands through town, finding common ground between Louisville’s mods, rockers and mockers. This year saw the debut of their new radio show, “Night Visions,” on WFPK, 91.9 FM, which finds the OKs joined by fellow DJ Sam Sneed, each Monday through Thursday night between the unholy hours of 1 and 2 a.m.

Aaron Chadwell:  Sam Sneed and I got together in 2004. We both had pretty packed weekly residencies at that time — mine was on Wednesdays at the Frankfort Avenue Beer Depot (FABD) and Sneed’s was on Thursdays at North End Cafe. We decided to join forces to pack out various clubs around town. I met Alex in 2007 and formed OKDeejays shortly thereafter due to our mutual love of house music pressed to wax.  My goal for “Night Visions” and OK Productions is to expose folks in Louisville to a wide variety of music they may not otherwise get to hear or see live. This summer is going to be huge for OK Productions — we’re bringing a slew of great live acts and hope the shows are well received.

Alex Bell:  I first started getting into dance and electronic music right when I was getting out of high school  in early 2000. I started listening to more and more  electronic, disco, dance and new wave types of music throughout college, when I was first urged  to start DJing and share my taste in music. I started DJing full-time in 2008, as well as joining forces with Aaron to form  OKDeejays.

Sam Sneed:   I met Aaron back in the early zeros. Aaron would have shows and rad parties at his house, and around that time I was constantly DJing around town. Aaron had a weekly gig at the FABD and asked me if I wanted to come out and play some records. We have steadily been DJing together ever since.

We ended up throwing a monthly party called TGIV (Thank God It’s Vinyl) with Alex Bell and Matt Anthony. To promote TGIV, we would do guest spots on Matt Anthony’s WFPK radio show, “Sound Clash.” Alex, Aaron and I were really stoked to do radio and became students of Matt Anthony. This is how “Night Visions” pretty much started.

My goal for “Night Visions” is to constantly keep the show fresh by showcasing emerging artists and, most importantly, have fun with the show. Syndication at some point would be awesome, but I am just happy to be part of the WFPK posse.

INFLUENCES
AC: My main DJ influences are Aeroplane, due to their amazingly smooth chart mixes that they release on a regular basis; Bottin, because of his undeniable Italian grooves; and pretty much anything released on DFA Records.  

AB: My first influences, in this genre of music, were producers such as Fatboy Slim,  Chemical Brothers, Aphex Twin, Underworld and Daft Punk. My influences now include  contemporary dance and house music producers such as Bottin, Aeroplane, Erol Alkan and  Soulwax. I am also a huge fan of ’70s-era disco and ’80s-era new wave and dance. 

SS: My core influences are The Clash, The Sonics, ESG, Primal Scream, My Bloody Valentine and The Jesus and Mary Chain. Currently, I have been obsessing over Gang Gang Dance, Deerhunter, Black Lips, The Horrors, OFWGKTA and Zomby.

A calendar of OKDeejays and OK Productions events is available at www.nightvisionsradio.com.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Joan Shelley's family values

2011-07-13T09:09:00.000-04:00

Joan Shelley started making up songs when she was just a little girl.

“My mom helped me record and submit my first song to a contest when I was 9. I got a trophy for that, which really encouraged me. One day, I found my mom’s old guitar in the attic and started learning from a poster of guitar chords that was lying around up there. I proceeded to write a heartbreaking song about teen love. If I was 14 today, I would’ve put that thing up on YouTube and I’d be a huge hit by now.”

And so began the musical odyssey of Shelley, who may or may not have been born at the right time, but is beginning to get noticed on her own terms for some heartbreaking — and funny — songs today.

The singer/guitarist/banjoist, who also performs with the trio Maiden Radio, has always been musically involved. She also sang in a choir in her youth. “It was always a part of my life, but I had kept it under control in the ‘hobbies’ column. Then I went to the University of Georgia (in Athens), partly because I knew it was a big music town and I wanted to play in bars and coffee shops while I was there, which I did.

“As far as earning a living, I always imagined something romantic and academic, like marine biologist or cultural anthropologist (which is what I went to school for), but I realized I had more passion for creating those images in my head than actually focusing intensely on one very specific academic question,” Shelley says. “When I realized that there were ways to promote environmental health and social justice without being an academic, and that if I really wanted to learn anything I could just read a book, that released me to pursue the things I really love to do, which are performing and writing songs.”

She calls “Ms. Gillian Welch” her “No. 1 songwriting hero,” and learned to sing harmonies by imitating Mom singing along to Kingston Trio albums. Family has strongly influenced her musical perspective.

“My first attempts as a music archivist consisted of me recording my favorite songs off the oldies radio station onto my Fisher-Price tape deck. When I started buying my own CDs, it was pretty awful what me and my friends listened to. Ace of Base was my first purchase, I believe. I was so proud. But my older brother Doug saved me by giving me mixtapes with songs like Nick Cave’s ‘Red Right Hand’ and Neil Young’s ‘Cinnamon Girl.’ I’d be lost without my brother.”

Shelley released her own album, By Dawnlight, in June 2010, and has a second record almost completed.

“No one knows me out of town yet, except in the towns where I have lived. Those shows where you are an entirely new thing to the audience are really exciting and liberating for me. They are discovering you as you perform. You can be and do whatever you want on stage in front of that kind of crowd. One of my goals is to feel like that performing to a hometown crowd. When I play in Louisville, it feels more like a party I’m having where I’m making my friends be very, very quiet. They’re the most fun shows, but it’s funny that way.”

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Those Darlins' world of music

2011-07-12T16:32:00.002-04:00

Tennessee southern rockin' darlings Those Darlins will be returning to Louisville this Saturday to perform at the 10th Annual local Lebowski Fest, sharing the Garden Party with The Seedy Seeds, How I Became the Bomb and Junk Yard Dogs. Their latest album, Screws Get Loose, is currently shakin' up turntables from here to Tokyo and back again.
LEO spoke with Jessi Darlin.

LEO: How would you describe your music to someone who hasn't heard you yet?
JD: '50s and '60s rock 'n' roll meets 70s punk plus a buncha gal group pop sensation from the South.

LEO: How challenging is it for you to channel older sounds, and make it sound modern and relevant?
JD: Not very challenging. We are modern people who listen to a lot of classic music. We just mix the two, always trying to stay true to our real life experiences.

LEO: How do your surroundings inspire your music?
JD: Well, I write songs about me and things that happen to me. So I'd say surroundings are a good portion of inspiration. I grew up in rural Kentucky and have lived in Tennessee for awhile. My rural upbringing and the musician friends in Nashville, Murfreesboro and surrounding cities like Atlanta and Memphis have influenced our music a lot. Our music can sound like a mix of that rural and urban Southern music.

LEO: How much do you feel inspired by other forms of American pop or ethnic music genres?
JD: TONS. It's all up in our sound. We love country, soul, and Chuck Berry. Lately, I have been listening to Jamaican rocksteady, Peruvian descarga, and afro high life.

LEO: In the studio, how much do you try to capture your live sound? How free do you feel to experiment with sounds you might not be able to recreate live?
JD: In the studio, we try to capture our live sound, and then when we play live we try to capture our studio sound. It's an ongoing battle to make the two work together.

LEO: Do you read your reviews? If yes, do you find that helpful?
JD: Mostly no. Occasionally, someone mentions that a particular review was written well and I read it. I don't even have Google alerts on Those Darlins. It's just too easy to get caught up in what everyone else thinks about you. I like to make music that I like and I don't want to be thinking about, "Oh, will this get a good review?" when I am writing. Thinking more about turning myself, the band and fans on.

LEO: How much popularity and fame do you want to achieve? Is there a level where it could get to be too much?
JD: Famous enough to continue playing music and doing what I love for the rest of my life, but not so famous that I need bodyguards to go the grocery store. But if for some reason we did become insanely huge sensations and got filthy stinking rich, there's a lot of causes I would love to throw ridiculous chunks of money at. There are so many people suffering in this world and there’s so many bright ideas that need funding that it would be pretty great to be able to make some dreams come true.

LEO: What do you hate most about the music business?
JD: I hate the standards of mainstream radio. I hate that turning on "rock" radio means hearing some dude sing like a dying dog with a wall of cheesy distorted guitars behind him, or that "pop" radio is just some oversexed icon with a big dose of Autotune, or when you turn on "country" radio you aren't really sure if you are still on the pop radio, or when you listen to rap and r&b radio you think, "Oh wow, I love this song! Can't believe it's on the radio," then it just turns out it's a sample. So many people have no idea there is a whole other WORLD of music out there! Music that everyday people make, not just some money-making machine!

LEO: What do you think about Louisville today?
JD: I think Louisville is a very cool place. I love playing there, there's great food, lots of great art... Enjoyable place to be. Plus, I get to see my family every time we play there, so obviously that makes it one of my most favorite stops.

Those Darlins with The Seedy Seeds, How I Became the Bomb and Junk Yard Dogs
"10th Annual Lebowski Fest Louisville: Garden Party"
Executive Lawn
911 Phillips Ln.
Saturday, July 16
4 p.m.
$12 adv. $15 DOS
www.lebowskifest.com

Gang Gang Dance move themselves

2011-07-07T13:57:00.000-04:00

NYC'S Gang Gang Dance has earned a reputation as one of the more unique, surprising and interesting bands on the avant-garde edge of semi-underground music of the current era. Just don't be lazy and try to describe them too much. Their fifth album, Eye Contact, was recently released. LEO spoke with keyboardist Brian DeGraw.

LEO: How would you describe your music to someone who hasn't heard you yet?
Brian DeGraw: Like the sun melting sand into tinted glass... with a lot of drums.

LEO: How do you write - on a schedule, or whenever inspiration strikes?
BD: We write very sporadically, I guess. Sometimes it will happen in the span of a few weeks that we have off from traveling.... other times we will make a song in a day or two before leaving for tour, then we'll usually go back to it and refine it when we have time off.

LEO: When writing, do you think about how the music will move people to dance? Think?
BD: Rarely. It's more about moving ourselves. I guess after I know that it moves us, then maybe I will think about it from an audience perspective and try to imagine the effect it might have to outside ears and bodies. I just think that in order to truly move an audience, you have to put something very pure out there, and the most direct route to that purity is to satisfy your own soul and truly tap into your feelings. From there, you can then share it with the audience. It's very similar to the idea of "you can't be in a happy relationship if you're not happy with yourself first".

LEO: How do your surroundings inspire your music?
BD: Very much so, for me personally. I find that, as time goes by, I am more and more effected by my environments and I have a rapidly increasing desire for wide open space. It might have a lot to do with living in NYC, where your gaze is rarely focused very far from your eyes; it's so hectic that you never really let your vision breathe. It's a very near-sighted existence. We were fortunate enough to have more open space when we were making our new record... I think it made a big difference.

LEO: How much do you feel inspired by other forms of American pop or ethnic music genres?
BD: I feel inspired by music that hits me in the right places - that's all it is. I don't like to think too much in terms of regions or genres. Its all God's music.

LEO: Do you consider your group more of a pop dance band or experimental electronic project?
BD: Ah, see... here we go with the genres. I understand, though - music journalism is difficult without these terms, I guess. I'd say we are Experimental music that has been seduced by Pop. It's a naughty affair.

LEO: In the studio, how much do you try to capture your live sound? How free do you feel to experiment with sounds you might not be able to recreate live?
BD: We have always tried to capture our live sound in the studio. In the past, it hasn't worked so well, with the exception of our very first record, but I think we came very close on this new one. The new one has very good balance; there's a nice relationship between the live sound and the studio sound, I think, and some of the more studio songs, or overdubs or whatever, are now being incorporated into the live set. So the recording is informing the show, and vice-versa. I don't think we are ever too afraid to make something in the studio that we know we can't play live. It definitely is addressed when we start entering into that territory with a recording, but the deliberation never seems to go any further than just a shrug of the shoulders and a few "oh well's". The song itself is most important, I think. It gets to choose where it wants to live.

LEO: When you played in Louisville in 2004, Will Oldham was in the audience. Do you feel differently about playing for other musicians, vs. civilians?
BD: Will is a friend, so it was great to see his face shinin'. I don't differentiate between musicians and civilians. The only time I ever remember thinking about that type of thing was one time in L.A. when Morrissey was in the audience, but I knew there was no way in hell he was ever gonna like our music, so it made it easier. And indeed, I spotted him leaving two songs in...

Gang Gang Dance with Nguzunguzu and Total Freedom
Wednesday, July 13
Zanzabar
2100 S. Preston St., 40217
9 p.m., $12 adv. & $15 DOS
http://www.facebook.com/ganggangdance

The Black Lillies keep on truckin'

2011-07-06T16:53:00.002-04:00

The Black Lillies are a band of survivors from Knoxville, TN, who are currently promoting their second album, 100 Miles of Wreckage. They will perform on Saturday at Uncle Slayton's. LEO spoke with bandleader Cruz Contreras.

CC: We haven’t played Louisville yet, this will be our first trip.

LEO: You haven’t played here before?
CC: Not with this band. The big bulk of our tour starts in the end of July; we’re going out west for 6 or 7 weeks. For the next month, we’re just gonna be regional. The week we’ll be in Louisville, we’re starting in Seaside, Florida, a couple of shows in Birmingham, Louisville and Virginia. That should be a five-day run, which is more than we’re used to doing right now. We’ve just been doing weekends since the newest record came out in January. Last year was really crazy busy, but we’ve regrouped a bit with the new record, concentrated on getting airplay; we just made a brand new video, too - the first professional video.

LEO: Did you make that for the internet, or TV?
CC: The goal was for it to be on the major video networks. There’s no guarantee that that’ll ever happen, but… We had a great director, David McKwester (sp?), one of the insider kind of guys who’s won awards and is making our video. I’ve known him - he’s originally from Knoxville. Something like that would normally not be an option for an unsigned band, but he really dug the music. We got the final edit yesterday, and I think it has potential to be on one of the major video networks.

LEO: Were you able to collaborate on the concept?
CC: No – well, we really let him roll with it. You know, I don’t know how to make a video, it’s not really my world. I write the songs, I sing the songs; with someone of his caliber – part of the deal was, he approached us, and I think part of the attraction was he wasn’t gonna have to deal with the record label, he’s gonna have complete basic freedom, so we were really lucky to work with him because of that. My bass player calls it “Thriller for rednecks” (laughs). There’s dancing skeletons, fire, murder, dancing – it’s pretty cool.

LEO: There’s not many video outlets anymore, I would think that CMT is your best bet -
CC: Yeah, CMT is the goal, I think. I’m not sure they’re aware of us yet (laughs).

LEO: Do you feel like you’re part of the country music industry?
CC: Oh, it’s strange. I don’t. Traditionally, not at all. But we have had amazing support from WSM, 650 AM, the original Grand Ole Opry, they play the heck out of our record – and they’ve played the heck out of both records – and we played the CMA convention, so it’s pretty cool. We get to go to Nashville in total style, even though we’re not on a record label, we’re not really commercial country… I don’t know, we just have some good fans who’ve really helped us out.

LEO: Do you think, with all the changes in the industry, that wall has come done?
CC: Yeah, I’ve seen - I made my first record probably in ’99, and I equate it with getting into the horse and buggy business. You’re not going to sell CDs, barely. I remember making my first CD and a person came up and said, “Hey, I love your CD! I burned it for all my friends!” And I was like, If you knew how hungry I was, you probably wouldn’t say that… Whatever, that’s just the way it goes. I was in the band Robinella and the CC String Band in my twenties, and we signed with Columbia Records and I got to see that whole world operate, and it had its time, and it still has its place, on a limited scale, I think. They’ve had to adjust. But if you know what you’re doing, you can do it on your own now. Get it out there. To me it’s, you make your music, make a product and you go direct to your fans.

LEO: What about downloads?
CC: Yeah, we sell a fair amount of downloads. It’s funny – I actually don’t do that myself, I don’t really have a computer, but that’s very comfortable. People will be like, “How do I get your CD?” When you say “download,” they’re like, “Oh, OK.”

LEO: Do you find it ironic to be a band that’s very traditional in some ways and have people downloading your music?
CC: Yeah (laughs), but, like I said, that’s kind of where it is now. I don’t know… Also, there’s a foot in tradition, but we are by no means a traditional band. I have no desire to be a throwback. I spent years learning to play music in all different styles, in a traditional way; that was training to do what I want to do now. You know? Sometimes I see musicians and I’m like, “I don’t know, I just don’t think you should get comfortable – never get too comfortable.” What am I trying to say? There’s nothing more rewarding than creating your own sound, your own material, a fresh sound at that. If somebody’s already played something in the past, I’ll learn from that but I want to take it in a new direction, too.

LEO: How challenging is that, to create something fresh?
CC: A lot of it has to do with timing, as an artist. You have to know when the fire’s hot. I don’t write daily. If I wrote one song a month, I would be thrilled. When I write a song, I want it to be a keeper. To me, that’s something cool about not being part of the industry. I know there’s writers who do that, they go to work and write. Woah! A lot of times, they come in groups, two or three songs at a time.

LEO: You don’t have to panic that they’ll stop coming.
CC I don’t know…! Sometimes I do panic. It hasn’t happened yet, though.

LEO: Do you envision writing and playing for as long as possible?
CC: Yeah, definitely. I’m looking at it as a lifelong pursuit.

LEO: All of the changes you’ve been through – big time, do it yourself – at what level are you happiest?
CC: That’s a good question. I think, ultimately, definitely, the artistic integrity will keep me satisfied. I’d like to make a living at it, to make a good living at it. This band, right now, is riding a wave, so it’s time to get this out there and take a stab, see who we can appeal to, so I’d like to take this band as far as we can take it. Have as much success as we can - it's kind of like creating a job for yourself, is what it is. If you can have enough fans that you can travel around and play, everybody wins. We get to play, people get to hear music they like, everyone goes home happy.

The Black Lillies with Dust Radio
Saturday, July 9
Uncle Slayon's
1017 E. Broadway / 657-9555
$10, 9 p.m.
http://www.theblacklillies.com/

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Leavenworth, Indiana

2011-07-06T08:44:00.000-04:00

Plenty of room at the inn — plus your own bathroom

My favorite character on “Fraggle Rock” has always been Uncle Traveling Matt. In addition to slightly resembling the Indiana Jones-inspired Muppet creation, I also share his love of exploring unknown territories, having adventures and sending postcards to loved ones. This yearning to discover more about the human world, some place scary but exhilarating and far away from my cave, has at times gotten me in trouble. It has been lonely, expensive and dirty at times. But mostly it has been rewarding. 

 And that’s how I wound up surrounded by a gang of bikers in a small town in Southern Indiana last month.  

OK, so this wasn’t exactly Pee-Wee’s big adventure, and even less like Hunter Thompson running with the Hell’s Angels. No, this adventure was lovely and peaceful, almost downright bourgeois in its execution.  

I’d seen the Leavenworth Inn’s Living Social Escapes deal months before and hoped it could work as a potential wedding anniversary destination. It was our second anniversary, which left us with a near-impossible dilemma: What could we possibly do to top last year — or the year before that? It seemed inevitable that nothing would be fantastic enough, so why not settle for a B&B somewhere in Indiana, near nothing in particular?  

I am no expert on the land and culture of Indiana west of New Albany. Is anyone? (If so, why, exactly?) I didn’t come here to insult — I like driving around small towns, quiet places filled with dilapidated barns; perhaps not 24/7, but they fulfill a piece of me that needs tending to, too. The map told me Leavenworth is a town only about 40 minutes from my big city home, which sounded like an ideal distance for some unseen location that might be wonderful or horrible.  

My wife seems to like it when I plan mystery trips, surprising her upon arrival (or as close to our destination) as possible. Being a slicker, I didn’t know that Leavenworth is conveniently located near the town of Marengo. As an adventurer, I love caves, and my wife loves me, so she knows this about me. Therefore, she assumed I had something cave-centric planned as we exited the highway. But no, not yet at least. We turned off and I went left when the road to Marengo went right.  

After 10 minutes of rural Americana, we approached “downtown” Leavenworth. I’d expected an adorable block of antique shops run by stout ladies named Margie, but that’s not what we found. Just before we reached the Inn, we passed by the restaurant I’d read about — the Overlook. The menu seemed good enough, full of homemade comfort food. But I hadn’t expected to see a dozen bikers milling about (if bikers can be said to “mill”). I started to wonder whether this was going to be another one of my bad ideas.

Turning into the Inn, though, helped — what a beaut. I’m generally not a fan of B&Bs, because I’m too old and cranky to share a bathroom with Larry from Tulsa. I also never need to make pleasantries over morning cereal with Larry from Tulsa.  

I did my research this time, though; I did not go foolheartedly into another situation without assurances that my basic needs would be met: Will there be modern air conditioning? Of course. Is there a private bathroom? Sure. TV? Yes, with cable and a stocked DVD library. OK, great. But wait — there’s more: fresh cookies baked daily, a walking path, tennis courts, shuffleboard, even Wi-Fi, so I can catch up with your feelings about today’s lunch and/or weather when I check Facebook.   Then there’s the view. A lot of the value of this particular property and the Overlook restaurant across the street is that they both overlook the Ohio River Scenic Byway. It’s a pretty sweet view. After settling into our room, my wife soon declared, “I feel really relaxed here.” I did, too. We had most of our basic needs met, and there were very few distractions.  

Oh, and don’t worry. There’s also a fantastic bar.  

Walter’s Pub can be found under the Overlook. Not only do they have a few craft beers mixed in with the regular swill, they also have a deck with the best view of the river. BBC in hand, I sat calmly, gazing out at the peaceful water while the trashed and trashy lady at the next table instructed her companion not to mess with her.

Really, though, we didn’t mind her much. It was part of the experience — this wasn’t the Hamptons, after all — and nothing that we don’t see six times a week in Schnitzelburg.  

We took a quick detour into “downtown” (a few buildings within shouting distance of the Inn) and discovered Stephenson’s General Store, a legitimately old-timey trading post (100 years old) full of homemade candies, an ice cream parlor, gag gifts, random groceries and hardware. We left 20 minutes later with a bunch of desserts, a “Beware of Dog” sign, Chicken Poop brand lip balm and a tiny glass boot made for drinkin’.

We did have to share a quick breakfast the next morning with some guy who seemed sad, but fresh fruit and another gooey cookie diverted my attention. We had to leave way too soon. On the way home, I got to see the cave, and accidentally discovered a record store in Corydon, of all places.

And so we managed to have fun, see sights and get away from it all — and we arrived in less time than it takes to watch an episode of that Jim Belushi TV show about the fat lawyer who shouts a lot.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Mucca Pazza: The Greatest Show on Earth

2011-07-06T08:09:00.000-04:00

It’s safe to say you haven’t seen many bands like Chicago’s Mucca Pazza. Their two-dozen or so members play a circus-like mix of marching band, jazz, modern classical and avant-garde music with a punky attitude and an every-night-is-New-Year’s-Eve mission. LEO spoke with members Jeff Thomas (guitar) and Gary Kalar (mandolin).

LEO: How did this evolve from an idea to reality?
Jeff Thomas: Well, we thought That was a really good idea, and it turned out to be a GREAT idea. So, we tried That, and This became a reality. Thus the idea of That is how This became a reality. That made us happy, but This makes us really, really happy. So we stopped thinking about That, and decided to start doing This.
Gary Kalar: Alcohol.

LEO: How do you describe the Mucca Pazza experience to those who haven’t witnessed it yet?
JT: I think the news anchor on Louisville’s WLKY broadcast of the 2008 Pegasus Parade described us best with: “And ... here is Chicago’s own circus punk marching band Mucca ... um ... uh ... I don’t think we have seen anything like this before.” If you can’t trust a local news anchor for an honest description, then who can you trust? Incidentally, we haven’t been able to find a copy of this broadcast. Can you find a copy for us? I’ll buy you some ice cream.
GK: A marching band that doesn’t play marches. An audio-visual explosion of wacky joy, silly fear and odor. Yes, that is audio-visual odor.

LEO: How challenging is it for you to blend marching band, circus, rock, classical and other music cohesively?
JT: Not as challenging as getting an audience to dance to a car alarm.
GK: As long as you don’t think about it much, it’s easy. It helps to listen to really good DJs.

LEO: You’ve played some successful shows in Louisville — a set at the Forecastle Festival, a Derby Eve show with Wax Fang. What’s your impressions of Louisville overall, and of our music here?
JT: Inspiring.
GK: For every reason we find Brooklyn disgusting, we find Louisville delightful. Open, down-to-earth, ready to have fun for no reason. And the food is awesome.

LEO: How many members can we expect in Louisville (including cheerleaders)?
JT: Too many for the stage. Unfortunately, some of us will have to play in the audience. Important safety information: Wear protective eyeglasses, earplugs and, most importantly, nose plugs. Mucca Pazza is not responsible for broken or damaged senses.
GK: Anywhere from 20 to 25.

LEO: How many members actually have a marching band background? Where did you find the other members?
JT: About two-thirds come from a marching band background. Half are from a rock background. Five-sixteenths are from a circus background; half of these are also from the third of us from theater backgrounds. And, I’d say only 10 percent are from classical backgrounds; the other 30 percent have backgrounds in Afropop/hardcore and 1960s post-fluxus/1980s No Wave, respectfully. See previous answer to question about music blending.
GK: One. The Chicago music scene is incestuous.

LEO: Have you thought about starting other chapters of Mucca Pazza in other cities, especially as touring is difficult?
JT: See previous answer to question of ideas and realities: This is That.
GK: We hope every city has lots of their own freak marching bands. It used to be normal. Marching bands, I mean. If your city doesn’t have a marching band, start one today! You don’t need horns or drums either, just find a way to make what you play mobile. Bolt some speakers to football shoulder pads and start shredding. Find everyone you know who plays the flute and start an all-flute marching band. Ok, don’t do that. But things like that.

LEO: Your name means “crazy cow” in Italian. We have an ice cream parlor here called The Comfy Cow. I don’t really have a question for that.
JT: See previous parenthetical statement in answer to Mucca Pazza experiential description: I will take you there, just give us what we want!
GK: I have a question.

Mucca Pazza with Schwinntonation and OKDeejays
Thursday, July 7
Headliners Music Hall
1386 Lexington Road • 584-8088
www.mucca-pazza.org
$10; 9 p.m.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Hidden Ritual

2011-07-05T21:31:00.000-04:00

Hidden Ritual is a three-piece R'nR band from Austin, TX. They are currently on the road opening for Bill (Smog) Callahan, and will play tomorrow at "a secret location" in Louisville, one which has been described to me as either a bunker or a cave. So...
LEO spoke with Jaime Zuverza.

LEO: How would you describe your music to someone who hasn't heard you yet?
Jamie Zuverza: Well, I always describe the tunes in a different way; today I'll say it would be the secret soundtrack of Shaggy and Daphne's tumultuous times in the early '80s "Scooby Doo" cartoons. Shaggy and Daphne's secret love was like the slowly blooming flower of the bittersweet nightshade.

LEO: How do your surroundings inspire your music?
JZ: Half of our songs were written in Chicago's winter. I grew up in the desert, so the Chicago weather was awesome but also unstoppable. I felt trapped in my basement apartment and I had no control over the radiator heaters. I was either a frozen corpse or a rotisserie chicken rotating slowly on a diabolical spit. Some songs written during that time are "Dusty Dagger," "In a Room," "In a Daze," and "Loner Stays Healthy/Loner Dies".

LEO: In the studio, how much do you try to capture your live sound? How free do you feel to experiment with sounds you might not be able to recreate live?
JZ: Our most recent recording has very minimal overdubs, so it's pretty live sounding. The previous recordings were about creating lush environments that we couldn't duplicate live. Sometimes the recording artist and the performing artist don't match up, but I think that's cool. I can't imagine trying to get a 6-member band together to play all the neat noodles on a recording.

LEO: Do you read your reviews? If yes, do you find that helpful?
JZ: Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, yes.

LEO: What is your favorite song to perform? What do you think is your worst song?
JZ: We have a song called "To the Cave" that's my favorite to play. We love all of our children, and to disown one in print would release a curse into the wind that we are not prepared to deal with. Very similar to a fart.

LEO: Do you get a lot of groupies?
JZ: Only body-less ghost groupies.

LEO: Does your music ever make you horny?
JZ: Well, we do use bongo drums.

Bill Callahan with Hidden Ritual
- a secret location -
Wednesday, July 6
http://hiddenritual.tumblr.com/

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Abigail Washburn makes friends

2011-06-29T10:49:00.000-04:00

Abigail Washburn is a highly gifted clawhammer banjo player and singer who has lived a full life already. LEO spoke with her after she returned from a 30-hour drive back from the Telluride Festival home to Nashville. She performs tonight at Waterfront Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. Here are some highlights from a detailed and delightful conversation:

AW: We’re going to be up in Louisville next week, I’m really excited!

LEO: You’ve got some Louisville connections: Tucker Martine, who produced your latest record, also produced My Morning Jacket’s latest, and their guitarist Carol Broemel plays on your record, and Ben Sollee, of course, was a bandmate of yours.
AW: Absolutely! Of course. Ben’s like a brother – he’s not on the record, but we grew up a lot together musically over the last seven years.
When I took the time to write the record, I wasn’t going anywhere very much. So there was a period of about a year where I was kind of insular. I feel like it has been a while since I’ve really been to Louisville and spent good time there. Ben and I used to spend a ton of time there; we’d play little shows at 21C and we had that cool show at the theater on the campus… And I always love doing in-stores. We did an in-store release at ear X-tacy in January, which was awesome. I wish I was there more often. We’ve considered, from time to time, doing a residency, where I would be in Nashville and Louisville. I was just not quite sure where the right place to play would be in Louisville. I’ve missed it, and I can’t wait to get back.
I also want to say that every time we’re driving through Louisville, we always want to stop at – I’m not even sure how you say it, I always forget – Sunergos Coffee? Always! I’m on their email list and everything. Anyway, obviously, I feel a really very strong connection to Louisville, it’s just been a while since I’ve gotten a sleepover.
Also, Kyle Meredith from WFPK, I’m looking forward to seeing him. He and I tweeted recently, which is nice.

LEO: Do you use Twitter often to keep in touch with music friends around the country?
AW: Yeah, it actually has become kind of fun. At first, I was like, “Oh, this is so weird,” y’know? But then I started doing it, and it’s kind of a neat little system for getting tidbits of information about friends – notes about their shows, where they are, if something special’s happened – I’m just glad to keep abreast of the happenings of the people I care about. And then some that I’m just intrigued by – Bill Cosby, I watch his tweet feed (laughs).

LEO: This time of year, so many talented artists are criss-crossing our region, playing festivals and making friends.
AW: Bonnaroo and Telluride were just incredibly awesome. I know it’s an awesome place to be as an audience member, ‘cause I’ve done that a bunch, it’s an amazing place to be as an artist, and they’re both so different. When I was at Bonnaroo, I learned about new music, like most people do when they go there, I got to see stuff that I’d always wanted to see. Telluride is this incredible family experience in the mountains, with jamming every night after the shows; there’s one big scene of music that’s derived from roots music idioms that are, essentially, pop music – Mumford and Sons, The Head and the Heart, people like that, and it’s been so fun to get to know all these people. We did shows recently with both, and with Mumford and Sons, I sat in on their main stage set, and got to know everybody so well, and it’s such a joy to watch this community that’s connected to roots music, Americana music, grow. It’s growing so much. It’s really exciting, and everybody’s putting their own take on it.
Unfortunately, I had to miss My Morning Jacket’s set, ‘cause it was the only time I had to spend with my husband before we wouldn’t see each other for a week. So, I had to choose… even though I had a little part of me regretting it (laughs). I’ve become good friends with Carl, and Ben sat in with them, so I wanted to be there, but oh well. I’ll see them next time. I heard it was absolutely amazing. I heard there were, like, firecrackers in the sky, it was so amazing.

"Waterfront Wednesday" with Nicole Atkins, Abigail Washburn and Scars on 45
Waterfront Park
6 p.m., free
http://www.wfpk.org/

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

The Funky Meters know how to strut their stuff

2011-06-29T07:46:00.000-04:00

“The Fourth of July, it’s gonna be a great situation. I don’t like to be cold, I really like the heat.” At 73, Art Neville should know what he likes. As one of the famed New Orleans Neville family of musicians, he has long since stamped his sound all over American music.

The keyboardist has worked as a musician since the early 1950s. He helped form the legendary Meters group in the mid-’60s, which drove crowds wild with their mix of second-line funk, blues and intoxicating dance grooves. After laying down a series of records that are highly prized and still mighty influential today, the group ended in the late ’70s. Art and kin began performing as the Neville Brothers, who would go on to have numerous hits of their own.

Today, Neville performs with fellow ex-Meter George Porter Jr., still on bass, along with drummer Russell Batiste Jr. and guitarist Brian Stoltz, as the Funky Meters. They headline the Fourth of July concert at Waterfront Park. LEO spoke with Neville last week, and he made some surprising revelations about his take on modern music.

“Some of the new stuff is real, real great. I been watching these people on ... what is it? … on TV ... Man, that stuff is real, real nice. I mean, most of it is. I like a lot of the new stuff with Lady Gaga. I’m getting the video, so that makes it a little different than just listening to it. My favorite used to be Michael Jackson. I would listen to him a lot. Michael Jackson was supreme.”

In his hometown, Neville said, “They got bands doin’ jazz, doin’ ... what do you call that? (Hip-hop?) Yeah, the hip-hop stuff. I listen to the radio a lot; I like to mix my stations up where I can get jazz, I can get funk, I can get rock — I listen to all of it. (Like a big gumbo stew of music?) Yeah, definitely.”

When I asked if he likes the hip-hop stuff, he replied, “We’re working on some things. I don’t know when it’s going to be out, and I’m not gonna say when — the way the business goes, you don’t know.”

While Meters fans can expect to hear some classics, this Funky bunch isn’t just coasting on past triumphs. “We use some of those songs that we did, and we have some new stuff, too. It’s good stuff.”

Asked to pick favorites, Neville deferred. “All of ’em are good songs to me, so I don’t want to pick out one or another. I don’t see any discrepancy, one way or another. People still like what we do, it’s enjoyable. I don’t think that it’s any different.”

Neville especially enjoys outdoor concerts as opposed to dark bars or seated theaters. “We want people to have a good time. They’re gonna enjoy what we’re doing, that’s for sure.” I asked if he thought a drunk crowd was better than a sober crowd. “Nah,“ he began, before thinking it through more. “I don’t really know. Maybe it’s better for some people.”

Neville hopes to keep playing, “As long as I can, man. While I’ve got the energy, and I’ve got the drive to want to do it, I’d like to be able to be playing. I like to play. I don’t know nothing else — so that’s my best bet. As long as people still like to hear it, I want to play.”

*Sunday’s Waterfront Independence Festival lineup includes The Band Perry, Kip Moore and Systems Go.

The Funky Meters with De La Soul and Fitz and the Tantrums

Waterfront Independence Festival*
Monday, July 4
Waterfront Park, Great Lawn
www.waterfrontindependencefestival.com
Free; 5 p.m.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

album review: JP Wright

2011-06-29T07:45:00.000-04:00

“I’m from Kentucky, not Tennessee,” declares JP Wright on “Nashville Star,” a rant against modern country pop defiantly performed in a classic country style. Louisvillian Wright isn’t just a union man in theory; he’s a member of Railroad Workers United and actually spends his days working on the rails between Louisville and Nashville, the old L&N. His songs about classic values in a mixed-up modern world gain a specificity and credibility from his real world experiences, but none of that would matter a lick if he wasn’t also a strong singer accompanied by some lovely, mournful fiddle, banjo, bass and guitar, and not much more. More of a throwback to a Roosevelt-era Okie folkie than a so-called Obama socialist (the cover photo is of Eugene V. Debs), Wright is a modern Pete Seeger, a campfire Springsteen for folks who don’t have $100 to spend on a concert ticket.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Brontosaurus: All Killer, No Filler

2011-06-28T17:36:00.001-04:00

Brontosaurus are a couple of dudes who have a band. They play Zanzabar on Thursday.

LEO: How would you describe your music to someone who hasn't heard you yet?
Weird, pretty, thoughtfully structured rock music. Awesome?

LEO: If you had to reduce what you want to express musically into one sentence, what would you say?
I'd say we're trying to express passion, honesty, play-fullness while trying to stay thought provoking.

LEO: Do you also have a day job, or does music pay all your bills?
We both have day jobs. NK works at Busy Beaver Buttons where he makes hundreds of buttons a day. NP runs a recording studio where he records hundreds of noises a day.

LEO: Do you write on a schedule, or whenever inspiration strikes? How do your surroundings inspire your music?
Probably a little of both. We both tend to write in spurts when inspiration strikes, but our collaborations tend to be a bit more structured.

LEO: What is your favorite song to perform? What do you think is your worst song?
If a song is brand new it tends to be a bit more exciting, however I don't think we have a worst song otherwise we wouldn't play it. All killer no filler brah!

LEO: What is the most rewarding part and the most difficult part about your work?
I can't say for sure what's the most rewarding, but I did get a pretty great feeling the first time I held our finished record in my hands for the first time. The most difficult part is probably everything that doesn't pertain directly to writing or performing music. The stuff that can potentially distract you from the fact that being in a band and playing music is a awesome.

LEO: How much popularity and fame do you want to achieve? Is there a level where it could get to be too much?
I really just want as many people hear our music as possible. As long as we can continue to make records and people wanna listen to our music we'll be a very happy band.

LEO: What do fans do for you in different cities? Do they bring you gifts, make things for you, or just want to hang out?
Mostly people just like to talk and have a good time. We get drinks bought for us from time to time and just last night someone just made us an origami crane... so there's that.

LEO: Which one of you gets more action and/or respect?
Given that there's just two of us, we're very diplomatic. We share everything in this band...

Haley Bonar's happy accidents

2011-06-28T16:47:00.000-04:00

Haley Bonar is about to leave for a tour promoting her recent album, Golder, and isn't quite ready to leave home yet:
“I'm in Minneapolis, checking my list 80 times, making sure I have everything I need for tour (laughs). I'm a little out of practice, so I'm, like, 'Oh God, what do I need for two weeks?'”

LEO: You're touring with some cool folks, including one from Kentucky... Do you know them already? Have you toured with them before?
Haley Bonar: I met Holcombe in Portland, when I was living there for a year. Daniel and I met in L.A. a few years ago. Our bands have randomly crossed paths across the country, and we've remained friends ever since! They're so sweet, and I'm really excited to tour with those guys, they're just really good people and great musicians.

LEO: You've played with some great people before, like Low and Andrew Bird. Have you seen that directly helping get your music heard?
HB: Yeah, I imagine whenever you get to open for somebody that has a big draw, it's always beneficial. It's definitely been both good for my career and we've remained friends ever since. I haven't seen Andrew for probably two years, so I'm looking forward to that.

LEO: How do you feel about living that kind of life?
HB: I think that's just of the way it goes. Everyone lives in different places, so you see each other when you can. It doesn't really bum me out or anything (laughs).

LEO: You're playing a kids' show at Lollapalooza.
HB: Yeah! I have a kids' CD that I made called Sing With Me that came out about two years ago. It's just a little EP. I've been doing that once in a while; with the Lollapalooza thing, it just didn't work out to do the regular stage but we're gonna do a short set at the kids' stage. Which is great, and very appropriate, as I'm going to be, at that time, I'll be like 7 and a half months pregnant (laughs) so that'll be kind of perfect. It's shady there, and it's fun. I don't consider myself at all “a kids' artist”. It's one of those things I just did – it's fun and easy – and the shows I have done have been really great. So, I'm looking forward to that.

LEO: Is there any kind of strategy that you have, to diversify your audience?
HB: I don't know if there's any kind of strategy at all. I always wanted to do that. I've always nannied to supplement my music habit, so it just made sense to do some kid songs that weren't annoying, like, about the alphabet, y'know? I wanted to make something parent-friendly. It just sort of happened.

LEO: Speaking of kids, you've had songs used on MTV's "Teen Mom". I have to confess, I haven't see that show.
HB: Oh, you're not missing much, buddy. The show's not that good (laughs). It's very depressing. Yeah, it's really weird. I still don't know what to think about it. It's just like, “Oh, well, I get a royalty check from that, and that's nice...” I don't have TV - I don't have any channels on mine. I watched one a year ago at a friend's house and I was like, “Oh, there's my song.” They used, like, seven of my songs. In my mind, that's sort of odd. It's a heartbreaking show – I don't think that's the intent of it but it's... yeah. It's weird that that's my music (on it).

LEO: You also have a side band, Gramma's Boyfriend, which is more punkish.
HB: We started that a year ago. I'd always wanted to have a punk band. I love seeing my music, obviously, but I've always wanted to do something completely different, and fun. I get to spazz out, and let my freak flag fly a little bit more in that band.

LEO: Can you see that leading to more spazzing out in your solo work?
HB: It sort of has. I write the songs in both bands. I feel like some of the Gramma's Boyfriend songs are not much of a far cry from my songs. Definitely, on Golder, it's a bit more rock-y; it's not by any means a punk rock record, but it's got a little bit of that in there. I think everything you do affects what you're gonna do next in some way.

LEO: How much impact do yo think your little one will have on your songwriting?
HB: I don't know what's gonna happen with that. A lot of my friends have said, “Oh, it's your most creative time when you're pregnant.” I've been really consumed with this record and the tour and all this work, that I really haven't had a lot of time to be super creative. I have no idea what the next batch of songs is gonna be.
It's definitely weird. I didn't plan on this – having a kid and releasing a record is like having two children, in a way. I don't think it's taking away at all; if anything, it makes me want to sing better. I like the fact that this unborn child is gonna be exposed to all this music through the entire pregnancy. I think it's awesome that I can tell her some day, “When this record came out, I was pregnant with you... You were on that tour! You're in this video!”

Daniel Martin Moore with Holcombe Waller and Haley Bonar
The Rudyard Kipling
Thursday, June 30
7:30 p.m., $10

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Radical Dads need electric guitars

2011-06-27T08:34:00.000-04:00

Radical Dads are a ’90’s-inspired, “120 Minutes”-lovin’ pop-rock band that happens to feature Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s Robbie Guertin on drums. They make their Louisville live debut on Wednesday at Zanzabar. LEO spoke with Christopher Diken.

LEO: Radical Dads, your mama is…
Christopher Diken: So incredibly intelligent, caring, and supportive, it’s no wonder you’ve all become so wildly successful and good-looking.

LEO: Are you a pop band? Rock? Experimental?
CD: We are a rock band.

LEO: The cover of your album is very striking. What is going on there? Was that the band’s idea or the artist’s?
CD: Thanks! We like to think of it as a creature emerging from the Gowanus Canal, although there’s a good chance it could be something else entirely. It was the artist’s idea. His name is Michael Deforge.

LEO: What’s it like, having men in the band? That must be weird!
CD: It’s sort of like having more than one fly in your soup.

LEO: Favorite ’90s bands?
CD: Pixies, Superchunk, Sleater-Kinney, The Clean, Dinosaur Jr., Pavement, Built to Spill, Modest Mouse, Yo La Tengo, The Lilys, Don Caballero, The 3Ds.

LEO: What is your favorite non-musical work about music?
CD: “The Loser” by Thomas Bernhard.

LEO: Instead of rehashing how you got together – How will you break up, eventually?
CD: We’ll break up when humans deplete all the world’s natural resources, thus making electricity impossible and electric guitars obsolete.

LEO: Know any good jokes?
CD: How many lead guitarists does it take to change a lightbulb? None — they just steal someone else’s light.

Radical Dads with Nerves Junior
Wednesday, June 29
Zanzabar
8 p.m., $5

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

East Cackalacky Ascetic Marching Death Band: Buskers on Acid

2011-06-24T21:50:00.005-04:00

East Cackalacky Ascetic Marching Death Band is a duo of buskers who like to hitch and ride the rails around the ol' U.S. of A., having adventures and making music. As you can probably already imagine, they're kind of weird and very funny. LEO spoke with Tom Senkus in advance of their performance next Tuesday at Highlands Tap Room.

LEO: How would you describe your music to someone who hasn't heard you yet?
TS: Buskers on acid, or vengeful musical theatre people who always got the shitty part with two lines.

LEO: What does your music smell like?
TS: Polycarbonate with a touch of that grease from underneath your chin. You know what I'm talking about.

LEO: How do your surroundings inspire your music?
TS: Oh, this is a good one. So, we lived in Klamath Falls, OR in the winter for cheap rent - bad idea. The music scene in December is nil, so we were left to make our own songs in an ex-crack house with no insulation. Our songs became excuses to play more furiously in a cheap attempt to save money on our gas bill.

Then, there's Easton, PA, another place we holed up in. Within the first week, we had three of our tires slashed. This lent a certain desperation and paranoia to our music. We even wrote a song about our neighbor who turned up her television in retaliation to our music practices. She was the inadvertent third member of our band for a while. We love you, Helen.

LEO: Do you prefer playing in bars, senior centers or outdoors?
TS: Nice try! I actually played in senior centers when I was a young lad and they were a hoot. Bars are nice, and it's nice to feed off of an appreciative, nice audience. Did I say nice a bunch? Nice... Sometimes it's fun to be a musical accomplice to some mutual date rape. Since we love to busk, outdoors is a fun method. It's like sticking music into a person-gumball machine and money and laughter comes out. Sometimes dancing.

LEO: What else do you do for money and/or fun?
TS: Jobs? Here's a list for Tom's jobs to make dough for this tour: mover, landscaper, temp agent, short-order cook, scrap metal returner, Craigslist hustler.

Sharmini worked as a tutor, also a Craigslist dealmaker, an Ebay/Amazon queen and a telemarketer for a car dealership. And an Indian restaurant waitress for a day, but they wouldn't let her keep her tips. Here's a tip: SCREW YOU!

As for fun, I like fixing things - the tour van named The Bumblebeast, old radios, laptops, old instruments. Music itself is consuming in all its facets that it leaves little need to work on that part of me that just wants to decoupage.

Sharmini says: Traveling, taking photographs, talking with crazy people and figuring out how to keep all that going. She does a lot of photography (http://visualpilgrimage.tumblr.com/) She's part Sri Lankan, so she thinks it's exciting to put Sriracha on everything. It's not.

LEO: Does your music ever make you horny?
TS: Indirectly, we've become more attractive to our friends with the erroneous mystique of being a "touring musician". Therefore, they find us unattainable by playing places like Pascagoula, Mississippi; and that terrible, terrible lie that all musicians have drugs. I'd like to state for the record that we are VERY attainable.

LEO: What is your favorite song to perform? What do you think is your worst song?
TS: My favorite song is usually the ones that feel like riding on a rollercoaster, like "I Should've Been Aborted". My least favorite is whatever is like the teacups... maybe the dead air between songs when we have to tune up. For those cumulative sections, we label them our punk rock version of John Cage's "4:33". Those especially suck.

LEO: What crimes have you committed in the name of music?
TS: In light of Tupac's murderer supposedly confessing, I'd like to ALSO state for the record that I didn't kill The Notorious B.I.G, no matter how notoriously B.I.G he was. Probably shoplifting from overpriced supermarkets, but really $2.99 for a loaf of french bread? C'mon, Pennsylvania.

LEO: Do you have any favorite trains?
TS: My least favorite is the Northern Pacific line in Kansas City, Missouri. This bull - the railroad policeman handcuffed me and then gave me the "Come to Jesus" speech. He had a very well-groomed mustache and aviators. I had to pay $100 in bribe money to some lawyer after riding a Greyhound for two days.

Tom's favorite was a 20+ hour hopout from Denver to someplace outside of Topeka. He had the opportunity to ride in an empty engine compartment with a bathroom, copious amounts of bottled water, and a jar of peanut butter. Heaven...

LEO: What do you know, or think, about Louisville? Any impressions of us?
TS: Isn't Slint from Louisville? Tom recalls hitchhiking through Louisville last year and this pregnant girl gave him her number to meet up with her by the on-ramp of this McDon-no, wait, that was Lexington. So, no, we're excited to learn how to pronounce "Louisville" all over again.

Tuesday, June 28
Highlands Tap Room
1279 Bardstown Rd.
10 p.m.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Sarah Jarosz comes of age

2011-06-23T10:20:00.000-04:00

Sarah Jarosz just might be the Alison Krauss of her generation. The multi-talented multi-instrumentalist is signed to influential roots music label Sugar Hill, who saw her first album earn several major award nominations at the young age of 18. Now 20 and a student at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston during the school year, Jarosz is spending this summer touring around the country. When LEO spoke with her earlier this week, she had just played at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. She will perform at ear X-tacy Records, at 5:30 p.m. Friday, for free, in her only scheduled local appearance.

LEO: Do you prefer playing outdoor shows or in clubs and theaters?
Sarah Jarosz: I like 'em both, honestly. There are different settings sometimes that I prefer – vlubs and theaters because it's a little more of a listening vibe, but when it comes to really being inspired and being reminded why I was so inspired by music in the first place, I think festivals really help with that vibe.

LEO: Now that you're getting a little older, are you starting to get younger players coming up to you, wanting to jam, like you did when you were younger?
SJ: I guess... I'm still just 20, so I think maybe it might be a few years before its more in number. There was a little girl, Bella, who came up to me at Telluride, who just started playing mandolin – she's, like, 11. I've definitely met a few young people along the way; it's always really inspiring to see other people coming up and doing it, reminding me of when I was that age and falling in love with this.

LEO: Does that make you feel more like a veteran?
SJ: (laughing) I wouldn't say “veteran,” but it makes me feel time a little more, and where I'm at in my life.

LEO: You're 20 now. Are you looking forward to having your first beer next year?
SJ: (laughing) It will be a monumental occasion.

LEO: You've been nominated for a Grammy, and AMAs, and other awards.
SJ: Yep, yep, it's all quite an honor, for sure. I'm still very encouraged by all the support.

LEO: Does that make you feel like the Grammys sometimes actually get it right?
SJ: (laughing) Yeah, definitely. I have a lot of respect for them, and it was such an exciting thing to get to go and experience. But, y'know, what I say often is that, as much as all of that support means, even if none of it existed, I would still be doing this. I'm not doing this for all that. It's just a nice extra thing that I feel honored by.

LEO: Do you see it helping to raise awareness, to get people out to see you or listen to your albums?
SJ: I think so. People obviously pay attention to that, so it definitely helps. I'm very thankful and fortunate to have that at a young age.

LEO: How many different instruments do you play?
SJ: Well, usually on the road, I travel with four instruments: mandolin, octave mandolin, clawhammer banjo and guitar. So, those are my main things. When it comes to being in the studio, it always opens itself up to experimentation. On the record, I was playing wurlitzer, electric guitar and a lot of different things.

LEO: Do they all come easily to you? Or are some harder to master?
SJ: I don't know, I just feel a different connection to each instrument. I know my way best around mandolin, but when it comes to songwriting, it's nice to be able to play all of them, because if you're looking for a different sort of sound, or have a lack of inspiration, then switching over to a different instrument, at times, helps give ideas.

LEO: Is there a style that you're really feeling right now?
SJ: Being at Telluride, I saw Tim O'Brien play; it's interesting, he's one of the reasons I even started playing music, I grew up listening to him... just revisiting the stuff I grew up listening to a long time ago. Like, the Punch Brothers – they're sounding so amazing right now.

LEO: Do you prefer playing versus singing or writing?
SJ: I like it all. I do go through phases of things that I really feel I need to work on – and, a lot of times, it's all three. But I think that they all feed into each other. A lot of the people that I've really respected growing up have been singers and instrumentalists and writers, and so that's something I strive to get better at.

LEO: Are there other artists outside of what people might think you'd be into that inspire you?
SJ: Oh, yeah, totally. That's one thing I feel fortunate enough to have had were parents that listened to a bunch of different stuff, all around the house. They're big music lovers – my mom plays a little guitar and writes songs, and my dad just loves it. A band like Radiohead, or the Decemberists, or Wilco – and then, now that I'm at the New England Conservatory up in Boston, getting into more jazz things that I'd never listened to before. It's just all really inspiring.

LEO: How much longer do you have at the Conservatory?
SJ: I just finished my second year, and I have two more years left.

LEO: I'm curious if you have any regrets yet?
SJ: I feel fortunate to say that I don't. Yet (laughing). I think for me, so far, that has to do with feeling really fortunate to be surrounded by a great team of people that have been helping me; the whole Sugar Hill Records team, my management- there's so many crazy things in this music business, and I feel really lucky to be with people that I can trust. They're supportive of me going to school and supportive of the music that I try to make. Also, having the opportunity to be surrounded by so many musicians that I feel inspired by on a daily basis, it's really special.

photo by Scott Simontacchi

Small Sur — where the country meets the city

2011-06-22T08:32:00.000-04:00

Small Sur is a folk-based band from Baltimore that plays slower than most. Their confident approach has earned solid reviews from fans all over, like the NPR staffer who wrote they create “strikingly peaceful folk that feels as if it’s sprung from the Pacific coasts of California rather than East Coast clubs.” Their label, Portland, Ore.’s Tender Loving Empire, describes their music as “Songs about trees, kelp.”

LEO spoke with singer/songwriter/guitarist Bob Keal before they left for a tour promoting their new album, Tones, which will be released on Tuesday.
“I write slow songs, because faster songs don’t come out of me,” Keal says. “For those who hang their hats on faster ones, that’s all well and good, but for me, there’s no such thing as ‘too slow.’”

Small Sur is a bit of an outcast in Baltimore, whose scene today is dominated by loud and art-damaged rock bands and experimental musicians. Keal, who was raised in South Dakota as “a pretty normal Midwestern kid,” has always followed his internal compass, moving as he pleases. His songwriting doesn’t always reflect his surroundings.

“I can’t really say that Baltimore itself has influenced my songwriting in any direct way since moving here almost six years ago. One song on Tones, ‘Prettyboy,’ was written about a reservoir that’s 30 minutes or so from the city, but beyond that, I’d say that I find much stronger inspiration from more rural environments, my youth in South Dakota, traveling in California or the Northeast, and spending time with friends.”

Keal, a man possessing a giant lumberjack beard, spends most of the year teaching elementary school. “I teach English to Students of Other Languages (ESOL). All my kids are amazing and interesting, and while they haven’t slipped into my songs just yet, I’m sure they will soon.”

He acknowledges that he thinks sometimes about moving to a different environment. “Baltimore has many different faces, and not all of them are pretty, but my music is just one part of my life. So, while I’m sure I’ll leave Baltimore sometime in the not-so-distant future, the move will likely have more to do with an overall change of lifestyle than anything to do with the band.

“In a way, too, it’s pretty inspiring to play music in a city that doesn’t traditionally embrace our brand of music, because we get to play and collaborate with tons of bands that we wouldn’t probably hook up with if we didn’t live here.”

Small Sur with Elephant Micah and Joe Manning
Sunday, June 26
Zanzabar
2100 S. Preston St.
www.smallsur.com
$6; 9 p.m.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Grupo Fantasma want to make you dance

2011-06-22T08:30:00.000-04:00

Austin, Texas-based Grupo Fantasma might be best known for frequently backing super-fan Prince, who called them “real musicians making real music.” Their 2010 album, El Existential, won a Grammy for Best Latin Rock, Alternative or Urban Album. They will perform at the Clifton Center for guests at the 19th annual Taste of Frankfort Avenue food fest. LEO spoke with guitarist Adrian Quesada.

LEO: How do you feel playing in parts of the United States where Latin culture isn’t nearly as prominent as it is in Texas? Is it harder — or easier — to find excited crowds wanting to listen?
Adrian Quesada: There’s really no formula to who enjoys our music. Sometimes we get better reception in Canada or Europe where people don’t understand a word we’re singing about, and sometimes there’s nothing like playing for some “raza.” As far as the U.S. goes, some people are just more open-minded than others and don’t box music and culture into little packages; we tend to do well in those situations.

LEO: What’s more important — the Latin part or the funk part of the music?
AQ: Both parts of it are just as important, but I’d say the Latin part may be the harder one to master ... We’re working constantly to get better as a band, and with funk and Latin music, the idea is: Less is more. It’s about being a part of a greater whole and not overplaying. The instruments are supposed to be having a conversation with each other.

LEO: When writing, do you think about how the music will move people to dance?
AQ: We don’t think about the dancing until we actually try out a new tune at a show. When writing, we’ve been trying to write a good song for the sake of writing a new song, instead of to make people dance. But to be totally honest, if a non-danceable song kills the energy at a show, sometimes it gets weeded out of our set.

LEO: How much are things like Grammys worth to you?
AQ: It’s more of a reward for all our hard work over 11 years.

LEO: You’ve done a lot by yourselves. Have you had discussions with major labels or others who might be able to offer you money or access that you can’t do yourselves?
AQ: In the early days, we had some major label interest. None of it panned out for one reason or another, and it’s probably a good thing at this point in our career. There was a lot of people telling us what they thought we should be doing, and it usually involved telling us we were doing the wrong thing. We chose the long road, but it’s one that we’ve built along the way, and won’t crumble as it has a steady foundation. We haven’t done everything independently and have worked with some great distributors, labels, publishing companies, etc.

LEO: How much do you feel inspired by other forms of American pop or ethnic music genres?
AQ: We get inspiration from all over the place. We’re not above listening to pop music, either. With 10 members, there’s so many influences as everyone has their own taste in music. There’s a common thread, of course, and that’s Latin and funk music. You may not hear the influence of many genres outside of that, it’s very subtle, and we’ve never been about forcing the music in any direction just for the sake of doing so.

LEO: Are you the best live band out there? If not, who’s better?
AQ: No, we’re always striving to be better. But I do think, pound for pound, we can hold our own with the best of them, and we’re one of the most versatile bands around.

‘Taste of Frankfort Avenue’ with Grupo Fantasma
Sunday, June 26
Clifton Center • 2117 Payne St.
www.cliftoncenter.org
$40 ($20 concert only); 5 p.m. (food), 8 p.m. (concert)

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Sound & Shape get inspired

2011-06-21T21:56:00.000-04:00

Sound & Shape is a passionate rock band from Nashville with a lot of soul. They're road warriors who have earned their spots. Their new ep, Now Comes the Mystery, was released on May 10. LEO spoke with singer/guitarist Ryan Caudle.

LEO: How would you describe your music to someone who hasn't heard you yet?
RC: Without knowing what their exact frame of reference is, I'd normally just say rock 'n roll. I think when you start breaking things down into sub-genres and sub-sub-genres, the magic of the self discovery aspect of music can get taken away. It's a super hard thing to be objective about one's music and not immediately say, "It sounds like the greatest thing you've ever heard in your life!"

LEO: Do you write on a schedule, or whenever inspiration strikes?
RC: I have certain open times in my schedule where I know I'll be able to sit down with my guitar and notebook, but usually, throughout the week, I'll be collecting little ideas as the inspiration hits me: lyric fragments, overall song ideas, a riff or a chord progression and then, when I have the free time, I'll sit down and assemble all the pieces. Sometimes the whole thing just comes at once though, and I'll just kind of stop what I'm doing and push through it.

LEO: Where do you find ideas for your songs?
RC: A song idea can literally come from anywhere. Sometimes, when I'm in a public place, I'll hear snippets of conversation and, after those people move out of earshot, my brain will just automatically pick up the storyline of their conversation and continue it internally, which will then sometimes turn into an idea or into an actual lyric. Other times, movies, books, television shows, etc. can kind of give a spark of inspiration as well. Not in a directly literal way, but more of a "that's cool... but what if THIS happened instead?" kind of way.

LEO: How do your surroundings inspire your music?
RC: I think your surroundings have a major subconscious impact on your writing. If you're comfortable in the place where a song is written, I think that comes through; just like if you're in an unfamiliar place or somewhere where you might not feel so secure, artistically or otherwise, that, too, will be evident in the finished product.

LEO: What is your favorite song to perform? What do you think is your worst song?
RC: Right now there are two, and they are actually both brand new. One is called "Wheels To Babylon" and the other is called "Everybody Leaves." They are both kind of on opposite ends of the spectrum, musically, but I think I managed to say what I wanted to say with each pretty completely.
As far as worst song goes, there are actually a few clunkers I'll take responsibility for, ha ha. Luckily, most of those are and will remain unreleased. Of all the released stuff, I'd have to say probably a song called "Feed Me to the Spiders" from our first record. It just doesn't go anywhere interesting or say anything.

LEO: What is the most rewarding part and the most difficult part about your work?
RC: The most rewarding part is definitely all the handshakes and hugs and the "you're my new favorite band"s. More than anything, I want to be great at what we do, so when people are into it, it's pretty much the best feeling you can imagine.
The most difficult by far is being away from home. Even if we're just gone for a few days, the second I get in the van I miss my girlfriend and our two cats and our apartment. Having someone at home makes being away kind of bittersweet sometimes.

LEO: Have you spent much time in Louisville? Any impressions of us?
HC: We've played Louisville off and on for a few years now and, with the exception of one time, we've always had great shows and a great time. Louisville is a lot like Nashville to me. It's a pretty forward thinking and "hip" town, in a state kind of known for being neither of those things.

Sound & Shape with BEHM
Thursday, June 23
10:30 p.m., $5
Hideaway Saloon
1607 Bardstown Road
http://www.facebook.com/soundandshape

c. 2011 LEO Weekly