Kentucky super magnet Dawn Landes brings another one home

Dawn Landes is a smart, playful singer-songwriter who has earned critical praise and the modern version of hit singles — her songs have popped up often on TV. She performed with the band Hem before her solo work resulted in a following of her own. Her folky, accessible songs might be the easiest clue that this Brooklyn resident actually hails from a city more relaxed and Southern.

LEO: You’re from Louisville. So, where did you go to high school?
Dawn Landes: I went to Ballard. Go Bruins!

Landes, 30, once worked as an audio engineer in New York recording studios and has high standards for live sound quality. “It’s always a little unnerving to put your music into the hands of a total stranger each night, so that took some getting used to, but we’ve started to control more of our sound from the stage,” she says. “Sometimes I miss the smaller rooms with the Mackie mixer right there onstage.”
Her band has included other Louisvillians. When asked about her drummer, a veteran of the Java Men and King Kong, Landes says, “Ray Rizzo is the maaann! Hands down, a true magic man. Ray and I have been playing music together for over 10 years now; we met when I was still in high school and couldn’t even sneak myself in to a Java Men show. I love the fact that we both have roots in Louisville. For a while there, I was touring as a trio with an all-Louisville band — me, Ray and Eric Stephenson on cello. There’s some kind of Kentucky super magnet that pulls people together — just ask any NYC transplant.”

Are there other locals who intrigue her? “I’d love to work with Jim James someday. I’m always excited to hear what he’s working on. And Will Oldham scares me, in a good way.”

The band has been working recently in upstate New York on a new album, “at a big old haunted house, recording ideas and trying to spook each other. I took a few songs down to Mississippi last week and had some high school marching band kids play on a few tracks — that was fun. I’m hoping to finish up the songs in the next few months.”

LEO: Tell us about the Bandana Splits.
DL: Of course! The Bandana Splits is a girl group I formed with two friends last year. We all play in other bands but just kept getting together to hang out and couldn’t help but write a bunch of songs together. I love singing with those ladies. We’re all pretty inspired by the Andrews Sisters’ kooky harmonies and the Phil Spector wall-of-sound. Check it out! Our record is coming out this summer, late July.

Landes is happy to have gained an audience, though she says, “I do notice that people tend to sing along to my songs that have been in TV shows and commercials. Other than that, the music industry is a complete mystery to me.”

LEO: You’re playing at Churchill Downs. What do you think about Derby and that aspect of our local culture?
DL: I’m really excited to play at the Downs. That’s where I went to prom for the first time, and I love the Derby. I was just at Jazz Fest in New Orleans for the past Derby and found myself crowded around a tiny TV with a handful of Kentuckians, shouting “Go Pants on Fire!” As for that aspect of the culture, I love the pageantry and tradition as much as the Chow Wagon.

Dawn Landes & the Hounds
Friday, May 27
Churchill Downs
www.churchilldowns.com
$10; 8:15 p.m.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Another funky night, another jazzy city

The New Mastersounds emerged from Leeds, England, in the late ’90s as a group completely uninterested in the then-popular Britpop sounds of Oasis and Blur. Their update of swingin’ ’60s jazz-funk quickly endeared them to music aficionados who yearned for both old sounds and young energy. Their collaborators have ranged from members of the Meters and the Headhunters to younger talents such as Grace Potter, Karl Denson and Mr. Scruff. LEO caught up recently with guitarist Eddie Roberts.



LEO: How do you describe your music to someone who’s never heard you before? Do you describe it differently to older and younger people?
Eddie Roberts: I find that describing our music does depend on the person you are describing it to, as the term “funk” can mean so many different things to different people — from James Brown to George Clinton to Funky House. You have to do a little digging to find out how much music history the person has — “Have you heard of the Meters? James Brown?” If the answer is no, then I would tell them that we play funky music to make people dance. If the answer is yes, then I would say that we came from a scene in the UK of DJs playing old funk and soul, and we learned by imitating those old records, and that we treat our show like a DJ would by keeping the dance floor going and taking the audience on a journey.

LEO: What is your process like for creating new music?
ER: We pretty much work the same way on every album. We like to work quickly, five days at the most. We leave a lot of the creative process for the studio, but enter into it with a lot of sketched ideas. I feel that, this way, you capture a spontaneity and energy in the music.

LEO: How do you get introduced to collaborators?
ER: Generally, we either knew them before or we’ve met each other at festivals or just on the road. The collaboration starts with us all feeling that we would simply love to make some music together.

LEO: Do you think you would be happier living in an earlier time?
ER: Not really. I think it’s a very romantic idea, but the reality is, life has so many more opportunities for more people these days — and who knows, I might not have been in the right place at the right time in 1967!

LEO: Your website notes that My Morning Jacket is playing (a sold-out show) on the same night as you. How do you feel about situations like this?
ER: Every night in every city, there is always “another” show going on, and more often than that, by a more popular band. People simply make their choice on any given night with what they feel like, and a number of other factors.

The New Mastersounds with Deep Fried 5
Tuesday, May 31
Headliners Music Hall
1386 Lexington Road • 584-8088
www.newmastersounds.com
$15; 9 p.m.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Still Krazy after all these years

Louisville's loudest music fest returns

Andy Rich was a busy man in Louisville a decade ago, running the influential Initial Records label and Krazy Fest, a weekend of up-and-coming, loud and proud bands on the label or otherwise part of the scene. Rich led the festival annually from 1998 through 2003, and soon after left the Louisville music scene for a much different life.

Though his involvement with this year’s revived fest at Expo Five is more as a figurehead, LEO wanted to catch up with Rich, look back, and see how much has changed — and how little has changed — since.



LEO: This is the rebirth of Krazy Fest, after a successful run between 1998 and 2003. Why now?
Andy Rich: I believe everybody was feeling a bit nostalgic after the Endpoint reunion show back in April of 2010. Soon thereafter, Andy Tinsley called me and asked about bringing Krazy Fest back. The idea had been bandied about in the past, but I thought Andy was a good person to take up the gauntlet, as he has many great connections and a history of success when it comes to producing concerts.

LEO: What have you been doing since ’03? Do you miss running Initial Records?
AR: Initial wound down around the end of 2004, and I moved to Las Vegas. I was really into poker, and poker was starting to really take off after ESPN began airing it more frequently. I ended up getting a job with Caesars Entertainment working in the Harrah’s Las Vegas poker room. I gradually moved into management over the next few years and started running a few of the Caesars Entertainment poker rooms in Las Vegas. I eventually became operations director for the World Series of Poker. I currently run the Caesars Palace poker room, the Rio poker room and the World Series of Poker.

Running the WSOP has some parallels to what it took to pull off Krazy Fest. WSOP is all about people who love playing poker, just as Krazy Fest is all about people who love music. Both groups are quite passionate. I consider myself lucky that I’ve never had to endure a job I didn’t love. I love what I do now, just as I loved my time running Initial.

I certainly miss some aspects of running Initial. I don’t think I realized at the time how creative and brilliant some of the people I was fortunate enough to work with truly were. I miss that every day was an absolute adventure, and our potential was only limited by our imagination. On any given day, we could get our records into a new store, get an elusive chain store account, find out about one of our bands landing a great tour or getting great press — or even uncover the next great band listening to an unsolicited demo. Running Initial was certainly a fun time in my life.

LEO: Much has changed in the music business, in Louisville and in general since 1998, or even since 2003. Does Krazy Fest still mean the same thing today — to you and to attendees?
AR: I don’t think Krazy Fest means the same thing to two people. For me, it was a great personal accomplishment just to put the event together and watch it unfold. I went to my first music festival in Dayton, Ohio, and thought, “This is amazing. I can do this in Louisville.” I loved that I could help introduce thousands of people to some of the great bands I enjoyed so much. Music can play such a huge and influential role in a young person’s life.

Things were so different 15 years ago, so it was incredible to be able to see so much of what you love all at once during Krazy Fest weekend. I think it’s very different now. If you love Mastodon in 2011, you can watch 100 different videos on YouTube and buy every piece of Mastodon memorabilia in existence on the Internet. If you loved Mastodon in 2001, you had to hope they came and played in your town to see them live, or buy a T-shirt. Or you had to hope somebody had a decent VCR tape! It’s amazing how quickly things can change in 10 years.

LEO: Are events like this more important to you because of the musical acts performing, or the community aspect?
AR: It was a big deal for the community; however, without the bands, it wouldn’t have been anything, so it really was a convergence of both. We never once booked a band unless we cared about them in one capacity or another. We even turned down major label sponsorship deals, because Krazy Fest was a labor of love, and watching shitty major label bands was exactly what Krazy Fest was not about. Initial was ingrained in the Louisville scene, and we did everything we could to help promote the bands from Louisville and the city of Louisville itself. We bought ads in the local fanzines, gave booth space to local businesses and even distributed a free map of the city with all of our favorite restaurants, record stores, tattoo shops, etc., highlighted in the hopes that the out-of-town visitors would take the opportunity to see the awesomeness of ear X-tacy or the Louisville Slugger Museum. Krazy Fest was its own little economy of scale, filling up local hotel rooms and restaurants. I even heard one year that ear X-tacy had their highest sales volume of the year during Krazy Fest weekend.

LEO: How do you get the mix of emo, metal, punk, etc. to flow smoothly? How much crossover do you think there is between fans of each band or genre?
AR: Our formula for picking the bands was a combination of many factors. First, it started with the bands on the label. Next, it was bands we loved, regardless of their popularity — bands myself and the other people involved with Initial and the fest wanted to see. After that, we made sure the local bands were represented as well. It was a given that the nationally known Louisville bands would be playing, but we also made it a point to include a couple of up-and-coming bands. And finally, we had to answer the question: Who do we love that could be the headliners, our anchors? That is where you get great bands like AFI, Jimmy Eat World, Avail, Thursday, Dillinger Escape Plan and the likes. Those bands are beloved for a reason.

After that, it was filling in a few blanks. We were fortunate that, however eclectic the line-up turned out, the festival always coalesced in the end. It’s pretty incredible to look back at older flyers and see Jimmy Eat World didn’t even headline, or that Dashboard Confessional was in the middle of the day. I guess you could say that, in the end, the whole was greater than the sum of its parts.

LEO: How important was including local bands, bands that don’t have records out nationwide yet?
AR: We made it a point to include at least one band every year that was from Louisville that was not yet nationally known. I remember sets from Red Sun, Out, Skam Impaired, Pflanz and the Glasspack. It was also the coming-out party for local bands that would go on to prominence, such as National Acrobat and Christiansen. I know there were a lot more local bands that would have liked the opportunity to play, but we had limited resources to work with. The last few years, there were always pre-Krazy Fest shows and parties featuring a lot of great local bands, and we did everything we could to support their efforts. Someday, one of those bands will emerge to be the next Endpoint, Elliott or Enkindels. As long as their name started with an “E.”

c. 2011 LEO Weekly
illustration by Ron Jasin

Running out of luck

Lucky Pineapple plays its final show on Friday after a seven-year run making an unexpected mix of punk, lounge, jazz, gypsy and many other conflicting sounds for delighted locals — and a confused MTV audience. The driving forces look back:



MATT DODDS
— guitars, vocals, percussion:
It began with me and Joey Kelly, who I had been in bands with on and off for several years. Early on, we talked about writing “tropical” songs. We also wanted to make an effort to find people to play with that would bring a little more than the usual guitar/bass/drums instrumentation we’d used in earlier bands.

WILLIAM BENTON
— guitars, vocals, percussion:
I certainly didn’t expect the band to get very far or last long. It wasn’t until (trumpeter) Su (Crocker) came in and we wrote “High Heels in the Sand” that I knew that was exactly what I wanted to do at the time. I recall thinking about weirder Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo arrangements as well as various types of folk music from around the world, and how we could fuse that with the more rockin’ bands that a few of us had come from.

DODDS
We sought out people who played instruments we’d never worked with, or people who played in a different style than we were used to, or in general tried to do things we only halfway understood. I really do think the process of people who kind of know what they’re doing introducing something and then having people who don’t really know what they’re doing adapt to it — and the other way around, more often than not — has been a big part of how we sound.

BENTON
As soon as I met Matt, I wanted to play music with him. He was the right kind of weird, and I was a big fan of a band he was in called Kelly, Darling and Dodds. So it was an honor to play with him in a band for so long. Of course, nobody needs to comment any further on how great of a drummer J.C. (Denison) is, or the really interesting and original “scenery” that (keyboardist) Brian (Sweeney) brought to so many of the songs. If I was to think about the one thing I miss the most about playing in Lucky Pineapple, I think it is probably just looking over and seeing Brian so into it.

DODDS
We just wanted to write songs that we all liked and then play those songs in front of people, hopefully making enough money to be able to afford to record and then press those recordings on CDs or records or whatever. We started doing those things, and more opportunities started to present themselves, so we took the ones that seemed like a good idea, sometimes with ruinous results, sometimes with completely cool results, usually with somewhat confusing results.

Scheduling anything became an absolute train wreck, but we hung in there for a while. I’ve never been real into being in bands where one person writes the songs and then tells everyone else what to play ... but trying to write with eight to nine people with that many different personalities and tastes also became a bit more than I think we could deal with. I think the last song we finished took close to a year on and off to write ... hopefully we can play it for the first time at our last show.

BENTON
Sometimes I think back on how a particular Lucky Pineapple song would come together, and it still fascinates me. I could never forecast how a song would end up. Most of the time that was a great thing. It’s a much easier thing to find some other “rock ’n’ roll dudes” that all want to do the same thing and make it work. It’s a bit more of a challenge to get a gang of weirdos like Lucky Pineapple together and make some music, especially for that long.

DODDS
Having “Moment in an Empty Street” used repeatedly on “Jersey Shore” is both a highlight and a lowlight for me. It’s really the first time I’ve ever made any amount of money I’ve kept from making music, and I definitely needed it, but also, you know, it’s “Jersey Shore.” The song is actually a very personal one about my eventual death and leaving my wife alone and my lack of belief in any afterlife, so it kind of bummed me out to see it used as background music for monster-people fornicating in a hot tub. But whatever. To quote the scholars: You’ll have that.

BENTON
It’s a band that will never easily be classified or described, and there should be more music like that.

DODDS
I’ve loved being in this band. I love almost all the songs we wrote together and like the ones I don’t love.

Lucky Pineapple with Ultra Pulverize
Friday, May 20
Headliners Music Hall
1386 Lexington Road • 584-8088
www.luckypineapple.com
$8 adv., $10 door; 9 p.m.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Neko Case shares her skill

Neko Case has emerged as one of the most compelling, individualistic voices in music today, earning praise for her noir-soaked solo albums and for her work with power-pop collective The New Pornographers. The Washington state native returns to Louisville on Monday.



LEO: Your most recent release came out two years ago. What brings you out on the road again?
Neko Case: Working on new songs and making up some dates that were cancelled earlier last year.

LEO: Where are you happiest — on the road or at home?
NC: Both, as long as I’m feeling productive.

LEO: You’re a big animal advocate. What are some of your favorite animals, or favorite animal/music crossovers?
NC: There aren’t any animals I don’t feel something for. They all have something unique. I don’t think it’s animal music per se, but the Talking Heads always make me feel part of the Animal Kingdom rather than separate.

LEO: You’re a popular Twitterer, or whatever that word is. What do you enjoy about that site that you can’t get from songwriting?
NC: I just like to be myself, which doesn’t come through often when you don’t communicate with your fans directly much. This is a great way to meet like-minded folks who can talk about anything, and also to be a fan. Everyone is on equal footing.

LEO: Your label, Anti, has worked with some great older talents, mostly men. Do you see yourself still going strong in your golden years, like them or Wanda Jackson?
NC: Yes, I have no other marketable skills.

LEO: Can you turn me on to some new music that I might not know about?
NC: Well, we are bringing a band from Portland, Ore., called Y La Bamba with us on the road. I became a fan by hearing the record by accident in a store in Portland. I love them!

LEO: You’ve been through Louisville several times. Have you had any chances to see the city?
NC: I have never gotten to tour around Louisville, but I have had some great food. I hope I get to see a bit more, but it’s hard when you leave at 3 a.m. for another town. Wah!

Neko Case with Y La Bamba
Monday, May 16
Headliners Music Hall
1386 Lexington Road • 584-8088
www.nekocase.com
$25; 8 p.m.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Junip turns it down

The Swedish indie rock band Junip is relatively new to American audiences, but the voice of their lead singer and guitarist, José González, is familiar to many. His solo music, a minimalist, modern take on Cat Stevens’ brand of personal folk music, has been popular with discriminating listeners for several years, especially after his recording of the Knife’s “Heartbeat” became known from its use in a TV commercial.



LEO: Junip’s album, Fields, came out almost a year ago. How have your touring experiences been?
José González: This is the third tour we will do on this album. We’re doing a lot of smaller cities that we normally don’t get to now. People in smaller cities tend to be more excited, which is nice. In bigger cities, people see bigger shows every day; they’re more jaded.

LEO: Are you finding that fans of your solo work are coming to see Junip expecting to hear your songs, or some of both?
JG: It’s been half and half. A lot of people who come to the show, many by now have listened to our album. There’s a little bit of yelling sometimes — “Play ‘Heartbeat’!” — I was sort of expecting that. Hopefully as time goes on, that will fade away.

LEO: Do you feel a kinship with someone like Neil Young, alternating between quieter solo work and bigger band music?
JG: Yeah! I don’t know how he does it, but I’m trying to make it work. I tour a lot solo, so it’s a lot of fun to be able to switch it up. It makes solo shows more fun, too.

LEO: Your early musical background was in hardcore punk. Did the other guys come up with the same influences?
JG: Yeah, me and the drummer played in a band in the ’90s. Our keyboard player played in another hardcore band.

LEO: Do you still listen to that style much today?
JG: I don’t listen much anymore, no. Sometimes — I think it depends on what kind of mood you’re in. I don’t really need that high energy anymore. Now that I think about it, I toured with Elliott, from Louisville, for a few weeks, in the late ’90s. I was playing guitar with an indie rock band called Only If You Call Me Jonathan. They were nice guys.

Junip with Acrylics
Saturday, May 14
Headliners Music Hall
1386 Lexington Road • 584-8088
www.junip.net
$12 adv., $15 door; 9 p.m.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

album review: Hal Dolls

Being easily confused by science, I’ve always been fascinated by special effects. How do they do it? As an obsessive music nerd, I hear a lot of new releases, and I’m always impressed when I hear someone today making a record that sounds like it was recorded a long time ago. I know it has something to do with science stuff like amplifiers and tubes and getting “warm” sounds.



Point being: Hal Dolls is a band of veteran Louisville punks, and their new release sounds like the best record to skate to in 1982. Fans of early-’80s melodic and snotty punks like the Circle Jerks will thrill to the throwback sounds of Bipolaroid. Song titles like “Drunk Phone Blues,” “Asshole” and “What If Barbie Got Fat” should give you an idea of the biting social satire employed here; it’s an entertaining form of expression that never should have faded away. Welcome back to the future, Dolls.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

album review: Fleet Foxes

Ah, the dreaded curse of the sophomore album. When Fleet Foxes emerged, seemingly out of nowhere, in 2008 with a stunning EP and an instant-classic full-length album, they set a high bar for themselves and for their fans’ expectations. After a wait, they have returned with a follow-up that’s basically more of the same, which is both reassuring and disappointing. Part of what made their first, self-titled album so beloved was the element of surprise they were able to enjoy with their gorgeous, multi-tiered vocal harmonies and inventive song structures.



Helplessness Blues suffers from a lack of inventiveness, a complacent reliance on the basics of their formula. There are few surprises. The only notable experimentation comes in “The Shrine/An Argument,” an eight-minute song whose last two minutes are tarnished by a free-jazz burst that sounds like a duck-bludgeoning. This is a perfect example of a band that might paint their masterpiece on their third album, having learned what works and what fails.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Vandervelde and friends’ raw vibe

David Vandervelde has been playing music since he was 14 and gained notice for collaborations with the late Jay Bennett of Wilco. Today, the Michigan native is winning over listeners with his classic-rock attitude, delivered on an indie budget. LEO caught up with him as he neared town for a not-so-traditional Derby weekend bill with fellow rock traditionalists Buffalo Killers.



LEO: You can be a hard act to pin down. You’re on an artsy indie label, collaborate with Nashville’s Bobby Bare Jr., get compared to T. Rex and arena rock... what’s it sound like to you?
Vandervelde: I guess I do get compared to a lot of classic rock bands — Big Star, Tom Petty, Neil Young, even ELO and Fleetwood Mac on occasion. I think these are all good comparisons. I like good songs. I’m influenced mainly by ’70s rock ’n’ roll and pop music, but don’t really sound like just one specific thing. I always feel honored, in a way, to be compared to good music I’m into.

LEO: You’re a one-man band when it comes to instruments you can play. Do you find it hard to employ others to recreate your sounds for you?
V: My last full-length, Waiting for the Sunrise, was largely recorded as a band, either completely or mostly live in the studio playing in the same room. I wanted to capture more of a live kinda vibe on that record, to do something new for me. My first record, The Moonstation House Band, was recorded almost completely alone.
On my full-length work in progress, to be called Vandervelde, it’s mostly live, with the band in my basement, recorded in the analog world — no computers. I find it most enjoyable, right now, to be recording with my best friends (my band) rather than alone. Their involvement in the recording process makes everything feel more raw and real, and of course, easier to make work well live.

LEO: Downloading — good or evil?
V: No way around it, so it doesn’t really matter to me. I like buying records and tapes personally, they sound cooler and are better to look at. I have a single called “More Than You Can Feel” available for free download at www.rcrdlbl.com. It’s actually a rough mix of a song that will end up on the record this fall. I guess downloading is not evil? ... But maybe I’m an evil kinda dude sometimes.

LEO: You moved to Nashville a few years ago after living in Brooklyn. How do the music scenes there compare, for you?
V: I love Nashville. More my style, I suppose. I was only in Brooklyn nine months to live with my lady friend (now my wife). It kinda bugs me when magazines like Rolling Stone and particular music blog sites refer to Nashville as having this new hip local music scene — “best in the country ’cuz we got the Black Keys and Jack White.” Truth is, they never play here. If they do, it’s maybe one or two times a year, so they’re not a part of any real local music scene at all in my mind. I like their music, but not how people make it seem like Nashville is this cool music town now that they live here. I moved here first, damn it! (laughs) I like how Nashville can seem nice and small if I want it to be.

LEO: Have you spent any quality time in Louisville? Do you have any observations about our city?
V: I’ve had really great times in Louisville — got a couple close friends there. Last time I was in town, we went to a giant thrift store that was mind-blowing! Also, your bars are open late. I would like to stay there longer than a day sometime to get more of a true feel for it. Much love for your city!

Vandervelde
with Buffalo Killers
and The Bad Reeds
Thursday, May 5
Zazoo’s Bar & Grill
102 Bauer Ave. • 894-8030
www.myspace.com/davidvandervelde
$12; 9 p.m.

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Songs and opinions are aplenty at T. Eddie’s

“Your parking sucks, dude,” drawls the 50-something smoking outside T. Eddie’s Bar & Grill.

It’s late, but I have not yet begun to drink; my critic, however, appears to be midway through yet another Friday night at the tavern.

Germantown can be a great place if you’re looking for an unvarnished opinion from a local. The home of approximately one bar for every three households, the area is full of stiff drinks and impolite evenings out with interesting characters; one tends to lose excessive sensitivity pretty soon.

As we enter T. Eddie’s, we’re greeted by the owner, Tom Combs (the name being derived from his full name, Thomas Edward). I soon learn Combs has owned the bar for four years after working 30 years with the U.S. Postal Service. I learn this because, unlike most bars I’ve ever been to, the owner is actually standing there, drink in hand, greeting people. This is a guy who looks like he’s discovered the secret to a happy life.

He introduces me to his daughter, Angie, an equally happy woman who apparently acts as queen and CEO of the bar every Friday and Saturday night, after a week of working as a manager at UPS.

“Our drinks are the cheapest in the whole neighborhood,” brags Tom. “And the coldest, too!” blurts out Angie. She shares that she goes to a rival bar once a week for their “Thursgays” night, “With my gay boyfriend, Ray, and they always put it on ice for me. They know I’m coming!”

I recognize Ray from the local Kroger, where he works, making me feel even more at home.

Tom excuses himself to sing karaoke. His song, “Play That Funky Music, White Boy,” kicks in and Angie explains, “He sings that song all the time. He sang it at my fucking brother’s wedding with V-Groove!”

“We also have the best karaoke in town,” Angie says. “Mike has over 250,000 songs on there. He’s even got the Dead Kennedys, you name it.”

“‘Too Drunk to Fuck’?”

“Huh?” Angie replies.

“The Dead Kennedys song, ‘Too Drunk to Fuck’ — does he have that?” I can’t think of a better song to karaoke at this time.

“I don’t know, maybe,” she says as Ray grabs her. “C’mon, girl, we gotta go sing.” Her karaoke song, perhaps unsurprisingly, is the Rolling Stones’ “Angie.”

Later, as I stumble through my song, Ray is overheard saying, “I’ve been there, man!”

As Ray runs around behind the bar, lifting patient bartender Deena up by her buttocks for MySpace-style photos, I notice there are dozens of $1 bills hanging from the ceiling. The place is mostly decorated in classic dive-bar style — giant Corona parrot, inflatable NASCAR sign — but Tom points with pride to tiles in the floor spelling out the name of the bar. “I got a buddy who works at Louisville Stoneware, did that for me.”

“We’re the best-kept secret in town,” he says, a bit wistfully. Around 1 a.m., he tells me he’s going home for the night. As if on cue, a young woman filling out a white dress in all the right places walks past. He looks at me, winks and says, “I might stay for a minute.”

c. 2011 LEO Weekly