Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Natural Child: Northbound and up



The trio Natural Child is a force, known as much for their onstage banter as their pure rock attack. For this interview, they chose to speak with LEO via speakerphone, which was entertaining, though a challenge to properly document. Because we were never quite sure who was saying what, we assigned a number to each after the fact for your reading ease and enjoyment.

LEO:
I heard your new record —
NC1: We’re proud of it, we made it all ourselves. Yeah, we think it sounds great.

LEO:
You made it all yourself, but there is a cover song, Tom T. Hall’s “That’s How I Got to Memphis.” Why did you include that?
NC1: We were just listenin’ to it a lot, and we thought it’d be cool to cover it.
NC2: Yeah. It’s a great song. We just dug it. We were just playin’ it at practice, I think, and just decided our version sounded really good to us. So we covered it.

LEO: It’s interesting, because it’s a country song about Memphis, and you’re a rock band in Nashville, a country town —
NC1: We’re a country band! (laughs)
NC2: Yeah, a little bit. We dabble. We cover Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson — we do it all.
NC1: We’re kind of a country band, too.

LEO: You’ve played Louisville recently.
NC1: Yeah, we’ve played there a couple times.
NC2: We’ve played there twice.
NC1: Twice, yeah. We’ve done all this touring but only been to Louisville twice.

LEO: That’s weird.
NC1: That last place we played was awesome, though — the arcade bar, the one with all the arcade games.

LEO: Zanzabar.
NC1: Yeah, yeah, Zanzabar. That was it, am I right?
NC2: I think so.

LEO: Yeah, you are.
NC1: That place fuckin’ rules. It’s very cool.
NC2: Hell yeah!

LEO: Do you have any advice for young producers?
NC1: Just take your time to make it how you want it to sound. Just turn the knobs, push the dials and ... yeah.
NC2: Not try to make it sound like …
NC3: We try to make it sound like what we listen to.
NC1: Yeah.
NC3: Which is a bunch of really warm 8-tracks.
NC1: We record other bands in Nashville, too. We can make anybody sound that good (laughs).

LEO:
(laughs) Is that your slogan?
NC1: Yeah, yeah: “We’ll record shit. We can make anybody sound that good.”
NC2: It’s true.

LEO: Before we go, do you want to say something to Louisville?
NC1: We’re comin’ to git ya! (laughs)
NC2: Our neighbors to the north ...
NC1: We’re comin’ to git ya, our neighbors to the north! (laughs)

LEO: That sounds kind of threatening.
NC1: No, it’s positive! Like when you call your mom and you’re 8 years old, and you’re, like, “I need to be picked up.” And she’s, like, “OK, I’m comin’ to git ya!” Like that.
NC2: I didn’t really mean it like that. I meant it like, when you call your mom and you’re like, (threatening voice), “I’m comin’ to git ya ...” (laughs)
NC3: We’re comin’ to git ya, Louisville.

NATURAL CHILD WITH
THE LADYBIRDS
Saturday, March 31
Zanzabar
2100 S. Preston St. • 635-9227
zanzabarlouisville.com
$6; 9 p.m.

C. 2012 LEO Weekly

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Madame Machine’s parts



What do you call a new machine featuring men and women who’ve played with Black Cross, Lucky Pineapple and Venus Trap? Madame Machine play a record release show at Third Street Dive Friday at 10 p.m. LEO asks bassist Salena Filichia about it.

LEO: As “supergroups” go, is Madame Machine more Traveling Wilburys, Chickenfoot or Wild Flag?
Salena Filichia: Hmmm ... I don’t think that we have the egos to be in a band like Chickenfoot. For that matter, we also didn’t meet while “jamming” at Sammy Hagar’s club, Cabo Wabo, in Mexico. We aren’t necessarily poets like the guys in the Traveling Wilburys, and we haven’t, for the sake of performance, decided to change our last name to Madame or Machine — but we are old. We have a lot more keyboards than Wild Flag ... Maybe we would be like the Wild Wilburys.

LEO:
What do you hate most about lyrics and/or vocals?
SF: Lyrics are one of the hardest things to come up with. I think that when you have people who aren’t necessarily the front people in their previous bands, music comes naturally, but lyrics take some work. I think anyone writing lyrics probably puts a lot of pressure on themselves to come up with something creative that doesn’t sound trite. I feel like it’s word-roulette in that, a lot of the time, you have to pick the first words that come to your head, and hope that you don’t lose everything in the music because you picked the wrong words.

LEO: Why did you want to work with local label Noise Pollution, as opposed to DIY-ing your first 7-inch?
SF: We had worked with them in the past on our previous projects. Brandon and Nathan are really great guys and are very helpful. While we were getting ready to find a place to press the records and print the sleeves, we had reached out to Brandon and Nathan for advice. We kept asking them for suggestions and contacts. In the end, we knew that they had a greater ability than we do of getting some word out there.

Learn more at facebook.com/MadameMachineBand.

Photo by Lisa Oechsli

c. 2012 LEO Weekly

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Never an adult moment



Chrissy Murderbot is on my plane.

En route to my first South by Southwest (SXSW), my eyes seek out notable musicians also making their way to the 25th annual music conference and festival in Austin, Texas. In this distorted world, a DJ like Mr. Murderbot counts as a celebrity (well, enough), though not compared to actual names your mom knows, like Bruce Springsteen, Norah Jones or Jay-Z. The conference, established to help new bands get discovered by the music industry and break out internationally, has also become a magnet for big fish looking to get a lot of buzz going quickly amongst 16,000 of the most dedicated music professionals in the game.

While Springsteen’s keynote address and live, full band performance dominated some of the conversation, new bands about to break through, like the Southern soul-rock band Alabama Shakes and the Austin-based next Hendrix, Gary Clark Jr., also earned attention. New Orleans legend Dr. John used the event as a platform for his Black Keys-produced comeback, and the Shins and Fiona Apple re-emerged, this time as influential veterans. At the same time, representatives from Taiwan to Tel Aviv hosted parties, and corporate sponsors shoved their products down the throats of the throngs, from Austin’s Dell Computers to the grotesque Doritos “Jacked Stage,” a tower-sized stage shaped like a vending machine, hosting hip-hoppers like the GZA and Snoop Dogg while encouraging punters to eat chips from planters designed to look like trees … but filled with Doritos.

For first-timers, the event can be overwhelming, as 2,000-plus acts play at more than 100 locations over four days. Those attempting it without good walking shoes and plenty of water soon learned that, like a 14-year-old on his sixth beer, there can, indeed, be too much of a good thing. One detail that makes this quasi-conference unique is that, for the most part, it’s open to the public — if not in some venues, then at least on the streets leading to those. So, true music lovers must often run through a gauntlet — a la “Escape from New York” or “The Hunger Games” — of blitzed sorority girls downtown wanting to see or be seen … just not so interested in the music.

The height of the contradictory nature of the event was found Friday night, as a tragically drunk 30-ish woman vomited violently all over her seat during a performance by the band The War On Drugs. The irony was likely lost on her at the moment.

It’s a veritable “Sophie’s Choice” of auditory pleasures. Louisville’s raucous rockers Natives played Wednesday night at the same time as Sharon Van Etten, Big K.R.I.T., Natural Child, Thee Oh Sees, and Dessa, any one of which would alone constitute a great night of music in Louisville. While many showcases were arranged sensibly by label, genre or region, some were thrown together randomly, leading to puzzled Latin dance music fans waiting for an acoustic Magnetic Fields to finish so that Colombia’s Bomba Estereo could begin. A long line kept LEO from getting to see Deafheaven’s symphonic metal set, but it could be heard clearly outside, proving to be an odd pairing with punk vets OFF!, who followed.

A half-dozen other Louisvillians also performed, including Cheyenne Marie Mize, Bro. Stephen, Justin Lewis, Houndmouth, Trophy Wives and Coliseum, plus ex-locals The Phantom Family Halo and VHS or Beta. Other locals, representing Crash Avenue, The Kentucky Center, Music WithMe, Production Simple, sonaBlast!, and WFPK, also joined in the sights, sounds, barbecue and breakfast tacos.

And there was certainly plenty to see, from the plentiful pedicab operators (some of whom dressed to distinguish themselves from the crowd, like the Mexican-American “Where’s Waldo?” and the oft-seen Wonder Woman-costumed gal) and the young team giving out free sushi on the street, to the ironic hipster tribute to Whitney Houston during Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.’s set, the girls holding signs offering “Free shrugs,” and the guy in a thick crowd of walkers overheard on his cell saying, “I took a paternity test, and it’s not mine — which is not what I expected and not the way I wanted it to go.” And LEO didn’t even get to see the riot that broke out at rapper A$AP Rocky’s 3 a.m. set Saturday night. As disco-punk Gossip singer Beth Ditto exclaimed about the teen idol turned evangelist, “I wish Kirk Cameron was here to see this.”

Photo by Ron Jasin

c. 2012 LEO Weekly

The new country



Country favorites The Bottom Sop can be seen Wednesdays at Baxter’s and Thursdays at the Highlands Tap Room; this Saturday night at the Tap Room, they celebrate a record release show and a “Barn Party USA” TV taping. Singer/guitarist Derrick Manley tells LEO about their plans.

LEO: Explain your name for the good folks.

Derrick Manley:
Bottom Sop is actually a type of red-eye gravy used in Southern cooking that mixes the drippings from country ham and leftover strong black coffee. It’s served over grits, ham and whatever else you want to mix in. You basically “sop up” everything together with a biscuit to eat it. Supposedly Andrew Jackson requested gravy as red as his cook’s eyes, which were bloodshot from drinking the night before, and the coffee was added to wake everyone up from their hangover. I feel like it’s a good fit for our music; it’s a big mix of Southern influences, and sometimes it’s the best thing to go with a long night of honky-tonkin’.

LEO:
Tell me about these new songs.

DM: We began by covering classic duets from the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s as our base, and eventually began working new originals into our set. This CD represents some of our new material. These are brand new songs that reference that classic country sound, but they’re new takes on that sound. You can still hear the traditions found in the music of George Jones, Tammy Wynette and Tennessee Ernie Ford, but I don’t feel like we’re just treading over that ground again. It’s mixing all the old influences of songs about heartbreak and dancing all night — with that instrumentation — but I feel like we’re writing what modern country can be. We’re not playing as a “classic country” act; the songs are what new country music in 2012 should be. A song like “Bright Kentucky Moon,” to me, takes a bit from this and that, but it’s got some rock ’n’ roll to it, too.

Read more of this interview at bluecat.leoweekly.com.

c. 2012 LEO Weekly

Fantasy ‘League’ star on anger and the NCAA



Long Island native Steve Rannazzisi broke out as a cast member on “The League,” FX’s popular and acclaimed comedy series about a 30-something group of friends who are also members of a fantasy football league. He brings his stand-up to The Improv this week.

LEO: When is “The League” back?
Steve Rannazzisi: We start shooting again in the middle of July, and then we’ll be back again in the fall. Right around the time football starts is usually when we come back.

LEO: Do you have any TV or movie projects coming up?
SR: I sold this web series to My Damn Channel that will be coming out maybe middle of April. We haven’t set a launch date yet.

LEO: What’s it about?
SR: It’s called “Daddy Knows Best,” and it’s a series of shorts about horrific parent decisions. It’s about a guy who hasn’t really grown up and now has a son, who’s 3, and has to figure out how to maneuver that life.

LEO: Are you married in real life?
SR: I am, yeah, and I have a 3-year-old, and we have another one on the way in a month.

LEO: Your character is the heart of “The League,” the most normal of all the characters. Do you agree?
SR: (laughs) Yes, I kind of do agree with that. Though, the fact that I’m the most normal person on the show is very scary. I guess you would consider me the adult of the group, the closest thing to an adult that our group of friends has.

LEO: As a stand-up, how normal can you actually be? I guess you’re a really good actor? Or are you one of the more normal stand-ups?
SR: I feel like I am more on the normal side of stand-ups. My parents are still together, I like them, I’m married, I’ve got a kid, I don’t really have a drug problem … I’m sort of more normal, but I have anger issues. I’m probably bipolar, if I really looked at it, but I won’t, because … why?

LEO:
What kind of anger do you have?
SR: Things make me upset, and I have to learn patience. I don’t deal with mistakes very well. I mean, I don’t, like, hit people, but I get frustrated very fast.

LEO:
That sounds pretty normal for a stand-up.
SR: Yeah, of course — that’s what makes us really observational. The stuff I talk about is what upsets me sometimes … what’s making me upset, and why it’s making me upset.

LEO: How long have you done stand-up, and how has it evolved as you’ve learned?
SR: I’ve been doing it a little over 10 years now, and I realized, I’m just now finding my voice. It takes a long time. I did well for a long time, but doing well and enjoying your time on stage sometimes aren’t the same thing. You can do well and figure out tricks and things, but I’ve been going through a growth spurt lately, where I’m trying to do more stuff I find interesting — and also helping the audience find it interesting, as well. I think that in the last couple of years I’ve really found my voice. It’s specific to who I am, which is what I’m enjoying about it right now.

LEO: Do you think you’ve gotten more confidence from being on a successful show, where you’re encouraged to improvise a lot?
SR: Yes and no. Yes, because it’s nice to have people in the audience who know who you are, who came specifically for you. Then again, I feel like there’s more pressure now. People pay good money to come out and see you. You want to put on a good show and have everyone enjoy it, so I find that to be a little more stressful. Confidence comes from knowing that what you think is funny other people think is funny, too. I do have more confidence on stage, but it’s because I’m more comfortable on stage.

LEO: Anything else you’d like to say to Louisville?
SR: I’m psyched to come back. I haven’t been there in, like, three years. I’m hoping that Louisville is still in the NCAA Tournament when I’m there.

Steve Rannazzisi
March 22-25
The Improv
Fourth Street Live
581-1332
improvlouisville.com
$15-$17; various times

c. 2012 LEO Weekly

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Winterpills spring again



Winterpills, a melodic, sometimes ethereal chamber pop/indie rock band based in Northampton, Mass., is led by a married couple, singer/guitarist Philip Price and singer/keyboardist Flora Reed. Their fifth full-length album, All My Lovely Goners, was released on Valentine’s Day. Price and Reed stop over in Louisville for a duo show after shaking their sticks at the South by Southwest conference in Texas.

LEO: How many times have you gone to South by Southwest?

Philip Price: This is the third or fourth time, I think. We took a couple years off because … I don’t know, too many tacos, I guess (laughs).

LEO: So, you have a new record out now. Do you have any fun stories about making it?

PP: Well, we did it all at home. We spent a couple years putting together a studio in our house — which, by studio standards, is still pretty minimal and home-cooked, but for us seems awesome. The main investments being an amazing microphone and a great tube pre-amp, and we just kind of ran everything through that. That made all the difference.

The songs were almost all written three years ago — after our last album, and even before that EP we put out in 2010. The band had a brief lull where, I think, we were trying to reassess what was going on. Not that anything horrible had happened — it was a period of uncertainty that lasted a year. Just all of us heading in slightly different directions for a while … There were weddings, people having babies, a couple band members moving further away …

There was a period where I was trying to figure out if the next thing was a solo record or … I wrote all these songs, toured that, and then after it was all written and demoed, I realize they were pretty much exactly songs for Winterpills to play (laughs). To call it a solo record, it really needs to be saying something different, and it wasn’t. It really felt like, “Wow, this is actually the next step for the band.”

It’s a long evolution for me, as a songwriter, to make music that isn’t, you know, bullshit. I’m also not, like, a plain-spoken songwriter. “Bullshit,” to me, doesn’t mean purely minimal, it means something much more ornate. Or baroque, even.

LEO: Baroque lyrically, or musically, or both?

PP: I would call this one more elaborate arrangements … Certain decisions were made that were a little more complicated. Our first record was a very minimal affair, and I don’t think we’ve completely let go of that, and we can go back to that, but there is some kind of shift going on … (laughs) I don’t know what I’m talking about …

LEO: How much of that music came from your own writing and arranging, and how much of it became collaborative?

PP: I would say pretty much 50/50, but I was writing differently — partly, having listened to too much prog rock when I was a kid, I ended up writing songs like (adopts silly voice) “It’s a concept album! Oh, I see how the songs are linked!” I couldn’t not make links between the songs and some sort of overarching meaning. That was inherent in the songwriting, this theme of maybe war, or people dealing years beyond after tremendous losses occurred, almost some kind of emotional reconstruction era-thing going on … but then, a lot of these came to the band, and they definitely changed.

We had a lot of rehearsals where we tried to make decisions for the band that would stick for live shows. I think a lot of songs would sound good in the studio, and then we found that we couldn’t really play them live, and still haven’t played. We were like, “We want to be able to play all these songs!” (laughs) I just broke a drumstick, I was gesticulating wildly.

So, that was our goal with those rehearsals, and a lot of shit happened during those rehearsals; I got mad because they were changing the songs too much, and then I went back and realized, “Oh my god, this is so much better.” We ended up keeping a lot of that, a lot of the oddness.

Winterpills with Artis Gilmore
Sunday, March 18
Uncle Slayton’s
1017 E. Broadway • 657-9555
winterpills.com
$8 adv., $10 DOS; 8 p.m.

Photo by Henning Ohlenbusch

c. 2012 LEO Weekly

American roots music honored in Oldham County



A new exhibit in the Oldham County Historical Society in La Grange explores the ethnic, regional and rural history of American music, from 18th century shape-note hymn singers to the current-day roots revival sounds of Alison Krauss, The Klezmatics, and Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys.

“New Harmonies” is a Smithsonian traveling exhibit meant primarily for rural audiences in small towns without greater access to cultural programming. Dr. Nancy Stearns Theiss, Historical Society executive director, acknowledges that La Grange serves as a bedroom community for Louisville, but maintains that it also coexists as a rural small town, closer in spirit to neighboring Henry and Trimble counties.

The exhibit offers expected instruments like banjos and harmonicas with some of their less famous cousins, such as a Native American flute and a Diddley bow, an African proto-guitar made with a single string on a wooden board connected by two screws. An ancient radio broadcasts music from the “Grand Ole Opry,” while listening stations play examples of everything from singing cowboy songs to polka dances.

The Historical Society is home to one of the world’s largest collections of whiskey jugs, and they have wisely connected their jugs to the jug bands that began in Louisville almost a century ago. Guests are given complimentary kazoos and encouraged to play them while examining the jug band history lesson. Theiss hopes to work with the National Jug Band Jubilee festival later this summer.

Another local collection features displays of music like Dick Kallman’s 1968 “Oldham County Line” single, and a pair of guitars recently made by Oldham County Jail inmates out of materials like twisted trash bags, pizza boxes and pencils. Serious researchers can study the works of Louisville native Will “Shakespeare” Hayes, who wrote hundreds of songs in the 1800s, including “Evangeline” and, he claimed, “Dixie,” though that was never resolved.

There are album covers, famous and obscure, and tribute is paid to Alan Lomax and Moses Asch, 20th century documentarians of rural music. About the latter, the New Orleans writer Tom Piazza is quoted, “By taste and political conviction, Asch was attracted to the raw and the otherwise unheard,” and this exhibit does an admirable job of educating non-music geeks about important but perhaps under-praised pioneers like blues father Charlie Patton, gospel legend Thomas A. Dorsey and Tejano great Lydia Mendoza. (Those unfamiliar with the term “Tejano” can learn more at the exhibit.)

“I didn’t know the difference between Cajun and Zydeco” before the exhibit, says Theiss, and now she can answer those burning questions one might have on the topic.

A concert series at the nearby Irish Rover, Too restaurant, curated by Tom McShane of Crestwood’s Hewn from the Mountain instrument store, will accompany the museum’s work, featuring various forms of roots music from African-American spirituals to Irish harp, Saturday afternoons through April 21.

Theiss is also excited about their “April Fool’s Weird Music Competition.” The March 31 contest at the Oldham County Schools Arts Center will offer a $1,000 cash prize to the “winner,” proving that even Oldham County is joining the fight to keep Louisville weird.

‘New Harmonies: Celebrating American Roots Music’
Through April 21
Oldham County Historical Society
106 N. Second Ave., La Grange 222-0826
oldhamcountyhistoricalsociety.org

c. 2012 LEO Weekly

Wild, Wild Mordecai



Local indie pop/rock quartet Go Mordecai! would like you to know something: “We are very excited about the upcoming show at Zanzabar with Cloud Nothings and The Deloreans (on March 21). It is guaranteed to be a wild time. (We are legally obligated to disclose that Go Mordecai! cannot guarantee that the time will be ‘wild.’)”

LEO spoke with the members about their recent EP, Baseball Weather, the movie that inspired their name (it was “The Royal Tenenbaums”), and other things that are things.

LEO: How do you feel about baseball and/or weather?

Zach Driscoll: Well, the seasons are pretty important ... and the weather changes as we enter different seasons ... and the weather dictates whether we’re going to play baseball or not ... Does that answer the question?

LEO: How do you feel about pog?

Kyle Mann: Some fads capture the imagination of America’s youth, swell to unseen heights of popularity, and weave themselves into popular culture for the future. That’s how we feel about Trapper Keepers. Pogs were cool, too, we guess.

LEO: Why isn’t Louisville more of an indie pop/rock town?

Dash Moss: That’s a good question. There really are plenty of great indie rock groups in Louisville. If we had to guess why it isn’t as prominent around here, it’s probably because not enough people have seen Loren Pilcher (of The Deloreans) play guitar with an awesome mustache. (Loren has the mustache ... not the guitar.)

LEO: Your name comes from an influential movie. How does it suit you?

Lance Swan: A band name is more of a “brand name.” Our integrity and ability is sketchy at best, that’s why we have borrowed some of Wes Anderson’s.

Learn more about the band at facebook.com/gomordecaiband, and more about Trapper Keepers at meadonline.com/trapper/home.aspx.

c. 2012 LEO Weekly

Wednesday, March 07, 2012

Going there with Henry Rollins

Punk icon-turned-multimedia explorer travels the planet



Henry Lawrence Garfield never could have guessed his life would turn out this way. Born in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 13, 1961, Garfield battled an abusive father, bullying at school and a long stint on Ritalin meant to curb his subsequent acting out. Books and music helped Garfield cope with a lonely childhood. He began weightlifting and singing with punk bands, and changed his name to Henry Rollins as part of his self-reinvention. A friendship with the Los Angeles-based band Black Flag, begun in the pre-Internet style of exchanging letters, led him to move west and join them as their singer in 1981.

Until their 1986 breakup, Black Flag blazed a trail across North America, helping create an underground music network that hadn’t existed before — taking over VFW halls, warehouses, homes, Chinese restaurants and clubs that welcomed the scary, dirty punks no one else wanted. Though the band has influenced many since, they were ultimately less important musically than culturally, building a community that continues to thrive today — locally, from Mag Bar and the late Skull Alley to house shows in the city and suburbs.

In the pre-blog, pre-Twitter world, young punks angry about the president, global issues like terrorism or nuclear destruction, or the tyranny of their own mothers were more prone to expressing themselves through a type of music that still exists, though many — Rollins included — have since found new avenues through which to share their thoughts.

Even before the band split, Rollins had started performing as a spoken-word artist: part storyteller, part comedian, part lecturer. He also began releasing spoken-word albums and authoring books. After Black Flag disbanded, Rollins started his own Rollins Band. The path laid by his generation resulted in the Alternative Nation that made stars of Nirvana and others, and the Rollins Band’s video for “Liar” played often on MTV. He began branching out into more overtly commercial ventures, taking acting roles and voiceovers for ads and video games. His 1994 Black Flag memoir, “Get in the Van,” has become required reading for freshmen rockers.

As his musical career ran out of steam, spoken-word became Rollins’ primary endeavor, though he continues to pursue a wide range of other work. In recent years, he hosted the chat show “The Henry Rollins Show” on cable channel IFC and documentaries for National Geographic, acted in movies and on the series “Sons of Anarchy,” and now writes a column for the LA Weekly and presents a weekly show on the influential public radio station KCRW.

“I just reckon life is short, and I come from minimum-wage work, so I have no illusions about where I come from, or what I’m really suited to do,” he tells LEO. “I hit it with immigrant zeal. So-and-so says, ‘Hey, would you fly to New York for a single day and work on a TV show?’ — ‘Yeah, I’ll do that!’ I’ll fly for no money,” he laughs, “and basically do that thing just to ring the bell, you know?”

His latest book, “Occupants,” released last fall, is yet another new gig for Rollins. It’s a collection of vivid photographs he took over the past decade, in far-flung lands such as Afghanistan, Cambodia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Israel. In true Rollins form, the photographs are paired with pissed-off commentary about what he has witnessed on his travels far off the tourist path. Though his younger self documented his own internal struggles, Rollins has matured to document others and their realities.

Last month, Rollins told the Washington City Paper in D.C., “Basically, human compassion inspires a lot of my ire. Just seeing people get the short end of the deal.” One needn’t look far into his personal story to see why he feels compelled to shine a light on injustice.

He tells LEO, “I find the human form to be very beautiful. People are interesting-looking creatures to me … At the risk of sounding like the xenophobic, Rudyard Kipling type — ‘All these people are very beautiful. I have five in a box in my backyard.’ — I’m not trying to say that,” he clarifies. “With this book, I’m just trying to close the gap between the viewer and these people … I shoot with a wide lens, primarily, which forces me to get a portrait where I’m, like, a foot away from the person. You’ve got to get really up close and personal and engage. Say ‘Hi, can I take your photo?’ You can’t be sneaky and just grab a shot,” says the never-married 51-year-old, who admits he handles big issues better than intimate relationships.

“You’ve got to walk over there and say, ‘I’d like to do this.’ … That’s what the book is basically about. The writing, which is the hard part of the book, it’s very angry, and it’s me trying to stick it to The Man as best I can.”

Today we get our information from a wide variety of sources, all the time, yet from a distance. Rollins has a quenchless thirst for knowledge and has made a career — a life — out of going to the places he’s curious about, touring often with the USO when not going solo. “It definitely gives you a new insight into America, America’s foreign policy, globalization, global climate change … it’s not like what you read in a book — it’s real. You’re walking through it, you’re smelling it, you’re dealing with it,” he says. “I really crave that kind of information, and that kind of reality, so I go to these places. You know, I read a lot of books, or I try. And no matter what book I read on a country, it’s never as vivid or as full of information as actually going to the place and getting my information that way.”

During our interview, Rollins discourses at length without losing focus, sharing his view of international travel like a cross between Anthony Bourdain and Al Gore, with a touch of Bill Maher — preaching a way of life that is out of reach for many, yet articulating his perspective in a way that is both educational and entertaining.

The need to travel …

Henry Rollins: I think all Americans, if they can, should get a passport and travel. I know that’s kind of like liquid cash. It’s not car payments and house payments; at this point, it’d be out of reach for some Americans to go travel, because they’ve got to pay for real-world stuff.

But if it’s at all possible, ideally, Americans should travel. They should get out and see stuff. They should go to India, a part of Africa, or go to southeast Asia to see what the Vietnam War looks like 40-some-years on … it may make you think differently about people, perhaps.

LEO: So, you’re not going to let people off the hook and say it’s an OK substitute to just buy your book or watch you on TV, right?

HR: Oh, no, I wouldn’t let them off the hook by just looking at my book! I just think there’s so much to be gained when you get out of the zone of familiarity. And me, too, that’s why I travel — to force myself out of that which I know. Like, I can go to the grocery store I go to a couple of nights a week, and I buy the same food every time. I can close my eyes, walk through that place and, if nothing’s in my way, I can walk through it like a lab rat and get the biscuit.

I like, personally, to be in situations where you get out of the hotel or wherever you’re at, like, “OK, this is all pretty confusing …” You just need to start using your mind. It makes me feel alive again! I realize how on autopilot I can get. Even in a different American city, just because it’s all so familiar. My eyes have brain-mapped the color of a Starbucks logo so I can see half of one of the letters two blocks away from the corner of my eye. And so can you. You might not even want to go in there, but you know what you’re looking at, even if you’re not looking at it.

From Darfur to Dasani …


HR: I think people are done a disservice when — you are living in a global ecological setting; if there’s a water shortage over there, at some point that water shortage — or that water “inconvenience” — will be reaching you. I got a letter today from an agency I work with that drills water wells, and they said, “OK, this part of, basically the Darfur area, they lost 500 kids to malaria last month because of bad water.” These people now walking several miles to get water, it’s muddy water, they’re getting sick from it, and the water situation is so bad now, monkeys are attacking women carrying buckets of water and taking the water. Anything like that, by the time it gets to the Western world, it just means your Dasani water is 7 cents more per bottle ... you’ll never notice. The end of the lash that cuts open, that’s western Sudan, where it kills 500 kids.

That happens every time with every resource, from oil to water, and I’m not saying you should lose sleep and feel guilty all the time because you’re a big fat American and you suck. I’m not trying to put that across at all. I’m just trying to say that if you get out in real life and see this, it perhaps might make you think differently about your meditational shower, your swimming pool, your 4 gallons of water to shave because you leave the water on because you’re too lazy to turn it off while you shaved your face, and you don’t need the water that’s going down the drain — things like that. That’s one of the reasons I travel.

LEO:
Is it fair to say that you still feel optimistic about humanity?

HR: Yeah! Absolutely. More than ever! I mean, you see these people bearing up under circumstances that — you wonder how you would do. Because it’s so seemingly inhuman … yet the kids seem to be happy. The adults seem to be buoyant and resilient, and they don’t want your pity. They wonder, at least in my opinion, what you’re looking at. When you’re going, “Awww,” they’re going, “What are you saying ‘Awww’ for?” They blow by you, like, “Well, good luck with your pity, but we’re busy living.” So I look at these situations in all these different ways. It’s certainly mind-blowing for me.

Humans will persevere …


HR: One day, I was walking down the streets of Madagascar, in Antananarivo. The city center has a lot of flies, a lot of food that could probably make you real sick, and I thought, “Can I do this? Pretend I don’t have the Antananarivo Hilton to walk back to and eat in? Can I walk into any of these stalls and eat this food?” There’s flies covering everything, it’s kind of nightmarish. I’m, like, “Damn, man, I wonder, how many days can I hack it here?” And you see everyone else … you’re just kind of in the way. They’re just getting on with it. So, humans will persevere through anything. Even a nuclear holocaust, there’ll still be a few crawling around afterwards. Somehow they’ll get by, they’ll figure it out … It makes you realize how tough you’re not. These people who think they’re tough guys, they got a tattoo and an attitude and a big car or whatever — I think of parts of India I’ve seen, where the pollution and the filth is so monumental, you’ve really got to be careful what you walk in, walk on, and make contact with.

A city of garbage …


HR: I’ve been to India a few times. I was there early this year shooting a documentary with National Geographic and, to get to one point, we had to get through another, and the place we had to get through was literally a city of garbage. It’s where garbage companies go to dump their garbage, where it’s processed and burned and gone through. It’s these clouds of smoke, and just, literally, kilometers of mountains of trash. And it blows everywhere. So the streets are covered with trash, there’s trash floating in the water, these people are picking plastic out of it and burning parts of it — you see what deregulation looks like. So, let’s take Ron Paul over there and really see what this looks like. We can take all those great Southern Bloc senators who apparently love Ayn Rand and want to get rid of the EPA and go, “Here’s what it looks like … You want to put that in your backyard? Have all your kids come out with four eyes? OK! You go ahead with that.”

That’s what I learned from traveling, and that’s the anger that moves me when I see these photos.

c. 2012 LEO Weekly

The Bro is back in town



After traveling around for a while lost in those Midwestern woods, prodigal son and ex-Chemic leader Scott Kirkpatrick has returned with a new Bro. Stephen album of quiet folk music, Baptist Girls. Next week he’ll be traveling again, this time to Austin, Texas, for South by Southwest, where album guest vocalist and violinist Cheyenne Marie Mize might just sit in with him. Before he leaves, though, Kirkpatrick will perform at his day job.

LEO: Tell me about your early days in the Louisville music scene.

Scott Kirkpatrick: Well, the early days for me are definitely the times I spent playing at open mic nights at Molly Malone’s with guys like Warren Ray and Jamie Barnes. I definitely learned how to be a disciplined songwriter by doing that, and always having the push to present new and better songs every week. It was a great way to start things.

Eventually, I wanted to separate myself a bit from the open-mic scene; I recorded the Chemic record, and we played a million shows around and out of town, at places like The Rud, The Pour Haus, Skull Alley and The 930.

As a listener, the early days were a little different … I definitely miss going out to see The Merediths, The Pine Club, Reading, etc., and I will never forget buying my first Louisville Is for Lovers record and hearing Jamie Barnes’ “Red Prescription” for the first time. That definitely changed things for me.

There were definitely quite a few missteps along the way through all of that. I think one of the biggest missteps I made was being pretty shy and having a hard time feeling connected to the rest of the Louisville music scene. I definitely wish I would have been more involved with other cool local bands. I wouldn’t be surprised if I was perceived as a jerk or something, but I hope not.

The other main misstep that comes to mind is being a really poor communicator and letting down all of the guys who were in and out of Chemic by not expressing myself or knowing what I wanted. The dissolution of that band was pretty traumatic for me, actually. I was young and made a lot of mistakes, but I was always doing the best I could. I guess it’s just hard to see the big picture when you feel like everything is moving around you so quickly.

LEO: How did you get hooked up with the Crossroads of America label in Bloomington? What do they do to help you?

SK: I got hooked up with them when I set up a show at the Old Louisville Coffeehouse back in 2006 or so. After an abysmally attended show, they came back to my apartment for pizza, and we really connected over pizza. They really liked my band Chemic, and I loved their bands, so we wanted to work together somehow. I eventually decided to let them handle the digital sales of the Chemic record Fever on the Forest Floor. After Chemic called it quits, they were excited to have Bro. Stephen on board, and it worked out perfectly ...

First and foremost, they are the most supportive and encouraging group of folks, who are always there to love on me when I need it, or let me sleep in their spare room or play in my band when needed, or a number of similar things. They’ve fostered a creative community that I’m thrilled to be a part of. From a business end, they help with distro, licensing, manufacturing, booking, PR and all that good stuff. Also, Mike Adams recorded and produced Baptist Girls, so that’s obviously a big deal.

LEO: What else do you do for work and/or fun?

SK:
I moved back to Louisville around Thanksgiving and have been working at Rye on Market since December, which has honestly been the best job I’ve ever had. I’m tending bar there, and it is really satisfying being in a place that is doing such incredible work while pushing me as a worker and simultaneously being infinitely supportive of who I am.

Bro. Stephen with Joan Shelley
Sunday, March 11
Rye on Market
900 E. Market St. • 749-6200
facebook.com/BrotherStephen
$15 (includes some apps); 7 p.m.

c. 2012 LEO Weekly

Old time and right now



The Pee Wee Valley-based quartet Whiskey Bent Valley is releasing its second album, also called Whiskey Bent Valley, with concerts Friday at the Shepherdsville Music Barn and Saturday at Kenna’s Korner. LEO talks to guitar/banjo/harmonica man Mason Dixon.

LEO: Tell me about your new album.

Mason Dixon: Our new album is a true sound of where this band has been and went over the last five or six years. It has our take on old-time mountain music, the stuff we have grown up around and love to share with new people each and every time we take the stage. It has over 10 tracks on it, most original, some from the early 1900s … very fiddle- and banjo-driven with a high-energy feel … I just wanted a hard-driving old-time record, full of blazing fiddle and foot-stompin’ good times.

LEO: Outside of Kentucky, do you encounter audience members who expect a certain hillbilly stereotype?

MD:
When we go out of the state and play, we always get a great reaction from folks. Some people say, “Now, that’s really mountain music,” or “These boys are the real deal hillbillies (laughs).” It’s fun to play off of.

LEO: Your wardrobe — how do you match garments with music?

MD: We have always, for the most part, dressed how we do now — nothing has really changed that. We don’t just play old-time music, we live it every day. Some of us buy and sell junk on the side, going to auctions and estate sales. We just love finding the old-time stuff.

LEO: To beard or not to beard?

MD:
To beard is the answer. We all have beards besides Leroy. We get a lot of comments on the music, the clothes and the beards. It makes for a true, honest feel for what we are doing.

WBV also play on April 5 with Ralph Stanley at Headliners. Check out whiskeybentvalley.tumblr.com.


c. 2012 LEO Weekly

Thursday, March 01, 2012

The LEO interview: Rock ‘n’ Roll comedian Andrew Dice Clay



Andrew Dice Clay was a huge comedy star briefly in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, playing to crowds of 10,000 at his peak. His fans turned away almost as quickly as they embraced him, though; while he was a shocking and unexpected comedian, at first, in tune with a harsh post-Reagan cultural spirit, the bullying style of much of his material and attitude did not endear him to a mainstream audience once they realized that he lacked a more dimensional, relatable side to his persona, especially as his first starring movie, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, bombed and a kinder, gentler America took hold. His one booking as a guest host of “Saturday Night Live” met with protests from cast member Nora Dunn and guest musical act Sinead O’Connor, who objected to the misogyny in his act. Dice never went away, though, continuing to perform stand-up to smaller crowds, and last summer, acting in an arc of HBO’s “Entourage,” a job that could have helped his career more had the series not been limping through its final season, years past its commercial and critical acclaim.

Andrew Dice Clay performs at The Improv on Thursday, March 1st, at 7 and 9:30 p.m., with Jim Florentine and Don Jamieson, co-hosts of VH1 Classic’s “That Metal Show”.

LEO: “Entourage” was a high-profile return to a large audience for you. How have you capitalized on that? Has that brought more acting work, helped with your stand-up audience?
ADC: First of all, to have a recurring role on one of the best shows ever on television was unbelievable! Definitely picked up some new fans along the way and get the old ones happy. After “Entourage,” I did a guest shot on “Raising Hope,” once again playing myself — I guess everyone in Hollywood thinks that’s my range.

LEO: In an interview I read from 2009, you were happily banging lots of ladies and didn’t want to be tied down. Now, last I heard, you’re married to a wonderful woman. How did she change your perspective?
ADC: As you know there is a difference between sex and love. When I met Valerie, it was most definitely love at first sight. Plus, the sex is pretty amazing!

LEO: According to media hype, Sinead O’Connor has been making a comeback lately, too. How do you feel about her now, and the way her life and career has progressed?
ADC: I don’t think about that bald chick for a minute. I won’t even dignify her by saying her name. She tried to get some cheap publicity by using my name and still it wouldn’t help her career.

LEO: Your act is full of thoughts that many people have, yet are afraid to express — but comedy is supposed to be full of people saying those kind of things. Why is your act so unique, after all these years?
ADC: I could name countless comedians who tried to copy me, but they all come off as cheap imitations. Simply: I am the best fucking rock ‘n’ roll comedian. I don’t care about all this PC shit — I just know how to make people laugh better and louder than anyone else.

LEO:
You are Jewish, by birth, though many think you’re Italian-American. Which would you rather be, or have people think you are?
ADC: Good question, never that heard one before. If people want to think that Andrew Dice Clay is Italian, that’s fine by me. But all they had to do is Google me, and you will know I was born Andrew Silverstein. So, to answer your question — beneath the leather jacket is a nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn.

LEO:
Your son has begun a stand-up career, as well as a music career. How has he been inspired by your career?
ADC: I think show business is an exciting career, and it’s been in my son Max’s life since the day he was born. He does play the drums, which he learned from me, and is probably better than I am. As for stand-up, the only real advice I gave him was to be himself on stage — don’t try to do what I do on stage. And if you watch him, he’s coming into his own, he’s like an edgy Seinfeld.

c. 2012 LEO Weekly