Full circle and full steam ahead with the Watson Twins

When sisters Chandra Watson and Leigh Watson released their third full-length album, Pioneer Lane, in September, casual fans of their folk/country-inflected group would not have realized it marked the first chapter in their new lives. But for the Louisville born-and-bred twins, it was the first album they recorded in their new home city of Nashville after 15 years in Los Angeles. This time, they literally recorded at home.

“We had been trying to come back to the South for the last several years,” Chandra says. “We just wanted to be closer to family and missed a lot of the cultural aspects of the pace and the people.”

As they tried to figure out what their next step would look like, they knew they would need more space — for living, as well as recording — and that they needed to have something else to work on in between music projects.

When their mother was looking in downtown Nashville for a wedding space a couple of years ago, she couldn’t find a venue she loved. “My mom jokingly was, like, ‘Why don’t you just buy something and make it an event space?’ We were, like, ‘Haha, you’re funny, Mom.’ And it got my wheels turning, and I thought, ‘Maybe we should do this.’”

Now the sisters and a partner run The Cordelle, an events space in Rutledge Hill, near the river. The name is “a reference to steamboat culture,” she says. “It’s a rope that’s on the front of the boat that brings it to shore and brings it through the water.” The building’s origins go back to the late 19th century. Now updated and added on to create a 5,000-square-foot space, the building hosts weddings, conferences and other events, while the sisters’ music career continues, both in their own band and singing back-up for others. While they first caught national attention singing with Jenny Lewis in Los Angeles, the sisters toured last year with Nashville’s Jesse Baylin. From Jenny to Jesse, not much has changed while everything has changed.

Chandra says they have been very happy in Nashville. “It’s in such a great spot right now. There’s so many creative people moving here from other cities and bringing these great little treasures from all these other cultures, and coming here and implementing that into what Nashville is — and it’s good because nobody is trying to change the old-school Nashville … whether it’s the honky-tonks or the sort of laid-back nature, no one’s saying, ‘Hurry up, hurry up, let’s get this thing moving’; everyone’s still embracing the culture as it is and just adding to it.

“The creative community here is really awesome, and it really has opened us up to a lot of new things, and it’s a different kind of scene here … I feel like people are more collaborative because (music) really is just part of life here (as opposed to in L.A.) … I met somebody the other day who is an event planner, and she used to manage Crystal Gayle,” Chandra laughs. “Everybody here at one point or other has done something in the music industry.”

She laughs, noting her jealousy that Louisville, too, has so much more to offer now than it did for the sisters and Chandra’s husband, multi-instrumentalist Russ Pollard, years ago. “Growing up there, the only thing we had were punk rock shows. That was the extent of our going out and our culture, which was super fun and awesome, and we met tons of great people through that — but I’m, like, ‘It’s not fair! We had to suffer through hanging out in the Valvoline parking lot …’ All these amazing things are happening and I’m, like, ‘Man, if I was a kid growing up there now, I would be so stoked!’”

WFPK Winter Wednesday with The Watson Twins and Bob Schneider
Wednesday, Feb. 19
Clifton Center
2117 Payne St.
cliftoncenter.org
Free; 7:30 p.m.

Photo by Dan Monick

Here
c. 2014 LEO Weekly

License to mature

Initially formed by Lou Barlow and Eric Gaffney in 1986, Sebadoh began as a bridge between harsher ’80s post-punk and the kinder, gentler ’90s. The group — which added Jason Loewenstein in 1989 — became an indie rock pioneer, known early on for their “lo-fi” home-recording style. Gaffney left in 1993, and the band’s momentum began to slow in the late ’90s.

After a 13-year break between recordings, Barlow, Loewenstein and drummer Bob D’Amico released a new Sebadoh EP, Secret, in 2012, followed by the full-length Defend Yourself last fall. They play Zanzabar on Thursday, Feb. 20.

Co-leader Loewenstein lived in Louisville for most of the decade between 1995 and 2005. Artist Doug Miller was his friend and colleague at ear X-tacy Records during that time.

“Sebadoh’s new album is their most mature work to date,” Miller says. “I don’t know if that is from the actual length of time that has elapsed, or the truly heartbreaking lyrics that are sad in those gloomy memories of a broken relationship but wise in the knowledge as to why it failed. Isn’t that maturity at its core? There is also a clean and vivid sound … that I think has come from the years of work and the honing of their craft that the band has done in their various side projects.”

He continues, “Songs like ‘Listen,’ as the title implies, offer the listener a space that is layered and gorgeous. The resonance of ‘Let It Out’ also is such a melodic and careful song that I can’t imagine ’90s Sebadoh making it … this record is a blaring, crooked and wild rock ’n’ roll venture with country-patina songs like ‘Inquiries’ that stand out and require repeated listens.”

“The Kentucky connection — Loewenstein — I think is more apparent in the EP; some of the grinding, country-laced songs are all, in some way, soaking in bourbon (or something stronger: see ‘My Drugs’). Songs like ‘I Don’t Mind,’ from the EP, have been danced to many times at my house.”

Photo by Bryan Zimmerman

Here
c. 2014 LEO Weekly

Respect: Lucero’s past, present and future

Older, wiser Memphis band benefits others



Lucero is so popular in Louisville, you’d be forgiven for not knowing they call Memphis home. The soul-country-rock band, currently an octet, returns Monday for what will be a packed heat wave of a winter show benefiting Big Brothers Big Sisters of Kentuckiana.

The BBBS idea came together when Lucero, about to hit the road with the Boston-based Dropkick Murphys, saw an opportunity to stop in Louisville for a show on their way up north. “It wasn’t too long ago that we’ve been in Louisville, and we usually play at Headliners up there,” says singer/guitarist Ben Nichols. “This time, we wanted to do something different, and we wanted to play some place a little smaller and more intimate.”

Once the band decided to make the show a benefit, their booker set it up with BBBS. “I’m looking forward to it,” says Nichols. “Louisville’s always a good time.”

It’s another step toward maturity for the veteran band, which has stepped up their live game in recent years with the additions of horn men Jim Spake and Scott Thompson, players whose credits range from Jerry Lee Lewis to Al Green and Cat Power. “They just know so much about Memphis musical history, and they’ve actually been a part of so much of it,” Nichols says. “Having a couple of guys like that in the band, it’s a big compliment that they’re in the band in the first place — and then just getting to hear their stories is super cool.”

In a roundabout way, their presence has also helped Nichols get healthier and start a new chapter in his own career. “Getting to play with guys that are this good, I don’t want to fuck it up,” he continues. “I’d rather play a more sober show and play better and have more fun, rather than just getting too drunk and screwing it all up. We did that for the bulk of our career, and so now I’m having fun really playing the music.” It’s still a process, he says, “but the more well behaved I am, then the more fun I have.”

Lucero has always been aware and inspired by Memphis’ insanely rich musical history, and Nichols has recently been reading “Respect Yourself,” the legendary music writer Robert Gordon’s latest love letter to that tale. “There’s plenty of history and plenty of stuff to get you excited about playing music and writing songs and being in a band,” says Nichols. “There’s plenty of Memphis history. It definitely keeps the band going and inspires us, for sure.”

Another reminder of their place in history came with the 2010 passing of former Big Star singer Alex Chilton, who had employed saxophonist Spake in his band. Members of Lucero paid tribute to Chilton at SXSW, and the older band’s documentary, “Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me,” was made available for home viewing so recently that Nichols had not seen it when we spoke. “I just added it to my (Netflix) list. I’ll watch it soon.”

Nichols is less certain people would want to see such a film about his band, noting that some footage was filmed in 2000 and ’05. “There’s plenty of old live footage of us out there. There’s a couple of documentaries that have been put together. We’ll see, maybe one day in the distant future there will be a more comprehensive film, but I don’t know … I don’t know if anybody would want to watch that,” he laughs. “We’ll see how the next 10 years go.”

While they work on that decade’s new songs, next is a live album, recorded last fall in Atlanta, providing a document of where the band is at today. A good intro for newcomers, it also offers longtime fans souvenirs of how some of their older songs sound now with horns and keyboards added to the arrangements. “It’s just kind of ingrained in what Lucero has become … hearing what (the newer members) bring to the old stuff has always been really fun, and they definitely do bring a new life to some of the old material.”

“It has just started to feel really natural with them,” Nichols says, “and it wasn’t something that was just kind of pasted on top of Lucero.”

Lucero
Monday, Feb. 17
Zanzabar
2100 S. Preston St.
Sold out; 8 p.m.

Here
c. 2014 LEO Weekly

Like The Sands through the hourglass

When is a supergroup not a supergroup? In the case of The Sands, it’s when the band’s members have all played in bands who are mostly famous in Bloomington, Ind., and the most famous member of the band is known, if at all, for a reason that has nothing to do with music.

Going on tour for a week now is a treat for The Sands, 30-ish guys who have more obligations than ever these days. They tried it once before but “… everyone was so busy, so (on) what was supposed to be a five-day tour, we ended up having to come home every night (across Indiana and Illinois),” says Mike Bridavsky, the band’s bassist, a recording engineer and the aforementioned most famous member.

This tour will be different, if for no other reason than they’re going farther, all the way to places like Raleigh, N.C., where guitarist/vocalist Jason Evans Groth (ex-Magnolia Electric Co., The Coke Dares) has started a new career as a librarian. It’s a long way from Bloomington, and a long way from how the band started.

"We were actually a Wipers cover band,” Bridavsky says. While that Northwestern melodic punk band has been a favorite of numerous musicians and critics through the years, it wouldn’t have been an obvious start for The Sands’ members, whose collective band identities had been harder-edged. But “we all shared a love for the Wipers, and we all thought it would be cool to form a power-pop group.”

The official reason for the tour is to promote the band’s new album, Hotel and Casino, recorded last year at the studio Bridavsky owns in Bloomington, Russian Recording (where Louisvillians such as Natives and Lucky Pineapple have also made records). The album is out this week through California’s Burger Records on cassette, vinyl through the Bloomington labels Houseplant and Let’s Pretend Records, and on CD by the Japanese label Waterslide. Despite the cross-label release, each format will be limited to 200 copies each.

“We’re not a very functional band, now that Jason’s moved,” Bridavsky acknowledges. “We only do it because we like each other’s company. We like playing music, and that’s really what we’re in it for.”

Bridavsky and drummer Josh Moore previously played together in the band Memory Map, and guitarist/singer Jeff Grant played in Pink Razors and Fat Shadow. Supergroup? “I think we’re just a group,” says Bridavsky, “a rock group of guys who are friends … I know people like Magnolia Electric Co., but aside from that, I’m not sure what bands people actually know.”

More people know Bridavsky’s cat, who was recently involved in a headline-making music story when she participated in WFPK DJ Sean Cannon’s charity-driven remake of “The Super Bowl Shuffle,” which also featured a handful of indie rockers and comedians. Bridavsky’s role came through supplying sound clips of his cat, Lil Bub, who has become an Internet celebrity, starring in a web series, a documentary, a book and, this Saturday, in her own Animal Planet special.

Cannon had interviewed Bridavsky not long ago about his odd new double life. “Especially for charity, something that’s fun and cool like that, we’re always happy to do it,” the musician and cat dad says. “I just have a collection of Bub sounds we use all the time for our shows, and I was, like, ‘Oh yeah, I can send you that if you want.’ I was really pleased with how it came out. I thought it was pretty funny.”

Bridavsky has mostly tried to keep Bub’s business separate from his normal music world, but, “At this point, I don’t think it’s possible anymore,” he says. “It’s fine, you know, people just yell my cat’s name all the time. Honestly, I just mostly feel bad for my bandmates … it’s my cat that’s famous. I’m just famous by association.”

Tours like this provide an opportunity for the members of The Sands to get away from everything else, spending time together as friends and making music — “fart a lot, make some jokes, get drunk, play the show,” he clarifies. “I don’t think anyone’s trying to make money or become famous or anything,” Bridavsky says. “Yeah, I think we all treat it like it’s some vacation.”

The Sands with Natives and Mote
Sunday, Feb. 9
The New Vintage
2126 S. Preston St.
newvintagelouisville.com
$5; 9 p.m.

Here
c. 2014 LEO Weekly

Berea Is For Lovers

One of the most prolific contributors to the local music scene hasn’t even been local lately, but he’s still pumping out product like he never left. John King’s resume is varied and unique — he has created and produced visual art and music, curated the long-running record series (and label) Louisville is for Lovers, and co-founded the Louisville Zombie Attack.

Now 36, King is a student at Berea College and working in their Sound Archives program. This month, King’s long-running hip-hop project Team Totoro is officially releasing a new album, Laser Beats, filled with 19 tracks of old school (or “tru skool,” in their parlance) fun. But that’s as close as he’s getting to a Valentine’s-related project this year.

“After putting out three records in under two months, I’m taking a break,” he says. His other band, The Gallery Singers, released a new EP in November, one King worked on while also assembling a full-length local tribute to Will Oldham.

“It’s funny,” says King, “Valentine’s Day was the biggest part of my life for over a third of my life, and now the past couple years, I have a bit of empty nest syndrome — and some guilt — every time February rolls around.”

He laughs as he acknowledges that he has become known as “The VD guy” to some for his Valentine’s Day-themed projects. It started in 1999 at Sparks, the nightclub he started working at the week he graduated from high school. “I might have hidden my true age a little bit,” he says. “I really miss Steve Ann Irwin, the owner of Sparks. He was like a father to me. He always had faith in me; whatever ideas I had, he always let me run with it.”

King has been talking to a few people about possible projects, but his current focus is on graduating early. “Louisville is my home. This is the longest I have lived away, and as much as Berea College has given me, I can’t wait to get back and start more projects!”

Here
Find more projects at louisvilleisforlovers.com.