Home boys

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

LEO: Why not record this with Relic?

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

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

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

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

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

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

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Stoner hero Kal Penn returns from duty

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Cropped Out offers abnormal music for another option

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

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

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

LEO: How do you decide whom to book?

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

LEO: What about locals?

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

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

album review: Ut Gret

Ut Gret
Radical Symmetry
UNHEARDOF PRODUCTIONS



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

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

X’d out

"ear X-tacy is no more"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here
c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Metal drama

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

LEO: What is the play about?

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

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

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

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

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

LEO: Does your taste differ from your characters?

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

LEO: Do you have any Louisville music favorites?

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

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

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Sebadoh’s license to please

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For an extended interview, go here.

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

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

No borders bluegrass

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Local dead

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Waxing on Gonzo

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

LEO: Are you a Hunter Thompson fan?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

The Tea Total Package

Hillbilly Tea expands to meet customer demands



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

photo by Ron Jasin

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Fox and the Sound

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LEO: Have you seen that affecting your songwriting?

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

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

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

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

photo by Sean Pecknold

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s political surprises

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WO: Now, if I told you that …

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

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

LEO: You could’ve said “yes” or “no.”

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

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

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

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

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

LEO: Would you ever run for office here?

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

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

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

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

photo by Dirk Knibee

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

The LEO interview: Van Dyke Parks

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LEO: What are you working on next?

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

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

Tonguing silver

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

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

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

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

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

New directions for Fort Frances

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



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

LEO: I was just there last week.

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

LEO: What part?

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

LEO: And now you’re in Chicago?

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

LEO: Does that affect the momentum?

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

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

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

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

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

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

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Rosanne Cash’s memory banks

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

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

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

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

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

LEO: Do you have any fond memories of us?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LEO: And then you cover them later.

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

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

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

They Might Be Genius

“Hello, Kentucky!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

photo by Shervin Lainez

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Rock ’n’ soul gives back

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



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

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

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

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

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

photo by James Minchin

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Brothers, without a doubt

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

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

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

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

Find more info at www.facebook.com/TheDeclineEffect

photo by Sherry Ambromovage

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

An awkward chat with Hannibal Buress

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Q: Who are some comics you like these days?

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

Q: Have you been to Louisville before?

HB: No, I haven’t.

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

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

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

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

Good vibrations

Mayor Fischer talks music with LEO Weekly



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LEO: That sounds like a Jimmy Buffett song.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LEO: Really?

GF: Yeah.

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

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

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

LEO: Yes.

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

LEO: Erykah Badu.

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

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

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

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

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

LEO: Nope.

GF: Are you a musician?

LEO: No. Do you play anything?

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

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

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

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

Photo by Michael Stewart

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Comedy, tragedy: Too soon — or perfect timing?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No-Play List

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

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

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

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

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

The Shondes walk the walk, rock the rock

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Ladybirds Have Another One

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And so a partnership was formed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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