A lifetime of Black Sabbath

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

album review: She & Him

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

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

album review: The 23 String Band

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

C. 2011 LEO Weekly

Sampling White Rabbits

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Big Baby Band

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

LEO: Tell me about your new supergroup.

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

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

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

LEO: And the name?

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

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

JGW: (laughs) Right.

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

C. 2011 LEO Weekly

The Wire(s)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Find more info at reverbnation.com/thehotwiresky.

Photo by Marty Pearl

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

album review: State Champion

State Champion
Deep Shit
SOPHOMORE LOUNGE



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

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Mint Condition stay fresh

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LEO: Is this the best period for the band?

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

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

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

album review: Silver Tongues

Silver Tongues
Black Kite
KARATE BODY



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

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Q&A with Dane Waters

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

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

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

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

LEO: 

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

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

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

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

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

album review: Anton Mink

Anton Mink
Outside the Lines
ROSE ISLAND



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

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Justice is served by King’s Daughters & Sons

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

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

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

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

“I initially said no,” Rachel Grimes remembers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Bassekou Kouyate’s African blues

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

LEO: How did you learn to play the ngoni?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For an extended interview, go here.

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

c. 2011 LEO Weekly

Super fun

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

LEO: How did the album come together?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Louisville's Top Chef

Here

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

EL: Maybe …

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

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

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

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

Home boys

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