New adults on the block

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Neighbor is a heavy band with some heavy thoughts on their mind. They celebrate the release of their first full-length album, Neighbor, with a release show at Zanzabar on Friday. LEO asked guitarist Sean Gardner about the new record, which was produced by Trip Barriger at Treehouse Audio.

LEO: Who writes what? What inspires the songwriting?

Sean Gardner: I find the term “inspiration” problematic. Writing is a matter of work, not divine revelation. In our case, the labor is collective — beginning with a small idea for a single instrument and expanding with rapport among the band.

LEO: I detect a somewhat militaristic sound at times, at least on “Hordes.” Is this intentional?

SG: “Hordes,” especially, is organized around violent sounds — scratches, alarms, explosions. The marching call-and-response that begins that song is intended to evoke something like an imminent social violence. And what we mean to express is an anxiety that underlies and spews from such a violence.

LEO: How has playing in Neighbor been different for you from playing in Bu Hao Ting or Twenty First Century Fox?

SG: There are plenty of technical and conceptual disparities between those three bands. But it’s the result of more than a dozen rather unique individuals engaged in a common, collaborative process. Neighbor may be dynamically aggressive, BHT primitive and atonal, or TFCF melodically infectious, but these qualities are results of the same procedure — sharing ideas among friends.

LEO: When someone discovers this record in 80 years, what would you want them to think about it?

SG: Nothing. We just want to incite arousal.

Listen at neighborusa.bandcamp.com.

c. 2013 LEO Weekly

Super fuzz

Weird Girl was never a girl. The band first popped up on the online music site Bandcamp, where, as a guitars-and-drums duo, they released a series of singles and EPs last fall, available for free downloading. The band, now a trio, is finishing work on their first full-length album, Bad Friends. They sat down with LEO for their first interview.

“We liked the idea of a two-piece, it was a lot of fun,” says singer/guitarist Ryan Hater, “but adding Brady (McAfee) as a permanent member on the bass, it was for the best, definitely.”

Hater and drummer Basil Connor Martin had played in bands together, but they call Weird Girl their first serious band. They waited a few months before playing their first show, having previously booked shows and then written songs to play on a deadline. This time, they wanted to do it right.

So they learned from doing it the hard way, eh? “We learned from doing it the stupid way,” laughs Martin.

Adding McAfee has changed their direction a bit, too, from the first seven songs heard on Bandcamp.

“They’re all songs that we’re still proud of, that we really like,” says Hater, but the band is progressing.

The full-length features 10 songs. “There’s not a whole lot in town that sounds like it,” Hater says. “I’m not sure it fits into a scene,” though they do identify as “Post-Skull Alley kids.”

“My ambition for it is that it will be a bunch of songs that will make kids want to drive around town listening to it,” Hater says. “That’s what we did in high school.”

Martin cites ’70s rock and ’80s New Wave as influences, naming The Go-Gos and The Cars. “Really poppy, easily accessible. But also, we’re a rock ’n’ roll band.”

“We don’t just want to be a grunge band, or a fuzz band, or just a pop band,” Hater adds. “We want to put it all together as much as we can.”

Listen at weirdgirl.bandcamp.com.

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c. 2013 LEO Weekly

Time traveling man

My Morning Jacket leader Jim James steps out on his own

"Music has always come to me through a friend or through a film, and I just want to receive that invitation. I follow it as far as I can through the wormhole until I receive another invitation that I want to follow more.”

James Edward Olliges Jr. was born in Louisville on April 27, 1978. By the fourth grade, he had already made some of his life’s strongest friendships, including future drummers Dave Givan and Patrick Hallahan. By his teens, Olliges was playing with friends in bands, such as Month of Sundays, Two Shotguns and Hotel Roy, forgotten to all but Louisville music scene veterans and superfans.

Along the way, he took the stage name Jim James. The new handle reflected his absurdist sense of humor, as well as the fact that many people were unable to pronounce his given name. He also liked that it sounded like the name of a gunslinger.

In the late ’90s, while an art student at the University of Kentucky, he submitted a demo of songs to a handful of record labels, including a small indie in California called Darla. When Darla’s owners heard James’ demo, sent under the name My Morning Jacket, even though it was only James at that point, Darla offered a deal. The Tennessee Fire, the first full-length album by My Morning Jacket, was released in 1999.

After an even more highly acclaimed second album with Darla, At Dawn, in 2001, the band signed to a major label, the RCA-owned ATO Records. Since then, My Morning Jacket has released four more studio albums and become one of the most popular live bands in the world, appearing on “Saturday Night Live” and becoming animated in an “American Dad!” episode inspired by and starring the band.

They’ve performed in movies, been featured on magazine covers, and become such a big music festival attraction that when they play at Tennessee’s massive Bonnaroo Festival, it’s expected that they will play at last three hours, Springsteen-style; anything less would disappoint.

My Morning Jacket closed out 2012 in the style they wrap up every year these days: three nights in New York, followed by a New Year’s Eve concert in Boston. On Jan. 2, they played a Hurricane Sandy benefit in Asbury Park, N.J. James spoke with LEO over the next two days, beginning with a phone conversation from the Newark airport and continuing later in Louisville.

The official occasion for these discussions was James’ first full-length solo album, Regions of Light and Sound of God, which will be released Feb. 5. The album often departs sonically from the guitar-based sound he’s known for with My Morning Jacket. Its source of inspiration was also surprising.

While working on My Morning Jacket’s album Evil Urges, released in 2008, a friend gave him a copy of a book called “Gods’ Man.” It would spark a creative epiphany.

Created by Lynd Ward and published in 1929, “Gods’ Man” uses woodcut images rather than words to tell the story of an artist’s struggles. Upon the book’s release, New York World newspaper wrote, “The emotional effect of this book is tremendous … It will make a novel and exciting gift for a friend who is sick to death of meaningless words.”

James, who opened My Morning Jacket’s 2005 album Z with a song called “Wordless Chorus,” says, “I was really struck by the book, and I started scoring it in the hopes that it would become a film, in some form.”

Over the next four years, what began as a hypothetical film score evolved into the songs that became Regions of Light and Sound of God. During that time, James says, “Thoughts started creeping in … that had more to do with my life than the book — although some of the lyrics have to do with the book. Probably about half-and-half.”

The songs came out in chunks, he says, but they all wanted to be together. He began composing his score on an iPad, because the screen-flipping effect made it feel more cinematic. James hadn’t planned on making a solo album, but over the years he had built a home studio. When he’d get off the road, he’d work on more songs.

Previously, before making My Morning Jacket records, James would work on demos at home “to try and figure out what I want(ed) the record to be.” But in the 2007 sessions for Evil Urges, producer Joe Chiccarelli pointed out how James’ elaborate pre-production work, what James calls “super-duper intense demos, almost like a record themselves,” was affecting his creative energy.

“I put all this shit in there like keyboards, drum machines, and made the record before we even made the record. And several times throughout the sessions, I found myself butting up against a wall, where I couldn’t beat the demo I had made.”

Now James fights the urge to make demos. “I’ll just record an idea on the voice memo on my phone so I won’t forget it, but I’ll wait until I’m with the guys to turn it into a real song. That’s what we did for (2011’s) Circuital, and it worked out a lot better. We had a lot more fun with it.”

The songs that became Regions of Light and Sound of God “started popping out,” he says, and he invited lifelong friend Givan to play drums on most of the album. Emily Hagihara added percussion, and other friends joined in on strings: frequent collaborator Ben Sollee on cello, fellow Louisvillian Scott Moore on violin and viola, and New Yorker Adriana Molello, also on violin. “Everything besides that, I played myself,” James says.

Though he worked on most of Regions of Light at home, he moved to a room in local recording engineer Kevin Ratterman’s studio for a month to finish it.

“I just got this crazy kind of déjà vu when I saw (“Gods’ Man”), when I held it,” James says. “My friend gave me one of the original pressings of it. It was all yellow and crazy looking. When I held it for the first time, it totally smacked me in the face. I felt like I had known it from back then, from whatever life I lived back then. I knew it and loved it somehow. So when I saw it again, it’s like I already knew it.”

He loved the art deco presentation of the book, as he loves many cultural artifacts from that 1920s/’30s era. “Holding an original pressing from that time in my hand … there’s just something about the pattern of it that echoes, resonates really deep in my brain.”

For James, the idea of time travel appeals to him, “… just being a huge music nerd, always looking to be turned on to something new from whenever or wherever. The world’s just such a giant place. The span of recorded-music time that we can travel to is so short in the span of how long music has been around.”

“I don’t know, I’m just fascinated with it,” he adds. “I want to learn as much as I can about … everything. I’m always searching for new things.”

Since last May, James has been co-hosting, with Givan, a weekly program that can only be heard on local public radio station 91.9 WFPK or streaming online as it airs. “Sir Microcosm,” which airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m., has a time traveling theme, as the pair bounce around from music by Hank Williams to David Bowie, Dirty Projectors to Count Basie, Harry Belafonte to Frank Ocean.

Even as kids, for James and his friends, music was everything.

“I think it started as an escape … because you can travel into these different worlds in your mind. For me, it’s always fleeting glimpses or fleeting flashes — you’ll go see a movie set in the ’20s, and you’ll catch a little piece of music that you like, and you’ll want to explore that more.”

James is very close to his family and friends back home, despite spending a lot of time on the road. “I don’t know, I guess you could take it back to the time travel thing. I like slipping into different portals and slipping down different wormholes and different worlds.”

But it’s all about finding a balance: If he’s home for too long, he gets antsy. If he doesn’t have time to create, he gets antsy. If he’s on the road too long, he wants to be home.

“The one frustrating thing about the way I live life is so much of my life is planned so far in advance,” he says. “You’re planning New Year’s Eve in the summer, and you’re planning summer on New Year’s Eve.

“By the time you get to those points in time, sometimes you’re ready for what you planned and sometimes you’re not. You have no way of knowing how you’re going to feel six months into the future when you have to commit to it now.”

Still, he’s working on plans for a tour, where his band will include Givan on drums, Ratterman on samples and percussion, and a pair he met through Sollee, pianist Dan Dorf and bassist Alana Rocklin. “So I’ve got a band formed. We haven’t played yet, but we’re gonna do that soon and see if we can figure out how to … get it all figured out.”

He confirms Louisville as a destination on the tour. “Oh, yeah. We’ll definitely play a show here.” On Monday, James announced details of the show, which will be April 17 at the Brown Theatre. Tickets go on sale Feb. 1 for $31, with $1 of each ticket sold going to the cancer research and treatment hospital City of Hope.

Though a crucial element, the story of “Gods’ Man” did not inspire all of Regions of Light and Sound of God. The opener, “State of the Art (A.E.I.O.U.),” came from James’ conflicted feelings about technology. “I love technology, and I love working in technology. If you’re in music nowadays, most of the innovation that happens is inside the computer,” he says. “If you’re not using the computer, you’re not on the cutting edge of what is happening.”

At the same time, he sees “a really cool thing happening right now in the world.” One of his sisters has an organic farm, where her family grows their own food. Another is a midwife, helping women deliver children in their own homes. James thinks such a movement has come up as a response to technology; he fears a future in which even a business like Kroger can’t maintain a physical presence, “because you can print out your groceries from your computer.”

The computers are going to gobble up the world, he says. “That’s kind of the moral of the song — have siblings who can grow food so you can live after the end of the world,” he laughs.

The second song, “Know Til Now,” was the first song released online to get fans excited about the album. James wrote it “musically, thematically, to be the sound of progress in ‘Gods’ Man.’ The sound of The Artist making his way into the city, advancing up the ranks, climbing up the ladder.”

“The song is mostly one-half of that, then there’s an ending that’s completely different … The Artist is at the reception for his show that’s super-successful. High society is there, toasting him and cheering him.”

On a more personal level, it’s also about how we all do things that make sense at the time, but “… you look back on it now, it’s the stupidest thing you ever did. But back then, you didn’t know any better.”

It’s a theme that also ties into one of the last songs on the album, “All Is Forgiven,” a topic that’s been weighing on James. About the song, he says, “Lyrically, at least from the way I looked at it, it was just … that everything can be forgiven.

“That’s something I think about a lot, for any time I’ve hurt somebody, or done something that I shouldn’t have done … I think, if you hurt a person, you pray for forgiveness and hope that the world, or that person, can find a way to forgive you.”

He has a “pretty clear” conscience, “But I’ve hurt a lot of people I didn’t even know I was hurting, and I feel like that’s what happened to The Artist in the end of the book. He didn’t even know what he was getting into until it was too late. So he’s hoping for that forgiveness.”

His most colorful description of a passage from the book comes when relaying his inspiration for the song “Actress.”

“She becomes his muse — there’s this really amazing scene where he’s painting her portrait, she’s nude, and he looks closer and sees a dollar bill tattooed on her shoulder and realizes she’s a whore who’s just been conning him the whole time,” James laughs. “He realizes he’s been duped and he’s running all over the city, trying to seek refuge … fucking crazy, you’ve got to look at this book.

“He runs to the church to seek refuge there, but the priest is fucking the girl; he runs to the park, and the girl’s fucking the cop. Everywhere he goes, he sees this girl’s face on every girl, everywhere, in all these places where you’re supposed to seek help. So that was meant to go with that. It isn’t personally written about anyone that I know.”

Though lauded for his guitar playing, James downplays the instrument on his solo record, focusing more on sensual keyboards and strings, reflections of his love for 1970s soul and funk music. It isn’t until the third song, “Dear One,” that a guitar is featured viscerally.

“I get to play guitar so much in My Morning Jacket, I really didn’t feel a need to play it as much in this,” James says. “I mean, there is guitar on the record, but not in the normal way. I wanted it to be more subliminal. Or, like in ‘Dear One,’ I wanted it to be hyper-realized, like a computer was beating the guitar.”

For James, the occasion to write a “computer beating a guitar” song came from a love story. It was written for a passage in the book when The Artist has fallen off a cliff and landed in a field. A woman finds him, and they fall in love.

“There’s a beautiful scene in this big field at night, stars are shining, it’s just a beautiful point in the book,” he says. “‘Dear One’ was written to be the music for those scenes, where they’re falling in love, and it was written from my point of view. We’re all trying to fall in love, and … just how important that is, that feeling is.”

The next song, “A New Life,” reflects the consummation of that love. The Artist and the woman have a child and are now a family, running through the fields together. It’s the happiest point in the book. About those lyrics, James says, “Everything is echoing from my life, too, things that were going on back then — but I didn’t have a child.”

In his mind, James has a map of his intended score for the book. For the purposes of his album, however, it’s not a literal retelling of the story from beginning to end. “I looked at this record in two ways. I wanted this record to be itself and be in an order I wanted it to be, independent of ‘Gods’ Man.’ And if ‘Gods’ Man’ does ever get turned into a film, then there’ll be a soundtrack that goes with that. Maybe some of these songs will be on it.”

But past experience in the film world has made James cautious about that process. “I’ve worked on two different film scores now that I got fired from,” he says with a laugh, “(because) they were too weird. The movies, I always end up being incredibly frustrated that I can’t control (them).”

He collaborated on two scores with composer Brian Reitzell, who has worked frequently with director Sofia Coppola. The first was for “The Beaver,” the what-were-they-thinking movie by Mel Gibson and Jodie Foster about a man who communicates with a hand puppet. After scoring the entire film, the pair was replaced.

“It was ‘too weird,’ and they realized the film was gonna tank,” James says now, still bruised by the experience. “I’m really glad it happened, because the film is horrible. They just needed more blatantly obvious music. It’s the kind of thing, too, where it’s like a break-up — maybe they just hated the music we wrote and it’s horrible. But I think it’s awesome. Me and Brian really believe in it, and someday we’ll do something with it.”

The other movie was an indie called “Goats,” which, according to James, also turned out horrible. “And I say that because I have a right to say that, because I feel like both of those could have turned out good. I feel like they were both cases of directors letting Hollywood tell them what to do with their art and fucking themselves. If they would have listened to themselves and listened to their conscience and listened to their gut, they could’ve made a really great film.”

It’s another preoccupation for James — instinct. “I really believe in intuition and in your gut. We all have this force inside of us that, if we just listen to it, it would always set us on the right path. But a lot of times we don’t listen to it … I think that’s the biggest gift we were given.”

Despite the setbacks, James values his experience in the film world, which also includes two attempts to work with The Muppets. It felt natural, but losing control was frustrating. “I think everybody needs to have control over their art. That’s the problem when art and commerce start to mix. If you don’t spell things out pretty clearly, you can quickly lose control.”

Over the years, James has counted on the support of family, friends and fans, but he’s still a work in progress. “I may be confident musically, but I’m definitely not confident in other areas, that’s for sure.” Musically, he has the self-assurance to command thousands of people in a crowd at once and ignore the many opinions directed at his stage persona.

“Performing is such a weird thing. It’s almost like you have to put a different brain in your head, because it’s just so different than how I live in a day-to-day way. It’s a whole different world,” he says. “You have to be open to putting yourself out there, both in being criticized and being enjoyed.”

The moral of his story, according to James, is that “it doesn’t fucking matter.” He tells this to anyone who wants to make a record but is scared, or to bands 10 years in who are afraid to try something new. You’re always going to get the same response: Some will praise you, others will damn you.

“It’s kind of freeing, in a way. It’s like this great equalizer.”

And even when you know it’s completely out of your control, he says, “It all still fucks with you.”

“I try to not read press, but people email me shit. It still hurts when people say it sucks, and it fucks with your ego when people say it’s great. But you hear so much of both, you have to just be happy with what you’re doing. That’s where I find solace — at the end of the day, I’m in love with what I’m doing, and I’m having a really great time doing it.”

Photo by Frankie Steele

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c. 2013 LEO Weekly

Palace brothers

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Futuristic hip-hop arrives from Seattle

Ishmael Butler is soft-spoken and friendly in conversation, but the music he’s making now might keep you up at night.

When the first Shabazz Palaces EP was self-released in 2009, there was little information available about the group, yet word spread quickly in their native Seattle that their minimal, paranoid and futuristic-sounding hip-hop was something special. At first, interviews were declined, and Butler, performing as Palaceer Lazaro, disguised himself during concerts with scarves and sunglasses.

“Early on, it wasn’t about mystery, necessarily, although I do like that,” Butler says. “I like mystery in music because … when you look back, a lot of people would associate Funkadelic with George Clinton. But you’re talking about groups that had 13, 14 cats in there playing. There’s music, and nobody really knows these guys.”

Butler had a past he was trying to keep separate from his current project. It’s a rich past he’s proud of, as a member of the groundbreaking and Grammy-winning trio Digable Planets, but he’d been around long enough to see how eager some people were to focus on surfaces, rather than the music. And having this new music heard on its own merits was important to him.

“It started to be, like, where people started to talk more about the back story, the anecdotes, the personalities of artists more than their music,” he says. “I understood that as a selling point, but I didn’t like it that much for myself.

“It’s not really true, these attaching personalities to these artifices, so my thing was (to) separate from the Digable thing and to concentrate on the music while I just make the music and put it out as-is. Wherever the music goes, it takes the people, rather than people taking the music someplace.”

Shabazz Palaces, whose core members are Butler and percussionist Tendai Maraire, signed with the powerful and locally based label Sub Pop, which released their first full-length, Black Up, in 2011 to ecstatic reviews. Butler says it’s been a healthy relationship between two partners who have both seen the best and worst of the music game and have come out wiser for it. Both sides listen to the other’s ideas.

“They’re experts, and they’re purveyors of fine music for a long time,” he says, “so to not listen to them would make us stupid. So we didn’t do that … It’s good to be with people who love the music and understand business being a necessary part of expanding it.”

Shabazz Palaces found another supportive group in My Morning Jacket, who brought them on tour last summer. It was a success both musically and personally.

“Jim (James), I love this guy, he and the whole band,” Butler says. “Patrick (Hallahan), man, he’s a Steelers fan. I gotta give my guys a shout-out, can’t wait to see them.”

Their current tour finds them going on before another act signed to Sub Pop, the Portland-based atmospheric-rock duo The Helio Sequence, about whom Butler exclaims, “They’re the OGs, man.” He’s been a fan for several years, faithfully seeing every show he could. “So supporting them is somewhat of a dream come true, really, for me.”

For Shabazz Palaces’ performances, Butler says, “The live show is related to the album. The music is the place we take off from, but it goes down up into different realms.” He laughs in the middle of describing it as “a pretty energetic and spontaneous presentation of music.”

“It’s not like we just stand up there, rapping from our tracks and shit like that. Not that anything’s wrong with that, but it’s a little bit different. We appreciate performing, and you can tell.”

Butler’s hope is that people coming to the show — whether they’ve heard their music before or not — will listen and then decide if they like it based on nothing else. He’s been to the mountaintop and back down. Along the way, he’s seen that it’s only the music that matters. He’s fine with you knowing that he was on the classic “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat),” but that’s just not where he’s at today.

“I get why it happens,” he acknowledges, “but it’s just kind of lazy and a little bit monotonous for me. The people that I roll with, we like to keep it fresh.”

Shabazz Palaces with The Helio Sequence and Bus Hus
Tuesday, Jan. 29
Zanzabar
2100 S. Preston St.
zanzabarlouisville.ticketfly.com
$12; 9 p.m.

Photo by David Belisle & Leif Podhajsky

c. 2013 LEO Weekly

R ’n’ R ’n’ R

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Troubadour Justin Paul Lewis has been working hard for several years now, honing his craft one gig at a time. His latest performance will be at Uncle Slayton’s on Thursday.

For his newest collection, a four-song EP, Lewis teamed with Ben Sollee to take his ideas to a different level.

LEO: Who is Ben Sollee?

Justin Paul Lewis: The producer of my new album Rinse, Repeat, Rewind, a cello-playing madman, a father, and a very dear friend.

LEO: You began working on this EP in 2011. What took so long?

JL: Day-to-day life really got in the way of getting these songs out sooner. Ben and I were on the road together for a bit, then Ben was out solo, then the home and family called for me to take care of some things. So we took our time. We recorded bits and pieces of each song from then until now, letting them bake for a while. Each time we would go back, we would realize that our ears had matured to each song, and new ideas would just plow into them. I really made a lot of strides as a performer during that time, too. I often think back about what the record would sound like if we recorded it today.

LEO: How would you guess your 2013 will look one year from today?

JL: At this point, there are handfuls of possibilities. There is no doubt 2013 is going to be a busy one. I have had a lot of great “music folks” reach out about the song “Salt” and the new record — it’s been very encouraging to keep trucking on and keep writing. I will definitely be doing some touring and some well-needed sitting. I think I may start a basketball league, too. Any takers?

LEO: Where is the hardest place to fall?

JL: The Back Door is more of a stumbling place, so I would say that damn skate park.

LEO: F/marry/kill: Dawne Gee, Lynn Winter, Kimmet Cantwell?

JL: I would invite them to Vietnam Kitchen to talk it over. Kimmet can sit next to me.

Photo by Mickie Winters.

c. 2013 LEO Weekly

album review: Kirk Kiefer

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Kirk Kiefer has played in a bunch of bands around Louisville, including the recently retired dust-kickers Yardsale, and the Health and Happiness Family Gospel Band, an all-star collective of old-timey lovers. Now he steps out with a solo statement more in debt to Big Star than the Stones. Aided by pros like Joan Shelley, Todd Hildreth and members of the 23 String Band, Kiefer sounds confident and happy romping through power-pop should-be-hits like “Calling Home” and “Like a Black Hole” like the Cheap Trick ’70s are only starting to bleed into the college rock ’80s, twang lessened somewhat. Horns perk up here and there, adding a New Orleansian flavor to selections like “Lust From Afar,” whose subject material might indicate that it is truly for contemporary adults — a world away from today’s Top 40, sadly.

c. 2013 LEO Weekly

Mountain Heart is not a bluegrass band

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“This past year was inarguably our most successful, as a band, and that’s a great thing to say when you’ve had success like we’ve had through the years,” says Mountain Heart fiddler Jim Van Cleve. “But this past year, we’ve reached … I couldn’t even wager a guess. I’m gonna say probably hundreds of thousands of new people.”

Van Cleve co-founded Mountain Heart in 1998 with banjoist Barry Abernathy, mandolinist Adam Steffey, and vocalist Steve Gulley. Five others came and went through 2006. Then Gulley departed, beginning a new chapter in Mountain Heart’s career.

“We decided to rock the boat pretty substantially and we changed lead singers, which can be a giant leap of faith,” Van Cleve says. “We knew it was one we were ready for. We felt real confident in the move. It was the right time.”

What Mountain Heart’s core members wanted was more ambitious than what Gulley wanted. It wasn’t personal, Van Cleve asserts. “Out of absolutely no disrespect to anybody who’s been here, we made that move, and that was the biggest change that we’ve made.”

Gulley’s successor, Josh Shilling, stood out for all the ways he wasn’t like many bluegrass singers. His ability to sing in rock, blues and country styles matched up with Mountain Heart’s new vision. Additionally, he brought skills on guitar and numerous keyboards.

“We knew we had material and musical ideas that we wanted to push the envelope with. We’d become known already, but we’d hit a glass ceiling and become stale,” Van Cleve reflects. “We jumped off of that cliff and (it) turned out it wasn’t actually a cliff — it was a green pasture.”

Van Cleve is no purist and is almost as familiar with marketing concepts as he is with his fiddle. “We knew we had a certain product we wanted to be able to put on stage — that product would be exciting, and it would be fresh and young, and not a bluegrass band.”

Though he proudly declares they can still go there, “where our roots are planted,” the band didn’t want to be “put up in that little cubbyhole and locked away forever. The greater good would never hear any of the musical ideas we were getting into. So we set out to try to shake things up pretty good. And I think we’ve succeeded pretty effectively,” he laughs.

In the past year, the band appeared on an episode of PBS’ new music showcase “Bluegrass Underground,” filmed in Tennessee’s Cumberland Caverns. Van Cleve calls it “the new ‘Austin City Limits,’” though it’s too soon to tell about that. After the show, Van Cleve says, their website, Facebook profile, sales, bookings — “everything just went to a whole new level. It wasn’t necessarily overnight, but we’ve seen a decided upswing in everything.”

They signed with New Frontier Touring, the booking agency that also represents the Avett Brothers, shortly after the episode aired. “So we’re more well-aligned with, say, Avett Brothers/Mumford & Sons now then anything else we’d ever been easily categorized in.”

The best thing about Mountain Heart, says Van Cleve, is their collective musicianship. He left college to play with Doyle Lawson and has since accompanied Carrie Underwood, Sara Evans and many more, and won a Grammy for his 2007 solo album.

Each new band-hire was “handpicked, so they were calculated moves. Each one of those moves has really brought our show performance to a whole new, more dynamic and entertaining level. This band is top-notch session players. Each one of these guys, on their own, has been sought after to play on all kind of stuff … we’ve (now) got Aaron Ramsey (mandolin, guitar and dobro), who literally can play any kind of instrument as well as anybody in the band, just about (laughs), except for fiddle, actually, so my job’s secure! Then we’ve got a 19-year-old guitar player (Seth Taylor) who is just a freak of nature (laughs).

“Seth joined us a year ago, and he’s been able to see the world; 19 years old, he’d never been on a plane … now he’s a seasoned vet.”

You should come on out, he urges. “The spontaneity of our show, it is a free-for-all; we have no clue who’s gonna play what next sometimes, and we love that.”

Mountain Heart
Friday, Jan. 18
IU Southeast (Ogle Center)
4201 Grant Line Road, New Albany
ius.edu/oglecenter
$26.50; 7:30 p.m.

c. 2013 LEO Weekly

Fun times for Father John Misty

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Josh Tillman had a creative breakthrough in 2011. After years of releasing critically acclaimed, low-selling solo albums, he joined a band called Fleet Foxes as they quickly rose from Seattle buzz to international popularity. But it was just a job, and, approaching 30, Tillman knew he had more to give.

Depressed but more financially fit, Tillman quit the band and moved to Los Angeles, where he tried to write a novel. Surrounded by the carefree 21st century hippie musicians of Laurel Canyon, Tillman changed musical directions, letting the sun shine in and dropping his (musical) pants.

Reborn as the character Father John Misty, Tillman’s new band is free to try on 1970s styles from Randy Newman-esque pop to Gram Parsons-y outlaw country with a modern attitude, equally inspired by today’s L.A. comedy scene (“Parks and Recreation”’s Aubrey Plaza stars in the band’s first video, for the song “Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings”).

So, it must feel weird to jump from obscurity to the drum seat to the center of attention, right?

“I hate to say it, but it really didn’t take much adjustment whatsoever,” Tillman laughs. “I’m a nightmare behind the microphone.”

He says he never saw the “artistic merit” behind the showmanship usually unveiled by those on the big stage, but he’s now old enough to be himself and not worry as much about potentially looking foolish.

Now 31, Tillman says, “I think, like any person in their early 20s, I very much wanted to be taken seriously … The J. Tillman (solo) albums, I stand by them. (But) at this stage in the game, I have to distance myself from them for my own creative purposes. I had to, like, prepare the sacrificial lamb for the slaughter and drink its blood,” he laughs, “in order to move on.”

Citing the search for truth and honesty as his mission, Tillman allows, “Your definition of that changes over time.”

His earlier work isn’t too dissimilar from Father John Misty’s album Fear Fun, which was released by Sub Pop last May, but there’s a lightness and a joy now that he had previously tried to suppress. He knew he had that in him all along, but just like Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz,” he had to take the long journey to find where it was.

“I had a moment of illumination when I realized, ‘This shit is so hard because you refuse to use the skills that you have.’”

Tillman says he knows he’s not the first, that some people learn that they’ve been too close to their own personalities and taking themselves for granted for years, only discovering later what was always staring back at them. The insight was, for him, simple but life-changing: “The melancholy and introspection is still there, but what I was leaving out was my ability to laugh.”

He doesn’t stop before the punchline anymore. It’s earned him a new group of fans. “Comedians really respond to this music in a way that makes me proud,” he notes. Backstage after a recent performance on “Conan,” fellow guest Sarah Silverman recognized Tillman’s girlfriend from one of the band’s videos.

A similar thread Tillman sees is that comedians have to go a long way with their craft to be taken seriously, like he has. He calls his current approach to songwriting akin to a magic trick, infusing serious songs with enough humor to make it go down easier. “It’s funny in some respects, but it’s got some dignity.”

He agrees that such an approach is not trendy now, and probably never has been, but people always like it when they hear it. “I think a lot of music at this point is just made under the premise of, ‘Just don’t fuck up!’ (My music) is like navigating a landmine of potential uncool choices.”

When he first arrived in L.A., he went to some comedy open-mics “as a voyeur” but quickly learned he was not built to be a traditional stand-up. He likes his humor best “when it’s totally inappropriate. In that respect, I’m really in the perfect position.”

“In some ways, I fit the bill for ‘white, male, acoustic guitar-playing singer-songwriter’ archetype. A lot of the shit I say on stage is wildly inappropriate, given that archetype. In that way, it’s more enjoyable for me.”

Father John Misty with Magic Trick
Wednesday, Jan. 9
Headliners Music Hall
1386 Lexington Road
headlinersmusichall.com
$12; 9 p.m.

c. 2013 LEO Weekly

Going backstage with ‘Yo Gabba Gabba!’

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The latest tour starring characters from the popular Nick Jr. TV program “Yo Gabba Gabba!” is called “Get the Sillies Out.” It’s their third tour, and if you’ve seen either of the first two tours, this one promises to bring the most popular elements of both together in addition to some new material.

The first threw everything together, maybe a little too much for young audiences. The second was more storytelling-based. Along the way, the producers learned the kids really wanted to hear their favorite songs. Cannons and bubbles remain, but the kids have had their say.

The 80-minute show has an intermission built in to ensure that the shorter half of the audience won’t grow restless or wear themselves out from smiling and dancing. Show creators Christian Jacobs and Scott Schultz both came from rock band backgrounds and are happily mindful that, for many present, it will be their first concert experience.

DJ Lance Rock (played by musician Lance Robertson) hosts the program, joined by cast members Muno, Foofa, Brobee, Toodee, Plex, and two other humans — gem sweater-wearing online celebrity Leslie Hall (also known for her novelty hit record "Gold Pants") and old-school hip-hop icon Biz Markie.

The TV show, now in its fourth season, has earned many adult fans, from parents relieved to have a kids’ show that doesn’t insult anyone’s intelligence to music fans who delight in seeing acts like Biz and co-star Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo, and guests ranging from the Shins to the Roots (and comedy fans who appreciate the Pee Wee-level of silliness, with appearances by comic actors like Amy Sedaris, Jack McBrayer and more).

Still, some adults are surprised to learn about such a hip level of love for this show aimed at preschoolers. Schultz says both Lance and Biz were perfect fits for the show, even before it became a reality, because both have kept in touch with their child within and delight in having fun with the little ones. Biz, Schultz notes, did earn his rep back in the day with songs like “Pickin’ Boogers,” so it shouldn’t seem like such a stretch. “He’s great, we’re just excited to have him.”

In addition to showcasing beloved songs like “Party in My Tummy,” another special aspect of the live show is the post-show meet-and-greet backstage, where delighted (though sometimes confused or scared) children can meet the characters, which appear much bigger in person than many children expect. Schultz says that lines often form for each character, revealing who is more popular. “I thought Tootie would be the one who’s the least popular, but she has a lot of fans … Obviously, Brobee and Foofa — Foofa’s probably the most popular.”

Some parents try to get closer — too close — to the charming DJ Lance, which explains why he has a bodyguard nearby for these events. Like many things about “Yo Gabba Gabba!,” this show has plenty for adults to look at, too.

For those wanting more “Yo,” Schultz says a movie is planned, as well as specials in 2013 — one of which will visit, for the first time, Lance’s room. (But not in that way.)

‘Yo Gabba Gabba! Live’
Sunday, Jan. 13
Palace Theater
625 S. Fourth St.
louisvillepalace.com
$25-$45; 2 & 5 p.m.

c. 2013 LEO Weekly

Hello, LEOs! Ronald Jenkees returns

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South End resident captivates YouTube audiences with trance-inducing jams

South End resident Ronald Jenkees has been making instrumental music with keyboards and computer programs — “massively popular trance-inducing jams,” says Gawker — for almost a decade now. While his name may not be familiar, his homemade videos, which begin with his trademark “Hello, Youtubes!” greeting, have been on seen on YouTube many millions of times.

Early fans included Katy Perry and ESPN’s Bill Simmons, who has used a Jenkees piece for his podcast’s theme music. Jenkees’ third album, Days Away, was released last month, and LEO caught up with the human meme to learn more.

LEO: It’s been a few long years since your last album. What have you been up to?

Ronald Jenkees: I took some time to just write new stuff and let that be my focus. On this new album, I really branched out on what sounds I was using. I tried to be more patient with the tracks and let them evolve over the course of weeks, months … I also tried to cram more good stuff on the CD — 15 tracks this time!

LEO: This record reminds me of a lot of great ’80s soundtrack music, from John Carpenter films to Jan Hammer’s “Miami Vice” score. Is that influence in your mind?

RJ: “Speaker 1, Speaker 1” was definitely influenced by that time period. I was worried at first that it would be compared to the “Knight Rider” theme, with that driving arpeggio synth throughout.

LEO: What sort of programs and equipment do you make everything on? Do you do all the mixing and mastering as well?

RJ: I use FL Studio for just about everything. I have an old Korg Triton LE and a Yamaha Motif XS8 that I use for some “live” playing on the tracks, and a USB midi keyboard to control FL Studio. I’m starting to use VSTs a lot more often these days, so the USB keyboard is getting more and more use.

LEO: How has your relationship with YouTube changed, if at all, through the years?

RJ: There’s a bit more pressure to release the “in-your-face” stuff. Each new video generates a lot of work for me in emails and random inquiries. I guess that’s why I took some time away from it, to focus on making music without that pressure and workload, but I’m working my way back into it. It’s always a rush to upload something you know thousands or millions of people might see — 99 percent of people are nice and appreciate new and original stuff. I’m still super thankful for that, it’s amazing.

LEO: Who are some current artists you’d like to produce for?

RJ: I think anyone would love to produce for Jay-Z. He’s just a beast. I think Kid Cudi would be interesting to work with also. His music isn’t very typical.

LEO: Have you done any rapping lately, publicly or otherwise?

RJ: Ha! I haven’t. I did it in the past just to be humorous, and I think it was judged as if I was really trying. I guess that makes it all the more funny.

LEO: Do you wear a hat in the shower or to bed?

RJ: No, but I do plan on getting a speaker put in my shower soon so I can listen to NPR or bluegrass on Pandora. That might be TMI, though.

LEO: What are some other ways you enjoy being goofy or funny?

RJ: I stole this from a friend, but sometimes when I’m at the cash register at the grocery store, I tell them I may or may not be able to pay for all this stuff. It works every time.

LEO: Is the live RJ experience coming anytime soon?

RJ: That’s not in the immediate plans, but I’m not ruling it out for way down the road. I understand there is fun to be had there and probably way more money to be made, but I’m afraid it would get addicting and I’d end up spending too much time on the road and away from family. Not to mention, I don’t see how it wouldn’t affect you creating new stuff. I always want new stuff to be on my front burners. It’s more fun for me to create new than it is to play old stuff.

Find Ronald Jenkees online at youtube.com/ronaldjenkees.

c. 2013 LEO Weekly

The music year in review

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This was an exceptional year in many ways for the ever-thriving Louisville music scene. LEO received almost a hundred records from our neighbors alone, a healthy sign of a fertile bed.

Americana quartet Houndmouth came from out of seemingly nowhere (well, OK, New Albany) and went from playing to dozens to selling out Headliners Music Hall, releasing their first EP through London’s Rough Trade Records, recording their first full-length, and touring around the country.

The Forecastle Festival celebrated its 10th anniversary with the biggest and best fest yet, co-curated by My Morning Jacket, who enjoyed another year of touring, seeing a million faces, and rocking them all.

Wax Fang returned, though without drummer Kevin Ratterman, who finally moved his recording studio out of his family’s funeral home, making it slightly less weird but much more functional.

In the wake of ear X-tacy’s demise, several smaller, more niche-oriented stores popped up (often inside other stores) and kept buyers supplied with everything from vintage vinyl to new underground cassettes.

The most important news this year was also the worst, as musician, artist and writer Jason Noble passed across the eighth dimension, after a three-year fight for his life. The legacy he left was far greater than his circumstances, and he will live on forever in the hearts of everyone he impacted.

On a happier note, here’s a look back at some of the music LEO critics enjoyed listening to, discussing and writing about this year:

The Filthy Fifteen
Filthy Rich
Producer, bassist and beatmaker Richard Herrell worked his contacts list to put together his first “producer album” with some of the city’s nastiest emcees. Rich’s production is dark, brooding — think Dre’s minor key melancholia with a boom-bap bend. — Damien McPherson

Grand National Dreams
Jalin Roze
Grand National Dreams is, simply, great. The title is a double entendre, a paean to the 1980s car, but more fittingly, a horizon-deep look at the future — a glimpse to Jalin’s expanse beyond our borders and to his grand national reality. — DM

Half Asleep Upon Echo Falls
Whistle Peak
Highly recommended for lovers of sounds both familiar and surprising, this makes quiet sound confident and vibrant while retaining bouncy hooks and harmonies. — PB

Little Heater
Catherine Irwin
Catherine Irwin is nothing if not patient. Her songs are leisurely and deliberate, seductive in their Southern Gothic charms for those who let them take over. Irwin’s songs are beautiful but dark, tinged with a pinch of humor and a pound of lonesome, and her country has more in common with Hank Sr. or Hazel Dickens than modern pop stars like Blake Shelton. — PB

Look Harder
Actual People
CJ Prof is one of the most aggressive yet nimble emcees you’ll ever hear. The passion, anger and humor he displays throughout the disc will carry the group as far as they’re willing to travel. The production is a dense, at times murky gumbo of rock guitar, breakbeats and live deejaying. — DM

Melt
The Pass
Melt stands out in contrast against a wash of hybrid indie-disco-punk-dance bands with accomplished songwriting and remarkably pristine production. — Jon Paul Hill

On a Passing Cloud
Murals
Murals have been subtly honing their craft for a while now, concocting an indie-psych buzz sound from an earlier era, or at least a different time zone. — PB

Our Home Is a Deathbed
Xerxes
With a multidimensional approach to hardcore — from thrashing caustic punk to more emotional, swelling melodic moments — Xerxes craft a focused vision that gives Home a dense and unique vibe. — Austin Weber

Red Parole
Seluah
Seluah’s long-gestating first full-length album is nothing short of a masterpiece. A hypothetical soundtrack for a chilling, sexed-up Nicholas Ray film noir filled with double-crossings, misbegotten sex and stolen money, Red Parole is a precise, sensual overload of cutting riffs, floating rhythms and haunting vocals. — PB

Sandpaper Dolls
Sandpaper Dolls
Each song, although a cappella, has percussive elements, a bassline and a melody. That percussion is reflected in various shapes and forms on their self-titled studio album. The occasional echo gives the three-part harmonies an otherworldly, timeless quality. — Danielle Sills

We’re looking forward to a lot next year, including new music from Wax Fang, Liberation Prophecy, Cheyenne Mize, Johnny Berry & the Outliers, Appalatin, Justin Paul Lewis, the aforementioned Houndmouth, plus Jim James’ long-awaited first solo album. We’re excited to get our world rocked by the next left-field surprise, and thankful for another year of sharing the adventure with you.

Photo by Ron Jasin.

c. 2012 LEO Weekly

People Issue - The Healer: Kim Carpenter

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When you go to see Dr. Kim Carpenter, she does not play around.

“Our approach to health is looking at you as a whole person, and then we address the way you eat, the way you move, the way you think, and the way that you live your life through your nervous system, to see what you would need to do to be healthier over the next five years.”

Dr. Carpenter is an athletic mother of two young kids, a chiropractor and the owner of Awaken to Wellness in St. Matthews. She agrees with my attempt to summarize it as a one-stop shop combining trips to the doctor, the gym, yoga and other medical hot spots.

Her facility also includes massage and acupuncture treatments, and they work with people’s eating issues, customizing meal plans. These plans help weight loss as well as balancing blood sugar and helping to wean people off processed foods, what she calls “getting you to eat real, live food.”

Some people come because they’re in physical pain. Some “know that, with our current health care system, the average person is sicker in five years, not healthier, and they want to find out ways that they can stay well.” It takes a variety of approaches to work with a variety of problems, and they see patients from babies to the elderly.

If it sounds like an alternative approach to medicine, Carpenter doesn’t disagree. Do people ever tell her what she does sounds weird? “Oh, yeah!” she laughs. “Unfortunately, in our culture, what I do is alternative medicine, or alternative health, and I think until our country decides that being pro-active would be the norm, then we will continue to be a sick culture … When mainstream health care is about lifestyle, that’s when we’ll see a shift in the way people live.”

Carpenter played volleyball in high school and college, and doctor visits for back pain led her to change her diet, improving her health and reducing those Ohio Valley allergies. By high school, her life’s work was laid out for her. Today she also continues to work with athletes in high schools, at the University of Louisville, and at the pro level.

But Carpenter isn’t the only successful professional in her family. Her sister Jennifer, who knew what she wanted to do while still in grade school, has carved out a career playing some of the unhealthiest Americans in fictional entertainment, as the title character in the movie “The Exorcism of Emily Rose” and as the foul-mouthed, brother-loving Debra Morgan on Showtime’s “Dexter.”

“Both my parents are very driven individuals in their own way,” Carpenter says. “They both gave us freedom, taught us the value of things, and the quality of not only material things but of people. They both just let us be who we were … We had no idea that certain things, to some people, wouldn’t seem possible. Anything we wanted to achieve was possible with hard work, determination and confidence.”

Family is central to Carpenter in every way; she says that families do even better with her program than individuals because they’re accountable to each other, not just to the doctor. Not everyone is ready for her approach, but she’ll be there when they are.

“The challenges in life are the exact same reasons why I’m happier and healthier down the road,” she says. “They teach you the most.”

Photo by Frankie Steele.

c. 2012 LEO Weekly

People Issue - The Radio Host: Berk Bryant

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When public radio is at its best, it brings music, community and a strong point of view together in a way that can’t be faked. And while WFPK-FM has a heaping handful of local talent, none can quite be compared to Berk Bryant, the authentically genial host of “Sunday Bluegrass.”

Aged 82 years, Bryant’s both a radio and Army veteran, and a bluegrass lifer. He got his start in radio in his hometown of Lynchburg, Va., in 1954. “Then,” he says, “bluegrass was country. It was all called country” before mainstream country music evolved and became more distinct from the pure ’grass, old time and traditional country Bryant shares each week. “I like my bluegrass bluegrass. If you don’t know what to call what you’re playing, don’t call it bluegrass!”

Bryant served in Korea, worked for 12 years as a counter-intelligence special agent, and ran the closed-circuit radio station at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. In his last decade of active service, Bryant was sent to Oahu, Hawaii (“somebody messed up,” he laughs), then Fort Knox, and in his last year, back to Korea. “I didn’t mind that, because there are a lot worse places,” says Bryant. He retired in 1982, having reached the rank of sergeant first class.

Through the years, he met a young Elvis Presley and befriended John Hartford, the riverboat man and influential singer-songwriter, and Ralph Stanley, the “Man of Constant Sorrow.” He doesn’t play any instruments himself. “When they’re talking about music and say ‘key,’ a key to me is something you start the car with,” he laughs.

He began his WFPK show — say it with me now, “the shortest, fastest and bestest three hours in radio” — in 1989, seeking to fill a void in the station’s programming. “Friends of mine in Radcliff,” where he lives now, “who knew about my love for the music asked me, ‘Why don’t you go to public radio?’” A couple years later, he showed up.

“I didn’t know anybody there, and nobody there knew me. I just asked to see the manager.” That manager was interested in Bryant’s idea but commented that the station didn’t really have much bluegrass. Bryant told him he had plenty at home. The manager asked, “Do you think you have enough to sustain a one-hour show?”

“‘Yeah, I think so’ … 23 years later …” laughs the man who gave himself the nickname “The Country Gentleman.” Two years later, the show had expanded to its present three-hour length, heard Sunday nights from 8-11 p.m. On New Year’s Day, he’ll also continue his two-decade-long tradition of playing nothing but Hank Williams music between noon and 3 p.m. on WFPK.

He drives in from Radcliff each week to share the best of today and yesterday from his collection of more than 1,000 CDs, some 45s and “close to 20 linear feet of LPs.” A large part of his happy longevity on the air can be explained by one simple fact: “No one tells me what to play.”

Photo by Casey Chalmers.

c. 2012 LEO Weekly

Vice Tricks jump up and down

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I’m not a sick boy, I’m not a well boy
I’m just a man who likes his music really, really loud. —“Rock & Roll”

King and Verity Vice are a couple made for each other, like Lulu and Sailor in “Wild at Heart” or Johnny and June. The leaders of the self-described “Psycho Rock” band Vice Tricks, they are proud parents of a new album, the self-titled full-length debut of their four-year-old band.

After releasing a couple of EPs recorded with friends “in exchange for getting them stoned,” the band — which also includes guitarist Jeremy Climer and drummer Ian Bottomley — went to Sneak Attack Studios in Lexington to document their sound professionally, having won the studio time in a competition.

Singer/songwriter/guitarist King, who downplays his first name, Jeremy, professionally, and Vice — known to the government as Verity Jones — met 15 years ago at a show he was playing at Pandemonium on Bardstown Road and quickly became “best friends,” they agree, from the motorcycle ride they took through Cherokee Park the next day through today.

Vice began playing her signature upright bass while King was still playing with his old band, Dead City Rejects, which lasted a decade. When that ended, “I wanted to start something new,” King says, “so I asked her to join, and we started this band.”

They were called Parlor Tricks first. “We changed it because we thought it didn’t really fit the direction of the music,” Vice says, as King adds, “Plus, there were five other bands out there called Parlor Tricks,” in addition to the long-running local band Parlour.

Their band is “a weird twist on a couple different genres,” King says. “We mix in kind of the old rockabilly, the faster psychobilly, but then we have pianos and keytars in it, but the overall feel is … I think we’d compare it to the Stray Cats meets Social Distortion …” Vice chimes in, “Meets Nekromantix meets … I would just, as a broad generalization, call it psychobilly/punk rock/rock ’n’ roll.”

“I would describe it as awesome,” she concludes with a big laugh. “Awesomeness on a stick!”

Vice had always loved the upright bass, and a friend working at Doo Wop Shop gave her a good deal on one. “I fell in love with it, and I love the physical challenge of it, and — I love it. I wouldn’t play anything else.”

“It’s fun to jump on,” adds King. “I do a lot of tricks with it,” Vice laughs.

Guitarist Climer joined the band a year ago, helping the spry King be able to put his guitar down more often, and “jump around and climb on things,” adding to the appeal of the live show.

The Vice Tricks album also documents the contributions made by their keyboardist, Evmenios Poulias, better known to fans as Dr. Evil. Poulias has returned to his native Greece, where he is a third-generation dentist in his family’s practice. Having come to the United States four years ago for a residency, Poulias joined the band a year and a half ago, having been recommended by “a friend of a friend of a friend” on Facebook.

“It was love at first sight. We practiced and it was like, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s it!” says Vice. “We miss him terribly.” Poulias is scheduled to return to Louisville for Saturday’s record release show.

“We were sad to see him go,” agrees King. “The last show we did, his friends kept bringing up shots of Drambuie. He ended up on the ground — playing with one hand, drinking with the other.”

They’re not going to replace him. “There’s no way,” says Vice. “We’re gonna rock it out as the band we are without him.” His girlfriend has roots in Louisville, so he’ll be back often.

It’s a band made up of “do-it-yourself people,” Vice says, though they’ve used Kickstarter to try to keep going. True to their worldview, they asked for $666.

We’ve heard it all again that rock ’n’ roll is dead/
Not one time, not two times, but it’s your time/
Never believe it, never receive it/
cut you like a knife ’cause rock ’n’ roll ain’t dead.

Vice Tricks with The Queers, The Manges and Stoner Moms
Saturday, Dec. 29
Diamond Pub
630 Barret Ave.
diamondpubandbilliards.com
$10 (adv.), $12 (doors); 9 p.m.

c. 2012 LEO Weekly

Black and Blue and White

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White Reaper is a fuzz-rock explosion made up of two: guitarist and vocalist Anthony Esposito and drummer and “cassette tape technology” specialist Nick Wilkerson. Their debut album, White Aura, was released on Halloween. “We’re really influenced by fuzzy 1960s and 1970s kind of stuff, like Blue Cheer and Black Sabbath, but we’re also really influenced by more poppy stuff like the Beach Boys,” Esposito says.

When asked how they get some of the sounds that distinguish them, Wilkerson explains, “We use a delay pedal to make cool noises, and we recorded drums on a 4-track in our dear friend Hank Paradis’ barn.”

The North Oldham natives are finishing up their studies at MTSU and are returning to Louisville full time. Their next chapter starts with a show at the Rudyard Kipling tonight (Dec. 19), headlined by another of Wilkerson’s bands, The New Mexico, which has also included his twin brother Sam and Esposito.

“We grew up in Louisville, and we met each other when we went to school in Oldham County,” Wilkerson says. They bonded over hardcore shows and started playing together four years ago. They both decided to go to MTSU, 30 minutes from Nashville, to study audio production.

“We really liked Nashville, we went to some awesome shows, but we always had to bum rides from kids who had cars, so we also missed a lot of awesome shows,” Wilkerson laments. “We’re really excited about moving back because it was a lot harder for us to properly jam in a dorm room.”

Discouraged by the commuter nature of their school, the duo is excited to return home.

“Louisville is a place where we can practice whenever we want, record whenever we want, and we know a little bit more about how the Louisville scene works,” Wilkerson says. “Our plan is to write a ton and tour as much as possible. Basically, we want to do everything that we were too young to do in our previous bands. Now that we are older, we can work harder and we have bigger plans.”

c. 2012 LEO Weekly

We are young

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Jordan Trabue’s folk-rock quartet, Beady, was approached by sonaBLAST Records boss Gill Holland about a year and a half ago. The band has been playing together for three years, and half of the band (Jesse Weber-Owens, 17, who plays cello, banjo and percussion, and violinist Sarah Trabue, 16) is still in high school.

Jordan Trabue, 21, plays guitar, mandolin and banjo, and graduated from Middle Tennessee State this year. Dylan Weber-Owens, also 21 and also a guitarist and banjo player, is at U of L. The pair of siblings seems to have simple goals: “We play a bunch of different instruments, sing some harmonies, and generally try to have a good time,” says Jordan. But there might be more ambition under that laid-back approach.

“sonaBLAST has been great to work with,” he says. “They financed our first professionally recorded album, as well as our first music video.”

The album, the aptly named Youngest Days, was released earlier this week. The first video was for their song “When I’m Twenty.” Though half of the band has already passed that point, “We kept the song, though, because it’s fun and catchy.”

With a nod to the Beatles, Trabue is asked where he might be when he’s 64. He replies, “I hope that by the time I’m 64, we’ve made more songs so I’m not still singing about being 20. It might weird some people out.”

Another song, “You Belong in Louisville,” sounds like another contender for an anthem. Trabue acknowledges that it’s been suggested that he pitch the song to the tourist board, but he downplays the possibility.

“I’m not sure if it would work to attract tourists. I think it’s certainly a good song, if I’m allowed to say that about my own songs, but it’s sort of this sweet, low, mumble of a love song rather than something bright and catchy that tourist boards might go for.”

Beady performs live on WFPK’s “Live Lunch” on Friday and at the Douglass Loop Heine Brothers on Saturday at 3 p.m.

c. 2012 LEO Weekly

Sid Griffin finds himself

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Louisville native brings bluegrass overseas

“I have made about 16 albums, so I kinda have the hang of that,” says Sid Griffin, mandolinist and singer with the London-based band The Coal Porters.

It sounds like a boast, but it’s a well-earned statement of fact. While Griffin’s success in the marketplace hasn’t always equaled the level of respect he’s earned from other musicians and serious music junkies, he’s had a long, strange trip taking him from the seedy Hollywood clubs of the 1980s to today’s London pubs. And it all started in Louisville, back in 1955.

“To me, it was a dying city growing up,” Griffin says now. “Safe, kinda fun, full of my friends, but not a very adventurous or dynamic town to me at all.”

That may have just been a child’s perspective, or a fair assessment of that somewhat dull point in history, but as he grew, Griffin found some kindred spirits.

“Years later, when I got into NRBQ and remembered seeing the Oxfords about 1970, then I realized I had it all wrong — there was local talent.” Griffin also remembers attending a Trinity dance around 1967 and seeing a band called the Alphabetical Order, whose cover of the Stones’ “Under My Thumb” received airplay on WKLO.

He also saw Motley Kru — not the hair-metal legends — at another dance. “Musically, all the local bands in bars that I saw either played covers or were not very imaginative.”

Today, Griffin says, “parts of Louisville seem so vibrant.” He attributes this to the influence of hippies, punk rockers and gays. “You got a legitimate scene happening from the very people society doesn’t really like or respect.”

Even with a family and solid career, Griffin remains an outsider. He moved to England 15 years or so ago for love. The author of two books on Bob Dylan, Griffin has also seen his identity shift throughout his life in music. With his first popular band, The Long Ryders, Griffin was a pivotal figure in the early ’80s development of what is now often called “alt-country.”

Perhaps some of his eighth-generation Kentuckian roots were coming through — he has written a book on bluegrass, as well — but on the surface, at least, Griffin was merely continuing the legacy of Gram Parsons, another subject of a Griffin book.

His current band has been around for most of those 15 years. Time has seen The Coal Porters evolve from a rock band to what Griffin calls “the world’s first alt-bluegrass band.”

“There is a small scene for American roots music in England, but not nearly as big as Americans think. Not nearly,” he says. “All these folks come over to tour here or live here three months and think they can break it like Hendrix did by coming over in September ’66 … but that so rarely works.”

Griffin has seen other Yanks draw a crowd in London and think they’re on the way up. “Then they do a tour, and in Glasgow they draw 35, in Birmingham they draw 20, and in Newcastle upon Tyne they draw 15. I mean, it is tough out there.” Even Dolly Parton has trouble playing in England outside London, he notes.

“I think The Coal Porters stand out here as we have never thrown in the towel, and hence have a good reputation building up under us,” Griffin says. They were featured recently on NPR’s “Morning Edition” and on BBC Radio 2. “Certainly we are known for having an American in the band … I reckon we are about the only British ‘Americana’ act with an actual American in the ensemble. Which makes me laugh.”

It’s a relatively good time to be in a British Americana band, as Mumford & Sons have experienced, but Griffin has seen too much to expect a repeat of that story for his band. Find the One, their eighth album, was released in September, featuring production by John Wood and an appearance by guitar god Richard Thompson. It’s another chapter in the book of Griffin’s musical life, and it won’t be the last. About his current bandmates, he says wryly, “Some of the guys were making their first or second album when they made Find the One, the newest smash by The Coal Porters.”

c. 2012 LEO Weekly

Father Figures’ zombie jazz

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There aren’t a lot of jazz musicians who are also good at marketing their music, but Father Figures’ leader Adam Schatz has found a hook. The band explains that “Zombie Jazz” is a name “… we made up to describe the music we made up: instinct driven. Wild when it wants to be, other times deliberate.” It certainly gets more attention than simply stating, “We’re another jazz band,” which they definitely aren’t.

Father Figures are five musicians with training and interest in jazz, rock and other forms of musical expression. Now based in Brooklyn, they came together in 2006 having met in music school at NYU, intending to form a mostly improvised group who sounded so in sync with each other that the audience would assume they were performing already completed material. “And all the while, we move toward the collective goal of listenability, fun and spontaneity.”

When they’re not having fun together, the members have also sat in with a diverse group of newer artists in the indie rock and electronic scenes, such as Matthew Dear, Buke & Gase, Hospitality, Those Darlins and Adam Green. When LEO spoke with Schatz recently, he had just been in the studio with cult favorites Man Man working on their upcoming album.

They come through Louisville on a brief tour heading from New York to New Orleans, hitting bars, art galleries and colleges in lieu of traditional jazz clubs. At Oberlin College, they’ll also be leading a workshop.

“One of the cool things about this tour is that we can do a lot of sides of the equation,” Schatz says. “We were sort of having a crisis in rehearsal, saying, ‘What are we going to be able to teach college kids?’”

They’ve led workshops before, teaching improv to high schoolers, but this will be their oldest group so far. They show students how they use physical cues to communicate with each other while improvising, then let students try before the band joins in with the kids. “It should be great, I don’t have any sincere fears about it,” Schatz continues, “but it’s funny when we’re in the basement, making each other laugh and being ridiculous, and then thinking about how we’re going to be teaching people.”

It’s their chemistry, in the basement and onstage, that keeps them going, says Schatz, despite the financial difficulties involved with such music. Having met in college, Father Figures has given them an excuse to stay friends, and a home base to return to with new tricks learned playing with others.

“I think audiences really connect with that, and I think it’s super-apparent that we want people to have as much fun listening to us as we do playing the music.”

Their latest release is an EP called Bad Bad Birds, and it’s available through their Bandcamp page, as is their self-titled debut album. They know they’re selling themselves to a younger audience, one infrequently attentive to jazz music. For this tour, they’ve also handmade unique beak creatures, akin to sock puppets, which contain copies of the EP in a USB port stored on the beak’s tongue. It’s music with a history, file-shared in a brand new way.

Father Figures with Mindhorn and Camera Lucida
Thursday, Dec. 13
Haymarket Whiskey Bar
331 E. Market St.
haymarketwhiskeybar.com
$5; 9 p.m.

c. 2012 LEO Weekly

Snow job

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What’s the deal with Jewish Christmas records?

Each fall, for too many years, record store clerks have watched a familiar scenario unfold, as predictable as falling leaves and as unattractive as naked, soaped-up Santa in the shower — otherwise intelligent adults groping through hundreds of Christmas CDs, forced to pick one for Mom/Grandma/Secret Santa/party ambiance, when they’d rather not be throwing away their $15.99 on more disposable, hard-to-stomach crap at Christmastime.

For Rod Stewart or Tony Bennett, it’s a sure thing, easy money. For the labels and the stores or download sites, it’s an annuity, a tradition that stays steadily strong even as it gets bigger and more grotesque. It affects not only our best — 1957’s Elvis’ Christmas Album has sold 12 million copies — but also our worst (Kenny G has the second biggest seller, Miracles, at 7 million sold since 1994).

This cultural plague has affected many who seem to think that their “White Christmas” will make you forget versions by Manheim Steamroller or Celine Dion. The plague has also affected those who have no other reason to celebrate the Christian holiday: Barbra Streisand, Neil Diamond, Neil Sedaka, Carole King, Barry Manilow, Bette Midler, Bob Freaking Dylan! And don’t forget that Kenny G.

Why are these singers of Jewish descent, who would be even less likely to be seen in a church on Sunday morning than Abu Nazir, recording odes to the joy of the Gentile holiday — and trying to sell it as an artistic statement?

The reasons might be slightly more complex than what’s obvious. Money drives many motives, and early 1990s Neil Diamond was as artistically pure as Lindsay Lohan borrowing money from Charlie Sheen on the set of “Scream 5.” But this shit works, so his The Christmas Album sold 2 million copies, followed two years later by The Christmas Album, Vol. II.

Even by the most generous assessment, it’s hard to deny how horrifically bad A Neil Diamond Christmas can be. The heavily synthesized production is stuck in the worst of the ’80s, and he barks out lines like He’s gonna find out/who’s naughty or nice like he’s yelling at a cheating wife. Then there’s the reggae version of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Uncool runnings, Neil, uncool.

His third collection, 2009’s A Cherry Cherry Christmas, features 10 songs from his first two mistakes plus five new recordings, including a cover of Adam Sandler’s lonely classic “The Chanukah Song.” “There are so many beautiful Christmas songs around, and so few Chanukah songs,” Diamond laments in the intro, ignoring the fact that he has had 50 years in which to write at least one.

Then there’s Carole King, one of the most successful songwriters in human history. Her unnecessary 2011 entry, A Holiday Carole, includes a “Chanukah Prayer” in the middle of 11 less Yiddishkeit-friendly tunes, and features a duet with her pre-pubescent grandson — practicing for the day when he becomes a man. Glad you spent that $15.99?

There’s no way to not be kinder when discussing Streisand’s approach to Christmas music. Her first, A Christmas Album, came out in 1967 when she and her career were still somewhat young, hungry and jazzy. Her breathless rendition of “Jingle Bells” is firmly in the beatnik coffeehouse style of the day and holds up well — especially when compared to her 2001 follow-up, Christmas Memories. What memories, Yentl? Those Christmases you and James Brolin spent in Aspen? It’s not even that bad, musically, but it sounds like exactly what it is: a pampered old rich lady demanding more attention and money.

And Dylan? Well, he likes to do the unexpected, and what was less expected than a Bob Dylan Christmas album? If you let his slurry delivery distract you from the lyrics, it sounds more like a mid-’70s Tom Waits album than Garth Brooks’ Beyond the Season. He told journalist Bill Flanagan that, having grown up in snowy Minnesota, the songs were “part of my life, just like folk songs.”

So perhaps his album — all these albums — are less crass commercial ventures than just another chapter in the American Experiment, the Great Melting Pot where we all become one. Or maybe a music critic, who hates pretty much everything about a world where “American Idol” and its copycats dictate what popular music is in America, is the wrong person to ask.

c. 2012 LEO Weekly

Joking around

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An older, wiser, yet still harmonious A Lion Named Roar have released a new EP, Foreign Land, which they recorded over the past year. The pop-rock quintet celebrate with a show at Headliners on Dec. 7. LEO spoke with singer Chris Jackson and guitarist/singer Tyler Anderson.

Chris Jackson: Our last album came out in, I think, ’09? It was Americana folk-rock. We went in a different direction, trying to figure out what kind of music we really wanted to play … get back to the heart of why we play music.

Tyler Anderson: The cool thing about this EP is that we came together with very specific ideas in mind. We threw everything we could potentially be bad at out the window (laughs).

LEO: Your album Said & Done had a song called “Jazz Kazoo.” Why aren’t there more song titles like that on your new EP?

CJ: (laughs) That song was such a novelty, in our eyes, because we joked about it so much. Come to find out, a lot of people really enjoyed it. People would ask for that song more than any of them.

LEO: Your booking agent is named Keith Richards. How could someone with a name like that ever hope to make it in the music business?

TA: (laughs) I know, right! That is so incredible. When he came at us, we were like, “OK, OK. This is awesome. You are the man!”

LEO: You were called “MTV Buzzworthy.” What does that mean?

CJ: You tell us! (laughs)

TA: We’re really looking forward to being on VH-1’s “Pop-Up Video.”

CJ: We’re joking, but when we heard about “Buzzworthy,” we were like, “That is awesome. That’s really cool that they found it in their hearts to put us up on their ‘Buzzworthy.’” My internal 16-year-old who used to stay up till 2, 3 in the morning to watch music videos … it was an amazing accomplishment, for sure.

Find info, photos, inauthentic colas and more at facebook.com/alionnamedroar.

c. 2012 LEO Weekly

Matmos' mind games

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Louisville native Drew Daniel and his partner M.C. Schmidt founded experimental electronic duo Matmos in the mid-1990s, and they’ve become known for their high-concept works, like an album of music made from the sounds of surgical procedures.

Matmos released a new EP last month, The Ganzfeld EP. It’s their first release for Chicago’s Louisville-friendly Thrill Jockey label and serves as a teaser for a follow-up full-length album, The Marriage of True Minds, due on Feb. 19. The release of Ganzfeld celebrates the 20th anniversary of both the label and the couple.

Both recordings are based upon the concept of telepathy. Matmos subjected strangers and friends to the ganzfeld (“entire field” in German) experiment, which tests for ESP.

“Our work is almost always described as ‘conceptual,’ and our albums are always described as ‘concept albums,’” Daniel says. “I decided to try to push that logic as far as I possibly could and wanted to create a situation where a concept was somehow causally responsible for actions in the world.”

A telepathy experiment seemed to make sense, so over a four-year period, the duo filmed subjects who were isolated in rooms, lying down on a mattress with their eyes covered and white noise-filled headphones on their ears — “basic sensory deprivation,” Daniel notes cheerfully.

“We would be in another room, either adjacent or beneath them, send a signal out, and attempt to transmit the concept of a Matmos record into their minds,” he continues. “They were encouraged to relax and empty their mind, and just try to describe out loud anything they were seeing or hearing. We would record this, and then turn the transcripts into songs.

“Of course, there’s a tremendous amount of leeway about how you turn it into a piece of music, so, far from being constrained by what they generated, we found it really helpful.”

Though both electronic and experimental music are often seen as overly serious, Daniel — a professor of Shakespeare by day who has written a book-length essay about the British industrial music group Throbbing Gristle — saw the exercise as being “like a great sort of parody of artistic communication and of conceptual creation. It seemed like a nice way to isolate the thought and the mind of artists, and to send up the idea that that is what is creating music.”

Their subjects ranged from a teen to a 70-something, and by nature of their world, included some music people (a Pitchfork contributor, a death metal bassist and more). “That helps in some ways,” Daniel says, “because they already know how to describe something in musical terms. It’s bad, too, because you can feel like, ‘Oh, they’re just feeding me something that they know I want.’ So it’s not authentic, it’s somebody going, ‘Oh, an ostinato.’ Inside-baseball stuff.”

Instead, he hopes it works as “a wonderful return to a lack of control in that distance between what I hope people will get out of it versus the conditions in which they might actually listen to it.”

In an era where people treat music like files to be downloaded, Matmos’ response is to include moments that are raw, spontaneous and unable to ever truly be re-created. A tour planned for next year will incorporate onstage ganzfeld experiments at each stop, as the musicians play along.

Daniel returned to his hometown in September to speak at the memorial service for his late friend and collaborator, Jason Noble. (Noble’s group, Rachel’s, released a split record with Matmos in 2000.)

“Yeah, that was a really powerful day … So many people, I thought, rose to the occasion.” Daniel was glad so many paid tribute to how funny and grounded Noble was without sacrificing the integrity of his memory.

“I was definitely nervous about the risk of pretentious, over-inflated language, because funerals can make us want language to become sublime, to confront our terror about loss. I was really glad that people resisted that and instead kept the focus on Jason as a person. That was an amazing day. A really sad day, too, because the more we were reminded of Jason, the more we were reminded of the person that’s gone.

“It’s hard to talk about, because I get upset. I get angry.”

c. 2012 LEO Weekly

album review: Scott Staidle

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Scott Staidle
Nuts for the Holidays
SELF-RELEASED

You know those cheesy horror movies from the ’80s that show up on cable when it’s late at night, you can’t sleep, and infomercials are screaming at you but there’s nothing else — not even a “Law & Order” rerun — to watch? You know the ones with an evil Santa? Well, imagine that on top of a “Grand Theft Auto” Christmas edition (Is there one? How could there not be?), and you’ve already got its soundtrack. You’re probably wondering, do I need another Christmas CD? Of course you don’t. There’re 30,000 of them already, mostly horrible. Is this horrible? No. But it sounds like something to ice skate to, and impressive as it is that Staidle performs 10 of the 12 instruments heard here, the end result is as underwhelming as Grandma’s fruitcake on Jan. 2.

c. 2012 LEO Weekly

L.A. punks in living color

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‘We Got Power!: Hardcore Punk Scenes from 1980s Southern California’ By David Markey & Jordan Schwartz. Bazillion Points Books; 288 pgs., $39.95.

In 1981, David Markey and Jordan Schwartz were teenagers in the right place at the right time. Los Angeles had become ground zero as punk evolved into hardcore, led by Black Flag and dozens of others who, while unknown to the mainstream at the time, would influence two generations of musicians and fans.

The duo began photographing the early Reagan-era scene, taking shots of bands like the Minutemen, the Descendents, Suicidal Tendencies, and Social Distortion. More than 400 of their best fill the book, originally published in their homemade zine “We Got Power!” In 1983, “The Simpsons” creator Matt Groening (then a little-known L.A. Weekly cartoonist) called the zine “Essential reading … the funniest of the local mags.”

All six issues of the zine are reprinted in the book, which also includes essays from others who were there, including Black Flag’s Henry Rollins, Keith Morris of the Circle Jerks, and SST Records’ Chuck Dukowski.

“The culture of fanzines was interesting — how information spread, and how it was interpreted,” Markey says. “There was no other way to get that information out. What you did with it was entirely up to you.”

It’s funny to look back at Reagan now, he says, after the various Bush eras and after Paul Ryan revealed himself to be a Rage Against the Machine fan. “Reagan seems like a warm, fuzzy memory in retrospect. I think Ronald Reagan really made hardcore happen, nationally. It was sort of a call-to-arms, something that everyone could agree on.”

Putting the book together has put Markey, who turns 49 in a couple of weeks, back in the mindset of himself as a 17-year-old, getting into music and learning about the world. “I’m totally filled with gratitude about getting to witness all of that. It really set me up for the future, in a lot of ways,” he laughs. “At the same time, nothing has ever really matched that. I’m not trying to recreate that — or that I only live in that era, at all. But I know that I’ll probably never get to see that kind of scene again.

“I wasn’t looking 30 years into the future back then,” laughs Markey, now a filmmaker who recently directed a Circle Jerks documentary, “My Career as a Jerk.” “I probably didn’t even anticipate there being a future back then.”

In the summer of 1991, he followed Nirvana and their friends around the festival circuit, capturing the band just before they became international stars. His documentary, “1991: The Year Punk Broke,” has become a music-movie classic. “Witnessing their whole massive overnight explosion, that was a trip, too. That came 10 years after, for me, from ’81 to ’91. I got to witness both things happening, and see just how different the outcome was.”

Before Nirvana, before the Internet, underground bands stayed underground. “If you sold 50,000-100,000 records, you were basically the Beatles, or the Rolling Stones, of punk,” Markey notes. The bands seen in “We Got Power!” paved the way for today’s independent bands, sonically and in the way bands on that level are able to tour.

In the early ’80s, zines spread the word about bands too punk for mainstream magazines to have an interest in and helped grow that audience. “Rolling Stone? Forget about it!” he exclaims. “The whole generation that all came out of the ’60s counterculture — by the time the late ’70s and early ’80s came around, that counterculture had totally flipped. That had become the mainstream. It got just as conservative as the Woodstock generation turned into yuppies.”

All that festered for a long decade until Nirvana brought in a new era, followed quickly by Democrat Bill Clinton presiding over a so-called Alternative Nation.

Today, he cites the Russian group Pussy Riot as an heir to punk’s legacy, but asks otherwise, “Where’s the outrage? I don’t think this generation knows where to begin, or even has a clue as to what the hell’s going on.”

Perhaps forgetting about the Arab Spring, he continues, “I think now people are just really self-involved, and there’s no looking out. Everyone’s in front of a touch-screen. There’s this great tool that we have with the Internet — it should be an age of enlightenment. But you realize, there’s never been more corporate control.”

c. 2012 LEO Weekly