Las Cafeteras’ smart party fuses tradition and 21st Century street sounds

Every 15 years or so, a rowdy bunch of Chicano musicians rises up on the east side of Los Angeles with a game-changing sound, a must-see live show and a political message embedded inside everything they do. In the early ‘80s, it was Los Lobos. In the late ‘90s, Ozomatli took the crown. Now, it’s Las Cafeteras’ turn.

“Even in L.A., where we’re from, man, our music is so different,” says Hector Flores, who sings, plays the guitar-like jarana and provides zapateado percussion. “So I can only imagine how people are going to take it once we hit these different markets,” he laughs. “Our take on it: we remix roots music, we do hip-hop and cumbia and ska, we do this mélange, man, this great buffet of sounds. It’s stuff you heard before you were born mixed in with melodies that you hear today.”

Their current tour – their longest to date, 31 shows in 13 states in 51 days – is taking the seven-piece band across the middle of the U.S., moving beyond the biggest cities into the heartland, south and northeast, expanding their worldview as they also take time out to teach others. In addition to their Clifton Center concert on Wednesday, September 24th at 7:30 p.m., the septet – which includes several community organizers – will also lead a gathering at Farnsley Middle School at 6 p.m. Tuesday evening, with an in-school performance happening earlier at Field Elementary School.

“Many of us grew up doing community and social justice work,” Flores says. “Youth development, anti-racism work … and so the music became a way for us to really talk about different cultures, different communities and peoples in a really empowering way.”

Formed in 2005, Las Cafeteras’ name was inspired by the Eastside Café, a community space where they first learned about the Zapatista movement in southern Mexico and the Son Jarocho music from Veracruz that fuels their sound today (they use the feminine “Cafeteras” to honor the struggles women have faced). But while such a venerable style – best known in America as the backbeat behind “La Bamba” – is where they begin, they update it to the current day with a fusion of acoustic and electric instruments, rapping and poetry, and percussion instruments like … well, their own feet. In addition to string instruments like a donkey jawbone, Las Cafeteras also utilizes the tap dance-like zapateado tradition to add percussion to their mix of Mexican, Spanish, African, Arabic, indigenous and American music.

Speaking of “La Bamba,” their 21st century update of that internationally beloved tune has helped them build a bridge to people otherwise unfamiliar with their cultural roots. “Everybody in the world knows ‘La Bamba,’ Flores says, noting friends’ encounters with the song as far away as Vietnam. “It’s such a universal song … but people don’t know it’s a 400-year-old Afro-Mexican song.”

He says Las Cafeteras are storytellers, and part of their message is that it’s important for all people to share their unique stories. It’s the best way for a melting pot nation to overcome their fears, work together and, sounding like a more swingin’ version of Howard Zinn, Flores says we need to “create a new history of the United States… one that’s much more inclusive.”

Their first full-length studio album, It’s Time, was released in 2012. “While the studio album is a great representation, this is definitely a band you have to experience live… and if you have a jarana or jawbone lying around, bring it,” wrote Jose Galvan of Los Angeles’ trendsetting public radio station KCRW.

“Our album is a history book,” says Flores. “Hopefully, 50 years from now people will listen to it and be, like, ‘This is what L.A. sounded like 50 years ago.’”

The band is working on their second album and hopes to see its release in 2015. “I think it’s going to take us to the next level,” Flores says. “The new sounds, I think, will be moving more from traditional to more who we are as L.A. immigrant kids. We’re creating this new immigrant sound in the United States – it wouldn’t happen anywhere else but here.”

Las Cafeteras
Wednesday, September 24
Clifton Center
2117 Payne St.
cliftoncenter.org
$10; 7:30 p.m.

c. 2014 Clifton Center

Artist Scott Scarboro and family transform old junk into new, beautiful and fun forms

Despite seeing the world through the eyes of its outsiders, Scott Scarboro has earned quite a lofty reputation in the Louisville visual arts world. His recent Green Building Gallery exhibition, “Glitches from the Memory Bank,” has been revived and is on display at Krantz Gallery at Jefferson Community & Technical College. A new show, “Stitch Witchery,” opens at WHY Louisville Two in NuLu on Friday during the Trolley Hop. But the best part of Scarboro’s 2014 has been the debut exhibition of work by his son, Harlan Strummer Welch-Scarboro, who is 11 years old.

Like his dad, Welch-Scarboro is a multimedia artist focusing on taking old, discarded objects like toys from thrift stores, yard sales and alleys and placing them into new, unexpected contexts.

But Dad says the boy has his own ideas: “Harlan’s work is somewhat different from mine, although we both are cut from the same cloth and come from a long line of junk pickers and resourceful folk. His recent grouping of work — 50 pieces! — were more like surreal assemblage constructions … He has a good eye and keen sense of beauty.”


“Cute Combo” by Harlan Strummer Welch-Scarboro

Scarboro is continuing his family’s tradition of teaching their children to make things by hand. He watched his mother and grandmother sew, and it spoke to him. “Some boys learn about the facts of life over their first beer on a fishing trip with their dad. I learned while sitting beside my mom at the Singer machine,” he says. “We had many conversations there. Something about that mechanical rhythm that would force me to tell the truth … I am at ease and comfortable at the machine.”

His WHY Louisville show, one he calls “my continuing exploration of color, materials and the process of sewing,” salutes his mother’s practice of attaching patches to the knees of his jeans. Scarboro’s professional applications began with an early ’90s job constructing costumes and clown props for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, a good place for a young man who would go on to hang with the oddballs at Georgia’s Finster Fest and later found Louisville’s outsider Good Folk Fest.

But he has also found success in the corporate world. Pieces have been sold to Yum!, Maker’s Mark and Baltimore’s American Visionary Art Museum, and shown in Chicago, San Francisco and at Art Basel Miami. Scarboro says the world has changed somewhat and his way has become a bit more accepted, though that doesn’t change his approach. Even for his sewing show, the materials will be unconventional: “Wire, paper, cardboard, Taco Bell wrappers, etc. … If the needle can go through it, it’s fair game,” he says.

WHY Louisville owner Will Russell says, “He takes what others throw away and transforms it into art, salvaging nostalgia with his own unique twist.” The images in that show continue the distorted-childhood-memories theme of his “Glitches” exhibition — Wonder Woman, Batman, Evel Knievel and characters from “Star Wars,” “Lost in Space” and “Sigmund and the Sea Monsters” are manipulated fondly.


“Visible Man” by Scott Scarboro

On Sept. 22, Scarboro will give an artist lecture at JTCT, discussing his art from college through recent videos and public works. “I will also touch on resourcefulness and the flexibility of using what is around you to create,” he says. His approach wasn’t always rewarded. “In college, I was asked to make some large sculptural pieces for a bar in Lexington,” he says, “but when I brought them some things I made, they refused to install them because the junk was too dirty.”

JCTC curator Lisa Simon has known Scarboro for several years, going back to when they both had workspaces in the Cinderblock Gallery near what has become NuLu. She contacted him to ask about using some of his work in the school’s Krantz Art Gallery at First and Chestnut streets. “Fortunately, I had all this work that I wasn’t quite ready to put back into the studio yet,” Scarboro says. “So I took the show down at the Green Building Gallery, left the stuff in my car overnight and reinstalled (it) the next day.”

The co-occupant of his current studio space is rubbing off on him more these days. He says son Harlan “inspires me probably more than I him.”



c. 2014 Insider Louisville

Think Tank Theatre opens up for new, surprising collaborations

When the popular Le Petomane Theatre Ensemble announced their end after a 10-year run this summer, fans of their offbeat and influential productions mourned. WFPL arts reporter Erin Keane said at the time, “The end of Le Petomane as a whole is a loss for Louisville’s arts community.”

That was in June. Now, not even three months later, two of their six members have announced their new company, Think Tank Theatre.

Their first production, the love exploration “Ton of Bricks,” won’t premiere until November 13, when it is produced at Walden Theatre as part of the Slant Culture Theatre Festival. But Tony Dingman and Kyle Ware, the founders of TTT, want you to come see them this Sunday, August 31, at the Bard’s Town. They’re not performing, however – they just want you to tell them what you think about love. Stories, feelings, theories – all are welcome, and Dingman and Ware plan to use that crowd-sourced material as grist for whatever their show becomes: It could be a romance, or a comedy, or a tragedy, or a combination of all that and more.

As the dissolution of Le Petomane was being planned, Dingman and Ware “kept talking one night after one of these meetings, and talking and talking, and riffing on what possibilities were out there,” says Ware, who also writes for Insider Louisville in addition to working as director of education at Kentucky Shakespeare. “What we would do if we kept on going, what we always thought we could have done with Le Petomane that we never did – and then got to a spot where we just said, ‘We should just do that,’” as Dingman laughs in agreement.

Dingman, whose lanky, bicycle-riding frame provides a classic comedy contrast to Ware’s more compact, professorial appearance, notes that the aspect most exciting to the pair was being able to expand their boundaries, collaborating with anyone else who “wants to play.”

As members of Le Petomane, they found themselves approached often by musicians, dancers, poets and other people whose skills came from outside the usual structure of the theater.

“At the time – well, for most of the life of Le Petomane – it was kind of insular,” says Dingman. “Not that it’s a bad thing! But it was the six ensemble members who worked to create shows. And there were numerous people who wanted to work with us.”

He says, “One thing that came out that was, 'What if we said "yes"?'”

One detail they feel fairly certain about is that only they will stay on as permanent members, with others brought in as needed. It may not always go smoothly, but it also allows for “happy accidents” that add more than they could have expected.

“It’s forcing us to rediscover everything,” Ware says. “Which is great for creativity.”

Their experiences with Le Petomane have taught them that offering a variety of approaches doesn’t always lead to glowing reviews. “Not because they were poorly built, in my opinion, but because they were eclectic,” Dingman says. “Like Kentucky weather,” Ware adds.

The pair wants the public to get involved and have a stake in their shows, which is why they are asking for help in writing their shows, and using social media to reach people. “We’re going to touch it and see what happens” is the phrase Dingman comes up with, prompting a big laugh from Ware.

“Now that I’ve heard that, I kind of like it,” he says. “That’s the T-shirt right there!”

The laughter continues when I offer to use their crowd-sourcing model by including the embarrassed Dingman’s phrase in their story so they can see how the public reacts. “That’s my new favorite phrase,” Ware continues. “You know, that kind of applies. The whole thing’s an experiment to invite people in – touch it, see what happens … You could get burned, it could break, it could be a lovely thing.”

Think Tank Theatre hosts "What About Love? An Open Forum"
Sunday, August 31
The Bard's Town
1801 Bardstown Rd.
thebardstown.com
Free; 7:30 p.m.

c. 2014 Insider Louisville

Third Thursday Hoedown offers old-timey fun in Germantown

"I would definitely say it all started with T-Claw, and he brought us together,” says Johanna Sims, a member of the Louisville Old Time Squares Association (LOTSA). That crew, which also includes Chet Gray, Jane Mattingly, Jim Bennett, Alex Udis and a few others, was officially formed by the caller known as T-Claw in July 2012. They have been putting on square dance socials on the third Thursday of each month since then at AmVets Post #9. But wait – what’s a caller?

It’s simple, really: The caller announces the dance steps so you know where you’ll move next as the Appalachian music plays; the good ones also entertain with lively commentary. Their energy is important to keeping up the dancers’ energy. Sims says it takes a lot of practice and has to be mastered through experience. “Sure, you can call dances to yourself to recorded music, but it is nothing like calling to actual dancers. So you just gotta get out there and do it! Make a fool of yourself a few times.”

A native of Nashville, T-Claw came through Louisville a few times while on tour. He and Sims had met at old-time music festivals and had mutual friends, so she helped him get started here. Sims had been introduced to the activity via those festivals, where bands play all day and a square dance follows every night.

“Before we started having regular dances here, I had been known to drive all the way to Columbia, Mo., for a square dance,” she says. “I’ve loved old-time music for a long time and started playing it when T-Claw moved to town and started giving me lessons.”

The organizers held early dances at Derby City Baseball, the Rudyard Kipling and Nachbar before landing at AmVets, which is also home to Danny Mac’s Pizza.



“It’s a wonderful event that’s fun to watch and join in the fun. Lots of good people and smiling faces,” says pizza proprietor Dan McMahon. The son of a vet, McMahon also appreciates that money raised from each event goes to a fund for the veterans, their families and the community at large. “We have so much fun with these Third Thursday square dances that we designed a square pizza called the Schnitzelburg Square. It fills up the square box. More food for the customer, same great price.”

“I have loved their pizza and karaoke for a long time now,” Sims says. “It started as a hangout for us. The hall already had a dance floor, a disco ball, a bar, pizza, and it is all right in our neighborhood … It is a beautiful arrangement because the guys at AmVets Post #9 love us and the music we bring in, and we love them!”

Sims also introduced T-Claw to a friend of hers who became his special someone, which is how he came to live here for a spell (the couple now calls Denver home). Over time, “He taught us everything we needed to know through monthly meetings, showing us all that goes in to planning and organizing the dance. He is still very active in booking the bands and just general support.”

He also encouraged the Louisville crew to learn how to call so they would have a regular caller. Sims says the LOTSA members have practiced together at house parties, and have added an open mic to their Third Thursday nights to practice and train new callers, beginning at 10:30.

The night has other features, like an old-time jam led by veteran musician Harry Bickel starting at 7 p.m. Local and regional vendors sell their wares. Different nonprofits come out each month. Most important is the community that comes together. “I have seen three generations of a family represented,” says Sims.

A beginners dance workshop starts around 7:30, with some more experienced dancers helping instruct. Sims says some folks seem nervous at first, but “I have yet to see that beginner dance end without a smile on everyone’s face … I would say the majority of beginners stay and dance all night. The new people always dance the most at their first hoedown! Once you start, it is hard to stop.”

“Third Thursday Hoedown” with The Leveetoppers and caller Chrissy Davis-Camp
AmVets Post #9
1567 S. Shelby St.
facebook.com/groups/LOTSA
$5 (free for vets and children); 7 p.m.

photos by Robert Broussard

c. 2014 Insider Louisville

‘Seinfeld’ composer on Louisville, retirement and 25 years in TV

There may come a day when we’re not still watching, referencing or thinking about “Seinfeld,” but that day’s not coming soon. “Modern Seinfeld” is a hot spot on Twitter, spoofing how much urban life has changed since the series ended in 1998.

Two years after its finale, the show’s composer, Louisville native Jonathan Wolff, decided to also end his run as the king of TV sitcom music. The empire he had built was so large that he gave himself five more years to wind down, hand off jobs to trusted associates, and truly walk away from it all.

"Seinfeld” wasn’t Wolff’s first break, or his last, but that rubbery, slap bass-driven, mouth-popping theme will likely be his most popular contribution to the world. The very retired Wolff will make a rare local appearance at Actors Theater on Wednesday, Aug. 20, for an edition of the speakers’ series “Kentucky to the World,” moderated by WFPL’s Devin Katayama for Idea Festival’s IF University. The talk was originally scheduled at the Green Building but high ticket demand caused its move to the larger venue. All this for an event Wolff said he agreed to for a very specific reason.

“Funny thing about that,” he says. “The only reason I’m doing this is because my wife told me to say yes.”

Born in 1958, the Atherton grad’s career in music began in Louisville before he had finished high school. A student of jazz legend Jamey Aebersold, Wolff was playing at parties, in restaurants and hotels, for theater groups, at fashion shows and composing music for local TV stations while still a teen.

Wolff moved to Los Angeles for college and stayed for almost 30 years, adding some 80 or so TV jobs along the way: “Who’s the Boss,” “Married with Children,” “Will & Grace,” “The King of Queens” and “Reba” are among the best-known.

He made a lot of money, but he also worked a lot of 20-hour days. His relationships with his wife and four children (then between 5 and 10 years old when they moved to Louisville) suffered, and his decision to start a new life at 47 coincided with a change in TV programming, as reality shows took over some of the slots previously occupied by the scripted series’ he had mastered. After becoming a dominant force in a notoriously fickle business, he also began to see that he would never again be the hot, flavor-of-the-month discovery so vital to that world. When the Wolffs’ youngest children, twins, were babies, the couple looked at each other and agreed, “This can’t go on forever.”



“There’s this idea people go by – ‘Oh, there’s no such thing as enough money,’” says Wolff. “We decided to challenge that and say, ‘However much we’ve got, that’ll be enough. In 2005, we’ll leave. We’ll go someplace.’”

Why Louisville? It wasn’t about it being home for him, or having family here, at first. The Wolffs looked at several possibilities, but everywhere they went, they would compare those places to Louisville, where real estate prices were especially attractive to a family used to paying L.A. prices.

“We’d go somewhere and it’d be pretty good. But we’d go, ‘I wish they had parks like Louisville.’ Or, ‘There’s no real airport. We’d have to drive for an hour to get anywhere.’ … ‘There’s no real arts here. We’d have to go travel to hear music or see a play.’”

The parents have stayed busy raising their kids – Wolff proudly declares that he goes to every extracurricular activity – and working on house projects. He doesn’t watch much TV these days.

He promises show business stories at the “Kentucky to the World” talk – ask him to tell you about how he wound up onscreen on the ’80s soap “Knots Landing” – but he doesn’t miss it for a moment.

“No,” he says quickly, laughing. “It became a grind. The routine was really brutal when you’re doing as much work as I was doing. I burned out … The human body does really bad things when you go for days without sleep.”

After almost a decade back, few locals know that the guy whose music they hear in reruns every night at 11 is their neighbor.

“I’m in kind of a self-imposed Hollywood witness relocation program,” Wolff jokes.

Jonathan Wolff
Aug. 20, 2014
Actors Theatre of Louisville
316 W. Main St.
2nd Floor
$25; 5:30 p.m.

photos by Isaac Wolf

c. 2014 Insider Louisville

Revelry celebrates a new beginning with help from popular sculptor Matt Weir

"The New Synthesis" in progress

Mo McKnight Howe had some things working in her favor when she took over the Revelry art gallery and boutique on Barret Avenue. All the hard work of starting the business had been done by its founder, Paula Weyler. It had a prime location next to Regalo and Lynn’s Paradise Café. And McKnight Howe’s husband was working in commercial real estate, ensuring their bills could get paid. But then big things started to change.

Weyler decided to move away, meaning McKnight Howe, a recent Hite Art Institute graduate who had been helping with curating while also building her career as a photographer, had to buy her out to continue. Then Lynn’s famously closed without warning.

“When Lynn’s closed, it was a year of … just awfulness,” McKnight Howe says. She tried to stay positive while talking with neighboring businesses about how to survive, but the revival never happened. “The tourists weren’t coming anymore, and that’s what was driving the business,” she says. Tourists had wanted unique local items, a Revelry specialty, but now they weren’t visiting Barret without Lynn’s.

McKnight Howe decided to gamble and relocate to NuLu, where her rent is triple what it had been less than 2 miles away. “I didn’t want to let local artists down. Some of them depend on a paycheck from me.” Since moving, “It’s just been … awesome!” she says. “So amazing. The hardest part of being down here now is keeping up with inventory.”

Her roster is heavy on young, developing artists whose works are more affordable than expected, giving first-time buyers a chance to take home something local and original, as opposed to having to shop for art at Target, McKnight Howe notes. But she has also worked in some well-established names from an older generation, like Julius Friedman and Bob Lockhart, achieving a balance of serious artists coming from very different perspectives.

To celebrate another year – the first successful year – McKnight Howe gambled again and went after a favorite artist (and childhood friend of her older brother), sculptor Matt Weir.



Sculptor Matt Weir with Christopher Raber at work on his latest creation. Photo by Candice Tipton.

Now 34, Weir has swiftly risen to the top of Louisville’s art world. He had walked back in to his old school at 26 to propose a sculpture for their grounds, and won the chance to make his St. Xavier High tiger, “Panthera tigris,” completed in 2008. He returned to document their founding Xaverian brothers. His most recent major commission, “Earth Measure,” was unveiled at Bernheim Forest last October.

But he’s got some different ideas for his Revelry show, “The New Synthesis.” It’s his smallest solo show in several years, though his Indiana limestone-based creations are still relatively massive.

A themed collection of sculptures and drawings connected by scientific and philosophically based notions about the natural world and its unpredictability, “The New Synthesis” (whose title was taken from E.O. Wilson’s writings on evolution and conservation) includes works made in seemingly contradictory mediums. Carved limestone and 3D prints coexist, the former in two architectural “Saddle Point” creations and the latter, the figurative “FLOP,” being much smaller but no less integral to the story being told by Weir – “abstract yet realistic synchronicity,” he calls it. All of his work is figurative, essentially, he says, because it all comes back to human behavior.

Then there are the clouds, presented on vellum. “I am a member of the International Cloud Spotters Society,” Weir reveals with a nervous laugh, almost but not really embarrassed at the unexpected announcement. The membership was a gift from a fellow artist whom he “introduced to clouds.” “I’m passionate about clouds through scientific perspective,” he clarifies. “Isn’t that funny to say, ‘I’m passionate about clouds’?”

“I think of him as a high-end artist who wouldn’t even consider a boutique-slash-gallery,” McKnight Howe says. “I was so humbled and excited” when Weir accepted her invitation to present his latest works. “He’s so philosophical and cerebral. Everything he makes comes with so much meaning and depth.”

At the end of the reception, the party moves back to Barret Avenue, where it all began, for an after-party at the Monkey Wrench. McKnight Howe, the now-successful entrepreneur, plans to spin some tunes as DJ Mo Money.


photo courtesy of Revelry

c. 2014 Insider Louisville

This boy’s life: Q&A with Patricia Arquette and Ellar Coltrane, stars of ‘Boyhood’

The new movie “Boyhood,” which opens today at Baxter Avenue Theaters, was filmed over 12 years, starting in 2002. The cast and crew shot a few days each year, and all — including leading man Ellar Coltrane, who was 6 years old when he was cast — were free to walk away at any time. But they made it to their intended endpoint. Will they continue, and release “Manhood” in another 12 years?

Director Richard Linklater and co-star Ethan Hawke, who plays Coltrane’s father, have also collaborated on “Before Sunrise,” “Before Sunset” and “Before Midnight,” a trilogy that also follows the same characters through many years. Linklater’s credits also include “Dazed and Confused,” which took place over one night, and the hit “School of Rock.”

We spoke with Coltrane and Patricia Arquette, who plays his mother, to learn more.

Insider Louisville: Rick (Linklater) and Ethan and Julie Delpy made the “Before Sunrise” movies every nine years, and keep on surprising us with more of them. I’ve read that this movie is done and there won’t be more, but I have to think that you’re still filming a little bit every year.

Patricia Arquette: No — we haven’t even been through a year where we haven’t been filming. And the funny thing about the “Sunrise” series is that we started making this movie before they made the second one (2004’s “Before Sunset”). They made the second one while we were filming this one.

IL: You think the “Boyhood” experience gave them the idea to continue that series?

Ellar Coltrane: I think it gave him the confidence to do the long-term thing.

PA: Rick does have a very specific relationship with time, and long-term relationships, and the exploration of intimacy – which, oddly enough, a lot of filmmakers don’t have. If you look at his body of work, there really is nobody else in the world that would curate their career in the way Rick has … Because we’ve been friends for so long, he’s said things at times, like, “When we were on ‘Dazed and Confused,’ we got a great response,” but Rick himself was, like, “You know what I think I didn’t do so great with the movie was explore females in an interesting way.” My character in this movie, he really wrote a fleshed-out, complicated person.

IL: And you all had input on your characters and the story itself?

EC: Very much so. It was a constant reflection and amalgamation of the experiences and the perspectives of everyone involved, really. There’s very little that’s direct – I mean, none of the characters are based on any one person, but pretty much everything that they go through is informed by something that one of us experienced or heard about or witnessed or was related in some way.

IL: Was dialogue scripted before, or did you all just talk about ideas?

EC: No, it wasn’t improvised on camera. Rick would usually come to us with a rough draft, but that’s pretty much it. A couple days to a week, just try to workshop it, see where the dialogue could go using our experiences and our emotions, and our own words, to flesh that out. Then he would take all of that and create a final script by the morning of the shoot (Arquette laughs), but when we were on camera, it was always a script.

IL: Even when you were 8 or 9, he would listen to your input as much as the adults?

PA: Yeah, even when they were 7. The first year, I remember him saying, “You guys will be fighting in the car. What do you think you’d be fighting about?” And he meant it. He had a lot of respect for them. And also, he would laugh at things they would do. He thought, “It’s beautiful that we have children as part of our species. It’s an incredible honor to watch them grow and change.” He wanted to capture that.

IL: As an adult, and as a woman, did you think about how your appearance would change from year to year, and how you might feel about seeing those changes at a later age?

PA: Well, you know, I have been with myself all those years (everyone laughs). It wasn’t a really giant shock to me. Part of the discussion was, what does a woman really look like? And not wanting to Hollywood it up, and not wanting to be an actress in a movie playing a mom, but actually, what would this mom look like? This woman is an academic, and a mom, and there’s a lot of things she’s really interested in. Not to be attractive to the biggest number of men possible (laughs), or to Hollywood in general. So, I felt good about my acting choice when I watched it. I wanted to challenge the status quo in my business. And you know, we all have our egos.

EC: I think there’s something very comforting also about seeing these moments of yourself that, taken out of context, might be embarrassing or self-judgmental in a certain way, but seeing it all together, in context, such a larger span of time and such a large part of yourself – you see it in a different way, I think. It’s easier to take it as a complete assessment.

IL: Ellar, during those years, were you watching (Arquette’s TV series) “Medium”?

EC: I’ve actually never watched an episode of that. I’ve seen a lot of her movies, though. I don’t watch much TV.

PA: My own kids never watched it. Not for any other reason than I didn’t want my children to really be aware of me as an actress. I wanted their experiences to be a personal one, and not impacted very much by what happens when we see someone in a movie or on TV. Suddenly, you have this weird, distorted image of them, a little bit … I think my daughter saw one thing on TV – she’s 11 now – and saw “Holes” and hated it because my character died in it. I don’t have posters of movies in my house. I try to minimize what I do because the world already distorts it a lot.

IL: This is the kind of movie a lot of people were making in the ’90s. More independent, there’s no stuff blowing up –

PA: Yeah!

IL: Do you feel like you had to work in TV over the last decade because the movie parts haven’t been as good, especially for women?

PA: That’s definitely the case, but I think that’s been the case for a long, long time. They’re also about young people falling in love, whether it’s working out or not working out, and I’m not complaining about that. I think that’s part of human beings’ stories that we’re telling. But I’ve aged, and on “Medium,” the writing was good, it was a really interesting part. I also like that network TV is free – you have commercials, but other than that, you can be in some trailer park and have entertainment. You can be in an old folks’ home and have some entertainment. It’s also a different discipline of acting, because you have to learn to work really quickly. And you don’t have the same relationship with the director. You have to be fast on your feet and act on your own instincts. It’s very different, and it’s taught me a lot.

IL: Patty, you’ve been the young ingénue and now you’re the mother. Ellar, you’re a young, handsome fellow. If you were offered “Transformers 5,” would you take it?

EC: I don’t think I would (laughs). Yeah, I know what I like and I know what I want to do. I’m confident that I can find projects that can fill that.

IL: Are you committed to acting? Or is it just one possibility for you?

EC: Yeah, it’s obviously the biggest thing right now, but I’ve got a lot of interests. And I want to do all of them with the right frequency to maintain that.

IL: What else have you been working on?

EC: A lot of visual art, mostly — painting, drawing, photography. I’m interested in music right now. I’ve been doing some stuff on my computer, instrumental banjo. It’s a strange instrument. My dad’s a musician, and banjo’s one of the few instruments he doesn’t play. I think, subconsciously, that’s why I gravitated toward that one (laughs).

IL: How Hollywood have you had to get? Do you have representation, scripts you’re reading now?

EC: I’m working with a manager. The scripts are definitely starting to come in. I’m just sort of biding my time at the moment, just because I’ve been pretty overwhelmed with all the promotion and the release of the film. But the next few months will be a very exciting time.

IL: You must be tired of people treating you like some magic trick.

EC: That’s not really true, though. It gets overwhelming, and I get tired of answering the same questions, but as far as being approached by people, I feel so lucky that, by the nature of this project and the kind of vulnerability expressed, people will approach me with the same vulnerability and treat me with a genuine attitude. Just the little bit that I’ve watched other actors or musicians deal with their fans, it feels so impersonal so much of the time, the way people are approached. For the most part, it’s been people approaching me on a very personal level, looking me in the eye, wanting to express real emotions. It’s incredible.

c. 2014 Insider Louisville

Some tea, some shade: Comic queen Bianca Del Rio reads around the world

In 2002, Roy Haylock was a comic drag queen in New Orleans with a flair for costume design and a Don Rickles-like wit. As Bianca Del Rio, Haylock had a loyal following, but wasn’t a beauty or expected to become an international favorite. In an interview with local alt-weekly Gambit, Haylock cited Rickles and costume legend Bob Mackie as inspirations – but drew a line in the sand by dismissing RuPaul as “not my cup of tea.”

In 2012, Haylock was planning to retire Del Rio by 2015, after turning 40. Today, 18 years after Del Rio’s personal drag race began, she is best known as the New York-based winner of season six of "RuPaul’s Drag Race," and is working on a movie and one-person show. LEO caught up with her last week after she returned from a tour in the British Isles and Amsterdam.

For most of the show’s run, fans abroad had to find it illegally. And they have – a company in England recently bought the rights to make their own version of the show in that country. “I wasn’t expecting large crowds, but it was the complete opposite – it was packed!” Del Rio says. “It was insane. It’s fascinating to me, how far the show has gone on a global scale and reached so many people.”

To get through each day was a big challenge, as the cast spent 12-14 hours filming and then each went back to their hotel rooms, where they were prohibited from seeing each other off-camera. “I would get through each challenge to the best of my abilities, and then move on to the next thing,” Del Rio says. “It’s truly like a boot camp.”

Though she began her season feeling old and somewhat unsure, her personality quickly stood out in a battle filled with talented but less-defined, younger competitors. “If you can’t sing, dance, sew, act, or do comedy, you shouldn’t do the show … It’s like going to the Olympics and saying, ‘Oh, shit, I’ve got to swim?’”

“A lot of people want to be famous,” Del Rio says. “A lot of people want to be on the show and be fabulous – and that’s great, but do your homework before you get there if you want to succeed.”

Her first defining quality was her noted sarcasm. But it didn’t suggest that she was on a winning course. “I think people only think it’s one level, which is kind of fascinating to me.” Why don’t people get it? “I think it’s intelligence,” she says with a laugh as sharp as her words. “I’ve had my share of people telling me that I’m a bitch, that I’m an asshole, of course. But smart people get it. You’re not going to please everyone. I learned that early on.” Once her other level – which included warmth, support and generosity - emerged, Bianca Del Rio became a comeback kid, at 38. Not everyone was in love, though, because the Internet supplied its usual amount of commentary.

“Initially, I thought it was a good idea to look at it,” she says. “And then I realized, ‘Oh God, it’s pointless.’ You get nowhere with people commenting, and they know everything, obviously, because they’re trolling the Internet writing shit about you. I learned early on, whatever happened happened. I know what happened because I was there … it’s sometimes difficult not to get wrapped up in it. But the virtue of doing the show at 38 was that you have a better sense of self.”

Her success has meant taking a leave of absence from her job as a theater costume designer. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do this thing that I’m doing. Costume design is my passion and the thing I love the most. I mean, drag is definitely up there, a close second. But I don’t intend to do drag for my entire life. And I’ve always liked to do both, and keep a balance of two quite questionable careers.”

And did RuPaul ever find out about Del Rio’s earlier comment? “Oh, I’m sure. Everything you say comes back to you. But it was my opinion at the time, when Ru wasn’t doing all the things that she’s doing now. Everyone had an opinion on something in 2002, but this show, it’s amazing what it’s become… It’s a different world now.”

Bianca Del Rio
Saturday, August 9
Play Dance Bar
1101 E. Washington St.
playdancebar.com
$13-$15; 10 p.m.

Here
c. 2014 LEO Weekly

Why Ricky Skaggs says you’ve got to have faith

Born 60 years ago this month in Cordell, Ky., Ricky Skaggs has been pickin’ since kindergarten, picking up 14 Grammys, selling millions of records and collaborating with everyone from Jack White to Sharon White (his wife, and a vocalist in the family band The Whites). Now based in Nashville, Skaggs took a break from working on his first album of duets with his wife to talk with LEO.

The Skaggs have been married since 1981. Their album, due Sept. 30, is called Hearts Like Ours. It happened almost accidentally when the pair, often asked to speak at marriage conferences, decided to record a few songs together to have something to sell at those lectures. “We’ve been married for 33 years, and everybody thinks that we’ve written the book on good marriages,” Skaggs says. “We do have a happy marriage, it’s been great … We did a little mini CD, five songs; then we decided we wanted to finish it, make it a real CD that we could put out in the marketplace. Maybe have a single or two that we could try to promote to country radio, as well.”

So the pair recorded eight more songs, including a Flatt & Scruggs song White brought in, “No Doubt About It.” Skaggs recites a few lines for me: I like the way you smile / I like your dimpled chin / I like the way you laugh / I like the way you grin. “It’s just a little love song, back and forth with each other. But I’ve never heard it done as a man-and-woman duet,” he says. “It’s the sort of thing George (Jones) and Melba Montgomery should have done.”

Songs by Marty Stuart, Connie Smith and Don Williams are among other highlights promised for the collection. “It’s really country. Great songs. It’s really exciting. It’s great to hear real country music again,” Skaggs laughs.

Next month, Skaggs’ autobiography, Kentucky Traveler: My Life in Music, will be issued in paperback. He’s thinking about recording an audiobook version, too.

First, though, Skaggs and band return to Louisville with some old friends. “We’re really excited about that,” says the ever-eager mandolin master. He first met opener Rhonda Vincent, who’s now 52, when she was a child playing in her family’s band, The Sally Mountain Show. Her brother Darrin, who would go on to play in Skaggs’ band for seven years as an adult before leaving to form the acclaimed bluegrass act Dailey & Vincent, “was standing on a chair playing the bass fiddle when I first met him,” Skaggs says.

Skaggs met Bowling Green native Sam Bush in the 1970s, when Skaggs played the bluegrass circuit as a member of Ralph Stanley’s Clinch Mountain Boys. “I remember seeing Sam with the Bluegrass Alliance, out of Louisville. It was before the Newgrass (aka Progressive bluegrass) revival got started. That was a long time ago, but we’ve just followed each other around for years in different bands.”

Skaggs later played with J.D. Crowe and Emmylou Harris before becoming a hot solo act in commercial country music in the ’80s. As he aged out of that field, he reevaluated his life and returned to bluegrass in 1996. “I’ve been so happy coming back and playing real music again,” he says. “I think, these days, bluegrass really is the most pure form of country there is out there.”

He hopes to remain active and creative in music for another 20 or 30 years. But it’s not his top priority, he says. “Really, what keeps me young, keeps me excited, is my spiritual life. Because I know music is such a part of that. It’s hard to have one without the other … I think that’s what makes me a better musician, a better singer, to be able to hear the sounds I need to hear and sing, and play and travel, and have the successful marriage that Sharon and I have had for 33 years.”

Does his faith help him focus? Does it remind him to keep his ego in check? “Absolutely,” Skaggs says. “I wear a bracelet that says, ‘I am second.’ I look at that all the time … My faith keeps me where I need to be. If I really had an ego, or if my focus was on my career, man, I would’ve been gone a long time ago.”

Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder
with Sam Bush and Rhonda Vincent
Friday, Aug. 1
The Parklands of Floyds Fork
1411 Beckley Creek Pkwy.
theparklands.org/events
$40-$65; 6 p.m.

Here
c. 2014 LEO Weekly

In a different groove with Tune-Yards

Dani Markham was there when elementary school teacher Diane Downs found abandoned instruments in a closet in the early ’90s. “She was, like, ‘Look what I found! Let’s do this.’ And we started a group.” The group Downs started is now called the Louisville Leopard Percussionists, and it has become known globally. In the group’s first year, young student Markham was stuck in a classroom next to Downs’. “I was just envious,” Markham says, “Like, ‘How can I get over there? How can I do that? I want to play all those songs.’ So it was so exciting when I went from second to third grade and we got to play.”

Along with Prince drummer Hannah Ford, Markham is part of the first wave of LLP alumni to begin making their own mark on the global stage. Markham now plays percussion with the Oakland-based avant-pop band Tune-Yards, who play this weekend at the Forecastle Festival.

As a Leopard, Markham also enjoyed the support of her parents. Her mom was the roadie, taking the seats out of the family’s van to haul instruments to every show. “She never missed one beat,” Markham says, unintentionally making a drummer joke.

She continued at YPAS, where she focused on symphonic and orchestral percussion, playing with a percussion ensemble and taking private lessons with Todd Parker. In college at Florida’s University of Miami, Markham began learning about different world percussion rhythms and grooves, studying with a Brazilian instructor. After graduation, she stayed for a couple of years, but soon realized she needed even more options. So she moved to New York.

While that’s often where the story begins, it didn’t happen that way for Markham. She decided she should be on the West Coast instead, where her road trip took her to Oakland, a city that had become home to some Miami colleagues. One weekend, she played at a big tribute event, where she encountered hundreds of musicians she had never met. Two of them separately emailed Markham to tell her about an upcoming Tune-Yards audition. “Things were just making sense. When it happened, it was, like, ‘This is weird, but this is awesome.’”

At the audition, she says, “It was just love at first sight for me. So it was the best audition experience I’ve ever had.” She went in relaxed, having arrived in town recently and not expecting something big to happen in Oakland. “It was just fun. It was, like, ‘Cool, I have to learn music.’ It reminded me of being back in school, because (bandleader Merrill Garbus’) music is so intricate. She wanted me to sing and play percussion at the same time, so learning those patterns, I had to put in the time.”

In little time, Markham was touring the world, and she recently made her TV debut on the Jimmy Fallon-hosted “Tonight Show.” She loves traveling and doesn’t expect to settle down soon. But she will always love us, she says. “Once you leave Louisville, you can never really leave.”

Tune-Yards play Sunday at the Forecastle Festival.

Here
c. 2014 LEO Weekly

‘We’ve had some tragedy’: The blessing and curse of Gwar

When Louisville metal mainstay Jamison Land got the call to join Gwar, a band he had loved since high school, he could not have been happier. But his dream soon turned into something much more tragic than anyone could have expected.

Founded by vocalist Dave Brockie (who played the character Oderus Urungus) in 1984 in Richmond, Va., the satirical, costumed band has long been known for their outrageous live show and mythology. Land met Brockie through a mutual friend and eventually became roommates with Brockie and rhythm guitarist Mike Derks (aka Balsac the Jaws of Death) for a while. When previous bassist Casey Orr — whose character was Beefcake the Mighty — left, Brockie called Land to put on the 70-pound Beefcake costume.

“I grew up on Bardstown Road,” says Land, an Atherton grad who fondly remembers shows at The Machine and Pandemonium. Previously best known for his work with the band The Burial, Land had moved away but came back home to help his family after his father died. He took a job driving a truck between Louisville and Chicago several times a week — a job that paid more than he’d ever made from music. Land had reached the point where he could accept that his music dreams were not going to be more than a hobby when Gwar called.

Land was on his first tour in 2011 when guitarist Cory Smooth (aka Flatus Maximus) suddenly died from complications of coronary artery disease. On March 23 of this year, Brockie, 50, the last original member, suffered an accidental and fatal heroin overdose. “We’ve had some tragedy,” Land says with a noticeable amount of understatement. “But there’s a legacy here. (Brockie) devoted his whole life to doing this, and we have to continue on and do it for him.”

Last month, Land put together a benefit in Louisville for the Dave Brockie Fund, with proceeds benefiting the arts. But Land couldn’t be there. “I’m doing chemotherapy right now. A couple of months ago, I found out I had testicular cancer,” he says. “I found it real early, so they took it out immediately. My tests are all clear. They made me do two sessions of chemotherapy to reduce my rate of reoccurrence from 50 percent to 5 percent. I’ve got a few months of not feeling so great, but then I’ll be healthy again.”

Former bassist Michael Bishop will fill in on vocals when they perform at their fifth annual Gwar-B-Q festival next month in Virginia. “We’ve been practicing with him,” Land says. “It’s great to get back and start doing some music.”

The day before the festivities begin, Brockie’s Gwar family and fans will send him off with a Viking funeral. The band is also working on a barbecue sauce, a beer and a Gwar-themed bar in Richmond. Land even has his own endorsement deal with an electronic cigarette company.

“As much tragedy as we’ve gone through, it’s such a machine — it’s really hard to stop it.”

photo by Liezl Estipona

Here
c. 2014 LEO Weekly

Morgan Lebus’ Ribbon Music movement

Growing up in Louisville, Morgan Lebus wasn’t necessarily one of the cool kids. When he started discovering underground music in middle school, his first favorites were bands from the Washington, D.C., Dischord scene. But he found them by following other kids to shows at unconventional venues like the Another Place Sandwich Shop on Frankfort Avenue. Now, 20 years later, he works out of the massive CNN building on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, next door to the Amoeba Records store, running an indie label that has helped several hip bands reach an international audience.

Growing up preppy on Mockingbird Hill Road, Lebus felt out of place among crowds that then included some less-than-tolerant skinheads. “It was very Mad Max-y for me,” he laughs. But he soon fell in with kinder, gentler punks like Endpoint. The band Evergreen led him to look into local music’s recent, more artsy history. When members of Pavement and Sebadoh moved to Louisville, Lebus started down his indie rock path.

At the turn of the century, while bored at a job in New York, Lebus was recommended for the job of tour manager for a Scottish indie band, Arab Strab, who were selling out shows nationwide, by mutual friend Dave Pajo, the guitarist and a fellow Louisville native. Lebus hired Louisville musician Paul Oldham to join as their live soundman. “It was a blast. It was transformative. It was the first time I’d ever traveled across the country,” Lebus says. Oldham’s brother Will, of Bonnie “Prince” Billy, soon asked Lebus to manage his tour, and then Pajo did, too. He also briefly managed each artist and made some “mediocre” videos with them and other acts.

Through Pajo and Will Oldham, Lebus met Laurence Bell, whose London-based label Domino released their records in Europe. Lebus began sending Bell demos of unsigned New York bands he liked. After Domino broke through with their band Franz Ferdinand, Bell expanded his American office, hiring Lebus in 2006. Lebus was then able to help bring bands he knew, like Animal Collective and Dirty Projectors, to the company.

Lebus started his label — which also includes publishing services — as a spin-off of the similar but larger Domino after working there for five years. After Lebus suggested signing a few bands that Bell passed on, and then watched those bands become successful with others, Lebus decided to try something fresh. He and Bell began Ribbon Music as a joint venture, with Lebus as the boss making the decisions.

He moved to Los Angeles to give his growing family more space, while staying close to his industry’s power center. Some of Ribbon Music’s acts now include Laura Marling, Django Django and Thao & the Get Down Stay Down, artists who appeal to both Pitchfork readers and public radio listeners.

In describing where his career has taken him lately, Lebus makes an analogy grounded in a Louisville upbringing. “I didn’t want to be an A&R guy forever. The lifespan of that is like a thoroughbred.”

Here
c. 2014 LEO Weekly

Jerry Bruckheimer blows up Kentucky

Hollywood mega-producer meets fans in his other home

People have been confused as to why in the unholy heck legendary movie producer Jerry Bruckheimer is coming to an antiques store in the middle of Kentucky. He had a similar type of reaction when his wife, writer and Louisville native Linda Bruckheimer, first told him she wanted to buy an additional house in her home state. She didn’t stop there, continuing to buy buildings and making a revitalization of Bloomfield’s quaint downtown a favorite project. It didn’t take long for her husband to fall for the beauty of the region and the kindness of his new neighbors.

“I love Kentucky, and I love spending time there,” he says. “It’s a great place to relax and forget about L.A. and Hollywood and work. We have a wonderful farm, and I spend a lot of time there.”

If any of the residents of the small town near Bardstown care about his work, he says they keep it to themselves, treating him like any other (occasional) neighbor who enjoys playing hockey with kids at the skating rink.

Nettie Jarvis Antiques is one business owned by the Bruckheimers in Bloomfield, so that’s where he will be signing “Jerry Bruckheimer — When Lightning Strikes: Four Decades of Filmmaking,” the $60, eight-pound coffee table book about his Hollywood career. He’s proud enough of his other town to go out of his way to invite Louisvillians to make the 43-mile drive to see it for themselves. It’s near some distilleries, if one needed more convincing. (His bourbon of choice is Pappy Van Winkle.)

Bruckheimer, a Detroit native, has benefited from Kentucky’s riches in other ways, too. Tom Cruise, born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV of the Louisville Mapothers, starred in two early Bruckheimer hits, “Top Gun” and “Days of Thunder.” The Owensboro-born Johnny Depp writes in the book’s intro about how producer Bruckheimer saved him from being fired from the first “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie when executives, scared of how children would react to Depp’s performance as Capt. Jack Sparrow, wanted to replace him. The fifth Depp-starring film in the hugely successful series is currently in pre-production.

That the “Pirates” movies are on number five is no accident. Some of Bruckheimer’s success has been tied to his company’s development of concepts that can become franchises, including “Beverly Hills Cop,” “Bad Boys” and “National Treasure”; he is also working now on a reboot of “Top Gun,” in addition to adapting the comic “Alien Legion” as his first live-action superhero movie. Then there are his TV titles, including “CSI” and the upcoming “CSI: Cyber,” plus its two other recent spin-offs.

He’s a creature of habit, having worked with some of the same people repeatedly, like actors Nicolas Cage, Denzel Washington and Eric Bana (star of his latest, “Deliver Us From Evil,” out today) and director Michael Bay. “When you find winners, you want to keep going,” Bruckheimer says. When asked what movie had excited him lately that wasn’t made by his company, Bruckheimer says he “loved” Bay’s fourth “Transformers” movie, calling it “terrific, beautifully done.”

But Bruckheimer, who has loved movies since childhood, says it’s original voices that get his attention. “If it’s something that not only do I want to see, but is unique and special and different … if you try to do something that’s a little different, you won’t always succeed. But we try.”

He still falls for emerging stars, even now at 70, saying, “There’s always somebody new that you look at and you see is fascinating and somebody you’d like to work with — Jennifer Lawrence being a perfect example of somebody that wasn’t around five, six years ago, and now she’s a major movie star.”

The Bruckheimers visit Louisville most years for, if nothing else, Derby. “It’s really an emerging city that has changed a lot,” he says. “It’s amazing what’s going on — the whole warehouse district they’re redoing, it’s really nice. The whole downtown is revitalized.”

As an entrepreneur and Kentucky investor, does he plan to step into the Louisville market? “Unfortunately, I’m too focused on what I’m doing here in California,” he says. So it seems Jerry Bruckheimer has found a story he likes — Hollywood kingmaker invests in a Kentucky town — but this time, he isn’t making a sequel.

Jerry Bruckheimer
Saturday, July 5
Nettie Jarvis Antiques
111 Taylorsville Road
Bloomfield, Ky.
Free; 1 p.m.

Here
c. 2014 LEO Weekly

Safe space is the place for Broken Bells

When James Mercer’s band The Shins became popular, and the songwriter and musician was finally making good money, he thought about moving to Kentucky. Lexington, no less. The Albuquerque, N.M. native was 32 at the time.

“I liked the way it looked. I liked the way it felt,” Mercer recalls. “I was in a position in my life, for the first time, that I really didn’t have to worry about getting a (day) job. It was, like, ‘You can live anywhere,’ and it felt right when I was there.”

When it’s pointed out that a college-town environment might have hindered his anonymity, Mercer laughs. “Yeah, maybe you’re right.” The well-traveled son of an Air Force officer decided instead to relocate to the musician-heavy Portland, Ore., where he already had several friends, including Louisville native Greg Brown. Shortly after the move, Brown co-directed a Shins video, “The Past and Pending”. On visits to Portland before the move, Mercer notes, “It was never raining when we came up,” which seemed like a good omen.

Since then, Mercer has also started another band, Broken Bells, with Brian Burton aka Danger Mouse. Their fusion of organic pop and electronic, studio-based creations means their touring lineup this summer will include several instrumentalists; Burton moves around from drums to keyboards and string instruments, and Mercer is spending less time behind his guitar, adding keyboards or merely crooning. “It’s been really fun, this whole new set up, especially the visual aspects of this tour,” he says.

They’ve teamed with a Montreal company to create lights and other design elements. “They’re just such wonderful artists, really creative people … so, really, it’s on them. They designed it and we just approved it,” Mercer laughs. “It’s interesting how it changes the vibe onstage. There’s so much to look at that has nothing to do with us — it reduces the amount of pressure on you. Which is really strange to think about, but you feel more loose and free up there onstage.” He laughs again. “You know that there’s a lot of shit that has nothing to do with you. For Brian and I, our personalities, that really helps us.”

Parts of the two men want the spotlight, he agrees, but they’re not totally comfortable in it when they get it. After a decade or more of renown, how have they not yet learned how to balance their shy sides and their show-offy sides? “Man, I don’t know,” Mercer says. “I think, certain nights, it’s getting the right amount of whiskey!”

He also says he’s been surprised to learn over the past several months of touring how much better his singing comes through when he’s not also playing guitar. “It goes back to confidence — because you can concentrate on just one thing, you can do it really well; and when you do it really well, you’re bolstered by that, so now you’re confident, more comfortable onstage … so it’s really a different world,” he says. “If you’re playing an instrument and singing — at least for me, I’m self-taught, I’m not a natural at it — it’s really nice to be able to focus on one thing.”

The live show ties in to the futurist theme of their latest album, After the Disco, which has extended to their videos and even to 3-D printed models. Part of the proceeds from this tour have gone to the B612 Foundation, which — no joke — is working to keep Earth safe from asteroids.

After six hit albums with two bands, what else does he hope to accomplish? Sounding like a Woody Allen character, Mercer’s somewhat surprising answer is, “I’d like to make a really killer record … I’d like to make something I’m really proud of. I think I always end every project feeling that way, but then I feel, like, ‘Oh, I should have done more of this’, or ‘It could have been stronger in this way or that way’ … I can’t help it, but I just look forward to the future, and the prospect of making something great, you know? I don’t know that I’ve done that yet.”

I thought you would have said something like “Astronaut,” I say. The married-with-kids rock star, now 43, laughs and says, “I think I’m more pragmatic than that.“

Broken Bells with Elf Power
Friday, June 20
Iroquois Amphitheater
1080 Amphitheater Road
iroquoisamphitheater.com
$30.50; 8 p.m.

photo by James Minchin

Here
c. 2014 LEO Weekly



WEB EXCLUSIVE:


In this week’s issue, LEO Weekly has my profile of James Mercer and his current tour with Broken Bells. During our conversation, I also asked him about another current topic in his life – the use of a Shins song in Wish I Was Here, a new movie written and directed by Zach Braff, whose 2004 movie Garden State did much to change that band’s life a decade ago #natalieportman.

LEO: If this had been a year ago, I would never have asked you about Zach Braff. But… (we both laugh) because the trailer for his new movie has one of your songs -

James Mercer: Yeah.

LEO: Obviously, you would have to approve that.

JM: Yeah. So, Zach called me up and asked to do a song for his new movie, basically. And his music supervisor came out — this lady Mary (Ramos), who’s awesome — she came and showed me the movie, and I liked it. I guess it was a rough edit of the film? But it was really touching, and it was about having kids and all this stuff, which I can relate to now. And I set about trying … at first, I was trying to … they had in there, they had some songs they liked, but they wanted me to make something better, so they could replace it. I couldn’t handle that pressure (laughs), so I called him up and just asked him, “Man, can I just try and come up with something that, to me, feels like the movie?” And he was, like, “Sure, do it, go for it,” you know? “There’s a spot at the end of the picture when that would work.” So I set about writing lyrics about what the movie was about, and kind of came up with a song for the film. Which I haven’t done a lot – it was a real challenge to do that, you know? To just be, like, “OK, do something awesome — now! (laughs) And it can’t be about the shit you want to write about!” But it worked, and I am really stoked with the song. I think it’s one of my better songs. I can’t get enough of listening to it, actually. I’ve been enjoying it lately.

LEO: I can only imagine how many times people have asked you about Garden State. I bet Zach Braff doesn’t get asked about the Shins every single time he’s interviewed.

JM: Right? Yeah, I guess, yeah. It’s cool – for me, it’s like one of those things where … it’s always difficult when something is such a big deal that happens to you or the band. But looking back on it now, I just realize it was such a good thing for us! It’s something that will be always there, and I mean, in 20 years, I guarantee you my children aren’t going to be complaining about it (laughs)! Having too much spotlight on the Shins back in 2004. It’s just been a wonderful thing for us, and I feel like I owe Zach so much for it. I’m so grateful.

LEO: And what’s so interesting is, 10 years ago, you were both younger guys trying to find love, and now you’re both — I don’t know him personally, but at least in the movie and in your real life, there’s marriage and dealing with kids —

JM: Yeah, exactly.

LEO: So maybe 10 years from now, you guys can check in again —

JM: Right (laughs)!

Here
c. 2014 LEO Weekly

I wanna be Adore: Life is a party for really real drag queen

The past decade of reality TV has seen some highs and some very low lows, and Danny Noriega has seen it all. First achieving notice in 2008 as an “American Idol” semi-finalist, his sassy teen attitude made him a regular punchline for Joel McHale on “The Soup.” After a brief phase as YouTube personality Angel Baby, the singer, now 24, has become better known and more beloved as drag queen Adore Delano, a runner-up on the recent season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”

“They still say, ‘Angel Baby’ and ‘YouTube’ and stuff like that, but it’s mostly ‘Adore,’” when he encounters fans these days. “Like, I had kids in Party City the other day that were crying, and I was so uncomfortable and scared. Like, it was so awesome these 13-year-old little girls were excited to meet Adore. What the fuck?” laughs Noriega.

The mother-loving native of Azusa, Calif., has been on the road lately, satiating Adore fans with nightclub gigs like next week’s stop at Play. Life on tour has been an adjustment for the surprisingly reclusive queen known for shouting out “Party!” in any situation. “I do love to party and I love being around crowds, but when I’m not working, I just wanna be by myself, with a fucking box of pizza, and that’s my party time,” he says. “I love my alone time.”

His current persona was born after seeing earlier “Drag Race” contestant Raven perform at a West Hollywood club three years ago. After performing at various southern California clubs, including a stint hosting a weekly Friday night show called “Sour Puss,” Adore Delano finally made it back onto the hot reality competition series of the moment. While seeming unlikely to win at first, for a handful of reasons including an inability to sew, Adore finally got on track, impressing the judges and fans with other skills — including singing, rapping and comedy — and an unexpectedly charming side.

Though not the winner, Adore has made the most of the experience for Noriega: In addition to finally making good money touring, an Adore Delano album — Till Death Do Us Party — was released last week, featuring sure-to-be hits like “DTF,” “I Look Fuckin’ Cool” and “Party.” Sewing is an art not yet mastered, though, he says: “No, but I got a fuckin’ bomb-ass glue gun!”

Adore also gets to inspire those 13-year-olds, living as the kind of role model he didn’t have a decade ago. “When I was 12, I looked up to Marilyn Manson, shit like that. I loved him. I loved people that pushed boundaries, like Anna Nicole Smith and Freddie Mercury, people like that. I wasn’t really, like, ‘Ooh, Good Charlotte!,’ or the bands that were popular … I was more focused on kind of what people made history in pop culture, for different reasons — like, why people were so attracted to Queen in the ’80s and why Freddie Mercury was a fucking lyrical genius. I was clearly obsessed with him when I was a kid, and I love Marilyn Manson so much.”

He has a theory on why young kids can look up to him and other queens. “They’re powerful, they’re fun, they’re almost like double personality superhero anime characters. That’s the awesome thing about (“RuPaul’s Drag Race”), though, is they’re putting drag in a different light, kind of pushing it almost mainstream.”

Fans don’t see everything that happens on set, though. He says his friend Laganja Estranja’s epic meltdown was even more epic, and that viewers only got to see a snippet of what went on for hours. It happened, he says, because the queen decided to change her persona shortly before filming began, becoming unfocused and confusing the producers who had cast her for what they had seen in the clubs. “If you don’t go into the competition with a fully developed character, you are completely fucked,” says Noriega. “She wasn’t aware that it was coming off phony bologna because she hadn’t done it for a while.”

Adore Delano isn’t much different than Danny Noriega, and that authenticity got her — and him — this far. The Louisville appearance will be “a fucking party,” because he likes the flyover states. “I feel like there’s a different appreciation of drag and I … do you guys have Whataburger? Oh, fuck, man, it’s so good.”

‘Hard Candy’ with Adore Delano
Wednesday, June 18
Play Dance Bar
1101 E. Washington St.
playdancebar.com
$10-$15; 9 p.m.

Photo by Mathu Andersen

Here
c. 2014 LEO Weekly

A country for young men: Art exhibition explores both old and new cultures

detail from "Cry Now" by Patrick Jilbert

Patrick Jilbert moved from Louisville to Santa Cruz, Calif., a few years ago for a job at Consolidated Skateboards. He met a fellow artist while out West, Sid Enck Jr. The pair became fast friends and remained in each other’s lives even after Jilbert moved back to Louisville.

Enck has visited Louisville twice since, so while organizing an art tour for this summer, showing alongside his friend made Jilbert’s city a perfect stop. It’s their first proper show together.

“We both got into art because of skateboarding, and we both started off making really morbid art,” Jilbert says. “As time progressed, I got more into language-inspired work, and he has moved into Native American-inspired work. But we are still able to collaborate on things together well somehow.”

Enck, “passionate for creating and driven to share,” has shown often in California, but this time he’s traveling across the country showing at a variety of venues with different partners in each location. Louisville is the first stop, to be followed by Macon, Ga., and Chicago. Jilbert rejoins the show in Chicago. The intention of the tour, they say, is “to get their creations noticed beyond the boundaries of their local area and to promote the talent of other phenomenal artists.” Enck will be chronicling the adventures online at fromcanvastocountry.tumblr.com.

While the tour is a big leap forward for Enck, he has already spent time traveling, fueling his art with inspiration found primarily from two sources: American Indian culture and found objects. His mixed-media work often blurs lines between the two, mixing animal bones, vintage clothing parts, black-and-white photos and new, hand-drawn or cut details. One important connecting theme is using recycling creatively, honoring every part that might help complete a new creation. Enck notes that he takes “great pride” in using recycled materials that are all American made, adding that showing the importance of sustainability is an important part of his process.

Trained as a woodworker and craftsman, and also experienced as a photographer, Enck mostly paints directly on hand-cut wood, putting a lot of sweat into his already complicated pieces. Cutting, sanding, printing and painting is only the beginning, as some works then require further detailing and ornamentation. It’s a kind of labor often lacking in art assemblage, but making the viewer see how much work and attention to detail has gone into each inch is perhaps the main point Enck wants to make — to pay attention, to not take this planet for granted.

If Enck’s work is based in the natural world, Jilbert’s is seemingly in contrast, as his very modern, urban perspective is influenced by city life, primarily its slang and music. Self-taught, Jilbert has already served as an artist-in-residence at the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft, and spreads his street style through paintings, posters and shirts. What the pair share is a love for documenting the effects of industrialization — native culture affected by the material world, and the detritus created by that collision. Both have preserved cultural moments that will keep that energy alive, even after its time has passed.

An opening reception will be held Saturday, June 7, from 5-9 p.m. at Ultra Pop.

‘From Canvas to Country’
Art by Sid Enck Jr. & Patrick Jilbert
June 7-30
Ultra Pop
960 Barret Ave.
ultra-pop.com

Here
c. 2014 LEO Weekly

Music and fart jokes: ‘The Book of Mormon’ is so much more than that

At some performances of the national touring version of the musical “The Book of Mormon,” 90-year-old couples in the front row will jump up, eager to sing and dance along. So says Christopher John O’Neill, 32, who plays the leading role of Elder Arnold Cunningham. When word first spread that Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creative minds behind “South Park,” had teamed with composer/lyricist Robert Lopez from the adult comedy “Avenue Q,” audiences expected the filthiest, most scabrous show Broadway had ever seen. Turns out it’s a family show. Sort of.

“The cool thing about the show is it’s not just, like, two-and-a-half hours of fart jokes,” O’Neill says. “They actually wrote a musical, you know? It wouldn’t be so successful if it was just what some people might think it is. I think (the writers) want people going away saying, ‘Hey, I really liked that! I didn’t know they could write like that.’”

It’s not like the men haven’t written songs before. Throughout the 17 seasons of “South Park” and feature films like “Team America,” Parker and Stone have made their love of musicals crystal clear. “When you look back at what they’ve done,” O’Neill says, “you’re, like, ‘OK, that makes sense.’”

Behind the scenes, some wondered how the show would translate in different regions of the USA. Going to Dallas, O’Neill says, they worried about potential Bible Belt problems. But, “The places people warned us about — ‘Oh, they might not be into it,’ they’re the most into it. It’s weird. We were in Schenectady, N.Y., and everyone was, like, ‘Why the hell are you guys going to Schenectady?’ It’s like a huge small town, and it was the best crowds we’ve ever had. It’s bizarre. I’ve learned to just go with it, because I have no idea how it’s going to be. And it differs night to night, let alone city to city.”

The coolest part is feeling out each crowd, he says, knowing that the cast will be winning them over sooner or later. It’s just a question of how soon. For O’Neill, a veteran of the sketch comedy scene with partner Paul Valenti in “The Chris and Paul Show,” the tour has also been a wealth of potential future sketch material.

“It’s ridiculous, the amount of characters you run into out on the road — it’s cool, you just meet so many people. That’s the thing that’s keeping (me interested) — my brain is ADD, I’m constantly looking for new stuff to write. My comedy partner and I, we used to write a new hour show every month for three years. I like new things,” says the musical newbie whose role was originally played on Broadway by Josh Gad.

His castmates have been welcoming and kind, he says, if a little surprised by his background. “Oh, god, they think it’s hilarious. They were all really cool when I first started with the cast, but obviously, the singing — the people in the cast are so talented, their voices are ridiculous. It’s awesome, from where I started to where I am now, it’s been really cool. Being able to sing — everyone’s been so supportive. Singing every night, eight times a week, I feel like I’m a little theater person now.”

That being said, he acknowledges being an outcast of sorts. “I’m the only one in the cast who hasn’t seen every musical ever. People in the cast are, like, ‘Have you seen ‘Lion King’? And I’m, like, ‘No!’ I’m so far behind with musical trivia and all that stuff.”

He’s an important part of the marriage of comedy and music that makes “The Book of Mormon” stand out from other plays, including choreography by Casey Nicholaw, Tony-nominated for his work on “Monty Python’s Spamalot” and a Tony winner for directing the original “Mormon” with Parker. The show won eight other Tonys, including Best Musical. Lopez has also had subsequent success with songs he wrote with his wife for the hit movie “Frozen.”

“This is a cool show to see if you’re not that much into musical theater” but love comedy, O’Neill says. The “South Park” guys “were my idols growing up, so doing this show is a ball.”

‘The Book of Mormon’
May 28-June 8
Kentucky Center for the Arts
501 W. Main St.
kentuckycenter.org
$43+; various times

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c. 2014 LEO Weekly

Mood music vets open up the Watter works

A recently released documentary about Slint, the landmark band from Louisville, asked when their visionary composer/drummer Britt Walford, who has not played in a band making new music in almost 20 years, might ever return to active duty — and possibly change the face of music all over again? It’s a lot to ask of anyone, but the 44-year-old has joined forces with two other progressive musicians to form the new band Watter. The trio’s first full-length album, This World, was released yesterday.

What is now Watter began a couple of years ago when Tyler Trotter and Zak Riles met and decided to play together. Riles, who has played guitar in the Portland, Ore.-based instrumental band Grails since 1999, moved to Louisville so he and his wife could be closer to family. They started a business, the Bluegrass Green Co., which soon moved to the NuLu district on East Market Street. Trotter played guitar and synthesizers in the band Strike City and then traveled the world with the California Guitar Trio as a soundman. He had opened his first business, the Louisville Beer Store, a block away from Riles’ store.

It was inevitable that the two men, who shared much musical taste and overlapped in many ways — Trotter’s subsequent businesses, the Holy Grale bar and Gralehaus eatery, are even similar in name to Riles’ band, Grails — would find each other. Riles had built a studio, where the pair could play late at night, free from the obligations of the domestic world. And once conversations with Walford suggested further possibilities, a new band came to life.

With the members’ collective pedigrees, they have already received attention from influential ears outside Louisville. The A/V Club and Spin drooled over the idea of the band, and Jonathan Cohen, music booker for “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” and a supporter of many things that came out of the ’90s post-punk/post-rock scene, posted an exclusive Watter bonus song on the TV show’s Tumblr, promoting them as “an awesome new band” and the album as “nothing short of an instant instrumental rock masterpiece.”

This World also features contributions by some of Louisville’s other finest players — pianist Rachel Grimes, vocalist Dane Waters and bassist Todd Cook (who toured with Slint when they reunited in 2005). But it was a favor Trotter called in from his CGT adventures that got even more attention.

“Tony Levin? That was Tyler’s doing,” Riles says. “He suggested just calling Tony Levin. Britt and I both kind of laughed. We were, like, ‘Whoa! Funk fingers,’ you know?”

Known to fans of adventurous music for his work playing bass for the English band King Crimson, Tony Levin has also played on more than 500 sessions, in the bands of Peter Gabriel, Paul Simon, Pink Floyd and Yes, and as the inventor of the bass-playing technique mentioned by Riles. Levin recorded his part in his home studio and emailed it to Watter. Riles says, “He did one take and we were, like, ‘Yeah, that’s amazing.’”

The album begins with a piece called “Rustic Fog.” Dedicated LEO readers might notice that the title sounds similar to a nightclub in our region that sometimes features live music, among other things. Riles confirms the title was inspired by “a magical evening” the band spent there watching country outlaw David Allan Coe perform. “It’s a pretty weird scene over there. Amazing, for sure.”

While Coe’s sound didn’t influence theirs, the members’ shared love for ’70s and ’80s dark movie scores, psychedelia, Krautrock, modern classical and New Age-y soundscapes helps them stand out from most other new bands. While Riles focused on guitars, Trotter worked on the keyboard parts that further evoke different eras and vibrations. “When we were mixing it, we weren’t really sure what it sounded like,” says Riles.

The trio has only played in public a handful of times, and their next Louisville show is being planned for mid-October. It’s part of an East Coast tour that has to wait until Walford has concluded his current Slint obligations. Meanwhile, Riles and Trotter are building a new band space, where they hope to begin work on a second Watter album. “It’s smaller, tighter … It will probably create a totally different-sounding record.”

Here
c. 2014 LEO Weekly

Mothers of re-invention

Axel Cooper spent most of his 20s in Louisville, playing with Tyrone, Instant Camera, The Phantom Family Halo and Sapat. But after he rounded 30, he found his life changing rapidly: expecting his first child, out of the city and farming in small-town Ramsey, Ind.

He wrote the songs for the first New Mother Nature album in 2011 while anticipating the baby, expecting he would soon no longer have a spare second for music. He asked guys he had played with before to help out. The quartet of 30somethings — Cooper plus Neal Argabright, Kevin Molloy and Corey Smith — quickly jelled. “They were all no-brainers for people to help make the songs build into something recordable,” Cooper says.

A one-time recording session led to shows, and now a second record (called 2 to distinguish it from the first album). This time, the band worked on songs together, changing the energy if not the overall sound of the lo-fi/rural rock band.

“There is still the underlying theme of social and environmental despondence. But in this new version, all four members of the group have drawn on the yoke simultaneously,” Cooper wrote in a press release.

They had more time — months instead of a weekend. Cooper learned he could juggle music, family and work. (In Ramsey, he farms, and while he has focused on vegetables in recent years, his wife has been having success lately with flowers.)

“I feel less and less connected” to Louisville, Cooper says, though he’s here often for farmers markets. Songwriting lets him communicate feelings he wouldn’t otherwise be able to share. These days, his focus is more on the natural world. He’s “not letting go of the dream,” he says, just making music for himself first now. He elaborates, “The members of this group would more likely say they are engaging a part of their brains that, if left dormant, would fester and discolor their personal lives.”

New Mother Nature plays a record release show Friday at Zanzabar.

Photo by Tim Furnish

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c. 2014 LEO Weekly

Cher Von: Beauty and the beast

Harlan native Chervon Koeune, who performs as vocalist and sound stylist Cher Von, has had a busy 2014 — playing and organizing shows, and releasing a new EP, Klik. Klak. Why so busy? “Making up for lost time!” she says. “I felt so creatively stagnant for years, and now there is a strong sense of urgency … I’m sure I’ll have to learn a hard lesson about saying ‘yes’ to everything — eventually.”

LEO: Can you describe your process?

Cher Von: The recordings and live performances rely heavily on improvisation. When I decide to record a song, it starts as a very bare-bones concept, usually having more to do with instrumentation and combining found sounds that complement each other, and not so much a narrative or song structure.

Performing these songs, being unable to recreate all of the layers that are heard in the recordings, has been a whole other experiment. There are many versions of each song when I perform them, most of which don’t even attempt to sound like the original other than a familiar melody here and there. As I’ve started to perform more often, I’m really happy with this approach, because I don’t get sick of playing the same song over and over.

LEO: While grounded in experimentalism, your music also has accessibility and an undeniable beauty. Do you straddle worlds intentionally?

CV: It’s somewhat intentional and also happens that way organically. While I do enjoy a good splash of drone and free noise, I tend to gravitate more toward melodic experimental music with lots of movement. It’s what I listen to the most.

LEO: How do you feel about the state of experimental music locally?

CV: The more I come across, the more I’m impressed. Discovering these folks has actually inspired me to host monthly shows that showcase local experimental artists, just so I can get these guys in a room regularly … There seems to be an open and attentive audience for experimenters here, from what I’ve experienced, and I think it will just keep getting better.

Cher Von plays Friday at Haymarket Whiskey Bar and Saturday at OPEN Gallery.

Here
c. 2014 LEO Weekly

Patrick Smith’s wild life

"St. Ursula" by Patrick Smith

Lexington artist keeps it very real

“Too Wild for Mass Consumption” — that’s what Lexington artist Patrick Smith posted on his Tumblr last December as he worked on the series of paintings opening this week at Swanson Contemporary. Smith’s subject matter is mainly his peers, a sometimes-troubled gang of bohemian Southerners who celebrate what he calls “a really eccentric sex life … promiscuity, but safe promiscuity.”

Smith, 27, began painting when he was “pretty old, actually, like 19. It was something I started doing, and then I could do it for as many hours as I had in front of me. That was different than most things I had tried to do.”

The largely self-taught Smith threw himself into his new love of painting. To make something new, he’s learned, he’s needed to use new materials. “I use the highest-end kind of non-traditional materials I can get. So I have DayGlo that’s, like, industrial, and it looks like it. I use aluminum paint, and then I use a variety of different glitters.”

Gallerist Chuck Swanson came into his life after a few years of showing work in “less official venues,” as Smith calls it. “There was this moment where I really needed something to change in my life. And I thought, ‘I’m going to get a show at a gallery, and then that will be Act Two of where I can go.’ And it worked! … I just walked in and said, ‘Can I get a show?’ and he said, ‘Sure,’” Smith laughs, clarifying that Swanson agreed after seeing Smith’s portfolio. “It was not an arduous process.”

One piece that’s on view in this month’s loosely heaven-and-hell-themed show is “St. Ursula,” a favorite of many who saw it in progress. Smith thinks that one worked especially well because “it was a piece that had layers of experimentation — and every layer worked.”

If there is an intentional theme running through the show, he says it’s a reflection of his collaborations with photographer/sculptor Bob Morgan. More than half of Smith’s show came from drawings Smith did over Morgan’s photographs. “Those are definitely the more homoerotic parts of the show,” says Smith. “Not all of them, because I take homoerotic photographs, too,” he adds, laughing.

Smith knows it isn’t common in Kentucky to see such bold depictions of male bodies in art galleries, but “I’ve found that people get that — I haven’t had a hard time explaining that to anyone,” he says. “It’s pretty unprecedented, but we’re just going with it and seeing what the response is going to be. And I’ve gotten exclusively positive responses from people. And largely from the feminist community, actually, who’ve been relieved to see naked men (instead of women).”

Six of Smith’s pieces have been purchased by 21c Museum Hotel, whose Louisville location features a statue of the naked David out front. Smith notes that his show goes further by depicting erect nudes. But he ensured that the effect wouldn’t seem like a cheap ploy for attention. “There’s a lot of layers to them. So you can’t say, ‘Oh, Patrick’s trying to have a hit show by having a bunch of naked men on a canvas.’”

That’s not usually a formula for a hit, he’s told. “Oh, is it not?” he laughs.

So who does he do it for? “Wild people. I’ve found that what I want people to do in front of a camera is something that is on the level of ‘wild’ that … I can call it ‘realism,’ in how I experience people in my actual life. I don’t want anything sanitized. And I’ve found that the models who know what that is are also living an extremely wild life. So they just act like themselves, and I take a picture. I know a lot of them personally.”

Is he as wild, or a voyeur capturing moments? “I’m definitely wild,” Smith says. “Yeah. Definitely.”

‘Red, Yellow, Kill a Fellow’
May 16-June 21
Swanson Contemporary
638 E. Market St.
patricksmith859.tumblr.com

Here
c. 2014 LEO Weekly

School’s out for Spanish Gold

My Morning Jacket’s drummer went to Texas and all we got was this band

Some music was just meant for the summer, and Spanish Gold’s first album, South of Nowhere, is being released on May 27 precisely because it sounds like summer. The following night will find the band (whose drummer is from Louisville, though his two bandmates are both Texans) headlining WFPK’s Waterfront Wednesday concert series, spinning ’70s and ’80s-style groove-based rock to an adoring crowd of thousands. The crowd has consistently enjoyed the drummer, Patrick Hallahan, when he has played there with his other band, My Morning Jacket.

Though he expects to see smiling faces, “A lot of people haven’t heard any of this stuff before, which I find interesting and challenging,” Hallahan laughs, joking, “Hopefully, we won’t offend too many.”

It’s his first try with a new band in over a decade, and Hallahan says it’s been fun not only because he’s gotten to try new things, but because it’s also given him new perspective on his role with MMJ that he has brought back to that band. Their upcoming album, expected out later this year, was recorded after Spanish Gold finished their debut.

Hallahan met new bandmate Dante Schwebel (guitar, vocals) when Hallahan was hired alongside members of Schwebel’s band, Hacienda, to play together as The Fast Five, the backing band of Dan Auerbach (of the Black Keys), as Auerbach promoted his 2009 solo album. “We struck up a strong bond through that,” says Hallahan, who joined MMJ in 2003. “I had in the back of my head that I’d like to do something with them at some point.”

After Hacienda broke up, Schwebel found himself with a backlog of songs he had written. He called Adrian Quesada (guitar), who has played in the bands Grupo Fantasma and Ocote Soul Sounds and owns a recording studio in Austin. Quesada was a friend of Schwebel’s going back to their high school days in Laredo (a parallel to Hallahan’s relationship with MMJ leader Jim James, who he met in grade school in Louisville). “They were the two guys who made it out of a small border town and made a musical career for themselves,” Hallahan says.

The Texans got together and made some demo recordings. Schwebel kept Hallahan up to date on their progress, and then asked if the drummer would be into playing on some songs. “I’ve loved his songwriting from the get-go, and it seemed like they were going in a great direction,” says Hallahan, who then had time on his hands while MMJ went on a break after a long tour, and as James worked on his solo album.

Suddenly, a new band was born — though Hallahan didn’t meet Quesada until the band’s first day together in the studio. They recorded in Auerbach’s Nashville studio and Kevin Ratterman’s La La Land in Louisville, starting in November 2012, where “I was flying blind,” Hallahan says, “creating with someone I didn’t know — which was part of the allure. It was supposed to be a little side recording project, but it was instantaneous, the camaraderie.”

The album has already been reviewed by Rolling Stone, whose critic noted similarities between its first single, “Out on the Street,” and the ’80s hit “Somebody’s Watching Me” by Rockwell, while also comparing Spanish Gold to the Black Keys. “It was not an intentional move,” Hallahan notes about the Rockwell rhythm. “At this point in music history, it’s really hard to do anything that doesn’t sound like something that’s already been done.”

It’s not a new experience for Hallahan, whose 2005 MMJ co-write “Off the Record” was also compared to an earlier hit song, the “Hawaii Five-O” theme.

The good news about the album is, “My mom’s having a blast with it,” he says. “It’s definitely hookier than some of the stuff I do. It’s got more of a pop element to it, I guess.”

Spanish Gold plans to tour through the summer, including a performance on “The Late Show with David Letterman” on June 3 and a set at the Forecastle Festival on July 19. “It’s definitely grown some wings,” Hallahan says, laughing as he adds, “I didn’t plan on joining another touring band. But I’m a believer in this. It’s very honest music, it’s very fun music, and it’s a complete departure from what I’ve made with My Morning Jacket.”

WFPK Waterfront Wednesday featuring Spanish Gold, The Broken Spurs and Starbilly
Wednesday, May 28
Waterfront Park, Big Four Lawn
wfpk.org
Free; 6 p.m.

Photo by Alysse Gafkjen

Here
c. 2014 LEO Weekly