Cover Story
Artists Under 30: Amber Bananafish, tattoo artist
For our winter Arts & Entertainment Guide, we introduce you to five local artists under the age of 30, from different areas of Louisville’s visual and performing arts scene. To see who else we selected, click here. New Albany tattoo artist Amber Bananafish has done more than 6,200 tattoos and won three awards. She’s found…
Crowd favorites, villains and WWE-style theater: A look at the Louisville Championship Arm Wrestling league
Inspired by professional wrestling, the Louisville Championship Arm Wrestling league celebrates the Monday night madness of the WWE, a genre that features definitive heroes and villains, underscored by often-melodramatic serialized storytelling. Helmed by Jon Becraft, otherwise known as Buck Dungle, and Jake Miller, the retired villain Gino Grigiot, the LCAW relies on bizarre characters to…
10 things to do under $5 this week in Louisville (1/23)
MONDAY How High the Water Was — The Flood of ’37 exhibition reception UofL Photographic Archive Free | 5-7 p.m. Don’t miss this exhibition for the 80th anniversary of the Ohio River Flood of 1937, with photographs, documents, letters, journals and other ephemera pulled from the University of Louisville archives and collections. For those interested in…
Indivisible Kentucky, new anti-Trump group in Louisville has big plans
For a gathering in a church basement on a Tuesday night, the meeting bordered on raucous. The public launch of Indivisible Kentucky was a chance to vent frustrations that had been accumulating since the presidential election. “There’s a lot we might disagree on, but the one thing we can agree on is stopping Donald Trump’s…
5 Things To Do This Weekend in Louisville (1/20)
FRIDAY Local Music Showcase: The Library After Dark Louisville Free Public Library, downtown branch Free | 6 p.m. “Six bands, two stages, three fantastic hours of live, local music!” This local music showcase at the main library downtown will include performances by Jonathan Glen Wood, RMLLW2LLZ, Justin Paul Lewis, Billy Nelson, Brooks Ritter & Band and DaMudcats. But most important,…
5 Louisville Artists Under 30
Welcome to the first Arts and Entertainment issue of the year. The larger A&E issue, with season schedules and multiple stories on local art happenings, comes out in August. But because LEO Weekly is so devoted to covering art, we decided to add another issue. This time, we introduce you to five local performing and visual…
Artists Under 30: Vay Davis, singer-songwriter
For our winter Arts & Entertainment Guide, we introduce you to five local artists under the age of 30, from different areas of Louisville’s visual and performing arts scene. To see who else we selected, click here. Despite having a million views on YouTube and a fan following in the thousands, this is one young…
Artists Under 30: Anya Androvna, drag queen
For our winter Arts & Entertainment Guide, we introduce you to five local artists under the age of 30, from different areas of Louisville’s visual and performing arts scene. To see who else we selected, click here. Before there were hosting gigs and drag performances as Anya Androvna, Tyler Murphy was a student throwing parties…
Artists Under 30: Monica Stewart, mixed-media artist
For our winter Arts & Entertainment Guide, we introduce you to five local artists under the age of 30, from different areas of Louisville’s visual and performing arts scene. To see who else we selected, click here. Paper, meet scissors. Before you think of paper doilies, imagine what an X-Acto knife, or scissors, could yield…
Artists Under 30: B. Shatter, poet
For our winter Arts & Entertainment Guide, we introduce you to five local artists under the age of 30, from different areas of Louisville’s visual and performing arts scene. To see who else we selected, click here. What’s in a name for the artist formerly known as Brandon Harrison? “I want to be able to…
Kentuckians to protest Trump, ‘we can’t afford not to go’
It is called the Women’s March on Washington, but Mickey McCoy, a retired teacher and former mayor of Inez, Kentucky, will be there with his wife, even though the trip will be difficult for them. “Economically, we can’t afford to go, but spiritually we can’t afford not to go. This will not be the last…
Thorns & Roses: The Worst & Best
Shut the fuck up and govern | Thorn Gov. Matt “Oblivious” Bevin spent $500,000 on a report that accuses the preceding Democratic administration of cajoling state workers into making political donations. The report cites, anonymously, 16 out of 33,000 workers. What a waste. How many heroin recovery beds would $500,000 have bought? No abortions for…
Louisville Video-Game Artist Brings LGBTQ Characters to Mainstream
If you’ve been browsing the iTunes App Store lately, reading about games beyond simply the top-10 list, you may have come across “Dead Century.” This role-playing, adventure game has been attracting attention thanks to the stunning art created by Ray Bruwelheide, a duPont Manual High School graduate now based in New York City. Bruwelheide describes…
Everywhere under the sun: A Q&A with James Lindsey
Hip-hop artist James Lindsey — who formerly went by JaLin Roze — will release his first album in more than three years this weekend, so we caught up with him to talk about the themes of Same Sky, Muhammad Ali’s funeral and why he scrapped an album that he recorded during the time he took…
Waiting for the turning point: Phil Anselmo discusses the first Superjoint record in 13 years
“I really thought Superjoint was just over with. And honestly in my heart, I had moved on,” former Pantera frontman and vocalist Philip Anselmo said. It’s just days before the first leg of Superjoint’s 2017 tour promoting the November release of their first album in 13 years, Caught Up in the Gears of Application. And…
b-sides
Louisville Mix Showcase: Library After Dark A celebration for the launch of the Louisville Mix — a streaming service for local music — this showcase features six bands on two stages on Friday, Jan. 20 at the Louisville Free Public Library’s Main branch (301 York St.). Hosted by 1200, the show aims to gain more…
A new jazz series
One night, a few months ago, my wife and I were hanging out on an uneventful night. The television didn’t have anything of interest to offer, so I grabbed a record and put it on the turntable. I don’t remember who the artist was — Miles, Coltrane, or Mingus maybe — but it instantly put…
‘My Big Gay Italian Mid-Life Crisis,’ fun, fast-paced
It’s rare that the mere act of walking into a theater is enough to lift my spirits. But last weekend at the Henry Clay Theatre, that’s exactly what happened. The play is Anthony Wilkinson’s “My Big Gay Italian Mid-Life Crisis,” which kicks off the second half of the season for Pandora Productions. The set design,…
Patrick Spring, ‘I’ll give you a reason to run me out of your town’
Patrick Spring’s performances stand out among his peers because he often swings from dark to cynical, while touching on profound, and landing at completely absurd — all of which might happen in a single joke. Over his 30-year career, Spring has delved into topics such as death, pet ownership and stepchildren. The Nebraska native honed…
‘Kentucky Basketball is Poetry in Motion’
“blistered asphalt on dixie highway: Kentucky Basketball is Poetry in Motion” by Ron Whitehead (Finishing Line Press; 40 pages, $14.99) Many and diverse are the audiences that have found entertainment and enlightenment in Ron Whitehead’s poly-hyphenate, artistic output. Hunter S. Thompson loved him, and so do we. Naturally, he repays this by darting over into another…
A poem by Ron Whitehead: ‘The death of small town USA’
The Death of Small Town USA remove the school and kill the town i love small towns and i sure do miss them in 1963 we had the worst coach in the history of basketball coaches but outside school my brother brad and i were blessed with the best coaches in the history of coaches yes…
With a twist: Louisville’s famous bartender Thomas Bullock
Greg Boehm owns the world’s largest collection of cocktail books — 3,800 and counting. The books are part of the research library for Boehm’s company, Cocktail Kingdom, which manufactures professional barware and reprints vintage bar literature. Several years ago, a woman contacted Boehm looking to sell a cocktail book he didn’t own — a first…
Mashed potato pizza? Try it at Charlestown Pizza Co.
Yes, mashed-potato pizza is a thing, and it is comforting and delicious, and it has bacon, too. And it’s just one of many fine pies and more at Charlestown Pizza Company. I’ve remembered Charlestown Pizza fondly since my first visit there in 2007. It’s the kind of place where I would like to visit often…
Tater tots for grown-ups
I’ve waxed nostalgic about Ore-Ida Tater Tots (it’s a trademark, so I have to satisfy the potato gods by capitalizing the first reference) in this space before, but I’m about to do it again, so please bear with me. If you’re anything like me, those classic tots were an on-again, off-again staple of youth, a…
Savage Love: Risky Fetishes
Q: I’ve never admitted this to anyone: The idea of committing suicide turns me on sexually. I recognize how crazy that is, and I want to emphasize that I’m not suicidal. I’m not depressed, I love living, and despite this sexual impulse, I don’t want to kill myself. I’m turned on by the fantasy of…
Growls and dirty looks: Surviving the bipolar vortex
“He was really nice. He said I’m not a classic case, but that I still could benefit from treatment.” My friend looked skeptical. She had flown in from Boston to stay with me after I had posted to Facebook that I was losing weight and not showering. She knows me well enough to know these…
First he came for CNN, but I… and Trump pays slappers to piss on him
I know this is going to sound weird, but I feel as if I don’t have anything to say to you this week. Praise the Lord! But forgive my scepticism. I just feel overwhelmed. Like a nightmare in which I’m struggling to stay afloat in Hurricane Bay, the waves set permanently on the Big Cahuna……
The NRA has spoken!
Louisville just buried its deadliest year ever, because of guns. Now would be the logical time for our leaders to do whatever — anything — they can to curb this gun violence. What may work for rural Kentucky and rural America just isn’t working in Louisville, and we should be allowed to take action to…
Your Voice
on goodbye 2106, hello 2017 Thanks for the fun “Goodbye 2016…” article; loved the [Sarah Lynn] Cunningham, [Chris] Hartman and [Marc] Murphy segments best, but they were all good. And thanks so much for “Snakes in the Bluegrass” — all the sleeze-ball addresses! I will certainly use them. Hang in there. [Donald] Trump is bad-mouthing…
