Cover Story
Girls Rock Louisville: It’s about more than the music
If you’re plugged into the scene in Louisville, you’ve no doubt heard the name “Girls Rock.” If you’re like me, maybe you have a vague notion of some rock-and-roll, girl-power summer camp. But last week, LEO dug deeper, watching as the campers first got dropped off last Monday morning, checking in on the bands midweek,…
Watch Brenda’s video for ‘Night School’
Last year, Brenda released one of the best Louisville records of 2016 with Night School, a string of grunge-pop songs littered with golden-hooks, punk attitude and genre-bending ideas. Today, they released a video for the title track — three and a half minutes of what seems like a John Hughes movie that grew up and…
Tell us what our new Readers’ Choice categories should be
It is almost that time to start voting for your favorites (Aug. 9), but before we open the polls, we thought we would ask you to suggest new categories or changes to existing ones. Send your suggestions to leo@leoweekly.com. To see the full list, go to leoweekly.com/web. Arts & Music Best Festival Best Art Gallery…
Modern Experts: A Q&A with Weekend Wedding Warrior owner Maggie Heely
Though there are certainly those brides and grooms who make planning their own weddings look effortless, for best results, it seems the wise thing to do is bring in a planner or coordinator for your big day. Maggie Heely is the owner of Weekend Wedding Warrior, a wedding coordination firm that takes care of everything…
10 things to do under $5 this week in Louisville (6/26)
MONDAY Freak Out at Free Stage Mag Bar Free | Sign up at 7:40 p.m. Free Stage is an open mic night where you’re invited to “show your soul and unleash your inner freak!” So whether you are a singer, rapper, poet, dancer, magician, comedian or visual artist, you can get on stage and strut your…
Best of the Web: Kentucky now on a travel ban list, proving pulpit politics are bad for business
Recently, I wrote that Republicans are caught trying to be both the party of business and the party of Judeo-Christian values, but the two have become incompatible. In state after state, when Republican-controlled state governments have engaged in socially-conservative, pulpit politics, it has hurt business. We now see that happening here in Kentucky. Citing anti-LGBT…
Shakes on a plane: Airplanes keep interrupting Shakespeare in the Park, so actors improvise
Fans of Kentucky Shakespeare know the feeling. You’re sitting in the park, enjoying a show performed by the oldest, free Shakespeare company in America. Suddenly, there’s a distant rumble. Thunder? No. A train on the near by tracks, no… Look! Up in the sky! The rumble gets louder, the audience’s eyes snap back to the…
LEO Podcast #51: Ken Herndon talks about Alley Gallery
LEO’s contributing arts editor Jo Anne Triplett talks with Ken Herndon, Louisville Downtown Partnership’s Special Projects Coordinator, about Alley Gallery, an outdoor gallery comprised of art on metal doors in alleys.
5 Things To Do This Weekend in Louisville (6/23)
FRIDAY David Lynch: The Art Life at Speed Cinema (June 23–25) Speed Cinema $9 | Times vary If you have a penchant for the odd, the strange and the unsettling, then you’re probably a fan of David Lynch. In this documentary, you get to explore the life of the auteur through his “art, music, and…
News Of The Weird: bizarre-but-true news from around the world (6/19)
Advertisers Are Coming for You The New York Times reported in May that the “sophistication” of Google’s and Facebook’s ability to identify potential customers of advertisements is “capable of targeting ads … so narrow that they can pinpoint, say, Idaho residents in long-distance relationships who are contemplating buying a minivan.” Facebook’s ad manager told the…
New Kentucky’s Elegy vs. old Jefferson Davis debate
If you are a native Kentuckian (or live here) and haven’t read J.D. Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy,” you should. Vance’s bestseller deftly relays his analysis of how hillbilly culture encourages “social rot.” Vance’s work echoes the commonly-held belief that “flyover” states have a culture that is conservative, backward-looking and racist. Unfortunately, many of these areas confirm…
Put the greatest at the capitol, not the greatest traitor
One of the most transcendent joys of my life after politics has been shedding the language of compromised rhetoric and timid talking points. Within a few months of leaving public office, I jumped at the chance to publish progressive pieces with full throated defenses of marriage equality and legalized hemp, both at the time exceedingly…
Louisville lost a passionate advocate with the passing of Branden Klayko
“I like cities. And architecture. And urbanism, design, and history. Find me @brokensidewalk” That is how Branden Klayko’s profile on Twitter reads. What is missing is that he also loved Louisville and showed it by working to make it a better place through his must-read blog Broken Sidewalk. Klayko has died at 33 after a…
Thorns & Roses: The Worst, Best & Most Absurd
‘Get the comfy chair!’ | Thorn UofL basketball coach Rick Pitino will miss five games as a penalty for the hookers-for-players scandal. That is right: teenagers supplied with prostitutes. UofL says the penalty is unfair because Pitino did not know about the hookers. But we say he should have known. He is either incompetent or…
Esmé Patterson talks about learning to trust her songwriting vision
Esmé Patterson slices up mellow, ’70s folk and retro soul to piece around her clever, ambiguous lyrics, ending up with something that lives on the outskirts of pop. Patterson, who used to be in the folk collective Paper Bird, has released three solo albums, the most recent being last year’s We Were Wild. Now, she…
Eagles of Death Metal and other concerts to catch this week
Tristen Zanzabar Saturday, June 24 Tristen Gaspadarek is an indie-rock, shapeshifting songwriter, whose sharp lyrics are in the center of a constellation of instrumental ideas, from nostalgic California sunshine rock to dark twangy singer-songwriter to bursts of synth-pop. For only having a few albums out, the Nashville-based Gaspadarek has established herself as a chameleon, able…
For What It’s Worth
“There’s something happening here / What it is ain’t exactly clear” are the two lines that begin Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth,” a song that seems to pop up any time there is any sort of upheaval in the world. And it pops up often. Of course, it also helps that it’s got a…
KY Shakes’ ‘Caesar,’ after political controversy in NYC
In the fall of 1937, Orson Welles selected Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” as the first production at this newly-founded Mercury Theater. He subtitled the production, “Death of a Dictator,” and dressed his cast the clothes and uniforms of Fascist Italy. New York Times theater critic Brooks Atkinson noted that the manner and appearance of the Caesar…
Jessica Michelle Singleton: ‘Nothing is off limits as long as it’s funny’
Humor can sometimes be found in the darkest of places. Such as an 8-year-old girl abandoned by her father in a Waffle House. Ask comedian Jessica Michelle Singleton. Her stream-of-consciousness brand of comedy led Los Angeles’ legendary club The Comedy Store to offer her the coveted honor of being a “Paid Regular.” Recently, Singleton released…
Happily graze at hiko-A-mon
When I go to a Japanese restaurant, I generally love to pull right up to the sushi bar. I can hardly imagine a more immersive entry into the world of Japanese cuisine than sitting right across the table from the sushi chefs, with the striking colors of beautiful, fresh fish and other edible delights lined…
The tastiest shrimp on earth
Each year, I travel to Gulf Shores with friends for a week-long beach vacation. And each year, I eat my weight in seafood; as someone who loves to eat, it’s half the reason I vacation near the ocean. Three years ago, I had my first taste of something I had previously never heard of: Royal…
Ask Minda Honey: Abusive boyfriend… help!
In a relationship or life jam? Lemme unstuck your life: AskMindaHoney@leoweekly.com. Hi, Minda Honey! Here’s a tricky question for you. I have a friend who is in a terrible on-off relationship with a complete son of a bitch. He cheats on her, abuses her emotionally, abuses her financially, breaks stuff in fits of rage and…
Savage Love: Sneakers
Q: I am a 34-year-old straight woman. I’m monogamous and have an avoidant attachment style. I’ve been seeing a guy I really like. He’s just my type, the kind of person I’ve been looking for my whole life. Thing is, he’s in an open relationship with someone he’s been with for most of his adult…
Pity the politician who suggests a compromise
My baseball glove sits in a closet, the leather dry and cracked. It has been there for several years now, since I last played on the Democratic congressional baseball team. Played is a bit of an exaggeration, since my game participation consisted of one futile at-bat and a few turns as a pinch runner. Still,…
Mark Marvelous
Mark Marvelous was that type of cat who would write out a recipe for napalm on the inside of a White Castle bag and sell it to a kid for five bucks laid out in quarters, knowing full well the only two things that would burn in that transaction were the greasy paper it was…
Councilman Dan Johnson must go
By now, we all know about the latest behavior of Metro Louisville Councilman Dan Johnson. Allegations have been made by two women that he inappropriately touched or flashed them — both incidents that Johnson says were accidental. Now, he is threatening the women with legal action. But then there is his past: banned from all…
Who got hurt at UofL?
All Hail UofL? … No. Aw hell, UofL. On the cover of The Courier-Journal on June 10, a damning story about the years-long, systematic, secretive abuse by ex-UofL President James Ramsey and his top officials… while on page 10, a story about UofL suspending its climate action and sustainability program because of budget cutbacks. Award-winning…
Your Voice
on: So we understand why they were built — Civil War monuments in Kentucky … Thank you for the article and all your comments that complicate my understanding. On my dad’s side, my grandfather’s namesake was a Union general out of Pittsburgh. Alexander married my Southern-belle grandma, Annie Pearl, from South Carolina. Pearl was a…
