Cover Story
Hunter Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Louisville
Louisville. Dec. 12, 1996 Leaves gone, storm is coming, and the sky cold and low. Inside an old downtown auditorium on once-bustling Fourth Street are 2,000 fans buzzing, seated, standing, straining to see a paunchy, balding writer, late as always, finally bounce onto the stage with that weird gait of his, whiskey in hand, cigarette…
When the going gets weird: A recap of GonzoFest 2016
Michael: Like Edward Murrow and Lester Bangs, Hunter S.Thompson represented a tidal shift in how to present narrative in print. In its sixth year, GonzoFest is doing good work honoring a controversial figure for the city. In his afternoon address before welcoming keynote speakers Frank Messina and Hunter’s son, Juan Thompson, Ron Whitehead lamented that…
8 free things to do in Louisville this week (4/18)
Monday New Voices Young Playwrights Festival Actors Theatre 7 p.m. Every year, Actor’s Education and the Apprentice/Intern Company choose eight 10-minute plays written by students from around the region, and you can see all of them at Actors Theatre from April 25-26. Plays include “The Devil in Little Debbie,” “The Lie Mission” and more. Exit…
Visually Speaking: This week’s art news and events (4/18)
Art news Louisville Visual Art is seeking artists interested in applying for the Mary Alice Hadley Prize. It is an opportunity for local artists to enhance their careers with an enrichment experience. The jurors for the Hadley Prize will place heavy emphasis on the quality of the enrichment experience opportunity and how, in turn, that experience…
LEO Podcast #30: Gwen Kelly, steering committee member of the Greater Louisville Master Plan for the Arts
LEO’s contributing visual arts editor Jo Anne Triplett discusses the Greater Louisville Master Plan for the Arts with steering committee member Gwen Kelly. The public survey is online through April 30 at greaterlouisvillearts.com.
5 things to do in Louisville this weekend (4/15)
FRIDAY Turnabout Play Donations; 7 p.m. Leave your inhibitions and work-week woes at the door for this amazing drag show at Play. This time around, the lovely queens of Play will share the stage with a few others, including the Kentuckiana Pride Foundation, Derby City Bears, Louisville AIDS Walk, Powered with Pride and more. It’s…
Listen: Stream Dick Titty Blood Punch’s new EP, ‘Hang in There’
Stream Dick Titty Blood Punch’s new EP Hang In There — six blistering punk anthems that will be released on Friday, April 22 on Little Heart Records — via the Soundcloud widget below. Hang In There is irreverent and furious, with an abundance of broken give-a-fucks, in the form of lightning-quick songs that are witty,…
Defining Five: Bryan Puckett, Matt Fulks, Ryan Hater, Vane and Jenni Cochran discuss songs that have had an impact on them
Defining Five is a series at Haymarket Whiskey Bar, where, each month, five people from the Louisville music community pick five songs that have moved, inspired or impacted them and then play them during a DJ set. After each event, LEO Weekly will publish an interview with all five to get some context as to…
Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show on Merle Haggard, puking in a hotel elevator in Louisville and ‘Wagon Wheel’
Everyone knows Old Crow Medicine Show, and even if you don’t, you know the song. That song. The song that is being played constantly by every bar band in every hole-in-the-wall in America, as we speak … yep, they’re the ones responsible for ”Wagon Wheel.” Hell, even Hootie covered the song in this country tinged…
GonzoFest Literary Competition: Honorable Mentions
The following are two honorable mentions from the GonzoFest Literary Competition. Read the winner, The Bridges Are Burning in Dub-V, here. Trump’s Amerikkka by Aramie Louisville Vas I leave the house on the morning of March 14. I’ve got a bag packed. Contents: liquid antacid for tear gas in the eyes. Mineral oil for pepper spray…
GonzoFest Literary Competition Winner: The Bridges Are Burning in Dub-V
The winner of the 2016 GonzoFest Literary Journalism Contest is Kevin D. Smith, a West Virginian known as OK Osborne. He is an adjunct professor who “(mostly) enjoys life burning up the roads between the Blacksburg, Athens and Beckley in a lifted Wrangler, which he parks in Princeton at night, sleeping snug as a bug…
‘When it’s bad, it’s funny’: ?Zia McCabe of the Dandy Warhols talks about ‘the most well-adjusted band in America.’
Twenty-five minutes into the documentary film “Dig!”, Dandy Warhols lead singer/guitarist Courtney Taylor-Taylor is eating a sandwich. You can deduce that they’ve stopped to refuel at a fast food joint because of the plastic straw and cup in his hand, and by bandmates Zia McCabe and Peter Holmstrom (off-camera) behind him chatting over french fries.…
20 Years of ‘Trace’: Catching up with Jay Farrar
It was the mid-‘90s when Jay Farrar, in the acrimonious ashes of the influential Uncle Tupelo (which he co-founded with Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy), found himself to be a man without a band. Soon he’d built a new avenue for his creativity in Son Volt. They burst on the scene in 1995 with the release…
A GonzoFest music lineup breakdown
Frederick The Younger (2–2:30 p.m.) A folk-rock band that veers into low-fi indie, Frederick The Younger combines vintage pop tropes and modern experimental sensibilities, creating something that feels both familiar and new. With two singers and a band that can move in a lot of different directions, Frederick The Younger is a great way to…
Nellie Pearl: Lonesome No More!
(self-released) As evidenced on Lonesome No More!, Nellie Pearl has seemingly perfected their blend of rootsy indie pop that mashes a guitar, a fiddle and a stand-up bass with Rachel Lauren Monroe’s delightful voice. She reminds me of a young Kate Pierson from The B-52’s. Her charming, simplistic vocal melodies have a sense of fortitude…
I Have A Knife: Stupid and Futile Gestures
(self-released) There are few bands that live up to their name quite so much as I Have A Knife. That’s not to say that they definitely have said knife, but given their sonic assault, they might. This is music designed to make you scream at your enemies and rage out in the best, most highly-energetic…
Filthy Rich: Nightscapes
(Us Natives) There is proof in advertising, or at least such is the case on the newest collection by hip-hop producer Filthy Rich. With Nightscapes Filthy has gotten into some darker territory, with a sound that skews at times with the ’90s production of the Chemical Brothers, to the subtle creep of Nine Inch Nails,…
Asm A Tik: Language Art
(28:48) To listen to the music of Asm A Tik is to embrace a kind of righteous insanity, that buzzing energy that powers you after your second or third cup of coffee. That same kind of unrestrained intensity is coursing through the music here, in a way that simultaneously engages and challenges. Perhaps it’s the…
Radio for the city
My first pledge drive at WFPK 91.9 was one of the oddest experiences of my life. Nothing actually zany happened — nothing out of the ordinary anyway — but it was the first time that I ever stepped out in front of a large audience, albeit hidden in the dark corners of your radio, and…
‘I Bet on the Nag’ is a sure thing
On a Bunbury Theatre set that looks quite like a Churchill Downs box (thanks to Hanna Allgeier’s design and chairs donated by the track itself), a disheveled handicapper, betting slips jutting from his fedora’s hat band, scrutinizes past performances and tip sheets. It’s a peaceful morning some days before the Kentucky Derby. The celebrities, paparazzi…
Mitch Fatel: ‘I don’t think there’s ever too much to say on sex’
He’s a little bit naughty, but his boyish charm makes it hard to be mad at him. Mitch Fatel is an easily recognizable face with an almost impish delivery that is unmistakable. His career was launched while working for Howard Stern. Stern noticed Fatel’s penchant for the hilarious and the dirty and championed him as…
‘Indentured’ — Is NCAA a cartel that promotes unconscious racism?
The NCAA is a nonprofit organization that pulls in over $900 million a year in revenue for governing and operating college athletics in America. New York Times sports business columnist Joe Nocera calls it a cartel in his new book, “Indentured: The Inside Story of the Rebellion Against the NCAA,” written with Ben Strauss. It…
Hope springs, Bats fans hope the wait isn’t eternal
Hope springs eternal, and Louisville Bats baseball fans are surely hoping for better things this season. Hoping that after a string of bleak years, a new team, stocked with new players, will return to winning ways at Slugger Field. Louisville began the 21st century with a bang, opening a beautiful new ballpark and inking a…
We swim in delicious marinara at Silvio’s
If you want to get to know marinara sauce the way that marinara sauce ought to be, I recommend getting it from a man who makes it by the five-gallon bucket. If that man happens to be Bill “Silvio” Melillo, you are definitely on the right track. Melillo, patriarch of the family that brought us…
Tasty Kentucky ?beer cheese that is good on everything
I like food with a story behind it, and Howard’s Creek Authentic Beer Cheese is one such food. It’s also pretty delicious, which doesn’t hurt. In fact, just a few weeks back, Howard’s Creek cheese won Best of Show and Best American Original at the third annual Big Cheese Fest in Ohio. That’s out of…
Guns: How are you gonna’ keep the peace when you can’t even keep your cool?
I was but a mere tyke in a low-tier Catholic grade school in 1989 when the bats broke loose from Joseph Wesbecker’s belfry as he entered the belly of Standard-Gravure in Louisville with a duffel bag fat with over 1,000 rounds of ammo and an array of peace-makers, hunting utensils and home defense mechanisms, leading…
Little Fish — Big Fish
In North Carolina, the state Legislature passed a bill to prevent local governments from passing laws or ordinances protecting citizens from discrimination. The action, pushed forward by the Republican-controlled state chambers and signed into law by Gov. Pat McCrory, is only one of many examples where much of the electorate failed to pay attention to…
Ramsey’s defenders echo Catholic Church cover-up
After recently watching the Oscar-winning movie, “Spotlight,” it occurred to me that the turmoil surrounding University of Louisville President James Ramsey rings eerily similar to the Catholic Church’s child sex-abuse scandal. Supporters of the current administration, Ramsey and his executive staff insist that nobody should question or criticize them because that would hurt the university’s…
Your Voice
On “Louisville’s Fake Issue” Just saw the @leoweekly April 1 event listings featuring the @LouOrch. Lol — but this is the kind of thing I’d do 🙂 —Teddy Abrams, @teddyconducts on “Historic preservation or hysteric?” This is a problematic piece, Mr. Yarmuth. It ignores the good these ordinances have done and gives ammunition to those…
