Cover Story
Derby traffic
It’s a cool, breezy April afternoon in Louisville, still a few weeks before the Kentucky Derby drums the city into a delightful weekend-long stupor. The preparatory pace will soon pick up to a frantic stride as this pallet of spring pastels, bourbon, lost wages and long-shots approaches. Today in west Louisville, at a Catholic Charities…
Me Vs. Music
She’s so Grand When I was 11, I met a friend who would alter my life. She was the first kid in my new neighborhood who befriended me. She — I’ll call her Nell — was also the first white person I knew outside of school. Being the new kid in a neighborhood with real…
Plugged In
Readers are strongly encouraged to call ahead to verify these listings. To get your musical act or comedian listed, send email to pberkowitz@leoweekly.com with PLUGGED IN in the subject line. The deadline is FRIDAY at NOON the week before the show happens. We do not accept listings via social networking sites. Wed apr 18…
Bar Belle: Gimme Fallout Shelter
Hipster cities like Asheville and Portland should be shakin’ in their Birkenstocks. Louisville is upping the ante with the recent openings of locabourbonvore places like Rye and Decca, and now we add another microbrewery to our belt notch. Give a warm welcome to Apocalypse Brew Works and its bar, the Fallout Shelter (1612 Mellwood Ave.,…
Book: Kirby Gann’s Southern Gothic
Louisville author Kirby Gann would like to introduce you to someone: “Shady Beck, the walker-away from dazzling car wrecks, subject of several profiles in the Pirtle Notice paper, she of the hair like vivid champagne bubbling past her shoulders, hair that seemed a celebration whenever Cole saw it freed from its usual ponytail; her gray…
No Fillers
If only the disc lived up to its title. It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what doesn’t work; it may be as simple as the effort showing so clearly. The production and topics are varied, but the seams are so evident, one can see the checklist on the wall. Sure, this is a flaw in many…
Film: Trinity alum returns with feature film
During college, Los Angeles film producer and former Trinity High School student John Paul Rice had his first taste of moviemaking while on the set of Jerry Bruckheimer’s 2000 hit, “Remember the Titans.” The acting gig had Rice playing a small role as an uncredited Titan. It seems that Rice caught the showbiz bug while…
Waste not
In between fits of spring rain, David Drummond leads a line of about 15 kids to a vacant gravel lot near 22nd Street and West Muhammad Ali Boulevard. The property, owned by neighboring Zion Baptist Church, sprouts an unruly stubble of weeds and grass. That will soon change. Carrying plastic bags filled with gladiola bulbs,…
Homemade by Woods
“I haven’t been to Louisville in years,” says Jarvis Taveniere, multi-instrumentalist for Woods. “I don’t think Woods has ever played there, actually. Me and Jeremy had an old band that played in a house … I remember a café with a cow in front or something.” Vocalist/guitarist Jeremy Earl founded Woods in 2005 and has…
Grazing the salad bars at Whole Foods and Jason’s
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, my father came home one day and announced, “Kids, we’re going to Chicago this weekend, and we’re going to a new kind of restaurant. It has the most amazing salads on a giant buffet, and you can walk right up and take whatever you want.”…
Locked Doors & Pretty Fences
In popular music, the awkward years come between 35 and 50 — too young to be a grizzled vet, too old to be hungry and fresh-eyed, just right to begin the Dad Rock years. Thankfully, Joel Henderson does a surprisingly lively variation on the genre, employing skilled accompanists to support his confident, engaged performance. While…
Top cop talks
At the end of his second week on the job, Chief Steve Conrad sits down and states he doesn’t have a plan. But the Louisville native says that’s intentional. Conrad feels it would be disingenuous to arrive back in town after six years away with a cache of crime-busting answers, like some brash, square-jawed lawman…
The Clearing
The spacious production style of past albums confined Bowerbirds to an open room: a sweet-sounding yet stationary setting for vivid music to unfold. Sensitive microphones and a homey venue proved to be the cure to decongest the airy recording. “Stitch the Hem” was laid right in its churning, upward motion of scrambling keys, guided sternly…
Swing, batter, batter, swing
Kids growing up to be baseball players in Puerto Rico revere Roberto Clemente. The Puerto Rico-to-Pittsburgh Hall-of-Famer brought great pride to the U.S. island territory. Just a year after leading the Pirates to the 1971 World Championship, Clemente died when a cargo plane he had chartered to take relief supplies to earthquake-ravaged Nicaragua went down.…
TV: D-Trix — From dance to domination
‘America’s Best Dance Crew’ MTV. Wednesdays, 10 p.m. Now entering its seventh season, MTV’s street-dance competition, “America’s Best Dance Crew,” has kept a mostly stable cast, with host Mario Lopez and regular judges J.C. Chasez, the former ’N Sync singer, and Lil Mama, the young rapper, in place from the beginning. Now in his second…
Frankfort 2012: Deja screw
Last Thursday, state lawmakers were eager to return to their families and get their citizen lives back. A spectacularly unproductive 59 days on a runaway train derailed by House and Senate redistricting maps ruled unconstitutional by the Kentucky Supreme Court had been a bumpy ride. “This is a long legislative session for us, and people…
Red Parole
A Spiderland for a new generation, Seluah’s long-gestating first full-length album is nothing short of a masterpiece. A hypothetical soundtrack for a chilling, sexed-up Nicholas Ray film noir filled with double-crossings, misbegotten sex and stolen money, Red Parole is a precise, sensual overload of cutting riffs, floating rhythms and haunting vocals. While the well-sequenced album…
Video TapeWorm
THIS WEEK’S TWIN PEEKS: CONTRABAND 2012; $21.98-$35.98; R A fun little action/crime toss-off from Mark Wahlberg, who plays a veteran smuggler pulling off one last job to save his brother-in-law from slimy gangster Giovanni Ribisi. We’re not giving anything away by telling you it all goes to hell on the docks of Panama City in…
B-sides
Harder times Corey Profumo is an actual person. That he is a person who actually raps is interesting, because he doesn’t fit the usual facades and imagery of rap these days. Partnering with producers and turntablists MacaDamien and Calcutta, guitarist Jake Kicklighter, and bassist Richard Herrell, Profumo, who operates under almost his actual name, CJ…
Bear In Heaven’s dizzy dance days
Bear In Heaven’s members live in New York now, but all grew up in the South. Drummer Joe Stickney grew up in Alabama — he’s so Southern, his mom was in a book club with Jimmy Buffett’s mom. LEO spoke with him from the band’s rehearsal space in New York on the eve of their…
Inbox — April 18, 2012
Correction In last week’s “Louisville Ballet celebrates 60” piece, dancer Mikelle Bruzina was misidentified. She is the ballet mistress. Out of Context How disingenuous, misleading and misrepresenting it is of LEO writer Joe Sonka in the “What a Week” piece from the March 28 issue. He claimed that others have accused the president of inciting…
Comedy: Pretty funny
It’s time again for “The Funny Ladies of the Ville” show. The all-girl stand-up comedy revue is stacked this year with eight of the funniest comedians in the area, all of whom happen to be female. There will also be live music by Bridge 19, an acoustic duo featuring Amanda Lucas and Audrey Cecil. Some…
Staffpicks
Through April 22 Lisa Simon & Kevin Lippy Galerie Hertz 1253 S. Preston St. • 581-8277 billyhertzgallery.com Lisa Simon loves her children. She loves them so much that she lets them draw all over her artistic livelihood when she’s finished. The resulting jumble of classical sketches and juvenile scribbles, entitled “Stratiform,” is not a fiasco,…
Stop avoiding those conversations about race
Predictably, the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman case has prompted a good percentage of Americans to once again retreat to their racial corners. When they meet to box, the fight is often old-fashioned, bad and unclean. Unfortunately, most of the public conversation on this (as usual) is driven by preachers, pundits, professional protesters, unemployed local “activists” and…
