Cover Story
Carp attack! — fighting back with knife and fork
Bruce Ucán chuckles. A guest sitting in the dining room of Mayan Café had just uttered the words “silver carp.” The owner and executive chef has misunderstood the words, and what his ears have picked up brings him a smile. “Super-carp,” he said. “That’s a better name for it.” Asian carp, sometimes known locally as…
Punk rock inspired comedian Mat Alano-Martin comes home to The Caravan
Even though he was raised a few miles up the road in Clark County, Indiana, rocker turned stand-up comedian Mat Alano-Martin considers Louisville his hometown. He recalls a childhood of skateboarding through Louisville streets, watching “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” at The Vogue Theater and catching punk shows all over town. “ I have a…
The business of yoga: To teach or not to teach?
Should Every American Citizen Be a Yoga Teacher? That is the question a New York Times article over the weekend asks. “At yoga studios around the country, teacher training is a popular way for instructors to supplement income from one-off classes and for students to advance in skill level — to deepen one’s practice, in…
10 Things To Do Under $5 This Week In Louisville (4/08)
TUESDAY, April 9 Raised Bed Gardening Bon Air branch, Louisville Free Public Library Free | 6:30-7:30 p.m. It’s not easy being green, but Carol Wilder with UK’s Jefferson County agricultural extension office is here to help. She’ll be teaching how to create a raised bed garden. “The End of White Christian America” Louisville Presbyterian Theological…
Louder Than Life lineup: Slipknot, Ice Cube, Marilyn Manson join Guns N’ Roses
Louder Than Life has announced that in addition to Guns N’ Rose, the rest of the lineup features Slipknot, Staind, Godsmack, Ice Cube, Rob Zombie, Marilyn Manson, as well as the Louisville bands White Reaper, Knocked Loose and Anemic Royalty. More than 50 bands will play three stages from Sept. 27-29 at the festival’s new…
Exclusive: Here’s the lineup for Poorcastle 2019
This year’s Poorcastle will feature Jaxon Lee Swain, Peter Wesley, Twenty First Century Fox, Phourist & The Photons, ATOMO, The Cut Family Foundation, Lung, Typhoid Beach, Comforter, Barrel & Biscuit and many more. Now in its seventh year, the nonprofit music festival will take place from July 5-7, and it will be in a new…
Actors Theatre’s 43rd Humana Festival — reported on by a younger generation of arts journalists
The youth arts journalism program, Arts Bureau Edge, took on its most ambitious project in its 10-month existence — covering Actors Theatre of Louisville’s 43rd Humana Festival of New American Plays. Five students from duPont Manual High School, Floyd Central High School and Pleasant Ridge High School were up to learn and write about this…
LEO’s view: Black teen’s traffic stop shows why Louisville police should sharply limit the practice
A viral YouTube video showing Louisville police pulling a teenager from his car after an alleged traffic stop has prompted calls for reform, the Courier Journal has reported. Councilwoman Jackie Green told the newspaper that the stop shows how Louisville residents are “hunted down because of the color of their skin and where they live.” Read LEO’s take…
5 Things To Do In Louisville This Weekend (4/05)
SATURDAY, April 6 Chickasaw Tree Planting 3811 Hale Ave. Free | 8 a.m.-3 p.m. Get up early on a Saturday for a good cause and join 200 other volunteers in planting 150 trees in Louisville’s Chickasaw neighborhood, which is losing 10 percent of its trees each year. A light breakfast and lunch will be provided,…
Grawemeyer-winning composer speaks at UofL on sublime, grand masterpiece ‘Nomaden’
Unlike, say, the Nobel Prize for Literature, which recognizes a writer’s entire career, the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition (accompanied by a prize of $100,000) is judged and awarded to a specific composition. In the case of Dutch composer Joël Bons, whose “Nomaden” won this year’s Grawemeyer, one could say that’s a distinction without a difference.…
Guns N’ Roses to headline Louder Than Life
The legendary band Guns N’ Roses has been announced as the first headliner of Louder Than Life, the three-day hard rock festival that will take place at the Kentucky Exposition Center Sept. 27-29. More lineup announcements will follow for the festival on Monday, April 8, but booking Guns N’ Roses — which skyrocketed to fame…
10 concerts you shouldn’t miss in April
LouiEvolve April 3-7 Multiple Locations Featuring more than 50 artists over five days at 10 different events and eight different locations, LouiEvolve Hip Hop & Arts Festival is packed with talent and ambition this year. Performers include The Homies, Sasha Renee, Dr. Dundiff, Dom B and Jordan Jetson, to name just a few. LouiEvolve showcases…
Rowdy Highlands bars, city police to meet for summer planning
Neighbors of The Planet bar in The Highlands say it is too noisy, and patrons leave trash when they depart. Cathy Wright, the owner, said that she’s done what she can to appease the neighbors, including hiring two off-duty police officers on Saturdays. But, she said, it’s a “no-win battle.” This is exactly the type…
2019 legislative session: a quick look at notable bills that passed
More than 200 bills were passed in the 30 days of this legislative session. Sure, some were about interstate medical licensure contracts and other topics that we’re almost too bored to type here, let alone tell you about. But others were infuriating or encouraging and noteworthy simply because they were not laws already. Here is…
Thorns & Roses: The Worst, Best & Most Absurd (4/3/19)
‘The horse as a disposable commodity’ | Thorn Get into the mood for Derby by reading the Courier Journal’s powerful story on how Churchill Downs is among the nation’s deadliest tracks: 43 thoroughbreds have been lost to racing injuries since 2016, a 2.42 per 1,000-start average that was 50 percent higher than the national average…
Open Mike Eagle continues to fly
When I ask people if they’ve heard of the Chicago-native, Los Angeles-based rapper Open Mike Eagle, they ponder and then say something like, “I don’t think so, but I like that name.” Admittedly, I came across him only because his song “Ziggy Starfish (Anti-Anxiety Raps)” was suggested for me in a Discover Weekly playlist, and…
Louisville 33 1/3 author Michael Washburn on Tom Petty’s? Southern Accents
“There’s a Southern accent, where I come from / The young ‘uns call it country / The Yankees call it dumb.” So the late Tom Petty sang at the beginning of the title track on the album Southern Accents — recorded with his band the Heartbreakers. The 1985 release contained the hit “Don’t Come Around…
Adrian Belew on his new record, Pop-Sided
Although not often mentioned along the litany of famous Kentucky born personalities, Adrian Belew, former frontman and guitarist for legendary math rock outfit King Crimson, has Bluegrass blood pumping through his veins. “I’m actually, officially, a Kentucky Colonel now,” Belew told me proudly, chuckling. “Which I guess means I get free chicken from now on.…
Sonic Breakdown: The Ego Trippers — ‘Pretty Bird’
[LEO’s biweekly Sonic Breakdown column deconstructs a single song from a Louisville musician or band.] The Ego Trippers’ chief songwriter Zac Anderson might be young, but that’s not going to stop him from writing about experiences he’s never had. With that in mind, he penned the song, “Pretty Bird,” which, he said, is about a…
Rmllw2llz: A Different Animal
On A Different Animal, Rmllw2llz’s lyrics are dense and surgical, packed with ideas that cut to the bone of everyday struggles. His cadence is clever, and his intensity is cranked on the four-song, 15-minute EP, which scoffs at people who throw around unsolicited opinions and repeat shady actions. That might not be a new concept,…
Pleasures of the Flesh: ?Curious Pleasures
Mixing huge riffs and dense atmospheric work, Pleasures of the Flesh combines the blithe delivery of The Cure with a take on shoegaze that is wholly their own. Featuring ‘80s post-punk/new-wave attributes and a guitar sound that would be right at home on Siamese Dream, the band has composed a solid release with Curious Pleasures.…
Dr. Dundiff: The Distance
One of the greatest joys as a music writer is to experience the evolution of an artist, hearing incremental shifts in ideas, quality and tone. With The Distance, producer Dr. Dundiff continues to move his sound in jazzier directions. Although the album’s largely instrumental, Dundiff intersperses vocal appearances from K. Raydio, Touch A.C., James Lindsey…
Bendigo Fletcher: Terminally Wild
Bendigo Fletcher’s new EP Terminally Wild is reflective, direct Americana. It’s gripping, with cutting lyrics and dense sonic layers. On the surface, the album is breezy, melancholy folk, but the songs are expertly constructed, with nuanced and calculated background elements. There’s a searching sadness to the EP’s three songs that matches that heavy feeling when…
Plays on race inspire
Seventy years ago, James Baldwin wrote a piece of literary and cultural criticism so cogent and prescient about American arts and politics that it could have been written at this very moment. “Everybody’s Protest Novel” starts out as a critique of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” But it develops into a devastating critique of…
Glassblower Stephen Rolfe Powell,? a remembrance
“If I were known for anything, I would hope it would be for the color, the color choices, and what the color does,” said world-renowned glass artist Stephen Rolfe Powell. If we go by the reactions to his death on March 16 at 67 years old, then the “Godfather of Kentucky Glass” will be remembered…
How bourbon shaped our laws
“Bourbon Justice: How Whiskey Law Shaped America” by Brian Haara. Potomac Books, 182 pages $26.95 As spirits writer Fred Minnick put so well in his forward to this intriguing new book of bourbon history, “… [W]hen business titans expand, create value, and innovate, they eventually sue one another.” Over the course of the last 200…
Even the chips excel? at El Mariachi
Let me tell you why I love El Mariachi so hard: Even the chips and salsa that drop on your table the moment you take a seat are exceptional. These thick, deeply corn-flavored treats, fashioned on the premises from fresh-made tortillas, are positively addictive. They’re so crunchy that I had to look twice to persuade…
Good Vibrations: ‘Vibrator Races’ at Taj Louisville
Louisville is always coming up with innovative, often hilarious ways to entertain the masses. We’re a bit of a party town, as you likely know, and those of us who work in the spirits industry are keen on creating unique experiences. What’s even more exciting to me, though, is when bars and restaurants incorporate progressive…
Chicken Pot Pie and Decoy Red
Sing a song of sixpence, A pocket full of rye; Four and twenty blackbirds, Baked in pie. When the pie was opened, The birds began to sing; Was that not a dainty dish, To set before the king? Cooks have been filling pastry dough with savory and sweet ingredients for centuries. The famous Cornish pasty,…
Ask Minda Honey: When Will My Great Love Arrive?
In a relationship or life jam? Lemme unstuck your life — send your questions to: AskMindaHoney@leoweekly.com or reach out to me on Facebook.com/AskMindaHoney Dear Minda Honey, I’m a single lady in my late-30s. I have a nice life. I’m well-educated and have a good job, and I have a lot of really fantastic friendships that…
Savage Love: Parts and Parting
Q: I’m an adult man, and I have developed a trans attraction after following a particular Tumblr blog. That blog is now gone, sadly, since all adult content has been purged from Tumblr. It wasn’t just porn; it consisted of all the things I really enjoy—images of oil paintings and antique furniture, scenic landscapes, wild…
In 2019, how can people still be going hungry?
Nearly 100 years ago, John Steinbeck wrote “The Grapes of Wrath,” a fictionalized account of what he witnessed following migrant laborers in the American West. The passage from which the book derives its name reads: The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and…
Blame the 15 no-tax council members for painful cuts
Try to blame Mayor Greg Fischer all you want, but it’s the fault of a handful of Metro Council members that public services will be cut, and the city will be dirtier, more dangerous and less attractive as a result. The 15 council members — eight Democrats and all seven Republican council members — who…
