Cover Story
Static star
When Avonti Garrett picked up her husband from the airport, it was almost always a happy time. For extended periods he would be away recording, writing or producing a song, but would rush home for even the shortest reunions with his wife and three children. Avonti got used to life as the wife of Stephen…
WEB EXCLUSIVE: Stimulating the bluegrass
Gov. Steve Beshear and Mayor Jerry Abramson held a joint press conference in Louisville yesterday to outline how the state and the city plan to spend their portion of President Barack Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package. Kentucky will receive $3 billion in federal stimulus money over the next 28 months that will help fund a…
Old boots, new laces
In the 1960s, Mickey Clark’s world revolved around the Night Owl Café, the same New York headquarters where The Lovin’ Spoonful, Blues Magoos and James Taylor’s group The Flying Machine boosted their pop influence. “It seemed like it was a lot more sitting down after the show and getting together and picking and trading the…
Hold Time
Matt Ward is lining up to inherit T. Bone Burnett’s mantle as go-to man for folk-inflected alt sounds. Consider Ward’s last couple years: career-best Post-War, a surprise hit with Zooey Deschanel as She & Him, and stellar guest work on Jenny Lewis’s solo album. On his newest disc, Ward’s more comfortable than ever peddling his…
NGH WHT (The Dead Emcee Scrolls)
Saul Williams’s 2006 book has now been set to music by composer Thomas Kessler and performed by the Arditti String Quartet, with vocals, of course, handled by the author. Williams is one of the premier poets of this generation, who treats the art form not as a museum piece but as a modern, living thing,…
Endless vocation
What are a few days of school? It’s not like you’re going to miss anything. There’s a legislative push to waive up to 10 school days that Kentucky children missed thanks to hurricane winds and unrepentant ice. The lawmaker who filed the bill was quoted as saying, “We don’t want to push the school year…
Workers
Workers (nee Your Black Star) are a power trio in every possible sense: complex, loud and bold on their self-titled follow-up to last year’s Beasts EP. It defies all sense that so many conflicting influences mesh so effortlessly. The bag of tricks seems bottomless: unadorned but effective acoustic strums, biting hard-rock riffs that echo Josh…
Trading blame
When police responded to a report of a double shooting at a west Louisville home on May 18, 2006, they found Earon Harper sprawled on the living room floor, face down in a pool of blood. The 41-year-old woman was not breathing and her body was cold — it was clear she was already dead.…
Locavore Lore
It’s a cold, snowy February day in our fair city, and just when you think finding fresh, affordable local produce would be impossible, remember this: It’s actually even closer to you than your neighborhood farmers market. As with all things locavore, the good news just gets better: Not only can you easily and affordably find…
The predators
Five years ago, purchasing a home was a priority for Tonia Nolden. After moving from Atlanta to Louisville with her twin daughters, the community organizer got engaged, and thanks to a healthy credit score, she was quickly approved for a home loan. “Moving into one place together as a married couple and starting a new…
Dear John
Emil Svanagen performs your standard-issue indie pop. There’s something about Scandinavian musicians in general and Swedes in particular that makes them veritable geysers of this stuff. Some of it is spectacular, some of it is god-awful. Loney Dear falls somewhere in between, but ultimately comes up short. Tastefully played, subtly performed, Svanagen’s latest opus begins…
Touch down
Louisville’s best independent bands might as well be inside Corey Rusk’s Chicago warehouse, suffering along with him. Last week Rusk announced that Touch & Go, his label of 28 years, which released Slint’s landmark, Spiderland, and numerous records by Shipping News, Rachel’s and Dead Child, will lay off an unspecified number of employees and shut…
Recently reviewed in LEO
Our Best Restaurant, 2835 Holmans Ln., Jeffersonville, (812) 288-8133, www.ourbestrestaurant.com. This family-owned business started as a single eatery in Smithfield, Ky., and has grown to a mini-chain of three. American, homestyle cooking in big portions for reasonable prices. (Reviewed 1/21/09; Rating: N/R) Perkfection Café & Bar, 359 Spring St., Jeffersonville, (812) 218-0600. Downtown Jeffersonville’s Perkfection…
Staffpicks
Thursday, Feb. 26Kentucky Girlhood Project The Rudyard Kipling422 W. Oak St.www.kygirlhoodproject.blogspot.comFree; 7:30 p.m. I was born and raised in Kentucky. And I’m a girl. But even if I weren’t a chick from the bluegrass, I still would recommend checking out “The 2009 Kentucky Girlhood Literacy and Performance Night” at The Rudyard Kipling. The evening will…
The Bar Belle
So last week I stumbled into the U of L Playhouse to catch a production of “The Vagina Monologues.” As I watched the cast pontificate on everything their vajayjays might say, I felt a slight pain in the upper-right quadrant of my abdominal cavity. My liver was jealous. It wanted its turn at the mic;…
A presidential press conference for Black History Month
Wolf Blitzer: Good morning, this is Wolf Blitzer. President Barack Obama has called an unexpected Black History Month press conference to, in his words, “Commemorate the occasion, honor Carter G. Woodson and do the right thing.” He used no speechwriters for this. Apparently, administration officials have no idea what he’s going to say. Let’s go…
Video TapeWorm
THIS WEEK’S TWIN PEEKS: ASHES OF TIME REDUX 1994; $28.95-$39.95, R Director Wong Kar Wai’s epic Kung Fu masterpiece, now digitally restored and re-edited by Wong, and re-scored by cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Leslie Cheung plays a brokenhearted man living alone in the desert, a legendary figure who brokers deals between skilled swordsmen and those seeking…
Five important questions: The Watson Twins
Chandra and Leigh Watson water their Louisville roots March 3 at Headliners (1386 Lexington Road, 584-8088, www.headlinerslouisville.com) supporting Ben Kweller. The all-ages show starts at 7 p.m. and costs $15. Ladies … LEO: Reincarnation, pro or con?Watson Twins: I would say pro, but guess that depends on what you come back as. LEO: Is identity…
Up in smoke
The vista from Eboni Cochran’s west Louisville house affords the viewer marvelous clusters of trees and a gentle, sloping road flanked by nicely kept ranch-style houses characteristic of the Chickasaw Park neighborhood. If one squints, the picaresque cliché of the American suburb bears in full. The trees, the tidy driveways, the park itself — and…
Sangria
Featuring musicians from the bands Sun Ra, Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters and Ancient Future, Mariah Parker’s debut blends rhythmic syncopations of Latin jazz, hypnotic East Indian cadences and driving Brazilian and Afro-Cuban percussive beats. Although entirely instrumental, Sangria speaks. Maybe it’s the technical virtuosity abounding in the multiplicity of sounds — in the santur or sarangi,…
Film: ‘Wendy and Lucy’ shows solitude, desperation
(Starring Michelle Williams, Will Patton, John Robinson, Will Oldham and Walter Dalton. Directed by Kelly Reichardt. Rated R; 1:20. Starts Friday at Baxter Avenue Theatres. LEO Report Card: A-) Sometimes it’s easy to forget that film is a viable art form. You see too many “He’s Just Not That Into You”s and wonder why you…
Book: Passion unbound
‘The Robert and Diane Miller Collection’Feb. 25-May 29Kain Rare Books GalleryU of L’s Ekstrom Librarywww.louisville.edu/library Collectors across the world tend to have one thing in common: a fixation on the appreciation of value. They crave the hunt, the chase, the challenge. Just as there are Bordeaux collectors with no plans to uncork their wine…
Inbox — Feb. 25, 2009
Eyesore Drivel The Eyesore section from the “Oh! Oh! Oh!” issue (LEO Weekly, Feb. 11) was certainly a startling bit of exposé. This “ghastly” (i.e. not very Victorian) and “unsafe” (i.e. my kids are off the hook!) property … and “on a block of impressive homes in the Highlands”?! Look around — this is pretty…
Classical Music: Copland House jumps from Old World to New
Music From Copland HouseSunday, March 1Comstock Hall, U of L School of Music852-6907www.chambermusiclouisville.org$25 ($5 students); 3 p.m. The key to Copland House is in the playlist. Sunday at U of L, the chamber music ensemble Music From Copland House presents a program of four famous American composers: Currier, Copland, Prokofiev and Dvorak. Hey, wait…
Art of Field Recording, Vol. II
This four-disc set, the brainchild of archivist Art Rosenbaum, is a staggering collection of American roots music performed by amateur musicians in nonprofessional recording environments. Disc one, Survey, is arguably the best and most accessible. It comprises bluegrass, country blues, instrumentals and old-time Appalachian tunes that underline the connection between American roots music and European…
