Once a fantasy, new all-ages venue opens
Five rules hang on the wall at Skull Alley, Louisville’s newest all-ages venue on East Broadway: No Booze or Drugs No Re-entry Smoke Out Back Don’t Be a Jerk Rock It Like Dylan Would Skull Alley, which opened on June 16 with an art show, is the brainchild of Jamie Prott, a founding member of…
Debater-turned-emcee looks on the bright side
You could say that T. McAfee, a 24-year-old emcee from the West End, has taken the proverbial “road less traveled” on his path to hip-hop success: the debate team. Let’s back up: He’s been rapping seriously for about eight years, after having transitioned from singing R&B, which he says limited his range. He’s working on…
‘You’re talking to a miracle’
Room 131 at the Hurstbourne Lane Days Inn has been stripped of its sterility and turned into a low-lit hippie retreat, complete with incense and earth-tone tapestries that could’ve been ripped from a Grateful Dead bus. Inside, a balding Travis Meeks, 29, chats on his Blackberry in between bites of a Jimmy John’s sub. Having…
For roots rockers, tradition is the ethic
Don’t call it a throwback. It’s a new idea that’s a few more building blocks atop a solid foundation that has been present in the music world since the ’60s. In an era full of experimental music, the Louisville indie folk-rock band The Mack maintains those solid, simple grooves that can still make a body…
Ten years in, with new ground still to cover
The first thing you notice is the camaraderie, and it’s not the chumminess of casual friends. Carrie Neumeyer, Jeremy Irvin, Evan Bailey and Justin Davis have known one another far too long to keep it on that level. The dynamic is this way because each personality permits it. Irvin, 31, is the grand schemer. He…
Like a sweet disaster film, the heroes come out ahead
Car crashes! Mysterious disappearances! Money trouble! A summer blockbuster? No, just a year or so in the life of Lucky Pineapple. Not to be confused with “Pineapple Express,” which may or may not end up being a late-summer blockbuster. “Pineapple Express,” it’s also worth noting, is the name of a Lucky Pineapple song, sort of.…
A river runs through him
As scribes stumble across the page to find the cleverest description of Pokey LaFarge, it’s easy to get lost in the caricatures. Who can touch the observation from the St. Louis Riverfront Times that graces the performer’s MySpace page? “His guitar sounds like a ukulele, his voice like a transgendered punk Bessie Smith, and his…
Using the quiet country as his lab
A country road where a sole pedestrian apologizes that “Someone ran over the street sign about a week and a half ago” is a surprising place to find a professional recording studio. In Shelbyville, in a modest white farmhouse sitting on 140 acres, Paul Oldham dedicates months to producing quality albums at Rove Studio. Oldham…
The band with the identity crisis
The Town Criers could be considered the first-born child of the established but now broken-up country-folk band Fire the Saddle. They have two of the band’s members but have developed a sound uniquely their own. Mick Sullivan and Joe Burchett began by creating an “acoustic ensemble blending bluegrass, old-time and rock all driven by a…
When time is of the essence
B. Simm is a busy man. From preparing his new, untitled album for release this summer to touring with the likes of Li’l Wayne and Bow Wow, he doesn’t waste much time. With the music industry still in free-fall, he says it’s time to “get in there now. Get my family fed.” Coming off his…
This Louisvillian never leaves Broadway too far behind
This is your typical local-girl-makes-it-big story, but it’s refreshing to find that the local girl — enter Sara Gettelfinger — remains humble amid her impressive resume, ambitious and thankful to a mid-sized Southern city for giving her a start. After making her way through the ranks of Louisville’s Youth Performing Arts School (YPAS), and then…
In brief
Young Widows open Old Wounds in Sept. Young Widows singer and guitarist Evan Patterson wanted something different for the band’s follow-up to 2006’s Settle Down City. The new album, Old Wounds, was recorded with Kurt Ballou of Converge, and will be released this fall by Temporary Residence, a new York-based label run by Louisville native…
A dream team plots its patient course
In the old dairy warehouse where King’s Daughters & Sons practice hangs a fake bat. It fits the band. Singer and guitarist Joe Manning says that when he and Michael Heineman talked about starting a wholly separate endeavor from their previous collaborations in Leota, Manning’s goal veered toward the eerie: “I wanted to write ghost…
The hiatus is over
A hiatus was never what Chris Higdon planned on. When the Louisville band Elliott disbanded after its last tour in 2003, the singer and rhythm guitarist immediately went looking for the right people to form a new project, a process that ended up taking the better part of four years. Frontier(s) features Higdon again on…
Immortalizing a long lost life
Death became Matt Bauer. The story of his new record, The Island Moved In The Storm, due out Sept. 2, came after Bauer heard the 40-year-old tale of a young woman’s murder in Georgetown, Ky., west of Bauer’s hometown of Lexington. For 30 years, the girl was known as “Tent Girl,” so named by the…
Diane Williams opens up the box
Diane Williams, the creative director and lead singer for her band D.W. Box and One Long Song, reeks of a too-much-to-do-not-enough-time attitude. Sporting braided pigtails, she shakes hands with her right while balancing a handful of books and CDs in her left, ranting about the Louisville humidity. Her life has always been about music. “I…
For Ms. Simmons, third place was just the beginning
Not many people can say someone freestyle-rapped for them in the middle of an otherwise quiet coffee shop, and well, oh, that someone was a chick. Baby Loc, a Louisville female rapper, has no interest in trading her dreads, baggy clothes and tattoos for anything that shows a little more skin. She’s a “tomboy hustler,”…
Black metal therapists use change as a constant
In January 2008, Anagnorisis (pronounced Anne-Ag-Nor-A-Sis) founder and frontman Austin Lunn left the band amicably, and the remaining members turned what could’ve been a negative into a new outlook. “When Austin left, people thought we couldn’t continue,” Zach Kerr, bassist of the Louisville band, says. “But we’ve worked harder, toured longer and recorded more since…
Mentored by a funk legend, but now basically blue
A big surprise in Martin Scorsese’s new film about The Rolling Stones comes when Buddy Guy practically steals the show. The Chicago guitar-master’s song of choice? “Champagne & Reefer.” Few outside the hardcore blues sphere (and High Times subscribers) are familiar with that Muddy Waters composition. But it’s been a regular part of the setlist…
‘Generation Kill’ presents unfiltered, unbiased look at war
Generation Kill Episode 1: “Get Some” HBO miniseries, Sundays, 9 p.m., aired July 13. Starring Jon Huertas, Kellan Lutz, James Ransone, Alexander Skarsgård, David Barrera, Kasem Griego, Josh Barrett and Wilson Bethel. Synopsis: Based on the Rolling Stone articles and subsequent book by Evan Wright, this seven-part miniseries begins as Marines in the First Recon…
House of Cards – Doesn”t crime-plus-sports usually equal winning?
U of L football has careened off its collision course. It doesn’t make sense. If the Pakistani Graduate Student Theory (details below) is correct, the Cards should be BCS perennials, not rebuilding. That players are getting shot and arrested is not really the problem. If the hypothesis is legit, Cardinal prospects for the upcoming season…
Gannett Watch
In trying to reach a young, hip, web-savvy (and apparently wealthy) demographic, The Courier-Journal is preparing to launch Metromix.com — the Louisville edition — later this month. The website will provide reviews of local restaurants, bars and entertainment likely to appeal to the same audience of 21-34-year-olds targeted in the photo-laden pages of Velocity. Gannett…
What a Week
-10 Some Oldham County residents were invited to join an exclusive club last week, and it wasn’t Kiwanis: It seems some sly hate-mongers inserted racist propaganda into copies of the weekly Oldham County Era, stating, “If you are reading this you are in Klan Country. Join and support the Ku Klux Klan.” Oldham Era publisher…
High and Dry – Last weekend”s congressional trip on mountaintop removal was missing a key element: Congress
HAZARD, Ky. — It was snowing in February when we hiked to the peak of the mountain in Rick Handshoe’s backyard, about a half-hour up from his blue-on-royal-blue doublewide, burrowed in a dusty hollow in the small Appalachian community of Hueysville, Ky. Snow does strange things to a mountain range lined with the region’s elegant…
Council begins housing inquiry
The Metro Council’s oversight committee on government accountability and audit is expected Monday to begin an investigation into some $19.5 million in federal housing grants that have gone unclaimed in Louisville over the past 13 years. The unclaimed grant money — which came in the form of numerous small grants from the U.S. Department of…
Theater Reviews
LaBute’s ‘Autobahn’ takes you on a road to nowhere (The Necessary Theatre presents Neil LaBute’s “Autobahn.” Directed by Laurene Scalf. Continues July 18-19 and 25-26 at The Rudyard Kipling, 422 W. Oak St.) “Sitting in an automobile was where I first remember understanding how drama works … Hidden in the back seat of a…
Law & disorder – The family of a Louisville man who died after being Tasered blames police
It started as a fight between two brothers. But when a Louisville Metro Police officer used a Taser to subdue one of the men, the family dispute on Delaware Drive turned deadly. After being struck with 50,000 volts of electricity, Isaac Bass collapsed on the small patch of lawn in front of his family’s modest…
Staffpicks
WEDNESDAY, JULY 16 Carrolling on No, he’s not the long-lost member of Hanson (although with his hair, he would fit in), and pop isn’t his genre. Jason Michael Carroll is a country music singer from Texas, whose latest single claims he can sleep when he’s dead. It certainly seems that way. This summer he has…
Drug War – Is drug testing teens the solution, or just a knee-jerk reaction to tragedy?
It’s been a little more than a year since a student at Floyd Central High School shot two police officers and then turned the gun on himself. The boy, Tyler Dumstorf, killed Officer Frank Denzinger and severely injured Officer Joel White before firing a fatal, self-inflicted gunshot following a standoff with police. The tragedy rocked…
The Video Tapeworm – Releases through Tuesday, July 22
by David B. King and Bill Raker THIS WEEK’S TWIN PEEKS 21 2008; $24.95-$38.95, PG-13 A fun, lively and reasonably intelligent crime-caper/adventure based on the true story of MIT-ers who once out-played Vegas casinos for millions. Kevin Spacey is the stats prof who explains the strategy to starving student Jim Sturgess, putting him in the…
Aftertastes
MACCA’S FLORIDA SEAFOOD GRILL & BAR, 1315 Herr Ln., 618-2770, www.maccasgrill.com. Macca’s holds down a prime spot in the Westport Village center. Outside seating, clean restrooms and a full bar, with plenty of scurrying employees wearing matching attire, put the restaurant squarely in the upscale-casual realm. (Reviewed 6/4/08; Rating: N/A) JADE PALACE, 1109 Herr Ln.,…
Caffe Perusa is a secret that can”t be kept
Walking into Caffe Perusa is a bit of a shock — it’s true that Louisville has a diverse and reputable fine-dining scene, but to find something like this in a strip mall is unexpected. The wood floors, impeccable décor and crystal-adorned table settings in the main dining area are set off by a perimeter lined…
Music Reviews
Ready in Seconds Snow Monster! (UNITED UNICORN) Miley Cyrus ain’t got nothin’ on Mabel, the 5-year-old lead singer of Louisville’s own Snow Monster! The indie/new wave/post-punk band’s second album, Ready in Seconds, features new original material written by Mabel herself. She touches on global issues and the importance of community efforts in “Handz R 4…
Inbox — July 15, 2008
CHEAP CHAPEL SHOTS Beavis and Butthead should not be reviewing churches (regarding the “Church Hoppers” column in the July 2 LEO Weekly). If you cannot summarize (or even stay awake through) a reasonably literate sermon, don’t go to Presbyterian churches. As for the cheap shot about the pastor “high-fiving” a youngish-looking visitor — well, he…
FILM Reviews
‘Gonzo’ is honest, brutal (Starring Hunter S. Thompson, Johnny Depp, Gary Hart, Sondi Wright, Anita Thompson, Jann Wenner and George McGovern. Directed by Alex Gibney. Rated R; 1:20. Opens Friday, July 18, at Baxter Avenue Theatres. LEO Report Card: A-) Hunter S. Thompson needed out twice in his life, and both times he surrendered fully…
The Bar Belle
You might be hungover if … •After 35 minutes, you still can’t find that damn little coffee guy in The Coffee News. •You wake up with your clothes still on, contacts still in, surrounded by Taco Bell wrappers. •You’d choose a glass of water over a bottle of Grey Goose. •You can’t form compound sentences.…
Booksmart – Picks
Carmichael’s top 5 staffpicks 1) “Said the Shotgun to the Head” by Saul Williams (epic poem) — My favorite line is, “The wind is the moon’s imagination wandering.” Piercing language and imagery make this poem about love a joyous read. —Miranda Boggs 2) “The Wayward Muse: A Novel” by Elizabeth Hickey (novel, new in paperback)…
BOOKSMART
Snuff (By Chuck Palahniuk. Doubleday; 197 pp., $24.95.) I’ve always been one to give Chuck Palahniuk a break. The author of “Fight Club” and a handful of similar male-aggro novels about destroying the status quo is often called shocking, twisted, sick, infantile and, of course, chauvinistic. His new novel, “Snuff,” a quickie about an aging…
Forgotten Fiction – CLASSICS YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED
The Dog of the South (By Charles Portis. First published in 1979.) “My wife Norma had run off with Guy Dupree and I was waiting around for the credit card billings to come in so I could see where they had gone.” In another author’s hands, this opening sentence might lead straight to a lame…
Loyalty, wealth and honor in flyover country
Commonwealth (By Joey Goebel. MacAdam/Cage; 350 pp., $24.) Is this an “East of Eden” for our times? You’ve got brotherly brinkmanship, the secrets of mothers, ambitious fathers — and war and rural society are seen as two plump opportunities for exploitation. But Joey Goebel is equipped to go far beyond just the characters in a…
EDITOR’S NOTE: Sympathy for the devil
For the past several weeks I have been on the campaign trail here in Louisville, touting my unofficial run for Congress against Democratic incumbent John Yarmuth and his Republican challenger Anne Northup, whose erratic behavior and direct threats to me, a newspaper editor who is not a registered candidate in this year’s election, have thrust…
On Media – Heard about the switch?
There will be a historic moment in the not-too-distant future for the 10 percent of people still watching television with an antenna. For those of you not hip to TV-tech terms, “over the air” is how broadcasters describe the way people who don’t have cable, satellite or digital television watch, using rabbit ears to bring…
SUBURBAN TURMOIL
Just do it “To be honest, I haven’t been the slightest bit interested in sex since Amelia was born,” my friend Danielle sighed at the playground not long ago. Around me, the other moms nodded sagely. “David wants it all the time,” another mom chimed in. “I just keep telling him that I have three…
Connected Diss – Patriotism in the time of treason
As we gird ourselves for the masturbatory, chest-thumping spectacle of the nominating conventions and the election slugfest that is sure to follow, both the word and concept of patriotism will be bandied about in a most unpatriotic, not to mention nauseating, fashion. Unfathomable amounts of media real estate will be spent discussing matters of urgent…
