Cover Story
Dustin Staggers: The restaurant machine keeps rolling
Dustin Staggers looks like a guy you’d run into at the gym or at a club quaffing an energy drink and killing time with his buddies. But beneath a relatively casual demeanor, he’s a mile-a-minute restaurant juggernaut who is constantly on the tail of his next project. When I caught up with Staggers a few…
LEO spoke with Todd Snider about the upcoming Hard Working Americans album, the board game that will come with it and clearing up some recent misunderstandings
A couple of weeks ago I spoke with Todd Snider, a singing, songwriting guitarist and uniquely wonderful entertainer. I’ve seen Todd perform numerous times and it’s never the same show — it’s just consistently a good trip. Snider takes audiences on spiritual and emotional journeys with his solo show and blasts crowds into the cosmos…
LEO Playlist 6/15
1) “Old West Side” by The Tillers, who will be at Zanzabar on Friday, June 19. 2) “D.B. Cooper” by Todd Snider, who will be at the Kentucky Center on Thursday, June 18. 3) “DEATHCAMP” by Tyler, the Creator, who will be at Mercury Ballroom on Tuesday, June 16. 4) “The Last Pale Light in…
Visually Speaking: this week’s art news and events (6/15/15)
[The above image is “Any Day in June” by Jeana Klein at Carnegie Center.] Art news E&S Gallery, 108 S. 10th St., has been named one of the Best 25 Galleries in America and the Best Gallery in Kentucky for 2015 by the American Art Awards (eandsgallery.com). Correction to June 8 art news: The Filson…
Louder Than Life announces lineup, date and location
Louder Than Life returns to Champions Park for its second year on Saturday and Sunday, October 3-4, with Rob Zombie, ZZ Top, Godsmack, Shinedown, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Slash and more. This year the festival is adding a fourth stage and will feature live WWE NXT matches. And, once again, the festival will have local, regional and…
8 local metal bands that you should be listening to
Louisville has always been known as a thriving music city, although, traditionally, the heavier music has revolved almost exclusively around punk and hardcore. In the last few years, a well-rounded and eclectic metal ecosystem has come to life, abounding in quality groups, from a wide spectrum of metal’s many sub-genres and styles. For those who…
Louisville’s first needle exchange opened Wednesday
Louisville Metro’s needle exchange program hopes to curb the spread of infections and diseases such as Hepatitis C and HIV with their new mobile needle exchange unit, which will be open five days a week at the corner of 400 E. Main St. Clean needles, Hepatitis C and HIV testing, along with resources for drug…
2015 Summer Dining Guide
Price Range: $$$$ = Fine Dining; $$$ = Higher; $$ = Moderate; $ = Cheap Eats Amici Cafe 316 W. Ormsby Ave., amicicafelouisville.com, 637-3167 Neighborhood: Old Louisville/UofL Cuisine: Italian Open: Lunch Mon.-Fri.; Dinner Mon.-Sat.; Closed: Sun. Reservations: Yes Outdoor Seating: Yes Delivery: No Take Out: Yes Price Range: $$ Q: What makes your restaurant unique…
2015 Summer Dining Guide: Our favorite local appetizers, pizzas, dessert cocktails, donuts and more
Nine local appetizers that will make you make orgasm noises By Kevin Gibson The appetizer is an odd thing; it’s something you eat to make you hungry enough to eat something else. I get it, because it stimulates the appetite, but what happens if the appetizer is better than the meal? I’ll tell you what…
Friday night at the Ballpark
Summertime rolls around, and the Louisville Bats are winning. Not clubbing majestic home runs, or throwing one-hit shutouts, but winning. That’s good news for a baseball franchise that has been mired in a three-year losing slump. And a fine thing to bring to a night in June at Louisville Slugger Field — winning, with a…
Don’t look back: A Q&A with Wire
Too punk for the art kids and too art for the punk kids, Wire never fit neatly into a box. Formed in London in 1976, the group released a trifecta of perfect albums — the seminal debut “Pink Flag,” 1978’s “Chairs Missing” and the eclectic “154” the next year — before taking a sabbatical to…
b-sides: Imagine Dragons
The Grammy Award-winning band Imagine Dragons is set to bring their “Smoke+Mirrors” tour to Louisville in support of the album of the same name. The band was formed in 2008 in Provo, Utah, when singer Dan Reynolds and fellow Brigham Young University student, Andrew Tolman, recruited a few comrades and family members. Eventually they moved…
Speed of Sound
The Weekly Feed is over. Start doling out all of the food metaphors about scraps at the table, stick a fork in it, et cetera, et cetera. While I don’t mean to make light of its demise, others seem to be bothered by it much more than me. It’s not that ending it doesn’t resonate with me,…
Plugged In (June 10 – June 16)
WED Jun 10th 8Up: DJ Matt Anthony; 7:30 p.m. Baxter 942: Full Contact Karaoke; 10 p.m. Decca: Twin Talk, Lindsay Sant; 9 p.m. El Nopal (Crestwood): Nick Nichols Fiesta Mexicana: Mickey Clark Trio; 6:30 p.m. Gerstle’s Place: Kimmet & Doug; 9 p.m. Goodwood Brewing: Open Mic Night; 7 p.m. Headliners: Wire, Julian Lynch, The Wrists;…
THEATER: A riveting ‘Tempest’ storms Central Park
By the end of his career, Shakespeare wielded the sort of transformative power that alchemists dreamt of in their workshops. His narratives started to bend, fold and mutilate the base genres of theater — comic romance, revenge dramas, historical fiction — into exotic structures never before seen, plays filled not only with beautiful language and…
BOOK: Louisville author plots ‘Murder on the Cherokee Reservation’
Eighth Mask by Charles Suddeth (Library Tales Publishing (Library Tales Publishing; 317 pgs., $17.99) This Louisville author has already delivered a variety of tales: historical suspense novella “Halloween Kentucky Style,” YA tech thriller “Experiment 38” and now a novel subtitled “Murder on the Cherokee Reservation.” The story is launched with an apparent (though not certain)…
COMEDY: Comic showdown: 4 cities, 4 clubs, 1 winner
As Summer creeps in, most people are getting ready for the summer festival season to kick-off — beer festivals (Casks for a Cause, Derby City Brew Fest, Highlands Beer Festivals or Brew at the Zoo), food festivals (Alltech Craft Brews and Food Fest, Blues & Barbecue Festival or Kinfolks Soul Food Festival), music festivals (Forecastle,…
Video Tapeworm
THIS WEEKS TWIN PEEKS CHAPPIE 2015; $22.98; R The films of writer/director Neill Blomkamp (“District 9,” “Elysium,” et cetera) are informed by the crime, poverty and misery that permeate his homeland of South Africa — and this film may be his masterpiece. A childlike artificial intelligence (Sharlto Copley), created by computer genius Dev Patel against…
We experience India at Shandaar and Kashmir
India! To Western eyes, it is one of the most exotic of lands. India seems very far away, and yet it is strangely familiar in ways that draw us in. In your mind’s eye, think about the Taj Mahal in moonlight: Those shimmering white marble domes look like nothing you’d ever expect to see in…
Meat sandwich vs. wheat sandwich
A couple of years ago, my friend Joanna introduced me to the vegan stylings of Kristina Addington, a local chef who was at the time on the cusp of winning a segment on the Food Network’s “Cutthroat Kitchen,” which she has since parlayed into V-Grits, the city’s first vegan food truck. At the time of…
Huckabee’s take on Caitlyn
The most beautiful thing you can do for someone is to be kind. I don’t mean this simply as a gesture — masking what you’re really thinking — but to honestly approach and treat people with deference and love in the place of judgment. However, this is not always possible in the face of cruelty.…
Political class, ass and backlash
To clarify any confusion, let me affirm my commitment to non-violence via the Kentucky Constitution: “I, being a citizen of the state, have not fought a duel with deadly weapons within the State or nor out of it, nor have I sent or accepted a challenge to fight a duel with deadly weapons, nor have…
Achieving a more perfect union
(This note comes a week in advance, as this space is unavoidably detained next week. LEO readers from back in the day know what I’m talking about.) The Kentuckiana Pride Festival is next week, the perfect opportunity to colorfully partake in the tremendous spectrum of humanity. We are also within weeks of hearing the Supreme…
Inbox – June 10, 2015
RIP, PHT Phoenix Hill Tavern initially consisted of a one room. It was a humble second story room, found atop of a long steeply graded red carpeted staircase. Like other Highlands’ venues of the time, it was a simple dive. Bardstown Road was littered with dives. They in turn fell to Louisville’s upcoming fascination with…
