Cover Story
Face/Off
The official line from Frankfort was that things changed. Ask most people affiliated with legislative leadership, and they would say the partisan bickering that doomed the 2008 legislative session was bypassed this year in the face of dire economic circumstances. Seeking consensus, it was said, was the new goal. “Isn’t it amazing how well they’re…
Cosa Astral
Like the mighty Os Mutantes before them who rocket-launched Brazilian pop into extraterrestrial territories, Coconot, a trio that includes Pablo Díaz-Reixa (aka El Guincho), introduces tropicalia and calypso sounds to West Coast psychedelia, kraut, dub and a smorgasbord of other off-kilter genres. The result is fresh and fantastic. Vocal yelps, interstellar melodies, cascading drums and…
Midnight at the Movies
A Texas singer-songwriter with the name Justin Townes Earle is a like pop star being named John Lennon Beethoven Gaye or a scientist named Susan Curie Einstein-Newton. There’s a little pressure. Earle’s not just feeling that heat from his business card, his father is that incomparable blusterer Steve Earle, so double trouble. Thankfully the good…
Film: Love hurts in “Two Lovers”
(Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Gwyneth Paltrow and Vinessa Shaw. Directed by James Gray. Rated R; 1:48. Starts Friday at Baxter Avenue Theatres. LEO Report Card: C) Back in college, my girlfriends and I chanted this obnoxious toast before every round of drinks: Here’s to the men we love,Here’s to the men that love us.But the…
Mug Shots
During the time of its original incarnation opposite the boatyard in Jeffersonville, Rocky’s Sub Pub was a genuine beer-list innovator. To appreciate the extent of this achievement in the context of the time, it helps to know that the American craft beer revolution didn’t really arrive in the Louisville metropolitan area until the early 1990s.…
Say it straight
Clarity is a fundamental principle of a successful sentence. In 2004, Kentuckians were asked to vote on what had been deemed “the Marriage Amendment” via this ballot question: “Are you in favor of amending the Kentucky Constitution to provide that only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be a marriage in Kentucky,…
Meatpacked
Take a walk down a Butchertown street during any weekday and you’re likely to encounter a strange variety of smells. There is the faint odor of livestock, which you’ll pick up a handful of blocks from the Swift & Co. meatpacking plant, an institution on Story Avenue in east downtown since 1968. As you approach,…
Rag Traveler: Fin Del Mundo
I have driven more than 18,000 miles, through 12 countries and two continents to end up as far south as you can on roadways without a snowmobile. I made it to Ushuaia, Argentina — the southernmost city in the world — and what a long, strange trip it’s been. For those of you who haven’t…
And they’re out
INDIANAPOLIS — Kerthunk! Splat! Thud! This is the way the season ends. Not with a bang but a whimper. Thirty-one Ws. Six losses. That’s a campaign to savor. But this last stunner of a defeat feels like a karate kick to the solar plexus. The question is whether we should have seen this coming, a…
Here’s a tip (line)
A spokesman for Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson hand-delivered several memorandums from the city’s internal auditor that discussed an anonymous tip line proposal for Metro government, only days after LEO Weekly filed an appeal with the Kentucky attorney general’s office to view the documents. However, the mayor’s office maintains that the documents were exempt from open…
Attention angry mob: Focus!
One advantage to being outraged at all times is that when “populist outrage” like that currently aimed at Wall Street comes along, it barely registers a blip on your blood-pressure gauge. The casually outraged seem like such amateurs. When I meet someone who’s angry over the AIG bonuses, I’m like, “Aw. Look at you. You…
Theater: “Wild Blessings” a simple, reverent service
(The Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville presents “Wild Blessings: a Celebration of Wendell Berry.” Adapted for the stage by Marc Masterson and Adrien-Alice Hansel from the writing of Wendell Berry. Directed by Mark Masterson. Continues through April 26 in the Pamela Brown Auditorium. For tickets, call 584-1205 or visit…
Review: Johnny V’s sandwich is spiedie, and it’s fast, too
I went into Johnny V’s, a New York-style pizza place in Jeffersontown in the former location of Hero’s, seeking authenticity. New York-style pizza? I’ll expect big, wide, triangular slices of thin-crust pie with minimal sauce and thick, chewy cheese — a slice of pizza that is best folded in half in order to avoid slide-off.…
Culture: Labor of love
In mid-December, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi received a memorandum from a constituent on Caselli Street in San Francisco. President-Elect Obama had been ginning up support for the stimulus package he would submit to Capitol Hill immediately after his inauguration, and the constituent, 91-year-old Archie Green, had a bit of historical perspective to share…
B-Sides: Music & Other Ephemera
Wednesday, April 1•The Saints Tour by Molly Rice (tour runs Thu.-Sat. also)$10 (adv.)/$15 (door); 1 p.m.; all agesBus leaves from south parking lot of Salvation Army Male Campus, 911 Brook St., and returns in 90 minutes. A vegetarian meal is served.•A Movielodge screening of “Blackbird”$10; 7 p.m.; 18+Presented by Motherlodge and The Louisville Film Society.…
Wrath
Arguably the best band in metal today, Lamb of God brings a unified front to their material and their performances that’s hard to beat. Wrath is a crispy compilation of good post-millenial, hardcore-inflected thrash metal. Randy Blythe still growls, but that’s not the only trick up his sleeve. Like Phil Anselmo, Blythe can sing when…
Live at Montreux 1996
Saxophonist Wayne Shorter has played the Montreux (Switzerland) Jazz Festival many times with many different musicians. This DVD captures the full 1996 set, which deftly mixes fusion and post-bop jazz, and adds 45 minutes of bonus tracks from 1991 and 1992 featuring Herbie Hancock. Shorter switches back and forth from tenor to soprano, sometimes in…
Marco state
The Marco Benevento Trio makes its first Louisville appearance on Tuesday at the Hideaway Saloon. Benevento is no stranger to Louisville, having performed here before as half of the Benevento-Russo Duo. In that format, he concentrated on organ; with the trio, including bassist Reed Mathis and drummer Simon Lott, he will focus on piano. This…
Video TapeWorm
THIS WEEK’S TWIN PEEKS: BEDTIME STORIES 2008; $29.95-$32.95, PG Would you leave Adam Sandler alone with your kids? Neither would we, but that’s only part of the fun in this living cartoon from Disney. While putting sis Courteney Cox’s young’uns to bed, he tells them outlandish tales, starring himself. But the next day the stories…
Roll On
For five decades, J.J. Cale has been the eponymous epicenter of honest, blues-based rock, but although “After Midnight,” “Cocaine” and “Call Me the Breeze” effortlessly sprang from Cale’s pen, mainstream credibility has eluded him. Throughout Roll On, Cale strays from familiar territory with mediations on classic themes of a bygone era. Generally, when artists move…
Continuation/Coward
Twins, they are. Nels now enjoys crossover attention for Wilco, and that’s probably the rationale for the simultaneous release stunt. But the brothers Cline have been part of an experimental music scene for decades, and little of either’s new all-instrumental disc resembles Tweedy. Alex weaves sections of post-bop jazz, some modern classical snippets and percussive…
Art News
Louisville has been selected to host the Glass Art Society (GAS) annual conference June 10-12, 2010. International glass artists will offer demonstrations, plus many local galleries will showcase exhibitions featuring glass. Local co-chairs are Brook White of Flame Run, Ché Rhodes of the University of Louisville and Merrily Orsini of Corecubed. The “100 Portrait Series”…
Industry Standard: Insider info for those who dine out
Yes. Yes, you can have that recipe. In this economic climate? Heck, you can have my apron, my toque, my chef’s jacket … Are you looking for a used car? Mine’s parked in the back of the lot. Make me an offer. But let’s be clear about what you’re asking when you request a restaurant…
Good vibrations
When vibraphonist and marimba player Dave Samuels comes to town for the Latin Jazz Fest at the University of Louisville, he will reunite with his old friend Dick Sisto for two nights at the Seelbach. The U of L concert on Friday will feature Samuels’s arrangements from his 2008 Grammy-nominated CD Caribbean Jazz Project: Afro…
Inbox — April 1, 2009
We’re Noticing Great job on the website/weekly pub. The design/product is mucho nice. Todd Schartung, Parkway Village Plug Us Back In I am writing to register a complaint about the omission of the Plugged In section of your newspaper. I must honestly say that this section is the main reason I pick up your weekly…
Art: “Notice the things you notice”
Sculptor Brad White is used to controversy, difficulties and censorship. Not that he likes it. The public drama part of his young artistic life pivots around a bike rack commissioned by the Louisville Downtown Management District in 2005. It was a pretty big deal around these parts, an abstracted pink-steel swoosh called “Learning Curve.”…
