Cover Story
A Green Light
Peter Byck likes driving a car. He believes in cold beer, hot showers and argues there are ways to save the planet without denying anyone these basic, inalienable privileges. Three years ago, the Highlands resident set off to prove his point, and the result is “Carbon Nation,” a new film that will open at the…
The Union Electric
The Union Electric’s fusion of folk structures and punk dynamics isn’t exactly unprecedented, but the three songs that comprise the band’s debut EP are still refreshing in the way they transcend Americana clichés, incorporating saw-toothed guitars and a history-savvy, D. Boon-style political bent. “Sentence” is an obvious highlight, hewing closer to the “punk” side of…
Mug Shots: The beer bucket list
I’m often accused of being a cynic, a skeptic and a whole slew of other -ics and -ists better suited to beret-wearing, Gitane-smoking French academics than a purportedly wholesome son of the conservative and bucolic Hoosier countryside. Such charges, alleging my treasonable refusal to embrace the palpably untrue, are absolutely … valid. It was in…
Book: Better luck next time, Chuck
Tell-All By Chuck Palahniuk. Doubleday; 192 pgs., $24.95. Stop right there. I know what you’re thinking: LEO is reviewing another Chuck Palahniuk book. Surprise, surprise. They’ll be snarky, but they’ll like it overall. Well here’s the real surprise, buckaroo: It isn’t that great. What? Yes, Chuck’s newest novel jumps genre (like his last five)…
Derby crash
Put your ill-fitting seersuckers and giant hats in the closet, take an aspirin and get back to work, ye merry revelers. It’s over. Let’s review: •As it turns out, we were not under attack by a cabal of insidious communists bent on causing mass insanity with disrupted traffic patterns throughout the entire city. Nor were…
Out in the Infield
The Kentucky Derby always seemed a world away growing up. I recall hearing tales of the notorious Infield, described by those in the know as an inglorious yet enticing experience. In the past, I steered clear of Churchill Downs, instead spending the first weekend in May taking in the sights and sounds of cruising along…
Head First
It’s a backhanded compliment to call Alison Goldfrapp the thinking person’s Lady Gaga, but it’s true. I’m not saying Lady G stole 90 percent of her sound from Goldfrapp’s 2005 album Supernature, but anybody who thinks she’s a breath of fresh air needs to get out more. Having said that, it ain’t as if the…
Heir To The Throne; King of The Beats
Future beats, personified. These are two of the three planned mixtapes leading up to Jack Splash’s major label debut, though this is far from the first time you’ve heard Splash. Beyond his two albums under the name Plant Life (The Return of Jack Splash and Time Traveler), Jack has produced or written for the likes…
A safe haven
Duraid Abdulrida used to be the television chef for “Good Morning Iraq.” During the early years of America’s misadventure there, about 10 million people watched Chef Duraid’s segment on the show every morning, making him one of the most recognizable faces in Iraq. Now he’s a refugee living in Louisville, not even the most visible…
B-Sides: Music & Other Ephemera
You can only be standby for so long. Merideth Kaye Clark, cast in the standby role for Elphaba in “Wicked,” at the Kentucky Center this month, performed the role more than 100 times in 30 cities waiting for her chance to step onto the stage. In the meantime, she wrote her folk-pop debut Young Stellar…
Queen for (more than) a day
Drag queens have long been declaring their right to be fabulous, entertaining and over the top. Louisville’s own The Connection nightclub hosts one of best and longest-running drag shows in the nation. And now the hit reality TV show “RuPaul’s Drag Race” is putting drag queens into the mainstream, launching the lovely lady-boys into their…
Staffpicks
May 6-16 Young American Shakespeare Fest Actors Theatre of Louisville 316 W. Main St. • 584-1205 $8-$15; various times It’s Shakespeare season at Walden Theatre, and this year’s lineup features a romantic comedy, “Love’s Labour’s Lost”; a tragedy, “Timon of Athens”; and a historical work, “Henry V.” This annual festival is the first and largest…
Inbox — May 5, 2010
Spotlight on Portland We are the Executive Committee of Portland Now Inc. Maybe not really the “intelligentsia” of Portland, but we are the ones who spoke with your reporter for the Portland article (LEO Weekly, April 14). We feel like it’s important to say we agree it was absolutely wrong for anyone from Portland to…
All you have to know is Calvin Borel (and everyone seems to know it but me)
Everybody is smarter than me. All the study I put into picking the Kentucky Derby — it doesn’t matter. Seeing every Derby prep, evaluating bloodlines, getting up before the crack of dawn to clock early-morning workouts — it doesn’t matter. Nor does experience or reports from knowledgeable sources. No matter how I put all the…
Guitar El Chark
This fantastic new collection highlights the mid-1970s work of Egyptian guitarist Omar Khorshid, whose music bridges the gap between the propulsive energy of 1960s American “surf guitar” (itself an invention of the half-Lebanese Dick Dale, known as the “King of the Surf Guitar”) and the engaging melodies of traditional Middle Eastern music. After finding fame…
Jerry’s kids
Given May is National Preservation Month, developer Todd Blue picked a bad time to ask Metro government for permission to destroy the Iron Quarter, a cluster of historic cast-iron buildings along Main Street. The request has ignited one of the fieriest preservation battles in recent memory, with those wishing to protect the 19th-century structures from…
Who Loves You The Best
Nerves Jr. is textured, electronic and experimental. Like that episode of “Winnie The Pooh” where stuffed animals try to steal Tigger’s “Special” tag, this band might not realize how or why they are special. No local band does what they do. Electronics melt into song melt into vocals melt into huge, noisy, well-executed guitar licks.…
Secret Diary of a Call-Brand Girl
Wednesday, April 28, 2010, 10 a.m. Dear Diary, So it’s Derby week, which means hangovers are acceptable at work. I have one right now, actually. Went to see the Velcro Pygmies last night at the Chow Wagon while the rest of Louisville was either seeing En Vogue or Wax Fang. We stopped by Harley’s Main…
Derby 2010
Another Kentucky Derby has passed, leaving in its wake a trail of weary revelers, forced to return to their humdrum lives. Gone are the fireworks, fighter jets, steamboats and hot-air balloons. Gone is the Chow Wagon, with its offering of fried fare, people watching and live music. Gone are the nightly, mint julep-soaked festivities leading…
Bourbon Spearmint And Ice
Johnny Berry is the local king of sad-bastard country music. And from the sound of the new album with his band The Outliers, Bourbon Spearmint & Ice, he won’t relinquish that crown anytime soon. On Opener “All the Whiskey in Kentucky,” Berry sounds as drunk and distraught as his lyrics claim to be. And on…
Industry Standard: Insider info for those who dine out
So, another Derby has come and gone. To the world outside Derby City, the “Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports” is, at most, a couple hours of viewing enjoyment on a spring Saturday afternoon. To Louisvillians, of course, it’s much more: a two-week extravaganza with a celebratory feel; a chance to glimpse celebrities from around…
Age of ‘Enlightenment’
Ray Wylie Hubbard is the kind of musician who spent his life stranded in the abyss between folk music and the blues, which eventually left him doing country. After 40 years, Hubbard is probably best known for having penned the Jerry Jeff Walker hit “Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mother.” “We were sitting, goofing around…
A Hollywood Affair
It’s getting late at the Barnstable Brown Party. The champagne trays are circulating less frequently, the white-shirted help are dwindling in number, and the hot brown chicken is running low. But the Jackson brothers — having staged an impromptu version of “Stormy Monday Blues” earlier in the evening — are begging me to perform before…
Breakfast is finger food at Queen of Sheba
Let’s face it: Breakfast can be as boring as, well, a bowl of oatmeal. Even such treats as ham and eggs and crispy bacon just don’t get one’s motor running in the morning anymore. Mexican desayuno at Zapata’s Corner or migas and breakfast tacos at North End Café? Been there, done that. Even the rolling…
Animal Feelings
Studio engineer Rafter Roberts sat behind the mixing boards for the Castanets, Fiery Furnaces and labelmate Sufjan Stevens. While his own records have followed the same kitchen-sink approach that colors his engineering résumé, they’ve tended to be much noisier and disjointed affairs — in a good way. Rafter apes Midnite Vultures’ hypersexual put-ons and shares…
Being a party to Derby
I thought it would be selfish to enjoy the delights of Derby alone this year, so I invited my three most hardcore party animal friends from across the pond to do the rounds with me. Emma, David and Hasz, a girl and two gays, know good parties: no drinking contest is too tough, no dance-off…
Plugged In
Readers are strongly encouraged to call ahead to verify these listings. To get your club, comedian, musical act or karaoke listed, please send e-mail to mherron@leoweekly.com with PLUGGED IN in the subject line. The deadline is NOON THURSDAY the week before the show happens. We do not accept listings via social networking sites. Wed. May…
Ghost of Last Summer
After Rachel Grimes left the band, Hula Hoop continued writing songs, and from the leisurely, home-recorded feel, I suspect this batch was produced over a long period with different influences emerging throughout the process. Many tracks are reminiscent of late-’90s rock, like early Death Cab (“The Light”), a relaxed Fugazi (“Riverboat”) and dead-on Yo La…
‘Straw’ men
“The last record had kind of a clinical feel to it,” says Mark Morgan, singer and guitarist for Brooklyn experimental-noise trio Sightings, of the band’s 2007 album, Through The Panama. Last month, Morgan, drummer Jon Lockie and bassist Richard Hoffman released City of Straw, an eight-song collection, and celebrated 10 years of staying on the…
The Grape Escape: Those scary sulfites
So you drank an extra glass of red wine last night, you woke up with a pounding headache, and now you’re blaming the sulfites? Sorry, Charlie. There’s a lot of hysteria about sulfites in wine, but for most people, the problem isn’t the sulfites, it’s the warning label. The “contains sulfites” label, required on wines…
Theater: Adjusting to a ‘Wicked’ rap
The Wicked Witch of the West wasn’t always bad, although she has always been green. This is the premise of the musical “Wicked,” based on the book “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West” by Gregory Maguire (1995). But you already knew that. In fact, I’m sure you’ve already seen…
