Cover Story
Professor Pitino’s pupils cram for Basketball Culture 2015
The University of Louisville begins its 101st basketball season with an All-American forward, a twin-jeweled guard tandem, a senior forward who hasn’t been an effective scorer but always plays defense, and two ready-to-go centers. Now, what coach wouldn’t be happy starting a season with that? Three prime-time stars and a supporting cast that covers all…
Under The Surface: Catching up with Adam Duritz of Counting Crows
When Adam Duritz started writing lyrics for the new Counting Crows album “Somewhere Under Wonderland,” he almost didn’t recognize the person or the meanings behind the words that were landing on the page. “It’s weird,” he said in a recent phone interview. “I didn’t understand these songs the way I have always understood my songs.…
7 Louisville Holiday Attractions That You Shouldn’t Miss
The holidays are here again — the time for joy, cheer and family events. The best gifts aren’t necessarily free, but they do involve spending time and building memories with the people we love. I’ve selected 7 holiday events that shouldn’t be missed. Some even involve booze. Santa Safari — (December 13-14) The Louisville Zoo…
Gratitude for beloved immortals
It’s been an unexpectedly cold and cruel year. Too suddenly and too soon, we lost legends of literature, poetry, stage and screen including Philip Seymour Hoffman, Maya Angelou, Robin Williams and Joan Rivers. A week ago, director Mike Nichols succumbed to a heart attack. Mercifully, these bigger-than-life luminaries survive through their masterpieces. What’s more, we…
‘Boys will be boys’
We live in a culture that encourages aggressive behaviors and at times allows those behaviors to go unchecked. This is particularly true when it comes to our sons. “Boys will be boys” is an all too familiar cliche that needs to be put to rest. There is no reason that we continue to make excuses…
LEON: Republicans to unveil historic post-mortem project on Reagan gravesite
Next week, Republicans intend to propose legislation appropriating funds for the largest-ever post-mortem gravesite reconstruction in American history. The project, expected to cost as much as $100 million, is designed to allow President Ronald Reagan room in his grave to roll over. The decision comes in response to President Obama’s recent executive action on immigration,…
LEON: ‘Speedy’ set to andele — for Hillary
Celebrity Speedy Gonzales, former star of the children’s program “Looney Tunes” and its spin-off, “Merrie Melodies,” is the first celebrity to come out of the shadows after President Obama’s executive action on immigration last week. Gonzales, assuming he passes a background check and pays taxes, will qualify for the new standard by having lived in…
LEON: Keystone X-XL
Senator Mitch McConnell is flexing his muscle in his new position as Senate majority leader, unveiling a new strategy to fight the Environmental Protection Agency. The plan is centered on comprehensive legislation that would expand the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline to include coal-producing states of Appalachia, including his home state of Kentucky. McConnell has dubbed…
Staffpicks
FRIDAY, NOV. 28 Karass Zanzabar 2100 S. Preston St., 635-9227 zanzabarlouisville.com $5; 9:30 p.m. One sure bet to chase away those post-tryptophan/post-shopping blues awaits you this Friday as the multi-talented, genre-defying Karass takes to the stage. Earlier this year, the group released “Order of Operations,” an EP of collaborations with some of the most exciting…
Turning the corner: A conversation with Kat Dahlia
It’s not often during TV binge-watching sessions that I pause the DVR and scramble to find out what song is playing during an intense prison-shanking moment; however, Kat Dahlia’s song “Gangsta,” featured in the season-opening episode of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” forced me to leave my blanket cocoon in search of answers. From…
b-sides: Ultra Pulverize
For the last decade, Ultra Pulverize has made some of the weirdest, most compelling electronic music in Louisville — or, for that matter, anywhere. To give you an idea of what to expect, singer Ultra identifies the composition of their band as including, “synths, a theremin, beat machines and samplers. And my mouth. Tony Robot…
It’s always fuzzy in Philadelphia
The fuzzed-out guitar psychedelia of Purling Hiss comes drenched in white noise, but it’s full of love. There is a gleeful mayhem in the completely unpredictable but undeniably pop-friendly music — a rare but potent blend. You can feel that lust for life when talking with singer/guitarist Mike Polizze; this is a man who wants…
Completely Obsessed
End of the year? Time for end-of-year lists! It’s time to round up favorites and put the spotlight on the songs that made the biggest impacts in our worlds for the sole purpose of filling space. I mean honoring them. Having so much great music here in our fair city, it would be criminal not…
LP1
Electronic music has grown up. FKA Twigs, whose real name is Tahliah Debrett Barnett, and her master production team have crafted a seamless blend of hip-hop, R&B and electronica that feels true and meaningful. The electronic landscape has morphed, and tracks on “LP1” like “Two Weeks,” “Video Girl” and “Pendulum” show that beautiful and organic…
Mixtape
Howell Dawdy plays like the spiritual heir of early-’90s-era Beck, like an eternal loop of the manically insane “Stereopathetic Soul Manure” filtered through the hip-hop-flavored production found on “Mellow Gold.” The alter ego of Lydia Burrell frontman Alex Smith, “Mixtape” is an unapologetically comedic rap album, and one that happens to be particularly well put…
Smoke To This
There is an undeniable ‘80s veneer that envelops everything with “Smoke To This,” a retrospective collection of tracks from Louisville electro-indie act Jacuzzi. That there are a total of 28 tracks here makes it difficult to identify any one sound, although there is a relatively consistent theme throughout the entirely instrumental album that is kind…
Endless River
The newest and perhaps last from Pink Floyd, the largely instrumental “Endless River,” is a retread of their previous material and is not bad by any measure — it just lacks soul. How could it not? Containing only one original member in drummer Nick Mason (as even guitarist David Gilmour was a replacement for the…
Plugged In (Nov. 26 – Dec. 2)
WED Nov. 26th Baxter’s 942: Devil’s Due, Zack Attack; 8 p.m. Brasserie Provence: Brian Curella Duo; 5 p.m. Diamond Pub (St. Matthews): Devereaux and Soul River Brown and the Foundations Band; 10 p.m. Gary’s on Spring: Walker & Kays; 6 p.m. Gerstle’s: Kimmet & Doug, This, That & The Other; 10 p.m. Headliners: Ultra Pulverize…
THEATER: M.L. Dogg and the sound of silence in ‘Tribes’
In theater, sound design is an invisible art. Unlike the front-and-center visuals — makeup and costumes, sets and props, lighting and the physicality of the actors themselves — sound design often works, barely noticed, in the dark corners of our consciousness. Sound design is also the least understood of the theater arts. We know this…
BOOK: When ‘the most extraordinary sideshow’ came to Louisville
Little more than a century ago, Louisville played host to one of the most extraordinary sideshows ever to tour the United States. A “human zoo” of 50 tribesmen, women and children from the Philippines performed a distorted version of their customs for the paying public. Rather than provoking outrage, as this would today, the Filipinos,…
Video Tapeworm
This Week’s Twin Peeks DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES 2014; $18.98; PG-13 While the first chapter in this “POTA” reimagining was exceptional, we like this sequel even better. Head ape Caesar (Andy Serkis) and his growing band of simian followers are peacefully ensconced in the mountains outside San Francisco, with most of the…
Industry Standard – Is perception reality
Sometimes perception is reality. If a group of diners comes into your restaurant and has to wait a bit longer to be seated than they’d like, they will often naturally exaggerate that wait time when they relate the experience to other people. Their “45-minute” wait for a table might in reality have been 20 minutes,…
The Taste Bud: Kern’s Korner keeps on keeping on
I’d driven by Kern’s Korner maybe, oh, a gazillion times in my life and had never stopped. Heck, the tiny location near the intersection of Bardstown Road and Trevilian Way would be easy to miss if you weren’t looking for it, truth be told. It never occurred to me to stop until my friend Jessica…
Literary LEO 2015
Now, for all you creative scribes out there, here’s the skinny on literary LEO … Winners will be published in the January 28, 2015 issue of the LEO Weekly. CATEGORIES: WRITING: (1) Short Fiction (up to 2,500 words) (2) Flash Fiction (300 words or fewer) (3) Poetry PHOTOGRAPHY: (4) Color Photography (5) Black-And-White Photography OTHER:…
Why I Ran
Politics has lost its way. It’s become a curse word. We have leaders at the highest level of government more concerned with personal vendettas and proving points about their political power than they are about the people who elected them to serve. I cannot recall a time when the political process was so polarizing that…
Inbox – November 26, 2014
LEO Weekly welcomes letters that are brief (350 words max) and thoughtful. ?Ad hominem attacks will be ignored, and we need your name and a daytime phone number. Send snail mail to Inbox, 301 E. Main St., Suite 201, Louisville, KY 40202. Fax to 895-9779 or email to ?leo@leoweekly.com. We may edit for length, grammar…
Kentucky basketball never sleeps
If Rick Pitino started having sex when you started reading this article, he’d be done by now. Of course, that is uncalled for: It’s a juvenile and mean-spirited swipe at a rival coach and entirely unbecoming of the Big Blue Nation. We are, after all, fans of the prohibitive favorite, the loaded No. 1 team…
The NCAA crime ring
It is one of those stereotypes for a reason — this is basketball country. Even before I knew what a dunk or zone defense was, I have been cheering. One of my favorite stories came before I could dress myself in my team’s colors — usually red. It was the 1986 National Championship game between…
