Cover Story
Out of the shadows
By the age of 30, Jose Antonio Vargas had already carved out an impressive career in journalism. As a reporter for The Washington Post, he covered the 2008 presidential campaign, the same year in which he won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the Virginia Tech massacre. A documentary was made based on his…
Django Django
Life was getting boring. All sandwiches started tasting the same. All dance music started to sound like David Guetta. The drive to work was monotonous, one traffic light after the next changing to red in unison. Then came Django Django, a four-piece band from London by way of Edinburgh. They took all that boring, shook…
Shark Week
Why is his album called Shark Week, you ask? Because he’s the “Great White Hope.” Oy. Excuse me while I shake my head on the branding alone. Let’s recount the greatness by listing some song titles, straight out of the rapper cliché refrigerator magnet set: “Grind Harder,” “We Get It In,” “Poppin’,” “We On,” “Cash…
B-sides
Coming Up Rozes Perhaps no other emcee in the city can carry as much confidence on the eve of his new album’s release as Jalin Roze. It’s been more than a year-long wait for Grand National Dreams, an eternity in rap years. The team is back: Roze and producer Josh La Rock, now Louisville-based, are…
Video TapeWorm
THIS WEEK’S TWIN PEEKS: PROMETHEUS 2012; $19.98-$49.98; R Ridley Scott created what is arguably the greatest monster movie ever in 1979’s “Alien,” a movie so simple and so perfectly realized that it intelligently scared the holy crap out of audiences around the world with nary a CGI anything in sight. The studio then proceeded to…
Lilly’s was locavore before locavore was cool
Turn the hands of your food-memory clock, if you will, back to 1987 or 1988. It was a very good time for Louisville restaurants — and when hasn’t it been? The upscale bistro movement that had started with the Bristol, Formally Myra’s, Jack Fry’s and others a decade earlier had matured and blossomed. Our chop…
Make time for Alabama Shakes
“Are there questions you’re sick of being asked?” LEO asks. If there are questions Brittany Howard doesn’t want to be asked anymore, it’s questions such as How does it feel to go from a small town to stardom in a year? Has it been a whirlwind? The 24-year-old singer for the breakout rock band of…
Bar Belle: Betty Bear Bar Belle
One of my favorite books as a child was “Betty Bear’s Birthday” by Gyo Fujikawa. My mom would read it to me as I buried my face in a bowl of Magic Shell-covered Rocky Road ice cream. I’m not sure why I liked the story — it’s pretty pathetic, actually — but it did have…
Comedy: Bert, tamer
A decade and a half ago, Rolling Stone magazine deemed Bert Kreischer the No. 1 partier at the No. 1 party school in the country, Florida State University. That article — and dubious honor — inspired some Hollywood grunt to pen the college classic “Van Wilder.” Kreischer has spent the intervening years performing in comedy…
Book: It’s the economy, stupid
‘Economix: How our Economy Works (and Doesn’t Work) in Words and Pictures’ By Michael Goodwin, Illustrated by Dan E. Burr. Abrams ComicArts; 304 pgs., $19.95. If there ever was better timing for a book, I can’t think of it. Not only is the American economy sagging, having seen bubble after bubble burst, enormous amounts of…
Inbox — Oct. 3, 2012
Broaden Your Horizons I am an avid reader of LEO and really enjoyed your Readers’ Choice issue (Sept. 19), however I was disappointed that so much of Metropolitan Louisville was excluded, particularly the West End. You could have included categories such as Best Streetside Grill, Best Hole in the Wall, Best Black Barbershop (hated to…
Staffpicks
Wednesday, Oct. 3 Antibalas Kentucky Center For the Arts 501 W. Main St. kentuckycenter.org $22.50; 8 p.m. When your work is deemed good enough to be accepted as the house band for the excellent, Jay, Bey, Questlove and Fresh Prince-produced “Fela!” Broadway show, you know you’re doing well. Antibalas, the monstrous Brooklyn-based crew comprised of…
Die Forever
Ma Turner and R Clint Colburn immediately stepped into the touring lifestyle shortly after becoming a band. Later, Louisvillian Peter Townsend joined. This experience conceived the groundwork for Die Forever, the Lexington heroes’ debut full-length. In its reoccurring theme of death, the album plays underneath a dingy haze, in a dimension through which CROSS communicates;…
Strangers and their dogs
I am a dog owner who moonlights as a bush-league misanthrope. These combined circumstances, in addition to my habit of sitting as far away from humans as possible with my nose in a book, tend to position me as something of an outlier at the dog park. My dog, Dwight, enjoys the clubhouse atmosphere of…
Old Light
Fiddler Rayna Gellert is known for her playing with the modern old-timey group Uncle Earl (which also included Abigail Washburn, and whose last record was produced by Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones; both remain fans and collaborators of hers), and for work with Scott Miller, Sara Watkins and Robyn Hitchcock. On Old Light, subtitled Songs…
Getting involved with Ben Sollee
Ben Sollee doesn’t just comb his hair, throw on a tie, and head out to the club. An average night for him is a unique event for everyone else. Known for riding his bicycle (with cello onboard) to concerts, Sollee encourages fans to bike, walk or use public transport to get to his show. (“There…
Losing choice or gaining independence?
Built like a linebacker, sporting a shortly cropped Mohawk, Eric Huggins’ gentle, precise paintbrush strokes produce art that hangs in Los Angeles galleries and New York living rooms. Standing in StudioWorks, a spacious gallery and art studio dedicated to developmentally disabled adults, Huggins holds up his latest in a series of music-inspired paintings — a…
Plugged In
Readers are strongly encouraged to call ahead to verify these listings. To get your musical act or comedian listed, send email to pberkowitz@leoweekly.com with PLUGGED IN in the subject line. The deadline is FRIDAY at NOON the week before the show happens. We do not accept listings via social networking sites. Wed OCT 3…
A wicked sister bridge
When the early 21st-century history of Louisville is written, if the Ohio River Bridges Project proceeds as planned, I can already hear the official refrain: “Mistakes were made.” Michael Kimmelman, a New York Times critic, made a big splash in the local news media last week. His conclusion: Plans for a downtown bridge parallel to…
Cheating death and debt
Sarah Adkins says that on Jan. 9, 2011, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — known as “Obamacare” — saved her life. Adkins rushed to the emergency room with a familiar pain in her lower back, as she had struggled with kidney stones for years. The doctor discovered her left kidney was blocked by…
Culture: This American host
There are many things that people are (or claim to be) interested in that may seem pretentious to others, such as existential art films, European soccer/football, local organic produce, or even National Public Radio. To most, the idea of listening to a never-ending list of international tragedies on BBC News while chewing on raw vegetables…
