Cover Story
Wonderwalls
If you’ve walked down East Market Street during the past couple months, you’ve probably noticed downtown’s newest residents. Playful, with big personalities, their Technicolor limbs and quizzical faces invite Louisvillians to look up, smell the spray paint, and maybe even pick up some new antiques. The mural on the side of Joe Ley’s Antiques, a…
Locavore Lore: Eating the enemy
It’s probably rare for a Naval veteran with 25 years fishing experience to see something in the water that confounds him, but while kayaking near the Falls of the Ohio a few summers ago, Mark Watanabe began noticing unfamiliar fish in the waters below Louisville’s McAlpine Dam. One species was an athletic, 5- to 10-pounder…
Election 2012 is (a little) different
This is the first of two columns on Election 2012. Given my love of politics, you knew I couldn’t do just one. As I’ve written many times before, many elections are disheartening because candidates often seem insufficient. Consequently, Americans often find themselves voting “against” one candidate rather than “for” another. Many have withdrawn from the…
Stars now ready to dance again
The North, the new album from the Canadian band Stars, offers quite a change from 2010’s Five Ghosts. FG was a compelling disc that required multiple listens for full appreciation. Now they’ve got a set that often jumps out of the speakers. The themes behind the songs aren’t so different: The last album declared “I…
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 SEP 26…
Not amused
Two months after the Koch family abruptly abandoned plans to resurrect the long-dormant Kentucky Kingdom as Bluegrass Boardwalk, August brought what appeared to be a glimmer of hope for the amusement park. Former Kentucky Kingdom operator Ed Hart — whose year-and-a-half long negotiations to reopen the park failed last fall — announced his submission of…
Comedy: Sheryl Underwood serves the funny
Sheryl Underwood has been kicking ass and taking names during her 20-plus years in comedy. She hosted BET’s Comic View and executive produced Holla. She also went on to star in the films I Got the Hook-Up and Beauty Shop. This weekend, the University of Illinois at Chicago graduate, U.S. military veteran, and now co-host…
Inbox — Sept. 26, 2012
Corrections In last week’s Readers’ Choice issue, the names of two winners were listed incorrectly: Imperial Tattoos came in third for “Best Tattoo Parlor,” and Barkstown Road nabbed third place for “Best Place to Take Your Dog.” LEO regrets the errors. Bad Judgment, LEO Just a few short years ago, LEO ran a picture of…
Staffpicks
Sept. 26-29 Craft Beer Week Various locations louisvillebeer.com Forget May, September is proving to be an awesome month to be in Louisville. Not only are we celebrating National Bourbon Heritage Month, but now it’s time for Craft Beer Week! The more the merrier, I say. With several seminars, lectures, tastings and food pairings scheduled throughout…
Video TapeWorm
THIS WEEK’S TWIN PEEKS: DARK SHADOWS 2012; $14.98-$35.98; PG/PG-13 That long-dreamed-of vanity project from local boy Johnny Depp and his buddy/Halloween-prop Tim Burton. It’s a loving spoof of the legendary ’70s vampire soap opera, with Depp as Barnabas Collins, doomed to an eternal waking hell for jilting curvaceous witch Eva Green. An upbeat script, terrific…
Book: Them’s fightin’ words
Books are for nerds, librarians and kids? Take off your blinders — they’re also powerful weapons for all of us who want to see progress in the world and the guarantee of basic freedoms. This week in town there are two events that show intersections between literacy and violence. First up is the recognition of…
Art: Not just a pile of crap
It’s pretty difficult to describe “Small Moons” by Seattle-based trio SuttonBeresCuller, which is precisely why I think you should see it. Imagine everything from your basement, and the basements of everyone you know, congealed into six humongous spheres; I offer that by way of explanation, but there is no real equivalency — these sculptures are…
Conversations With Myself
One can argue the logic of being signed to the great producer 88-Keys’ record label, Locksmith Music, and then self-producing your next project, but hey, maybe this is some covert ninja move we mere mortals cannot conceive, or it’s 88-as-Yoda educating the emcee that the checks are bigger when you’re self-contained (and not sampling, which…
Betty
If the name above evokes the awful Orlando of the Jones clan, don’t let it spoil your listen. Betty, the Indianapolis emcee’s proper debut, is one of the more surprising releases of my summer. His name does him no justice, but Jones is a fine writer, with fully realized concepts layered and rewarding with repeated…
Nice work if you can get it
We usually break in our interns with simple tasks like record and movie reviews. Nobody important reads that stuff, so they can’t do a lot of damage. If they manage to write a complete paragraph without getting reported to the publisher, we let ’em keep writing reviews. If their work is bland enough, we might…
Mature Themes
Nobody today has done a finer job creating new sounds than Ariel Pink. Mature Themes follows up Before Today’s re-recorded soulful, lo-fi wonders. Themes — partly attributed to heartbreak — is a consequential supernova, collapsed by the tension of funky, sarcastic salutes (openers “Kinski Assassin” and “Is This the Best?”), both restless compared to the…
Filling in
Jamesetta Drake had settled into her 40s, working as a cook and caring for one of her young grandsons. Then she received a call. Two other grandsons had been left home alone by their mother, Drake’s daughter, prompting Child Protective Services to get involved. At first, different family members offered to split the children, each…
Weird pals
For its third year, the annual Cropped Out festival of underground music and culture has added some star power. Well, if you consider Jandek, Neil Hamburger, Lil B, Eugene Chadbourne, Chain and the Gang, David Liebe Hart, or R. Stevie Moore to be “stars.” And they are indeed stars to a small but fiercely dedicated…
Industry Standard: Insider info for those who dine out
Finally it’s picnic weather again — the shank end of the season. Who doesn’t love a picnic? Only the most hardened cynics and eye-rolling hipsters could ever admit to such with a straight face. Get out your favorite cookbook; you know, the one with the gingham-checked cover. You’ll need loads of eggs to devil, lots…
3=4
Dig, if you will, a picture. Because not only is that all an all-instrumental band can provide, but that’s precisely the intent of such soundscape specialists like Interstates. 3=4 is a conceptual work, it seems: the first three pieces are set in autumn; four and five in winter; spring lasts from six through eight; and,…
Classical Music: Singing the American Songbook
Stephanie Blythe made her name and fame singing great big opera on great big stages, filling the halls with Verdi and Wagner. But Blythe has this other life, now, too, singing the songs of the “American Songbook” on the smaller stages of smaller halls: Cole Porter, Irving Berlin and some songwriters we might have forgotten…
The simile and you
As a longtime writer of not only grammatically viable sentences but also the occasional full-length paragraph, I’m often asked about the proper role of similes in today’s challenging writing environment. Are they as overwrought as erotic fan fiction? Are they as anachronistic as a phone booth? Or are they every bit as contemporary and expedient…
The Taste Bud: The call of the wild
When I was a kid, my family would go camping every year in Green County, Ky., on land my grandparents owned. It was there I learned to fish and gig frogs. If you’ve never gigged a frog, you may want to sit down — basically, you thrust a pointed stick through its midsection, and leave…
B-sides
Chamber maids JC Denison formed what became the sprawling, 15-piece modern classical band known as Another 7 Astronauts as a way to explore composing music he enjoyed but didn’t often get to play. As a drummer with Lucky Pineapple, Invaders, and Cheyenne Marie Mize, Denison earned a strong reputation for his percussive prowess. Now, in…
