Cover Story
LEO Weekly Readers’ Choice Awards 2015
The people have spoken, and we have listened. Once again our readers, as they have since time immemorial, voted to determine who is the best in all the land (of Metro Louisville). It’s a best-of list filled with your neighbors, friends and the guy who makes your coffee on Sunday. A shining example of democracy…
Photo Set: Louder Than Life
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Visually Speaking: this week’s art news and events
[The above image is “Cole Credenza” by Craig Bayens at “Functional Design 2015.”] Art news October is National Arts and Humanities Month, with Oct. 2-11 dedicated as American Craft Week. The Artisan Center in Corydon, Indiana, is seeking candidates for a part-time position to manage operations and sales at the art gallery and curate exhibits. Applicants should…
WELP!: A review of Louder Than Life’s “Gourmet Man Food”
WELP! is a new digital exclusive rumination on local culinary explorations. Oh boy. Pun intended. When the inaugural Louder Than Life debuted last year — a celebration of loud music, bourbon, and “Gourmet Man Food” — the focal point of local public discourse very quickly became the latter component. And justly so because that phrase… well,…
LEO Podcast #7: Paul Paletti
Paul Paletti stopped by to talk with LEO’s contributing visual art editor Jo Anne Triplett about the 2015 Louisville Photo Biennial. It features over 60 exhibitions in galleries, museums and colleges in Louisville, Frankfort, Bardstown and Lexington. The LEO Podcast is weekly, with a new interview released every Friday, until we end the first season…
5 things to do in Louisville this weekend
FRIDAY, Oct. 2 St. James Art Fair St. James & Belgravia Courts, Magnolia Avenue, 3rd & 4th Streets Free; 10 a.m., All Weekend It’s that time of the year again — the time for everyone in the city to descend on Old Louisville and gobble up as much local art as their pocketbooks can handle.…
A Q&A with artist Sean Rademaker
[The above image is “Glass and Shells” by Sean Rademaker.] Painter Sean Rademaker (seanrademakerstudio.blogspot.com) is a big believer in seeing. Not just looking, but actually seeing past the obvious. Creative people learn early that they see and think things differently. Rademaker is no exception. LEO: Artists find inspiration from unusual sources. What inspires you? Sean…
The six best local songs released in September
Dr. Dundiff – “I Shot An Arrow Into The Air” Whether it’s hours logged in practice or just some kind of magic or voodoo, there is something so utterly joyous about Dr. Dundiff’s beats that absolutely transcends the confines of the genre. Dundiff isn’t just a top notch hip-hop producer, but a painter that uses…
The art of patience: A conversation with ZZ Top
If there was one word that became meaningful during the extended time it took ZZ Top to complete its latest record “La Futura,” it was patience. The project took several years to complete, and plenty of fans were eager to hear what the “Li’l Ol’ Band from Texas” had been up to in the studio…
The journey back: A conversation with Godsmack
In 2012, Godsmack put out a concert album called “Live And Inspired.” Despite the title, “Live And Inspired” did not describe the state of the band. By that year’s end, Godsmack was ready to go on hiatus, and Sully Erna (singer/guitarist, chief songwriter and band leader), wondered if, after 17 years and five studio albums…
Rest and revisit: A conversation with Collective Soul
It’s been six years since fans last saw a new Collective Soul album. That gap ends Oct. 2 with the release of the group’s new album, “See What You Started By Continuing.” But it’s not like the three core band members were just sitting back resting on their laurels during the break. Frontman and songwriter…
Keeping on course: A conversation with Chevelle
Chevelle has fared better at Epic Records than a lot of top executives at the label. “Every record we have done, we’ve had a different regime at Epic Records, except for this one (“La Gargola”),” Chevelle drummer Sam Loeffler said in a recent phone interview. “L.A. Reid is actually the general manager of Epic Records,…
Best Comic Shop: The Great Escape
There are few comic book shops with the mystique or tenacity of The Great Escape. It’s not the most glamorous store, privileging good deals and great finds above any real aesthetic demeanor, and it just works. You should go in expecting to find a Mogwai, something bizarre and otherworldly that seems to have some kind…
Best Comedian: Amiri King
“Where’s Tom Mabe on that list?” Amiri King asked almost immediately. “He’s a good friend of mine and we have a friendly bet going.” Amiri King, your 2015 Reader’s Choice Best Comedian, is known little for performing live stand-up, but rather, in the vein of Mabe, has become a bonafide YouTube Celebrity with his YouTube…
Best Place to Dance: Nowhere Bar
The Highlands is a magical place where everyone is free to let their freak flag fly, and Dave Mattingly loves it, which is why he set out to embody that Highland spirit when he opened Nowhere Bar. “It’s all about diversity and being open to everybody. There’s no judgement here,” said Mattingly. “It’s a gay…
Best Local Record Store: Guestroom Records
Standing behind the counter at Guestroom Records — a quaint and eclectic shop on Frankfort Avenue, that sits across the street from the Silver Dollar — co-owners Travis Searle and Lisa Foster are talking to me about the shop’s first two years in business, as they multi-task by continuing to interact with customers, check in…
Best Visual Artist: Antonio Pantoja
In the past year, Antonio Pantoja has won over 25 awards, including this year’s LEO Weekly Readers’ Choice for best visual artist. “LEO, to me, is my favorite,” he exclaims. When I remind him he has already won, that there’s no need to suck up to me, Pantoja laughs and says his signature phrase, “Thank…
Best Plumber: BC Plumbing
It isn’t all that common for someone to graduate college with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics, but decide they’d rather be a plumber. But Bruce Cohen, owner of BC Plumbing isn’t your average plumber. “I had a choice of either becoming an actuary at a bank or staying in the plumbing field, which I had…
Best Twitter Feed: @lydiaburrell
In August, shortly after receiving a management contract, popular Twitter personality Josh Ostrovsky., a.k.a. @FATJEW, was outed as a joke stealer, mining content and profiting from funnier everyday folks. It became a high-profile victory for the unsung creative minds online. Louisville mirrors the larger Twitterverse on a local scale, and some might find the crowning…
Best Entrepreneur: Emily McCay
Growing up, Emily McCay (aka The Diaper Fairy) did not expect that her life’s work would involve millions (yes, millions) of soiled nappies. However, her concern for the environment throughout her life and as she became a parent, opened a path for her to create a business that saves the planet and promotes wellness for…
Best Yoga Studio: Yoga on Baxter
Congratulations to Yoga on Baxter for winning LEO’s Readers’ Choice award for Best Yoga Studio for the fifth time! If you have driven down Eastern Parkway in the Highlands, you’ve probably noticed the busy studio with the curious name. Why Yoga on Baxter when the studio is so obviously on Eastern Parkway? The original Studio…
Metro council votes to fund West End development
In a move that seems to have the city’s best intentions at heart, Metro Council voted during its meeting on Thursday, Sept. 24, to fund real estate development projects in Louisville’s Russell neighborhood. Russell stretches north to south between Market and Broadway and east to west from 9th to 32nd Streets. Thanks to a forgivable…
Nothing stays the same: A Q&A with New Bravado
New Bravado’s full-length debut, “Sun And Moon,” lives under a psych-rock umbrella, but it’s an expansive record, where the songs often branch out, creating individual identities. Sometimes it’s straight-ahead, Sabbath-style power riffs, at others it’s waves of trippy curveballs, establishing a flow to the album, but vastly avoiding that dreaded phoned-in, monotonous sort of boredom.…
b-sides: Diane Schuur
Singer and pianist Diane Schuur caught the ear of famed saxophonist Stan Getz at the 1979 Monterey Jazz Festival, and he helped boost her to a recording and concert career. Her newest release is 2014’s “I Remember You (With Love To Stan and Frank),” a tribute to both Getz and Frank Sinatra. Getz was a…
Undone
A music festival can be great escapism. It can be used as a weekend getaway from everything going on in your life. It can also be an opportunity for discovery. With so many artists on one bill, you’re bound to come out having heard at least a few bands you weren’t familiar with before. Maybe even a new favorite. It…
Plugged In (Sept. 30 – Oct. 6)
WED Sept 30th 4th Street Live!: Lunchtime Live!; 11 a.m. 8Up: High Sounds with DJ Matt Anthony; 7:30 p.m. Baxters 942: Full Contact Karaoke; 10 p.m. Bistro 42: Live Entertainment Brownies (All Locations): Karaoke with French Kiss Prod.; 8 p.m. Goodwood Brewing: Open Mic Night; 7 p.m. Headliners: Four Year Strong, Defeater, Superheaven, Elder Brother,…
Impressive season openers by Savage Rose and Pandora
Nearly 2,500 years and a yawning cultural chasm separate the Athenian tragedies of Euripides from the American musicals of Stephen Sondheim. But anyone looking for proof that the raw materials and central concerns — even, to some extent, the techniques — of contemporary theatrical storytelling are connected to the past could find it on Louisville…
Ms. Pat: From dealing drugs to dealing jokes
Ms. Pat’s story is not just a story of success; it is, first and foremost, a story of survival. She was born to a single mother of five, and raised in her grandfather’s bootleg house. As a teenager, she had her first child when she was 14 years old, and her second at 15. She…
Factory Fotos: ‘Exploding the plastic inevitable’ at Art Sanctuary
The Exploding Plastic Inevitable. It’s a Warholian concept that might be as hard to explain as it is to wrap your head around. It was a sort of art installation, a sort of concert, a sort of party that was staged in Warhol’s legendary space known as The Factory — and the happening itself ended…
IF Film to screen award-winning Louisville-based films
Louisville Film Society (LFS) has teamed up with IdeaFestival again to bring Louisville the 2nd annual IF Film, a festival of new and independent film. “This year’s IF Film program is loaded from start to finish with productions that have unique voice and vision. There is no one style or one genre,” said LFS’s Soozie…
Video Tapeworm
THIS WEEK’S TWIN PEEKS APARTMENT TROUBLES 2014; $14.98; UR Underappreciated Louisville-lass Jess “The Good Wife” Weixler co-stars with indie writer/director/actress Jennifer Prediger as a pair of tightly wound New York City roomies who relocate to Los Angles in hopes of making it big, eventually landing their own reality TV show. A knowing nod to that…
The illusion of food variety
Eat from the rainbow and eat five servings a day, we’re told. For living-food purposes, the rainbow has six colors. Unless one knows to eat at least five servings of a variety of fruits and vegetables, we’re set up for failure from the start. In Time Magazine’s recent how-to article “Parent Like a Dane,” writer…
Product wrangling
I’m a morning person. Not that I greet the day by springing from bed singing songs with cartoon woodland animals like Snow White, all cheerful and such. But I am the morning person at a restaurant. I’ve always enjoyed being the first one in, greeted by a clean, cool, quiet commercial kitchen, with plenty of…
A little of this, a little of that
I didn’t know what to write about this week, so I decided to write about a lot of things. I’m a creature of habit who also likes trying new restaurants, so sometimes the dishes I want to return to I don’t get a chance to return to as soon as I’d like, if you know…
Seed to flower
I was driving with my son, enjoying the fiery September sunset, reflecting on the long exhausting week (not yet ended) when I slid Stevie Wonder’s “Songs in the Key of Life” in the CD player. The familiar infant cry began on the first track, “Isn’t She Lovely” — the song that inspired my sister’s name,…
Holy, high hopes and humps
It gives us comfort to think we’re in the driver’s seat, that we control the pace and path to paradise — except, perhaps, during those Carrie Underwood moments when we run too fast, too low on faith and gas, spin on black glass and implore Jesus to save our ass. I wouldn’t expect Jesus —…
We need a statesman, not a ‘Good man’
The dysfunction of Congress under John Boehner has been frustrating at times and comical at others. However, seeing the Speaker of the House tearfully announce his resignation provided an unusual glimmer of nonpartisan emotion. It was spontaneous admiration — possibly affection — for a genuine American public servant. These sentimental moments don’t come around often…
Your Voice
On “Wrapped in the Flag and Carrying a Cross” Erica Rucker, In your September 10 column, you wrote about the history of current developments in the Republican party. I agree with most of what you wrote. However, you made one statement that drives me crazy because so many others make the same equivalence. You say,…
