Yearly Archives: 2011

CROPPED OUT is coming up…

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We haven’t had too much to say about the upcoming CROPPED OUT festival, on the weekend of November 11th – 13th here in lovely Louisville, Kentucky, because it seems like it’s all anybody can talk about anyway! I mean, can you believe freakin’ SCRATCH ACID is gonna play?* Me neither, and I’m really stoked!

But the CROPPED OUT fest is far more than just one band. It’s a whole mess of ’em! Including some of our favorite performers ever:

  • BILL ORCUTT, former guitarist for HARRY PUSSY, and one of the most exciting purveyors of six-string nonsense (even though he only plays four strings, apparently) going today.
  • MV + EE, the duo of Matt Valentine (formerly of THE TOWER RECORDINGS) and Erika Elder is probably the closest you’ll get to seeing Neil Young live, except perhaps even more damaged. And rumor has it that former TOWER RECORDINGS member TIM BARNES will be joining them!
  • MOUNT CARMEL is probably our favorite of the new SILTBREEZE roster — straight-ahead Ohio-style boogie rock!
  • HUMAN EYE might possibly be the best rock band in Detroit right now. Period.

And there’s a whole slew more, including lots of shit we’ve never heard of before! And a bevy of fantastic local artists, including our friends SAPAT, YOUNG WIDOWS, SHEDDING, COLISEUM, CROSS, and lots more!

They got a new web site up at http://croppedoutmusic.com, so check it out and buy your tickets ASAP.** It’s gonna be killer!

*On a side note, how come nobody got it together to bring THE JESUS LIZARD to Louisville during their recent reunion action? Just because Laura Shine has no idea who they are doesn’t mean they weren’t one of the most popular Chicago-style bands to play in Louisville during the 1990s. Our excuse for not booking them is, well, we were too poor to afford their guarantee (as if our shoe-string show budget wasn’t obvious).

**Seriously Louisville, if you sleep on this like you slept on TERRASTOCK 2008, you only have yourself to blame. The prices are good, the venue is centrally located, and if you miss it…

DISCLAIMER: We are buds with Ryan and James who are booking/promoting CROPPED OUT, and we think they’re awesome! We do occasionally co-promote shows with ’em but that’s only because they rule!

OBITS, BOTTOMLESS PIT, and STATE CHAMPION at Club 21, Thursday, October 20th

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Our friends at CROPPED OUT are bringin’ it tomorrow night! Three great bands at Club 21 (formerly the Pour Haus, where you saw Pere Ubu, remember?). Here’s the details:

Cropped Out Presents
A very special evening of rock’n’roll music with:

OBITS (ex-Hot Snakes/Drive Like Jehu — from Brooklyn)
http://obitsurl.com/

with

BOTTOMLESS PIT (ex-Silkworm — from Chicago)
http://bottomlesspit.us/

and

STATE CHAMPION (“Deep Shit” record release show — from Louisville)
http://statechampion.tumblr.com/

Thursday, October 20th
Club 21 (formerly the Pour Haus)
Doors at 8. Show at 9.
$10. 21+.

Advance tickets available at:
http://www.ticketfly.com/event/59291

Be there! We will.

James Elkington & Nathan Salsburg, Avos (Tompkins Square)

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This week’s LEO Weekly features my review of the new album by James Elkington & Nathan Salsburg, Avos:

Louisville resident Nathan Salsburg is an archivist for the Alan Lomax Archive and a music columnist for LEO Weekly. (Disclaimer: I’ve been friends with Nathan since middle school, and we occasionally collaborate on promoting musical events in town). What is perhaps less known by the public at large is Salsburg’s prowess at the finger-picking guitar style established in the 1960s and ’70s by John Fahey and others, as he’s previously only released one song, on the Tompkins Square label’s Imaginational Anthems compilation series. His new collaboration, Avos, with Chicago-based guitarist James Elkington, as well as his upcoming solo debut Affirmed, should definitely garner Salsburg some well-deserved praise as a guitarist. Avos is intricately composed, yet has a fresh, contemporary sound without feeling too gimmicky or of-the-moment. Salsburg and Elkington tastefully show enough dexterity to make the listener wonder, “How’d they do that?” without being too flashy. Rather, Avos is a slightly melancholy affair, with plenty of melodic, serene moments to match the six-string sleight-of-hand.

Buy it from Tompkins Square here: http://www.tompkinssquare.com/avos.html.

And don’t forget, Nathan will be playing a solo set with Glenn Jones this Friday at the Clifton Center. Details (including a link to purchase tickets) here: https://othersideoflife.wordpress.com/2011/10/10/glenn-jones-and-nathan-salsburg-at-the-clifton-community-center-friday-october-21st/.

GLENN JONES and NATHAN SALSBURG at the CLIFTON CENTER, Friday, October 21st

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The Other Side of Life is proud to present:

Thrill Jockey recording artist GLENN JONES (from Massachusetts, founder of CUL DE SAC)

with special guest:
NATHAN SALSBURG (from Louisville, Kentucky; debut album forthcoming on No Quarter)

Friday, October 21st at 8 PM
Clifton Center, Community Room
2117 Payne Street
Louisville, KY 40206
$8 advance tickets available exclusively online at TicketFly, $10 day of show
ALL AGES WELCOME.

GLENN JONES has been called “the best guitarist you never heard of” by the Boston Globe. A 30+-year devotee of the so-called American Primitive school of acoustic steel string guitarists, GLENN JONES has been playing guitar since the age of 14. He formed Boston pysch-rock band, CUL DE SAC, in 1989 and led it on its 20 year journey to nowhere, leaving nine albums in its wake, including collaborations with guitarist John Fahey and Can’s Damo Suzuki. The Wanting is JONES’ first album for the esteemed Chicago-based Thrill Jockey label, and features his beautiful guitar and banjo compositions, as well as a collaboration with percussionist Chris Corsano. The Utne Reader calls JONES “an incredibly adept fingerstyle guitarist whose technique always remains in service of the song… His vigorous leaps are daring but never reckless, and nearly always sublime.”

GLENN JONES was recently profiled on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday, which you can listen to here: http://www.npr.org/2011/10/01/140935915/a-singular-guitarist-emerges-from-john-faheys-shadow.

NATHAN SALSBURG is an archivist, producer, guitarist and writer based in Louisville, Kentucky. He has worked for the Alan Lomax Archive since 2000, for which he currently serves in the capacities of production manager, photo and video archivist, and general digital catalog editor. Since 2006 he has produced and hosted “Root Hog Or Die,” a vernacular/traditional music program on East Village Radio, and is curator of the Twos & Fews recording imprint, also a vernacular music entity, and a collaboration with Chicago’s Drag City label. SALSBURG maintains an index of on-line vernacular music resources at his blog, roothogordie.wordpress.com, and contributes occasional music writing to the Louisville Eccentric Observer and the Other Music weekly update. This past August, the Tompkins Square label released Avos, a collaboration between SALSBURG and Chicago guitarist James Elkington (formerly of the Zincs), and SALSBURG’s first solo album, Affirmed, is due November 15th on No Quarter.

Listen to “Sought & Hidden” off Affirmed here: http://noquarter.net/mp3/sought.mp3.

Check out the Facebook invite here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=215621245171725.

To join our email list, send an email to hstencil@gmail.com.

Loren Connors, Red Mars (Family Vineyard)

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This week’s edition of the LEO Weekly includes my review of Red Mars, the new solo album by Loren Connors:

Guitarist Loren Connors toiled for decades in near-willful obscurity, self-releasing his recorded output under multiple pseudonyms. Only rarely in his early years did Connors work with other musicians, and as a result of his relative isolation, he developed a singular, insular style of playing guitar that, while inspired by the blues, thankfully never sounds “bluesy.” Despite his being diagnosed with Parkinson’s in the early 1990s, the rest of the world somehow caught up to Connors shortly thereafter, and he entered a still-ongoing fruitful period consisting of multiple collaborations (with avant-garde types such as Jandek, Jim O’Rourke and Keiji Haino), and the formation of his own band, Haunted House. Red Mars, his first truly solo release since 2004, harks back to Hell’s Kitchen Park, the first Connors record that I heard, way back in 1993; but it sounds even more desolately stark than previous efforts, an achievement I thought nearly impossible. As such, Red Mars is one of the darkest, sparest, listen-only-at-4 a.m. records I’ve ever heard. And that’s a compliment.

You can buy it from Family Vineyard here.

WOODEN WAND, NATHAN SALSBURG, and DANE WATERS at ZANZABAR, Tuesday, September 13th

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The Other Side of Life and Cropped Out! present:

WOODEN WAND (from Lexington, on Young God Records)
NATHAN SALSBURG (from Louisville, Kentucky; debut album forthcoming on No Quarter)
DANE WATERS (from Louisville, Kentucky; member of Sapat and Softcheque)

Tuesday, September 13th
at ZANZABAR
2100 S. Preston Street
9 PM DOORS, $6, 21 and over
BUY TICKETS HERE!

James Jackson Toth has been playing and recording (and releasing) music for over a decade, most notably as leader of the now-defunct New York-based collective Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice. After a solo album in 2007 on Rykodisc, and Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace! label and the Mad Monk label, he continues under the name WOODEN WAND with his new release on Michael Gira’s Young God Records label, Death Seat. Abandoning the psychedelic wail of WW&VV for a starker, more direct songwriting style, WOODEN WAND’s most recent tunes are harrowing and hellaciously good. Michael Gira writes that Toth is “a passionate singer and guitar player and inhabits the songs as he performs them with straightforward, unpretentious, and confident gravitas. I’ve been listening to this record over and over for the last several months—we went through dozens of equally compelling songs before choosing the line up of tracks—and the more I listen, the more honored I am to be associated with James Jackson Toth.”

NATHAN SALSBURG is an archivist, producer, guitarist and writer based in Louisville, Kentucky. He has worked for the Alan Lomax Archive since 2000, for which he currently serves in the capacities of production manager, photo and video archivist, and general digital catalog editor. Since 2006 he has produced and hosted “Root Hog Or Die,” a vernacular/traditional music program on East Village Radio, and is curator of the Twos & Fews recording imprint, also a vernacular music entity, and a collaboration with Chicago’s Drag City label.  Salsburg maintains an index of on-line vernacular music resources at his blog, roothogordie.wordpress.com, and contributes occasional music writing to the Louisville Eccentric Observer and the Other Music weekly update. This past week, the Tompkins Square label just released Avos, a collaboration between Salsburg and Chicago guitarist James Elkington (formerly of the Zincs), and Salsburg’s first solo album, Affirmed, is due November 15th on No Quarter.

DANE WATERS is one of Louisville’s brightest musical talents. As a member of SAPAT and SOFTCHEQUE, she displays an impeccable melodic sensibility, and has a voice so wonderfully haunting, it sends chills down your spine. Dane is in the midst of working on her first solo album, which we can’t wait to hear!

Check out the Facebook invite here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=183890385017722.

SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE at UNCLE SLAYTON’S this Thursday, August 25th

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(pic swiped from Uncle Slayton’s web site.)

We really, really miss Skull Alley. Jamie Prott ran a great-sounding venue, and when we started booking shows there, we were so pleased that Jamie was super-friendly and easy to work with. We miss the DIY spirit that pervaded the place, from the mosaic-tiled bar  to the, ahem, ever-changing decor. Since the venue re-opened with a new name, Uncle Slayton’s, this spring, we haven’t been interested in going to check it out, mainly because there hasn’t been a show worth going to, in our estimation.

So it comes as a bit of a surprise that SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE, the vehicle of the incredible Ben Chasny, is playing there this Thursday. Who booked this? Who cares? We’re glad! Here’s the particulars:

SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE 
w/Donovan Quinn and Band of Carnies
Thursday, August 25
8:30 PM / 8:00 doors
$8 / 18+ with ID
Purchase tickets here
Experimental, Out-Folk, Pop Rock

SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE is basically just one man (but what a man!) – Ben Chasny, along with whomever he ropes in for recording or for shows. This man-band started in 1997 when Ben self-released his first LP in an edition of 400, little dreaming that one day Six Organs of Admittance would sell 37 times as many records. Over the years, Six Organs has had many releases on a variety of labels, most notably Holy Mountain, and became one of the most influential sounds in the free world. In 2005, Ben found a home at Drag City and released the landmark album, School of the Flower. “Free jazz ninja drum master” Chris Corsano joined Ben and the results were a perfect blend of melody, out-folk, minimalism and noise, getting much critical applause and ending up on year-end best-of-the-year lists by magazines such as Mojo, Wire, and Magnet. Among other projects, Ben has played in the touring band of Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and plays guitar in the bands Current 93, Badgerlore, and Comets on Fire. Six Organs’ 10th album, Asleep on the Floodplain, released in February – ten portable slabs of home recorded blur-and-ripple (and warble) from a (mostly) acoustic man-band.

No idea who the opener(s) are, but really, if you can, you shouldn’t miss Six Organs. Ben is one of our favorite living guitarists, an absolute killer player with impeccable sensibilities. Yowza! Here’s the video for “Light of the Light,” off his new album Asleep on the Floodplain:

Oh yeah, Uncle Slayton’s is located at 1017 E. Broadway, near the corner of Broadway and Barrett. Yeah.

TENDER MERCY, GIVING UP/PUTTING OUT, SLITHERING BEAST at MAG BAR, Tomorrow! Monday, August 22nd

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Our friends at CROPPED OUT and SOPHOMORE LOUNGE are putting on this fantastic show tomorrow at Old Louisville’s favorite watering hole, the Mag Bar. Here are the particulars:

The triumphant return of Sophomore Lounge’s pop-slop magicians, GIVING UP (Louisville, KY/Garner, IA) and PUTTING OUT (Chicago, IL). Featuring members of STATE CHAMPION and MEAH!, with special guest openers SLITHERING BEAST (Clark County country cookin’).

JUST ADDED: Louisville heartstring-strummer and friend of the family, Mark Kramer a.k.a. TENDER MERCY will round out the night with some stripped-down, hauntingly sparse acousti…c numbers of his own. For fans of: Little Wings, Red House Painters, Spokane, etc.

This is the last show of a three-week tour for GU/PO, so come on down, buy yourself a beer, drink half of it, pour the rest of it on them, then buy one of their records to say you’re sorry. Then buy yourself another beer, and put a Warren Zevon song on the jukebox. It’s Monday night, what else is there to do?

http://soundcloud.com/tender-mercy
http://givingup.castlemorbius.com/
http://www.gooddrawers.com/puttingout
http://www.slitheringbeast.com/

9 PM. $4. 21 and over.

The MAG BAR is located at 1398 South 2nd Street, at the corner of Magnolia and Second. You knew that, as you’ve been going there since before you were old enough to drink.

The ubiquitous Facebook invite is, of course, here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=252908064739438.

CATHERINE IRWIN and LOWER DENS at ZANZABAR, Wednesday, July 27th

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CATHERINE IRWIN and LOWER DENS

The Other Side of Life and Cropped Out! present:

CATHERINE IRWIN (from Louisville, member of FREAKWATER)
LOWER DENS (from Baltimore, Maryland; featuring Jana Hunter, on Gnomonsong)

Wednesday, July 27th
at ZANZABAR
2100 S. Preston Street
9 PM DOORS, $6, 21 and over


(photo of Catherine Irwin by Jason Creps.)

CATHERINE IRWIN has called Louisville, Kentucky home, or at least her home base, all her life. She began performing by playing guitar in punk bands “and not caring a bit about country music,” she says. Still, the seed for her band Freakwater was inside her: “Most of the country music I heard on radio, I hated. But I loved the Carter Family, the way they would approach songs about death and dying or being saved and rejoicing the same way. That kind of music seems to age better. I can’t see myself playing punk anymore, but this kind of music I can see playing the rest of my life” (Chicago Tribune).

LOWER DENS is a band from Baltimore whose first LP, Twin-Hand Movement, was released last year on San Francisco’s Gnomonsong label. Sonically, they come from some place near new-wave, kraut-rock, post-punk, and pop. Twin-Hand Movement, specifically, is a record that incorporates those sounds to form its own. LOWER DENS formed in late 2008. Jana Hunter (guitar and vocals) needed a touring band for her solo work and found, through mutual friends, Abram Sanders (drums) and Geoff Graham (bass and vocals.) Twin-Hand Movement was made with the help of Chris Freeland (recording engineer, drummer for Oxes, proprietor of Beat Babies Studio just outside Baltimore), Chris Coady (mixing engineer with TV on the Radio, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Beach House records to his credit, proprietor of DNA Downtown studio in NYC), and Sarah Register (mastering  engineer at The Lodge in NYC, serious player in Talk Normal.) Amongst others, they cite Wire’s Chairs Missing, Chrome’s Half Machine Lip Moves, Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures, Faust IV, and Snakefinger’s Greener Postures as companions and influences. LOWER DENS is indeed at once classic and of the times, sounding familiar but not dated, recalling the warmth of nostalgia but not its tiredness. LOWER DENS is coming fresh off their latest tour opening for CASS McCOMBS.

Watch LOWER DENS perform “I Get Nervous” from their NPR Tiny Desk Concert here:

Check out the Facebook invite here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=210328669015245.

Colin Stetson, New History Warfare Volume 2: Judges (Constellation)

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Today’s edition of the LEO Weekly includes my review of Colin Stetson’s New History Warfare Volume 2: Judges:

Multi-reedist Colin Stetson presents an intriguing proposition on his second solo album, New History Warfare Volume 2: Judges: What would it sound like if the saxophone was used not as merely a vehicle for solo expression, but as a polyphonic, looping instrument in the service of highly abstract music? There are some antecedents in the modernist, multi-disciplinary work of Rova Saxophone Quartet, and perhaps Steve Reich, but Stetson’s approach bears few traces of any jazz tradition, apart from an occasional Albert Ayler-esque squeal. The result is an album of highly textural sounds that seem, at first listen, to have been created through heavy digital processing, but New History was recorded entirely live — with the exception of a French horn overdub, a guest vocal by Laurie Anderson and one by Shara Worden, of My Brightest Diamond, on a haunting version of “Lord I Just Can’t Keep From Crying Sometimes.”

Buy it from Constellation here.