Saturday, June 27th at American Turner’s Club
3125 River Road
8 PM
$5
Velvet lined steam roller tactics mean TROPICAL TRASH’s LP debut UFO Rot descends from the sky straight onto your brain stem. This is potent stuff, meant to be taken in controlled doses. Load the spoon full and heat up gradually. The band has existed for two previous 7”’s but really comes roaring out of the gate with black hat tales and some lineup changes. May very well be the album you use for whatever you do when you are not reading the internet. Instead of trace papering some shadow punks of previous dictatorships, these patriots pull the curtain back and show the emperor sporting some very exotic under carriage, and spew forth tales with cop stashes, Area 51 belly bloat, and new reconfigured mainframe math – this is the new form. Nine condensed blasts of well honed songcraft that really put them at the top of the heap of the rock heap, with paranoid punk, and an eagerness to melt it all down and make it into something bold and badass. Don’t sleep on this one comrade.
Watch the video for Tropical Trash’s “Fat Kid’s Wig,” directed by Robert Beatty, here:
FRIDAY, MAY 29 at Decca
812 E. Market Street
DOORS AT 9
MUSIC AT 10 FREE! (SUGGESTED DONATION)
Facebook invitation here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1442266419418556/
Recommended if you like: Louisville! Chicago and Nashville, too!
“Spend some time in Louisville, Kentucky and you will find it is one of the most unassumingly strange places in America. The ratio of grown folks to millennials in attendance at any rock gig seems roughly 3:1. Such events take place in places like caves and chicken coops, among other nontraditional venues. Hip, transgressive people don’t seem to outgrow hip, transgressive things here; no one seems very eager to settle for a life less weird. Catherine Irwin of the great Louisville/Chicago band Freakwater — who lends her inimitable vocal talents to several tunes on Fantasy Error, the latest album by STATE CHAMPION — once joked that the evergreen nature (no pun intended) of the Louisville scene was due to the dearth of area vocational schools. If an album has been made in this young century that better captures the essence of this burg than Fantasy Error, I haven’t heard it.
“STATE CHAMPION‘s punked-up country gunk frequently recalls both the Aristotelian pathos of bands like Souled American and Palace Brothers and the character-driven black humor of indie ironists like Camper Van Beethoven and the Supreme Dicks. Mere homage, however, is not STATE CHAMPION‘s line. Singer and head honcho Ryan Davis is a sharp, astute lyricist, the kind of songwriter who probably gets tired of people asking him why he doesn’t try his hand at short story writing. Indeed, Fantasy Error‘s depictions of postmasters and county coroners, Dickensian drinkers and ‘teardrop pushers’ are as vivid as they are familiar, sung with the conviction of a Drag City-damaged Chris Knight. The musicians provide the perfect foil, loose without trying too terribly hard to appear ‘ramshackle.’ Frayed horsehair bows are dragged across fiddle wire and banjos frail for dear life; fuzzy, unfussy electric guitars bend, scrimmage, and howl while subtle synthesizers interject ominously through the din; even the percussion sounds bleary-eyed and broken-up with.
“Fantasy Error is a great rock and roll record, equal parts Springsteen and noise scene, as American as broken traffic lights and bad trips.
“The banner yet waves!”
– James Jackson Toth (January 2015)
Spawned from the formidable Louisville, Kentucky collective known as Black Velvet Fuckere, SAPAT resides as the centrifugal force in this Midwestern psychedelic madrigal set in the psychosexual backwaters of the mighty Ohio River. For the entirety of the ‘00 decade, members have kept busy collaborating with and/or massaging the egos of various and sundry avant-pontiffs such as Robert Fripp, Magik Markers, Dead Child and Eugene Chadbourne – when not honing the orgone energy of SAPAT. Their most recent LP, A Posthuman Guide to the Advent Calendar Origins of the Peep Show, was released last fall on Sophomore Lounge Records.
SATURDAY, APRIL 19 (Astro Black Records opens at 9 am, music starts around 1 pm, goes all afternoon)
at ASTRO BLACK // Fat Rabbit // Lisa’s Oak St. Lounge
1000 E. Oak Street, Louisville, KY
Featuring live in-store and in-Lisa’s performance by:
Also, we’ll have an announcement soon about a record release show later that evening at Dreamland, as well as some RSD other events around town! This is gonna be great!
Cropped Out and The Other Side of Life are proud to present:
WEIRD GIRL (Louisville, KY) JONATHAN WOOD / WILLIAM CARPENTER (Louisville, KY; members from ANWAR SADAT and OLD BABY) VINCAS(Athens, GA; on Douchemaster Records) THE POWDER ROOM (GA)
Thursday, November 7th
at PLEASE & THANK YOU
800 E. Market Street
7pm, ALL AGES WELCOME! FREE! (though a donation to the touring bands is highly appreciated.)
Celebrating their 10th year as one of independent music’s most substantive bands, Louisville’s COLISEUM return from touring for their fourth full-length, the stunning Sister Faith, released by Temporary Residence Ltd. Expanding on the anthemic direction the trio veered toward on 2010′s highly acclaimed House With a Curse, Sister Faith‘s 13 songs are the most dynamic and immediately captivating of the band’s career, bristling with galvanizing melodies at the collision point between punk and noise-rock. The first album to be recorded in producer J. Robbins’ recently relocated Magpie Cage Studios, Sister Faith is also the first Coliseum recording to feature new bassist, Kayhan Vaziri, in addition to contributions from some of the groups’ closest friends and musical peers: Wata of Boris, J. Robbins (Jawbox, Burning Airlines), Jason Farrell (Swiz, Bluetip), Elizabeth Elmore (Sarge, The Reputation), Chris Colohan (Burning Love, Cursed), Sam James Velde (Night Horse, Bluebird), and Jason Loewenstein (Sebadoh, The Fiery Furnaces) all make small but memorable contributions.
Sonically-destructive Austin power trio, LIONS OF TSAVO, following a nearly four-year silence between releases, will deliver their third full-length album this November, Traverser. Boasting their crushing upbeat sludge/doom, and building on the vestiges of their previous recordings, but taking everything to another level of intensity this time, Traverser is indisputably LIONS OF TSAVO’s most well-executed and tonally dominating release of the band’s ongoing lineage. With elements expanding the genre into their own unique vision, arguably akin to contemporary greats like Mastodon, Hull, Today Is The Day, Inter Arma and Keelhaul in a cavernous void between gargantuan stacks of amplification, Traverser rages with over fifty-two minutes of enormous, debilitating riff-vs.-percussion displays of bruising music that never ceases to throw a new headbender at you with every turn.
If you had to list every band that every EARLY AGE member previously or currently plays in, well, you’d have this list: Mountain Asleep, Prideswallower, Black God, Whips/Chains, Second Story Man, Minnow, Julie of the Wolves, Breather Resist, Young Widows, Brain Banger, Liberation Prophecy, Sandpaper Dolls, and Young Scamels. If one or more of those bands haven’t previously blown you away, then you might not have a pulse.
WHITE REAPER are Louisville’s latest garage rock sensation, catch them before they’re either huge and/or move to Nashville/Memphis/anyplace else.
UPDATE, 10/21: Sadly, THE PHANTOM FAMILY HALO will not be able to play this show! We wish them the best, and hopefully they’ll return to Louisville soon!
Tuesday, October 29th
at NACHBAR 969 Charles Street (at the corner of Charles and Krieger)
9 PM, 21-and -over FREE!
JOHN WESLEY COLEMAN III is the definition of the wildman troubador in modern times, and has certainly earned a deserved reputation with his sensibility for original, creative and bizarre recordings with both THE GOLDEN BOYS and his namesake here. The guy has a sense of weird, time-proof stoner genius bottled up “as” rock n roll that is undeniable, and gravity worked its magnetic pull. A mix of the real and the absurd in one man, with an uncanny ability to combine worldly intelligence with humor that “accidentally” hints at the sublime.
Following their studio debut You Win Some, You Loser (Sophomore Lounge, 2010), Chicago’s favorite skateshop pop quartet ANIMAL CITY is back on wax with their follow-up full-length, See You In The Funny Pages. Though two and a half years without a proper record might seem like a healthy hunk of downtime, don’t let the calendar fool you. The boys have been busy. Since first forming their creative kinship nearly 7 years ago, key songwriters Sal Cassato and Dakota Loesch have knocked out a dozen-or-so collections of lo-fi, homegrown, harmonious rock jams ranging in style from stoner/loner acoustic wayfaring to full-on, funked-up and jazzed-out anthems. “I can’t deny the enjoyability that comes with a well-edited, snappy rock band like this… Even as I get older and uglier, I refuse to entirely hate anyone and everyone on the grounds that they are not as bitter as myself; bands like Animal City are chicken soup for the soul.” –Yellow Green Red.
Mikie, Sean, and Jenny of GIVING UP were all snuck out of their 16 year old bedrooms to hang out and cause trouble. Now they sneak out of their respective 20 something year old major midwestern towns to return to Iowa, write songs, goof off, and feel feelings.
It’s kinda crazy how quickly September has flown by — in a flash! Well they say time flies when you’re having fun, but we haven’t even gotten to CROPPED OUT yet! That’s right, the fourth installment of Louisville’s best DIY-n’-weird-stuff weekend is back, taking place mainly at the American Turners Club on River Road, and this year promises to be the best ever. As always, we’ve checked out the schedule (you can too, here: http://croppedoutmusic.com/cropped-out-2013-schedule/), and here’s your “Picks to Click” in bold, with some additional commentary…
FRIDAY, SEPT. 27
5 p.m. — White Reaper (Turners Tavern stage): Louisville’s latest garage rock sensation, catch them before they’re either huge and/or move to Nashville/Memphis/anyplace else.
5:25 — Spelling Bee (Goosebump Galley stage)
5:55 — Tweens (Phreedom Hall stage)
6:20 — Promised Land Sound (Turners Tavern)
6:45 — Tyvek (Turners Tavern): Detroit’s finest stop-on-a-dime-and-give-you-change rock band, in probably their millionth configuration. Who will be in the band this week? Find out!
7:15 — Spray Paint (Phreedom Hall)
7:40 — Salad Influence (Goosebump Galley): Lexington main man Mikey Turner’s side gig, when he’s not rocking in CROSS or making sweet solo tapes.
8:00 — Blues Control (Goosebump Galley): Our pals Lea and Russ, we go way back, and there ain’t nothin’ bad we could ever say about this dynamic duo!
8:35 — Juanita (Phreedom Hall): Long-running Louisville underground mavens, featuring some people that go back to first-wave Louisville punk and the 1069 House scene that spawned Babylon Dance Band, Endtables, and more.
9:00 — Hair Police (Turners Tavern): Lexington “noize dudes” in a rare Louisville performance — probably the first time in a decade!
9:25 — Shit & Shine (Goosebump Galley): One of the highlights of Cropped Out II: The Search for Curley’s Gold, S&S occasionally feature King Coffey of the Butthole Surfers, as well as bunny masks.
9:55 — The Endtables (Phreedom Hall): First-wave Louisville punk! Okay, maybe Southern Indiana. Either way, they rule, and this is the first time they’ve played here in over 35 years!
10:20 — Steve Gunn (Turners Tavern): East Coast guitar-slinger with a killer new album, Time Off, that you should check out pronto!
10:55 — Bill Orcutt & Chris Corsano (Goosebump Galley): Orcutt slayed solo at Cropped Out II, this is his first Louisville trip with drumming octopus and handsome man Chris Corsano. Hide your (fancy) bourbon!
11:40 — Endless Boogie (Phreedom Hall): The last time EB graced Louisville was over two years ago, so it’s safe to say you shouldn’t miss them this time!
2:00 p.m. — Asm A Tik (Turners Tavern): I’ve been dying to see this new Louisville trio, as supposedly they are prog-tastic. Come get progressive, early!
2:25 — Neighbor (Goosebump Galley): One of Louisville’s heaviest current groups, we gotta say, these neighbors are much cooler than one of our neighbors who cut down a tree last year. Boo!
2:55 — Todays Hits (Phreedom Hall)
3:20 — Mote (Turners Tavern)
3:45 — Quail Bones (Goosebump Galley)
4:15 — Connections (Phreedom Hall): New Columbus, Ohio band features members of Times New Viking. Remember them? They were great, so these guys are probably at least half as good, right? Just kiddin’, they are pretty great!
4:40 — Tom Blacklung & the Smokestacks (Turners Tavern)
5:05 — Running (Goosebump Galley)
5:35 — Rinehart (Phreedom Hall)
6:00 — New England Patriots (Turners Tavern)
6:25 — Thee Open Sex (Goosebump Galley)
6:55 — Montag (Phreedom Hall): Rare appearance by this Louisville super-phenom! Must be seen to be believed!
7:20 — SKIMASK (Turners Tavern)
7:45 — Jaye Jayle (Turners Tavern): Mysterious Louisville folk rock funsters, JJ have been awesome every time we’ve seen ’em.
8:15 — Mayo Thompson and the Corky’s Debt Band (Phreedom Hall): YES! Corky’s Debt to His Father is one of our favorite albums of all time, and though we’ve seen Mayo kill it with his main concern, The Red Krayola, we never thought we’d see the day we’d see/hear songs from Corky live. And on our 38th birthday, no less. In our hometown. Thank you, Cropped Out!
8:55 — Kal Marks (Goosebump Galley)
9:20 — Borbetomagus (Goosebump Galley): New York trio (2 saxes, electric guitar) are an acquired taste, but what a taste it is! We’ve been long-time fans, without ever having the chance to see them live, so this is another one-in-a-lifetime experience as they rarely play off the East Coast.
10:00 — Wolf Eyes (Phreedom Hall): Quite possibly the best band Michigan’s produced since the Stooges. Really, I believe that!
10:35 — Human Eye (Turners Tavern): Second-best Michigan band after Wolf Eyes! What is it with Michigan and eyes anyway? The dang place looks like a glove!
11:05 — CAVE (Goosebump Galley): One of the highlights of Cropped Out #1, along with a chaotic drunken Oaks night two years ago, Cave brings some sorta kraut-y dance party for yo’ dome.
11:45 — Matt Sweeney & Bonnie “Prince” Billy (Phreedom Hall): We’ll be honest, we haven’t been a huge Billy fan, but Superwolf, the album these two geniuses recorded over five years ago, was a damn fine moment. Everybody rub your belly!
At midnight Saturday night, our Stop Drink Listen friends will be hosting an after-party with Endless Boogie’s Paul Major, also at Seidenfaden’s (more information here: https://www.facebook.com/events/594751607224434/).
SUNDAY, SEPT. 29
9 p.m. — Freakwater (Phreedom Hall): C’mon, do I really have to tell you anything about Freakwater? Sheesh, I’m tired already.
10:30 — Lambchop (Phreedom Hall)
If that wasn’t enough information for you, you can find out more at www.croppedoutmusic.com. And you can download a really great mix of this year’s artists there! And buy tickets, if you haven’t already. What are you waiting for?
OH YEAH! Cropped Out REALLY starts on Thursday, if you’re so inclined, with the BEER & VOODOO Wild & Woolly/Cropped Out 2013 Pre-Party with Sublime Frequenciesat the Dreamland Film Center! Filmmaker/documentarian/world traveler Hisham Mayet will be presenting two films, Vodoun Gods on the Slave Coast (at 7:30pm) and The Divine River: Ceremonial Pageantry in the Sahel (at 9:00pm). More information is here: https://www.facebook.com/events/504642746296711/.
Whew! Now I gotta go take a nap so I have enough energy for this weekend…
UPDATE, 9/27/2013: THE CORRECT SET TIMES ARE NOW UP! For some reason, we “copied” the scheduled published in the LEO Weekly, which was inaccurate. We regret the error. Always on time, peoples!
I have to admit, last year’s CROPPED OUT Festival would be difficult for anyone, much less our fearless friends and heroes, to top. Jandek, Eugene Chadbourne (yes, people born after 1970 know who he is), Neil Hamburger, The Ritchie White Orchestra, Merchandise, Papa M, and Wooden Wand were just some of the many, many memorable performances of the weekend (and by memorable, I also mean I won’t ever forget seeing that naked guy from Guerilla Toss, no matter how much I try!). Following up last year’s fest is on a magnitude with winning the NCAA basketball tournament two years in a row…
So it’s even more surprising that not only did our CROPPED OUT pals not blow it this year as the musical equivalent of the first round of the NIT (heh heh), but, to mix sports metaphors, they knocked it OUT OF THE PARK yet again this year! This year’s CROPPED OUT lineup (with picks to click in bold):
Mayo Thompson And The Corky’s Debt Band performing Corky’s Debt To His Father Endless Boogie
Lambchop The Endtables Wolf Eyes Blues Control Shit And Shine Bill Orcutt/Chris Corsano CAVE Connections Montag Hair Police Human Eye
Spray Paint Watery Love Steve Gunn
Cop City Chill Pillars
Running Salad Influence
Rinehart Jaye Jayle
Skimask Juanita Neighbor
Kal Marks Asm A Tik
Tom Blacklung & The Smokestacks Thee Open Sex
Today’s Hits
New England Patriots
Quail Bones
Tweens White Reaper
Spelling Bee
I’ve been assured that plenty more surprises are on the way, so vote early, vote often! Er… buy your tickets now! Here’s the details:
Two-day combo passes (which include Friday and Saturday, but not Sunday’s separate closing party) are on sale now at Astro Black Records and online. There will be a limited amount of combo passes available for the almost inconsequential amount of $35, and once those are gone, you can still purchase them in advance for the very reasonable price of $40. Day-of-show combo passes are $50, so save a few shekels and purchase them now!
The closing party, which will be headlined by Lambchop, will be a more intimate affair, and located off the festival grounds at the incredible and historic Workhouse Ballroom, a semi-secret, pre-Civil War manmade cavern. Referred to locally as “The Cave,” it once served as a debtor’s prison, and is a wonderous place to see a musical performance. Consider it a kind of wind-down from the insanity of the weekend. It’s ticketed separately, so if you want to catch Nashville’s finest, along with a TBD support act, be sure to pick up a ticket.
Cropped Out and The Other Side of Life are proud to present:
INSECT FACTORY(Silver Spring, MD) mAAs (Louisville, KY; duo of Tim Barnes and Connor Bell) PUBLIC SPEAKING(Brooklyn, NY)
Wednesday, July 24th at GREENHAUS 2227 S. Preston 7 PM, $6
INSECT FACTORY is music from Silver Spring, MD musician Jeff Barsky. INSECT FACTORY focuses on texture and mood, building layers of dense sounds that slowly evolve into hypnotic and atmospheric drones. Since the 90’s, Barsky has continuously played in bands and improvisational collectives, and has performed frequently on the east coast of the U.S., and also in Canada, throughout Europe, and Japan. Barsky’s projects have shared the stage with acts as diverse as Richard Pinhas, Nels Cline, Lungfish, and Carla Bozulich, and he has performed at the Suoni Il Per Popolo festival in Montreal, Terrastock ’08 in Louisville, KY, and D.C.’s Sonic Circuits, Queering Sound, and Fringe Festivals. In later 2011, INSECT FACTORY released a split 7″ with RST (New Zealand), and followed it up with the Melodies from a Dead Radio LP (Fabrica/Insectfields) in early 2012. Most recently, INSECT FACTORY appeared alongside Six Organs of Admittance and Charalambides on “For Lee Jackson in Space”, a gargantuan online compilation benefitting ALS Research. “Music that evokes the feel of a plane ride through the clouds and the
surreal world of dreams…INSECT FACTORY‘s music grows with repeated listens.” – The Wire.
mAAs is the duo of Louisville musicians Connor Bell (also of Shedding) and Tim Barnes. Louisville resident and drummer extraordinaire, the list of Tim Barnes‘s collaborators is too long to list here, but it includes Jim O’Rourke, Silver Jews, Neil Michael Hagerty and the Howling Hex, The Tower Recordings, and countless others. Most recently, Tim Barnes played drums with the resurrected lineup of The For Carnation, as well as with MV+EE at Cropped Out in November, 2011. Connor Bell has released several items over the years under the name Shedding, available at Ocio and Hometapes, all of which is meditative and still, eerie and unsettling — yet with a spectacular sense of melody. This performance marks their debut as mAAs, an electronic duo.
PUBLIC SPEAKING is the music of Brooklyn solo artist Jason Anthony Harris. Utilizing found objects, radio, tape recorder, and vocoder, he pores over pedals to loop, warp and augment these sources. He sings on his knees, in a semi-circle of these devices and percussive clutter. The result is a soulful and rhythmically dense experimental music. His performances are highly improvisational, with an emphasis on immediacy and site-specific actions.
Friday, July 19th
atLISA’S OAK STREET LOUNGE 1004 E. Oak Street
9:30 PM, 21-and-over, $5 Please note: Lisa’s Oak Street Lounge accepts CASH ONLY!
(photo of JULIE OF THE WOLVES by Tim Furnish)
JULIE OF THE WOLVES formed in September of 2011 and includes members of Madame Machine, The Frequent Sea, Second Story Man, Venus Trap, Minnow, and The Red Nails. They’re one of the most exciting new bands in Louisville at the moment, and if you haven’t seen them play yet (with other great bands such as Old Baby, Freakwater, Black God, and the Hal Dolls), now’s your chance! This show is also a fundraiser to help them finance their new record!
OPPOSABLE THUMBS is “part party and part sweated garage rock… Every instrument is as key and in your face; none overtake the order of the chaos being preached. It’s stripped down post-punk that has a almost considerable dance to it. Not dance rock; fuck that. This digs into late 70s/early 80s vibes… This band seems to me to be a perfect culmination of a history of Louisville’s crud rock scene rolled together and spit out. The unhinged destruction of convention still exists pounded through a discipline that keeps the songs together and groovy.” — American Gloam.
Watch OPPOSABLE THUMBS‘ video for the song “Hello Babies” off their self-titled debut album here:
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The Other Side of Life 