Tag Archives: Kentucky

BITCHIN’ BAJAS with ELI WINTER AND TYLER DAMON at B-Side, Saturday September 19th

Poster designed by Tim Furnish

The Other Side of Life is proud to present:

BITCHIN’ BAJAS

with

ELI WINTER AND TYLER DAMON

Saturday September 19th, 2026
at B-Side
1076 E. Washington Street, 2nd Floor
Louisville, KY 40206

Buy Tickets

$20 advance tickets, $25 day of show
Advance tickets available online at TicketLeap; Physical tickets available for in-person purchase at Surface Noise, 600 Baxter Avenue, Louisville KY 40204 (cash only)

21+
7:00 PM doors
8:00 PM music

The latest album from BITCHIN’ BAJAS — the trio of Cooper Crain, Rob Frye and Danie Quinlivan — Inland See is deceptively immediate: four songs, entirely within themselves, all together forming an essential whole. With every successive BITCHIN’ BAJAS release, we see that the real key for them is a sense of discovery, that tingle that comes when you feel something breaking through. The sky opening up. Take “Skylarking” — a remarkable construction, built to and fro in the ether, but with a deceptive grasp of four-on-the-floor rhythm. A space dance that achieves completion in almost aggressive terms — aggressive like an oxygen bath! — showcasing jewels from their world music and jazz archives, then returning to their undulous source drone, riding smoothly back into silence. The stuff that fills this Inland See holds you up powerfully, as if you’re floating, saltwater or helium-wise — effervescent, effortless, elemental.

In the wake of 2025’s acclaimed Inland SeeBITCHIN’ BAJAS ascend to higher ground with the Isle Peaks EP! Isle Peaks was initially released as a 2-song Qobuz exclusive, but BITCHIN’ BAJAS are a band of the people, for the people – and the people demanded its availability everywhere! Set for release on August 28th on vinyl, cassette, and digital, the 12″ EP and cassette feature “Watch Your Step”, an exclusive track not included on the Qobuz version or any digital platform. Listen to the title track, out now. Expanding through equal parts krautrock and new age zones, these three tracks ascend with the listener to signal-splitting heights on both atmospheric and esoteric scales. These cuts were sourced from the Inland See sessions, lovingly recorded analog (2″ multitrack tape and ½” 2-track), including the electroacoustic textures of sampled kalimba, field recordings, and autoharp.

Along with the announcement of Isle Peaks, BITCHIN’ BAJAS share a new run of US tour dates, as well as additions to their previously announced European dates. Climb Isle Peaks with us on August 28, 2026.

Photo by Beth Kotz

ELI WINTER‘s music synthesizes aspects of folk, rock, jazz, and devotional music, maintaining a waggish disregard for genre constraints emblematic of Chicago, his adopted hometown. His new album, A Trick of the Light, is an elegantly crafted and vibrant collection that finds the bandleader at the height of his powers: the dazzlingly intense arrangement of Don Cherry and Ed Blackwell’s “Arabian Nightingale” that opens the album, Winter’s muscular, dreamy originals, and his daring arrangement of Carla Bley’s “Ida Lupino.” His concert history spans prestigious music festivals like Primavera Sound and Big Ears, pristine listening rooms, museums, university chapels, laundromat bars, and small rooms in shotgun houses. In Louisville he will perform with Chicago percussionist and improviser TYLER DAMON of Circuit des Yeux.

ELI WINTER‘s second turn as bandleader unfolds like a sky bleeding exhaust fumes, alternating pedal steel waltzes and jazz-burnt fuzz bombs. The record starts with an ecstatic riff on a Don Cherry and Ed Blackwell tune and doesn’t really let off the gas.” — Lars Gotrich, NPR

Live music events in Louisville, KY. Show announcements, music and news, and other ephemera at: https://bsky.app/profile/theothersideoflife.bsky.social.

Recidivist, ep. 2: Codeine

Codeine Promo

(Codeine promo photo and other images swiped from http://pry.com/codeine)

I doubt they were the first band I “connected” with in the figurative sense — after all I’ve been nuts about music as long as I can remember. Yet I first heard Codeine at a pretty important time, when I was a teenager in Louisville, Kentucky, and they were one of the first out-of-town bands that I got to meet, champion, and really feel, well, connected to.

See the Louisville scene, great as it was at the time, was pretty insular. Not a lot of touring acts came through town at the beginning my formative punk/hardcore show-going years (though this changed as active bands like Rodan and Crain — as well as the legend of Slint — brought more bands interested in playing Louisville). Though despite being from New York City, the band already had some ties to Louisville: in 1990, Stephen Immerwahr (vocals, bass) recorded “Pea” with Bitch Magnet at Sound on Sound in Louisville with Howie Gano (who practically engineered every local punk/hardcore band at some point):

Bitch Magnet + Codeine

Somehow, I bought this single and got into it, sparking a life-long obsession with not only the awesome Bitch Magnet (more about them at a later date), but with this mysterious and nihilistic yet (unlike most hardcore I knew at the time) totally slow and sludgy song “Pea” on the flipside (sorry I don’t have it available for download). At some point I figured it out, and when I spotted Frigid Stars LP in some Sub-Pop print catalog (yes, kids, aside from going to what was called a “record store” to buy records, some of us actually ordered music out of mail-order catalogs too), I snapped it up. Immediately enthralled by the slow, yet melodic and heart-breaking sounds (the catalog described them as “a cross between Galaxie 500 and the Melvins“), I rushed off a letter to the P.O. box in the credits. Not too long after, I received a super-nice reply from Stephen (who am friends with to this day; oddly we first met at a Rodan/Palace Brothers show at the long-gone Highland House one Derby Day). Probably then I became Louisville’s biggest (and to my knowledge, only — until Scott Richter told me he too was a fan), and tried to spread the word on how great they were to all my friends.

Years later, I still listen to Codeine, and still maintain that they’re one of the greatest bands of their era. Despite what could be considered a major influence on quite a few bands (probably would put Low and Mogwai in there, among others), I still kinda think they didn’t quite get their due. Not enough people know, but then again I could be wrong. While goofing around, looking for Codeine info, I found this fantastic site filled with all kinds of great images and information. Although it doesn’t seem to have been updated since 2005, there’s pretty much everything you could want on there, including 6 songs recorded by Codeine for Peel Sessions (download here) and a live set from the Vermonstress Fest in 1992 (download here).

The Peel Sessions contain some excellent performances of four Codeine classics, plus two songs I’d never heard before: “Median” and “Sure Looks That Way.” It’s a shame neither of those saw a proper release. The live show (originally posted on Bradley’s Almanac) starts off a little shaky, but eventually gathers a head of steam. It also documents an interesting period when Codeine was in-between main drummers Chris Brokaw and Doug Scharin, with Josh Madell of Antietam and Other Music filling in on the throne.

Codeine Insert

BONUS TRIVIA: If you can name the Minneapolis band and their record on which Immerwahr worked as assistant engineer, you’ll win… something.