Tag Archives: music

Music in the Attic: DAVID GRUBBS and KEN BROWN at MAYBEIT’SFATE, Thursday April 9th

David Grubbs and Ken Brown at MaybeItsFate, Louisville, KY on Thursday April 9, 2026. Poster designed by Robert Beatty. — Poster designed by Robert Beatty.

The Other Side of Life is proud to present:

and

KEN BROWN
KEN BROWN live visuals by SEETHINGS

Thursday, April 9th, 2026
at MaybeIt’sFate (Music in the Attic)
1425 Story Avenue
Louisville, KY 40206

$15 advance tickets, $20 day of show
Advance tickets available online at TicketLeap;
Physical tickets now available for in-person purchase at Surface Noise (cash only), 600 Baxter Avenue, Louisville KY 40204

ONLY A VERY LIMITED NUMBER OF TICKETS ARE AVAILABLE!

7:00 PM doors
8:00 PM music

DAVID GRUBBS is Distinguished Professor of Music at Brooklyn College and The Graduate Center, CUNY. He is the author of Good night the pleasure was ours, The Voice in the Headphones, Now that the audience is assembled, and Records Ruin the Landscape: John Cage, the Sixties, and Sound Recording (all published by Duke University Press) as well as the collaborative artists’ books Simultaneous Soloists (with Anthony McCall, Pioneer Works Press) and Projectile (with Reto Geiser and John Sparagana, Drag City). DAVID GRUBBS has released sixteen solo albums and appeared on more than 200 releases. In 2000, his The Spectrum Between (Drag City) was named “Album of the Year” in the London Sunday Times. He is known for his cross-disciplinary collaborations with poet Susan Howe and visual artists Anthony McCall, Angela Bulloch, and Josiah McElheny, and his work has been presented at, among other venues, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, MoMA, the Tate Modern, and the Centre Pompidou. Louisville native DAVID GRUBBS was a member of the groups Gastr del Sol, Bastro, and Squirrel Bait, and has performed with Tony Conrad, Pauline Oliveros, Luc Ferrari, Will Oldham, Loren Connors, Jan St. Werner, the Red Krayola, and many others. He is a recipient of the Berlin Prize and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts award in Music/Sound, a member of the board of directors of Blank Forms, and director of the Blue Chopsticks record label. 2025’s Whistle from Above is the first solo collection David’s released since 2017’s Creep Mission. During the 2020 shutdown, David played what he precisely quantified as “a shit-ton of guitar,” more than he could recall playing ever previously. Reinvigorated by this period of enforced woodshedding, he produced a series of new pieces, mostly for guitar, but also a piano composition and an exceptionally eerie bit of musique concrète. These seemed to imply a solo set that would tour marvelously when the time was right again. Whistle from Above is a colorful, compulsive set of instrumental pieces in which David and his chosen collaborators interact amid the steady roll of an expansive landscape based in the hypnosis of David’s immediately recognizable guitar style.

KEN BROWN is a founding member of Tortoise and Pullman, and former member of Bastro, Gastr del Sol, and Directions. In 2025 three solo albums credited to Louisville drummer and percussionist Tim Barnes were released with production, mixing, and performances by Brown: Lost Words, Noumena, and Inside Energy. Also in 2025 Brown released Cease and Desist by Jungle Boogie, recordings of his duo with Slint drummer Britt Walford. January 2026 saw the return of Pullman, Brown’s group featuring Tim Barnes, Chris Brokaw (Come/Codeine), Curtis Harvey (Rex), and Doug McCombs (Tortoise/Eleventh Dream Day) with their third album, III, released by Western Vinyl.

KEN BROWN will have live visuals created by SEETHINGS, Louisville’s own Tim Furnish, a multi-faceted musician, graphic designer, photographer, and VJ. Furnish is a founding member of classic Louisville bands Parlour, Cerebellum, and Crain and has been a member of The For Carnation and Aerial M. As SEETHINGS he has provided visuals for Old Baby, Shedding, Flanger Magazine, Jungle Boogie, Jaye Jayle, and many others. SEE MORE of SEETHINGS:
https://www.youtube.com/user/timfurnish
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkgHn6E1QjNRWEOET_tQttXBn-Gkddv1y&si=_-7s4BwvNf1CCDaL

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

TAKAAT, SPHERE BATS, and STRANGE BIRDS at ART SANCTUARY, Thursday March 26th

1 Reply

The Other Side of Life is proud to present:

TAKAAT
with special guests
SPHERE BATS and STRANGE BIRDS

Thursday, March 26th, 2026
at Art Sanctuary (back room)
1433 S. Shelby Street
Louisville, KY 40217

$15 advance tickets, $20 day of show
Advance tickets available online at Art Sanctuary;
Physical tickets available for in-person purchase at Surface Noise (cash only), 600 Baxter Avenue, Louisville KY 40204

18+
7:00 PM doors
8:00 PM music

TAKAAT (pronounced tuh-cot), meaning “noise” in the Tuareg language Tamashek, is the trio of Ahmoudou Madassane, Mikey Coltun, and Souleymane Ibrahim, also known as the rhythm section of Mdou Moctar. TAKAAT is sonic chaos, improvisation, freedom of exploration, and the punk styles of bands such as Fugazi and Unwound, all mixed together with the guitar music from the Sahel. TAKAAT started during soundchecks while on the road with Mdou Moctar when the trio indulged their shared love for amps cranked to 11 and the sound of blown out speakers. Towards the end of 2023, the three started writing music together, inspired by their shared experiences with the sounds and energy of Hausa bar bands, gritty soukous, and 2000s post-punk. The music of TAKAAT is intense, dark, and energetic. Deeply inspired by the DIY ethos of punk, Ahmoudou, Mikey, and Souleymane capture that thrill of the new and the ecstasy of togetherness in these heavy rockers. TAKAAT follows in the spirit of the independent music culture that birthed hardcore basement shows, bedroom tape labels, and generator-powered pick-up wedding bands.

Please note that TAKAAT is performing as a duo on their Spring 2026 tour.

SPHERE BATS is an experimental instrumental rock band from Louisville, Ky. Formed originally in 2022 by drummer Doug Campbell and guitarist Ian Gordon, the band started to grow legs in 2025 with the addition of bassist Spencer Floyd. Since March of that year, the band has been playing regularly in Louisville and surrounding areas. They are currently in the process of recording their debut album and plan to release it in summer of 2026. All hail bobby mosquito.

(Photo of Strange Birds by Fallon Frierson)

Louisville, Kentucky’s STRANGE BIRDS carry with them the DIY ethos and punk sensibilities of their earlier years while churning out mature songs that blend the three friends’ extensive and eclectic musical past. Brandon Butler (Canyon, Boys Life) manages an almost-sweet, slightly off-center American twang over dissonant yet consistently melodic guitars. Bassist Matt Olson (Black Heva) anchors the trio with a thumping and precise presence alongside the dynamic crescendo of drums from Ella Lumpkins (Blue Collar Revenge Theory, 3 Nails for a False Prophet).

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

SARAH HENNIES and SAPAT at ART SANCTUARY, Friday March 6th

1 Reply

The Other Side of Life is proud to present:

SARAH HENNIES

and

SAPAT

Friday, March 6th, 2026
Art Sanctuary (back room)
1433 S. Shelby Street
Louisville, KY 40217

$15 advance tickets, $20 day of show
Advance tickets available online at Art Sanctuary;
Physical tickets available for in-person purchase on Wednesday February 4th at Surface Noise (cash only), 600 Baxter Avenue, Louisville KY 40204

18+
7:00 PM doors
8:00 PM music

Photo of Sarah Hennies in performance by GlassHertzzPhoto. — (Photo of Sarah Hennies by GlassHertzzPhoto)

SARAH HENNIES (b. 1979, Louisville, KY) is a composer based in Upstate NY whose work is concerned with a variety of musical, sociopolitical, and psychological issues including queer & trans identity, psychoacoustics, and the social and neurological conditions underlying creative thought. She is primarily a composer of acoustic ensemble music, but is also active in improvisation, film, and performance art. She presents her work internationally as both a composer and percussionist with notable performances at MoMA PS1 (NYC), Monday Evening Concerts (Los Angeles), Warsaw Autumn, Ruhrtriennale (Essen), Archipel Festival (Geneva), Darmstädter Ferienkurse, Time:Spans (NYC), and the Edition Festival (Stockholm). As a composer, she has received commissions across a wide array of performers and ensembles including Bearthoven, Bent Duo, Ensemble Dedalus, The Living Earth Show, Mivos String Quartet, Sarah Saviet/Joe Houston, Talea Ensemble, Nate Wooley, and Yarn/Wire.

Her ground breaking audio-visual work Contralto (2017) explores transfeminine identity through the elements of “voice feminization” therapy, featuring a cast of transgender women accompanied by a dense and varied musical score for string quartet and three percussionists. The work has been in high demand since its premiere, with numerous performances taking place around North America, Europe, and Australia and was one of four finalists for the 2019 Queer|Art Prize.

She is the recipient of a 2024 United States Artists Fellowship, a 2019 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award, fellowships in music/sound from the New York Foundation for the Arts in 2025 and 2016, a participant in the 2024 Whitney Biennial, and the Composer In Residence at the 2025 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. She has received additional support from the Fromm Foundation, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, New Music USA, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the Creative Work Fund.

She works collaboratively in a duo with double bassist Tristan Kasten-Krause and in the percussion trio Meridian. As a scholar and performer she is engaged with ongoing research about the percussion music of Iannis Xenakis and a recording project to document music by the American percussionist and composer Michael Ranta. Sarah is currently Assistant Professor of Music at Bard College.

Hear more:
https://reinventionofromance.bandcamp.com/album/the-reinvention-of-romance
https://reinventionofromance.bandcamp.com/album/casts
https://tles.bandcamp.com/album/a-kind-of-ache
https://elsewheremusic.bandcamp.com/album/sovt

UPDATE: In addition to SARAH HENNIES‘s solo performance at Art Sanctuary on Friday March 6th, a world premiere of her piece “Blindsight” (2025) is taking place at Comstock Hall in the University of Louisville’s School of Music at 7:30 PM on Thursday, March 5th. More information below:
https://www.switchensemble.com/performance/2026/03/05/louisville.html
https://frommfoundation.fas.harvard.edu/people/sarah-hennies

For 25 years, SAPAT has operated as a Louisville-based large-group ensemble, shaping slow-moving architectures of sound across drone, minimalist composition, and experiments in rock, jazz, and folk idioms. The work drifts between extended environments and tighter, song-shaped forms, allowing time, density, and volume to act as compositional forces. More recordings circulate under affiliated names and alternative identities than under SAPAT itself, and even so, the catalog only gestures toward a much larger body of work. Each performance becomes a new room to enter: a site where resonance is risked rather than managed, and where sound answers back through the interplay of players, space, and duration.

Special thanks to Kris Abplanalp.

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

The 20th Anniversary of CHIKAMORACHI (Chris Corsano and Darin Gray) with special guests DANE WATERS & STEVE GOOD and YLEM Friday, September 19th at Art Sanctuary

Leave a reply

(Poster designed by Robert Beatty)

UPDATE FRIDAY 9/19: Due to an emergency, YLEM will not be able to perform this evening.

The Other Side of Life is proud to present:

The 20^th Anniversary of

CHIKAMORACHI (Chris Corsano and Darin Gray)

in their ONLY North American Duo Performance!

with special guests
DANE WATERS & STEVE GOOD
and
YLEM

Friday September 19th at Art Sanctuary (back room)
1433 S. Shelby Street
Louisville, KY 40217 USA

$15 advance tickets, $20 day of show
Advance tickets available online at Art Sanctuary;
Physical tickets on sale Friday September 5th for in-person purchase at Surface Noise (cash only), 600 Baxter Avenue, Louisville KY 40204. Surface Noise is open 12 to 6 PM every day except Tuesdays.

7:00 PM doors
8:00 PM music

“The rhythm team of Darin Gray & Chris Corsano is especially incredible, ever-engaging, consistently creative and supportive.” – Bruce Lee Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery

“…arguably the most riotously energetic and creative drummer in contemporary free jazz” – The Wire

“One of the world’s great drummers.” –The Guardian

Since 2005 DARIN GRAY (upright bass) and CHRIS CORSANO (drums, percussion) have performed side by side as CHIKAMORACHI. Working either in a trio with Japanese saxophonist Akira Sakata or in expanded line-ups with the likes of Japan-based American producer/engineer and multi-instrumentalist Jim O’Rourke, dancer and actor Min Tanaka, Masami Akita (aka Merzbow), guitarist/vocalist Keiji Haino (Fushitsusha), koto player and vocalist Michiyo Yagi, and jazz pianist Masahiko Satoh, they’ve released six albums to date under the CHIKAMORACHI moniker, including 2011’s And That’s the Story of Jazz double CD (with Akira Sakata & Jim O’Rourke), 2015’s Flying Basket (with Akira Sakata, Jim O’Rourke, and Merzbow), and Live at Hungry Brain LP (with Akira Sakata). Neither member is a stranger to the possibilities afforded when the melodic, harmonic and rhythmic duties are left to an upright bass and drum duo. Their September 19th performance in Louisville will be their only North American appearance as CHIKAMORACHI, after taking part in the SOUND AND GRAVITY FESTIVAL in Chicago, IL on Thursday, September 11^th as part of the SACCATA QUARTET with Wilco bandmates guitarist Nels Cline and drummer Glenn Kotche.

DARIN GRAY is best known as Jim O’Rourke’s go-to bassist for nearly 20 years, as half of the duo On Fillmore with Wilco‘s Glenn Kotche, and as the bassist for groups Grand Ulena, Dazzling Killmen, and Brise-Glace and many others. As an improviser he has performed and recorded with (among others): Loren Connors, Joshua Abrams, Jason Roebke, Axel Dorner, Kevin Drumm, Alan Licht, and Jim O’Rourke. As a session bassist he has played on recordings by Louisville’s Will Oldham, as well as Cheer-Accident, Bobby Conn, Early Day Miners, and Jim O’Rourke, among others. He has toured extensively around the world with Mavis Staples, Tweedy, Daniel Johnston, and William Tyler. He currently resides in Finland.

CHRIS CORSANO has been active at the intersections of collective improvisation, free jazz, avant-rock, and experimental music since the late 1990’s. He’s been the rim-batterer of choice for some of the greatest contemporary purveyors of “jazz” (Joe McPhee, Paul Flaherty, Mette Rasmussen, Zoh Amba) and “rock” (Sir Richard Bishop, Bill Orcutt, Jim O’Rourke), as well as artists beyond categorization (Björk, Michael Flower, Okkyung Lee, Ghédalia Tazartès, Merzbow).

CHIKAMORACHI last played Louisville at the Nachbar in January 2012, part of which you can watch here:

Supporting CHIKAMORACHI will be Louisville musicians STEVE GOOD (saxophones, clarinet) and DANE WATERS (keyboards, voice). A vital natural resource in the Louisville music scene for multiple decades, Steve Good‘s musical vocabulary orbits lightly through a vast expansive local history: doing time with The Web, E-Or, Juanita, Ut Gret, Sapat, Crappy Nightmareville, Parlour, The Liberation Prophecy and many, many others. He has documented via audio recording many thousands of local shows. Slint played in his basement, he recorded the first Will Oldham single, he ran sound and documented the weekly experimental music series at Artswatch through the 1990s, and yes, he shared a stage in Switzerland with Donovan back in the 1970s. Dane Waters is one of Louisville’s brightest musical talents. As a solo performer as well as member of Softcheque, Sapat, and The Phantom Family Halo, she displays an impeccable melodic sensibility, and has a voice so wonderfully haunting, it sends chills down your spine. Her most recent releases are available on Bandcamp as well as finer Louisville record stores.

Opening the show, YLEM is the Louisville-based trio of Chris Martin-Leidner, Dustin Marcum, and Eunoia Close. Their self-titled album was recorded by Jim Marlowe (Equipment Pointed Ankh, Ryan Davis and the Roadhouse Band) at End of an Ear in Louisville and was released in March, 2025.

Special thanks to Kris Abplanalp.

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

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: