LEO Weekly

The Revival Tour with Chuck Ragan, Tim Barry & Ben Nichols comes to Skull Alley on Saturday, Oct. 4.

In the ’90s and early ’00s, “the kids” — in punk parlance — went ape-shit for Hot Water Music, the best Gainesville, Fla., export next to The Swamp (and I say that as a UK fan).

Balanced by the twin guitar-and-vocal attack of Chuck Ragan and Chris Wollard, Hot Water Music made more than a few pilgrimages to Louisville: the now-defunct Sparks club on Main Street, Krazy Fest at the Water Tower and Bellarmine’s Horrigan Hall. HWM’s lyrics were about blue-collar folks engaging in soul searching and self-reliance. If you don’t own Forever and Counting, Caution or Live at The Hardback, you’re missing out.

Staffpicks

<THEATER>

Oct. 1-5

U of L’s ‘The Story’

Reality is in the eye of the beholder, lying is the new honesty and “truth” is starting to feel like a quaint and outdated concept, like chivalry or good credit. The University of Louisville’s African-American Theatre Program tries to get to the bottom of “The Story” anyway, opening their season this week with a play directed by Nefertiti Burton. When a white man is murdered in a black neighborhood, an ambitious young newspaper reporter clashes with her editor over their investigation and coverage as various layers of reality and truth are explored and exposed. 

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Note to my future children: Please don’t place me in a Kentucky nursing home (or any nursing home for that matter). The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently found deficiencies in nearly 88 percent of the state’s nursing homes. Sadly, that’s lower than the national average of 91 percent. Problems uncovered range from failing to treat bedsores to distributing the wrong medication.

Louisville native Joan Osborne performs Wednesday as part of a “Dare To Care” benefit concert.

Eli “Paperboy” Reed

Wednesday, Oct. 1

Joan Osborne may have grown up around here, but for years now she’s considered herself a New Yorker. Her latest album Little Wild One should convince the last doubters, as many of the songs repeatedly reference neighborhoods and landmarks of NYC — right up to the concluding “Bury Me on the Battery.” Louisville gets the singer back for a one-night visit Wednesday, with a concert at the Bomhard Theater at Kentucky Center. The event supports Dare to Care with what the singer considers “a win-win”: The $30 concert ticket is discounted to $25 if you come to the show with a non-perishable food item to donate. Showtime is 8 p.m.

Swear to tell the truth,

the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Didn’t

think so. 

The first round of campaign ads in Kentucky’s 3rd District congressional race between Democratic U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth and his Republican opponent Anne Northup reveals just how delicate the deceit of campaign messages can be.

Mr. John King, undisputed lover of Louisville, is at it again. The compilation master has managed to bring together artists from Louisville to reinterpret David Bowie’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.

Train (tour) conductor: Gordon Smith, of the Music City Star, shows off Nashville’s commuter rail.

Easy rider: Metro Councilman Bob Henderson, D-14, travels on the Music City Star.

Nearly a century ago, if you were walking around downtown Louisville you were as likely to get run over by a trolley car as you were to step in horseshit. At her early zenith, Louisville was the 10th largest city in the nation, boasting a highly developed public transportation system on par with nearly any in the nation: electric street cars and trains buzzed through the heart of the densely packed Main Street, ferrying people across the region, while freight subways rumbled underneath the packed earth boulevards. 

You Wish

Scott Mertz & His Panel of Experts

(SELF-RELEASED)

<wishful thinking>

On “Flight of the CrowBear,” the fourth track on Scott Mertz and His Panel of Experts’ LP You Wish, the mandolin, pedal steel and banjo give way to a steady acoustic guitar underscored with a series of radio sounds. It’s reminiscent of Beck’s folkier early albums. The lyrics turn back on themselves as he repeats the refrains over and over, punctuated by electric guitar and then bass drum. You Wish is clearly labored over. Opening tracks “The Portland Punks,” “The Queen of Beckley, W.V.” and “Mitchell Hill Blues” are rootsy affairs, but, like the ambient folk drone of “Flight of the CrowBear,” there’s little punch to Mertz’s album. 

Big Rock in Cherokee Park always sparkles this time of year, with the autumn sun reflecting off Beargrass Creek and highlighting a portfolio of fall foliage. What a setting for the Ninth Annual Big Rock Jazz Festival. 

The Chaat Corner stand is not, despite the name, a place to gather for conversation. Chaat is Indian street food, and this cart vends Indian small bites (mostly $2-$4) for walk-around eating.

Photos by Robin Garr

Step into DakShin’s spacious, almost cavernous quarters, blink until your eyes adjust to the dim, and you might think you’ve found your way into an oddly named barbecue joint. Square, rough-hewn log walls frame heavy booths of oak; atop a wall at the back, looming above a large-screen television, rests the biggest canoe you have ever seen.