Robin Garr, Jeff Polk, Tracy Heightchew, Melissa Gaddie, T.E. Lyons, Rob Brezny
Marc Murphy
Vice
Chris Keating
Stacy Volhein
Elizabeth Knapp
Chief
Guillermo Rodriguez
MARC MURPHY
Erica Rucker is LEO Weekly’s editor-in-chief. In addition to her work at LEO, she is a haphazard writer, photographer, tarot card reader, and fair-to-middling purveyor of motherhood. Her earliest memories are of telling stories to her family and promising that the next would be shorter than the first. They never were.
AND THE CHILDREN SHALL LEAD THEM, GUN VIOLENCE IS AMERICA’S SHAME
Americans love violence, that’s the only rationale
BY ERICA RUCKER
When I gave birth to my son, my vow to him was unspoken. I never had to say to myself that I would love, protect and guide him through the years where he needs me, and give him freedom when he doesn’t. As he grows, I keep that promise by telling him about the world without filters, and trying to explain why this place is sometimes scary and confusing. I show him ways that I try to make life better for him but also others, and I help him learn the value of sometimes putting others before ourselves.
What I can’t explain to him is why school is now an American battlefield. I can only tell him to stay away from people who mistreat others. I tell him that should anything like Apalachee, Georgia happen at his school, he just needs to hide, to try to survive. It angers me that it’s a conversation I have to have. I imagine he is confused why it’s even possible that something like this could happen.
When our children look at us in 20 years, the anger they will feel when year after year we did absolutely nothing to protect them from losing their friends to gun violence is still inconceivable. If they survive themselves, they will be furious knowing that we watched news report after news report, and did nothing to stop it.
Christians, who proselytize their god to us and claim that he is the way and the light of salvation, sit on their folded hands and bibles, shouting the praises of the Lord and doing nothing to save their own children from the weapons that live alongside many of them in their homes. Many of them devoutly vote for a party that tells them their children’s lives are shrapnel fodder — inconsequential.
The violence of another school shooting by a child in Georgia who never should have had access to a high powered weapon, Americans will quickly forget because it doesn’t have a face they can demonize. It has their ‘face.’ It isn’t Southside Chicago or the streets of West Louisville so they won’t blame it on ‘a violent culture’ or ‘thugs.’
We know who they are.
We also know who we are that have been begging for action with little result because the leaders of our government are terrified of pissing off the people holding our nation hostage with guns. But we’re no better.
We’re all complicit in this experiment called America and we need to take drastic measures to force a correction. The problem with some of these actions is that we’re held in that same hostage situation. If we force a boycott of low cost gun sellers like Walmart, we risk poor Americans losing access to fresh food. For some, it’s the only outlet they have with fresh groceries.
So do we keep begging? Do we wait for the children?
Block Quote: “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling[s] together; and a little child will lead them.” Isaiah 11:6
We can’t wait for the babies to lead us because what is more likely is that they will be so hurt and traumatized that we’re going to see a spike in trauma-related self injury and harm first.
Certainly, they will be angry that we did nothing but they may not have the vocabulary for it. This child, the shooter, was only 14. He needed help. The adults around him failed. The politicians that made guns so very accessible also failed.
So what do we do?
We can vote with seriousness and stop watching and arguing over clown shows.
We can also have conversations with our children that could save their lives, and the lives of their friends. We can teach them to be angry and to speak to us about that anger without fear of retaliation, and we can be adult enough to hear them and consider them.
If your child tells you they don’t like living with guns, what do you do?
So many gun owners live fearing the imaginary home invasion (while living in the middle of nowhere or in some posh subdivision) while children are, on the daily, walking into schools with the real fear of violent threats from a classmate or teacher who is only an opportunity away from erupting in violence.
Our values are nonsense and we consistently rationalize the arguments against strict gun control with a piece of paper written centuries ago. A piece of paper that has had many revisions. Republicans have written a “Project 2025” proposal that will threaten many of the rights Americans hold dear and yet, we’re tap dancing on the other side of the aisle about securing our schools, neighborhoods and public spaces against weapons and the people who want to use them for mass murder.
I don’t know how many kids we need to lose before it’s too many but is it now, after Apalachee?
If no, then when? How many kids? Does it need to be your kid before you act?
Stop being afraid of gun lobbyists and Republicans screeching about the right to bear arms when our kids’ right to a safe life should be, and is more important. Our kids represent the future of our nation and we are letting that be blasted away by weapons that have no place in any society.
For one, I can’t hear another report about a child dying or a child killing another child and continue to act like it is normal to live with guns the way we do in America.
All over the world, our love affair with violence is baffling. When I travel, and can walk in the streets of major cities at night without fear of violence of any kind, I am confused how we have learned to just accept, to rationalize and live with this kind of risk, and do nothing to change it.
I have no answers to offer but I hope that somewhere, somehow, lawmakers finally see a way to begin taking real action. The actions that families all over this country have been desperately seeking. Maybe it will happen without the loss of another child and I certainly hope that it happens before the lack of care about high-powered weapons finds their families and their children. Perhaps, that’s what it takes for any change to really happen.
The French didn’t end their revolution with talks over coffee. Is that what America needs? How long do we let people in power convince us that our families are collateral?
WHY WE CREATED THE LOUISVILLE BOOK FESTIVAL
I’ll admit right from the top that I am biased because I am the Festival Director of the Louisville Book Festival, but I seized the opportunity to work with the organization after interviewing its founder for LEO Weekly in 2021, and I believe that the Louisville Book Festival is one of the best events in Louisville. First, and foremost, I am a huge reader. My mom regularly took me to the public library as a child where I routinely checked out stacks of books almost as tall as I was. She tried to ban me from bringing books to the dinner table, but I would read aloud anything that happened to be sitting there — cereal boxes, salad dressing bottles, you name it — until she gave up and just let me have my book so she could have a little peace. As an adult, I’ve started quirky, unattainable challenges like trying to read all the fiction books at the neighborhood branch alphabetically by author; spoiler alert, I never made it out of the A’s, but I enjoyed trying.
One of the best things about attempting that challenge is that I read stories that I never would have encountered without the rules I set for myself. There were stories I read that I would have skipped over for not having an interesting cover, or because the description didn’t really lure me in. In those stories I found different lifestyles, characters, experiences, and worldviews so different from my own and I love how that’s helped shape and reframe my interaction with society.
For two days in October, the Louisville Book Festival wants to do that for its attendees as well. We celebrate literacy and the joy of reading all while recognizing that, in the state
of Kentucky, our literacy rates leave much to be desired. We want to reach people and show them that reading is a fundamental human right, that there are authors writing stories about people just like them, and that finding the right book can truly be the small step that changes someone’s life. We recognize that for far too long many children haven’t seen themselves represented in the pages of the books they are assigned for school, or have available to them — if they even have books available to them at all.
We strive to put together the most diverse line up of authors, genres, and presentations that we can, so that hopefully everyone can see themselves represented while at the festival. We host school field trips so that students can interact with and learn from authors about their journeys, and leave inspired to achieve big things in their own futures. Most importantly, we allow every youth attending the festival to leave with a book of their own choosing.
Reading can truly change someone’s life, and we want to be part of that experience. Through presentations about the art and craft of writing, the authors’ reflections on their processes and the resulting publications, and conversations about important topics like wage parity, reparations, and how big tech is shaping our world, the 2024 Louisville Book Festival is a must attend event. Best of all, the event is free and open to the public! Oct. 18 and 19, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day. I hope to see you there!
Courtesy photo
THE US DOJ SAYS KENTUCKY MAY BE BREAKING FEDERAL LAW FOR HOW FEW MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES ARE IN THE COMMONWEALTH
The latest report finds very few mental health services across Kentucky
BY CALEB STULTZ
“Providing communitybased services and access to care for all individuals in our community including those with SMI and/or those in crisis is at the heart of our mission.”
The United States Department of Justice said the Commonwealth of Kentucky may be breaking a federal law with how few mental health services are available in the state.
In a release on Tuesday, August 27, the DOJ said it has “reasonable cause to believe” that Kentucky is violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in the Louisville metro area for segregating adults with mental illness into psychiatric hospitals instead of providing care in integrating community settings, like Wellspring, one of the few community-based mental health service provider in Louisville.
“People with serious mental illnesses in Louisville are caught in an unacceptable cycle of repeated psychiatric hospitalizations because they cannot access community-based care,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “We thank Kentucky for its full cooperation with our investigation, including readily providing access to staff, documents, and data. We also recognize that Kentucky has already begun taking important steps to expand access to a range of key services, including crisis response services; medication management supports; and housing and employment supports. Our goal is to work collaboratively with Kentucky so that it implements the right community-based mental health services and complies with the ADA.”
The department’s investigation uncovered how Kentucky failed to provide access to the Louisville community-based mental health services for people with serious mental health illness who needed them, with services like mobile crisis response, crisis stabilization and crisis respite, case management,
Assertive Community Treatment, Permanent Supportive Housing, supported employment and peer support being under established in the Louisville metro area, leading to more mental health related issues being segregated to psychiatric hospitals.
According to the DOJ, every year, thousands of people are admitted to psychiatric hospitals in Louisville, with more than a thousand people experiencing multiple admissions to these “restrictive and often traumatizing settings,” the DOJ said in its statement.
Kathy Dobbins, the CEO of Wellspring, said in an interview with LEO Weekly that the loss of freedom in restrictive settings like psychiatric hospitals can not only be financially expensive, but mentally as well.
“For somebody who is psychotic or in the throes of a deep depression, it can be very traumatic,” she said. “Sometimes it is necessary, but ideally, in these community-based interventions... if you can intervene earlier, then you hope to prevent that.”
And as a “major proponent” of community-based mental health services, Dobbins said the need for those services are necessary not only to see success in any one person, but to help cultivate more contributing members of the Louisville community.
“I’ve been doing this work for 40 years. I am a lifelong believer in not just the value of community-based services, but the successes that result from community-based services,” she said. “People have better lives, greater quality of life, and many are able to achieve a level of recovery that allows them to actually be contributing members of our community. That’s not possible
when somebody who’s going in and out of the hospital or going in and out of jail. That that hurts our community, and it’s costly.”
Seven Counties Services, which also provides community-based mental health services, put out a statement regarding the DOJ report. The service provider said it had partnered earlier this year with the University of Louisville Schools of public Health, which was meant to conduct a health needs assessment focused on the “crisis continuum of care in our community.”
“As a community and organization, Seven Counties Services remains fully dedicated to providing quality care and health services to improve the lives of individuals and families. Providing community-based services and access to care for all individuals in our community including those with SMI and/or those in crisis is at the heart of our mission.”
The assessment provided sessions to 75 “separate entities” and over 130 people, with Seven Counties Services and UofL learning more about what Louisville residents go through when dealing with a mental health crisis.
“Currently, we are closely analyzing the report and look forward to our continued collaboration with state and local partners to provide increased access to community-based resources for individuals with Serious Mental Illness (SMI),” Seven Counties Services stated in a press release.
In a different investigation in March 2023, the DOJ found that people with behavioral health disabilities were also subjected to unnecessary police responses to their crises, which is considered an ADA violation as well. According to the DOJ, the department is working with Louisville to negotiate a consent decree to resolve these types of issues in the future.
“These findings demonstrate that the Commonwealth of Kentucky fails to provide adequate community-based mental health services for individuals with serious mental illness in the Louisville Metro area,” said U.S. Attorney Michael A. Bennett for the Western District of Kentucky. “Beyond the violations, however, these findings are also about recognizing the dignity and potential of every individual who has mental illness.”
In a former list, LEO Weekly released its findings of community-based mental healthcare services in and around Louisville
Seven Counties Services Louisville, KY
Courtesy photo
Fall Festival Calendar
9/7-9/15 – Gaslight Festival
10434 Watterson Trail
Community/Neighborhood Festival
9/12-9/15 Louisville Fringe Festival
Actors Theatre of Louisville
316 W. Main St.
Theatre and performance art festival
9/14 - Louisville Pride Festival
Saturday
Bardstown Rd.
LGBTQIA+ Street festival
9/14 – Steins on Main
RePurposed
615 W. Main St.
Beer festival
9/14 – Simpsonville Fall Festival
106 Old Veechdale Rd., Simpsonville
Family friendly harvest festival
9/19-9/22 – Bourbon and Beyond
Festival
Kentucky Exposition Center
937 Phillips Ln.
Pop, Rock, Americana, Bluegrass & Bourbon appreciation festival
9/26-28 – Dark
Castle Fest
Art Sanctuary
1433 S. Shelby St.
Goth, dark wave, dark folk & new
romantic music festival
9/26 – 9/29 Louder Than Life
Kentucky Exposition Center
937 Phillips Ln.
Metal and harbor music festival
9/28 – Finchville Fall Festival
5596 Taylorsville Rd., Finchville
Family friendly harvest festival
9/28 – NuLu Festival
600 - 900 blocks of East Market St.
Community Street festival
9/30-10/1 Nunnlea Craft Fair
1940 S. Hurstbourne Pkwy.
Arts and crafts festival
10/4-10/6 – St. James Court
Art Show
1402 St James Ct.
Arts and crafts festival
10/5 – Louisville Wine and Food Experience
Louisville Waterfront Park
129 River Rd.
Food and wine festival
10/5 Kentuckiana Medieval Fair
Enchanted Forest & Music Hall
45 W. 1st St., New Albany Medieval fair
10/5 – Kentucky Bat Festival
Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory
800 W. Main St.
Bat and endangered species festival
10/5 – Spencer County Octoberfest
Downtown Taylorsville, KY
Family friendly harvest festival
10/6 – BowmanFest
Bowman Field
3345 Roger E. Schupp St.
History of aviation and Bowman Field celebration festival
Amy Davis, HELLBEAST
GOSH! Studios
10/6 Huber’s Fall Festival
Huber Winery
19816 Huber Rd., Borden, IN
Family friendly harvest festival
10/10-12 Louisville’s International Festival of Film October
111 E. Kentucky St. Film festival
10/11-10/12 – Belknap Fall Festival
Douglass Loop Community/neighborhood street festival
10/11-10/12 – Goatman Festival
Legend at Pope Lick
4002 S. Pope Lick Rd.
Horror/Urban legend festival
10/12 – Garvin Gate
Blues Festival
Central Park
1340 S. 4th St.
Blues music festival
10/13 – Louisville’s Great Chili Cook Off
800 E. Market St Louisville, KY. Food festival
10/18-10/19 – Louisville Book Festival
KICC
221 S. 4th St. Book festival
10/18-10/20 – Grateville Dead Music Festival
Brown Forman Amphitheater 1301 River Rd 40202
Grateful Dead appreciation music festival
10/19-20 Raise the Vibe Fest
The Root Coworking Space
110 E. Market St. New Albany
Mindfulness & spirituality festival
10/19-10/20 – Via Colori Street
Painting Festival
1101River Rd.
Chalk art festival
10/20 – Louisville Pagan Roots Festival
Mellwood Arts Center
1860 Mellwood Ave.
Pagan pride festival
10/20 Southern Indiana Fiber & Arts Festival
Harrison County Fairgrounds
341 S. Capitol Ave Corydon, IN
Yarn and fiber festival
11/2-3 COLORFEST
Bernheim Forest & Arboretum
2075 Clermont Rd Clermont, KY
Nature festival
11/9 – Louisville Chocolate, Wine and Whiskey Festival
Mellwood Art Center
1860 Mellwood Ave.
Food and wine festival
11/13-15 Festival of Faiths
Kentucky Center
501 W. Main St.
Interfaith and spirituality festival
11/15-17 Festival of Trees and Lights
Louisville Slugger Field
401 E. Main St. Holiday festival
11/17 – J-Town Jingle Fest
The Jeffersonian 10617 Taylorsville Rd. Holiday festival
11/29-1/5 Fete de Noel
731 Brent St. Holiday festival
Clarity Hagan and Tory Parker SHOTZ! photo GOSH! Studios
EAT, DRINK AND SEE IN THIS WEEK’S STAFF PICKS
THURSDAY, SEPT. 12
The Art of Bourbon
Speed Art Museum | 2035 S. 3rd St. | artofbourbon.org | $350+ | 6 - 9:30 p.m. | 21+
See art. Drink bourbon. Play in the auction for a chance to win some premium sips. All of this fun and a chance to support the Speed Art Museum.
— Erica
Rucker
FRIDAY, SEPT.13
Kentucky Bourbon Festival
Kentucky Bourbon Festival Inc. | 114 N. 5th St., Bardstown | kybourbonfestival.com | 12:30 p.m. | $105+ | 21+
The Kentucky Bourbon Festival gives bourbon lovers from around the world the chance to come to Bardstown and enjoy the rich history of bourbon-making in the Bourbon Capital of the World. Experience more than 50 distilleries and over 150 brands at this year’s festival.
Artist Alexandra Rumsey will have a solo show from Sept. 13 - Oct. 15 at Grady Goods. Rumsey will explore nature and the animal world through mixed media, painting, and an installation. With “Sanctum” Rumsey wishes to honor the animals used and represented in her work.
—Erica Rucker
FRIDAY, SEPT. 13
Image Making
Arts Alliance of So. Indiana | 820 E. Market St., New Albany | Search FB | 5 - 8 p.m. | Free
Artist Tammy Burke will showcase her skills at clothes making in a show that is part fashion, part documentary and certainly, part art. Come and find out how the creation of clothing becomes conceptual collaborations.
—Erica Rucker
FRIDAY, SEPT. 13SATURDAY, NOV. 2
Grim Trails: The Haunt of Fairy Tales, Myths, and Legends
2600 Frey’s Hill Rd. | $20 | 8 p.m. - 1 a.m. | grimtrails.com/ | All Ages
The longest walk-through attraction in Louisville is back! Covering 20 acres in Tom Sawyer Park, take a stroll through the dark, spooky world of fairytales. Perfect for fans of the macabre, see monsters and sinister legends from around the world.
—Sydney Catinna
FRIDAY, SEPT. 13
Bourbon and Boxing
Caesars Southern Indiana Hotel & Casino | 11999 Casino Center Dr. | bourbonandboxingllc.com | 11:59 p.m. | 75+
Bourbon and Boxing, an exhilarating event that mixes black-tie fun of drinking with your friends and the excitement of boxing sporting matches. The event hopes to lift the boxing community of Louisville to new heights by giving fighters the exposure they need to succeed.
—Caleb Stultz
SATURDAY, SEPT. 14
Steins on Main 615 W. Main St. | louisvilledowntown.org/ event/steins-on-main-2/ | FREE | 2 p.m. - 7 p.m. | All Ages
Head downtown for an all-new Oktoberfest celebration, Steins on Main. Enjoy an Oktoberfest festival complete with German-inspired food, games, music, and drinks from local breweries. On top of bringing the traditional Bavarian celebration to Louisville, Steins on Main also supports the Coalition for the Homeless, a Louisville non-profit aiming to end homelessness.
—Sydney Catinna
WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 18
Jungkook Documentary “I Am Still” Tinseltown | 4400 Town Centre Dr. | Search FB | 7:30 p.m. | $25
Join the Louisville BTS Army group and others as they celebrate the big screen documentary release of “I Am Still” a look at mega-K-pop band BTS’ youngest member, Jean Jungkook. While Jungkook is completing mandatory military service, the documentary will give fans something new, sharing a look into his life, the making of his latest album, and the time following its release.
—Erica Rucker
SATURDAY, SEPT.14
Louisville Pride Festival
Highlands Entertainment District | louprideky.org/festival/ | FREE | 11 a.m.10 p.m. | All Ages
Louisville Pride festival is returning to Bardstown Rd. this September! With live entertainment, over 150 vendors, drag shows, a wellness zone, food trucks, VIP lounges, and more, it’s going to be a day to remember.
Kentucky author Wes Blake’s daringly structured Pineville Trace is a novella in three parts, with episodes that only sometimes resemble chapters, but have all the flavor of thoughtfully downplayed flash fiction. Carmichael’s Bookstore is hosting Blake, in conversation with two local figures from the arts scene: Erik Rust (who gave Pineville its evocative cover) and versatile veteran author David Dominé.
—T.E. Lyons
SATURDAY, SEPT.14
Racing Louisville FC Versus Angel City Racing Louisville FC | 350 Adams St. | racingloufc.com | 7:30 p.m. | $6
Head to one of Louisville’s mid-season games against a fierce Angel City opponent. Racing Louisville FC, one of the most prestigious organizations in the country, has a mix of stars from the U.S. National Team, Brazil and other top nations from other teams across the nation.
—Caleb Stultz
SATURDAY SEPT. 21
Witches Market
Raven’s Roost | 419 E. Market St., New Albany | Search FB | Free | 12 - 6 p.m.
Shop for witchy goods, occult goods and meet others who find the esoteric and spiritual a necessary part of life. Expect vendors card readers and others to get you on your journey of the spirit.
— Erica Rucker
14 UNDER-THE-RADAR BANDS YOU DON’T WANT TO MISS AT BOURBON & BEYOND AND LOUDER THAN LIFE
These bands and artists offer more than enough reasons to show up early
BY JEFF POLK
Sure, we all know and love the headliners of both Bourbon & Beyond and Louder Than Life, and those are most likely the reasons we decided to buy the tickets in the first place. However, every year both festivals feature a wealth of talent flying under the radar, and 2024 is no exception. These are the bands and artists playing before 7:00 p.m., when the crowds really start rolling in for the headliners, and more often than not are playing the smaller stages. The following are only a handful of amazing up-and-coming acts playing these two festivals that deserve your attention, and you’re going to need to make sure you’re there early to catch them!
Combining the country sounds of their roots with modern R&B and pop, Versailles, Ky. born and raised twin brothers Brandon and Derek Campbell are not just making their mark on the country music scene — they are redefining it. Their authenticity, coupled with their musical talent, has earned them a loyal fan base along with being named 2023 ‘Artist to Watch’ by both NPR and Nashville’s Country Music Almanac. The duo are also a part of the 2023-2024 Academy of Country Music “Future Leaders of The Music Industry” OnRamp Program.
thekygentlemen.com
Friday, September 20, 1:50 p.m. - 2:20 p.m., Beyonder Stage
What if I told you that one of the most gifted and most praised up-and-coming guitarists around was playing an early afternoon set at Bourbon & Beyond?
And what if I told you this Gibsonendorsed guitarist has been sought after by world-famous musicians such as Eric Clapton, Dolly Parton, and Tyler Childers, among others? Now, what if I told you that this guitarist was only 17 years old? Would you believe me? Nashville-based blues, funk, rock phenom Grace Bowers and her band The Hodge Podge are absolutely one of the most incredible acts you have the opportunity to see at this year’s Bourbon & Beyond!
gracebowers.com
Abraham Alexander
Friday, September 20, 4:45 p.m. - 5:15 p.m., Yonder Stage
Born in Athens, Greece to Nigerian immigrants, Abraham Alexander and his family moved to Ft. Worth, TX when he was 11 to escape the racial tensions of his birthplace. Adopted after losing his mother in a car accident with a drunk driver, Abraham’s life changed for the better after he was given a guitar and found his true calling in life. With deep, introspective lyrics dealing with loss, redemption, longing, anguish, and joy backed musically by elements of folk, pop, rock, soul, R&B, and gospel, Abraham Alexander is undeniably one of the most powerful voices in new music.
New Dangerfield was originally conceptualized in 2023 by award-winning banjoist Tray Wellington, (who also plays a solo set at B&B on Saturday), who enlisted three other acclaimed Black roots musicians: multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Kaïa Kater, bassist Nelson Williams, and fiddler and singer Jake Blount. Together, they are torchbearers of liberating and bringing back what a century of forgetfulness and erasure has taken away — public awareness of the Black string band tradition. The band chose its name as a tribute to Dangerfield Newby, a Black man who raided Harper’s Ferry with John Brown. Dangerfield’s story reveals the moments of unspeakable tragedy and fierce resistance woven into the Black string band tradition. Love, grief, rage and humor have been passed down in this music for hundreds of years; ancient emotions, now given voice in the music of New Dangerfield.
Formed in 2022, the Louisville Bluegrass Band has taken the area bluegrass scene by storm with their exciting mix of modern and traditional stylings of bluegrass, while composing a catalog of exciting and intricate originals. The
band consists of former Classical Mandolin Society of America president and Grammy nominated mandolin and fiddle player Mike Schroeder, (Buzzard Rock String Band, Cloigheann, Louisville Mandolin Orchestra) —vocalist and dobro player Max Bishop, (Still Unknown, Stillhouse Prophets, Bulletproof Chicken) — banjo and vocalist Brannock McCartan, (Kentucky Borderline, SoulGrass) — and guitarist and vocalist Brandon Kindoll. The LBB brings one thing to their fans at every show they play….Real. Good. Bluegrass. Go see for yourself!
louisvillebluegrassband.com
Jake Kohn
Sunday, September 22, 12:20 p.m. - 12:50 p.m., Barrel Stage
When I tell you you’re not going to believe the voice on this kid, I mean that literally. At only 16 years old, Winchester, Va. singer/songwriter/guitarist Jake Kohn has the voice of a man that has lived a thousand lives. His rich, raspy baritone voice fills the room when he sings, drawing comparisons to Joe Cocker and Janis Joplin, (personally, I was thinking more along the lines of Ray LaMontagne). He’s been called an old soul as much as his given name, and his talent has been described with such phrases as “once in a lifetime” and “lightning in a bottle.” Ladies and gentlemen meet Jake Kohn, your future Bourbon & Beyond headliner!
Though many artists are defined by place, only a handful of artists come to define the places they’re from. The Local Honeys are Kentucky. and Kentucky runs through their veins. For almost a decade, the duo of Montana Hobbs and Linda Jean Stokley have been defining sound of real deal, honest-to-god Kentucky music. Carefully crafted vignettes of rural Kentucky soar above layers of deep grooves and rich tones. Rollicking banjo meets overdriven guitar hooks and blue collar rural grit is met with lush melodies and nimble harmonies. It’s clear the duo is poised to become the defining voices of a new Appalachia.
thelocalhoneys.com
Than Life:
Jigsaw Youth
Thursday, September 26, 11:15 a.m. - 11:40 a.m., Loudmouth Stage
In the spirit of great all-female metal bands like L7 and Kittie, Stanton Island, NY’s Jigsaw Youth are ready to rip your face right the fuck off! Referring to their sound as “Back end grunge,” the trio of Maria Alvarez on bass and vocals, Nastacha Beck on guitar, and Alex Dmytrow on drums bring a new wave of raw distortion and elements of ‘90s alternative rock to the table, then proceed to smash you over the head with it! This isn’t lightweight, cutsie, inoffensive radio rock; this primal, raw, punishing old school metal with punk rock ethics! In other words, this is going to be a great set!
11:45 a.m. - 12:05 p.m., Reverb Stage
Thursday, September 26
Simply put, there is no band out there quite like Philadelphia’s Soul Glo. Hardcore, punk, thrash and rap all thrown at you, all at once. Soul Glo is an all-out assault on your ears and your mind. Vocalist Pierce Jordan’s approach to his lyrics isn’t exactly subtle, as his usually screamed, frantic words come flying out of his mouth rapid-fire like a machine gun — taking on racism, mental health, politics, and everything in between — generally with alarming vulnerability. This is extremely powerful, explosive music that hits you like an atom bomb and leaves you dazed and bewildered, but ready for more. Soul Glo is the future of hardcore!
soulglophl.com
Fugitive
linktr.ee/jigsawyouth Soul Glo
Friday, September 27, 5:55 p.m. - 6:30 p.m., Reverb Stage
After the unexpected passing of Power Trip vocalist Riley Gale in 2020, guitarist Blake Ibanez wasn’t sure what to do next. He found his answer in 2022 with Fugitive; a thrash metal supergroup featuring Ibanez and Victor Gutierrez (Impalers) on guitar, vocalist Seth Gilmore (Skourge), bassist Andy Messer (ANS, Stymie), and drummer Lincoln Mullins (Creeping Death). Old school late 80’s/early 90’s sounding thrashcore in the vein of Obituary, Exodus, S.O.D. and Discharge. If their set doesn’t have the most vicious pit at Louder Than Life, I will be seriously disappointed!
linktr.ee/fugitivetx
Saturday, September 28, 12:40 p.m. - 1:05 p.m.,
this year, perhaps none deserve your respect more than San Francisco crossover thrasher punks Hemorage. The band converted a mini bus into a mobile stage and tours the US playing for anyone, anywhere, at any time they please — all DIY style with no manager and no label. Their music is aggressive as fuck, and I expect the pit to be insane! Want another reason to catch their set? Their latest single “Resilience Through Destruction” features Gary Holt — who just happens to be playing LTL with Slayer the night before. Hmmm….
linktr.ee/hemorage
Gozu
Sunday, September 29, 12:00 p.m. - 12:25 p.m., Loudmouth Stage
It took me a few times of looking at this year’s LTL’s lineup flyer to notice them. There, at the bottom, literally the very last band listed - Gozu! And I am fucking stoked! I’ve been a fan of these Boston stoner/desert rockers for a long time now, and they are masters of heavy, fuzzy, dirty, Tony Iommi-esque riffs. This is the kind of music where you feel like you need a shower after listening to it. And bonus, they have some of the greatest song titles ever! Get there early Sunday!
gozu.bandcamp.com
Project MishraM
Sunday, September 29, 1:00 p.m. - 1:25 p.m., Decibel Stage
The problem with LTL is that there are far too many bands that sound too similar to each other. Project MishraM is not one of those bands. No band at
LTL sounds like them. No band I’ve ever heard sounds like them. This is originality on a whole new level! Hailing from Bangalore, India, they are an extraordinarily talented seven-piece progressive Carnatic fusion band that blends western genres of music like rock, metal, jazz, reggae and electronic music, all centered around Indian classical music — creating enormous soundscapes in the process that are unlike anything you’ve ever heard or experienced before. By far the most interesting band you will hear at Louder Than Life this year!
projectmishram.bandcamp.com
Drug Church
Sunday, September 29, 4:45 p.m. - 5:15 p.m., Decibel Stage
I’m not going to lie; their band name is what initially caught my attention a few years ago. It’s quite possibly the best band name ever, and I really wish I’d thought of it first. But it was their music that got me. Albany, NY’s Drug Church is one of the few bands that can go from heartfelt and emotional to straight up powerhouse, windmill-kicks-in-the-pit style hardcore in an instant, and do so honestly without sounding forced or insincere. It’s a style they’ve mastered over their 13 years as a band. And with a new album coming out in October, this may be their biggest year yet!
drugchurch.net
Louder
Hemorage
Loudmouth Stage
Out of every band playing Louder Than Life
FROM IRELAND TO LOUDER THAN LIFE
BY BRYCE RUSSELL
Irish rap trio Kneecap out of Belfast in the North of Ireland have grown exponentially over the last year. With their new critically acclaimed album Fine Art, along with a biopic starring themselves as well as Michael Fassbender, Kneecap’s recognition has grown far outside of their homeland. The controversial rap group will be bringing their own brand of drill and house music with rapping in the Irish language to the opening day of Louder Than Life Festival. LEO was able to talk to members DJ Próvaí and Mo Chara about their music, acting, and political activism.
LEO: You all are going to be playing Louder Than Life, which is predominantly a metal festival. Why do you all think your music will be a fit at this festival?
Mo Chara: I feel like it’s the energy. Obviously metal bands and all have that very DIY feel to it, it’s all very from the ground up. We also have a very big punk element to a lot of our songs, but I feel like just the actual energy and the vibe of Kneecap fit. We’ve done a few rock festivals and you feel like it’s something you wouldn’t imagine would work but for some reason it’s just a crossover that fits. We played 2000 Trees in Cheltenham, which is a rock festival. We’ve done a lot of rock festivals in Europe there, and for whatever reason it just fits. It’s definitely because of the influences punk music has on bands from Belfast, there was a big punk scene here for a long time. I feel like you hear that in our music and also just in the sentiment.
You mentioned the influence punk music has, I was wondering if you could go in a little more on your past influences and inspirations.
Chara: The RubberBandits are our big one we always mention because they were a hip hop band from Limerick, they wore plastic bags over their heads, and they were like the first hip hop group in ireland to really talk about Irish issues, and not even just irish issues, but they weren’t just talking about american slang or American subjects. I feel like the hip hop scene in Ireland was a lot of people imitating America, because they didn’t really know what to rap about and they were trying to be braggadocious and it was all very American.
The Rubber Bandits came along and started writing songs about how it’s superior to have a horse than a car and shit.
DJ Próvaí: They did it in their own accent as well, they were unapologetically Irish.
Chara: It was just stupid subjects but done so cleverly. They’re the biggest influence by miles.
Could you go a little bit into the new album and the story behind Fine Art?
Chara: We got a mural painted of a police jeep here. Our police jeeps in the North are rocket proof and they’re big eye sores, like they’re bug ugly fucking things. And we got one of those on fire painted. It wasn’t a real police jeep, at the outrage over you’d think we actually torched a load of police officers. So we got the police jeep on fire on the wall as a mural and a lot of people was outraged over it and they wanted us to make a statement, trying to get us on all the news media outlets and trying to get us to come out and defend it or whatever it was they wanted so we just said “oh it’s fine art” because we knew we couldn’t engage with these people. Once you start engaging with them they just bring you down to their level so we just said “it’s fine art.” Then basically sampled people on the news or people, whoever, it was saying the statement they released said it’s “fine art” and we used that in the opening track, and it’s just a wee term that’s stuck to the band over the last couple of years.
Próvaí: Just to recap, no painted policemen were harmed in the making of the mural.
You all just released the “Kneecap” movie. How was it playing yourselves, especially with it all not being 100% true, how did that feel?
Chara: It was good. A lot of people think it might be harder to play yourself but it was our only experience acting so we thought it was easy enough to play ourselves. It was harder on the director we say, because the director, Rich Peppiatt, struggled because if he had direction for us during the filming if he was like “do this” we could just be like “no” because we wouldn’t do that and we’re playing ourselves and we know best
Are you going to be in any other movies, maybe some Marvel movie or something?
Chara: I don’t really like the Marvel movies, what was it Ricky Gervais said, it’s not really acting, it’s going to the gym twice a day and taking steroids.
Próvaí: Probably end up in Godfather 4 or Sharktooth 3, that’s the only two we’re gonna accept.
What’s something you want people to take away from your music? You all rap in Irish, why is that important?
Chara: I suppose people look introspectively at their own culture, especially if it’s sort of an indigenous culture or you come from an
area that was oppressed. I feel like there is always such shame around the language of the oppressed because of the oppressor, they make it out that it’s a peasant’s language or you’re never going to be in modern times if you speak this old language and that we should all speak English. People [should] look introspectively at their own native cultures and learn their own languages and be proud of traditions and fucking, it’s good that we’re different. It’s good to be diverse, it’s like, how boring would it be if we were all just hipster tech bros speaking english and drinking lattes all day.
I feel like there is a big boom of really good artists coming out of Ireland right now like Fontaines D.C., Lankum, the Mary Wallopers, and you all. Do you have any idea why you think multiple different Irish artists in multiple different genres are becoming popular all over?
Próvaí: I think it has something to do with the fact that, [Mo Chara] touched on it there earlier, that people are actually proud about their heritage and their culture. Just in the last few generations people are actually really confident in Ireland, because there was a lot of shame just in general in Ireland, just people being apologetic about nothing. Now people are like owning their accents, owning their material and just being unapologetically genuine and being themselves, and that just kind of resonated with people in the world.
It seems to be flourishing in Ireland at the minute. A lot of the biggest bands are Irish, like the ones you mentioned and others, it’s Ireland’s time on the main stage here now. You can see it in the movie scene as well, like in the Oscars last year, An Cailín Ciúin [The Quiet Girl], which is an Irish language film, was nominated for an Oscar. That kind of gave us a wee bit of confidence when we were making the movie that there was a path there that we could hopefully follow.
I mentioned Lankum in that list of artists, and they are like, one of my favorite bands of all time at this point. So, for me, I wanted to ask how it was working with Radie Peat from Lankum on the opening song of Fine Art, “3CAG,” which I feel is a perfect opener. Chara: Ah Jesus, we know Radie really well now, like we’re good friends, our manager is Radie Peat’s partner, so we know Radie really well. We were just with [her] yesterday in, where were we?
Próvaí: Dublin, yeah?
Chara: Yeah, Dublin. Radie’s the fucking queen of Ireland. She’s an absolute talent, absolute pleasure to work with, and just an all around fucking, lovely person. So, to have somebody like Radie Peat, somebody that talented, it’s just a fucking gift, obviously, on the album. And like you said it’s the perfect intro. I’ve seen a few people saying it’s their favorite song on the album, cheeky bastards, we’re not even in it.
Próvaí: It’s how she did it as well, because she came in that day and they were going on holiday like 20 minutes later, so it was a fly in visit to the studio and she just nailed it from the very start.
Mo Chara: Yeah, in and out like 10 minutes.
So, because I have actually been to Ireland and Belfast a couple times before, I wanted to know what your favorite pubs in Belfast are?
Chara: The Hawthorn Bar or Maddens. Maddens in the city center, it’s like on the corner, kind of out of the way if you don’t know where you’re going. Great pint of Guinness in there. The Hawthorn Bar in West Belfast, it’s one of the last [bars] that it’s a house, looks like a house kind of. It’s on a housing estate and it’s called the wee house. It only holds probably 30 people in there, it’s tiny, it doesn’t show up on Google maps or anything. It’s a great wee pub. It’s full of alcoholics but obviously I would trust an alcoholic’s judgment for pubs.
You did a U.S. tour last year, but is there anything you are excited to do this year while you are here?
Próvaí: [The tour] is on the East coast this time. Most of the time wherever we land in America we end up going into Irish bars because the people end up giving us free drink and food, which is dangerous when you’re on tour.
So, because I feel like you all are an inherently political group, and I wanted to ask you all a
little about that. I know there has been a rise in anti-immigration protests in your home of Belfast, and you’ve talked a little bit about it recently but I wanted to give you all space here to talk a bit about it as well if you’d like. Chara: It’s something, I thought the Irish would never be on this side of it, I just thought after years of being oppressed in our own country and then also it happening whenever we immigrated to England or even some places in America. Obviously, it ended up some fucking Irish Americans ended up being more conservative and right wing, and ended up being the ones trying to do the oppressing, which is a shame. It’s mostly been the Irish being oppressed in our history, and for us to now be on that side of the argument, like, for an Irish person to unironically say they’re against immigration is absurd. We have immigrated everywhere, it doesn’t matter what country you’re in. Like fucking streets in the Middle East named after fucking Irish people, like Bobby Sands Street in Iran. The Irish have been good, on the right side of history, but like, they’ve burned that fellas shop down in the Sandy Row there the other day, like an Asian supermarket, they burned his fucking shop down. Then came back the next day and burned it down again. This is like, their local shop, it’s in their community, he’s paying tax, [there’s] jobs in the area, I don’t understand their logic behind this. And all these people running about doing it are just sitting in their house… they’re contributing less to society than these people who have moved here to try and make a better life for themselves. And the thing is, whenever they’re all getting fucking steaming drunk and take to much cocaine someday and have a heart attack, it will be immigrants bringing them back to life in that hospital.
Próvaí: All these far-right fascists, they’re not representative of our communities in Ireland. They’re a minority, an unwelcome minority, these far-right fascists, and it’s a sad thing to see them on the streets. As [Chara] was saying, the people who look after you in the hospital, the people who feed you, you know, they’re from other countries. They’ve come here for a better life, and some have come just to flee war-torn areas, and you need to give them refuge and an opportunity to live in a society without any of those fears of being burned out of their homes or beaten off the streets.
Alright, thank you so much for your time, I’ll go ahead and wrap it up here and ask if there is anything you want the people of Louisville, Kentucky to know before they see you at Louder Than Life?
Chara: Ah, if you really want to know the band, uh… buy our merch [laughs]. If you want to save the Irish language go to kneecap.ie and buy our merch.
BOURBON AND BEYOND WITH MOLLY TUTTLE
BY BRYCE RUSSELL
Bluegrass guitar extraordinaire Molly Tuttle along with her top-notch band the Golden Highway will be playing Louisville’s Bourbon and Beyond Festival this September. Molly Tuttle, along with other Bluegrass greats like Sam Bush, Yonder Mountain String Band, and Dan Tyminski, are set to bring some of the best Bluegrass to its home state. LEO Weekly was able to discuss the Bluegrass tradition, rising popularity, and songwriting with Molly Tuttle.
LEO: You have played here in Kentucky multiple times over your career. How does it feel to play Bluegrass music in its home state? Molly Tuttle: It’s pretty special. I love playing in the Bluegrass state because our music just fits so well there. I feel like out of the places we get to play, in Kentucky there is this kind of awareness of Bluegrass music in the general public. It seems a little bit more, like, in the mainstream awareness than some other places we get to play. And also just thinking about the legacy stemming from Kentucky, it’s cool for me to get to play there as someone who grew up on the West Coast loving Bluegrass music but never really knowing the South much until I was older, now I live in Tennessee. So, it’s cool to get to be a part of something like Bourbon and Beyond.
You’ve done a lot of different collaborations with artists like Margo Price, Billy Strings, Dave Matthews, and Gillian Welch. What is it about collaborations that makes you want to go out and find new people to work with? Yeah, I think it is so in the spirit of this kind of music that you just get together and go to jam sessions together and everyone kind of knows this canon of songs. When you’re going to a bluegrass jam you all kind of know the same songs, and even if you don’t know the song you can kind of just jump in if you know this music really well. A lot of the songs are easy to follow and if you know enough of them you can start to [anticipate] where songs are going next, so I feel like I just grew up collaborating a lot with different friends and people that I met in the Bay area music scene. I feel like that’s a spirit that’s really prevalent in Nashville as well, that people want to
play music with each other and get together in the studio and sing on each others records.
My mom and I are both fans of you and were able to see you perform at Romp Fest last year. Our favorite song of yours is “Crooked Tree,” and that song has become very emotionally impactful for a lot of people. What do you think it is about that song specifically that it has been able to touch the amount of people it has?
I think, for me, I wrote it from kind of a personal place. When I wrote the song I hoped it could resonate with a lot of people. Everyone, in one way or another, I feel we all have things or parts of ourselves we are maybe insecure about or [feeling] like we didn’t belong, and that song is really about embracing who we are. I felt like when I made that record, Crooked Tree, I felt like that was me embracing the music I grew up with that is such a part of who I am. Writing songs inspired by songs I grew up singing.
A lot of your songs are very narrative. I saw in a past interview about the challenge of taking these narrative stories and putting them into a bluegrass song, and the challenge of writing a bluegrass song. Could you go a little more into that?
I guess, growing up, I started writing songs at about 15. The songs I was writing, I didn’t really know how I would categorize them, maybe folk or singer/songwriter type songs, I don’t know what genre they really fit into. But everytime I worked on a bluegrass song I just felt really stumped, like I was having major writer’s block. I think part of that was due to a lot of the songs that I loved in the Bluegrass genre that I grew up singing were, you know, written by people who had totally different life experiences from me. Like, a Bill Monroe song, he’s from a different era, grew up in Kentucky, and I was born in the 90s and grew up in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley, so I just didn’t know how to take my story and make it sound authentic in the Bluegrass genre. There’s people like Gillian Welch, who she’s a fellow Californian who writes these songs that feel like they could be hundreds of years old and she’s so inspired by Appalachia in her songwriting, that I realized it was possible, but it took me years and years to kind of find my voice within the Bluegrass genre and write songs that were about things I cared about, but still to me sounded inspired by people like John Hartford and Hazel Dickens, people who were my heroes who write songs in the
Bluegrass style who are really true to who they are.
I feel like Bluegrass is having a big revival or resurgence recently, with artists like you, Billy Strings, Sierra Hull, and Sierra Ferrell who also has a bit of Bluegrass flair to her. Why do you think this music is getting more attention recently than it has in the past couple of decades?
I think it’s that there is this new generation of players and we all grew up listening to people like Sam Bush and Bela Fleck, and you know Alison Kraus, and that was the generation that I looked up to. But we’re all kind of like into our 30s and just getting out there and playing, reaching new people with this music and making it seem still current and still evolving to new forms. I think this kind of music, it started in the 40s and it’s always been changing, evolving since then and finding a bigger and bigger audience. I’m not sure exactly why, right now, it does seem to be having a resurgence, I just think the group of musicians who are out there touring like Billy Strings, Sierra Hull, and Sierra Ferrell like you mentioned, they’re just amazing performers and people are going to resonate with that and they are going to
reach wider and wider audiences. We also have the internet now, where you can reach people who might not have thought of themselves as a bluegrass fan but they see a video that they think is really cool on YouTube and they kind of go down a rabbit hole and find other people. I feel like people’s music taste in general is not as defined in genre as it once was.
I first started listening to your music when I saw a video of you playing “White Freightliner Blues,” what is another classic bluegrass song you love to perform?
Oh yeah I love that one, that’s one of my favorites. It’s a Townes Van Zandt song that has definitely crossed into the bluegrass world and a lot of people do that song. Lately I’ve been doing one called “Moonshiner” which I love to play. I learned it from Peter Rowan, and it’s one of my current favorites. I love songs about bootlegging and moonshine and stuff like that.
What is a classic bluegrass song that you have yet to perform that you would really like to do at some point?
I feel like since we’re coming to the Bluegrass State soon for the festival, we’ll have to do a Bill one, so I’m going to go with “Uncle Penn,” that would be a fun one to play.
You mentioned some big inspirations like John Hartford, is there anyone else that you see through your music?
Yeah, he is a big one I look up to. Peter Rowan is another, kind of like West Coast crasher who writes these songs that really inspire my songwriting. Laurie Lewis is someone I grew up listening to. Gillian Welch is a huge inspiration to me, I just love her songwriting, her singing, and everything she does.
Because my mom absolutely loves your music, I asked her to give me a couple of questions she would like answered. So, the first is that festivals like Romp Fest and other Bluegrass festivals are very sort of intimate and smaller scale. Is it hard to bring bluegrass to a bigger festival like Bourbon and Beyond and still keep that personal aspect that makes those festivals so special?
I feel like no matter the size of the audience I’m still looking for those people in the front row to really connect with, or really anybody I can see. I feel like I’m still just kind of honing in on the crowd and people I see having a good time and kind of feeding off of that. No matter how [large] the show is, I try to just do my best to bring the same high energy and making everyone feel like they’re a part of something that’s bigger than yourselves, like we are all connected. That’s why I want to play shows.
One of her favorites of yours is “Down Home Dispensary,” and the other question she had was “What does a girl have to do to get a down home dispensary?”
[Laughs] I feel like that song has become almost obsolete now because in Nashville we have all these dispensaries. I don’t really
understand if it’s hemp or something, Delta 8 or something. They must have found some loophole because it hasn’t been legalized, but there’s a dispensary on every corner of my neighborhood.
I always like listening to bluegrass covers of rock songs or songs in other genres, and you covered “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane. What made you want to do that song? Was it because of the West Coast/ Bay Area influence?
Yeah, that’s actually exactly what it was. During the pandemic I did this set of 3 live streams that each had a different theme, and I worked up a ton of new music for them. One of them was songs from the Bay Area, so I was looking up artists who were from my hometown or music that came out of the area from anytime, and I found out that Grace Slick actually was from Paolo Alto, where I’m from, and she went to the same high school as me and I thought that was really cool. So, I was like, I have to do one of her songs and the obvious choice for me was “White Rabbit” because I love that song. Then I was like, “that’s so cool, it would be fun to put my own spin on this and write a song that’s kind of like Alice in Wonderland meets Bluegrass,” so me and Ketch were talking about it and it should be set in Kentucky, the Bluegrass state, and that “Alice in the Bluegrass” would be kind of a funny and fun song idea. So, we wrote that song, and then I brought back the “White Rabbit” cover, Bluegrass style, to kind of hint at something to come, and now we medley those two, and sometimes in the set we’ll play “Alice in the Bluegrass” and go right into “White Rabbit,” which has become its own kind of mini section of the show at times.
You mentioned Ketch [Secor] from Old Crow Medicine Show. I know you all are in a relationship, and I was wondering how it is collaborating together?
It’s really fun, we both love writing together and we kind of find time to do it all the time. Sometimes I’m on the road and we’ll Facetime to write a song or we’re just hanging out at home and then start working on a song at night when we’re just chilling at the house. It’s nice to have that kind of creative relationship with someone who I see all the time, who I talk to all time, because we can always be bouncing ideas back and forth. Some of the songs we’ve written, for instance like ‘Flatland Girl,’ we’d just visit my grandma in Illinois on the farm where my dad grew up and he was like ‘that could be a really cool song that’s about your life,’ but it could still kind of resonate with people who are farmers or grew up on a farm or have ties to the midwest. Sometimes he will see song ideas that are relevant to my life and my story that I didn’t even think about because to me it’s like, ‘oh, we just visited my grandma.’
Molly Tuttle
Courtesy Photo
“HEAVY METAL ACTUALLY SAVED MY LIFE...”
Judas Priest’s Richie Faulkner Talks About His Onstage Aortic Aneurysm At Louder Than Life
BY JEFF POLK
September 26, 2021 had been a good day for then 41-year old Richie Faulkner, guitarist for heavy metal legends Judas Priest, (which he joined in 2011 following the departure of founding guitarist K.K. Downing). Although he had been feeling a little fatigued earlier in the day, Faulkner was in top form as the band ripped through their hour-long set as co-headliner for Sunday’s Louder Than Life lineup. But midway through their closing song “Painkiller”, Faulkner suddenly felt sharp pains shoot through his chest along with dizziness, disorientation and shortness of breath. Even so, driven by his devotion to the band and the fans, he continued to play for several more minutes, even doing a guitar solo, and finished the set before he exited the stage and sought medical help. From there, he was taken to the UofL Health/
Jewish Hospital Rudd Heart & Lung Center where he was diagnosed as having an aortic aneurysm and complete aortic dissection. Basically, his aorta had split open and blood was spilling into his chest, a condition that is often fatal within minutes. Faulkner was rushed into what turned out to be a 10 ½ hour emergency open heart surgery where five parts of his chest were replaced with mechanical components.
Faulkner has since fully recovered and gone on to do several more tours with Judas Priest, and the band recently released their 19th studio album, Invincible Shield, in March of 2024. So when LEO Weekly was offered the chance to speak with Faulkner over Zoom ahead of Judas Priest’s appearance at this year’s Louder Than Life on Sunday, September 29th, we jumped at the chance!
(This interview has been edited for length and clarity)
LEO: Hey, I’m talking to you from a small town called Louisville. You’ve been here once but you probably don’t remember us. Richie Faulkner: [Laughs] I know Louisville very well. It’s got a special place in my heart.
Do you think what happened will be in your head at all during the show, or do you think you’ll just be focused on playing? Well, it’s going to be in my head now! [laughs]. No, I don’t actually know. It will be more or less to the day that it all went down, which is pretty scary. I remember everything from that day. I remember I was kind of tired. I remember stuff happening backstage. I remember the moment before we went on stage. I filmed the crowd before we went on. I remember playing. I remember when it happened. I
remember how it felt. It was afterwards that things get a bit fuzzy. Your body’s in shutdown. It’s in survival mode, and you forget things that happened. So it was quite an experience, as you can imagine.
I would think so! It’s not every day that you almost die in front of 100,000 people. That’s right. The good thing was it happened where it happened. The gig site was a few miles away from the hospital; which is one of the best hospitals in the country, if not the world, for that kind of stuff. So if it was going to happen anywhere, it was good that it happened there. I could actually see the festival site from the hospital window, it was that close.
I was there watching your set when it happened and no one in the crowd knew anything was wrong.
That is a testament to my shoddy playing normally, [laughs], no one noticed! Yeah, at the time you don’t know what’s going on. There’s a duty to fulfill to the fans and to the band. There’s people out there that have paid a lot of money to be there, to see the band, so you go with what you know, which is carry on. I think if I’d have known what it was, I would have acted differently. But you just don’t know. Luckily, it was the final song of the set. Usually we have an hour and 40 minutes, but Metallica were playing after us, so our set was cut to an hour. But if it would have been an hour 40, I would have carried on and I probably would have dropped dead onstage.
I’m just shocked that you were able to keep playing and finish the song. I mean, you didn’t miss a note!
Oh, I did. I’m very good at concealing them, I can tell you that! [Laughs]. But I noticed something was wrong. I didn’t know what, and when it started to affect me was at the end of the song. I usually lift the guitar up above my head with one hand, and I just couldn’t do it. And that’s when I physically knew there’s something seriously wrong. I thought I was going to faint. And I moved away from the front of the stage because I thought if I fall over, there’s quite a big drop there from the stage to the ground. So I was aware of that. And it was funny; me and the stage manager always joke with each other. He’ll say, “You okay?” and I’ll make a joke about not being okay. This time I said I’m not okay, and he didn’t believe me! [Laughs]. It’s just my luck, you know.
How much time passed between when you first felt pain and you getting emergency surgery?
That’s a good question. I have no idea. It was maybe halfway into the last song, so it was maybe a good two or three minutes until the end of the song. Then it was a few minutes when I was backstage with the medics and then went back to the dressing room to change. It was probably a good 20 minutes before we even left the site. Then we checked in at the hospital, they did some tests. It was a good while. People that usually have that happen have got minutes to live, but I had been told by the surgeons that because my adrenaline was pumping, it probably kept me going long enough to get to the next stage. So you could say that because of the fact that we were playing, it saved my life. So in a sense, heavy metal actually saved my life!
And now you can literally say you have metal in your heart.
Absolutely! I’m more machine now than man, [laughs]. It’s amazing what they can do these days, with the things they can put inside to make everything better again. And then they stitch you back up with literal wires.
You were out of the hospital in 10 days and back to touring again six months later. That’s absolutely insane.
That’s correct. I think my first thought when I woke up from surgery was “What’s happening with the tour?” That’s the mode you’re in, really. We had a few days off [after Louder Than Life], so the band were going to Denver and I was going home to Nashville for a few days, and they actually got the message that I was in open heart surgery on the plane as they were flying out, and straight away Rob said to cancel the tour. So I was determined to get home and back onto the guitar. I think I got home on a Friday and I was playing again on a Monday. Not very well, but it was a slow process. You have to start somewhere. And it’s difficult. You have to sit down and you’re cradling the guitar in such a way where your chest is kind of crumbled, so it was difficult to play, but it was part of the healing process to get back to some sort of normality, and touring was part of that. And it was maybe three
months afterwards when I thought, “Okay, I’m well enough to do this.” But then we took another couple of months just to make sure that everything was in working order. Then I think it was March the following year we went back out again. But it was important to have that target to aim for. So some people were telling me it was too quick, but to me, it was essential to get back on the road.
Do you or your doctors know what may have caused this? Because there was nothing wrong with you at that point, was there? Nothing at all. So they said it was high blood pressure, but I had no history of high blood pressure. We get regular checkups for insurance purposes for the tours, and there was no sign of high blood pressure on previous checkups. So it came out of the blue.
I read that part of your aorta split was never repaired. Has it caused any problems? Not that I’m aware of. But the whole thing split, which is quite rare. So there’s two parts; an upper and a lower aorta. The whole thing split up around here, [points to the top of his neck], all the way down to my groin. So the upper they fixed, but the lower part is still split, and that’s what they’ve got to keep an eye on. What happens is you go in for an operation like that, I think it was about 11 hours of surgery, and if you’re under anesthesia for
too long, you start to run into complications with brain damage. So they had to make a call that’s the part we’re going to fix. That’s the part that’s critical, and we’ll keep an eye on the rest. So that’s what they did. It should be fine as long as I keep my blood pressure, heart rate, and diet under control.
When you come back for Louder Than Life this year, are you going to visit the doctors at all?
Yeah, I’ve kept in contact with the main surgeon, Dr. Power, since then. So hopefully we’re going to meet up with him and the other surgeons, go out for dinner, and do some stuff with the hospital.
Do you think that you all will address what happened when you’re playing Louder Than Life this year?
I don’t think so. I mean, I wouldn’t like to make it about that. I don’t know if Rob will say something. But it’s another milestone, really. It was a milestone to get back into rehearsals and play “Painkiller” again. It was a milestone when we went back on the road. And it’ll be a milestone to go back to Kentucky and play on the same stage on almost the same day to when it changed my life.
Rob Halford (vocalist) and Glenn Tipton (guitarist) have both said that you saved Judas Priest. When you joined in 2011, they were planning their farewell tour. Is there a lot of pressure in knowing that you saved a legendary band from breaking up? I mean, you’re literally the reason why Judas Priest hit 50 years as a band.
I thought it was the farewell tour like everyone else did. Obviously, there’s pressure. You’re aware of and respectful of the legacy that went before you with K.K. Downing. You know what the legacy means, you know the duty of being up there for the fans that have put the band there, and you have got to give 1,000% back to them. Fortunately, the band is still putting out new music and touring almost 14 years later, and I’m just happy to be a part of it.
Judas Priest co-headlines Louder Than Life on Sunday, September 29th. For more information, visit judaspriest.com
Left Page: Andy Elvis McGover Right Page: Artur Tarczewski 8
GOOD BELLY BRINGS US GOOD DELI, AND WE’RE GLAD
BY ROBIN GARR
Food-loving Louisville folks often complain that our city just can’t get a genuine, New York Jewish deli like Shapiro’s in Indianapolis, or for that matter like Katz’s or Sarge’s or the late, touristy Carnegie Deli in actual New York.
I have never quite gotten this. We have excellent Louisville-style delis here where you can get a pastrami or corned beef on rye that gives New York a run for its money.
But nope, that doesn’t seem to satisfy the deli-hungry crowd. “That’s not autheeeennnntic, they cry.
Now let’s hail last year’s arrival of Good Belly in the Douglass Loop, a popular food truck landed in the bricks-and-mortar space that formerly housed Silly Axe Cafe. Good Belly’s web page describes this happy place as a “chef-driven, NY deli-inspired sandwich shop. … a scratch kitchen where the ingredients between the bread are made in house – including our corned beef and pastrami!”
That’s a lot to like. I like it! I just hope it’s, well, authentic enough to satisfy the long-suffering deli dreamers. I think I’ve figured out what the authenticity seekers are looking for: Visit Shapiro’s or one of the tourist-beloved Jewish-style delis in New York City and you’ll find gigantic pastrami or corned beef sandwiches literally bigger
than your head.
Our sandwiches at Good Belly weren’t that lavish. A hefty corned-beef and pastrami combo stood maybe half that height, but it still supplied two days’ worth of leftovers, and it cost $15, just about half of the $28.90 toll for the mountainous pile of meat at Katz’s.
Good Belly’s menu is posted on large
chalkboards, featuring a dozen sandwiches numbered for easy ordering. Traditional Jewish deli sandwiches featuring combinations of corned beef, pastrami, or both on rye with mustard are priced at $15 or $16. Most of the rest (priced from $12 to $16.25) are New York deli style but not kosher style, bringing together meat and cheese in a blend that’s tasty but frowned
A veggie sandwich in a deli? Don’t knock it without trying this thoughtfully imagined and well-made mix of crisp, toothy, and tender delights.
A traditional combination of thin-sliced house-made pastrami and corned beef piled high on rye toast elevates this memorable deli sandwich.
Robin Garr
on in Leviticus.
For the record, Good Belly does not claim to be certified kosher. For that matter, neither do Shapiro’s, Katz’s, Sarge’s, or many other famous New York delis.
Good Belly’s sides also bridge the gap between deli-style (matzoh, latkes) and chef creative (watermelon gazpacho and beef tortilla). Specials show off the chef’s imagination, too, currently a choice of Harlem bodega-born chopped cheese and beef ($14); fried mortadella ($13.50), and a Swiss-filled knish ($6.50).
We tried matzo ball soup ($6.25) and potato latkes ($6.50) and were delighted with both. The soup came, like all of Good Belly’s dishes, in a quality white stoneware bowl. It contained only a single matzo ball, but it was the size of a tennis ball, a dense and smooth dumpling with a distinct crumb thanks to its ground matzah meal base. It was surrounded by a remarkably complex clear burnt-orange chicken broth that spoke quietly of onions, carrots, and other good things that might have gone into its construction.
Three sizzling-hot latkes were stunningly good. Thin and flat, finely grated potato and onion retained good texture within a shattering-crisp golden fried
exterior. They come with choice of sour cream, apple butter, or both; I had sour cream for tradition’s sake and did not regret it.
Speaking of skill at frying, fresh-made potato chips that came with both sandwiches are outstanding: Very thin, shattering-crisp, grease-free, with a distinct hint of garlic for our pleasure.
Torn between pastrami or corned beef, we went with a combination of both (#6, $15). Both are made with beef brisket in a process that reportedly takes 30 days to complete. Pastrami is long-smoked in a procedure that could be likened to Jewish-style barbecued brisket. Corned beef is brined and boiled in salt and pickling spices, then finished with smoke. Slice both meats thin and pile the result a good inch high between rye toast slices smeared with hot mustard on a single sandwich with a tasty house-made dill pickle slice on the side and a pile of those fantastic chips: I challenge you to declare one better than the other.
You might not expect deep thought would be involved in inventing a veggie sandwich (#11, $12), but Good Belly’s creativity shines in the current version. Two thick slices of quality multigrain
toast frame layers of soft, earthy edamame hummus; spicy Japanese shiso leaves; crisp, shredded napa cabbage and red pepper fashioned into a piquant slaw, and thick slices of peppery daikon radish. Every bite brings all those disparate textures and flavors together in symphonic excitement. Can you tell that I loved it?
The veggie sandwich changes every month or two, so check in fast if you like this idea. Or come back later and see what the chef can imagine next.
A filling and very well made lunch for two came to $40.01, plus a $10 tip.
Noise Level: This is a busy dining room with a lot of hard surfaces that can amplify noise, but an average sound level at 72.7dB was not a conversation killer.
Accessibility: Two steps inside a common hallway bar access to the main level. A rear entrance from a parking area in the back may allow wheelchair access to an upper room.
Mamma mia, that’s one big matzoh ball! But don’t overlook the delicious, subtle broth that might cure what ails you.
Crisp, golden brown, and perfectly fried, Good Belly’s potato latkes make a memorable side or starter.
“FRESH KILL” IS A UNHEEDED FEVER DREAM WARNING
Meet Filmmaker Shu Lea Cheang at Speed Cinema
BY TRACY HEIGHTCHEW
The early ‘90s was an explosive time for indie cinema, a window of time where filmmakers of different backgrounds were able to lean into experimentation to make and distribute films that broke the mold of traditional storytelling. Now that 30 years have passed since that fruitful time, we are seeing many of those films be unearthed and remastered. Joining the Speed Cinema’s recent screenings of rarely shown cult classics like “DryLongSo” and “Young Soul Rebels” is the early quintessential eco-cinema “Fresh Kill.”
Fresh Kill with director Shu Lea Cheang in person
Wednesday, Sept. 18
Speed Cinema
$12/$8 for Speed and Women in Film KY members
Shu Lea Cheang made her directorial debut in 1994 with this chaotic kaleidoscope of a film. Honey is the beloved child of an interracial lesbian couple, Shareen and Claire, and they all live together in near future New York City where the Fresh Kills Landfill has taken over Staten Island. When Honey disappears under mysterious circumstances, her parents take up broadcast activism and are deemed terrorists. In the background looms an ecological disaster that informs the actions of a wide cast of characters. Radioactive fish from Taiwan have arrived in NYC, affecting sushi lovers and cats alike, and causing the consumer to glow green, spout
gibberish, before ultimately disappearing. This world is falling apart because corporations create profit out of misery, dumping their waste on poor people, using TV pundits to keep people divided, and catering to an elite few. Sound familiar?
The plot is simple, Cheang’s world building is not, and she uses a wide variety of cinematic tools to achieve something rare — a dystopian ecological film that is fun. Mentioning dystopian ecological disasters usually creates certain expectations for the filmgoer who braces themselves for a slog through an ugly future. But “Fresh Kill” is delightful. Its style and delivery recall the meta textual commercials in “Putney Swope,” the the set design and sound of “Liquid Sky,” and all with the unapologetically hot, loving, and proud lesbianism of “Born Into Flames” tucked in nicely. It is art, through and through, playful and free where other directors would get bogged down with plot mechanics. It is an example of the original glitch film, using technological mishaps to break expectations and open new ways of thinking. The acting is campy and expressionist, the actors delivering speeches like they are on a John Waters set. While it’s not a film for all viewers, cinephiles who like their films to embrace nonsense as a political tool will dig it, and it is a must-watch for any student of Queer and Eco film history.
Most impressive though is that filmgoers will have a chance to interact directly with director Shu Lea Cheang. Originally hailing from Taiwan, she moved to NYC in the 80s, where she was a part of Paper Tiger Television, a non-profit, low-budget public access television program and open media collective. She now describes herself as a digital nomad, a citizen of the world, with no fixed address. “Fresh Kill” comes to the Speed Cinema as part of the current 30 year
anniversary theatrical roadshow tour of the film. Accompanied by two young filmmakers — JeanPaul Jones and Jazz Franklin, Cheang travels with the 35mm film print in five reels and two cans across the country, deliberately connecting to a demographically, racially, and gender diverse audience. What a treat to be able to talk out a rich text with an artist actively seeking out a wider audience 30 years later.
Early Notice
Eno
Thursday, Oct. 10
Speed Cinema
Arthouse Cinemas across the country are hosting generative screenings of the new documentary about the producer/musician/genius Brian Eno. From his time in Roxy Music to his collaborations with David Bowie, Talking Heads, U2, and Coldplay, Eno’s influence is widespread. As a leading pioneer of ambient music, his work has seeped into our society’s shared soundtrack, including one of the most recognizable sounds of modern times: the startup sound for Microsoft Windows.
In this documentary, filmmaker Gary Hustwit has taken hundreds of hours of archival and live footage from across Eno’s long, storied career and indexed it so that a program chooses which sequences to use and in what order. This generates a completely unique screening that will only be seen as is at this particular screening. All of which is quite suitable to tell the story of Eno, an artist who has embraced changing technology to create highly innovative art for decades. Tickets are going fast, and in fact they may be gone by publication date, so Louisville Eno Heads out there better act fast!
Sarita Choudhury & Erin McMurtry in Fresh Kill
Brian Eno
Courtesy Photos
FILM DEBUT FOR LOUISVILLE’S CARLY JOHNSON
BY ERICA RUCKER
The director of “Drop Dead Fred,” the classic cult film about imaginary friends, Ato De Jong premiered his new film, “Heart Strings” in Louisville on Saturday, Sept. 7 in Paristown. But wait, that’s not the best part. Local singer-songwriters Carly Johnson and Sam Varga have leading roles in the film and the film was shot entirely in Louisville. The film follows the lives of musicians as they journey to discover what they value most.
For Carly Johnson the film represents not only her big screen debut but a gentle return to something she loved doing in her youth, acting.
“Outside of doing some theater in high school, This is definitely my film debut. I’ve done a couple musicals in high school, and I went to Walden Theater for two years in high school. I always loved it,” Johnson told LEO in a phone interview.
“I’ve never done anything like this. So it was definitely a huge first for me.”
Johnson’s involvement came through her connection to Gill Holland’s SonaBlast! Record label.
“They reached out to SonaBlast!, the local label that Gill Holland owns. And they were
really interested in having musicians play the main roles because the characters are musicians in the movie, and they just like the authenticity there.”
The director saw Johnson’s video for “Burn Your Fears,” and wanted her to work with them on the movie.
The Atherton High School alum technically got the role with an unusual audition. Instead of the typical performance for a role, she had a series of video calls with the director, writer and the actor who plays her husband in the film, Stephen Said.
“It really felt very out of nowhere for me, but I’ve always wanted to be in a movie. I felt so lucky and excited and I’m not terribly into country music, but I was like, ‘this is cool.’
Johnson is very much a soul singer who found her way to music through the guidance of a teacher during some rough school years.
“I look back on it now, and I must have just been really depressed or had anxiety because towards the end of my junior year going into senior year, I just stopped going to school,” Johnson said. “I was this
A-student that, all of a sudden, I’m like, ‘I’m not getting up in the morning.’ I would just go to chamber singers, and they were like, ‘you are not going to get into college.’ Like, ‘you have got to sing.’”
Her choir teacher gave Johnson the direction she needed and she had grades enough to luckily make it into the University of the Arts in Philadelphia
From her childhood singing Disney songs, through the struggle of teen years, and now 14 years into living as a professional musician, Johnson is proud to share “Heart Strings” with her hometown.
“I don’t know if you’ve heard of Seratones. AJ Haynes, she’s one of the characters, and she’s the lead singer. She’s awesome. She was a backup singer for Black Pumas for a while,” said Johnson. “She’ll be there. She’s gonna sing. I’m gonna sing. The lead in the movie, Maggie Kerner. She’s from right by New Orleans, Lafayette. She’s gonna sing, and Sam Vargas from Louisville.”
The premiere event was held in Christy’s Garden (720 Brent St.) in Paristown on Saturday, Sept. 7. There was a concert of the performers before the showing of the film.
LOCAL FILMMAKER SHINES LIGHT ON BLACK GATHERING SPACES
BY ERICA RUCKER
Imani Dennison was born and raised in Louisville. A Howard University Graduate, Dennison has created commissioned works for PBS, ITVS, and Procter & Gamble. Previously, Dennison premiered “Bone Black: Midwives vs. The South” at Tribeca Film Festival. Currently, they are a 2025 Black Rock Senegal Artist-InResidence developing a multimedia series, “Mississippi Mud In Spring.
“The People Could Fly,” is a recent documentary short directed by Dennison. It had its world premiere at Black Star Film Festival on Aug. 3. The film was produced through Chicken & Egg Pictures | POV
Shorts a production collaboration that funded Dennison’s and four other grantees projects. “The People Could Fly” is the first original produced by American Documentary/POV shorts.
The short film looks at the history of Black gathering spaces in Louisville with a focus on rollerskating culture. The film pairs photos, archival footage and other materials to share the Black community in Louisville.
LEO asked Dennison about her work and her upcoming projects.
LEO: Tell me about your connection to Louisville and the roller skating culture.
Imani Dennison: I was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky coming from a long lineage of Kentuckians, farmers, social
workers, and community workers. Most of my most favorite formative years were spent in a community called Newburg, also known as Petersburg, a place historically known for its Post-Civil War history. Some Black families were able to acquire land, making Petersburg one of the areas where African Americans established small farms. This was part of a broader trend of Black land ownership in rural Kentucky, where African Americans sought autonomy and economic stability through farming. Growing up, I was immersed in the local skating scene, which was not just a pastime but a community hub. My family ties run deep, with my grandfather hailing from the historic West Louisville and my mother growing up all of the city, leading me to attend Central High School.
Broadway Roller rink was a big part of those years. What other spaces did you include?
My parents grew up skating at Broadway Roller Rink, one of the first Black-owned rinks in Louisville, KY, opening during the segregated South. It was more than just a rink—it was a cultural hub that provided a sense of community and belonging. For most of the film, I focused on Robben’s Roost skating rink, the place where I spent countless Friday nights as a teenager. It was a ritual: the energy of the rink, the camaraderie of other teens, and the thrill of the final hour when we’d take our skates off and dance. That transition from skating to dancing was one of the most cherished parts of my experience, embodying the freedom and joy that these spaces held.
As a kid who lived on my skates in the 80s, it was like my first vehicle, maybe more than my bike. What information did you gather from others who were enthusiasts of skating?
Skating for a lot of Louisvillians have been described as “life, freedom, and ultimate joy.” Skating has been described as protecting and growing one’s identity and personhood, affording them the ability to remove their masks and be their authentic selves. Some have even described losing themselves on the rink floor being captivated by what the portal of the rink provides, ultimate safety. I think of this film as an investigation on how rinks emerged as sanctuaries in Louisville and truly, people do feel
healed after skating. Not only is it wood therapy, as LaNeisha Beasley and Markice Armstrong described, but church.
Tell me about how you became involved in filmmaking.
I became involved in filmmaking in college when my friend Morgan Matthews and I went on a journey through DC documenting the lives of the Shaw/Howard community investigating how non-traditional health and medicine practices have deep roots in the DC infrastructure. We rode around in my 1987 tiny red camaro keeping a good prayer that it would get us through our journey,and it did. After that I moved to New York City with wet ears and big dreams. I continued with moving images, mostly lensing music videos, short films, and documentaries. What piqued my interest in images at all was being gifted an old analogue Minolta camera from my dad. I joined the photography club at Central High and started taking pictures of my family and random objects, trying to stay inspired while exploring a new medium. Going to college and being dropped in a portal that I describe as Black utopia really grounded me in honoring myself as an image maker coming behind and beside so many greats.
Any other projects in the works?
I’m working on a project now called “Mississippi Mud in Spring” that I’m developing through Points North x Black Star Film Festival’s North Star Fellowship. I will further develop this project during a residency at Black Rock Senegal. Mississippi Mud in Spring is a multimedia project slated to be my first photography book. I’m simultaneously writing two narrative scripts and actively dreaming up new worlds for myself and loved ones.
Who were some of the people locally that were interviewed for this work?
Some of the people interviewed for this film were:
Jordan Bridgewaters, Antijuan Osborne, Jordan Wales, Teveon Golden, LaNeisha Beasley, MarkiceArmstrong Sr., Charita Burns, Juan Burns, Shae Burns, June Bradford, Charlene Hampton Holloway, Miss D (Aka Silverfox), Rick Thompson
Stephanie M. Johnson
Teylor Frakes
Imani Dennison Courtesy Photos
UNCOVERED PRIDE AND SHAME
BY T.E. LYONS
Pikeville, Kentucky and surroundings make up the whitest Congressional district in America. So when white nationalists knock on the sheriff’s door asking for permits to hold a rally, would an innovative sociologist see opportunity to put a revealing spotlight on cultural phenomena? Arlie Russell Hochschild decided to come visit and talk with the participants and the intended audience. After all, this once-stable coal-mining region “combined declining opportunity and strong ideas about individual responsibility: if you succeed, you take credit; if you fail, you take blame. Where it was tough to succeed and easy to hit bottom, many felt stuck with an undeserved burden of shame. [The white nationalists were] coming to offer them a move out of it.”
The rally turned out to be a precursor to the “Unite the Right” violent day in Charlottesville, VA. Though the 2017 events in Pikeville were much tamer, Hochschild became acquainted with individuals with many points of view— and as has been a working model for this UC Berkeley professor emeritus, she has followed up for years with a cross-section of the community. Her gentle interviewing and laser-honed curiosity have brought out “deep stories” where generational hopes and expectations run up against disappointments — many but not all rooted in economics. The oft-confounding consequences and conundrums are laid out in her new book Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right.
Hochshild believes that attached to the American Dream — of earning one’s way up, each generation succeeding beyond its predecessor — is a hidden paradox. “The presence of one’s region of economic opportunity and one’s cultural belief about responsibility for accessing it” has, in recent decades, created “a red-state world of lower opportunity and strict expectations, and a blue-state world of higher opportunity and less-strict expectations. Within the red-state world is a greater capacity for shame — and among these states are the majority of jobs tied to vulnerable resources that can run out or be off-shored.” So shame — and its escape valve, namely blame — grow in popularity and in extremeness of expression.
This book teaches through a loosely alternating structure: in some sections, Hochschild frames her updated concepts of emotional social trends, including the
“pride paradox.” Elsewhere she is profiling individuals such as Matthew Heimbach. This rally organizer and neo-Nazi embraced a combativeness combined with smarts and skills — all to gather allies against those he would condemn for what seems to be chronic, envying bitterness.
There is Andrew Scott, mayor of the small, struggling town Coal Run, telling Hochshild how a variety of opportunistic swaths of the American population have jumped ahead in achieving a successful lifestyle that many hardworking rural families have been patiently struggling to earn. Even (and particularly, and proudly) when they have to pick themselves up “by their bootstraps.” Mayor Scott sees in Donald Trump a bully who has picked up a righteous cause in speaking up for these overlooked families and towns and pointing out the inequities they see.
Other members of Hochschild’s circle include victims of addiction to OxyContin, in affecting chapters that show the slippery slopes that lead to desperate trials for those who want to recover, as well as purgatorial stations that hold down those who don’t. There’s also Ruth Mullins, a Black retiree who answered a call to return home for family obligations and connectedness, and now watches outsiders’ influences with caution but also understanding of local community solidarity. Roger Ford is a local success story who puts his politics out front (as when he headed a pre-election pro-Trump vehicle parade) and who demonstrates one of Hochschild’s most interesting findings: the “most enthralled” that provide ongoing support for MAGA and related beliefs (for instance, the Tea Party of a dozen years ago) “were not at the very bottom — the illiterate, the hungry — but those who aspired to do well or who were doing well within a region that was not.”
Even someone like Roger Ford, the author observes, is susceptible to three kinds of loss: “the loss of coal-related jobs (absolute loss), a reduced value attributed to what one still had, such as heritage, land, and ingenuity (devaluation), and a declining value of rural life compared to a rising value of city life (relative loss).”
In a brief phone exchange, LEO asked Hochschild if she could see a stable or prosperous region just now demonstrating the beginning of the cycle that has befallen the coal regions. Her affirmative answer came with a shocking prediction
that pointed away from resource-based industries and geographic regions. “The next hot spot for us to worry about that will melt down the understandings about pride and shame — will frighten people who won’t know how to win pride and avoid shame — will be the effects of AI. It’s already happening, and we’re not really looking at it.” “I think there are already people who have worked hard for their law degrees and now pore through documents,” she said, to provide an example, “and they’ll find all their training has come to naught.” As we discussed how this might have a devastating effect not just on much of the legal profession but perhaps also all educational institutions and everyone burdened with student loans, this sociologist-author’s perceptiveness gave perhaps more food for thought than can be handled by any healthy appetite.
Arlie Russell Hochschild will appear at the 2720 Frankfort Ave. location of Carmichael’s on Thursday, Sept. 12 at 7PM. The event is free, but registration is requested at carmichaelsbookstore.com.
Uncovered Pride author Arlie Hochschild Mark Leong
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Week of September 11
ROB BREZSNY
ARIES (March 21-April 19): One of the longest bridges in the world is the 24-milelong Pontchartrain Causeway in Louisiana. During one eight-mile stretch, as it crosses Lake Pontchartrain, travelers can’t see land. That freaks out some of them. You might be experiencing a metaphorically similar passage these days, Aries. As you journey from one mode to the next, you may lose sight of familiar terrain for a while. My advice: Have faith, gaze straight ahead, and keep going.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): My horoscopes don’t necessarily answer questions that are foremost in your awareness. This might annoy you. But consider this: My horoscopes may nevertheless nudge you in unexpected directions that eventually lead you, in seemingly roundabout ways, to useful answers. The riddles I offer may stir you to gather novel experiences you didn’t realize you needed. Keep this in mind, Taurus, while reading the following: In the coming weeks, you can attract minor miracles and fun breakthroughs if you treat your life as an art project. I urge you to fully activate your imagination and ingenuity as you work on the creative masterpiece that is YOU.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): The Gemini musician known as Prince got an early start on his vocation. At age 7, he wrote “Funk Machine,” his first song. Have you thought recently about how the passions of your adult life first appeared in childhood? Now is an excellent time to ruminate on this and related subjects. Why? Because you are primed to discover forgotten feelings and events that could inspire you going forward. To nurture the future, draw on the past.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): You are lucky to have an opposable thumb on each of your hands. You’re not as lucky as koala bears, however, which have two opposable thumbs on each hand. But in the coming weeks, you may sometimes feel like you have extra thumbs, at least metaphorically. I suspect you will be extra dexterous and nimble in every way, including mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. You could accomplish wonders of agility. You and your sexy soul may be extra supple, lithe, and flexible. These superpowers will serve you well if you decide to improvise and experiment, which I hope you will.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): The internet is filled with wise quotes that are wrongly attributed. Among those frequently cited as saying words they didn’t actually say, Buddha is at the top of the list. There are so many fraudulent Buddha quotes in circulation that there’s a website
devoted to tracking them down: fakebuddhaquotes.com. Here’s an example. The following statement was articulated not by Buddha but by English novelist William Makepeace Thackeray: “The world is a looking glass. It gives back to every man a true reflection of his own thoughts.” I bring these thoughts to your attention, Leo, because it’s a crucial time for you to be dedicated to truth and accuracy. You will gain power by uncovering deceptions, shams, and misrepresentations. Be a beacon of authenticity!
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Peregrine falcons can move at a speed of 242 miles per hour. Mexican free-tailed bats reach 100 miles per hour, and black marlin fish go 80 mph. These animals are your spirit creatures in the coming weeks, Virgo. Although you can’t literally travel that fast (unless you’re on a jet), I am confident you can make metaphorical progress at a rapid rate. Your ability to transition into the next chapter of your life story will be at a peak. You will have a robust power to change, shift, and develop.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Mythically speaking, I envision a death and rebirth in your future. The death won’t be literal; neither you nor anyone you love will travel to the other side of the veil. Rather, I foresee the demise of a hope, the finale of a storyline, or the loss of a possibility. Feeling sad might temporarily be the right thing to do, but I want you to know that this ending will ultimately lead to a fresh beginning. In fact, the new blooms ahead wouldn’t be possible without the expiration of the old ways. The novel resources that arrive will come only because an old resource has faded.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Did you ever have roommates who stole your credit card and used it to buy gifts for themselves? Does your history include a friend or loved one who told you a lie that turned out to be hurtful? Did you ever get cheated on by a lover you trusted? If anything like this has happened to you, I suspect you will soon get a karmic recompense. An atonement will unfold. A reparation will come your way. A wrong will be righted. A loss will be indemnified. My advice is to welcome the redress graciously. Use it to dissolve your resentments and retire uncomfortable parts of your past.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): One of my oldest friends is Sagittarius-born Jeffrey Brown. We had rowdy fun together in our twenties. We were mad poets who loved to party. But while I went on to become an unruly rock and roll musician, experimental novelist,
and iconoclastic astrologer, Brown worked hard to become a highly respected, award-winning journalist for the PBS News Hour, a major American TV show. Among his many successes: He has brought in-depth coverage of poetry and art to mainstream TV. How did he manage to pull off such an unlikely coup? I think it’s because he channeled his wildness into disciplined expression; he converted his raw passions into practical power; he honed and refined his creativity so it wielded great clout. In the coming months, dear Sagittarius, I urge you to make him one of your inspirational role models.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Let’s hypothesize that you will be alive, alert, and active on your hundredth birthday. If that joyous event comes to pass, you may have strong ideas about why you have achieved such marvelous longevity. I invite you to imagine what you will tell people on that momentous occasion. Which practices, feelings, and attitudes will have turned you into such a vigorous example of a strong human life? The coming weeks will be an excellent time to meditate on these matters. It will also be a favorable phase to explore new practices, feelings, and attitudes that will prolong your satisfying time here on planet Earth.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Few Americans are more famous than George Washington. He was a top military leader in the Revolutionary War before he became the country’s first president. George had a half-brother named Lawrence, who was 16 years older. Virtually no one knows about him now, but during his life, he was a renowned landowner, soldier, and politician. Historians say that his political influence was crucial in George’s rise to power. Is there anyone remotely comparable to Lawrence Washington in your life, Aquarius? Someone who is your advocate? Who works behind the scenes on your behalf? If not, go searching for them. The astrological omens say your chances are better than usual of finding such champions. If there are people like that, ask them for a special favor.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Over 15 centuries ago, Christian monks decided Fridays were unlucky. Why? Because they were the special day of the pagan Goddess Freya. Friday the 13th was extra afflicted, they believed, because it combined a supposedly evil number with the inauspicious day. And how did they get their opinion that 13 was malevolent? Because it was the holy number of the Goddess and her 13-month lunar calendar. I mention this because a Friday the 13th is now upon us. If you are afraid of the things Christian monks once feared, this could be a difficult time. But if you celebrate radical empathy, ingenious intimacy, playful eros, and fertile intuition, you will be awash in good fortune. That’s what the astrological omens tell me.
Homework: Imagine an adventure you would like to create and tell stories about in the future.
LIES THAT BIND
BY DAN SAVAGE
Hey Dan: What do you think of a man who lied to a woman to manipulate her into staying in a relationship knowing that if he told her the truth she would leave? My boyfriend agreed to exclusivity and monogamy. He immediately began to violate this agreement. He lied repeatedly to me about who these other people were, what he was doing with them, and constantly told me he was honoring our agreement to be monogamous. He gaslit me and made me ridiculous for worrying. I eventually found out he was constantly engaging women online in chats and asking them to have phone or video sex with him. He had video sex with someone the same week he began talking to me about getting married! He got a phone number from a woman he met at work and only stopped texting her because sneaking out to date her was a “step to far” for him morally. I told all of his family and friends that he had been lying to me and cheating on me throughout our relationship. I stand by my right to let people know this. What do you think about my refusal to be quiet about his behavior? I believe women too often protect men’s reputations at our own peril. That is why I refused to keep his secrets. The shame should be his, not mine!
Now he tells me his friends and family don’t want us to get back together because I “overreacted” to his shameful behavior. I feel that with all the cards out on the table there’s no room for lies and that we could rebuild. What›s your opinion?
–Choosing Absolute Truth
What I think of your ex-boyfriend — you should get used to call him your ex-boyfriend — is irrelevant. What matters here, CAT, is what you think of your ex-boyfriend: you think he’s a manipulative piece of shit who cheated on you throughout your relationship and lied to you and gaslit you and emotionally abused you.
And you — not a crazy person — want to get back together with him?
Let’s quickly review what he did: he flirted with other women online and asked them to have phonesex/cybersex with him, CAT, which was a shitty thing to do each and every time he did it. At least one woman agreed to listen and/or watch while he had a wank, which was an even shittier thing for him to do. And he got one women’s phone number and was tempted to meet up with her but didn’t go through with it, which allowed him to tell himself he didn’t do the shittiest thing he could’ve done — he may have even told himself he honored the monogamous commitment he made to you
because he never actually touched another woman with his dick — and he lied to you about all of this and made you feel like a crazy person.
Now let’s review what you did: When you found out that his definition of monogamy was a lot narrower than yours, you didn’t turn to your friends and family for moral support or drag him to couple’s counselor to hold him accountable. No, you dragged his friends and family into your conflict. Not because they needed to know, not because they could do anything about it, but to punish your boyfriend by making him look like an asshole in the eyes of his friends and family. And while you probably succeeded in making him look bad in the eyes of his friends and family, you also succeeded in making yourself look a crazy person.
So, while I agree that women shouldn’t have to keep men’s secrets to protect their reputations, no one wants to live in a world where dragging in friends and is the go-to move for every angry boyfriend, girlfriend, enbyfriend, husband, wife, spouse, etc., on the planet.
Even if your ex-boyfriend’s friends and family think he was in the wrong — even if you succeeded in exposing him for the manipulative piece of shit they already knew him to be (they’ve known him longer than you have) — they don’t want him to get back together with you because they don’t want you blowing up their phones every time you have a fight.
And if you convince him to back together with you, CAT, you’re gonna have more fights — hell, you’re going to have this fight again because he’s not going stop flirting with other women. So, unless you’re looking forward to having this fight again — and maybe you are (some people think conflict is passion (crazy people)) — you’ll stop pursuing this lying, manipulative, deceitful piece of shit.
Hey Dan: I’m a mid-40s bi woman newly married to my second husband. He’s 34, extremely hot, and I’m 13 years older. My last marriage had elements of openness to it, and I came into this relationship knowing I would eventually want some level of ethical non-monogamy. Although my husband hasn’t had that sort of relationship before, he’s very open to it. Anyway, I have an old fling that I text with sometimes. He’s a single guy and we hooked up off and on for a few years, a few years ago. It was always just no-strings-attached sex. He has very good judgment and boundaries, and
he knows I’m recently remarried. Our chats get sexual pretty quickly. I’m 99% sure that my husband would be fine with this, but I haven’t told him because — and this is the problem — I don’t think I’d enjoy it as much if it weren’t a secret. I’ve been talking to my therapist about this, but I’m interested in your take. I want my marriage to be based on honesty and authenticity, but I really enjoy these little secret flirtations. Should I tell my husband and explain that I don’t understand the importance of the secrecy? Because I really don’t. Or should I just keep doing what I’m doing and not worry about it? For more context, my husband is also incredibly thoughtful and he’s super good at processing things. And while this other guy is the only person in my life like this now, there have always been others like him. What do you think?
–A Gal In New England
We’re all entitled to a zone of erotic autonomy — even married people — and I believe brief and/or harmless flirtations fall with that zone, AGINE, and it sounds like your new husband might agree. Additionally, very few marriages would survive for long if we disclosed every dumb-but-essentially-harmless thing we did that might annoy our spouses. If you wouldn’t actually fuck this guy or any other guy without your husband’s approval, and if you’re plowing the erotic energy this stirs up into your marital relationship, I think you can enjoy this connection/flirtation without guilt. Keeping something to yourself — keeping something for yourself — isn’t the same thing as keeping something secret.
But knowing what you do about yourself, AGINE, you could’ve and should’ve had a conversation with your husband before the wedding about privately (not secretly) enjoying a flirtation. It’s not too late to have that conversation — it’s never too late to have a conversation — and I’ve gone ahead and written your opening line “Hey, if there’s ever someone else either of us wants to fuck — if we ever wanna move from talking about ethical non-monogamy to actually practicing it — we’ll come to each other for permission before anything happens. But I’m not going to ask for your permission to flirt with someone else — just flirt, only flirt — and you don’t need mine.”
Hey Dan: My wife of twelve years is divorcing me. She went on a cross-country road trip with someone she’s in a band with and she was cold when she returned and then told me she wants a divorce. This person is a much younger man,
and I suspect cheating. She denies it, merely chalking it up to camping and clearing her head. I know she’s been unhappy for a while, but I thought the relationship could be worked on. She is unwilling to try. Then I looked at her phone (we are on the same phone plan), and she has been talking with this man and texting with him incessantly. She says she is leaning on him as a friend, but it is way too much contact for that. I think she is in love with this person, but she won’t admit it because she doesn’t want to hurt me. Every time I bring up the subject, she accuses me of being crazy or jealous. I got her to admit to some feelings, but she swears it’s not what I think. Then she says it’s none of my business. The paperwork hasn’t even been submitted. Is she right? Is it none of my business? I just want the truth even if it kills me so I can have some closure.
–World Of Hurt
Would being told that your wife had an affair — and it seems pretty obvious she did — give you the closure you claim to need, WOH, or would it allow you to assign blame for the collapse of your marriage? I don’t doubt that your sad, angry, and confused about the end of your marriage, but you knew your wife had been unhappy for a long time and it doesn’t sound like you were motivated to do much about her unhappiness until she announced that she wanted a divorce. (You talk about work that could’ve been done to improve your marriage, but you don’t mention doing the work or even offering to do the work.) If she’s leaving you for this man, WOH, that’s not a secret that’s going to keep. You might not know exactly what happened until after the divorce is finalized, but you’re going to find out eventually — so the closure you claim to need might not come before you close the books on your marriage, but it will come.
P.S. Your wife might be willing to see a couple’s counselor with you to mediate between you while you wind down your marriage, but it doesn’t sound like her mind is going to change. I’m sorry.
P.P.S. Closure isn’t always something we’re given by someone else, WOH, closure is often something we have to do for ourselves.
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Or record your question for the Savage Lovecast at savage.love/askdan! Podcasts, columns and more at Savage.Love
IS THERE AN ECHO IN HERE?
BY JOHN KUGELMAN
PUZZLES EDITED BY JOEL FAGLIANO
John Kugelman, of Gainesville, Va., is a software engineer and musician. His puzzles often have a playful sense of humor to them, a style he attributes to his crossword-constructing ‘‘North Star,’’ the great Patrick Berry. About Patrick, he writes, ‘‘He doesn’t have a flashy gimmick behind every puzzle; it’s just how well he pulls off the simple themes.’’ This puzzle likewise has a simple concept, pulled off quite cleverly.
Across
1 Loses one’s shirt, say
10 Primarily studies
18 City with a cowboy-hat-wearing replica of the Eiffel Tower
20 Videography option on a smartphone
21 ‘‘Tsk, tsk’’?
23 Buddy-buddy?
24 Resistance units
25 What ‘‘Ten-four’’ and ‘‘Over’’ are used in
27 ____-liver oil (dietary supplement)
28 Honnold who was the first to free-solo climb El Capitan
30 Exploit
31 Sight at Sydney’s yearly Festival of the Winds
34 ‘‘You’re on!’’
38 Paper-saving invoice
40 They keep people in the dark
44 [Knock, knock]?
45 11?
47 First-tier, as a celeb
48 Thudding noise
49 Diamond authorities
50 Go (for)
51 Word used three times in the
52 Sen. or rep., e.g.
Up to
N.W.A.’s ‘‘Straight ____ Compton’’
58 Owl or whippoorwill, e.g.
62 Big step for a start-up, for short
63 ‘‘Now I get it!’’
64 Pooh-pooh?
69 Wrap up
70 Sch. with campuses in Abu Dhabi and Shanghai
71 Places to let out anger by smashing objects
73 Built (on)
76 Core exercise done lying down
79 Queer identity, for short
80 Output of some refrigerators
82 Word often followed by a Roman numeral
83 Helping hand
84 Show up, perhaps
86 Else
88 Tut-tut?
93 ‘‘Ow! Ow!’’?
94 Buccaneer’s buddies
95 Park worker?
96 ‘‘That much is obvious’’
97 Ran out of juice
One of the Mannings
Lucas’s original surname for
‘‘Hubba, hubba!’’?
Outpouring of
may keep a ____, if two of them are dead’’:
54 It bears no etymological relation to ‘‘conifer,’’ surprisingly
55 Camera opening
56 State with a five-sided flag
57 ‘‘That’s just . . wrong’’
59 Clarified butter
60 Rear
61 Park worker
63 Por ____ lado (on the other hand: Sp.)
65 Fashion designer Anna
66 ‘‘By Jove!’’
67 Lead-in to nautical
68 Key of Mozart’s Symphony No. 40
72 Glower
73 Part of a baby’s nighttime routine
74 Hurt
75 Filming innovation used in ‘‘The Shining’’
76 Choice for a twist
77 Häagen-Dazs shelfmate
78 Ball that just grazes the bat, perhaps
81 Online crafts marketplace
83 Betwixt
85 Explosive inits.
86 Corsica and Réunion
87 Part of 115-Down: Abbr.
89 PET scan alternative
90 Uintah Basin people
91 Word in the mnemonic E-G-B-D-F
92 Deliberately try to fail, informally
93 Key near Ctrl
96 ‘‘O Tannenbaum’’ and others
98 ‘‘Li’l Abner’’ cartoonist
99 Haggard fellow?
100 Abates
101 ‘‘Good Morning America’’ co-host Spencer
102 Dirty film
103 Some turkeys and tabbies
with ‘‘off’’
Nine credited roles in ‘‘Barbie’’
Bit of ink, familiarly
104 Hasty getaway
105 ‘‘Success has always been the greatest ____’’: Nietzsche
106 Group of buffalo
107 Payment before a deal 108 Big supporter, in modern slang 109 Quiet ‘‘Hey!’’
