The Web album release show (less than two weeks away!)

2010 Electrical Audio PRF BBQ

Trophy Wives and Brett Eugene Ralph's Kentucky Chrome Revue perform on Saturday. Phantom Family Halo will perform on Sunday. Go here for full details.

Velocity review of KY Chrome Review

Kentucky probably has more poets who dabble in music than is desirable, but Ralph wouldn't be on the list of poet-singers to cull. In Kentucky Chrome Revue, the writer with roots in the Louisville punk scene has a first-rate, twangy bluegrass band backing his tonally challenged singing. The singing isn't pretty, but it's passable. Imagine a college lit professor drunkenly improvising lyrics to a country standard, which is pretty much what this album is. He smartly builds stories of mundane lives, lonely and quietly desparate. ("It came to me / that he was ashamed to be / the son of a hobo," nicely sums up the tone of the album.) Ralph is supported by a who's who of grown-up Louisville punks: Catherine Irwin, Will Oldham, Paul Oldham, Todd Brashear, Peter Searcy and Jason Loewenstein. It's music to listen to on a porch, preferably on a muggy day, with a beer and a book you're barely reading.

- Joseph Lord

more love for Screaming Secrets (and Carrie, too)

From LEO's 20th anniversary issue...

Did you know Carrie Neumayer can scream? Not some like-omg-I-just-went-to-the-mall-bought-a-new-top-and-it’s-sooooo-fab scream. I’m talking about an all-you-testosterone-meatheads-can-bow-down caterwaul. For the chorus on “Clocks” alone, she deserves to be credited as Louisville’s first, true riot grrl. She’ll probably kill me for saying this, but the art students of Meyzeek should feel fortunate to have an intelligent, thoughtful human being as a teacher and mentor, and Louisville’s music scene is less of a boys club because she is here. The lady is a champ.
- Mat Herron

We couldn't agree more. Carrie rules.

that's what's going on

CEREBELLUM - "Proposed Production" - Video by Ann Pipes.

Endpoint to play 3rd show on Sunday

ENDPOINT announced last night that they will be playing a third show this Sunday (May 16) at Skull Alley. Also playing will be Coliseum and Straight A's (!). Not sure on times or price.

A's and KCR at Forecastle

Straight A's and Brett Eugene Ralph's Kentucky Chrome Revue have been invited to play this year's Forecastle Festival. They will both be playing on Saturday's lineup which also includes fucking DEVO. Also of note would be Cake, Cap'n Jazz and locals Lucky Pineapple, Frontier(s), Wax Fang, The Children, The Broken Spurs and The Deloreans among others. More info here.

Screaming Secrets Review in LMN

From Louisville Music News...

It sounds as if Second Story Man was able to consume, digest and even spit up its rushing brand of rock to create it's newest album, Screaming Secrets. Kevin Ratterman's production assistance can be heard throughout and his Funeral Home recording studio proved to be a fitting sonic battlefield for Second Story Man to wage its own musical war.

Screaming Secrets is able to pin swollen waves of grinding tones against swift melodies and swooping harmonies. Warm, oozing textures trudge forward through nerved guitars, restless drums and erratic vocals ("Want Within the Need" and "Clocks"), only to be blinded by clouds of reverb and lofty dynamics on tracks like "Oompa Loompa" and "Traffic Jams."

Violins and banjos are spread across several tracks in a strangely tasteful way. While a host of influences are evident, Second Story Man quickly and firmly plants its own impression of what it means to rock and how to do so.

Second Story Man manages to build and keep control of a creatively energetic rock sound. It's a comfortable chaos amplified by big production that's not easy to achieve. With Screaming Secrets, the band has raised the bar for themselves and other post-punk indie rock bands.

Want more? It's at myspace.com/secondstoryman.

by Hunter Embry

May the 'Horse Be With You

RISE: A Louisville Lip Records Tribute to Kinghorse is now available at Earxtacy. It will also be on sale at this weekend's Endpoint reunion shows. The cross section of bands on this compilation is really a testament to the wide ranging influence of the 'Horse that is still being felt today. Lots of great stuff on here (especially NP's own Second Story Man, Straight A's and Glasspack!)

Complete Track Listing:
Scully - Awaken
Rude Weirdo - VS
E-Flat - Dogs at Play
Montag - What am I Supposed to Do?
Antikythera - Freeze (pre lp version)... See More
Stonecutters - Red
Second Story Man - Lay Down and Die
Catherine Irwin - Razor
Lords - Clayfist
Emperyan Asunder - Spinning
Straight A's - Charge!
Manson Family Feud - Brother Doubt
Absence of Faith - Greatest Gift
Brother Doubt - Freeze (lp version)
Black Church - Myth
Porosus - Seven Sisters
Glasspack - Going Home
+ one not so hidden extra track

Kentucky Chrome Revue from LEO Weekly

Former punk-rock frontman (Fading Out, Rising Shotgun) and current poet and creative writing professor Brett Ralph turned his back on rock (more or less) a few years ago when he mounted the Kentucky Chrome Revue. Here, with a fluctuating pool of talented friends (Catherine Irwin, Will Oldham, Todd Brashear etc.), Ralph has explored his country muse, often incorporating lap steel and fiddle.

As a country songwriter, Ralph leans toward the outlaw tradition of David Allan Coe and Waylon Jennings, but his poetry renders his songs considerably denser than even the most complex compositions offered by those two towers of the genre. Too, Ralph’s wordplay is occasionally more intentionally playful; “Kentucky Chrome,” for instance, is slang for duct tape (a throwback to Ralph’s punk roots, perhaps?), but that little bit of info isn’t explained within the story (in the title track) of a tragic young woman who runs away from home to a life of sexual misadventure that is interrupted by a suicide attempt.

Most of the songs, including “I Cry Easy” (a confession of sentimentality) and “Charcoal Grey” (an homage to a man’s best suit), embrace a fairly traditional, structural appreciation for country conventions. Elsewhere, “The Whole of the Law” and “Happened to Be” are nakedly confessional, offering a voice to a generation of misguided aging punks looking back on our third and fourth decades.

- Paul Curry

Movie Confidential

Noise Pollution alumni, former Bodyhammer vocalist and Last Call Film Festival curator Andy Schanie can now add author to his list of credits. His first book Movie Confidential, a skewed look at the seedy underbelly of the film industry across the years, has now been published. Congratulations, Andy!

Straight A's at Ear Xtacy